Metro (Ireland)Hard-hitting US comedian Joe Rogan holds a second black belt in tae kwon do and brown belt in Brazilian jujitsu. The Ultimate Fighting commentator discusses squaring up to Wesley Snipes, isolation tanks and performing during the Apocalypse.
Why do you think you’re perceived as a controversial comedian?
Not many comics are willing to go far out. When you start talking about dark areas like government corruption or the positive effects of psychedelic drugs, you risk offending your audience. And when you’re just starting out, other comedians won’t thank you for getting a crowd riled about abortion and genocide. Telling jokes about farts and getting drunk, you won’t develop a rabid following but you won’t start any fights.
Your new TV show, Game Show In My Head, sounds a bit like Jason Byrne’s Anonymous. How does it work?
It’s a really funny show man. The contestant has an earpiece in and they don’t know what they have to do until I tell them. One time, I sent a guy over to a camera crew and told him he’s a news reporter. Unfortunately, the story he’s reporting on, the witnesses have fled. So he has to find people that weren’t there and convince them to pretend they were part of it. Next, I tell him the event was ‘a UFO flew overhead, you were abducted and they performed tests on you’. He’s laughing and saying ‘how the hell?’ But he pulled it off almost immediately because people are willing to bare-faced lie with a camera in their face.
Apparently you’re planning an End of the World Show with the comic Doug Stanhope leading up to the arrival of December 21, 2012. How come?
It’s when the Mayan calendar ends and when many believe our human age will change. All the crazy events in our world, the Iraq War, the Internet and all our technological innovation, we’re moving towards some kind of huge event, perhaps a catastrophe, maybe the next level of evolution. Also, Terrence McKenna – a brilliant man, everything I know about psychedelic drugs I learned from him – developed a mathematical algorithm, the Timewave Zero-Novelty Theory, which holds that all human innovation is building towards ‘ultimate novelty’. Through this programme he independently predicted it would occur on the same date. So who knows? We plan to commemorate just in case.
Why do you enjoy Ultimate Fighting so much?
It’s the most visceral sport in the world, one that stretches back to ancient times. The human drama of a guy fighting for his life, fully committed in mind, flesh and will is hugely exciting to me.
What happened to your proposed fight with Wesley Snipes?
He changed his mind. It was ridiculous but I thought it would be fun. ‘What? Snipes wants a fight?’ If you’re sparring in a gym and punches are pulled because you’re a famous actor you have a distorted perception of your abilities. I’ve fought hundreds of karate and tae kwon do tournaments. I’ve kickboxed and I do jujitsu. I’m pretty good. If I didn’t do jujitsu for two years and let him train constantly, I’d still choke the hell out of him. His ego was writing cheques his body couldn’t cash.
Why do you own an isolation tank?
For self-analysis. It was designed by John Lilly, a pioneer in inter-species communication who developed it to communicate with dolphins. He figured it out while on acid. The water is heated to the same temperature as your skin and you’re in total silence and darkness. It feels like your brain is untethered from your body and you begin looking at life more objectively. There’s some pretty deep places I reach, which, if they were in pill form, the government would try to ban.
You're known for confronting comedians who steal jokes. How big a problem is gag-theft?
It’s a real problem. Club owners let these vampires suck from other artists because they just want the money. This one famous actor-comic, the reason he can become his characters in movies so easily is because he’s an emotional mess, he needs constant attention. He even steals from people who are his best friends! He was the first comic I ever heard of, where, if he was in the room, other comedians wouldn’t perform. Here’s a guy who was super-famous, but because there was no Internet back in the 80s to expose him, if he did your joke on TV, it became his joke. I’m sure he lives in hell though, like anybody on ego drugs like cocaine. If he ever got in my isolation tank he would lose his mind and jump out screaming.
