Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1257 - Steve Sweeney
Uploaded: 2019-03-05T02:04:59.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1257 - Steve Sweeney' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1257 - Steve Sweeney' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1257 - Steve Sweeney

look at you i'm enjoying this gym i wish we had a speed bag that's my favorite
thing two one uh
test steve sweeney ladies and gentlemen how are you hey i'm great i can't
believe you know what
i've done so many things in my life you know movies tv all this stuff stand up
but joe rogan
oh my god back in boston jesus you're on joe rogan yeah i get you've got fans
you know that
like all these different ages and all different kinds of people and uh i'm very
proud of you
thank you one of the things that happened you don't remember this but you
opened for me
many times louis ck opened for me nick dapallo opened for me so people that
want a little show
business advice opened for me it helps and then you get to go buy me and uh you
know i get to watch
you guys become stars i've said i'm playing chinese restaurants and saugus some
of the best stand-up
comedy in the world is at chinese restaurants and saugus and that's a fact
still to this day all those
people that live there they don't know how good they have it well you know what
it is you know you work
with these guys you and i have worked with guys that are like genius you know a
transcendent whatever
word you want to use but doing stand-up is not about being funny it's about
going into these shitholes
and like developing this extra skin you know you're a martial artist and sort
of you have kind of that
mentality but you know when i started it was like i came from you know i was an
actor i was very serious
person i was like an actor you know and i'd i'd do like these obscure
impressions i'd paul schofield and
laurent laurence olivier you know raisonnets and all this bullshit and i'd be
playing at places like
the sugar shack do you remember the sugar shack it was a black uh r b joint and
i opened for bb king
wow yeah and i'm doing like john lennon it was very important when we started
them and the black do
some dirty shit man what the fuck you doing don't you know any jokes so in the
back i get heckled my first
heckler he said you suck and i said yeah fuck you who are you he says i'm bb
king i hired you
motherfucker oh no yeah and then i was doing i will never forget this do you
remember the channel
the channel yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah rock and roll place so i'm opening for
like these bands you know
it was like that blues brothers scenes where they're throwing shit at the cage
yeah so um the bouncer
he says you know point to people and we'll throw them out so i'd point to them
but then they bring
them out in the alley and beat the shit out of them you know but i'm thinking
because you're a martial
artist so i i've kind of got this thing about people fighting and growing up in
charlestown and
i think back on certain incidents when i was starting doing stand-up and i was
at this place
on calm ave and this guy stole one of my lines no i know that you're big into
that right so he goes
off stage i hit him with a right cross because over the tables and i'm thinking
to myself my friend
says i thought you wanted to be jonathan winters and red they don't do shit
like that and then another
time we were at the ground round in brighton i'll never forget round round yeah
i'll never forget
this joe so i'm on the guy on before me the guy in the audience is throwing
little ice things at him
right so i said uh my opening line usually you try to get the audience to like
you you know or
make them laugh or whatever so my opening line was like the first that throws
something at me i'm gonna knock them out you know you're not exactly setting
the stage for hilarious
comedy but uh you know how did that work what's that how'd that work out
terrible i bombed you know
people think you know when you do this for a while you've never bombed i mean
there's no experience in
life like bombing in louisville kentucky i'll never forget that and a guy comes
up to me afterwards and he
says and he was trying to make me feel good he says well i could tell by your
tone you're funny
you know but i'm doing like about subways and stuff they don't even know what
they are right so
those early years there was like one um there wasn't even a comedy club so you
just kind of did it i
fell into it what year did you start oh my god people you know people i i am
now at that point joe
where people come up to me and you know they say i'm so glad to see you i keep
telling my husband
i'm telling you he's not dead he has not died so it's been like 30 or 40 years
um i don't remember
the year but uh i remember remember the year you started no i don't remember i
started in 88 and you
were a legend i was a legend 88 yeah you were for sure dude i i watched you one
night at nick's
comedy stop kill so hard i thought i thought about quitting because i'd only
been doing comedy like
a year and i was like this i could i gotta get the out of this you know you
know you know when i had
that feeling richard prior's first performance film do you remember that yeah
yeah yeah richard prior
live you filmed it in long beach i was i went to see that with stephen wright
and both of us walked
out we said we don't even want to do this you know it's it was so intimidating
yeah i know that feeling
man yeah well you know we got that feeling a lot in boston and uh as as a kid
starting out there it
was i i tell everybody that i i stumbled into the the greatest comedy scene in
the history of the known
universe in 1988 when i started it was insane it was insane don gavin was in
his prime you were in
your prime rogerson i would watch these guys go up um um there was so many guys
that were so good
knox was killing back then there were so many guys that you would go any night
you would go and watch
some of the best stand-up comedy on the planet it was it was amazing mike donovan
mike donovan to this
day people don't know mike donovan is brilliant he was a genius johnny most do
