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Dec. 5, 2016 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:55:48
Joe Rogan Experience #882 - Tom Papa
Participants
Main voices
j
joe rogan
01:41:06
t
tom papa
01:10:01
Appearances
Clips
j
jamie vernon
00:54
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Speaker Time Text
joe rogan
Confusion.
tom papa
If you don't get it, you don't get it.
joe rogan
They're about subterfuge.
And we're live, Tom Papa, who has a special this Friday coming out on Epix.
unidentified
Oh, shit!
tom papa
Oh, no way!
unidentified
Oh, shit!
tom papa
You're kind of special.
You mean stand-up?
joe rogan
It's comedy.
He tells jokes.
He's hilarious.
Hilarious and gregarious.
tom papa
So charming.
unidentified
He's a fucking sourdough expert.
tom papa
The Sultan of Sourdough.
joe rogan
Where'd you film your special?
tom papa
Cleveland.
joe rogan
Ah, Cleveland's fun.
tom papa
I love Cleveland.
joe rogan
That's a good place to do it.
tom papa
I've been going there for a long time.
And I love the people in Cleveland.
joe rogan
Where'd you do it?
What place?
tom papa
Hannah Theatre.
joe rogan
Yeah?
tom papa
In Playhouse Square District kind of thing.
Really nice theater.
And, you know, I've been going to Cleveland for a long time.
I like the people there.
It's got that good mix of, you know, hopefulness, but...
Grounded in reality.
joe rogan
It's making a comeback.
tom papa
It is.
joe rogan
That city is really making a comeback.
unidentified
It really is.
joe rogan
A lot of craft stores and craft breweries and nice restaurants.
tom papa
I know.
When I started going there, you couldn't eat healthy if you tried.
It was just corned beef.
And now, 15 years later, there's vegan restaurants.
There's all these noodle places.
It's completely come up.
But when LeBron left...
They were devastated.
joe rogan
How crazy is that?
That one guy.
tom papa
The whole city dipped.
joe rogan
Who throws a ball into a hole.
tom papa
Completely.
They took his banner off the side of the building and it was over.
unidentified
So sad.
tom papa
And since he came back and then won it...
It's changed the whole place.
joe rogan
I remember how much they hated him when he left.
I was like, this is ridiculous.
Why are you so mad?
The guy had to get some money.
tom papa
But it was real.
It was real.
There's a difference when you go there now.
People, there's a pride.
They're walking around.
joe rogan
Well, they have the heavyweight champion of the UFC, too.
tom papa
Oh, they do?
joe rogan
Stipe Miocic.
He's from Cleveland, too.
tom papa
He's from Cleveland, too.
And the baseball team went to the World Series.
So they were really pretty cocky.
But they have the Browns, which always...
unidentified
Is that bad?
tom papa
They're bad.
joe rogan
But they had Jim Brown.
tom papa
They had Jim Brown.
joe rogan
But still, that's in the past.
tom papa
They haven't won one game this year.
unidentified
Really?
tom papa
Their football team, yeah.
joe rogan
How many games have they played?
tom papa
We're up to nine or ten.
joe rogan
Hey, give them some time.
tom papa
They'll work it out.
unidentified
That's only ten games.
tom papa
No, but I really loved that city and I really liked it for stand-up and I figured it was a good mile marker.
You know, you do these specials and it's like, okay, this was this period, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
And I figured this was a good place.
I'd like to commemorate, you know, my time in Cleveland and this material at this point and it was good.
joe rogan
How often do you like to do specials?
tom papa
This is my fourth...
And they come every like two and a half years?
joe rogan
Yeah, it's pretty much the standard number now.
A lot of guys were trying to do them every year, like Louie was doing one every year for a while.
But then he was like, you know what, they're not as good when I do it once a year.
tom papa
They're not.
I call them premise pilots.
There's a lot, over the last five years, a lot of premise pilots, like people just rushing them out.
And it's like, yeah, that's a good idea.
Imagine in three years what that joke would be.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
tom papa
And that's the thing.
I think even two and a half years, and I try and just do it when it's ready, but...
I feel like two and a half years is kind of rushing it.
There's jokes.
If they stay in your act for five years, it's no joke that that thing becomes something different.
joe rogan
They become better.
tom papa
They become better.
joe rogan
You find out where the beats are.
You find out where the pauses should be.
You find out where maybe there were some tags that you developed along the way that led you in a totally different direction.
tom papa
You're thinking about it differently.
There's a confidence that you have in delivering it that's different than you just pushing it out there.
But you can't, the way that people digest everything now, you can't wait five years.
joe rogan
Yeah, isn't that the issue, is that you have a bunch of Tom Papa fans, and they would like to come see you again, but they want to see new shit.
It's not like the Rolling Stones.
You know, if you go to see the Rolling Stones, you want to hear Sympathy for the Devil, even though they wrote it in 1967, you know?
tom papa
I know, but, you know, I go back and forth on that, because...
I'm sure you've had it, where you're in shows and you're at the end of your set or whatever and people start yelling out old bits that they want to see.
joe rogan
Right.
tom papa
And there's something...
I know that you want to be new and you always want to push and you always want to create.
That's cool.
But I think it sells these bits short to think that nobody wants to see these again because...
I could watch you do that White House bit.
I know it.
I watched you working on it at the store.
I watched you developing it.
I've seen it a bunch.
A bunch!
I guarantee I could watch that bit.
Every week.
And like it.
And think it's funny.
When I worked with Seinfeld for years, I would watch that guy for about seven straight years.
And I'd watch, I'd hang out and watch, not the whole show, but when it came up to a favorite bit of mine, I was laughing.
I was laughing.
So I think you can, I think we in our own heads think that people don't want to see this, but they do want to see it.
joe rogan
Some do, but the ones who don't, when they say, oh, you're doing the same old jokes, that's so devastating that you gotta keep moving.
tom papa
I know, you're right.
That does kill you.
joe rogan
The people that don't like it, that feeling way outweighs the rare people that don't mind the old jokes again.
tom papa
When I see people after a set, and like, you know, in the lobby or whatever, And they're like, we see you every time you come through.
We saw you two times last year.
I completely go, my first question is, did you see some new stuff?
Nine times out of ten, they look at me like, well, yeah, but it's all great.
Like, they don't really care.
Like, those fans really don't care.
joe rogan
See, I don't concentrate on those people.
Those people are too easily satisfied.
I concentrate on the malcontents.
The people that just can't wait to get on Twitter immediately after this show is over.
tom papa
Joe's still doing that White House bit.
joe rogan
That fucking premise is so tired.
The break-in happened in 2015, bro.
tom papa
Yeah, but, you know, that's such a unique...
Wormy type of a fan.
joe rogan
Yeah, but those wormy type of fans, although they're not the happiest, nicest people in the world, they do keep you motivated and in check.
tom papa
Yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
The worst thing that happened to a lot of comedians in the 80s is that they never wrote new material.
They just kept doing the same stuff.
tom papa
They get 45 minutes and just rode it out their whole career.
joe rogan
Yeah, they had a set.
Jay Leno still does that.
Jay Leno is a brilliant comedian.
If you go back to the early days of The Tonight Show and The Letterman Show.
tom papa
Letterman, yeah.
joe rogan
Leno was the edgy young guy that would come on and was this great joke writer.
tom papa
Very relevant.
Sit down, boom, boom, boom.
joe rogan
He put out a Showtime special that I'm aware of that I watched a long time ago.
He might have found that and bought up every copy of it and burned it.
tom papa
Yeah, I've never seen it.
joe rogan
He doesn't put out anything now.
tom papa
Nothing.
joe rogan
When he goes on stage, he wants the audience to have no idea what his jokes are because they can never see him on the internet.
They can't find him anywhere.
tom papa
He said that to me once.
He's like, why would you put out an album?
You're killing your act.
Your act feeds you.
Why would you just give that away?
But it's a different thing.
It's changed.
I think the media, how people can digest this stuff, has actually changed what a comedian is.
joe rogan
But with all due respect, when people today think about Jay Leno, they don't think of the great stand-up comedians today.
They don't think of Jay Leno.
Even before the Cosby controversy went down, Cosby was still considered all-time great.
One of the all-time greats, right?
And Leno was in that ilk at one point in time.
He's not considered that.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
He's the Tonight Show guy.
tom papa
Do you think it's because of the Tonight Show?
Do you think if he could have done the Tonight Show and put out more material, he would have?
joe rogan
For sure.
I mean, he has...
He has no body of work.
tom papa
Right.
That's a big problem.
joe rogan
It's everything.
There's a lot of guys that are really good that we all know.
Like, Duncan Trussell's a perfect example.
Duncan Trussell's a brilliant comedian.
He has no body of work.
He doesn't have anything out.
tom papa
Right.
I know.
And, you know, that's kind of where my head is at lately.
Whatever you're doing, whatever you're hustling, whatever you're trying to put out there, it's all about making stuff.
It's all about making stuff that you're proud of.
So now this is like the fourth one.
So now I can look back like, alright, this is growing.
This is stuff I'm proud of.
And then if I'm writing something, I just want to create as much as possible.
You know what I mean?
But there is definitely that side that, you know, I came up during an era when you didn't just make an album because you could record it on your phone.
Someone had to come and ask you.
You had to be good enough for someone to say, I want to make something with you.
So I still have that feeling that I'm not good enough.
So I don't want to put it out early because I don't feel like it's ready or it's worthy.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
So I try and hold back as much as possible.
I don't feel like because Louis puts one out every year that I have to put one out every year.
Or to be so arrogant that, well, Carlin did it every year.
Well, that's George Carlin.
joe rogan
But even Carlin.
I mean, it's hard to talk bad about Carlin because he's dead and he's one of the all-time greats.
tom papa
But there's some...
joe rogan
Yeah, some questionable stuff in there.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Wasn't that good?
tom papa
Yeah, there's some specials where...
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, he had some brilliant jokes, no doubt about it.
But when you're doing a new hour every year, some of it's just not up to the same standards as some of your classics.
Like, he has some classics.
tom papa
Oh my god.
The best.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
But, you know, at the end, he was calling himself a writer.
More than a comedian.
He said, I like to be called a writer.
And that's how he was doing the act.
He was writing out.
He'd be at the Comedy Magic Club with his printed out sheets memorizing, like a play, like memorizing all this material to then take it out.
And that's a different thing.
You can put that together in a year, but it doesn't have the seasoning, the confidence, the ins and outs that if you just toured with that for three years...
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Oh, my God, what it would become.
joe rogan
Tours is a big thing, too, man, because when I do a theater, if I do a theater on a weekend, like, say, if I do Friday night at a theater or Saturday night at a theater, there's a giant difference between doing that and doing, like, a weekend at the Comedy Works in Denver where you're doing four shows, two shows Friday, two shows Saturday.
That's when bits come alive.
They get those extra taglines.
They get those extra...
tom papa
You're so different from Thursday night first show to Saturday last show.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
That first one, you're, yeah, okay, I'm doing it, you know, people are having a good time, but eh, Saturday, you're just, you're like, you could just kick back and just, there's this natural zone that you can be in that you don't have the, you just don't have the confidence.
You know, you have to be out there all the time.
And I think that's the hard part, you know, Jay, back to Jay doing The Tonight Show.
He was working on that monologue.
I mean, he was doing 12-minute monologues.
joe rogan
They could have just thrown those away.
Let me just tell you this right now.
I've never liked a fucking monologue ever in the history of late-night television.
There's not one where I'm like, finally, the monologue!
They're dogshit.
Just go right.
Every joke sucks.
They're mildly amusing at best.
tom papa
But he would disagree, because he said that Letterman was doing a six-minute monologue, and people were turning off and going to the commercial and going to the next thing.
So he said, if I could keep it, if I could do twice that, people aren't changing.
And he beat Letterman all the time from that segment of the show.
The ratings were strong enough and he held on to them, this is just his business mind working, that he hung on to them and kept them in there, and that's why he was number one all this time.
joe rogan
Well, it was the Hugh Grant thing.
Remember?
When he had Hugh Grant on, and he said, what the hell were you thinking?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Which is a disingenuous question.
He was thinking, I want to get my dick sucked by this hot black chick.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
And if I pay her money, she's going to do it.
tom papa
He's just all, shucks.
joe rogan
He knows what the fuck he's thinking.
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
But Jay really thought that the monologue was his thing and that he had to pour everything into it.
And he would work on it as soon as that one was over.
He would fly off and do gigs in Vegas.
He was working on it constantly, sending jokes to his guy, coming in the next day.
I mean, to do 12 minutes of new jokes every day, you're not writing your act.
You're not working on your act.
When you get busy and have other projects and stuff, your act's, you know.
joe rogan
Have you seen Craig Ferguson do stand-up?
tom papa
I have not.
joe rogan
That's what he does now.
He's a stand-up.
He's touring now.
And he was doing it while he was doing the show.
I don't know how much he did before he did his show, but then once he did his show, I would go places and they said, yeah, we had Craig Ferguson last night.
I'm like, Craig Ferguson?
The talk show guy?
I didn't even know he was a comic.
And they go, yeah, yeah, he's a comic.
I'm like, wow, interesting.
tom papa
Did you see his act?
joe rogan
Nope.
That's what I was asking you.
Because that's what he does now.
He just decided, I'd rather just do stand-up.
He's a weird one, man.
They didn't get rid of him.
He just said, I don't want to do it anymore.
tom papa
I know.
And then he's hosting two different game shows.
joe rogan
Is he?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Where are they?
tom papa
He's got this one show where it's kind of like two teams and they do charades against each other kind of a show.
And he's in the middle of it.
And then I did an appearance on his new show on...
National Geographic or History?
I think it was History.
And he brought a panel out.
It was me and Lars from Metallica and a writer.
And we had discussed...
It was like the list...
I forget the name of it.
It was like the list of something and we had to pick the top five bands of all time.
It was just like this funny game show, talk show kind of a thing.
But he's always popping up and doing...
That kind of stuff.
It'd be interesting to see what his act was.
Because whenever I hear that, my first inkling is, I was probably telling stories about celebrities.
joe rogan
Like Kathy Griffin style?
tom papa
Yeah.
You ever watch comedians and then they become famous?
And then they start telling stories about, oh, this is when I ran into so-and-so in the locker room.
It's all celebrity stuff because they're not living their life.
But Ferguson, I had heard that he used to write a lot, and he was always trying to come up with stuff, so maybe it's a real act.
joe rogan
Well, the people that worked at the theater that I worked at or, you know, who were there the night before, they said it was funny.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
So I would like to see it, see what that's about.
But I always find it interesting when people just, they get some sort of a mainstream gig like that and they do it for a while and they go, oh, I'm done.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm done.
tom papa
Well, he got passed over for Letterman's job.
joe rogan
Oh, is that what it is?
Is that why he quit?
tom papa
He didn't get that job.
That's when it all went down.
joe rogan
Yeah, meanwhile, that job sucks.
tom papa
Yeah.
I'm going...
unidentified
Look.
tom papa
It's a tough job.
joe rogan
What's happening to Colbert?
Colbert?
tom papa
Colbert.
joe rogan
Nobody likes him anymore.
Everybody loved him.
He should have stuck with that other fucking job.
Colbert as Colbert was great.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Colbert as whoever the fuck he really is.
I don't like that guy.
When he was on, he had Gaffigan on and Maria Shriver, and they were all talking about how great it is to be a Catholic.
I'm like, check, please.
tom papa
Get the fuck- What, on the show?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Being a Catholic's amazing.
There's a billion of us.
I'm like, what?
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
What am I watching?
Because Colbert is like a serious Catholic.
tom papa
Yeah, I knew that, but I didn't know we talked about it on the show like that.
joe rogan
It was bizarre.
tom papa
I'm doing that show on Thursday.
joe rogan
Bring it up.
tom papa
I'm going to bring it up in the middle of my set.
joe rogan
Show up dressed like the Pope.
See what they say.
See if they get mad at you.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Just wear the wizard costume.
tom papa
That's a weird job.
joe rogan
It's a very weird job.
You're basically selling other people's stuff.
tom papa
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
All the time.
joe rogan
And you have these little short sound bites.
tom papa
I did Conan back when he was in New York.
And, uh, I, uh, it was, I don't know how many times I had done the show.
I did it a lot.
I don't know.
Probably the eighth time.
And, uh...
I was there, the show was over, and Conan's walking through the halls, and he's got his guitar with him.
And he comes over, and I said, thanks for having me.
It's so great.
I love coming in here.
He goes, yeah, it's great for you, because you get to come in here and do the show, and then you get to leave and go about your life.
I'm here every single day.
He starts playing on the guitar.
Ding, ding, ding.
Every single day.
I never leave these halls.
Every single day.
I was like, it really sunk in.
joe rogan
Was he serious?
tom papa
He was serious.
joe rogan
Was he bummed out?
tom papa
It's just a little, you know, one of those manic moments of, you know, but you're, that's in New York.
Now he's been doing the show for how many more years?
joe rogan
Yeah, I did it way back in the day in New York and he had a punching bag.
tom papa
Yes, in his office.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Does he get crazy when he gets frustrated and starts wailing on that thing?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Fucking network!
Wham, wham, wham, wham!
tom papa
I want the Tonight Show!
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Yeah.
No, that's a real gig.
I mean, you're just, that's a different life.
joe rogan
You're That was a weird moment too in the annals of showbiz history when they gave him the gig and then they put Leno on before him.
tom papa
So crazy.
joe rogan
I'm like, what are you doing?
Like, what is this?
Leno's on at 10?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And then you guys are cannibalizing yourself.
tom papa
Brutal.
joe rogan
You have two talk show hosts in a row.
How do you choose who goes on what show?
Like, what are you doing?
Who did that?
Whose idea was that?
tom papa
Jeff Zucker, I think.
joe rogan
Oh, Jeff.
I love Jeff.
Jeff's a great guy.
tom papa
I know.
Jeff gave me my first break on television, but holy cow, that was a weird moment.
unidentified
Well...
tom papa
I mean, imagine if you're Conan.
Imagine if you get the Tonight Show, your lifelong dream, and then the guy you took it from, they tell you, he's going to go on before you because your ratings are so-so.
We're going to put him on at 10 o'clock.
unidentified
Oh!
tom papa
And then you gotta go out there and give the monologue.
joe rogan
How much time went by before they put Leno on before him?
tom papa
It wasn't that long.
joe rogan
They don't give you much time.
tom papa
It wasn't that long.
I want to say maybe a year.
Maybe.
But it just wasn't hitting.
joe rogan
Well, it's one of those things where, in order for a show to develop, it has to find its legs.
You have to have faith in whoever's doing it, that they're going to figure it out.
But they don't always do that.
They don't always have faith.
And then they put tremendous pressure on you, and then...
Advertisers don't want to spend money because the ratings aren't high enough, so you're bleeding revenue, and you have all these producers, and everyone's sketchy, and everyone has their own idea of how to juice it up, and then they have meetings.
unidentified
Pressure.
tom papa
And what's so strange to me in that scenario when it was all going down, when he had his thing in New York, it was locked in, he had his fans, it was solid.
And doing the same thing in a bigger studio across the country, it was different.
It was weirder.
It was airier.
Something was...
joe rogan
It was also on earlier.
There was more expectations.
It was more mainstream expectations.
Like that late thing is kind of like relaxed.
Like Carson Daly was on TV forever and no one noticed.
tom papa
He's still doing it.
joe rogan
You just kind of get away with it.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
Because you're on at two o'clock in the morning.
Everybody's like, hey, we're good.
tom papa
No one cares.
joe rogan
I was like, all right, we're still doing it.
tom papa
Yeah, Ford's still buying time on that show.
joe rogan
This is not a diss on Carson Daly at all.
He's a very nice guy.
tom papa
No, but it's being protected.
You're protected.
You don't have that pressure of being in that thing.
joe rogan
I was there for the very early days of Conan because my friend Amir was one of the writers on Conan's show.
So I went to one of the third or fourth tapings ever when they had the monologue scripted.
And they had it on giant cue cards.
It was really gross for the audience, because right behind Andy Richter would be someone holding a cue card, and behind Conan would be someone holding a cue card.
And it had, like, Conan, Andy, and then the- No.
Yes!
The words they would say.
So they would have a scripted, like, this conversation would happen.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Would be scripted.
tom papa
Weird.
joe rogan
Bizarre.
That's really crazy.
unidentified
Like that.
joe rogan
Like, as if there's a bizarre right after- Yeah.
And now you go.
tom papa
It's funny you mention that because our next guest is...
Weird as well.
joe rogan
So somebody had to go up to Conan and go, listen, we need to script your monologue.
And then we need to script your dialogue.
We need to script your banter.
We need to script everything.
We're leaving nothing to chance.
tom papa
Just that.
joe rogan
It wasn't good.
It wasn't good.
It was very awkward in the day.
And I think he found himself and became like this sort of zany, fun guy.
unidentified
His show is still super creative.
tom papa
It's still...
I mean, not that many people see it as compared to the old days, but they're always doing original funny stuff.
It's alive.
I don't know how you keep doing that for that many years, but it is still a unique, really funny place on television, for sure.
joe rogan
It's his job.
