Joe Rogan Experience #1843 - Paul VIrzi

1. 0:02 – 1:06

   Paul Virzi’s dad: Bronx/Sicilian swagger and the setup to a UFO sighting

   1. NANarrator0:02

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Tell me when you're ready.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      I'm ready.

   3. NANarrator0:14

      Okay. Oh, we'll have that rolling, Paul Verzin. What the fuck?

   4. PVPaul Virzi0:18

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      So, tell me the UFO story.

   6. PVPaul Virzi0:20

      (laughs) All right. Um, well, first, I'm going to tell you about my dad real quick.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:25

      Okay.

   8. PVPaul Virzi0:25

      My dad is Sicilian to the fuck... He... Born and raised Bronx, okay? Grew up in the 1960s in the Bronx. Always has to dress nice, you know. Very materialistic. A man needs a watch.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:40

      (laughs)

   10. PVPaul Virzi0:41

       A man needs shoes. Okay? Me and my brother were in the car one time. My father would do this shit. We were young. He shouldn't have, but he would be like, he'd be like, "Look at that. You see that? That's a fucking disgrace." He'd be like, "That's a man in a Honda." You know?

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       (laughs)

   12. PVPaul Virzi0:54

       And he'd be like, "Th- th- there's kids in that fucking car." Like, like that.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       Wow.

   14. PVPaul Virzi0:58

       1982 Jaguar XJ6, black, white leather. Dressed to the nines. You know, everybody's crazy but him.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       (laughs)

2. 1:06 – 2:54

   The 1973 Yonkers ‘flying saucer’ encounter: close range, silent, and time distortion

   1. PVPaul Virzi1:06

      "Fucking, they're crazy. Fucking..." Right? So, tells me and my brother a story. To this day, the story's not changed, and he told me he wished he never saw what he saw. 1973, my mother is pregnant with my older brother, Christian. Uh, he's five years older than me. Okay? So, uh, she's pregnant with him. They're outside in Yonkers. There's a little grass lot. And my aunt, grandmother, and mother are out there, and they're screaming, "Tommy, you got to come out here! You got to come out here." So, the way my father tells this story, he goes, "I'm watching TV. What the fuck?" You know? "I- I don't want to be bothered." He goes, "I go outside," and he said, "Paul," he said, "sitting where I could throw a rock or shoot my gun at it, there is a fucking..." And the way he s- he said flying saucer, which is fucking hilarious, but he goes, "There's a fucking flying saucer," and he said, "it's got a blue tint around it, little port holes, but you could barely see. Quiet. Quiet as can be." And he said they were all... And he said the time was weird. The time of night was weird. It was like that weird time where the sun's going down, you don't know. He said the timing of it was weird, and he said his time perception during it was, was very, something was off with the time. And he said he thought, he said, "Holy shit, I could fucking shoot my gun at this thing." But then he goes, he goes, "Then I freaked out because I don't know if this thing's reading my fucking mind, so I went inside."

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:20

      (laughs)

   3. PVPaul Virzi2:21

      'Cause he thought that it might've been... So, he went inside, he looked again. He went outside, they looked at it, they were stunned, and he said, "And like that, it turned into a dot in the sky." Uh, he said, "Like that, it turned into a star like that." And he says, to this day, exactly the same thing. He goes, "Paul, I always used to think those people were fucking nuts." He goes, "All those people, I thought they were fucking hillbillies somewhere in the Midwest just trying to get attention." He goes, "I know what the fuck I saw." And he goes, "And I wish I didn't see it because I still dream about it and I know what the fuck I saw and I know it wasn't from here. That's 100% true."

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:51

      What year was this?

   5. PVPaul Virzi2:52

      1973.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:53

      '73.

3. 2:54 – 3:52

   Corroboration and stigma: googling Yonkers sightings and why people stayed quiet

   1. PVPaul Virzi2:54

      And then I Googled 1973 Yonkers, and many people saw something.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:59

      Ah.

   3. PVPaul Virzi2:59

      But it was right above them.

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:01

      Look at this. Man says, "1973 UFO incident turned life upside down."

