Name: Joe Rogan Experience #805 - Steve Hofstetter
Uploaded: 2016-06-02T21:17:38.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #805 - Steve Hofstetter' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #805 - Steve Hofstetter' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-06-02. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #805 - Steve Hofstetter

Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do
do do do. We're live. We're live. You can't talk about Tinder, dude.
I'm kidding. Shut it off. Don't swipe right. Steve Hofstadter, ladies and
gentlemen. How are you?
That was at the same time. I'm good. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to
have you, man. I love the video.
There's a video I found out about Steve because it's a video of some fucking
hecklers.
Why do they still exist? People out there, do you not know that when you come
to a comedy show, it's like going to the movies.
You shouldn't try to change the content. Ego and alcohol. You're right. That's
the answer.
I asked a rhetorical question and I got a definitive answer. It's a fucking
great video, though, because you handled it so well.
Thank you. I don't even remember the subject. What was she heckling about?
I was talking about how parents think they're special and they're not. And then
she yelled out bullshit and then walked into two minutes of material that I
already had written about the subject.
If I had written what she was supposed to say, it wouldn't have been as good as
what she actually said.
Yeah, it was like a setup. And sometimes those things happen and people accuse
people of doing plants. I've never heard of anybody actually doing a plant,
though. Have you?
Other than Andy Kaufman, no. Like not even, not one time. But people, sometimes
people look at the world and they go, well, this is too good. It can't be real.
Like, well, allow for some magic to happen sometimes. A little comedy magic.
Yeah. I mean, there's so many videos of hecklers you would think that they
would learn.
Like, is there ever a video of a heckler winning?
I mean, there are definitely videos of people who are like, I own this heckler.
And you're like, no, did you? Did you? It looks kind of, no, not really.
Sometimes, yeah. But that's not the heckler winning. That's the comedian losing.
Right. There's, there's a difference, you know. And there are, um, there are
times, I think, when, you know, there are comedians, you know this, there are
comedians who can't ad-lib, who are brilliant at material, but are just not ad-libbers.
That's weird, isn't it? Like, the people that only want to do, like, monologues,
and if anything goes offline, like, they ignore it, and they just keep going,
and they hope that someone takes care of it.
Well, I don't, I don't understand that. Like, that, that's part of, people
sometimes will be like, why do you have so many heckler videos? It's like,
because most of them start with me going, what'd you say?
Yeah.
Because I don't, I don't let it go, because I don't want to lose control of the
crowd. I don't want other people to be like, oh, well, he talked, I can talk.
And also, you know, I just, I can't concentrate on this, you know, bit I've
done a thousand times if, in the back of my head, I was like, wait, what's
happening right now in the back of the room?
Yeah. Well, sometimes people just start commenting. Like, they'll, like, be
right in front of you, too, which is crazy. Like, in the front row, going, no,
that's not true. No, you can't say that. Don't say that.
Or they even go, yes, that's true. Like, when they agree with you, it still
sucks.
But what about, mmh?
Yeah.
And they want to put their own spin on it, like it's a conversation. It's
confusing.
Sometimes, like, I try to tell people, I'm just like, look, comedy's evocative.
You're going to have a lot of thoughts, and that's okay. Have the thoughts.
Yeah.
Hold on to those thoughts.
Yeah.
Later, after the show, release the thoughts in the wild. But for now, it's okay
to think of stuff.
And even if you see me out in the lobby, and you want to have, you got a
question about some of the material, let's talk.
Yeah.
That's a time to talk.
Absolutely.
Not, not why you're halfway into the setup.
Yeah.
It is, it's such, I mean, part of why I say it's ego is because if there's
hundreds of people at this show, and they're all quiet, and then one person
thinks they're all doing it wrong.
Yeah.
Like, they're just sitting there being like, wait, no, all these people are
wrong. We should be interacting. I need to show them.
It is kind of funny that alcohol is what they serve at comedy clubs. Because
for, I guess for most people, it's a good thing. For most people, alcohol is a
social lubricant.
It relaxes you. You start laughing a little bit more. But for some people, the
fucking, the wheels come off. And they just want to chime in and yell out.
Well, if you're an asshole, alcohol just makes you more of an asshole.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I think, I've had this theory for a long time, that a lot of people will
blame being drunk. Oh, I was so wasted.
It's like, but that's you. You were still in there.
Yeah.
There isn't some magical, like, you know, Jekyll and Hyde thing that's going on.
You peed on someone's truck because you wanted to pee on someone's truck.
Right.
Alcohol just gave you the excuse.
There are people that are alcoholics, though, where a switch goes off. Do you
know anybody like that?
Um, I, I don't. You know what, but.
I can introduce you to a few people.
Fair. I was like, I have a feeling. I know some of the people you hang with.
Uh, I guess I don't hang out the store enough.
That's, the store is the grand old Opry for hecklers.
Yeah.
I mean, it really is. There's, there's something about that place because there's
no real doorman. Everybody's a comic. It's comics working the gate or comics
working the door, comics working the cover booth, comics working the room. It's
only comics. Comics work in the back parking lot. It's all comedians.
So, when you're there, you're, you're under the hands of people who really don't
want to be doing what they're doing. They don't really pay attention. So, you
have to learn how to deal with hecklers.