I mean, that's what he does.
tom papa
Yeah, that's his thing.
That's his gig.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is...
You know what else is awkward, too?
Here's the thing that sucks the most about those shows, is that you have these six, seven-minute segments where you just sit down and you just kind of force a bunch of subjects into these...
He had Burr on the other day, and in one thing, there was this really awkward segue.
What about the NFL? I know the NFL bothers you.
He's like, what?
They were just talking about...
Trump, and then they just switch gears.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Like, super awkward segue.
tom papa
Yeah, and you're looking down at the car.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Just jumps right into it.
I'm like, oh, I guess you got to.
tom papa
Yeah, but you know, I really feel as a comedian, that's why comedians are the best guests on those shows.
Like, you should just sit down and go.
Just go.
I watched Rodney doing The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Did a six-minute set, you know, standing there doing his thing.
All right, great.
And then he walks over, sits down.
And then four minutes, Johnny asked him one question, and he just went.
He just, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke.
And, oh, really?
Yeah, joke, joke, joke.
Good night, everybody.
I mean, that's your job.
Why do we have to make this look like...
It's a conversation.
Right.
joe rogan
Especially with a guy like Rodney.
That's where he was in his element.
Just rapid fire.
tom papa
Oh, my doctor, let me tell you.
joe rogan
You know the story of Rodney?
How he took more than a decade off of show business, but the entire time he was writing jokes, but he was selling aluminum siding and shit.
tom papa
Yeah, didn't he keep the jokes in a briefcase or something?
joe rogan
I don't know, but he just kept writing.
So when he came back and started doing stand-up again, which I believe was in his 40s, Yeah, it was in his 40s.
He had massive amounts of material.
tom papa
Amazing.
I heard that he...
Is this true?
Have you ever heard this?
That he had switched acts with another comic?
unidentified
No.
tom papa
That he wasn't going anywhere and his buddy wasn't going anywhere and they switched acts?
Did you ever heard that?
joe rogan
No, no, no.
I never heard that.
tom papa
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know if it's true or not, but...
What a funny dude.
joe rogan
Apparently, no respect at all.
God damn it.
I'm trying to find out what movie it was that caused him to change it.
It used to be like, I can't catch a break.
He had an early sort of tagline.
And then he changed it to, I don't get no respect.
I got no respect at all.
No respect at all.
tom papa
And then clicks.
joe rogan
See if you can find out the origin of that, Jamie.
tom papa
That's amazing.
joe rogan
Because there was a specific reason why he went from this one catch to respect.
Fuck, I'm trying to remember who told me.
Someone who's a giant Rodney fan.
Maybe it was Dave Smith.
Was it Dave Smith?
The comedian that came in here?
Maybe.
tom papa
So at some point he was saying, things just don't go well for me.
joe rogan
Yeah, something along those lines.
tom papa
And it wasn't hitting.
joe rogan
It just wasn't.
tom papa
Isn't that weird?
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Just those little words.
joe rogan
It wasn't catchy enough.
tom papa
Get her done.
joe rogan
Get her done?
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Get her done is a classic, right?
tom papa
Those things are just, they just catch.
joe rogan
Well, I remember when Chappelle could not go on stage because dumb, drunk white boys would yell out, I'm Rick James, bitch!
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It was always white guys, too.
tom papa
Because they were so hooked on it.
Hooked on it.
I know.
Sorry, Dave.
joe rogan
So sorry, white guys, too.
At least I'm a white guy myself, so that was a giant problem.
I saw him at the House of Blues in Vegas, and literally the show was a clusterfuck.
Because people were just yelling out, I'm Rick James, bitch!
tom papa
It's weird, like...
It's in the one side, it's like people love you so much, but the other side is like, you're killing me.
joe rogan
Well, that was a saying that people love to say.
They just love to say, I'm Rick James, bitch.
So they would just see him right there, and they just want to yell it out.
I want to feel it.
I want to feel that sound.
tom papa
Yeah, Sacha Baron Cohen, right?
How long is he walking around?
Like, my wife!
joe rogan
Yeah, right?
unidentified
Right?
tom papa
I have no catchphrases.
When I was a young comic, I watched a guy.
I opened for some guy in Virginia.
It was one of my first road things ever.
And this guy was really hacky, and he had a line in his act, and then he would sell the t-shirt with that line.
joe rogan
Oh, God.
tom papa
And then he was also getting drunk, you know.
Before the second show and he did the second show and brought the t-shirt out at the end and there was like no response because he was so drunk he forgot to do the hacky bit to sell his t-shirt.
I saw that and I was like, I don't care how much money is making him sell these shirts, I am not going down that road.
joe rogan
That's a big thing though for road guys is merch.
Huge.
tom papa
They go nuts with the merch.
joe rogan
People love merch.
tom papa
I'm such a bad businessman.
I just feel like it's all about the show.
It's about the show.
It's about me on stage.
This was great.
I can't go to the lobby.
And start making change for 20s.
I can't do it.
I can't.
joe rogan
I've sold t-shirts at one or two shows ever, and I've sold CDs at one or two shows ever, and then I'm like, I can't do it anymore.
tom papa
Right?
What is that?
Why?
I can't do it either.
joe rogan
Because you feel like a whore.
These people already paid to see it.
First of all, today, they could always get your stuff.
They could always go online.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And who wants a physical copy of anything anyway?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
A DVD or something?
My computer doesn't even have a slot for it.
tom papa
That's right.
joe rogan
I know.
tom papa
Exactly.
You ever see what Pablo does?
joe rogan
No.
tom papa
Not Pablo.
joe rogan
Gabriel?
tom papa
Gabriel.
No, not Gabriel.
joe rogan
I like how you lump all those Mexicans in together.
tom papa
It's a third one.
It's a third one.
joe rogan
Who's the other one?
tom papa
George Lopez?
No, your guy.
The big controversy guy.
joe rogan
Oh, Minstelia.
tom papa
Minstelia.
He records his set, and then he has a guy, his opener, when he's done, goodnight everybody, the opener comes up and does another ten minutes.
While on this disc drive, they burn all of these little, what do they call them?
Thumb drives.
Of what you just saw.
So you can buy the original set of what you just saw on your way out.
joe rogan
That's smart.
tom papa
Then he has another guy, takes pictures, and sells those.
You can get a picture taken with the guy.
I mean, it's a huge...
Huge business.
joe rogan
Yeah, the picture taking is gross.
tom papa
Huge business.
joe rogan
Charging people to take a picture is gross.
tom papa
Yeah, and then they put in a laminate.
You can have like a degrees.
It's like going to see Santa.
You can get the copy.
You can get one copy or you can get the thing in the laminate with the snowflakes on it.
joe rogan
I kind of feel bad calling him and steal you again.
Like I'm shitting on him while he's down.
Because I should just let it go.
But the photograph thing, like charging people to take a photograph, there was always that.
He always did that.
unidentified
He always did that.
joe rogan
I was like, that is just gross.
Just take a picture with people.
They're nice.
They want to take a picture with you.
It's not hard to do.
tom papa
I don't mind going out and talking to them and letting them take their pictures and just saying hello to people.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
I just can't get into the selling thing.
joe rogan
I hear you.
tom papa
If you're sensitive about your work and you get through the set and you put everything you had into it and you think they had a good time...
Let's not judge each other for another time on the way out of the building.
You know what I mean?
Let's just have a nice moment.
Let's not make it, oh, now he wants me to buy a shirt from him.
joe rogan
Yeah, would it be nice to just say hi to people, too, and not have to take a photograph?
I understand that people want to take photographs, and I'm happy to take them, but it's like that moment then becomes this pose instead of like, hey, what's up?
How are you?
Nice to meet you.
What's going on?
tom papa
Right, exactly.
joe rogan
You know, like everybody, like people can't meet anybody anymore.
Everybody has to, you have to immediately get your phone out.
And it doesn't matter what you're doing.
People want to take, like, I went to see Honey Honey and Gary Clark Jr. the other night.
tom papa
Oh, nice.
joe rogan
Late night show, midnight, at the Down and Out in downtown LA. Sweet.
And while the show's going on, like, we're standing there watching the show, and people were...
Just grabbing my arm, trying to get me to take pictures with him.
I'm like, stop!
I'm not taking a picture, I'm watching a show.
tom papa
I love that beginning of your special.
The first thing you said was, put your phone down!
Put your phone, you're in your special, literally, the first thing out of your mouth was...
Put your phone down.
It can't be in the moment.
It was great.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, I take videos of Gary Clark when he was on stage the other day.
tom papa
I know.
It's all part of the experience.
joe rogan
But I wanted to promote them, too.
1986, he explained the origin of respect.
Here it goes.
I had this joke.
I play hide-and-seek.
Won't even look for me.
To make it worse, you look for something you put in front of it.
I was so poor.
I was so dumb.
So this.
So that.
I thought...
Now, what fits that joke?
Well, no one like me was alright, but then I thought a more profound thing would be I get no respect.
Hmm, that's not totally true because there was a movie.
There was a movie that had something about respect in it.
jamie vernon
His Wikipedia says it's about pretty much the same thing that it came from appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show.
And this is almost the same thing.
He tells a joke right here.
joe rogan
No, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
But someone told me the history of deciding respect, that it was based on some movie that was famous at the time, like maybe even a mob movie.
Damn, I hate not remembering shit.
tom papa
When you look at that list of comedians, it's like Tim Allen had the ooh, ooh, ooh.
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
And then, you know, everybody does have a little hooky thing.
joe rogan
It's weird.
tom papa
Oh, oh!
You might be a redneck.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
You might be a redneck was giant.
tom papa
Yeah, you know?
unidentified
That was one of the first bits I saw in C.S. Steel.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
No, I'm a redneck.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
tom papa
Ow!
joe rogan
Pre-internet.
tom papa
How?
joe rogan
94. Oh my god.
Yeah.
That's when I realized.
I was like, what?
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Sorry.
joe rogan
Your family tree does not fork.
It's one of those.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
I was like, holy shit.
tom papa
Oh my god.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
I feel like taking the picture is kind of better than talking to them, though.
Because...
I always find, like, I want to...
They'll say something about the act or something, and then the first sentence is great.
Be like, oh, it was really funny.
I loved when you did the thing.
Oh, that's good.
I've been working on that.
And then I want to talk real about it, about the act.
And then I always find myself, like, they meet you, and they're like, oh, this is great.
I get to talk to them.
And then you start talking, and then they end up slowly walking away.
And you're like, I've been really working on this bit, and I'm having a hard time with the tag.
Boring!
And they just kind of drift away, like...
Oh, he's not as much fun as we thought.
joe rogan
Oh, you mean you didn't just make that up on the spot?
tom papa
So I feel like if they take a picture, we'd get through it and move on.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, Jamie and I do this thing that I stole from Steve-O. Steve-O's idea.
It's a great idea.
Steve-O takes photos, but then you have to go to his website to get the photos.
That way people don't fumble with their cameras and their phones.
tom papa
I tried that once.
joe rogan
Because the phones take fucking...
Nobody knows how to use their goddamn phone.
Oh, take my picture.
How does this work?
You give someone an Android phone, you might as well give them a fucking thesaurus.
Give them a book to read.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Nobody knows how to work a fucking Android phone.
tom papa
I tried to do it.
I had my buddy take pictures and then we posted them on the line and they could go get them.
First of all, everybody was so...
Then you spent the whole time saying, can I just take it with my phone?
No, this is how we do it.
joe rogan
You've got to hire a security person to say that.
Hire one of the security people at the club and say, put your phones away.
The pictures will be available online tonight.
That's the only way to do it.
When you're doing thousands of photos, though, there's only one way to do it.
tom papa
Yeah, if you're doing that.
That's why I sit in the back and eat a salad and wait for the second show.
joe rogan
That's a good move, too.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
That's a good move.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Depends on where you're at, too, though.
Yeah.
Do you like comedy clubs or do you like work in theaters?
Like this place in Cleveland, how many seats was it?
tom papa
It was about 600, 700, something like that.
unidentified
That's a good size.
tom papa
Yeah, that was perfect.
Perfect size.
joe rogan
I did the Fillmore in San Francisco.
That's where I did my special, which is smaller than that.
That's like 450. 450. Yeah.
tom papa
Perfect.
That's good.
joe rogan
It's a good size.
tom papa
That's perfect.
joe rogan
But it's not as good as the Comedy Works, because the Comedy Works is a low ceiling.
tom papa
Oh yeah, it had a high ceiling?
joe rogan
Low ceilings are where it's at, man.
Those little jammed up original room at the Comedy Store rooms.
tom papa
People don't realize that energy is such a real, real thing.
It is a real, given back and forth, you're riding this, it's not a mystical, it's a real, I'm getting from them, I'm giving it back, we're playing with this energy.
That's why if you do an outdoor show, it sucks, because it's just poof!
It's just evaporating, it's going up like smoke.
joe rogan
One thing, did you have any hecklers?
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
I had three out of four shows people heckled.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Three out of four.
And they weren't even being mean.
They wanted to talk.
They wanted to get on the show.
tom papa
They love you.
joe rogan
I even asked people before the show.
I said, I'm filming here.
Please don't yell at anything.
They still did.
People got so mad at them.
People were so mad at them.
tom papa
Oh, yeah?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
And then it creates this riff.
People are like, shut the fuck up!
unidentified
Oh, Jesus Christ.
tom papa
My taping.
No, my people were a little civilized.
joe rogan
Maybe your people are more civilized than other people.
tom papa
They're middle-aged women.
joe rogan
Oh, is that what it is?
You getting a lot of that?
tom papa
I get a lot of family people.
joe rogan
MILFs?
tom papa
A lot of MILFs.
A lot of side boob.
Selfies at the end of the show.
joe rogan
Drunken, lipstick on their teeth.
tom papa
Oh my god, they're there with their husbands taking their picture and they're squeezing your ass as they're taking it.
joe rogan
They're squeezing and then clawing your back, doing the finger thing on your back to let you know they're interested.
unidentified
Ooh, excited.
tom papa
It's a nice moment for a married man.
joe rogan
Yeah, you're like, ooh, a little thrill.
Go back to your hotel room.
tom papa
Somebody still likes me.
joe rogan
Put a little pop in your masturbation that night.
Ooh, what about her?
unidentified
That's it.
joe rogan
That's sleeping pills for comics.
tom papa
Yeah, but no hecklers.
It was pretty smooth.
It was pretty good.
joe rogan
Yeah, my crowd's a little wild.
Maybe two.
Maybe I need to calm down.
tom papa
No.
They're passionate.
I mean, when you play me live, when you just do live, then you probably don't care, and you just mess with them.
joe rogan
Sometimes, but you don't want them ruining bits, and that happens all the time.
unidentified
That's the worst.
joe rogan
Some fucking idiot ruined Chris Rock's bit the other night at the comedy store.
tom papa
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
Chris Rock had this bit about cops, and this guy just fucking interrupted, and then Chris was joking around with him at first, and then the guy interrupted again.
tom papa
Ugh.
joe rogan
And then Chris is like, you dumb motherfucker, I'm doing jokes up here.
Like, what are you doing, man?
And they wound up kicking the guy out, and as they're kicking the guy out, he's like, whoa, I can't have an opinion?
tom papa
No, you can't.
joe rogan
You can definitely have an opinion.
You don't want to interrupt a performance.
Like, there's an agreement.
The audience has an agreement, okay?
The agreement is you're going to sit there, and you're going to see what this person is prepared.
tom papa
Yeah, right.
joe rogan
You know?
This person's prepared about it.
He came on stage with a fucking notebook.
He's prepared things.
tom papa
But that's the illusion that we create.
If you're good, it sounds like it's just happening.
It sounds like it's in the moment.
It doesn't sound planned out.
So they think that they're in the moment with you.
joe rogan
Well, Rock is so opinion-heavy.
Like, Chris Rock's premises are always, like, he's a master at taking a controversial premise, taking a controversial point of view, and then bringing it around when, at the end of it, you're just howling, laughing, because he's figured out a way to, like, he's right!
He's right!
tom papa
I know, he is the master of that.
joe rogan
He's got some bitter divorce shit, too.
unidentified
Woo!
tom papa
Oh, I've been waiting for that to come out.
joe rogan
Ah!
unidentified
It burns!
joe rogan
It burns!
tom papa
I've been waiting for that to come out.
joe rogan
I don't know if he had a prenup.
Seems like he didn't.
tom papa
Oh, really?
unidentified
Yeah, seems like there's a lot of fucking, a lot of fuel.
tom papa
God bless.
joe rogan
He was just talking about how much money the lawyers make and the wife's going after all of it.
tom papa
Oh, brutal.
joe rogan
And he was talking about how that's why he's touring.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, he's like, I gotta make some money, man.
Which is, look, if you've developed a nest egg, like obviously he has, and all of a sudden you're getting divorced.
Phil Hartman tried to explain that to me once.
I was telling him to get a divorce before his wife shot him in his sleep.
I go, just give her half.
He goes, it's not half.
unidentified
He goes, it's two-thirds, because the lawyers take a third.
joe rogan
It's a fucking scam.
He was just rabid about it.
I didn't think of that.
I was like, oh yeah, the lawyers.
Because they do.
They don't work for free.
tom papa
No, of course not.
joe rogan
You're paying for your wife's lawyer too, fuckface.
You pay for both of them.
tom papa
Brutal.
joe rogan
You pay for the general of the army that's fighting against you.
You pay for that general.
General's trying to rob you of your resources.
tom papa
Yeah, and you're writing them checks.
joe rogan
And you've been selling out arenas your whole life, and they want most of that.
tom papa
Oh, God.
joe rogan
They want the house that you sleep in.
They want everything.
They want to take away memories.
They want to steal the very foundation of your happiness and prosperity.
tom papa
Could Joe Rogan...
Could Joe Rogan...
Have everything go away.
Your kids are fine.
Your relationship's cool, whatever.
Let's take that element out of it.
Let's just take the house, the cash, the bows and arrows.
It's all gone.
Could Joe Rogan...
Could you go live in, let's just pick New York, this is not a city question, but let's pick New York.
Could you go live down by Washington Square Park in a studio apartment, have your act, have your fans, go do your thing, and kind of be okay with a low bank account?
Or are you at an age now and you've had stability, do you feel like that would freak you out?
joe rogan
Well, it would definitely freak you out if you all of a sudden...
One of the things that I've sort of relied on is not needing anything.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
So by not needing anything, everything I do, I do because I enjoy it.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
So if I do stand-up, I do it because I enjoy it.
If I do podcasts, because I enjoy it.
If I do the UFC, it's because I enjoy it.
I enjoy the money.
Don't get me wrong.
tom papa
Sure.
joe rogan
But I'm not needy.
I'm not in a position where I'm worried about my next check.
So if I got to that, I don't even need that stuff.
Like, need the stuff is kind of...
Look, if you have a car and you can get around, if you've got food on the table and your family's taken care of, everything else is kind of bullshit.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's nice.
It's nice to have a good couch.
Like, look, we have a 70-inch TV. Ooh, this is nice.
tom papa
It feels nice, but...
joe rogan
Watch Westworld on a 70-inch TV. It's nice.
Look how big it is.
tom papa
Ooh.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
But ultimately, what really counts is, are you nervous?
Are you nervous about your bills?
Right.
Do you remember that feeling?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's a terrible feeling.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Worried about...
tom papa
Where that's going to come from and what you're going to do.
But you still have your act.
You can still go make money.
But we're going to put you back at square one.
We're going to put you in that studio apartment.
Would you be cool with it?
joe rogan
Studio's kind of small.
Like a four-bedroom house in the yard and somewhere.
But honestly...
The big thing, and this is such a cliche, but the big thing is, do I still have my friends?
Do I still have all the same friends?
unidentified
You do.
joe rogan
If I lived in an apartment building, and Ari Shaffir lived next door, and Duncan lived down the hallway, and Joey was over the other side, I'd have a great time.
If we all lived on the same floor or in the same building, I would have zero problem with that.
If they knocked on the door, hey man, you got any weed?
I'm out of weed.
Yeah, come on.
That would be no problem at all.
It's like, how much different is that than when you stay on the road in a hotel?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Because a hotel is like a studio apartment.
tom papa
Yeah, you're right.
joe rogan
And a good percentage of our lives, we stay in a studio apartment.
tom papa
A lot.
I know.
I bring it up because I was thinking about it, and it's like, if it all fell apart, you grab on...
To your lifestyle and what you're doing so hard.
But if it all, for whatever reason, washed away, and you could still go perform, and you still had your friends at this club you could go see, I could totally do it.
I could totally go back to, I have clothes that fit in this big of a closet, and just keep doing what I'm doing, but in those circumstances, 100%.
In some ways, I think you'd be lighter.
You'd be...
joe rogan
A lot of people do believe that, and a lot of people do go towards that minimalism life where they give up everything.
My friend Steve Maxwell, he's a world-renowned fitness trainer, strength and conditioning coach for a lot of pro athletes, a lot of fighters.
He lives out of a duffel bag.
tom papa
Oh, I saw that guy.
