Name: Joe Rogan Experience #941 - Greg Fitzsimmons
Uploaded: 2017-04-05T03:10:52.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #941 - Greg Fitzsimmons' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #941 - Greg Fitzsimmons' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-04-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #941 - Greg Fitzsimmons

we're just we're about as lucky as human beings ever get to be do do do do do
do
are we live audio wise we're live on podcast wise greg and i were just talking
about greg
for people who don't know greg fitzsimmons and i have been friends for like 28
years 28 years
dude we're old as fuck god damn we're old we started out as raw open micers
almost exactly
at the same time yeah but i was dreaming about it since i was a kid when did
you when did you think
that you it might be something you want to do because i was grabbing
microphones when i was
fucking eight wow telling jokes into them no shit that's awesome what about you
oh man it wasn't
until i was like 21 like right before i did it like maybe 20 or 21 and one of
the reasons for it
is uh a guy still a good friend of mine his name's steve graham he was an ophthalmologist
and he was
this guy who was just this he's a such a fucking wild man like i've met some
people that purport
they sort of pretend to be wild men this guy is the wildest dude i've ever met
in my life but a
super smart super nice guy yeah and he was on the u.s ski team okay and when he
described his ski run
that he did to make the team he said like at any moment in time i would have
crashed
and he's like i was barely hung on the whole way and had this ridiculous time
that i could never do
again and he was like laughing about it but dude had like i know i'm gonna fuck
this up steve if you
hear this i think he had 25 knee surgeries on his knees no shit yeah his knees
were insane yeah his
knees got to the point where um they had to resurface them so the top of his
knees he doesn't have any
cartilage anymore so there's a steel cap that they put on the top of his knees
and then there's like
this artificial meniscus in there and it rolls up and down and he has like a
very limited range of
motion with his knees he's in his man i want to say he probably is 60 he still
spars all the time
he's almost legally blind like he has to have like he's been hitting the head
so many times he has to
have these uh these things that go over his glasses so he can see better
because he's had a bunch of eye
surgeries hitting the head from skiing from sparring he still spars all the
time he's super fucking smart
but he doesn't care like he's like i'm just here he goes i'm not here for a
long time just here for a
good time he'll laugh at you like he used to be a flight surgeon he's a fucking
animal where's he from
um i think he was originally from upstate new york he's one of the very few
people
that told me a ufo story and i had to go whoa because this dude just doesn't
make shit up and
he's done everything he's a maniac when i met him he was uh learning taekwondo
immediately became
obsessed want to start fighting immediately so while he was a resident okay he
was going through his
residency for ophthalmology he'd be sitting on the toilet he told me he's
sitting on the toilet
eating lunch and his he fell asleep while he's taking a shit and his pager went
off
woke up
he's like that's the guy you want head to the operating room when you're laying
on the table
he's a student the guy's still got a fucking dookie in his cheeks he hasn't
even had time to wipe
it out you were always on call you were always working man i had two friends
that went to the
residency my other friend was a korean friend his name was jungshik and jungshik
he actually won the
nationals he won the u.s national championship while he was in medical school
for taekwondo yeah wow he was a
beast and he was never like a really physically talented guy he was um just
unbelievably determined
and super smart and not it's not that he was physically inept but he didn't
have any amazing
attributes like some some fighters just have amazing physical attributes well
plus he could
always he could already count to ten in korean so he was like ahead of the
class
he was also like super humble it was really weird i mean you were talking about
a dude who won
the national championship and when you would ask him about it he would always
say oh my god i suck
i'm fucking terrible i can't even believe that i win these fights like he would
just joke around about
it how do people i mean you're i put you in this category is i'm amazed by some
people's energy
because i've always had i think because i have depression i have mild
depression medicated for it
and my whole life i've struggled to manage my energy and to focus it and pick
what i what it is i need
to accomplish and put my energy on that and let go of the things that keep it
simple just keep it simple
and i look at somebody like you are talking about this guy and i mean you
already did a three hour
podcast today you're sitting down with me we're seven minutes into another
three hour podcast you
probably already worked out today no i didn't i think i had uh food poisoning
oh right right yeah i was
telling you before but it's just amazing to me how we're all built differently
and when you get when you
gauge success it's like you know we all are dealing with a different tool belt
some of us have this
unlimited energy and focus some have adhd and somehow those things that fuck
you up can make you
stronger like i'm sure there's things about you that are that maybe you didn't
do well in school
because of that made you successful in life yeah yeah 100 yeah um i've never
been a very disciplined
person believe it or not but you've always had the energy but i've always been
driven yeah like i find
things that i obsess on and then it's not a discipline thing it's a matter of
like almost like limiting my
amount of time that i'm doing them like right like when i was doing taekwondo
when i was competing
it was never an issue of i got to be disciplined and show up to train it was
the opposite it was like