   5. PVPaul Virzi3:05

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:05

      Wow. I'm not surprised.

   7. PVPaul Virzi3:09

      No.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:09

      That thing, it probably looked just like that. That one right there.

   9. PVPaul Virzi3:12

      That's what, that, yes. Yeah, he a- when... It's funny, 'cause when he describes it, it looks like that. Uh, like in my mind, that's what he said it looked like, and that's what I always thought about. That right there. But he said that it was gone in, like, he said he couldn't believe. He said my m- and my mother's very, like, religious, so the other day, we had a party and somebody... Might've actually been Yiannas. He goes, "I, you know, I got to, I've got to find out. Can I talk... Can..." And he, and she goes-

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:34

       (laughs)

   11. PVPaul Virzi3:34

       She goes, "I saw that." She goes, "I s- I s-," she goes, "Yiannas, I saw that. We, we saw that. That thing just disappeared." My father said if he had a picture in 1973 of where it was, nobody would ever had a picture like that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:43

       Wow.

   13. PVPaul Virzi3:43

       He goes, "I'd have been a fucking millionaire." Yeah, he said, "Nobody..." It was right there, he said. He said, "You could've maybe not thrown something, but shoot, shoot at it."

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:50

       Wow.

   15. PVPaul Virzi3:51

       Yeah, man.

4. 3:52 – 6:04

   Bob Lazar’s S4 craft recreation and the ‘Element 115’ gravity-bending theory

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:52

      Well, that thing right there is a copy by this guy, Designs By P3ry. Uh, the E in P3ry is a three, on Instagram. And he, he recreated that thing. That's a, a recreation of what Bob Lazar-

   2. PVPaul Virzi4:05

      Wow.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:05

      ... uh, allegedly worked on in Area S4.

   4. PVPaul Virzi4:08

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:08

      And that's exactly how he described it. He said this thing was running on something called Element 115. Element 115 is apparently some element that was just theoretical until, like, the, the early 2000s. I think it was, like, 2013 or something like that. They recreated in a large hadron collider. Um, but before-

   6. PVPaul Virzi4:29

      Wow.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:29

      In a, in a particle collider. But before that, he was saying that these people ha- he was talking about this in 1989. That these people who were working on this thing, trying to back engineer it, they described it as being some sort, there's some sort of an engine that works off of this, uh, element. And that what it does is it bends gravity. So, instead of-

   8. PVPaul Virzi4:51

      Jesus.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:52

      ... instead of, like, a rocket where fire comes out the back and it pushes the rocket forward-

   10. PVPaul Virzi4:56

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:57

       ... this thing bends space and time.

   12. PVPaul Virzi4:59

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:59

       So, it bends gravity and pushes it through.

   14. PVPaul Virzi5:02

       What?

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:02

       Yeah, that's why it's totally silent. The thing is, it's like, sounds crazy, but-

   16. PVPaul Virzi5:06

       Uh oh.

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:06

       ... all these things that these pilots have seen, that they describe having no heat signature, no visible means of propulsion, they all move in that same way.

   18. PVPaul Virzi5:16

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:16

       Exactly how your dad described.

   20. PVPaul Virzi5:18

       Yeah, and I didn't know that the bending gravity was why it was silent. But everybody that I know says they've seen one says silent.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:25

       Yeah.

   22. PVPaul Virzi5:26

       There's never noise, like any sort of engine, which is wild.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:30

       It is pretty wild, but I mean, you know, everybody's like, "Well, I ain't seeing shit." But i- if one person saw it, if they only came down for, like, a half hour or an hour, f- you know, a few people saw it, then it took off and never came back again, those people would be confused like your dad probably for the rest of their lives.

   24. PVPaul Virzi5:46

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:46

       Just thinking about it.

   26. PVPaul Virzi5:48

       Yeah, and he's, he's so detailed every single time, and he says, he goes, he goes, "What I don't like about seeing it was I knew that I was seeing something that was just unexplained and not from here. And it's, and I know it's out there."

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:00

       Yeah.

   28. PVPaul Virzi6:01

       And he's just fucked up by it, you know? He's-

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:03

       I would imagine.