I saw you interview that guy.
joe rogan
He used to have a big house, and he had a gym in Philadelphia.
He's one of the very first American Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts, and he had this gigantic gym where he's teaching, and he's an interesting guy.
And then he just decided, he got divorced, and he decided, you know what?
Fuck this.
And he goes, I'm going to live out of a van.
And he got like a camper van.
And he lived out of that.
And he's like, fuck this van.
I'm just going to keep traveling.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
And now he just stays in hotels everywhere.
tom papa
It's amazing.
And that's what brings it up.
It's the divorce.
I don't think willingly I would do it, but if something was thrust upon me.
joe rogan
Like if you got divorced.
tom papa
Divorced.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Or something.
I could go back.
I could be like.
joe rogan
But you're thinking about it so much that you brought it up as a subject.
It's something you wonder.
tom papa
Yeah, not as far as the divorce part of it, but just the simple life.
Yeah, because I've built a life that's bigger and more complicated.
And you want to know what it was?
Last time I was in here, I had this back issue where it was like shooting pain down my arm.
joe rogan
Yeah, you had a cervical issue, right?
tom papa
Yeah, and I was going to this really great Cairo guy, I was doing cupping, I was doing all of this kind of stuff, and it was just making it worse.
joe rogan
Worse?
tom papa
Yeah, I was in pain for like a year.
I was like in pain.
Greg Rogel, you know the comedian Greg Rogel?
He tells me he had really debilitating lower back pain, and he read Sarno's book.
joe rogan
John Sarno's book, yeah.
tom papa
I read Sarno's book.
He's like, just read it.
And I got into this big fight with him and Noam, who owns the Comedy Cellar.
He's calling him a crack, and it's a crackpot, and it doesn't work, and all this stuff.
And Greg is like, just please read it.
Just read it.
Just read it.
And you know what it is.
It's just basically about that you're carrying...
Your brain wants to go to work on something simple, like pain in your body, rather than deal with issues of stress and anxiety and anger that you carry all the time.
And basically, just realizing that that's where the pain is coming from, you don't have to solve the anxiety or the pain or the anger.
You just have to be aware.
Okay, brain, I know what you're doing.
I know what you're working on.
It just kind of alleviates that stress and then the physical manifestation of not having oxygen go into your muscles and stuff starts to slowly release.
And just, it's gone.
It's gone.
I have no pain.
I have no...
joe rogan
How long did it take after you read the book and adopted the principles?
tom papa
Like a month and a half.
Really?
Yeah.
joe rogan
So a year of pain, and then a month and a half of adopting these principles, and what does he tell you to do?
What are the exercises that he tells you to do?
tom papa
He says, just live your life.
Exercise.
Whatever you were doing, do it.
Don't live timidly.
Don't think, I can't run now.
I can't do yoga now because I've got a neck issue.
Do it.
Live your life.
Don't live in this preventative way of, I can't move or I'm going to mess up my body.
joe rogan
So what does he tell you about like physical issues?
Like what if you have a herniated disc and it's pressing against your nerve and it's causing your hands to go numb and your arms atrophying?
tom papa
He says those are very rare cases.
joe rogan
That's not that rare in my world.
tom papa
I know.
Well, yeah, you're right.
But he says it's very rare cases where there's like a real pinched nerve kind of a problem.
joe rogan
Jesus, that seems like crazy advice.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Because I know a lot of people that have, like, real issues, like, real physical issues.
It's not a rare thing, I don't think, to have, like, disc issues are gigantic.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because people, they don't strengthen their spine enough, they don't strengthen their core enough, and they wind up doing something, they yank it, and they hurt it, and then they try to work around it, and they wind up re-aggravating it, and then it gets worse and worse.
tom papa
You're saying that a lot of times you'll have, like, your disc will be...
Bulging a little bit or whatever these little imperfections are and we all have these imperfections in us.
But when you are stressed and the muscles are tightening around you and becoming inflamed because you're carrying this stuff that you're not working through, everything's constricting around it so then it's going to aggravate that and that's going to become a bigger problem.
joe rogan
I definitely think that's true in some cases.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine about this.
It was the same sort of a thing.
And I was like, that's all well and good, but I know people who are very light and happy people who develop a legitimate back issue.
And it has nothing to do with stress that they're carrying around.
It has to do with the soft tissue that protects your joints bulging out and contacting a nerve.
tom papa
Look, there's a zillion of us out there, and I'm sure there's all different issues for it.
But back to your original question of why am I thinking about simplifying and all this kind of stuff.
I am a pretty light, positive person.
Very optimistic.
I kind of live in that world.
But when I just started reading the book, I'm like, are things really pissing me off?
Am I stressed?
Do I have anxiety because I live in this house?
Because I'm trying to do these things with my career?
Because I'm trying to always do this because I'm carrying children and parents and all of this stuff.
I'm trying to make everybody...
I don't know.
Maybe.
Just realizing that and thinking about it, no heavy meditation on it, no, just being aware that maybe that's where it's coming from.
I'm telling you, over a month and a half, the pain slowly went away.
And I don't have it.
Yeah.
joe rogan
That is interesting.
So what was bothering you before?
I know that you're successful and you had a television show for a while and you've got a bunch of projects going on.
You're always doing stand-up and specials.
So you've had a lot of success.
You've got a lot of great stuff going on.
What was kind of chewing at you?
tom papa
I don't know.
I'm not really 100% sure of what the source is.
But I do feel like I have a lot of people on my back, and it's all quiet.
It's all in my head.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
A lot of people on your back.
tom papa
Yeah.
I've got a wife.
I've got kids.
I've got pets.
I've got family.
I've got...
joe rogan
You feel that...
There's a weird way to bring this up, but how much of that, like having a wife and having kids, obviously there's going to be compromises and there's going to be stress that comes along with any sort of relationship, but do you feel like it was tipping more towards the negative than towards the positive?
tom papa
I don't think it was...
I think I just...
The whole experience to me seems positive.
My relationship with my wife is great.
The kids I adore.
I feel like it's all positive.
But I do carry the burden of everybody's worries and everybody's well-being all the time.
I was working on this joke in my act before I started thinking about all this stuff.
I had this moment when I was standing in this house.
I moved to this bigger house.
It's a really nice house.
It's a bigger home.
And I was shutting off all the lights.
This is what I was working through on stage.
I was turning off all the lights one night and locking the doors for all the bad people that are coming to get us.
And everyone's in their beds and the cat's asleep and the dog's asleep and everybody, the lizard's asleep.
And it just, all my responsibility washed over me.
Like, everybody, every living thing here is It's depending on my success.
If I don't keep going, if I don't keep succeeding, everything here changes.
Everybody's little life, everybody's perfect little existence, it's all washing over me.
And I can't tell anyone about it.
I can tell you, the audience, but I can't go sit on my daughter's bed at two in the morning when I have that feeling.
unidentified
Do you ever feel like you just can't do it anymore?
Do you ever feel like you just want to stop?
tom papa
You just want to take a break?
This whole thing about waking up my daughter with my fears.
I can't do that.
I don't tell my wife that stuff.
I don't tell my kids that stuff.
I just carry it.
So when I started reading this book, I'm like, maybe I'm just...
Taking all this really seriously and feeling like...
joe rogan
Did you feel extended with the new home?
Is that it?
Because a lot of times...
I have a friend of mine who did that recently.
He bought a big place.
And he can afford it, but kind of.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
You know, it's like, okay...
I think about this now.
I'm a big advocate in never doing that.
I don't think you should ever buy a big place unless you're like, hey, we can get a nice place now and not even think about it.
tom papa
No, we're totally cool.
We can do it.
I had a really small place for a long time and did all the right things, so it's...
The outlay is no different from my little place before.
It's all cool.
But when you walk into a place like that, it just feels bigger.
The first time I bought a home ever, I had this little place in Studio City.
I remember laying on the couch like, I don't know if I can do this.
I've got to sign this paper.
joe rogan
30 years is a long time!
tom papa
Every time the mail came for the first year that I owned a home, I thought it was going to be a notice saying, you've got to get out of there now.
You know what I mean?
I just was fearful about it.
joe rogan
Mortgages are weird, man.
It's like, here's a bill for 30 years.
tom papa
Right.
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's heavy.
That weighs on you.
tom papa
Yeah.
So that's what just brought me to the feeling of like, well, maybe just going back and living with my wife in that little studio apartment in New York again wouldn't be so bad.
joe rogan
The kids would freak out.
tom papa
The kids would freak out.
The kids would hate it.
The kids would have to be gone.
unidentified
Fuck this!
joe rogan
Dad, you need to be more successful.
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Right, exactly.
joe rogan
Just take your pressure like a man, bitch.
tom papa
Right, exactly.
joe rogan
Why'd you downsize?
tom papa
Who cares if your neck's crooked?
joe rogan
Son of a bitch, who cares if your arms go numb?
tom papa
I want to go to Berkeley.
joe rogan
Carry things with your teeth.
tom papa
So, I don't know.
I mean, because it was a little self-aware moment because I do, like I said, I feel like I'm pretty carefree, but why the hell was my neck so...
joe rogan
Well, I think that was something that resonated with Sarno's book, and I remember Howard Stern talking about it.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
He had a similar situation.
I definitely think people carry a lot of tension, and then that tension sort of manifests itself in physical pain, but...
What I do is I do difficult things.
I like to do difficult things that are way more difficult than comedy.
So if I'm doing jujitsu or if I'm bow hunting or some of the workouts that I do, they're so much harder than anything like stand-away.
Just yoga class.
Just a fucking 90-minute Bikram yoga class in 104 degrees when you're going 100%.
I put 100% effort into every pose.
I'm fucking pouring sweat.
It's so difficult.
When you do that, it seems to me at least, with my fucked up brain, that other stuff doesn't bother me.
tom papa
It's not your fucked up brain.
I equate this anxiety to stopping yoga.
I did yoga for, I don't know, eight years, and I haven't done it in three.
joe rogan
Oh, get back in there, man.
tom papa
And I'm telling you, I used to walk around like the biggest advocate.
I'm like, no, once I started yoga, no stress here, no pain here.
joe rogan
But when you started giving those pains, why didn't you just get back in?
tom papa
I don't know.
I'll tell you what, I have no idea.
I don't know what the real answer is, but in my head it's, the class is from 9 till 1030, and that's when I do my best writing, when the kids get out of the house and I can write in the morning.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
tom papa
That was my, that's my lame-ass excuse.
joe rogan
You just gotta force yourself.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
I force myself.
tom papa
Just try and write some other time?
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Do you sit down?
You don't sit down and write, right?
Like, you don't...
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, I do.
tom papa
You do?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
tom papa
Oh, you do.
I thought you were a stage guy.
joe rogan
No.
No, I'm a stage guy, too.
tom papa
Yeah, well...
joe rogan
I'm a firm believer, like martial arts, I think that you need to do...
I think you...
Like, if you wanted to be a mixed martial artist and you only wanted to work on your skill, I think you're doing yourself a disservice.
I think you need to do strength and conditioning as well.
unidentified
Uh-huh.
joe rogan
I think you need to do drills as well as spar.
I think comedy is the same way.
I think writing on stage, and I think there's a bunch of aspects that over the last few years, I like to think that I've kind of got my own way of doing it.
Everybody's got a different way, obviously.
Everybody's got a different style.
My own way though is a bunch of things.
One, socialization.
I need to socialize.
I need to go out with friends.
I need to go have a drink or smoke some pot with my buddies.
We start laughing and goofing around about things.
Meet new people.
Talk to some interesting person.
That's one of the things that I really like about podcasts.
I get to talk to interesting, cool people.
That kind of socializing leads to new pathways of ideas get expanded.
tom papa
What made you think?
Did you think of that or it just happened and you looked back like that was a good thing to do?
joe rogan
I remember thinking somewhere along the line, God, I come up with a lot of great ideas for bits when I'm having fun with people.
Like having fun with friends or even with people I don't even know.
Occasionally you'll meet someone that's really cool and you enjoy talking to them and then you have these cool conversations.
You see this perspective from a stranger that's interesting and they say something and then it fires something in your own brain.
I think socializing is big and I think that's one of the reasons why really, really famous comedians hit a dead spot later in their career because their circle becomes very small because they only trust certain people and they kind of get anxiety about hanging out with regular folks and just going out there.
Yeah, they get isolated.
They drive limos everywhere.
They live in a mansion.
They never get to meet anybody.
So socialization is big.
Activity is big.
I need to do things.
I need to go places.
I need to see things.
I need to travel.
I do a lot of different things.
I like to try to get as much activity in as possible.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
But physical writing to me is a must.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
I sit down in front of my computer and I write.
I write all the time.
And I don't necessarily write jokes.
I just write.
tom papa
Right.
Oh, that's cool.
joe rogan
I write shit and then the jokes come out of that.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Premises come out of that stuff.
More essays.
tom papa
More essays.
One of my favorite parts of stand-up is just being by myself in writing.
Just that part, that mining.
You're just mining.
And then once in a while you get this great stuff that comes out.
A lot of times nothing comes out.
That's the biggest challenge of writing.
Getting out of your way and not beating yourself up if everything that comes out isn't great.
joe rogan
Yep.
tom papa
Most of it isn't great.
joe rogan
I think one of the biggest challenges of writing is discipline.
It's one of the biggest challenges because most people just don't...
If you're a writer or if you're a comic and someone...
There's no one telling you you have to do it.
Yeah.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
Because you have this open-ended schedule.
You could have gone to yoga from 9 to 10.30 and you chose to write.
Right.
And you might have chosen to write because yoga is too hard.
You might have decided, you know, this fucking writing is too difficult.
I'm just going to...
Or yoga's too difficult.
I'm just gonna write.
I mean, it could be one of, you know, either possible reasons.
tom papa
Yeah.
It's, uh...
No, I should do both.
Fuck, man.
You said, you know, I always try with writing also to not be so rigid, like...
There was a time when I could only write on the computer in the morning up until 10. And it's like, that's stupid.
Sometimes I don't have my computer.
Sometimes I just have a pad and I'm in a coffee house after doing radio at 11. So why not do that?
So my thing now is I just make myself sit down for two hours at some point.
It doesn't matter if it's late in the day, at night, whatever it is.
That's like your workout.
It's like you've got to sit.
Just sit.
joe rogan
Do you ever write on your phone?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know what's amazing about writing on the phone?
If you have an iPhone or even there's actually a lot of them now.
tom papa
I use notes.
joe rogan
Yeah, notes and then dictate it.
tom papa
Oh yeah?
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
Is it accurate?
joe rogan
Oh, super accurate.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, you never tried it?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
Look, check this out.
I'll show you.
Right here.
See right here?
Press that button right there.
This is the iPhone.
I got an interesting story about this.
tom papa
Are you in notes?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's in notes.
tom papa
Watch.
joe rogan
I press the voice thing.
Tom Papa's a bad motherfucker.
Bam.
tom papa
Wow.
joe rogan
Amazing, right?
tom papa
That's so true.
joe rogan
This dude, he writes in the morning when he's supposed to be taking yoga, his neck's all fucked up and he doesn't know why, but he's a good guy and he's hilarious.
Go see him this Friday on Epix.
tom papa
Thanks, Joe.
joe rogan
Bam.
tom papa
Hilarious.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
That's alright.
joe rogan
It's not perfect.
tom papa
No, but that's pretty good.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, what the fuck is Hilarious?
tom papa
I know, that's a pretty badass word.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, it keeps dictating while we're talking.
tom papa
It's still going.
joe rogan
It's getting this whole...
It just said what the fuck is hilarious.
tom papa
That's pretty great.
Do you do that when you're driving?
joe rogan
Yes, that's how I do text if I have to if I'm driving.
I try not to do that though.
What I do when I'm driving, this is a big one for me, is I turn the phone upside down and I put it over there.
I don't have it near me.
tom papa
When you're driving.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's too creepy.
It's like too many people are fucking driving and not paying attention and they crash into each other.
tom papa
I know, it's the worst.
joe rogan
It's way too common.
tom papa
It's so bad.
joe rogan
I fucking, every time I'm on the road and I see someone weaving in and out of traffic, I see the light of their phone shining in their eyes and they're trying to text while they're driving.
tom papa
It's so dangerous.
I know.
And you know, my daughter is, my older one is 14, which means she can get a permit next year.
Like 15 and a half.
joe rogan
Does she text?
tom papa
She's not crazy phone.
She's like a normal kid, but she's not really obsessed with it.
But it scares the hell out of me.
joe rogan
Once they start getting in relationships.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
When things get so crazy, all the energy involved in relationships for young kids.
You think about a young kid, they go from being 11...
Where, hopefully, there's no fucking at all.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
To 15, where that's all you're thinking of.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Just in, you know, 40-something months.
unidentified
It's nothing.
tom papa
And then he doesn't call you or like you or there's a problem and you're waiting, you're checking your phone every two seconds to see the response.
unidentified
I want to die.
tom papa
And now you're driving to go pick up milk for your mom.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
And you hear a ding.
joe rogan
And you reach over to check it, boom, hit a tree.
tom papa
I can't.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
My neck just started hurting again.
joe rogan
Oh, your arm's numb.
Massive, massive fucking hormones raging through your body, telling you to get pregnant, telling you to get someone pregnant.
tom papa
Could you imagine if we had phones when we were going through puberty?
Could you imagine?
joe rogan
All the dick pics that you would have of you out there.
tom papa
Oh my God, the begging, the begging of girls, just show me something, do something.
joe rogan
Please, take a picture of it.
unidentified
Please.
tom papa
My God.
We'd be out of, I don't know.
joe rogan
But on the other hand, you'd be wiser because you'd be able to Google things.
I mean, how many bullshitters did we know growing up that just would lie and make stories up?
tom papa
Oh my god, yeah.
joe rogan
Those people were out of business.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
But not necessarily.
Have you been paying attention to fake news?
tom papa
Yeah, big time.
joe rogan
All the fake news stories?
tom papa
Big time.
joe rogan
It's crazy.
I didn't realize until this Pizzagate thing, which by the way, it's a very controversial what's fake and what's not fake about Pizzagate, because Pizzagate is connected to that John Podesta guy.
Who is a very controversial character, who's still friends with that Dennis Hastert guy, who was the Speaker of the House, who's absolutely a pedophile.
Absolutely a confirmed serial pedophile.
tom papa
Admitted.
joe rogan
Yeah, admitted.
So, the fact that that guy's friends with that.
And then, also, Andrew Breitbart, apparently, in 2011, Made a tweet about Podesta being a guy who helps people who fuck kids.
He made this crazy tweet about him in 2011, which five years later, after Breitbart is dead, it's very interesting to read that tweet and say, well, what did he know about Podesta before all this spirit cooking and all this craziness came out with the Hillary campaign?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
He fucking knew something.
You know, and this is Yeah, pull up the tweet.
This is from 2011. Now, this was, of course, when Hastert was about to get convicted.
So he's been friends with Hastert forever.
Hastert, by the way, was the fucking Speaker of the House.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
He had been fucking kids for years So anybody who doesn't think that it can reach you could be a pedophile and cover it up and reach high levels of government You are mistaken or it is possible Penn State football program exactly, but that guy obviously wasn't government But yeah, but did work with a lot.
I mean he had a goddamn charity Yeah, a lot of people trust Sandusky would would work with young kids and take them on the road and fuck them and Ay yi yi.
Monster.
tom papa
Ay yi yi.
joe rogan
But the point is like...
tom papa
Fake news?
joe rogan
This Podesta thing and this...
I mean, who knows what's real and what's not real is my point.
It's because like this fake news thing is what people are calling Pizzagate.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
This whole...
This comet pizza thing.
So some guy walked into that comet ping pong place...
Yesterday with a loaded assault rifle and an AR and fucking shot around in the ground in the building, pointed a gun at the employee and demanded to know where the sex dungeons were.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, because he was convinced that there are fucking kids in this place.
tom papa
Oh my god.
Here's the thing with the fake news.
I had this discussion with my daughter, actually.
And we were talking about how are we just entering an era where you're never going to know what's real and what's not.
Things are going to be so sophisticated on both sides that you're never going to be able to parse it.
And she had a great point.
She said, you know, when we do papers at school...
And my wife, who's in college now, when they do papers for school, they have to, because of the internet and because there's so much stuff, you have to provide the sources for where your information is coming from when you're writing these papers.
You have to have a legitimate source attached to any of the facts that you're putting in there so that they know that you did the research and stuff.
Point being, There will always be really legitimate news sources where you can cite that people agree that this is a place where it's been filtered.
Well, not filtered, but it comes from a newsworthy source.
You can't just spew stuff and just put, you know...
Such and such website and have that pass in an academic setting.
You know what I mean?
That little way of parsing the truth will probably end up being the way that we all parse the truth.
joe rogan
I agree with you to a certain extent.
I think that legitimate studies and things that were done by legitimate researchers where they have peer-reviewed studies and everything's been vetted out, but news sources are so suspect now.
What we saw from this past election, whether you support Trump or whether you support Hillary, support anybody, What I saw from this election is very little unbiased truth.