i was training all day i was constantly training i was obsessed you know so but
the problem is like
if you say hey you have to go do your taxes i'm like oh my god i can't do it it's
like if you told me
that i had to be an accountant i'm like oh my god i'm too stupid i can't do it
i just don't i can't focus on
anything i don't want to focus on so getting a business manager was like the
greatest thing that
ever happened that's huge but it's also like picking something for a living
that you actually
enjoy doing i think there's a lot of people that are tortured out there that
really are supposed to
be like a bike maker they're supposed to make fucking motorcycles or something
but instead they got
sucked into some insurance job and they don't give a fuck about it and they're
just trying to sell
policies and it's just a grind on your soul every day yeah you and i that's
what we were talking about
before the podcast how lucky we are out of all these years that we've known
each other like we're we're
fucking comics yeah this is what we always wanted but we didn't even know we
wanted this and it's and
when i go like people say to me i'll be out to dinner it'll be like 10 15 at
night i'm in venice beach
i'm with good friends and my wife having a nice meal finishing up some tiramisu
pay the bill like i'm
tired all right we're gonna go to bed i'm like yeah i'm heading to hollywood
gonna do a spot in about 45
minutes they look at me like i'm crazy and they go is it for the money i go no
i think i'm getting
15 well is it to get seen i'm like there hasn't been industry at the comedy
store in about three
decades well why are you doing it why are you doing it and i go i got no idea i
just need to do it
because i just i love it and it's not and it's like and i'm never too tired to
go
do a spot i'll be too tired to write a spec script i'm supposed to be working
on or whatever
but when it comes time to fucking i look at my my my phone and i go oh i got a
i got a 10 30 at the laugh factory i'm like i'm in the car i got the fucking
classic rock playing
i'm ready to go right yeah it makes sense man you know after 28 years how lucky
are we stupid lucky
but that energy that you get out of like laughter people laughing at your ideas
and and orchestrating
those ideas and getting them done and you know dismounting strong right thank
you good night bring
up the next guy especially the way we do it at the store where you're doing
these 15 minute sets
it's fun man 15 is such a perfect amount of time working some new shit yeah do
some
shit you know is gonna work working some new shit yeah taking a little hand
grenade you know you got
yeah i i i a joke just bombed here's a little fucking here's a little thing i
call winter jacket
from 1987 bam back in the game and also you get to see all these other people
you know i think it's
super important in this in this way well this is the climate right now i'm sure
you've been aware
all the amy schumer controversy oh please look we are we are all influenced by
each other yeah all of
us but it's a good thing what's important is just originality it's very
important so what like there's
comics like i know norton doesn't even like to watch people i can't watch
people yeah he doesn't but i do
i do all the time you don't watch people like if louie shows up you don't watch
them i'll watch a little
bit and then i'll walk out i tell i can't be anywhere near oh he gets you with
that i start getting
that cadence my balls smell like a foot so yeah and that's how that's how she
ended up anyway
there's a lot of nuggets later you know it's like where i don't say that what
the
fuck he's just too yeah it's too strong but um if i'm working on the road i'll
watch both comics
that the the opener and the end and the feature act i'll watch them number one
so i don't do any of the
same premises right and number two i feel like i owe it to them because a lot
of them will say
you know i asked to work with you three months ago it's like it's a really big
deal to them to work
with headliners that they like you know and i think part of that is i have
responsibility to watch
their act and say hey great job or you know hey there you go you know what i
mean but like give them
give them some feedback and fuck man i take numbers all the time i'll get a guy's
number if he's good
and then when i'm in when in his neck of the woods and i'll call him up and i'll
have him featured for
me in a club that's huge that's giant when you're a young guy and uh somebody
gives you that nod like
that yeah first person i ever worked for was warren mcdonald yeah remember bill
mcdonald's brother
yeah he played guitar great guy george mcdonald's brother george mcdonald's
bill mcdonald didn't
they have a brother bill too no no george george i think it was i think they
had a bunch of kids in
the family but those were the two comedians george was the one i'm sorry george
george was the one
he used i'm an idiot uh george is the one who used to host the open mic night
first guy to ever bring
me on stage in an open mic night super great guy great he was my roommate for a
while was he really
in new york we lived on mulberry street together oh dude i remember when you
lived in little italy yeah
i went to visit you up there once you had this cool apartment like right over
an italian restaurant
or something yep and it was it was above the ravenite social club which was
john gotti's
social club dude you were in the hood i remember when i went to visit you when
i went up to your
apartment i'm like dude you're in the hood yeah it was mulberry between prince
and spring and it was
like uh you know wednesdays was uh was the night when the the family would get
together and gotti's son
was out front and all these limos would pull up and they'd double park and
these guys in overcoats would
go out and they'd go on to this little club oh my god and they'd walk up and
down the street because
they uh the place was wiretapped the ravenite social club was um where all the
deals went down
for the it was the gambinos right gotti yeah and so they started walking they
knew the place was
wiretapped so they would walk down the street down mulberry street in groups
and they'd ta