Name: Joe Rogan Experience #793 - Whitney Cummings
Uploaded: 2016-05-05T03:15:22.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #793 - Whitney Cummings' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #793 - Whitney Cummings' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-05-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #793 - Whitney Cummings

I don't know. I never cashed the checks. So how'd you get into comedy?
We are live.
Real answer, bad childhood.
Oh, that's everybody's real answer.
If you didn't get into that for that reason, you'd probably have a shitty act.
Yeah, that is so true.
Because unless you weren't seen as a child or heard as a child and have this
insatiable need to be seen and heard and understood.
It's definitely a deficit.
You can't be funny.
Dude, what the fuck were you doing in Vietnam?
Because this is one of the reasons I didn't want to talk to you about this
before.
I didn't want to see you before this.
I just wanted to get you in.
And I'm glad we didn't talk about it before.
But I went to your Instagram page and I saw these pictures of you working with
these children that have cleft palates.
And I saw all these photos of you in Vietnam.
So tell me what are you doing?
Yeah, so there's this charity called Operation Smile.
And I usually work in animal charities because people, I think, are usually the
problem.
And helping people just seems to make more proliferate.
And in terms of charity stuff, I think that just why I started wanting to get
more involved is like, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I started not
liking the person that I was.
I started realizing I was the person who was like, God, traffic is like crazy
today.
And like, oh my God, Starbucks is out of soy milk.
What the fuck?
Like, I was just like, whoa.
Did you, what made you feel like you were going to a place that you didn't like
or becoming a person you didn't like?
I think it's like, you know, doing like working with animals and like, you know,
going to sort of parts of town that I wouldn't normally go to to rescue animals
and dogs.
You start going like, oh, there's a real world outside this Truman Show that we
live in of the fake sets and the fake this and the fake people and the fake,
you know, makeup and the fake clothes and everything.
And I was just like, oh, like that I live in a fun house, you know, sometimes
when you're in this business.
I mean, stand up keeps me, you know, a real person.
Is it TV shows that get you?
I think it's TV shows.
I think it's writing fake scripts about fake people and fake lots and fake
houses and, you know, fake edit bays.
And I just was like really concerned about, you know, and knowing, you know,
way more than I do.
But then what I do know about neurology is that our brains acclimate to
whatever environment we're in.
And I was like, if I'm in this environment all the time, my brain is just going
to start acclimating accordingly.
Right. So it's like, you know, I find it in little ways, like, you know, if I
if I have a small purse, I only need a small purse.
If I wear a big purse, all of a sudden I filled it up with shit.
You know, it's like you kind of acclimate to what you have.
And so I was like, yeah, I don't I don't like the things that come out of my
mouth.
I don't like my inner monologue. I don't like the fact that I get annoyed when,
you know, my Uber is, you know, not on fucking time.
Like, I just I was like, so I kind of wanted to get some perspective and like
really get out there and not just like give money for my own selfish, like
guilt shit.
Like, oh, I'm just going to give money. Right.
And so I went to Vietnam for two weeks and did this.
I went to Tokyo for a couple of days before then, which was actually really
interesting.
And when and got to, you know, watch the surgeries and it was also cool because
I don't know if you are at this, ever went through this, but I think I got sick
of myself.
Like, I just kind of was like, I'm sick of my voice. I'm sick of my making
jokes.
I'm sick of being funny. I'm sick of like and there's something about being
around people that don't speak English that kind of strips you of your like
persona.
Mm hmm. You know, of your all the things that you just because some I mean, I
just I don't want to go through life like a sleepwalking zombie who's just like
doing a bad impression of myself every day.
Because it's so easy to do. And I find I felt like life was a little bit Groundhog
Day.
But get up, work out, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, bits, bits, bits, you know,
insecure, insecure, you know, and I got a little bit sick of that rhythm.
And I was like, there's got to be something more deeper.
And, you know, we're seekers. And I was like, thinking about my next special
and the next thing I'm going to write.
And I was like, I don't want to just and I felt like my brain was had this
there was like patterns and rhythms that I was like, I keep going to the same
place for, you know, creatively.
And I was like, I want to go to a different place entirely. So I got to like
challenge my brain and throw some new shit at it.
And being around people that don't speak English is really, first of all, have
no idea who you are, which is another experience when you're used to people
knowing who you are and having expectations of you and thinking you're going to
be funny or, you know, when you're known, all of a sudden you have the power,
whether you want it or not in a room.
You know, you walk into a room and you have the power, whether you're
interested in having it or not, you just do.
Right. Joe Rogan walks in. Everyone's like, Joe Rogan, see everyone be cool.
And everyone's trying to impress you.
Everybody changes. Right. So you never get to see people's authentic self
because you inherently affect them with your presence.
You know, there's some I can't remember the term in science where it's
impossible to measure the thing because the measuring tool affects the amount.
The observer. Yeah, exactly. So you never know how people really are because
your presence actually affects them.
But if they've never heard of you, which in Vietnam, no one ever heard of me.
Not a lot of fans over there.
And so you're just like, you know, you can't rely on any of that shit that we've
become used to relying on.
And talking to people that don't speak English, all of a sudden you're like, oh,
I can't use all my go to strategies, charm, manipulation, jokes like no one
cares.