What I saw was a lot of whether it's pro-Hillary or anti-Hillary, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, I saw a lot of editorial influence.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you saw that on television.
You saw that in the New York Times.
You saw that in the Washington Post.
You saw that in what we would think of as legitimate news sources without bias.
They're not.
They're just not anymore.
And there's certain people that felt like as a person with their own point of view and perspective and thoughts on the burden that one carries by having a voice, that it's imperative that they get out what they believe about a certain candidate, especially with Trump.
tom papa
It could be slanted, but there still is did this thing happen or not happen?
You know what I mean?
Did that tax return really...
Was that information, like, did we all see it?
You know what I mean?
You can slant things, and, you know, Fox can push their things.
joe rogan
That's dangerous.
Even that's dangerous, because you can take one aspect of it and completely ride it into the ground.
And make it look like, here's one thing.
They kept harping on about all these conspiracy theories about Hillary being ill.
Bullshit!
She falls asleep while she's standing up.
That's ill.
She's not healthy.
That was editorial influence on the fact of her being an old lady who fell down in 2012 and got brain damaged, cracked her head open, was literally, according to Bill Clinton, was convalescing for six months.
This is his perspective on it.
He said she was in real bad shape, and it took her six months to get out of it.
There was the WikiLeaks emails that showed that she had a seizure in 2015. During the presidential campaign, she's at that 9-11 memorial.
She passes out, and all those six security people scoop in and catch her because they were quick, like it's fucking happened before.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
This is not an unusual occurrence, I don't think.
I think they did a real good job of covering it up, but there were so many media stories that were talking about the conspiracy theory of her being ill, or that there was so many people were latching on to her health, and obviously she showed in that debate that her health was fine.
Well, first of all, she's on drugs.
They put her on modafinil.
That was another thing that was listed.
In the WikiLeaks, she's taking Provigil.
She's taking this stimulant that they give to fighter pilots to keep them from falling asleep.
It's a drug for people that have narcolepsy.
She's on this.
So yeah, that's probably why she looks stimulated.
She's artificially propped up.
So this, to me, was a big sticking point.
I'm not anti-Hillary.
I'm anti a lot of things she stands for, but I'm not pro-Trump.
I watched that and I was like, well, you're not being honest with me.
You're not supposed to fall asleep while you're standing up.
If you fall asleep while you're standing up, there's a real problem.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you shouldn't be doing anything.
You should be in bed to find out what's wrong with you.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
You definitely shouldn't be running the world.
tom papa
Right.
Just propping you up.
I really felt like every time you'd see her walking out towards the podium that the biggest worry of hers was not tipping over.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Did you see her fall in the jet when she got to the top stairs of the jet and she tipped forward and went fucking on camera?
Did you ever see that, Jamie?
tom papa
I never saw that.
joe rogan
Pull that video up.
tom papa
She can't walk.
And why was Trump sniffling so much?
joe rogan
She probably had a little bit of a cold.
The fucking guy was working all the time.
I don't know.
Maybe he does coke.
tom papa
Are you worried about sessions coming in and ending all of our pot fun?
joe rogan
First of all, she can't walk without holding onto that railing.
She's clutching that thing.
tom papa
Well, that's hard for everybody.
joe rogan
Bullshit.
She gets to the top.
She's slowing down.
Look, she's slowing down.
tom papa
That's a lot of steps.
joe rogan
She's probably all light heaven, headed.
Alright, here we go.
She can't walk, bro.
tom papa
So funny to watch people.
joe rogan
This is not good.
None of this is good.
Fall down.
tom papa
It happens.
joe rogan
Get the fuck out of here.
It doesn't fall like that.
tom papa
Sometimes coming off the stage at the comedy store, I have to make sure my foot's planted.
joe rogan
I turn around and I go like this.
I'm fine.
tom papa
It's hard walking around.
joe rogan
Bullshit.
tom papa
That was a lot of steps.
joe rogan
Nope.
tom papa
That was a lot of steps.
unidentified
My mom couldn't make it.
joe rogan
If you want to run the free world, well your mom shouldn't be president.
tom papa
She's like Hillary's age.
She shouldn't be president.
joe rogan
I think physical health is something that you should take into consideration when you have an unbelievably stressful job that looks like it drains you like a vampire sucking onto your neck.
tom papa
I couldn't believe both of them were still standing at the end.
I mean, it was so...
When you think about the travel and the speeches and the pressure...
unidentified
Grueling.
tom papa
Both of them.
I mean, really.
That was...
He seemed fine.
Yeah.
joe rogan
He seemed fine.
tom papa
He did.
When he gave that last one at 1.30 in the morning in Michigan or whatever it was.
joe rogan
He did like six that day.
tom papa
And he's just like...
He just kept going.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
I mean, I don't know what he's taking.
All on fast food.
joe rogan
Yeah.
unidentified
He's eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, fucking taco bowls.
tom papa
Taco bowls.
joe rogan
I remember that picture when he was eating the taco bowl and he goes, I love Hispanics.
I'm like, what in the fuck is this life?
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
He says, I love Hispanics.
He's eating a taco bowl in the office where he fucking runs his empire.
I'm like, this is madness.
That picture.
Look at that.
tom papa
Oh, God.
joe rogan
Look at that.
The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill.
I love Hispanics.
That is so crazy.
tom papa
It's so crazy.
The whole thing is insane.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, he didn't even eat that.
He pushed that aside and they brought him a fucking ribeye.
tom papa
Sessions is going to come in and end this pot fun for the nation.
joe rogan
Do you really think so?
tom papa
That's what they're saying.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's not what they're saying.
Yeah, it is.
No, no, no.
I've read all the articles.
It's all speculation.
And it's based on his past statements.
tom papa
I think you read the fake ones.
joe rogan
Maybe.
unidentified
Go ahead.
joe rogan
It's based on his past statements about marijuana not being for good people and also based on what he could potentially do as the Attorney General.
However, Trump has said that he's going to leave it up to the states.
I think that Trump is a populist, and I think that the last thing Trump wants is people, more people, especially the potheads, Rallying against him and saying this is preposterous.
If you look at the actual fear that people have about marijuana versus the physical effects of marijuana versus the potential revenue gained by these states, look at what's happening in Colorado.
Real estate sales are up 14%.
Drunk driving is down to the lowest rate it has in decades.
Violent crime is at the lowest rate it's been in a long time.
There's so many positive benefits to the marijuana legalization movement.
tom papa
It's amazing.
Isn't it amazing when you walk through Denver with the change?
joe rogan
Prosperous.
tom papa
Oh my god.
joe rogan
It's amazing.
tom papa
I went to one of the shops when I was performing there last month.
And I just wanted to go do it.
I wasn't even looking to get high.
I just wanted to walk in and buy something legit and walk out and just see what that was like.
joe rogan
How often do you get high?
tom papa
Very rarely now.
joe rogan
How about right now?
Want to do one?
tom papa
I do, but I can't.
joe rogan
Can't?
What are you going to do?
tom papa
I got to pick up kids.
I do it so infrequently that if I do it, my day's shot.
joe rogan
Well, you know how we were talking about difficult things that make life easier?
One of the difficult things I like to do is edibles.
tom papa
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
In your special, you actually talked about the gummy bears.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
And I bought gummy bears when I was there.
This is how out of it I am now.
Like, I used to do it every day, you know, and now I haven't for, like, a decade.
I'm so out of it now that I got back to my room with the gummy bears and was, like, scared.
joe rogan
You should be.
tom papa
I don't know.
How much do I take?
That's the whole point, though.
You're supposed to be scared.
I just want to eat a little bit and then...
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
I really believe that they're running an ultramarathon or something.
You should be scared when you take those first couple steps.
Like, Jesus, what am I getting myself into?
tom papa
Yeah, but it's...
I don't know.
I'm old school, I guess.
I like to see it and crumble it and puff it and know exactly what I'm doing.
joe rogan
That's nice, too, but it's a different thing than the eating it.
tom papa
Why do you like the eating it?
joe rogan
Because it's scary.
tom papa
Oh, for that reason?
joe rogan
Yeah, I like the journey.
I like it.
It makes me feel super vulnerable, and it makes me feel really in tune with any weird distractions I might have in my psyche, any weird bumps in the night that are haunting the back of my brain.
It just drags them out, like, get out here in the front!
Pulls them in, put the spotlight on them, click!
Tell me what's wrong.
You're gonna die.
Everybody dies.
tom papa
I just want to get high and watch Narcos.
joe rogan
That too.
I like that too.
tom papa
Really?
So you do it, literally, you're not joking.
joe rogan
No, no, I'm dead serious.
tom papa
It's the little bit of the unknown, almost trippy kind of anxiety.
Like when you eat mushrooms or something and you're like, okay, what's gonna come out?
Where are we headed?
joe rogan
Well, that's why I like the sensory deprivation tank, too, because you can't run from your thoughts.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
It traps you with your thoughts, and you have to confront them.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
It's what I call the hard work.
Like, doing the hard work, the mental hard work.
One of the things I've tried to pride myself in, at least...
I shouldn't say...
One of the things I've done as an exercise and as...
I've done it...
Like, as a discipline, is try to constantly and consistently improve everything I do.
Whatever I'm doing, whether it's a martial art thing or a comedy thing.
And I feel like your personality is in that, too.
And even podcasting is in that.
Like, anything that you're doing, you just try to do better.
I don't always succeed, but there's a journey and a process along the way.
And what I've found is the hard work is the best way for me to really judge my progress and all those things, because I'm forced to be alone with my thoughts and to be...
At least the way I approach it.
I try to be as objective as possible.
I'm my number one biggest critic.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
I fucking hate everything I do.
tom papa
Yeah, me too.
joe rogan
That's why you're good.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
When you sit alone with your thoughts and you think about everything you do and you can pick it apart and find problems with it, that's the hard work.
tom papa
Yeah, that's a big thing.
And, you know, smoking lets you come in the other door and take a look at what you thought was okay.
You know what I mean?
You think, like, you've got the structure and you think you're being hard on yourself, and then you come in the back door and you're like, oh, maybe I'm a little hacky over here.
joe rogan
Or you can take some of this and go through the fucking roof like an asteroid.
Fuck the door.
You don't want the door.
I got a lot of stuff in here, buddy.
tom papa
What was funny was...
joe rogan
One of these will put you on the moon.
tom papa
What's that?
joe rogan
Chocolate.
tom papa
Oh jeez.
joe rogan
You can smell the pot through the wrapper.
tom papa
I need to know what I'm getting into.
joe rogan
You're getting into death.
Death and just the inevitability.
tom papa
The only negative I could see from the...
joe rogan
These are pills.
Do you see pills?
Want some pills?
tom papa
Let me see what they look like.
The only negative I could see when walking around Denver was there's a lot of scuzzy skate pothead kids that are laying on the street.
joe rogan
You're always gonna get that.
tom papa
Yeah, but it's a little different.
joe rogan
Listen, that's just part of the problem.
tom papa
It's, you know, you always get, yeah, there's always the 14 caps.
joe rogan
That's always gonna be the case.
tom papa
It was funny coming out with my bag, like, filled with stuff, and not being afraid of the cops who just waved to me, but then the potheads who want it.
joe rogan
I'm sorry.
tom papa
Jeez, I gotta, I got stuff to do.
You'll be fine.
joe rogan
Secondhand smoke barely does anything.
tom papa
I'm like your pet dog.
joe rogan
I got my dog so high once.
I had a rescue dog, and she was a big sweetie.
I loved her.
She had a rough life before I got her.
When I got her, she had mange.
tom papa
Oh, man.
joe rogan
I got her because someone who I knew had rescued her that day.
And it was in L.A. And they had found her eating out of a garbage can.
And she was all fucked up.
And like mangy.
And they contacted me.
And they said, hey, just a long shot.
Do you want to adopt a dog?
Because I had a dog.
And I'm like, well, you know, probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have my dog get a companion.
I go, you know, what's the deal?
And then they told me.
And I'm like, oh, no.
Like, wow, that's a lot to take on.
And I checked her out.
tom papa
Was she older?
joe rogan
She had had babies, for sure, because her nipples were extended.
We didn't really know how old she was, but she was probably in the neighborhood of two or three, but she was the sweetest dog ever.
She was so sweet.
tom papa
What kind?
joe rogan
She was a pit bull.
But she had a rough life.
It was a rough life.
And when I had her in my house, Joey Diaz and I, we went into my office, and she would come in the office and hang out with me.
And we did bong hit after bong hit, and this poor dog got hotboxed.
tom papa
Oh no.
joe rogan
And we couldn't figure out what was going on because she was freaking out.
unidentified
Oh no.
joe rogan
She was freaking out and she was like hiding under desks.
Like she would run, she would run across the room and then just get under the desk.
Poor girl.
Like it's tucked in and we're like, oh my god she's high.
The poor dog's high.
unidentified
That's brutal.
joe rogan
You can get that second hand.
tom papa
I hope you're right.
You know what's the most interesting thing watching this whole Trump thing?
I hope you're right about Sessions.
It's going to be really interesting.
I feel like we're watching one of those movies where the regular guy becomes president and he comes in like, well, just fix the problem.
Just take the taxes and fix the bridge.
That's how it works.
And these practical things that you could do.
Like, let's just talk to Taiwan and see if maybe they'll be okay.
And it's like, will this work?
Or do you...
Or is the way of operating so enmeshed in policy and the way that things were, do you need that structure to actually steer the ship?
You know what I mean?
This is really kind of free form.
It really is.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think you're right.
And I think in that sense, that's probably the most positive aspect of this guy being president is that we really will find out.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
It might be the only way we find out.
tom papa
We're gonna find out.
joe rogan
We're gonna really find out.
tom papa
We're gonna find out.
joe rogan
And also, he's gonna fucking tell us.
Like, if there's some shit is funky behind the scenes, you know, like...
There's a lot of talk online about Trump lying in his tweets about fake votes.
You know, like fake votes cost him the popular vote.
Sometimes he just says shit.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
And I don't know if he is doing it as a strategy.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
It's also possible that he doesn't really believe it, but that he knows that if he puts it out there, people are going to repeat it.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
There was an article recently that I saw.
I forget what the magazine was.
Jamie, maybe you can find it.
But it was about a guy who writes the fake news.
Uh-huh.
They track this dude down and he just writes fake stories.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Like about George Soros paying protesters 350 bucks an hour to protest against Trump.
They just make stuff up.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And they asked him why he did it and what he said was he said essentially he started it out as like an exercise sort of to prove how gullible these alt-right folks could be and that some of them at least.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Some of them would just see things and without looking into it at all they would just start tweeting it.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And he was right.
tom papa
He was right.
joe rogan
But he started making a lot of money.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
These guys are making like $10,000 a month writing fake stories.
tom papa
Off of clicks, right?
All off of clicks.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Then you're writing fake stories now.
tom papa
Of course.
joe rogan
Are you going to pass that up?
tom papa
Yeah, no.
joe rogan
No, you're going to just write fake stories now.
So what you were saying earlier about us entering into an era where you can't really tell what's true or not true...
That's why it's so imperative that someone like the Washington Post or like the New York Times cannot be biased in any way.
You have to, as clearly as you can, emphasize the facts of every story.
Even if you feel like you have an obligation to show how horrible a person President Trump is, just to let people know, this guy can't get in the office.
As soon as you start doing that, you embolden the people who oppose you.
It's very dangerous for ideas in general because it's so hard.
I don't do it, but it's so hard for anybody to completely be unbiased and establish just the facts, even when they're disturbing and uncomfortable.
They don't like that.
People don't like that.
tom papa
You ever watch PBS News?
joe rogan
Sure.
tom papa
The News Hour?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
That's probably as pure as you can get.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Right?
I mean, that's as purely as factual as we can put it out there.
It doesn't mirror a lot of anything else.
CNN, MSNBC, all of it.
It's Fox, it's all.
That PBS is just...
It feels like it's the last place where grown-ups work.
joe rogan
This person makes $10,000 a month writing fake news.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is...
tom papa
Just make stuff up.
joe rogan
What is the website, Jamie?
jamie vernon
This one was from Market Watch.
There's also an NPR story.
joe rogan
I think the Market Watch is the one that I read.
I think that's the...
tom papa
One of the problems with the fake news, too, is I have a guy that drives me to the airport all the time.
And he's like, no, I saw George Soros is paying the people to protest.
And my wife, I saw it on Facebook.
And my wife said, no, that's not a story.
And he said, but look, now it's on CNN. They're talking about the same story.
So it is true.
The problem is all these people editing these news organizations, they're running with the story.
They're being tricked by the fake news to begin with.
joe rogan
Wow.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ.
tom papa
I know.
It's very slippery.
jamie vernon
Did you see the fake porn going on?
CNN aired 30 minutes of fake porn during Anthony Bourdain's show at Thanksgiving night.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's a total fake story.
jamie vernon
Everyone posted it, that it was real.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, that was something somebody just thought it'd be funny.
Did he even have a Photoshop screenshot or something like that?
Yeah.
That's genius.
tom papa
I mean, it's, you know, the scary thing is that's how wars start, right?
That's how Vietnam started.
joe rogan
When they're getting a little carried away.
tom papa
When they created this fake stories.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Iraq.
Same stuff.
You can manipulate stuff.
You can create big events off of that.
joe rogan
Well, here, obviously, we don't know what really has gone on that led to people writing that Pizzagate stuff.
I didn't investigate it enough to know if it's bullshit or not.
I just didn't look into it enough, right?
To be honest.
That said, what if it was bullshit, and if it is bullshit, and this guy thought it was real, and he goes in and what if he shot somebody?
At what point is there some sort of responsibility as a culture?
If someone's inciting hate towards a very specific establishment that really hasn't done anything wrong, that's kind of a criminal act, right?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
In a way.
If you pick a donut shop, Yum Yum Donuts, and you decide Yum Yum Donuts is where the elites go to fuck kids.
You just make all that up.
And then people show up at Yum Yum Donuts and just start shooting people because you won't tell them where you're fucking the kids.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
That gets, again, this is just if it's a fake story.
I don't know shit.
I'm just going to be real clear about that.
I literally have, there's so much, and you can't, whoa, you should look into it.
Nope, I shouldn't.
If you want to, you go ahead.
You cannot be responsible for every fucking story that's in the news today.
You will lose your mind.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And I'm trying to do less and less of that in my life.
But my point is, we know for a fact there's a lot of fake stories.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
We also know for a fact there's a lot of creeps.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
A lot of scary, sketchy people that are in positions of power, and they have been forever, and they're starting to get exposed more than they ever have been before.
So I don't know what the fuck the truth is.
tom papa
That's kind of the interesting thing.
It's the good and bad of the time that we live in.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah.
tom papa
Everything can be exposed now, which is great.
You can expose people being brutal to another group.
You can expose crimes by just recording it on your phone.
You can't get away with stuff anymore, because everyone's on video all the time.
So in that way, the truth has never been more clear.
But then you have this manipulation of that truth in certain instances where you don't have that video proof.
Right?
I mean, it's very conflicting.
joe rogan
Well, it's what we were talking about earlier when we were saying about fake stories, that we're getting to this weird era where you can't tell whether or not a story is true or not.
Like, it gets real sketchy.
It gets real strange.
I think...
There's going to be, this is just pure speculation, pure bro science.
tom papa
Nice.
joe rogan
I'm giving you a bro science warning.
tom papa
It's my favorite kind.
It's the only kind I understand.
joe rogan
I think, now they're doing these things where they're able to transmit words from person to person through the internet, brain to brain.
Like somehow or another, I can't, I'm not going to do a good job explaining it.
But they've been able to essentially put a word in your head and then do it accurately from a long distance away through some sort of electrical impulse or something that they blast into your head.
But right now it's like a word, a word.
I think it's entirely possible within our lifetime that one day someone is gonna figure out how if you can do that if you could transmit something from brain to brain like that through the internet through some sort of an interface they're gonna figure out how to How to broadcast intention so instead of a language They're gonna figure out how to broadcast what the feeling is behind you thinking something.
Like if I say, hey, Tom Papa has a comedy special on Epix this Friday night.
You should definitely see it.
He's fucking hilarious.
He's a great guy.
And I really want you guys to check that out.
There's a feeling that comes with that.
Feeling like, you know, I really love you.
You're a great guy.
You're hilarious.
I want your special to kick ass.
So that's like an intention and that intention is in some way trapped inside a language.
It's trapped inside like language And civilization and all the structures that we've created around it.
But if you could somehow remove the language and just, what is the intention behind I love you?
What's the intention behind I would like to paint something beautiful?
What is it outside of the words that you would use to describe it in a sentence?
If they could figure out some sort of maybe icon-based or some geometric pattern-based language that you can express.
Yeah, and we would have to learn that language.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
But it would be an intention-based language.
It wouldn't matter what your language is, whether you speak German or French.
tom papa
It's a little like Minority Report.
Then they will say...
Take that you had this intention to kill someone and they come and arrest you before it happens.
joe rogan
Well, I just feel like everything that's happening in the brain, right?
It's all trapped in the brain and then gets expressed through either the fingers or through the mouth, right?
Or through the body, right?