Plus, it's a hangout. So, that place is, there's people packed in that place
from 8 p.m. till 2 a.m. And everybody's hanging around drinking. And so, there's
a lot of alcoholics.
And so, you just get used to those dudes that have shark eyes. Their, their
eyes glass over and they're gone. You look in there, you're like, oh, Bobby's
not here anymore.
Yeah.
There's no Bobby. It's just, I, I didn't meet people like that until I was like
30. When I, when I was 30, I started to meet like real alcoholics where they'd
have one drink.
And then they were gone. They're just off to the races.
But do you think, so do you think that they are a completely different person
or do you think that the alcohol just allows who they are to come out?
Completely speculative. Because I don't have that gene, whatever that wacky
gene is.
Yeah.
Where you have a couple of drinks and you just go off the rails. I don't have
that. I'm a happy drunk. Like, when I get drunk, I like to laugh and hug people.
I don't, I don't understand the go blank, make a Molotov cocktail, throw it at
the cops, wake up in jail. What the fuck? What happened? I did what?
The weirdest drunk to me is the, is the crying drunk. Like the drunk that gets
super upset because then it's like, why would you, why would you give yourself
the ingredient that you need to cry in the corner?
Right.
Like if you know, if it's the first time it ever happened, I get it. Okay. But
if you're someone like, I have a friend who every time he gets drunk, he gets
like super sad.
And I was like, stop drinking. Like, why are you drinking? If you're this upset?
I feel like with people like that, there's like patterns that are deeply carved
into their, their psyche from childhood.
Like maybe their mom cried a lot or their dad cried a lot and they got used to
it and became a comforting pattern.
Ooh, but yeah, those things are, I mean, people say, ah, what are you going to
do, man? The guy's sad. Well, how the fuck did he get sad?
He's living in America. He's got two feet. He doesn't have cancer. The fuck is
he whining about? There could be a hundred things wrong.
You're a young white person in America. Will you shut up?
I actually don't drink anymore. I've been sober 12 years. Damn.
And it was because it was really my first year on the road when I realized like
how much of a problem it could be.
Oh, so you did it as a preventative measure.
I did it. Yeah. It was something where I didn't go through a program and I
found by the way that like people who have gone through the program are like,
you're not really, you're not really sober.
That's hilarious.
And to me, I'm just like, you needed a program. You have no willpower, you know?
So it's a bit of a dichotomy there.
The idea that someone could tell you after 12 years of sobriety that you're not
really, this isn't even consistent.
Yeah. You don't, you just choose not to drink.
And like, yeah, I do choose not to drink, but it's, yeah, I haven't had a drink
in 12 years.
It was, uh, it was one of these things where, I mean, you know, this it's free
on the road, you know, and everybody wants, everybody goes, oh, let me take a
shot with you afterward.
And you'd be like, there are 30 of you. I'm going to die.
Right.
You just do the math on that. And you're like, I'm going to die. And I started
realizing, you know what?
I don't have inhibition that alcohol changes. Like, that same year, I had done
some show in Bloomington, Indiana, and we went to a bar afterward, and there
were a bunch of hot girls dancing on the bar.
And I went up and I danced on the bar with them, and I wasn't drunk. I just
wanted to dance with the hot girls.
And there were all these, like, there were all these drunk people, you know,
below the bar, like, all these loser guys just kind of, like, nursing their
beer and looking up, be like, I wish I could do that.
And be like, well, then get the fuck up on the bar. Why? If you want to do it,
do it.
Can anybody just dance on a bar? Because that makes me reconsider all the times
I've, like, touched a bar and then touched food and then, like, put my phone up
there and touched that and then touched food.
The bottom of my shoes are not clean, Joe.
Nobody's shoes are clean.
How are you just allowed to, is that, that's got to violate health codes, right?
It was, uh, I just figure there were enough hot girls that it was okay that I
was there, too.
Well, that's a good call.
Like, the ratio has to be, there have to be, still be enough hot girls.
Now, did you hook up with one of those girls afterwards?
Uh, oh, no. I was a pathetic, sad loser.
But the point is that I didn't need the alcohol to at least start the process
of getting rejected.
That's you. You have a, that's, you have the unique personality trait that
allows you to get crazy and dance on bars.
That is a strange thing, though, about the people that are in those 12-step
programs, because they really do get super attached to the idea that that's the
only way to be sober.
Yeah, and it's not, it is a way, and if you need that, okay.
Yeah.
More power to you, and I, I, you know, I do not, I, I don't want to take that
away from anybody.
But we're all different.
Right.
And everybody's, you know, nerve endings connect differently, whatever the hell
the biology is of it.
And I didn't need a program, especially because I would freak out if they were
like, and this is about Jesus, and I would be like, go fuck yourself, give me a
beer.
So, I, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to be comfortable there.
Did you, did you, um, ever do a program thing?
Did you, like, go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or did you just stop?
No, I had, uh, so, I had, there were a couple times where I was like, alright,
I need to, I need to quit, I need to quit, and that never works.
And then there was one night where, so it's, it's the first real time I'm on
the road.
I was terrible with women in high school and college.
And then suddenly I hit the road as a comic, and they're everywhere, and they're
interested, and life is different.
And so, there was a show, I was doing a show for a sorority.
And usually the sororities that sponsor com