And so it was really pretty, pretty cool. Vietnam in general, we'll talk about.
I'm sure you have your thoughts on Asia. Mine, I think, are kind of probably
going to be polarizing and get me in trouble.
I think it's a fucking mess over there. But there's also, I think that when,
you know, I mean, you have kids, you have more of a insight into what's real
and what's not.
Like, I also noticed that when both of my parents had strokes, which was awful,
obviously, but I liked the person I became after it happened.
Like, I was like, all of a sudden, when something tragic happens to you, things
become clear, your priorities become clear.
If someone asks you to go to lunch that you don't want to hang out with, you
say no.
You're not like, sure, I guess I'll swing. Like, you're just, everything
becomes very black and white.
Do I want to do this? Do I not? Is this an effective use of my time? Is this
not?
So I was like, oh, if I just expose myself to a little bit more, not tragedy,
but maybe, you know, and stop hanging out with a bunch of people with fake
problems and hang out and surround myself with real problems,
then maybe I'll stop thinking I have a bunch of problems I don't really have.
I always love talking to you because you're probably one of the most ruthlessly
introspective people I know.
Really?
Yeah, yeah. You don't, you don't think you are? You don't, you're pretty
brutally introspective.
I just, I, thank you. I just am, I don't want to be a zombie. I don't, most
people are just sleepwalking through life.
And, uh, that does not interest me.
Do you, have you had very many psychedelic experiences?
You know what? I haven't. And I was going to do ayahuasca last year, but I had
been on antidepressants.
And yeah, and I only went on them. It's such a bummer. And I'm actually want to
talk about this in my next, um, special,
because they were, they were given to me because I was having trouble sleeping.
Uh, I had insomnia, which I recently learned about how insomnia sort of came
about and it's actually really important.
Um, and I wish that there were doctors out there who studied shit like that.
Like insomnia, usually people are insomniacs fucking thousands of years ago.
People in the tribes, like tribal life before streetlights and alarm systems,
there were people who were responsible for staying up while everybody else
slept.
They were like called the night watchers basically.
And night watchers would breed with night watchers and essentially.
So you're a night watcher?
I could be.
That could be my, cause you know, there's some people who are like,
I just can't fall asleep till three in the morning.
You know who never says that?
Who?
Farmers.
Farmers never say that.
People who actually fucking work.
That's so true.
Dudes who dig holes all day, they sleep like babies.
Everybody, I know, the most unemployed people, they're like,
I cannot sleep.
It's like, yeah, cause you haven't done one fucking thing.
Yeah, fucking go work out, bitch.
That's so true.
Yeah, you have three kids.
I feel like my insomnia is going to go, or something.
Uh, I feel like as soon as I have kids or something, my insomnia will.
It'll probably still stay there.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, I guess I'll be a mother, so I'll never sleep again.
It's a, that's an issue.
But it's also, uh, it's a mental loop thing.
Like if you go to bed and you have a mental loop,
you're like, oh, I got to get this.
I got to fucking get my shit together.
I really have to do this.
I really got to start this diet.
I really got to start this journal.
There's a book that I need to write.
I know I need to write it.
I need to fucking start.
Should I get out of bed right now and start writing it?
And then that loop will fuck with you and keep you up.
Especially someone like you, who's so hyper ambitious.
You always have like 15 different irons in the fire
and you've got a fucking fireplace bellows
and you're stoking that and you're on the phone.
At the same time, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that.
We'll definitely do that.
Like you've almost got like too many points of focus
where I imagine that your brain getting down to a neutral point,
it probably has a very difficult time.
Yeah.
And I've also done a couple things, you know,
but also our brains are not designed to see the amount of light that we see.
Like the screens in our phone,
like our brain produces cortisol when they see it.
It's like wake up.
Our brain like thinks our phone is the sun basically.
Yeah, that's true.
Like wake up.
Have you seen the new feature on iPhones
where it turns it down at 10 p.m.?
You can set it?
No, but mine is now in black and white.
Oh shit.
This bitch is going back to Technicolor.
She's going back to the 50s.
Hey, I'm Tyone.
Picture your phone black and white.
I'm a fucking typewriter.
What if someone sends you a picture?
Then it's, you know, it's going to be very artsy.
Why did you, how did you give me that?
Let me see your phone.
I turned to black and white because.
How did you do that?
I didn't even know that was a setting.
Yeah, it's a setting.
Look at those folks.
Yeah.
It's so, because the colors in your phone
trigger a bunch of chemicals to be released in your brain
that actually activate you.
You actually have a, this is so ironic.
You have a flower as your backdrop.
A flower.
It's a black and white flower.
That you can't see what the fuck it looks like.
It's basically a George O'Keefe.
I mean, or who, Ansel Adams.
Is that the vagina lady?
The big, yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really, that's an octopus vagina, actually.
That flower.
But yeah, I'm super into, uh, like, you know,
just if you understand how the brain works,
you can usually hack it a little bit.
So it's like when you look at your phone.
So my phone, I actually, I used to be so addicted to it.
Now I just have no interest in it.
Because it's black and white?
Yeah.
It's just like, it's not giving me the dopamine
and the chemi