But these are all these ideas are rolling around inside the body and then they get expressed through something.
What if there's a way to get right to them?
Where you don't need to do the double birds.
You can express that through the actual things that are going on in between your ears.
tom papa
It'll change stand-up for sure.
joe rogan
It'll be over for us.
We'll be like a blockbuster video of art forms.
People will still want songs.
Songs will always be cool.
When you can read minds, no one wants to hear your stupid jokes.
tom papa
Yeah, your stupid jokes.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if...
joe rogan
Sounds like total stoner science right there.
tom papa
Yeah, that's definitely a long way off.
joe rogan
No, there's someone right now writing this down.
This is this dude.
He's on a spectrum.
tom papa
Yeah, I can do it.
joe rogan
He's ambitious.
He's got an idea.
tom papa
You can make it true.
joe rogan
Well, if you have those HTC Vive headsets on, have you ever put those things on yet?
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
Jesus Christ, they're a game changer.
tom papa
You mean the virtual reality stuff?
joe rogan
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a couple different ones now.
There's Oculus Rift.
I don't know the Samsung, but the HTC is one.
Samsung has one that you slide right into your phone, right?
You can slide a phone into it.
tom papa
Oh, you slide your phone into the thing?
joe rogan
Yeah, you have like a goggle.
The Google Pixel is that, too.
tom papa
It looks like a Viewmaster.
Right?
joe rogan
Yeah, and you slide it in.
tom papa
I did that with the New York Times had one.
They sent like a cardboard one and you slide it in and all of a sudden you're with the refugees in Syria walking down the street.
unidentified
Yeah.
tom papa
You're looking around you and there's people behind you and in front of you.
joe rogan
Fucking bizarre.
tom papa
Yeah, it looks pretty intense.
joe rogan
Well, they can do that now.
The processing power of phones is pretty good.
The crazy thing is you take a regular smartphone and it's not bad, but it's not as good as the high-end ones.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
And we're in an infancy of this stuff.
Most people don't even know what it is when you bring it up.
tom papa
Yeah, it's coming.
joe rogan
Dude, Duncan has one where you're in this underwater environment and a whale comes up to say hi to you.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
And you're like, holy shit!
There's a fucking whale in front of me!
You're like looking at the whale's eye.
You're like, oh, this is so weird.
Because you really feel like you're at the bottom of the ocean.
And these things swim overhead.
You watch them.
tom papa
Holy cow.
joe rogan
Oh my god, it's a mindfuck.
tom papa
So you could walk in, sit in a chair and watch a stand-up show.
You could record your special.
100%.
joe rogan
100%.
tom papa
One aspect of doing your special would be releasing it that way.
Right?
joe rogan
That's a great idea.
tom papa
I'm sure Kevin Hart's already done it.
joe rogan
He's probably done it in a football field with a jet pack.
tom papa
With a whale that comes through the middle.
joe rogan
Remember when Cat Williams had a lion on stage?
Did you ever see that?
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah, Cat Williams.
Thank you for being alive.
tom papa
He's the best.
joe rogan
Thank you for being alive.
tom papa
That guy makes me laugh so hard.
joe rogan
He's fucking funny.
tom papa
Oh, so funny.
joe rogan
I feel like because he's so crazy, people kind of forget how funny he is.
tom papa
Oh my god.
His early stuff, like going after Michael Jackson and stuff.
joe rogan
Oh, he's so good.
tom papa
So good.
joe rogan
So good.
He's funny, man.
tom papa
Pure, original, funny as hell.
joe rogan
Wild motherfucker.
tom papa
Yeah, that guy's living a life.
That guy's not worried about back pain.
He doesn't have responsibility of...
He's not worried about getting his kids to school.
He's just being cat.
joe rogan
He's getting in fistfights with 17-year-olds and losing.
tom papa
That's right in the yard.
joe rogan
That kid beat his ass.
That kid flipped him around, took his back.
He's like super lucky that kid didn't give him brain damage.
tom papa
I love how everybody else is realizing, wait, I think that's Cat.
joe rogan
Yeah, Cat Williams is getting in a goddamn street fight with a young kid.
tom papa
That was hilarious.
joe rogan
He sucker punched the kid.
tom papa
Something tells me Cat's not sitting down with that notebook every morning.
Like, I can't.
I have to do this.
unidentified
Maybe.
tom papa
He seems like one of those guys that just flies.
joe rogan
I feel like he also, like, maybe, I think he's a little smarter than people give him credit for.
And I think it's entirely possible that he might, in some sort of a weird, whether it's conscious or subconscious way, put himself in these horrible situations so he has funny shit to talk about.
tom papa
I don't know.
My instinct is he just ends up in those things, and that's the beauty that comes out the end.
joe rogan
You might be right.
tom papa
I don't think he's as calculated.
joe rogan
You might be right.
It might be a little bit of both things.
tom papa
Yeah, it could be.
joe rogan
See, the thing is, he's very smart, man.
unidentified
Oh, of course.
joe rogan
He's calculated.
tom papa
You can't be that funny and not be smart.
joe rogan
He said something that I was like, oh, yeah.
Like, I was listening to this video.
It was him in the backseat of a limo.
And he's driving around.
And they were talking about before he goes on stage.
And one of the things that he said was that he doesn't eat anything.
He's like, I don't eat.
He goes, you know, I don't want to be full when I'm on stage.
You don't want to feel like that.
You're better off being hungry.
You don't want to be slowed down by food.
I'm like, that's a great idea.
I know that, but yet I would still violate that if I was hungry.
If I had a show at 8 o'clock and I was kind of hungry at 7, I'll eat a fucking cheeseburger.
tom papa
You would?
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
I would drink a milkshake.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, for the longest time.
I would just eat whatever the fuck I wanted to.
tom papa
Really?
I could never do that.
joe rogan
But then I watched that Cat Williams thing and I went, you know what?
He's right.
You really shouldn't eat before you go on stage.
You can always have a little bit in between shows, but when you have a meal, you go down a notch.
You just slow down a little bit.
tom papa
Yeah, absolutely.
joe rogan
You might be able to power through.
tom papa
No, if I'm in trouble, the hardest part about being on the road is when do you eat?
I really feel like the timing of when you eat and when you're going to perform and all that stuff.
So if I get past the 4 o'clock, like if I eat late, early in the afternoon, and then I'm getting too close to the show, it's not enough for a meal, then I'll try and protein bar it to get me through the show.
Something light that's, you know, I'm not going to be up there digesting.
I remember Jim Carrey, there was in some interview...
The guy who directed him in, like, Ace Ventura or something, they said, get all of his stuff before lunch, because once he eats, he's a different guy.
Like, that hyper, hilarious Jim Carrey, you gotta get that in the morning, because once he starts eating, it's a different guy.
joe rogan
No shit.
tom papa
Yeah.
It makes sense, right?
I mean, you get like, ugh, I just want a nap.
joe rogan
Yeah, you can't be like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.
tom papa
You can't be pulling your ass cheeks apart.
joe rogan
You think about how over the top that fucking movie was.
He was so over the top.
Like he took over the top to a new place.
tom papa
A whole nother place.
joe rogan
You know, like, people who would say, like, you know, like, physical comedy doesn't really work.
Like, maybe if you half-ass it.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
But if you go balls out like that guy does, you tell me that's not hilarious?
unidentified
Hilarious!
joe rogan
Like, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, to this day, I'll watch that, and it's fucking hilarious.
tom papa
Just hiking his pants up is hilarious.
You know what I mean?
unidentified
It's just like, what an absurd human being he's creating.
tom papa
Right, get the camera on this guy with his facial expressions and running around.
joe rogan
I mean, he created this incredibly bizarre character.
You're like, what the fuck am I watching?
But it was so over the top.
tom papa
So funny.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's hilarious.
tom papa
When I was in high school, I would imitate his imitations.
Remember when he had that set where he was doing like on Golden Pond?
He was like, strawberries?
I'm not eating strawberries.
He did the whole Golden Pond.
He did all these great impressions.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah.
He could do a lot of impressions.
tom papa
That's how I would try and impress girls, doing his impressions.
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's a fucking super talented guy.
tom papa
Yeah, really talented.
Just the energy, the pure energy.
And he changed his act right with Rodney.
I think he was opening for Rodney and he was doing kind of straight stand-up and then said he wanted to go this new direction and start doing these characters and voices and impressions.
And Rodney kind of encouraged him to go for it.
Like, you can bomb on my show.
I don't care.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
tom papa
You can bomb.
I don't care.
Get out there.
joe rogan
He's a bad motherfucker.
tom papa
Yeah.
He was a painter.
joe rogan
He was on a movie set once, and a friend of mine was working on the set, and he didn't like his performance on a take.
He was just like, fuck.
He didn't feel like it was up to his standards or something like that.
So to burn off energy, he just smashed his fucking car.
It was a car that was there, like one of the production cars.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
He just smashed it.
tom papa
Like with a bat?
joe rogan
I don't remember what he hit it with.
I don't remember what they said.
He picked something up and started whacking this fucking car.
This is Jim Carrey when he's at the top of the heap.
Just let him wreck the car.
He just wanted to get some energy out.
Just fucking, fucking, fuck!
Just smash, smash, smash!
Alright, we're back.
And then he went and did the scene, and they're like, holy shit, that must have been hilarious.
tom papa
That's great.
Do you sometimes think that maybe you should be crazier as a comedian?
joe rogan
Oh yeah, I know that feeling.
I know exactly what you're saying.
I know where you're going with that.
tom papa
Right?
joe rogan
That if you were crazy, you'd be funnier.
tom papa
Right, like if you're a completely reckless, crazy person.
If you were more cat.
I always hear stories like they had to get the guy to the show.
unidentified
I was like, what?
tom papa
Get the guy to the show?
I was there a half hour early going through my notes.
I'm like, I'm a square.
joe rogan
You know, when I was young, I did meditate on purpose.
I stopped meditating for a long time because I literally thought, like when I was 21 and 22, I fucking sucked.
I sucked.
I mean, I just wasn't very good.
tom papa
No, we never are, but we got energy.
joe rogan
Yeah, but I thought at the time that if I was moving toward enlightenment, like if I was meditating, the reason why I was meditating, like when I was competing, I would meditate because I would try to move towards a place of balance.
But then as a comedian, I was like, you probably shouldn't be balanced.
Because the funny shit comes from the people like Richard Pryor, who had all these problems and was kind of crazy.
And Kinnison, it was just crazy.
Those are my heroes.
tom papa
Yeah, I know.
But, you know, they're also not here anymore.
joe rogan
Hicks, same thing.
Hicks, same thing, you know?
tom papa
Yeah.
There's great people that are still around.
joe rogan
Fuck yeah.
I think the best guys.
I really do.
I think right now between Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, Joey Diaz.
I mean, there's...
Tom Papa.
Friday Night on Epics.
Friday Night.
tom papa
I was wondering when my name was going to come up in that list.
joe rogan
Right there.
I mean, I think this is like, honestly...
I mean, you can keep going.
There's a ton of really, really funny comedians right now.
tom papa
Yeah, and none of them are really, like, super reckless with their life.
joe rogan
No, Louie's not at all.
Burr's not even a little bit.
No, Burr's super disciplined.
Smart guy.
Very hard worker.
Very disciplined.
tom papa
Learning how to fly a helicopter.
joe rogan
Knows how.
tom papa
He's got a license.
unidentified
Cooks.
joe rogan
He makes his own pie crust.
Like literally, he uses like shortening and stuff.
tom papa
I brought him one of my sourdough breads.
I brought him and his wife really wanted me to bring over his bread, my bread.
So I went and brought it over and gave it to her.
Of course, they loved it because it's amazing.
And right before Thanksgiving, I think it was right before Thanksgiving.
Yeah, maybe or that weekend.
He texted me and he's like, dude, can I, I got a bread I want to drop off.
And he made this traditional kind of like a cinnamony apple kind of a bread.
joe rogan
Are you the bread testing guy in the Canadian world?
tom papa
I think he was like, you got bread, I got bread.
I make bread too.
And he brought it over to my house after a set at the store and dropped it off.
It was a little raw inside.
He had a problem with his oven.
It wasn't a big deal.
But it was, yeah, he knows how to bake.
joe rogan
That's amazing.
I love how you gave him the thumbs up.
You're like, all right.
tom papa
I'm like, alright, I'll try it out.
joe rogan
I'll accept this.
tom papa
I think he was a little pissed off that his wife liked my bread so much.
joe rogan
There's a feeling of expertise that people have when you know they really know something.
When you talk about bread, like you just took on right there where you're describing his bread, like, ah, not bad.
You have an air of expertise when it comes to the area of bread.
tom papa
Yeah.
You do.
I'm in deep.
I'm in deep.
Eilid, when I see you talk about doing your bow and arrow thing, that's what bread is for me.
It's this meditative small thing, small moves to try and get better.
I'm completely, the rest of the world is out there, and I am in here working on this, figuring this mystery out.
joe rogan
When it comes to like bow and arrow stuff, I'm like a good blue belt.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
I'm not very...
tom papa
There's bakers that run circles around me, but you're in it just as much as that guy is.
joe rogan
What's amazing about the bow and arrow world, I would say the archery world, is how much there is to know.
Like, you would never believe it.
tom papa
It's endless.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Right?
joe rogan
You would look at it and you'd go, oh, you pull the string back, you aim, you let the arrow go.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
And a lot of people, they think that is what it is.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
But then you get into it and you understand the physics behind these things, the cams and the fucking limbs that pull back on these compound bows and how it's all measured and weighed and balanced.
And Hoyt has to come out with a brand new, better bow every year.
Crazy.
These minor improvements of engineering, these things are getting faster and more powerful, and it's all about figuring out how to execute a shot correctly using your skeleton and holding everything perfect and not having any influence on the flight of the arrow.
It's maddening.
It would take you for a lifetime to master it.
tom papa
And would you?
Could you?
joe rogan
You could.
tom papa
Could you master it?
joe rogan
Could if you got into it.
I think if there's nothing physically wrong with you, I think bow and arrow shooting, archery, is one of the more easy things on your body.
Like in terms of like, you could be really good at it deep into your 40s or 50s.
Right.
tom papa
But what I love about, the reason I ask is the thing I love about this bread thing, what you're talking about with stand-up, it's kind of unknowable.
You can get great at it.
You can be a master.
You can be one of the people that everyone looks at and says, he's one of the guys.
And still, it could be on that night or that moment or that pull, it's out of your reach.
You know what I mean?
I love that idea.
Because you know you have something you can work on for the rest of your life.
joe rogan
Right.
tom papa
You know what I mean?
I'll get calls from Seinfeld telling me he's completely lost with what he's doing with this set.
You know what I mean?
That, to me, is comforting because that's what a craft is.
It's like, I can get really great.
I can work so hard, get really, really, really great, and then have a night where you're just off.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's really no other way that you can...
I mean...
For a guy like Seinfeld that's so successful and has made so many fucking stand-up specials, how many specials does he have?
tom papa
Not that many, actually.
He's actually...
joe rogan
Doesn't he have at least three?
tom papa
Yeah.
unidentified
Four?
tom papa
Yeah, probably three big ones.
joe rogan
So he's at least put together four...
tom papa
But thousands...
I mean, so many...
Late night performances.
joe rogan
Right.
tom papa
I mean, so many.
joe rogan
That's right, that's right.
There's a lot of those, right?
tom papa
Like several a year for 40 years.
joe rogan
And then, in between that, you put in the show, Seinfeld, which probably took almost all of his time.
Like, he wasn't doing that much stand-up while he was doing that, right?
tom papa
In the summers.
He would go tour in the summer.
joe rogan
Yeah, because that's a brutal gig.
Putting together a giant hit sitcom like Seinfeld, that must have been a brutal gig.
tom papa
He talks about it like he went to war or something.
Yeah.
joe rogan
But the point is, that guy, that he has to still go through the same process.
tom papa
The same exact...
I just talked to him this morning, and all we talked about was, how are you writing?
When are you writing?
What are you doing?
When are you writing?
How are you writing?
You doing it late?
Are you doing it early?
I'm doing it here.
I'm trying to get it an hour here.
Even if I sit and there's just an hour...
All that stuff.
unidentified
Wow.
tom papa
Still, 40 years in.
joe rogan
That's awesome.
tom papa
Yeah, it's the best.
That's what all that stuff is.
joe rogan
That's awesome.
tom papa
Yeah.
The only advantage I would say that the bread thing has over the bow and arrow thing is I get to eat it.
joe rogan
That's a good point.
tom papa
You can eat elk, though.
joe rogan
You can.
It takes a lot of work.
If you want to get an elk or anything, it takes a lot of work.
But I guess it takes a lot of work to learn how to bake bread, but it's a different kind of work.
tom papa
It's different, but there's all of this.
I mean, there's a whole other level that I am not even close to of the pH balance, the humidity in the house, the temperature, all of this stuff.
joe rogan
Who's got it dialed in?
Is there like one bread where it's like the...
Like if you wanted to get a bow, you would get a Hoyt.
Is there one bread that has like a...
tom papa
There's so many.
Literally, when I'm on the road, I'll go check out these bakeries and just go see what kind of bread they're making and see who's doing what in this town.
And there's a place in Venice down by here.
joe rogan
Are they the Rolls Royce?
tom papa
Yeah, but they're kind of...
joe rogan
They're the Rolls Royce of bread?
tom papa
Yeah, for this area.
They're the Rolls Royce.
joe rogan
What's the name of the place?
tom papa
It's called Gusto.
I don't know how you pronounce it.
It's J-G-U-S-T-O. Or G-J. It's like Gusto.
I call it Gusto.
joe rogan
Okay.
tom papa
You walk in this place.
It's right by Gold's Gym.
You know where Gold's Gym is down there?
joe rogan
Yep.
tom papa
It's right there, like in this little shabby place.
joe rogan
I worked out there once, bro.
tom papa
I'd imagine.
joe rogan
Yeah, bro.
tom papa
I'd imagine, bro.
joe rogan
Got in there, bro.
tom papa
Was it a good one, bro?
joe rogan
Yeah, bro.
tom papa
Yeah, bro?
joe rogan
Got a good lift in.
tom papa
Nice, bro.
joe rogan
A lot of big dudes there, bro.
tom papa
Big dudes, bro.
You walk over there, there's like this down and dirty, and they make these loaves of bread that are just insane.
I brought that home.
I'm a hero in my family for making...
I bake bread and leave to go on the road and just make sure they have their bread when they're there.
Everybody's very happy.
I brought this loaf home.
My daughter was like, why don't you do this?
Why don't you make it like this?
unidentified
That's dark.
tom papa
I have no idea how to do it.
joe rogan
There it is right there.
Hemp nori whole wheat.
tom papa
Yeah.
unidentified
Wow.
tom papa
Look at that.
Look at that crust.
joe rogan
That looks goddamn good.
tom papa
Yeah.
That is...
joe rogan
Now I get it.
I get it now.
See, that's a piece of art.
tom papa
That's a piece of art.
joe rogan
That's an edible piece of art.
Like, they've crafted it.
It's very appealing on the outside.
It looks very rustic in its form.
Like, they put the little slashes in it when they were baking it, so it has, like, layers to it.
tom papa
I watched this girl.
She was in the back.
You could see them working and doing all their stuff.
And this girl was back there.
She's...
Beating this thing of dough with a pin.
I was like, maybe I could work here for a little while.
Maybe I could just work here for like a couple months and just as an apprentice, like for free.
Let me just figure out what the hell they're doing.
It literally is to a level I don't know what they're doing.
That's all seeds.
joe rogan
It's a seed bread.
unidentified
What is that?
joe rogan
A nine-grain porridge loaf.
tom papa
Yeah, what the hell?
unidentified
Whoa.
tom papa
That's all seeds.
You're putting seeds on it.
joe rogan
Are you not into seeds?
You're an anti-seeds guy?
tom papa
My family doesn't eat seeds.
unidentified
Whoa.
tom papa
My daughters would be like, there's a seed on it.
joe rogan
They don't like it.
What about poppy seed?
How could you not like poppy seed bagels?
tom papa
They're the best.
joe rogan
What is that guy?
He's holding a bunch of them.
tom papa
Look at that guy.
joe rogan
Oh my goodness, that looks good.
tom papa
Look at those.
Oh my god.
joe rogan
We're talking about bread, folks.
tom papa
I don't know if they're changing up the flour or if it's the intensity.
To get that dark, you have to have a really high heat and be on it.
I don't know if my conventional stove could do it.
joe rogan
Yeah, what they're doing is almost like burning it on the outside.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Almost.
tom papa
Almost.
joe rogan
We're at the door of burning it.
tom papa
Almost.
joe rogan
See, it's hard.
The contrast in this photo is hard to tell.
Because we might just be looking at some weird shadows where the loaf in the back looks like it's pretty burnt.
And the one in the front looks burnt.
I'd like to see what it actually looks like in the flesh.
tom papa
Oh, it's so good.
It is dark, which means I don't think it's...
Look at that.
joe rogan
No, let me ask you this.
tom papa
Look how spongy that is.
joe rogan
Oh, that looks really good.