5. 6:04 – 8:38

   Why would aliens be here? Monitoring nukes vs. ‘we’re the ant farm’

   1. PVPaul Virzi6:04

      Uh, what do you think they're doing? Like, what's the goal?

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:06

      Probably making sure we don't blow ourselves up.... probably l- when every civilization... I, I think there's probably a bunch of different kinds of life forms in space, right? Like, m- m- millions of different kinds. But I think they must know that we operate off of biological needs. Like, we have a biological need to procreate, a biological need to protect our, our village and to-

   3. PVPaul Virzi6:31

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:31

      ... protect our stuff, and so we're warring still.

   5. PVPaul Virzi6:34

      Okay.

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:34

      But yet, we're moving this technological age of sophistication, where we have nuclear bombs and video that travels on your phone to the other side of the world in a half a second, and all the wild shit that we can do now that makes it very complex for us to manage both our primate instincts-

   7. PVPaul Virzi6:52

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:52

      ... and the responsibility of having incredible power. So, they're probably like, just, "Let's just fucking keep an eye on these assholes."

   9. PVPaul Virzi6:59

      Why, why would they care though? (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan7:01

       Because they don't want us to blow ourselves up. Think about how many billions of years it took for us to become what we are, right? You go from the single-celled organism-

   11. PVPaul Virzi7:09

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan7:09

       ... to what a human being is now, that is a long road, to, for us to just knock the dominoes over-

   13. PVPaul Virzi7:14

       (laughs) They just fucking-

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:14

       ... 'cause some guy has a hard on, right? It's Putin, right?

   15. PVPaul Virzi7:18

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       Like, if Putin's just like, "Fuck you, I kill everybody," and he just fucking nukes Ukraine, and then we nuke him, and then China nukes us, and-

   17. PVPaul Virzi7:26

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:26

       ... you know, that kinda shit is a real possibility. And I, if I was an alien, I was like, "Look, they're so close to getting it right. They're so close to getting it together."

   19. PVPaul Virzi7:36

       Yeah. That, that could be. That... (laughs) Yeah, dude. I don't know. I tell you what, if I saw it, it would fuck me up.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:43

       What do you think it is? What do you think they're doing? If, if that's real. Let's just assume that this isn't just a mass hallucination, or-

   21. PVPaul Virzi7:49

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:50

       ... what do you, what do you think it is?

   23. PVPaul Virzi7:52

       Uh, I think they're just curious, man. I think they're just watching, and I think... I don't know. I, I would say I don't know that they care. I wouldn't think that they would care, but I think they're just watching us. But what if this? I always thought about this. What if they created us? Like, we're their ant farm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan8:07

       Yeah.

   25. PVPaul Virzi8:07

       And-

   26. JRJoe Rogan8:07

       I've thought of that too, yeah.

   27. PVPaul Virzi8:08

       You know, like, like-

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:09

       Yeah.

   29. PVPaul Virzi8:09

       ... one of them, like, fucked something down and just started something.

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:13

       Yeah.
6. 8:38 – 12:08

   Human weirdness and lost hominins: ‘Hobbit’ people, Bigfoot theories, and evolution gaps

   1. PVPaul Virzi8:38

      Wow.

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:38

      ... they took us. Which kinda makes sense that we're so different than all the other primates. You see, all the other primates, they're all still kinda stuck in this weird sort of... I mean, we know that there were bipedal primates that don't exist anymore, like, um, have you ever heard of the, the, The Hobbit people?

   3. PVPaul Virzi8:54

      No. Oth- not, other than the movie. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:56

      Not, not, not, not the movie.

   5. PVPaul Virzi8:57

      Yeah, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:58

      There's, uh, an ani- well, it's, it's, like, a human. It's called Homo, uh, floresiensis. Floresiensis? I think that's how you say it. Um, from the island of Flores. And they're these tiny people that were, like, different-

   7. PVPaul Virzi9:12

      Wow.

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:12

      ... than... They're not Homo sapiens, but they were, like, in the humanoid category.

   9. PVPaul Virzi9:17

      Whoa.

