Joe Rogan Experience #1785 - Earthquake

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. EAEarthquake0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. EAEarthquake0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      All right. Talk to me, Earthquake. What's happening?

   5. EAEarthquake0:14

      (laughs) Hey. What's up, Joe? How you doing, fam?

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Great to see you, man.

   7. EAEarthquake0:17

      Thanks for having me, first of all.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      My pleasure. Listen, your special is fucking outstanding. It is one of the best specials I've seen in a long time. It's hard to laugh by yourself out loud on a phone-

   9. EAEarthquake0:28

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       ... when you're watching someone on a phone. I laughed hard.

   11. EAEarthquake0:30

       Thank you.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       It was great. It's you! It's like, uh, y- you know, sometimes someone does a special, and it's like (inhales sharply) it's better seeing them live, but-

   13. EAEarthquake0:36

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       ... you captured it.

   15. EAEarthquake0:38

       It was, um, it was a journey. It was the first time I was properly financed.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Mm.

   17. EAEarthquake0:43

       You know what I mean? Um, we wasn't, um, borrowing money or had the right vehicle, properly supported by the distributors and everything. So, it was, it was the opportunity. Then I knew the significance of it by Dave being a part of it, that this was th- the one I needed to elevate me to get off of this level that I'm on right now.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       Well, we were talking about this before but, in my mind, your level, in terms of your ability-

   19. EAEarthquake1:10

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       ... you're already there. You're one of the best comics alive. There's no-

   21. EAEarthquake1:13

       Thank you.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       ... there's no doubt about it. So this is a great representative of that. It's a great representation of that. 'Cause it's very rare that someone gets as good as you are that's not selling out arenas.

   23. EAEarthquake1:25

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:25

       Like, you n- that's how good you are.

   25. EAEarthquake1:26

       Well, thank you.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       So, it's ex- it's exciting for me.

   27. EAEarthquake1:29

       Yes. And, um, you know, I hope, but you know it. You're a comic, man. You never know what's gonna do it, what's gonna generate.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:36

       Yeah.

   29. EAEarthquake1:36

       I never had a problem with, um... I never equated quantity with quality.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:42

       Right.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Um... Second one, I…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

   2. EAEarthquake15:00

      Um... Second one, I think. Everybody else said the second one.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      Yeah.

   4. EAEarthquake15:06

      The first one, you say, "Let me get it in the can." If... The name... The number one objective for me was to make sure it captured who I was. You know what I mean?

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Yeah.

   6. EAEarthquake15:16

      That, that and, um... I made sure that was on the first one. Then the second one, it was like it was another night at the club. I knew I had that one in the can. They was like, "You ain't even gotta do a second show if you don't want to. We got it in the first." I said, "Nah, let me do this one." And I did it a whole different way. He's like, "Goddam." So...

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      Well, that is what it's about, right? When you do a special, like, when someone has to do one special and you have one hour to do it. Like, uh, uh, I always talk about Bill Hicks' special, Relentless. It was this HBO special.

   8. EAEarthquake15:42

      Yeah, I love Bill.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:43

      Where it's... Bill was amazing. But that special, you could tell he's kinda tense. Like-

   10. EAEarthquake15:49

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       ... it's just he's got one shot to do this in one hour. There's no, like, looseness that you would get from a regular show.

   12. EAEarthquake15:57

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:57

       So if you can get a few shows in... I, I do four. I do two on Friday, two on Saturday.

   14. EAEarthquake16:03

       When you tape-

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       Yep.

   16. EAEarthquake16:03

       ... would you do?

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:04

       Yeah.

   18. EAEarthquake16:04

       Okay.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:05

       'Cause I did two, uh... Like, the last time I did two was in 2014, a lady heckled me during the first show.

   20. EAEarthquake16:11

       Mm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:11

       And I was like, "Oh, no."

   22. EAEarthquake16:13

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       I was like, "If someone heckles me during the second show, I'm fucked."

   24. EAEarthquake16:16

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Because this one bit-

   26. EAEarthquake16:17

       Yes.

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       ... was ruined-

   28. EAEarthquake16:19

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       ... when she yelled sh- something out. But... So when I do four though, it's just like right away, from the beginning, I'm like, "This is gonna be just a regular show."

   30. EAEarthquake16:29

       Right.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Psh. …

   1. EAEarthquake30:00

      come up with an hour.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Psh.