We're looking at the side.
People are like, what the fuck are they looking at?
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
We're looking at the side profile of bread with these little holes in it.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Now, let me ask you this.
tom papa
That's called the crumb.
joe rogan
Butter or no butter?
tom papa
Um...
I don't, uh...
I don't...
joe rogan
I fucking knew it.
You don't use butter.
tom papa
I like butter.
joe rogan
How dare you?
If you like butter, you'd like butter on bread.
Okay, that's where it's its best thing.
tom papa
I know, but there's this other stuff.
joe rogan
It's where butter does its best work.
tom papa
There's this other stuff that's pretty good, too.
joe rogan
It's the only time where butter, you allow it to be cold.
tom papa
Huh?
joe rogan
It's the only time where you allow your butter to be cold.
You spread your butter on a loaf of bread.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's when you don't mind a cold butter.
tom papa
Martha Stewart tell me you shouldn't leave your butter out on the counter.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah?
Tell Martha Stewart you shouldn't fucking cheat on your taxes.
unidentified
Hey!
Oh!
tom papa
That's my girlfriend!
unidentified
Oh!
Oh!
joe rogan
Actually, she inside traded.
I was wrong.
She's insider trading.
tom papa
Yeah, she got a little tip.
joe rogan
I'm sorry.
tom papa
She got a tip.
joe rogan
How does that work, man?
Are you supposed to not respond to tips?
tom papa
Everybody responds to tips.
They're all doing it.
joe rogan
They are?
tom papa
I don't know.
joe rogan
You think they're all insider trading?
tom papa
Yeah, of course.
joe rogan
You'd like to get them some of your bread, wouldn't you?
tom papa
You think these guys...
I'll give you some bread if you give me a tip.
joe rogan
I'll buy you.
I'll get you a nice sourdough.
Nice sourdough.
tom papa
If I got a tip, I'd be like, oh, look, dude, we have a big tip.
joe rogan
You might have explained this to me, but please do again, because I'm retarded.
Why does sourdough have that flavor?
Someone said that it's almost gluten-free, that it's not the same as regular bread.
Is that true?
tom papa
It is true, and I don't really know the science behind it.
Did we discuss this the last time?
I don't know, but I've given it to friends that have a gluten intolerant problem, and they are able to digest it a lot easier.
joe rogan
Tom Papa using his friends as guinea pigs.
Here, let's see if you shit yourself.
Have some gluten-free breadcrumbs, wink, wink.
tom papa
Just eat it.
joe rogan
If you ask for gluten-free at this place, would they spit in your face?
Like good Americans?
tom papa
I don't know.
Probably.
Nah, I don't know.
They are in Venice.
They probably...
I don't know.
joe rogan
Listen to me, folks.
Bread is bad for you.
tom papa
It's not.
joe rogan
Make the best bad for you.
Do the best you can to taste the best while it's bad for you.
tom papa
It's so good.
jamie vernon
If that's the one carb that you eat, it's the fermentation time.
It's the bacteria that builds up or breaks down the gluten proteins.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
tom papa
But you need gluten for the structure of the bread, so it still has gluten.
joe rogan
Oh, so it does have some gluten.
tom papa
Yeah, because that's the framework that's making it big and beautiful.
joe rogan
So if you don't eat the crust, maybe you don't get the gluten.
tom papa
No, it's in there.
It's in there.
joe rogan
It's just in there?
tom papa
Yeah, it's in there.
joe rogan
Trying to do science.
tom papa
But there might be some other stuff.
I mean, I think the problem, really, my just gut instinct is that when you're eating all this gluten with other stuff, there's so much other stuff added in there that's maybe interacting with the gluten that's giving you the problem.
This bread has three ingredients.
joe rogan
You sound like an apologist.
tom papa
He's a gluten apologist.
Water, flour, and salt.
That's it.
So you're not getting all this extra additives and stuff that are in there.
I think that's what's giving people really the problem.
joe rogan
So you think like preservatives in bread that like commercial bakeries use?
tom papa
32 ingredients.
joe rogan
Okay, like what kind of ingredients are they?
tom papa
You can't even pronounce them.
joe rogan
Oh, you know what?
You make a good point.
tom papa
The FDA had to change the definition of what bread was so they could deal with these commercial breads.
Really?
Yeah, that's not really technically what a bread is.
If you add all this other stuff, it's not really bread.
joe rogan
Okay, so what is Wonder Bread?
Besides delicious.
tom papa
A whole bunch of fun.
joe rogan
Oh, look at this.
Take Wonder Bread.
Oh, my God.
And it's popular Wonder Plus White Loaf with fiber.
Ingredients.
Unbleached wheat flour, water, sugar, oat hull fiber, yeast, soybean and or canola oil, wheat gluten, salt, natural soy flavor, sour flavor rather, bacterial culture, soy flour, cultured wheat starch solids, vinegar, soy, lecithin.
tom papa
Uh-huh.
joe rogan
Hmm.
It says, look at this, Wonder Bread, not wonderful for your health, the naked label.
Why not just make an article called Duh?
Who the fuck thinks Wonder Bread's good for you?
That's like saying, hey kids, if you drink, you'll get drunk.
tom papa
High fructose corn syrup.
Wheat gluten.
joe rogan
Look at this stuff.
Calcium sulfate, dough conditioners, sodium, sterile oil, lactate, exoxylated, mono and diglycerides.
Look at this.
tom papa
Hold on, hold on.
joe rogan
Go back.
jamie vernon
That one may or may not have actually been Wonder Bread.
unidentified
What is it?
jamie vernon
I don't know that it officially was.
joe rogan
It says Wonder Bread Ingredients.
Let's keep fucking lying then.
We've lied this far.
tom papa
Fake news, baby.
joe rogan
Yeah, this is fake news.
Ammonium chloride.
Where do we stop here?
Calcium dioxide and or azodicarbonamide.
tom papa
Jesus Christ.
More.
joe rogan
Look at this.
Ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, and or monocalcium phosphate, calcium propionate.
tom papa
Ammonium sulfate.
Imagine ammonium in your bread.
joe rogan
Jimmy, you must find out if that's real.
Now you have perplexed me.
tom papa
I have to pee.
Can I pee?
joe rogan
Yeah, please.
We'll just keep reading the ingredients for...
jamie vernon
This one's right off the bag.
joe rogan
Okay, right off the...
So it's all those things.
That was all those things that we were just talking about.
So all that stuff really is in there.
Wow, that's nuts.
I guess...
Boy, you know, you run into that thing where you say, well, if you want to have bread on the shelves in places where they're not growing any food, like, in order for it to be fresh enough for you to eat and not get sick, you gotta have some sort of preservatives in the bread.
I just, like, would one, I would like to know, like, definitively, How much those preservatives have an effect on your health?
Everybody assumes they're really bad for you, right?
Don't you assume they're really bad for you?
jamie vernon
Sure, yeah.
joe rogan
I do too.
jamie vernon
Sounds like it.
joe rogan
I would like to know what the fuck they do.
Because what they're doing is they're not allowing bacterial growth, right?
That's what a preservative is.
So if you have a loaf of bread and you put preservatives in it, it's stunting bacterial growth, which will eventually take over and your bread will get moldy, right?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
So that's a poison.
So you've got some sort of a poison on your bread that keeps it from being edible to bacteria.
So instead of eating bread while it's fresh, when you're supposed to eat it, the only time you're supposed to eat it, you've got some chemicals pumped into it.
What's that doing to your body?
tom papa
Exactly.
Messing it up.
joe rogan
What do you think it's doing?
tom papa
What is it doing physically to your body?
It's probably making it difficult to digest things.
You're probably not transferring real food into the nutrients that you need.
Your system's going to work on this thing.
Anything you put in your body, your body seems to react and deal with it.
It has to deal with it.
It's probably dealing with that and slowing down some other processes.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's bro science for you.
But I bet your bro science makes a lot of sense.
And I also bet your bro science could point to that if you're taking in these things that are anti...
They essentially...
They stunt...
Again, super bro science.
They're stunting these microbes growing on bread and mold growing on bread.
But you have a bunch of gut flora.
So if you take that stuff and you put it inside your gut...
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Your gut flora has to be dealing with at least some...
Of that.
tom papa
Interesting.
joe rogan
I mean, how much is left, how much of the preservative is in the bread while your body's trying to break it down, where this gut flora is used to digesting organic material, now it's dealing with sodium, laurel, iconofucking, clastic, supercalifragilistice.
tom papa
And it's probably taking out some of the stuff that you need to fight off other stuff in your gut.
joe rogan
100%, man.
That's why antibiotics are so bad for you.
Not because they don't cure diseases, they definitely do, but because they also wreck your whole biome.
Like, you have to take a bunch of probiotics and...
tom papa
To try and get your system back to operating.
joe rogan
People have sometimes problems for quite a long time after operations because of the probiotics.
The probiotics, which are important to keep you from getting infections, but they're not without a price.
Like, your body pays a price for that.
tom papa
I mean, look, there's been times when you walk in and you're like, you had a bread, like an Italian bread that you bought just from the supermarket, and you're like, three days later, you're like, oh, this is probably, no, soft, I could eat that.
I could still eat this.
A week later, that's not good.
joe rogan
How long is a loaf of bread supposed to last?
tom papa
When you cut it, it should start getting hard immediately.
Really.
By the next day, that part that you cut that's exposed.
The stuff that's under the crust, it could last for three days, four days.
joe rogan
My grandfather lived in an Italian neighborhood, an all-Italian neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey.
And when I was a little kid, We used to go to the bread store.
We used to go to the bakery.
They would go to the bakery like every couple of days.
They would have a loaf of bread.
It would sit on the kitchen table.
They would chop from the loaf.
They had a white paper wrapper.
They'd pull it out of the wrapper a little bit, cut some slices, push it back in the wrapper, kind of roll it up.
But everybody knew it was good for a couple of days.
And then a couple of days later, my grandpa would go down to the bakery and get it again.
And this same place had been in operation since like the 1920s or something like that.
tom papa
It's great.
joe rogan
And it was this cool little neighborhood bakery.
tom papa
It's the best.
And then you would do that with all your foods.
Then you'd go to the fruit guy and get that.
Then you'd get your meat from that guy.
And it wasn't all meant to last forever.
joe rogan
Yeah, you know, I think, when I think about the time, like we were talking about how hard it is to eat when you're on the road, and like, you know, when you're pressed for time, if you're running between obligations, you have all these different things you're doing.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's hard to get good food in your system.
tom papa
It is.
joe rogan
You know, that's...
tom papa
I did it this weekend, and I was eating, I ate horribly, I felt, I was dragging...
All weekend.
I just was putting crap in my body in a pinch.
It's so hard.
Sometimes you're in a hotel and you're like, is there a side vegetable?
Can I have just a side?
No.
What do you mean no?
You don't have a vegetable for me?
Yeah, it's really bad.
But that's why I make two loaves at a time, and I literally have to go back to New York tomorrow, and I just got in yesterday.
Wow.
So while I got in, fed the starter to get the bread going, and now when I go home, and then I made it into dough this morning, it's rising now, I'll go back and bake this bread, and then they'll have bread for the week until I come back on Friday.
joe rogan
That's awesome.
tom papa
That's my job.
joe rogan
That's so cool.
tom papa
That's my job at the house.
joe rogan
That's so nice, because that's something they're going to think about you every time they eat your bread.
Daddy makes this.
tom papa
It's funny, because my kids will send me pictures of sourdough from when they're at a restaurant with their friends or something.
They'll be like, not very good.
unidentified
Your kids are snobs!
joe rogan
What I was gonna get at, though, is that when you're on the road, and you're on the hustle, and you're doing so many different things, you don't have a chance to eat well, and you definitely don't have the chance to have a loaf of bread, and take some slices out of it, and then get another loaf in a couple of days.
Most people are way too busy.
But what I was gonna get at is, it's kind of like what you were talking about before.
Could you downsize?
Like, could you downsize?
And if you did, like, would you be happier?
You might be.
You might be happier if you did less stuff.
You might be happier if you calmed down more.
You might be happier if you went and got bread every couple of days.
Or you made your own bread every couple of days.
Whatever is keeping...
Ah, I can't do that.
I'm too busy.
Whatever that is might be the problem.
Like, we might, in our rush to be successful, I think a lot of people...
I think it's totally possible that you overshoot the happiness spot.
tom papa
Yeah.
No, I know.
I mean, look, if I was the Tom Papa that started stand-up for the first week, and you showed me where I'm at now, I would think, oh, pure bliss.
Pure bliss.
And now I am where I am, and I'm like, I don't know, I think that old guy might have been a little happier.
I think that guy who was just doing a spot for five bucks at the comic strip, that guy was pretty happy.
joe rogan
Well, especially now when you know that you're going to wind up being successful.
See, that's the thing about when the unknown is very stressful.
tom papa
That's true.
At that time you were like, am I ever going to get on Conan?
joe rogan
Yeah.
And we all know that one guy, at least a few guys, that was really funny, but for some reason didn't catch on.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Right?
tom papa
Yeah, I know.
joe rogan
There's a ton of those guys.
tom papa
A ton.
joe rogan
And so you'd always think about them, like, what about that guy?
Whatever happened to that guy?
tom papa
Yeah.
No, I know.
The wall of death at a comedy club.
And you're like, where'd all these people go?
Where'd all these people go?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Yeah!
joe rogan
The store's got a fucking haunted wall.
You walk on some of the wall, the guys just stopped.
They just stopped doing it.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
To us, it's like one of the scariest things, right?
tom papa
Terrifying.
joe rogan
So I think we have a romanticizing instinct.
The human animal does.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I think we have a gigantic instinct to go back to a time where shit made sense.
tom papa
Make America great again.
Seriously.
There's that novel thing.
Every girlfriend you were with was pretty good.
Everything you did was pretty great.
All those little crappy ways you spend your time, those are fun.
Yeah, I don't know.
At the time, you didn't think so, probably so much.
joe rogan
You get in a fight with your girlfriend, think about your ex-girlfriend, she wouldn't have talked to me like that.
tom papa
It's because it's knowable, right?
Like, the future's unknowable, so it's scary.
All this change that the country was going under, like, what do you mean these jobs are going away?
What do you mean we're going into, what do you mean we gotta deal with India?
What do you mean technology's taking over my life?
That's scary!
No, a picket fence where I go when I get my bread.
unidentified
American eagle perched on my dick.
tom papa
That's noble.
It feels safer.
joe rogan
You could break it down to an MAGA. MAGA. Yeah, hashtag MAGA, faggots.
It becomes a chant.
tom papa
It's just a grunt.
It's not even a word.
joe rogan
Well, whether he represents that or not, there can be no doubt that he is the king of the assholes.
Like he figured out like...
He found, like, the people that are gonna support him almost exclusively.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, there's a lot of assholes.
If you could tap into them...
tom papa
Yeah.
There's a lot.
joe rogan
You just gotta...
This is the first one that made sense to them.
They were never politically active for Walter Mundale.
You know, assholes didn't step up for Mitt Romney.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
But then Trump came along and they go, He's one of us, boys!
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
We're gonna make America great again!
He's one of us!
tom papa
This man that lives in a, this billionaire that lives on the top of a tower in Manhattan is one of us.
joe rogan
I saw a really dark video of this guy.
He got in a traffic altercation with this black guy.
The black guy's holding the phone.
The white guy comes up to the window.
And one of the first things he says, he said, Trump!
All the way, bro!
Trump!
unidentified
Really?
joe rogan
He goes, you're telling me Black Lives Matter?
He goes, you just can't say Black Lives Matter.
You gotta show me Black Lives Matter.
Yeah.
He goes, show me a reason.
Because now you're just saying it.
He goes, and you cut in front of me, and you spit up and cut in front of me, that makes you a nigger.
And he's filming him while this guy's saying this.
And I'm like, wow.
tom papa
Wow!
Man, oh man.
joe rogan
That attitude, that like, he opens up with Trump.
He opens up with it.
tom papa
No, it's no joke.
joe rogan
I'm not saying that everybody who's a Trump supporter is like that.
What I am saying is, don't even look that video up.
I don't want to get that guy in any more trouble that I'm sure you're already in.
To that feeling, that feeling is like you're only going to attack that specific type of feeling.
You've got to avoid that.
Whatever that pops up.
That's terrible.
tom papa
It's called hate.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, it's the angle that he went on it.
Look, if these guys got in a legitimate traffic altercation, and that legitimate traffic altercation was because one guy hit his blinker too late or cut in front of somebody or something like that, if you're a fucking human being with any decency...
You discuss what happened.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
And maybe you fucked up and maybe you should apologize.
And maybe he fucked up and maybe he will apologize.
Who knows?
But when you open up with Trump all the way, Trump, bro, Black Lives Matter, you know, show me.
Like, where is your head at?
This is how you're communicating with a person.
tom papa
Well, he tapped into all degrees of that.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
All degrees of that.
When...
When people are being bombarded, when white guys in Ohio who are going out trying to work as a construction worker and that guy's got three kids and he was told White men are over.
White men are done, right?
It became like a trendy thing.
joe rogan
Who told anybody that?
tom papa
It's in all the media.
It's just people saying white people are done.
White people are done.
joe rogan
I'm reading different sites.
Are you reading the white people are done websites, Jamie?
jamie vernon
I've seen people say that on Twitter, yeah.
tom papa
Even like Huffington Post.
joe rogan
You go to black Twitter, though.
You're always on black Twitter.
tom papa
Even Huffington Post, it's always about white males.
Another white male gets the job.
joe rogan
Are you going to say salon.com next?
tom papa
I'm saying it's a big thing, and that people, that guy who's being told that the jobs aren't for you, it's for these other people, that's what's coming.
But you're sitting there with your wife and two kids, and you're like, alright, look, I get it.
White guys had a good run, you're saying.
White guys are kind of passe.
But I got Christmas to pay for, and I got a good run.
joe rogan
I think that's such an extreme perspective on it that white people are done.
I think the big perspective, the much broader perspective on people that are trying to encourage diversity is that they feel like people have been discriminated against in the past.
It's time to balance that out.
It doesn't mean that white people suck.
It just means that everybody's great.
Let's ever bring them all in.
That's the right way to look at it.
But you're going to have the extreme that go, white people suck, white people stand down, white people should shut the fuck up and let us talk now.
But that's always going to be the case.
You're always going to have fluctuations inside of a good idea.
tom papa
For sure.
But it resonated.
I think white people...
This is the morning after the election.
Morning after.
That whole night of, what the hell?
What's happened?
Who's...
What?
I get up in the morning.
I have a new puppy.
I take my puppy outside.
It's 6 o'clock in the morning.
6.30 in the morning.
I'm outside with the dog.
And I hear...
In the distance, it's a quiet, you know, upscale neighborhood.
I hear, ha, yeah, can you believe it?
Ha, ha, yeah, no way!
White people.
I'm like, this has got to be about the election.
They're so like, I know, I couldn't believe it happened either.
I peer through, it was like through the bushes, and I see a white Mercedes.
It's a white Mercedes.
A guy's talking to another guy.
They're talking, I can hardly understand what they're saying, and as the guy leaves, He's like, alright man, I'll see you soon.
White lives matter!
And takes off.
This is a guy doing well, in a Mercedes, living in this nice neighborhood.
And that was the first thing I heard the next morning.
You can't say that anybody else doesn't matter.
You can't make people feel like they don't exist because they will fight back on all sides all the time.
joe rogan
That's a very good point.
And that's unfortunately what some people hear.
If you hear Black Lives Matter, what you hear is, well, that means white lives don't.
Or that means white lives do less.
Or that means we're trying to call attention to one very specific race only.
And even though I completely understand why they're doing it, I don't think there's anything wrong with Black Lives Matter.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of it.
But I think, I didn't have this reaction to it, but I know that some people probably did.
They immediately go, yeah, what about what people?
That's a fucking knee-jerker, and that might not have had to happen.
I think sometimes ideas, the way they're displayed, sometimes people, they do it because it feels like the right thing to do at the time, or the right way to say it at the time.
Anytime you're inviting any sort of anger or dispute, it feels like you want to do that to push back, but that shit is going to come back this way.
It's way easier said than done.
But I think that a lot of what we see from this reaction to anything that's aggressively progressive is people, when they feel like they're pushed, they're like, you have to listen to the way we see the world.
And then they want to go, the fuck I do.
They want to push back and almost ramp up, double down on the racism, double down on their In trying to correct wrongs, it could come off as being aggressive and bullying to those people.
unidentified
100%.
joe rogan
Especially if you don't agree with them.
Here's the thing, man.
Everybody thinks they're right, whether you're on the right or the left.
Everybody thinks they have a moral imperative.
Everybody thinks that they're doing the right thing, unless you're a piece of shit, right?
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Let's assume people, for the most part, aren't pieces of shit.
They think they're doing the right thing, but this is the way they've grown up.
So much of it is cultural.
When you look at the world today, we're all just human beings, but there's people that are living in parts of the world that must behave a way different way than we are allowed to behave, because they're entrapped in a religious ideology that dominates their community.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
So it could be these poor kids in Africa that get that female genital mutilation, like how many of them have it done to them.