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:17

       And they were three feet tall. They used tools, and they think they might've even, uh, like, had conflicts with people where they're like-

   11. PVPaul Virzi9:26

       (laughs) What the fuck?

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:26

       Yeah. Those are real, real creatures. But there's not just one of them. Like, this is, this is a fact, right? This, this animal, this, uh, this hobbit person, they didn't find out about this until... God, I wanna say it was, like, 2000s. Somewhere in the 2000s, they discovered it. When did they discover it? Is that what it says? Does it say?

   13. NANarrator9:51

       No, not when. I'll look.

   14. JRJoe Rogan9:54

       Well, they-

   15. NANarrator9:54

       Oh, it was discovered in 2003.

   16. JRJoe Rogan9:55

       2003.

   17. NANarrator9:56

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:56

       They discu-... So, up until 2003, they didn't even know this was a thing. And they know that these creatures lived alongside human beings. They know that-

   19. PVPaul Virzi10:05

       Wow.

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:05

       ... that, I think the fossils they found were as recent as somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 years ago. So, somewhere around 10,000 years ago, there was a creature that was, like, a tiny humanlike, like, had hands like a human, a face like a human, but it was three feet tall, covered in hair.

   21. PVPaul Virzi10:20

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:20

       Used tools, and lived alongside people.

   23. PVPaul Virzi10:23

       But not human.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:24

       Not human.

   25. PVPaul Virzi10:24

       Wow. Not human.

   26. JRJoe Rogan10:26

       Yeah.

   27. PVPaul Virzi10:26

       Wow.

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:27

       But, so there's that one, right? And then there's some other ones, like, uh, Gigantopithecus, which is what they think Bigfoot was. That's a, a giant eight-foot-tall bipedal hominid that existed. That's, like, in the orangutan family.

   29. PVPaul Virzi10:40

       Oh, okay, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:41

       And they think that that exists. So, there's a bunch of different primates. But the bottom line is, all of them, even this one that has tools, and it, it's, they're, they're-
7. 12:08 – 17:55

   Drug testing origins and baseball’s performance-enhancement era

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:08

      Did they have pee tests back then? I wonder when they started doing drug tests. Like, when did they first start drug testing employees?

   2. PVPaul Virzi12:12

      I think, I think '80s. I don't think they did it in the '70s.... you know?

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:17

      Hmm.

   4. PVPaul Virzi12:17

      I, I don't think so. Um-

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:18

      Nah. Nah, they probably didn't have drug tests back then.

   6. PVPaul Virzi12:21

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan12:21

      You know? Back then I bet coke was real coke. You got coke-

   8. PVPaul Virzi12:24

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan12:24

      ... I bet it was clean.

   10. PVPaul Virzi12:25

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan12:26

       They probably didn't even cut it.

   12. PVPaul Virzi12:27

       Now you can't fucking-

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:28

       Ah.

   14. PVPaul Virzi12:28

       ... can't touch it.

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:29

       What does it say here? President Ronald Reagan. Worse- workplace drug testing started off after President Ronald Reagan required it for federal employees in 1986.

   16. PVPaul Virzi12:40

       Yeah. (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:40

       And it peaked during the drug war of the 1990s. Fucking Reagan.

   18. PVPaul Virzi12:44

       '86?

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:45

       Yeah.

   20. PVPaul Virzi12:47

       He probably saw, uh, Darryl Strawberry dot Gooden, he's like-

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:49

       (laughs)

   22. PVPaul Virzi12:49

       ... "Enough of this shit." (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:51

       (laughs)

   24. PVPaul Virzi12:51

       That was the first steroids of sports-

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:53

       Ugh.

   26. PVPaul Virzi12:53

       ... was the coke of sports, because they all did it.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:56

       Right. Well, I bet- get baseball players, apparently, they all like to do, uh, amphetamines, right?

   28. PVPaul Virzi13:00

       I was gonna say. Yeah, yeah. That was the first one.