   3. EAEarthquake30:02

      I can come up with an hour.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      And when you were doing this... Like, two years in is a very unusual... That's, that's not a lot of time-

   5. EAEarthquake30:10

      No.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      ... for someone to be... F- forget about headlining at all, but headlining every fucking night?

   7. EAEarthquake30:16

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      And basically doing... Being the whole show-

   9. EAEarthquake30:19

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:19

       ... every night?

   11. EAEarthquake30:20

       Yeah. We was, um... We would get some comedians that come on it, but we didn't get any of the main, um, comedians, because, uh, Comedy Act wasn't having it.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       That's such a cocky move to open up your own club two years in. That's amazing.

   13. EAEarthquake30:36

       But they were so vulnerable. They was in the bad ti- bad part of town. They didn't serve, uh, food. And then they... The cotton was being more... And, I mean, the one that really would bring them down, they were so arrogant with it that they'll book a comic-... two comics for the whole month. Same comic, every week. Every week.

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       Oh, that's crazy.

   15. EAEarthquake30:59

       Yes. I remember it was Joe Torre, um, Joe Torre and Ted Carpenter and they did the whole month. So when I'd brung my investors there to get the club, I said, "Look, these same two gonna be here. There's 400 people in here, they got two waitresses. Plus they ain't got no food, plus they in a bad part of town. So what we gonna do, we gone put it, we gone put the club in Buckhead. Black people don't go there that much right there 'cause they don't go there. We gone call it Uptown and we gone, we gone serve food, we gone have valet service, we're gonna be in a better part of the town." And that's how I got it. So once you, any of you gone go up against anybody, you first gotta, uh, recognize their weakness and where you can draw from what they got. And that's why I pivot all my commercials to 'em that way. "Are you tired of going down to a place you park your car and you might don't know who gone be there and they begging you for money? Nah. Come get your jokes up at Uptown Comedy Corner. You know what I'm saying? Where you don't see the same comedian over and over again. And we have food. And we have prompt service and everything else. Come to Uptown." So I just (makes punching sounds) . And as you sit there, you give them a comparison about Uptown and people are like, "Yeah, we like it." And that's how I got 'em.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:15

       That's amazing though that you did that two years in. Like, y- you go from your career in the military-

   17. EAEarthquake32:21

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       ... where you kinda half-ass it, you're not-

   19. EAEarthquake32:22

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       ... really into it and then all of a sudden you find this new thing-

   21. EAEarthquake32:26

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:26

       ... and you're all in.

   23. EAEarthquake32:28

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:29

       You're all in. You're, you're opening up your own club 24 months in. That's crazy.

   25. EAEarthquake32:34

       But what, you know, it was outta necessity 'cause I got tired of driving night, all the way to Lakeland, Florida to get $50 a show. And then the biggest one, you'll tell a woman you a comedian and she's like, "Well, I ain't never seen you at The Comedy Hut." You know, we segregation... uh, we, we segregated in the black community. If you ain't here, then you ain't doing it. You know what I mean?

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:56

       Mm-hmm.

   27. EAEarthquake32:56

       So it ain't done, just, it wasn't as expanded as it is now that they can even imagine this other club. This was the club of all club, the only club. If you didn't work there, you weren't no black comedian. And-

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:09

       So, so you had this in your head that you wanted to do this, and how did you make that happen? Like, who did you get to invest in it? Like how did, how'd you start a club?

   29. EAEarthquake33:17

       Well, it was this dude named Gary Abdu. He was book... he was a comedian too and, but he booked things in like, um, he used to do little, little small places like Denny's, for example, and put a plywood box up there, little small place. Sit there and he'll throw a show and, um, he'll book me and pay me $150. Me, Ricky Smiley, and the rest of 'em. And we sat down and said, "What you need to do is we need to open up a black club." So I showed it to him and I said, "This is how we can get 'em," what I previously said. He said, "Good idea." So we all went out and tried to get investors. I went to all... Deon, Sanders, Dominique, all the people in Atlanta. "Hey man, sure, just call this person, call this person." Motherfuckers ain't never do nothing.

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:08

       (laughs)
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Because they already know…

   1. EAEarthquake45:00

      Because they already know that it is no perfection, so fuck it, why even try? (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:04

      Oh, but-

   3. EAEarthquake45:05

      (laughs) You understand? You see them all the time. Ah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      Yeah.

   5. EAEarthquake45:10

      You have comedians that's been doing this as long as my- I have and just gave in, just given up.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      Yeah.