It could be that.
It could be growing up a Mormon in Utah in a crazy fucking house filled with nutty Mormons.
You know, there's a million different possibilities.
tom papa
The roll of the dice that you ended up there.
joe rogan
But apparently people are just super flexible.
Our behavior is really malleable and we're adaptable and we can fit into whether it's a horrible ideology like what happened What happened in World War II? What happened with the Nazis?
They fell into a horrible way of living life.
But that's a possibility.
It's going on right now in North Korea.
It's always a possibility for people to fit into these little, weird, little packages.
So if you see someone that has a weird package of existence that you don't jive with, You gotta look at it like, what would you do if you were them?
Like, if you had lived their life and now you're looking at this from their perspective.
Don't look at it from your perspective.
Try, if you can, to imagine what it would be like to look at it from theirs.
tom papa
I mean, it's so random.
I mean, especially, like, growing up here.
It's like...
If you had been born just 200 miles south in Mexico, your life is totally different.
Totally different.
You just got lucky that your parents ended up a little north.
You know what I mean?
It's really unsettling.
joe rogan
It's unsettling, and that's one of the worst parts about...
unidentified
The really simple, build that wall, build that wall, build that wall.
joe rogan
That really simple sentiment.
There's a problem with that, man.
tom papa
There's a difference between pride in what you are and having an enemy that you need this enemy to take people down.
joe rogan
But it's what we were saying before, man.
It's like if you're expressing fear, you're going to get a pushback.
If you're expressing anger, you're going to get a pushback.
If all of a sudden you're like, build that wall, build that wall, that seems to me to be a place that I want to get in now.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
You know, and if you're a person who wants to do something bad, that's the spot that's way more evil now.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because now you've got a big crazy wall.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Like, there's gotta be some sort of recognition.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
That almost like it has to come from the top, it seems like.
And there has to be some sort of recognition that, look, the reality of our existence here is that we're extremely fortunate.
And the reality of other people's existence is that they've got terrible luck.
This is an undeniable reality of babies.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
100% of the time, all over the world, right?
No baby worked hard to get where they are.
tom papa
They just showed up.
joe rogan
They just got lucky.
tom papa
Roll the dice.
joe rogan
Came out of the right body.
Hey, we're in Manhattan.
unidentified
All right.
tom papa
Who's my mom?
joe rogan
Where are we?
We live in Tribeca?
There's great Italian restaurants here.
Good schools.
What a great place to grow up.
tom papa
Look at my onesie.
It's made of cashmere.
joe rogan
So lucky.
Oh my God, this is great.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
But the difference between that and being born in a hut in the Congo, you just got lucky.
Yeah.
Build that wall!
Build that wall!
I get where you're coming from.
I understand the motivation to think like that.
But I really pretty firmly believe that anytime you put something like that out, you get something like that that comes back at you.
tom papa
Anything that has a little hate on the edges, there's a lot of people, like that guy you say in that video, it's an aggressive...
Yeah.
Fuck yeah.
We got it.
We won.
This is our guy.
Here we come.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
Scary.
joe rogan
Scary.
tom papa
I've never lived...
I haven't been here that long, but there's never been after an election where large groups of people were scared.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
That's never happened.
Unhappy, pissed off.
I can't believe they're going to do this.
That asshole's in office.
Never has there been large groups of families really legitimately frightened.
Of our leader.
That's never happened.
joe rogan
I feel like Bill Clinton should just step up and just say, see, this is why we always rig the system.
We were trying to avoid this.
unidentified
Okay?
joe rogan
We were protecting you from your own selves and your ridiculous desire to have famous people like you.
Congratulations.
tom papa
Yeah.
It was rigged for a reason.
joe rogan
I heard the greatest nickname for Trump.
Somebody called him Cheeto Jesus.
tom papa
Yes.
joe rogan
I've been using Cheeto Jesus.
tom papa
That's good.
unidentified
It's just...
tom papa
Yeah.
On election night, it was really upsetting.
Was it?
My daughter is a 14-year-old girl who just heard...
She's smart.
She's a high school freshman.
And just heard what this guy was saying about women and just heard what he was saying about handicaps or whatever.
joe rogan
Well, that handicap thing, did you know that that's...
I'm not giving him an excuse, but I don't think he knew that that guy was handicapped.
I think he was trying to mock someone who was dumb, and it turned out that the person he was mocking was handicapped, and that's what everybody read with him.
I don't believe he had any knowledge of that beforehand.
I don't think he was...
tom papa
I'll give you that, but even if he didn't know it, to make that gesture and act like that guy is just dumb, like as a guy running for president, it was a bully.
It was a bully-ish move, whether the guy's handicapped or not.
The girl's not handicapped.
joe rogan
Well, I think he thinks combative relationships like that, it's a contest.
It's a war.
And he'll go at them with his personality.
And that's what's odd for us, to see that from a president.
tom papa
Right.
Yeah, there's no right.
So my daughter was just crying.
She was just crying.
She's like, so a guy that says grab your pussy is now my president.
This doesn't make sense.
This guy that says global warming is a hoax, this doesn't make sense.
joe rogan
Did you really say that?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
You said global warming is a hoax?
tom papa
The hoax created by the Chinese.
joe rogan
She really fucking said that?
tom papa
Yeah.
And she's like, what the hell just happened?
joe rogan
I thought he was just skeptical.
I thought he was just skeptical about man-influenced global warming.
Because that's what they like to call it, right?
Influenced?
tom papa
Influenced.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Have you ever seen, like, the ice core samples of, like, what the Earth used to be like just a few, you know, a few 10,000, 20,000 years ago?
tom papa
Uh-uh.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
The ice levels rise, and the sea levels rise, and, like, this is a constantly changing topography.
And, like, the natural shifts in the Earth cycle.
I'm not a climate change denier at all, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me just get this out.
Because if you talk about this, people just get angry at you.
tom papa
They're trigger words.
joe rogan
It's not what I'm saying.
I mean, I absolutely believe that we're fucking up this planet.
That's not what I'm saying.
But without us doing that, just without us doing that, there's been a constant cycle of change.
tom papa
It's a violent place.
joe rogan
And it's sometimes really, really radical, like giant shifts of temperature up and down.
And, you know, the big one being the Ice Age, of course, that we can measure.
Like, fairly recently, most of this country was covered by a mile to two miles high of ice.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Miles.
tom papa
Yeah.
So what's your point?
joe rogan
My point is, this whole place is super volatile.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
I mean, for him to say that global warming is a hoax, like, it's coming.
unidentified
And it's coming whether you did it, I did it, if it's happening.
joe rogan
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
November of 2012. See, he was probably one of those dudes that believed in the Mayan calendar.
So he's like, fuck it, I'm going to say some crazy shit before December 21st, 2012. It'll all be over.
tom papa
It'll all be done.
joe rogan
That was something that people were saying back then, too.
That was a popular...
He used to say a bunch of crazy shit, though.
Remember he used to say that Obama was born in Kenya?
He was a truther, or a birther, rather.
tom papa
He was THE birther.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, he would...
tom papa
He was the leader of that.
joe rogan
He would go and do...
But see, you gotta wonder, like, how much of that is showmanship?
I don't know.
tom papa
I feel like it's the Chauncey Gardner thing, you know, from when Peter Sellers became president, right?
What movie was that?
It was Being There.
Was it called being there?
And he was this gardener.
He was very simple, and people just ultimately made him president.
He just kind of wandered into the presidency.
And I feel like that with Trump.
I feel like he wandered in, and now people are like, well, are these tweets genius?
Is he trying to manipulate us?
Is he really intelligent?
Is he really this?
I think he just is what he is.
I don't think...
joe rogan
I would believe that.
tom papa
He's very talented, very charismatic.
joe rogan
Rich as fuck.
tom papa
Rich as fuck.
He's got a good sense of timing and stuff like that.
joe rogan
Balling out of control.
tom papa
It's kind of this empty vessel.
Are you sure, though?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure when you hear him talk about different things, he doesn't really know about a lot of different things.
joe rogan
Don't you want to talk to him alone?
tom papa
I did.
He was on the marriage riff.
unidentified
Ooh.
tom papa
I did.
I was right there.
He would make comments.
It was all about husbands and wives, and you would show a real husband and wife, and then you'd talk about them, and you'd try and decide who's right in the argument, the husband or the wife.
And all of his jokes were about the women's breasts.
All of his jokes were about, well, she's got these big things, so she'll be okay.
And then he would turn to me and give me a wink.
Like, not for the camera, not for anything, just me on the side.
He would just kind of wink at me like, we're doing great here, right?
I felt like, I mean, this was way before I knew anything about him running or anything.
I was just like, ooh, this guy's kind of skeeving me out.
I felt like I was date-raped on my own show.
But he walked in during that show just like, we're going to do great ratings tonight.
We're going to do great.
We're going to kill it.
We're going to do great ratings.
I mean, he was always that way.
Just mantra, the mantra, the mantra.
joe rogan
I think I would take it in like it was a show.
I would think I'd be psyched.
I'd be psyched to sit next to him.
unidentified
Yeah, but you know how you're next to- She's got these things, you know what I'm saying?
joe rogan
I'd be like, this is great.
tom papa
But there's, you know, you get vibes from people.
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
And the vibe was a little like, ugh.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
I don't think you get to be that fucking rich without a little, ugh.
I just don't think you get there.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I think you stop along the way.
Like, we were talking about balance and perspective.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
About realizing that, you know, maybe...
Maybe you should scale back a little bit.
Maybe you'll be happier.
Maybe you missed the happy spot.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
He never thought about that for a fucking second.
tom papa
I know.
He's like, fuck that.
unidentified
I know.
joe rogan
He's like 70. He's still making deals with Argentina to put up hotels and shit.
Yeah.
There was one deal with a foreign country that was an issue because it was right after he became president.
He's trying to push this.
They congratulated him.
He's trying to push this deal through, apparently.
tom papa
Why do you think he took the Taiwan crisis?
In September, they're creating a thing in Taiwan.
They want to make it like Dubai, like a hub for international Asian travel.
And they're in the mix.
They've been talking.
joe rogan
Dude, Trump, the word Trump is worth so much more now.
tom papa
Oh my God.
joe rogan
That's one thing.
tom papa
I mean, and that's all he wanted.
So how do you not?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
I mean, oh, how do you?
I can't pull away now.
We've made it.
This is when we take over the planet.
joe rogan
I don't remember who had the original thought, but I agree with this thought.
It's not my thought originally.
But what is interesting about Trump is that he cares so much about how people like him.
So because of that, the will of the people, whether it's marijuana or whether it's whatever it is, Maybe it's nonviolent drug offenders that have been in jail forever for no fucking reason.
That makes any sense to anybody now that we're...
If you take and you put someone in jail for life in 1975 for marijuana because they smoked marijuana in Las Vegas...
That a person's still in jail.
tom papa
So crazy.
joe rogan
And you're the president now, Mr. Trump, please let them out.
Please, just, you know, let's find a way to get these people a job.
They weren't arrested because what they did was wrong.
They were arrested because there was a thing written down on a piece of paper that said it was wrong.
It's not really wrong.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
There's nothing wrong with what they did.
unidentified
Right.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Just because it was written on a piece of paper doesn't mean we should honor it so many years later when we would never act accordingly.
No one in this country is going to go to jail for the rest of their life because they have a joint.
But isn't it entirely possible that someone in this country has gone to jail for the rest of their life for a joint?
tom papa
Absolutely.
joe rogan
Especially if you get inside and then all of a sudden you get in a fight in jail, which happens all the time, and someone dies and you wind up getting charged with murder.
I mean, that kind of stuff happens to people over a nonsense, Bullshit arrest.
tom papa
Aren't most people in jail because of drug-related...
joe rogan
We just pulled it up the other day.
It was like 46% non-violent drug offenders in jail.
tom papa
It's a lot.
joe rogan
It's insane.
tom papa
But the thing is, like you say, he wants to be popular and he wants to be well-liked and all.
The thing we're going to find out is...
On what level is he looking for that approval?
Is it from the masses saying this stuff?
Or is it the guy, the last guy that came in?
Is it Sessions that comes in and says, I think that we should go this way.
And he wants to earn the respect of that guy.
We have a lot of forces coming in.
That we didn't vote for that are going to be controlling a lot because he's going to be just kind of delegating it out.
We don't really know where he stands.
That's the most scary thing is that it's kind of unknowable.
We don't know how much in control he's going to be.
Are these other people going to come in and fill that vacuum and they're going to be in control?
joe rogan
Well, that was the big argument against the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act.
Is that what the NDAA? That was the one that allowed for indefinite detainment.
You don't need a warrant.
You can just arrest people and detain them indefinitely.
They don't have to have a speedy trial.
The right to a speedy trial has been revoked.
And everybody was like, well, that's fine because Obama's not going to use that.
When then the question was like, okay, Obama might not be using it, but what happens if a new president gets into office and he's crazy?
Everyone's like, don't worry, that's not going to happen.
Well, guess what?
You fucked up.
So Donald Trump has the NDAA on his side.
He can use it now.
tom papa
And add to that an incident.
Add to that some kind of...
9-11, and then he really takes advantage of it.
joe rogan
You never know.
One thing that should be taken into consideration, though, is that he's a businessman.
And one of the things about things like legalizing marijuana or going against legalized marijuana, it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint, because there's too many of us that smoke it.
Like, Jamie, put up the numbers.
Let's just take a guess here, Tom Papa.
What percentage of Americans do you think smoke marijuana?
tom papa
What percentage of adult Americans smoke marijuana?
I would put it at, I'm going to put it, like smoke it on the regular?
joe rogan
Once a month.
More than once a month.
tom papa
More than once a month.
I would say that that number is at 46%.
joe rogan
I bet you're right.
I was going to go in the 40s too.
I was going to say like 43. Yeah.
But I think 46 rang in my head too.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's a good number.
I think you're dead on.
That's what I would guess.
tom papa
It's a hard stat to find, maybe.
jamie vernon
Gallup poll?
joe rogan
Gallup polls are bullshit.
But let's go with it anyway.
What does it say?
jamie vernon
It says one in eight U.S. adults say they smoke marijuana.
joe rogan
How dare they?
One in eight people dumb enough to answer a fucking poll.
Sons of bitches.
I had a little bit in my act that's based on a true poll, where 46% of the people believed in the creationist account of the Earth, and that the Earth was less than 10,000 years old.
46%.
But it was a Gallup poll, so it's 46% of the people that answered the poll.
That was a little bit in my act.
tom papa
Right, right.
joe rogan
It's like, how ridiculous.
You're not getting a good test group.
tom papa
Right.
Actually answering the question.
joe rogan
Yeah, people are answering the phone.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
And they're talking to you about some stupid ass poll?
jamie vernon
43% said they have tried it.
joe rogan
Okay, so that's 43%.
If it was legal, it would be smoking pot.
jamie vernon
Yeah, one and eight currently use it.
joe rogan
Except for a few pussies that couldn't handle the truth.
jamie vernon
It's out of a thousand people.
unidentified
So...
joe rogan
You can't handle the truth!
tom papa
Yeah, it's not that many, but it's enough to put a lot of tax dollars into the economy.
joe rogan
It's a tremendous amount of money.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
If it's really 40-whatever-the-hell-it-is percent tried it, what was the percentage that tried it once?
43. 43?
Dude, that's the number I guessed.
unidentified
Crazy, man.
tom papa
That's pretty good.
joe rogan
That's crazy.
tom papa
It goes to another question.
joe rogan
Shut the fuck up, dude.
Why are you ruining it?
I was in.
Um...
tom papa
Yeah, I don't know.
joe rogan
If you've got those people against you, voting-wise, that's pretty significant people.
The stoner dollar has been ignored.
tom papa
Yes, but you say you make those decisions as a businessman, but...
The other people that are fighting against that are all the pharmaceutical companies, and they have a lot more money than these kids smoking pot.
joe rogan
Right.
tom papa
So that businessman walks into his office and says, hey, this is the way it's really going to go.
joe rogan
This is what we really need.
Do you think that that is permanent, though?
Isn't it possible that the people acting collectively have more influence collectively, financially, than a corporation?
unidentified
No!
joe rogan
If it's been exposed.
unidentified
No!
tom papa
Impossible?
joe rogan
Never?
It's not going to get any better because of the internet?
tom papa
Yeah, maybe.
joe rogan
Transparency?
tom papa
Right now, the corporations have a lot more power.
Right?
joe rogan
Right now.
tom papa
Right now.
But, you know, you watch, you know, Elon Musk has not been torn down yet.
They're coming at him.
Oil wants to stop him.
They want to stop him from selling his cars.
They want to do all this stuff.
But he's, the will of the people has kind of protected him, put him through.
joe rogan
You know Iron Man's going to be president, right?
tom papa
I hope so.
I hope so.
joe rogan
He's the liberal's last chance.
tom papa
He's my hero.
joe rogan
Bring it back around.
We need eggheads running this thing.
We tried assholes.
unidentified
It didn't work.
It didn't work.
tom papa
He's got a little mix of both, doesn't he?
joe rogan
Don't you want to see what happens with the Trump thing?
What if he can break down the structures?
tom papa
We're going to see.
joe rogan
To the point.
tom papa
That's my hopeful part is like, you know, we are a revolutionary people.
Let's tear some stuff down and let's not be afraid to...
Break down some walls and let's shake things up and move.
That's a little bit of a revolution.
Break this system that is broken anyway.
unidentified
But let's just hope that it's safe.
tom papa
Let's hope that it's not empowering the wrong people.
joe rogan
He's really interesting what he's been trying to say about lobbyists, too.
About how long you need to take a break after a job in government before you should be a lobbyist.
unidentified
I like that.
tom papa
That sounds good.
joe rogan
A lot of good ideas.
tom papa
That's not so bad.
joe rogan
Who knows?
tom papa
That's okay.
joe rogan
Let's see.
I'm rooting for him.
And then Elon Musk comes in.
tom papa
I'm rooting for him.
joe rogan
2020, he comes in riding the wave.
tom papa
Elon can't do that.
He's going to be on Mars by then.
He's getting to Mars.
unidentified
They keep blowing up.
joe rogan
Those jets keep blowing up.
tom papa
He's getting to Mars.
joe rogan
They blew up the satellite for the African kids.
They were going to get the internet for the African kids so they could send the dick pics through the air.
It's all right.
tom papa
You got to fail.
You got to fail to succeed.
joe rogan
It wasn't...
tom papa
The Facebook thing.
joe rogan
Yeah, it was Zuckerberg's satellite for internet access.
tom papa
Yeah, he's got money.
joe rogan
Maybe.
tom papa
SpaceX is doing just fine.
He's going to defund NASA, they say, and SpaceX is going to kick ass.
joe rogan
Glad you brought that up because he was also a victim of some fake news.
There were some fake news articles that were written about him that people actually quoted.
tom papa
On Elon or Zucker?
joe rogan
Yes, on Elon and about how much Elon Musk made off of the government and how much of his businesses lose money.
And it was an anonymous account.
They tried to trace the name of whoever had written this article or more than one article.
And they couldn't find who the writer was.
It was a fake name.
The story didn't jive.
The numbers didn't pan out.
tom papa
You need real journalists to do that stuff.
That's going to be the key.
joe rogan
I want to know what the story is, because I'm just talking about it.
Find out what that story is, Jamie, if you can find out the fake news story about Elon Musk.
He's the greatest.
Somebody wrote something, 96%.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
I'm sure I know what the fuck I'm talking about here.
tom papa
I'm 43% sure you do.
unidentified
Wow, I'm so much less confident now.
joe rogan
It's like, yeah, I'll pop and know something.
You can see it in my eyes.
tom papa
Just say it with authority.
joe rogan
Elon Musk calls out the fake news troll called him a national disgrace.
Oh yeah, yeah, it is a fake news story.
Okay, so what was it?
tom papa
At least we identified fake news.
That's gotta be, right?
joe rogan
The contractor comes wrapped up in the package of a legitimate journalist.
Yeah, there it goes.
He's being trolled by a...
What's that word?
Chimeric.
Chimeric.
God, I don't remember what that word is.
What is that?
Which word?
Schumeric.
C-H-I Schumeric.
C-H-I-M-E-R-I-C. What does that word mean?
tom papa
Where is it?
joe rogan
Right there.
By a Schumeric writer calling himself Shepard Stewart.
See that?
unidentified
Right after the Tesla.
tom papa
He's apparently being trolled by a Schumeric writer.
I don't know that word.
joe rogan
Google that shit, Jamie.
Google that word.
unidentified
It's like Schumay, that L. Look up in dictionary.
joe rogan
What's that shit say?
Look it up in dictionary, bitch.
What are you doing?
tom papa
Chimeric.
unidentified
Hmm.
tom papa
That's a cool word.
joe rogan
Looks like a fucking little animal.
Look at that little thing.
A little furry sucker.
unidentified
Chimeric.
joe rogan
Chimerism or chimera is a single or...