you know who johnny most
most people don't know he's announcing for the red sox for the result they said
no i can't believe it
yeah he would do this long but you know what but it's funny you say in your
prime because and i've
talked to people who've been in it longer than me this is one job where you can
get better yes you can
get better more skillful you know but it's something that you you know you just
have to give the finger
to the business because they're looking for the fat guy the small guy the black
guy that you know they're
always looking for something other than what you are right so you do what you
do like you've done what
you did you know the business in terms of like movies and television shows yeah
they will try to lure you
away and they lure you away with money but the business of stand-up comedy is
really about what
you do in front of that microphone and how the audience responds i've been on
stage i followed a
woman and uh she had a lot of tv credits but she had no material and it was
unbelievable you know you
forget when you do something you forget it's like you're a trained fighter you're
a trained radio person
you forget that in order to do it you've developed a certain set of skills yeah
and like in boston they
have a saint patrick's day breakfast where the politicians try to be funny and
it's it's excruciating
you know what i mean and you forget oh yeah i i do this all the time it'd be
like me trying to give a
speech before i came on this show i talked to nick dapallo you know your buddy
sure and he says well
joe and i always talk about politics and i said well no nobody help himself no
nobody nobody talks
to me about politics i'm just not that smart good i'm done with politics i'm
going to quit
yeah i don't want to talk about it anymore you know where we are in this
country now is like um
well i i i kind of uh i don't like to not like someone because of what they
believe so i i just
kind of do silly i was thinking the other day with the democrats you know i'm
going to run i'm going
to run and they but they've got the moderate lane the uh progressive lane so i'm
going to run in the
breakdown lane you know just a silly little you know um i try to you know keep
it upbeat whatever but
i i got into this i fell into this because i kept thinking i'm going to get an
acting job and i won't do
stand up this is going to end at some point you know what i mean right and i i
have you know i
like people the kids would will actually ask me for advice and i say advice are
you shitting me i fell
into this i expected it to end but i say all right you want some advice don't
ever work
at a place that's named after the guy like if it's vinnie's pizza parlor or joey's
shithole or
barbie's money-making piece of when it's named after the guy it's never enough
you know about
nick's comedy style nick's now i'm going to do something for you okay we're
going to play a little
scene okay now you ask me say is nick's a mafia joint is nick's a mafia joint
yeah is this is nick still around 100 yeah nick's is around was it the same
ownership and do you know
that there isn't one inch of that building that i didn't do coke in i believe
that it was it was really
something i mean i mean it was like i know that you know i lived in la many
years ago and it's
like i'm driving around um say oh i know that spot so with nick's i know every
spot in the building by
the way i didn't know that this was a camp area oh you see all the campers yeah
right out in front
of your place they're everywhere well they find these side streets where the
cops won't kick them out
yeah and semi homeless people they're not homeless they just have mobile homes
you know what it is
the homeless people here are so peaceful they're like uh they're like the caravan
you know they're
just they don't bump change they don't do anything they just kind of walk
around i'm sitting in front
of your building here it was like a fashion show for the homeless one guy comes
by with a buffalo bills
jacket and the other guys then you know and they're just quietly talking to
themselves some
and you know what's freaking me out i've only been here 12 hours but everybody
is either really
soft-spoken or i'm losing my hearing because like even at the i'm renting the
car and the woman says
did you want a honda do you want to sit i said what what did you want a son
that's what you know in
boston it'd be like what do you want for a car you want to be upgraded you know
it's like the noise
pollution well it's louder there and colder and people are angrier it's a
different place out here it's just
even the homeless people they don't have it so rough if you're going to be a
homeless person
this is the place to go people are very open-minded it's relaxed it's warm i
mean the cold as it gets
it's like 40. that's as cold as it ever gets yeah but you know if you're giving
advice to homeless
people it's like like i was i was sitting in westwood and a starbucks right and
it's the guy was just
sitting there you know and all these people are having their lattes and and he's
just you know
you know one of those crazy laughs everybody's just going along with their
conversation
you know the uh i don't know what to say about about the homeless thing have
you ever been downtown you
ever seen i myself i i myself was homeless when i was like 16 i was a hippie my
father passed away
when i was 15 and it was a different time you know no i haven't been down you
you were homeless for
like how long i was a hippie it's different than being homeless but a couple of
years really yeah i uh
you know the worst moment i was lying i was downstairs in this guy's house and
i overheard
his girlfriend saying no he was saying to his girlfriend i don't know i keep
asking the guy to
leave but you know i was uh you know i i here's what happened to me joe i read
jack kerouac on the
road okay so i wanted to be jack kerouac and i wanted to be a writer so i did
everything that
kerouac did except right you know i was living in ymcas and drinking the wine
and the whole thing
but it was a whole different country then why didn't you start writing was it
one of those t