   29. JRJoe Rogan13:01

       Yeah. Well, baseball players, that's probably one of the most performance-enhanced sports-

   30. PVPaul Virzi13:07

       Yeah.
8. 17:55 – 20:22

   Congress hearings, denial theater, and Sammy Sosa’s bleaching spiral

   1. NANarrator17:55

      Why, why did it go to Congress, though? That's pretty weird it went all the way to-

   2. PVPaul Virzi17:58

      I, I think so too.

   3. JRJoe Rogan17:59

      Yeah, I agree.

   4. NANarrator17:59

      ... congressional hearings.

   5. PVPaul Virzi17:59

      It shouldn't go to...

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:59

      'Cause baseball's our national game, that's why. 'Cause like if that happened with like... Pick a sport. Darts.

   7. NANarrator18:06

      Oh.

   8. JRJoe Rogan18:06

      You think anybody give a fuck?

   9. PVPaul Virzi18:08

      No. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan18:08

       Dart players doing 'roids. You know, bring them to Congress.

   11. PVPaul Virzi18:11

       Fucking bocce ball players. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:12

       Yeah.

   13. NANarrator18:12

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:12

       I mean, like, why is it that... It's gotta be that baseball's a national sport. I don't think they would've done that with anything else. They definitely would've done it with football, 'cause they know-

   15. PVPaul Virzi18:21

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:21

       ... everybody's juiced up on football.... yeah, they all get Maguire.

   17. PVPaul Virzi18:24

       Look at Sosa looking over-

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:25

       (laughs)

   19. PVPaul Virzi18:26

       ... at them.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:26

       That's Sosa before he turned white.

   21. PVPaul Virzi18:28

       Y- yeah. What? That was- That's wild what he did.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:31

       He keeps doing it too. He's getting whiter and whiter. Li- like, some people, you know, it's just, it's just like body dysmorphia, right?

   23. PVPaul Virzi18:39

       That's wild.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:39

       It's like an anorexic or something like that. He thinks he looks good, but it, it looks wrong because his features-

   25. PVPaul Virzi18:45

       No. Is that real?

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       That's real, dude. That's what he looks like today.

   27. PVPaul Virzi18:49

       What the f-

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:50

       Yeah.

   29. PVPaul Virzi18:50

       Why?

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:51

       I don't know. He's out of his fucking mind.
9. 20:22 – 27:42

   Parenting philosophy: autonomy, communication, and raising confident kids

   1. PVPaul Virzi20:22

      Where, where do you stand-

   2. JRJoe Rogan20:23

      He's losing his mind.

   3. PVPaul Virzi20:23

      You have kids?

   4. JRJoe Rogan20:24

      Yeah.

   5. PVPaul Virzi20:24

      Uh, where do you stand with, like, what they can do as far as, like, tattoos, piercings, doing shit like that? 'Cause my kids are not ready for that. I have a... My daughter's 10 and my son is 13. And my, you know, my daughter has earrings and stuff like that. My... I don't know if my son's interested in certain things yet, but are you gonna be one of those to be like, you know, "Be careful," like, "I don't want you doing that," or it's like whatever?

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:46

      I don't think that I have any control over my children's bodies once they become adults.

   7. PVPaul Virzi20:53

      Hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan20:54

      You know, my... I think, I think I w- wanna be kind, I wanna give them as much information as I can, I wanna, you know, make sure that they do a lot of things that build up their character and their self-esteem, and then allow them to make choices. I think the best thing that you could do is have a dialogue with your kids where they know they could always talk to you about things.

   9. PVPaul Virzi21:14

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan21:15

       So, like, I-

   11. PVPaul Virzi21:16

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan21:16

       ... I'm not very, I'm not as r- my wife is more m- restrictive than me when it comes to, like, l- like, uh, television or, or computer use or she puts, like, screen time on their phones and shit like that.

   13. PVPaul Virzi21:28

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:28

       I feel like you gotta be very careful-

   15. PVPaul Virzi21:31

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:31

       ... to not be too controlling 'cause then-

   17. PVPaul Virzi21:33

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan21:33

       ... your, your kid will try to rebel. People don't like being told what to do.

   19. PVPaul Virzi21:37

       No.