Thanks, Jamie.
tom papa
Relating to, derived from, or being a genetic chimera.
unidentified
Genetic chimera.
joe rogan
Or its genetic material.
Okay, go back to the last one I was just reading.
tom papa
So it's like a rat?
Are they saying he's rat-like?
joe rogan
Hmm.
Click on that one we were just reading.
Yeah, whatever the one was that you had right before that one.
Well, it's okay.
Let's just look at it right there.
Scroll down.
That little definition on top is a little bit more lengthy.
There we go.
So a single organism composed of cells from different zygotes.
Oh, okay.
tom papa
So a single cell, like an amoeba.
joe rogan
Hmm.
Hold on.
unidentified
Stop.
joe rogan
Go back.
This can result in male and female organs, two blood types, or subtle variations in form.
Okay, now go back to that story again.
Okay, a chimeric writer calling himself Shepard Stewart.
tom papa
Trolled by this one-celled organism writer.
joe rogan
Yeah, so that's an insult.
I get it.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Okay.
In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, two major issues rose to the surface.
Dissemination of information, fake news, and accusations of biased journalism.
Okay, so Elon Musk, can anyone uncover who is really writing these fake pieces?
tom papa
That's cool.
Asking for the internet to help.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It can't be this guy.
His work is better than that.
And then they click on that article.
Click on that article and finance.
unidentified
See if they took it down.
tom papa
That's pretty great.
joe rogan
Elon Musk versus the trolls.
Oh, okay.
They switched it to this.
So it's just essentially Elon Musk calling out this guy for the fake article.
I don't think the fake article is up anymore.
tom papa
He's the coolest.
joe rogan
But I think that's just what you can do now.
This guy who we were reading about earlier, this guy can get $10,000 a month by just making stuff up.
tom papa
Just make up stories.
joe rogan
Somebody made up an article about me getting in a fight with a mountain lion that I killed a mountain lion at the Ice House.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Ridiculous.
My sister called me up and asked me if it was true.
tom papa
Oh my god.
joe rogan
But they just do that all the day.
So if they do that all the day, you know, Jodie Foster visited by real aliens.
If they do that, you know, and then you have her sitting there talking about it, like...
tom papa
Something sticks.
joe rogan
If you're a dumbass, you're going to send that to your friend?
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Dude, Jodie Foster is fucking coming out, man.
Finally, the agenda's being known.
The aliens are real.
tom papa
They're here, bro!
joe rogan
I knew it!
tom papa
Yeah, and you just keep putting them out.
One of them's going to stick, right?
joe rogan
I feel it in my head, bro.
Oh, another definition.
Unreal, imaginary, visionary.
A chimerical, terrestrial paradise.
Hmm.
Wildly, fanciful, highly unrealistic.
tom papa
Oh, Jodie Foster.
joe rogan
A chimerical plan.
Interesting.
Unreal, imaginary, or visionary.
So it was an imaginary writer, according to Elon Musk.
Well, it sounds like a real writer with an imaginary name.
So it's just a pseudonym, essentially.
tom papa
A pseudonym.
joe rogan
We don't know who the fucking person is.
tom papa
A pseudonym.
joe rogan
I wonder if businesses hire people to do things like that to discredit them.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, like if you're Ford and the Chevy guys are just getting a little too fucking cocky and there was some dude like Henry Ford type character over at Chevy.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like some magnanimous, gigantic, larger-than-life figure and you start writing some fake shit about him pawning money off the government and eating pizza at this place where they have pedophilia artwork.
tom papa
In the old days they called it yellow journalism.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
tom papa
The Hearst newspapers, they'd plant fake stories in the papers, and people would think that they were true, and you'd try and take down titans of business that you were competing against and all the rest of it.
It's always existed.
joe rogan
Well, you know, that's what William Randolph Hearst did against marijuana.
tom papa
Oh.
joe rogan
That's how marijuana became illegal.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
You didn't know?
tom papa
No, I did not.
joe rogan
Dude, you don't know the full stoner Bible story?
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
It's the biblical creation story of the stoner myth.
tom papa
Really?
joe rogan
Yeah, this is what it is.
tom papa
What year?
That would have been...
joe rogan
1930s, right after alcohol prohibition, what happened was they came out with a machine called a decorticator.
And the decorticator allows them to process hemp fiber more easily.
With this machine, it cranks it through.
Because hemp is this spectacular fiber.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like a buddy of mine had a hemp stalk over his house, my friend.
I'm Todd McCormick, and he's like, pick it up, man.
And I picked it up.
I was like, whoa, it's light, like balsa wood, but hard, like a mahogany.
tom papa
Oh, wow.
joe rogan
It's weird.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's a very, very strange plant.
tom papa
Like bamboo, kind of?
joe rogan
No.
No, no, no, because bamboo's hollow.
It makes sense that it's light.
This is like a...
It was like a stalk, like a wrist side, like my wrist stalk.
tom papa
Gotcha, right.
joe rogan
That's bamboo.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Or that's the hemp plant.
Yeah, you can get it and there's different forms of it.
See that one in the upper right hand corner like that?
tom papa
So this was solid.
joe rogan
That's what he had.
He had it like that.
So you would pick it up and it'd be super light, but ridiculously hard.
He's like, dude, it's alien.
It's an alien planet.
Todd's very, very smart.
He's written books on growing marijuana.
He was one of the first guys to ever get arrested for growing medical marijuana.
And then when he went to court, he found out he was not even allowed to use the term medical.
So you're not allowed to say it because they don't believe in it federally.
So even though it was legal in California, what they did was they prosecuted him with federal laws, which don't allow for even the phrase medical marijuana.
He wasn't even allowed, because it was a federal trial, he wasn't even allowed to mention that it was legal in California.
So the people who were in the jury, they get this totally skewed perspective of what happened.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you have to vote on it, you know, as a juror.
You have to decide based on the law.
And the law is federally, it is illegal.
There's no such thing as medical marijuana, so you can't even bring it up.
And if you brought it up, it's like contempt of court.
tom papa
And Hearst started all this?
joe rogan
He started it.
And what happened was, when they came out with a decorticator, William Randolph Hearst owned paper mills, and he also owned these forests of trees that they would convert into paper.
He made his own newspaper and printed on that paper.
And then Popular Science magazine had a cover that said hemp, the new billion dollar crop.
And it was all about the invention of the decorticator and how now they'd be able to effectively process this hemp.
Because they used hemp forever because they didn't have a cotton gin.
Then when they came out with the cotton gin, a lot of people shifted over to cotton, especially at the end of slavery, because it wasn't really financially sound until they spent all that time processing all that fiber to get cannabis.
When you could just get it out of cotton, it would be way easier now with this cotton gin.
So that changed the game, and then the decorticator changed the game again.
And that's when William Randolph first came in.
And they started writing all these stories about, well, telling people to write stories, I'm sure.
Telling people to write stories about this new drug called marijuana.
It's forcing blacks and Mexicans to have sex with white women and rape white women.
And marijuana wasn't even a name for cannabis.
The word was a wild Mexican tobacco.
That's what marijuana originally was.
tom papa
Oh, really?
joe rogan
So when you called it marijuana, if you talked to Mexicans about it, they'd be like, what the fuck?
Back then, they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
That shit.
That wild tobacco type shit.
tom papa
Wow.
joe rogan
They called it marijuana because cannabis was something that everybody had used.
They used it for textile.
They used it for oil.
There were so many people that were using it already for clothes, canvases.
Canvases based on the word cannabis.
tom papa
Jeez.
joe rogan
They used it for cloth.
It's a crazy cloth, man.
tom papa
And it worked.
joe rogan
It's really hard to break.
If you get a hold of...
I have a gi.
Datsusara made me a jujitsu gi made out of hemp.
They sell these hemp gis.
These fucking things are indestructible, man.
Yeah, there's something about...
When you take hemp and you turn it into a fiber or into a cloth or into a paper, it's crazy how durable it is.
tom papa
So then he got laws passed to criminalize it?
joe rogan
Exactly.
tom papa
And do all that?
joe rogan
Yeah, you had to have a tax stamp to grow it for hemp and it became increasingly more and more difficult.
tom papa
So they were never able to separate it as a drug and a thing?
joe rogan
No, because it's too close.
It's too closely related genetically.
It's basically...
There's different strains of it.
They grow it where it's specifically not psychoactive.
But all the male plants are not psychoactive.
It's only the female plants that have the flowers.
And you can contaminate female plants.
There's some sort of a process that they have to do when they're growing them.
To keep them from changing each other sexually.
tom papa
Either pollinate each other.
joe rogan
Yeah.
If you have too many males with females, they can actually fuck up the females.
Right.
It's really kind of crazy.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
But that's the only stuff...
So I guess the issue would be you would have somebody that was pretending they weren't growing the psychoactive stuff and that they were only growing...
But they were also selling it as a drug.
And then you would have an issue there legally.
tom papa
Right.
Well, I mean...
You know, when you find out, like, Hearst putting out those stories, you know, to get his way, and then, you know, Big Tobacco was putting...
All these documentaries come out, like, 30 years later of all these stories.
This guy was hired...
It was the one where this small group of scientists were like, oh, it was from the tobacco.
They were putting out stories about that tobacco's good for you and all this kind of stuff, and they're going to take away from you.
And then they...
That all dried up and now they're on climate change.
joe rogan
Yes.
tom papa
Now those same guys, those same organizations are putting out fake news and being talking heads against global warming.
joe rogan
It's a documentary.
There's a documentary on it.
What's called Ministers of Doubt?
Is that it?
tom papa
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
I believe that's it.
tom papa
Yes.
joe rogan
I think it's called Ministers of Doubt.
tom papa
I mean, so sure.
Yeah, this fakeness has been happening forever.
Forever.
And driven by...
Money.
If you have a lot of people that have a lot of money.
joe rogan
That's why if someone becomes president and then wins the president-elect like Trump and then tweets something that's not true about him losing the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally, when you say stuff like that, That's why people get scared and nervous, because there's a long history of people who have what you're going to have.
Donald Trump is going to have ultimate power.
He's going to have that position, the position of ultimate power.
But with that comes just a massive, massive responsibility.
So for him to continue to do stuff like that, which is like a strategic fib, he's got to kind of let all that go.
Just like he said he was going to let all of his businesses go, he's going to let his family run his businesses, he's going to completely step away.
Urge him.
Let all that other stuff go, too.
Try to rise to this crazy position.
tom papa
I know.
joe rogan
Is he one of 40?
How many people have been president now?
What is he?
tom papa
46th?
46th.
joe rogan
46th?
tom papa
Yep.
jamie vernon
45th or 46th?
Merchants of Doubt, not ministers.
joe rogan
Oh, Merchants of Doubt.
Thank you.
Merchants of Doubt.
It was a great documentary.
tom papa
So when he tweets about Alec Baldwin again on Saturday night...
joe rogan
What does he say?
tom papa
He said, tried to watch SNL again.
So not funny.
Total fail.
Totally biased.
Fail.
joe rogan
Come on, man.
He's got to realize it's funny.
It's funny, man.
tom papa
Is he doing that because he doesn't want people to talk about Taiwan?
This is the funny discussion.
It's like, is he brilliant or is he just crazy?
That's really what we're dealing with.
Is he so savvy that he wants everybody not to pay attention to the Taiwan phone call and changing decades of how we treat Taiwan?
Or is that why he tweeted to divert us?
Or is he just, Taiwan was one call and this tweet is another thing?
joe rogan
Yeah, I think it's that.
The Taiwan thing, he'd just avoid it, just not talk about it.
Like, what is he doing?
What did he do with Taiwan?
He contacted Taiwan.
tom papa
He says, and he tweets his defenses, they called me.
What's the problem?
The policy for 40 years is that you're dealing with one China and Taiwan wants to be their own thing.
And you don't treat them the same way that you do greater China.
That Taiwan is part of China.
So the way that the diplomats have worked it, you're friendly with Taiwan, but you don't recognize them as like their own government.
You don't invite them to the White House.
Our leaders have never talked to their leaders.
So he gets a phone call and he's like, hey, what's up?
Yeah, we're cool.
And then China's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
We have this whole structure of the way the world works.
And in one phone call, this is talk about power.
Receiving one phone call shook that whole part of the globe.
joe rogan
Let me just first of all start off with China sounds like a dicky friend.
A dicky friend that wants to control you and won't let you talk to other people.
So you wanted to make friends with this new guy and the new guy wants to make friends with you.
And China's like, no, fuck that.
No, you don't even get to talk to them.
tom papa
That part is pretty valid.
joe rogan
That's everything.
To me, that's everything.
Unless there's something Taiwan's doing where we're not supposed to talk to them, like North Korea, like if all of a sudden he started chatting with North Korea and started selling taco bowls over there.
What does this say here, Jamie?
jamie vernon
This is from the Washington Post about the call.
joe rogan
It says, the message, as John Bolton correctly puts it, was that the President of the United States will talk to whomever he wants if he thinks it's in the interest of the United States, and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to.
Well, that seems to make sense to me.
Are we going to not talk to people?
Because if we do, China gets mad.
That sounds like a shitbag relationship.
tom papa
It's similar to Obama talking to Iran.
joe rogan
I've had friends like that, where they go, like, you can't talk to that person.
Look, if you have an enemy, I'm not going to, like, cozy up to someone that's your enemy.
But if you don't like somebody, it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't like them.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Just because I like you, I don't have to like everybody you like.
That's fucking crazy.
tom papa
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's crazy.
tom papa
Yeah.
No, I mean, Obama talking to Iran, it's like, well, how is this ever going to get better unless our leaders talk to their leaders?
joe rogan
Exactly.
tom papa
You're never going to get anywhere.
joe rogan
Exactly.
But if China tells you you can't talk to them, I'm like, why?
Right.
tom papa
Right.
joe rogan
Says who?
tom papa
But here, the thing with the phone call is we don't know, did he just pick it up and not, is he, was he totally unaware of our relationship with them?
jamie vernon
It said he was brief before that phone call.
unidentified
They said, hey bro, I heard you were talking to Mike, man.
joe rogan
I thought we were clear.
You don't talk to Mike, man.
Mike's a piece of shit.
tom papa
He just want, dude, he called me.
joe rogan
No, no, no, Mike's a piece of shit.
Fuck him and his whole yard.
tom papa
I don't know.
He seems like alright.
I mean, he just called me.
joe rogan
Fuck his yard.
You can't go over to his yard.
I don't want you to do business.
tom papa
I just...
He's not that bad.
joe rogan
Fuck Mike.
tom papa
He said some good things about you.
joe rogan
Oh, I'm done.
I'm done with you.
We're going to war.
China sounds like the biggest asshole.
Can you imagine what a fucking catty cat...
Like, teenager, China sounds like.
I can't even talk to them.
If I talk to them, we're going to war.
Are we going to war?
Are you serious?
We're going to war over this.
tom papa
I will totally go to war over this.
joe rogan
Financial war.
They just call the lawyer, start suing you.
What?
Why are you suing me, man?
tom papa
I don't understand the whole Asia aspect of global policy at all.
joe rogan
Well, let me tell you this.
tom papa
I don't.
joe rogan
The UFC, this is what I understand about some Asian businesses, or at least Japanese businesses.
The UFC bought this company called Pride, and boy, did they get hoodwinked.
Oh, my goodness.
The way they did it was wonderful.
First of all, the Japanese have this masterful way of negotiating business, where they talk to you about, like, maybe we'll do business.
We're thinking about doing business.
Not today.
Maybe we'll come back and discuss this at a later date.
And then they would come back.
Well, we're really thinking about selling this business.
And then the UFC and Pride started trading fighters.
They did like a goodwill gesture.
So what this did was elevate the brand of Pride and make Pride even bigger in the United States like they had in Italy.
Silva come over and he faced off with Chuck Liddell and Chuck Liddell went over there to fight people and they had all this negotiating stuff going on for a long time.
And then finally the UFC comes in and buys them out.
This big historic thing, take photos, shaking hands.
Turns out they bought nothing.
What they bought was essentially like a library of fights.
Because all the contracts that the fighters had, they were all bad.
They were all illegal.
All invalid.
They had like a couple of contracts.
Some guys that they had to take over and like, oh Jesus Christ.
Like it was just chaos.
And as far as like, they were going to like run that business over there where they got over there and they're like, oh my God, we can't run this.
Like you can't run it without the Yakuza, the people that were all like, you have to have the like the consent of the Japanese mom to run the country, the company over there.
Chinese?
No, Japanese.
That was one of the things that sunk the organization when it was publicly released, allegedly, allegedly, that the Yakuza was involved.
Everybody was like, ah!
But they went over there, they bought this, they got this library, and then while they had these UFC employees, the employees all started a new business called Dream.
And they just fucking started up with a whole new thing.
tom papa
Instead of nowhere.
joe rogan
So they bought Pride, and Pride's dead.
And the same Japanese people are like, no, we have Dream.
And they're like, but hey, you guys were working for us.
Where's our show?
What the fuck is this?
It's like they bought air.
tom papa
You know, maybe we are all unknowable to each other, and this is part of why Brexit went down, this is part of why Trump won, this is why Italy, their prime minister's now leaving.
joe rogan
Populist vote, yeah.
tom papa
Everyone's being told we've got to deal with the whole world, globalization, we've got to deal with everybody, and everyone's starting to say, you know, it's not really helping us.
Do we have to talk to the Chinese?
Do we have to deal with everybody?
Or do we have to all be one Europe?
Everybody is starting to kind of retreat.
Maybe globalization as an idea on the paper seems like it'll work, but practically, it's not taking hold.
joe rogan
We're all going to communicate through Tesla hive mind, because in the future, everyone's going to have to have an electric car, and Tesla's going to be the first to figure out that the best way to pilot your car is actually with a headset.
So you're going to put on a headset, very light, and those electrodes, they'll all be Bluetooth to your car, and that thing will operate by your mind.
But the best way...
For you to do that is you've got to be on Google Hive Minds Network.
So then you download the thoughts or you project the thoughts through the headgear as pure intention.
So everybody knows where everybody's going as they're driving because you can see pure intention from a mile away.
And that becomes the universal language of human beings when they realize the flaws of English and Spanish and Chinese and Dutch and Japanese and Korean and no one can understand what the fuck they were talking about.
But through Google Hive Mind, this headset connected to the Tesla as it drives around.
tom papa
Is this in the next update, or is this a ways away?
joe rogan
It's in one more hit of that.
unidentified
Take another hit of that, and you'll have some good ideas.
joe rogan
One more hit of the...
I don't even know what the name...
I don't even ask names of pot anymore.
It's all ridiculous.
tom papa
Yeah, I was pretty blown away.
I really felt like an old man in a pot shop.
Like, so wait, she was like, this is King Kong or something.
And I was like, oh, everybody knows this name.
I didn't realize.
I thought this was your own little brand.
I was so lost.
joe rogan
They wouldn't let my mom in a pot shop in Denver.
unidentified
Why?
tom papa
She never ID? She never ID. Good for them.
You have to have laws.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think she's legal, folks.
I mean, it's flattering and everything.
tom papa
I'm sure she was happy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I think they have to mark down who you are.
tom papa
They didn't.
joe rogan
They didn't?
tom papa
No, they just looked at it.
joe rogan
They probably took pictures of your shit, bro.
You don't even know, bro.
tom papa
Oh, maybe, bro.
Bro, you're right.
unidentified
Tom Papa.
joe rogan
We just did three hours, man.
tom papa
We did already?
joe rogan
Yeah.
tom papa
No.
joe rogan
Yep.
tom papa
This is a time warp.
This is part of the hive mentality.
joe rogan
That's what I'm saying.
tom papa
This is weirdness in this place.
joe rogan
That's what happens.
tom papa
It's weird.
joe rogan
It is.
I'm worried that if we move studios, we'll lose that magic of three hours just disappearing.
tom papa
When are you moving?
joe rogan
I don't know, bro.
Bruh.
We're working on it, bro.
tom papa
Bruh, move to Sherman Oaks.
joe rogan
Thinking about it, bro.
tom papa
Go to Sherman Oaks, bruh.
joe rogan
I'm thinking about it now, and I'm thinking no.
tom papa
Come on, there's lots of good space in Sherman Oaks, right?
joe rogan
Friday night, Tom Papa on Epyx.
What time?
tom papa
The new specials, 8 o'clock, I think.
And Epyx isn't like on DirecTV, but everybody can get Epyx for free for the month.
You can watch on your phone or your laptop or whatever.
unidentified
Oh, okay.
tom papa
So just go to Epyx.com and you'll be able to check it out.
joe rogan
Oh, so your special, and then there's a lot of other specials, too, that are on Epyx.
Jim Norton, I know, Maren has a special.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
All those are available as well online.
You can check them out on the website.
tom papa
Yeah, for sure.
And then it goes to iTunes next week.
joe rogan
Well, I can't wait to check it out, brother.
tom papa
I appreciate it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me in.
joe rogan
Tom, motherfucking papa, ladies and gentlemen.
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
tom papa
Bakery near you.
joe rogan
Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Inside joke.
All right, folks.
Thank you.
See you tomorrow.
Bye.
Kevin Smith tomorrow.
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