   7. EAEarthquake45:15

      "Hell with Hollywood. Hell with not having a show. Ah, they never gonna give it to me." I say, I tell them all the time, it's, I want to know it 'cause I'll be dead before I stop trying for it. Just, it would never, I would never know that I will not have all the professional accolades my peers have.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Yeah.

   9. EAEarthquake45:38

      'Cause I'll be dead, 'cause I will always strive to get it.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       The thing about the Hollywood part is that you- you're getting a bunch of people that aren't even comedians to try to give you something.

   11. EAEarthquake45:49

       True.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:50

       That's-

   13. EAEarthquake45:52

       True.

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:52

       I'm glad I escaped that.

   15. EAEarthquake45:53

       True. Well, Joe, I can't. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:58

       (laughs)

   17. EAEarthquake45:58

       I wish I could.

   18. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       I think you can.

   19. EAEarthquake46:00

       You know what I mean?

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:01

       I think you can. I think you can with this special. I really do. It's that good. But you're that good, too. It's the, it's not like it's just the special. It's, there's a few guys like you, Dave Chappelle, or, uh, Dave Attell, rather, Tony Woods. There's a few guys that, like, they don't get the credit that they deserve, but the performance is there, which is the hardest part. Like, if you're a famous person but you're not good at standup and then people come to see you, that's not so good.

   21. EAEarthquake46:29

       No.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:30

       That's the opposite-

   23. EAEarthquake46:31

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:31

       ... of what you want. You're better off being in your position because you've got the product, you've got the, you've got everything. It's just, it just needs a- a vehicle-

   25. EAEarthquake46:39

       True.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:40

       ... to present it to people. And now you have that.

   27. EAEarthquake46:42

       Let me ask you this. Uh, when you see this self-proclaimed great comic that the industry done put up on there, and then you actually go see his act and it's no, I mean, it's elementary at best, but just being that-

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       Yeah.

   29. EAEarthquake46:57

       How do you react to it? Do you tell him-

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:59

       No.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:36

   Really? …

   1. EAEarthquake1:00:00

      I could sit on the couch for four days if I could get away with it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      Really?

   3. EAEarthquake1:00:03

      Oh, yeah. Uh, I don't need a damn thing. I'm that dude. Get me a remote, I'll sit on that motherfucker all motherfucking day. Listen, I only go to work 'cause I have to.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      (laughs)

   5. EAEarthquake1:00:14

      Listen to me. (laughs) When I get some money... Once, you'll know when I got some money 'cause you won't see me.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      (laughs)

   7. EAEarthquake1:00:22

      (laughs) I'm being honest with you. That's why I never understand seeing all these people would say they got all this money. I'm like, the fuck, why are you working? I am, once I get enough money to the point that My Black Ass will never have an unseen episode, (laughs) you know? (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

      Yeah.

   9. EAEarthquake1:00:38

      Hey, man, I'm good. You know what I mean? I, I swear. I, I can't... I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't get it. I just don't get it. I, working, the only reason I see people who supposed to work because you're supposed to go get the money.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       Right.

   11. EAEarthquake1:00:53

       (laughs) And even if it's a pleasurable job, which we have, but let me get the money.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       (laughs)

   13. EAEarthquake1:01:01

       (laughs) My Black Ass ain't going nowhere. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:03

       I'm the opposite. The more money I get, the more I think, "I don't want to get lazy just because I have all this money," so I work harder.

   15. EAEarthquake1:01:11

       See, I don't want that.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:13

       (laughs)

   17. EAEarthquake1:01:13

       You can keep that philosophy. I want to get the money so I don't have to be able not to do a damn thing.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

       I get it. I get that-

   19. EAEarthquake1:01:19

       Not a damn thing.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:20

       ... I get depressed. I can't just watch TV.

   21. EAEarthquake1:01:22

       Oh.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:23

       If I watch TV, I have to have accomplished a lot of shit before I can just sit down and just relax.

   23. EAEarthquake1:01:28

       Mm. That's what... I mean, that's my everything, watching TV.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:32

       (laughs)

   25. EAEarthquake1:01:33

       (laughs) That's my everything. Right below a woman. You understand what I'm saying?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       Right.

   27. EAEarthquake1:01:38

       Hey. I can't. I mean, I could just sit there and watch TV and don't worry about nothing. That's why I have a perfect mentality for stardom because I don't have to go nowhere.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       Mm-hmm.

   29. EAEarthquake1:01:51

       I don't have to be at the after-party.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       Right.

Episode duration: 2:06:51