   20. JRJoe Rogan21:37

       You know? It's like when your boss isn't looking and then you go do things you're not supposed to do. That's... It's just a natural thing. If you got a boss that's like as soon as you leave, it's, "Fuck him."

   21. PVPaul Virzi21:45

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan21:45

       You put your feet up on the desk.

   23. PVPaul Virzi21:46

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan21:46

       You know? If you give people freedom-

   25. PVPaul Virzi21:48

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:48

       ... they don't rebel, like, they don't want to rebel.

   27. PVPaul Virzi21:51

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:51

       I have restrictions-

   29. PVPaul Virzi21:53

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan21:53

       ... you know, like time restrictions and tell me where you're gonna be and that kind of stuff-
10. 27:42 – 37:57

    Comedy career grind: rejection years, Netflix nerves, and ‘the industry is us now’

    1. PVPaul Virzi27:42

       You know? I, uh, I'll be honest with you, Joe. I- I've been doing this for 20 years and nobody said... Everybody said no to me for 15 years in this business. Everybody.

    2. JRJoe Rogan27:53

       That's probably good, though.

    3. PVPaul Virzi27:55

       Every-fucking-body.

    4. JRJoe Rogan27:55

       If everybody said yes-

    5. PVPaul Virzi27:57

       Yes.

    6. JRJoe Rogan27:57

       ... for 15 years.

    7. PVPaul Virzi27:58

       Yeah, but after like 10 I was like, "All right, what the fuck?"

    8. JRJoe Rogan28:00

       (laughs)

    9. PVPaul Virzi28:00

       (laughs) It's like, "I just fucking killed..." You know? And, and I would have people going, "Yeah, man. It's, it's called killing in obscurity." And I would be in a fucking hotel room and Stacey, my wife, would go, "How'd the shows go?" And I go, "You know, I got fucking waitresses and people that have been there like years going, 'Dude, we see comedy all the time.' Like, 'You're one of the funniest guys that come here.' And, and you know what? I'm, I'm fucking... Nothing's happening."

    10. JRJoe Rogan28:23

        Yeah, but it's supposed to be like that.

    11. PVPaul Virzi28:24

        I- I know. I know. The- and, and it gets... But time kee- went on, and time went on, and time went on. And then finally when I was really nervous before the Netflix release, the night be-... And I knew what we did. I knew, I knew that the show was good. I knew it was better than my first one, and I knew that it was good. But I knew that it was better and I knew what- that we put together a really good show. But the night before, you get fucking like, you're like... And you wake up. And I woke up and I looked at my phone and the reviews started to come in. And you know, I don't like to look a lot but I just wanted to look at the initial. And I, dude, I was driving to the airport. I was driving to the airport and f- it was like the first time I- I actually got emotional where I'm... I wasn't like, "Ugh." You know (laughs) I wasn't like that, but I started to just think of leaving my family, getting on fucking airplanes. You know, all of the hotel rooms, everything, 20 years. Telling my wife like, "I'm working." My wife's seeing it. And then just everybody hitting me up saying this and that, and I just started to tear up. And I was just like, you know, "Wow." Like in my mind, not, not like made it in like industry's mind. Not made it rich fame-wise, but for me, to all of the shit that I did, to, to have a, a Comedy Central special which fucking nobody saw, and then, and then to, to end up doing this and, and having something out that people are just like, "Man, that was... I laughed the whole time." It made me feel good. And I got, I got emotional, man. And I, I just-

    12. JRJoe Rogan29:39

        That's great.

    13. PVPaul Virzi29:39

        And I thanked my wife. I just called her and I said, "Thank you for..." You know.

    14. JRJoe Rogan29:42

        That's awesome.

    15. PVPaul Virzi29:42

        You know? And then-

    16. JRJoe Rogan29:43

        It's coming together. That's what it's supposed to be. And by- when you say the industry...... there's no industry anymore. It's not real.

    17. PVPaul Virzi29:49

        Right.

    18. JRJoe Rogan29:50

        It's not real. This is the industry. Right here.

    19. PVPaul Virzi29:52

        Yeah. Yeah.

    20. JRJoe Rogan29:52

        This is the industry now. Like, no bullshit.

    21. PVPaul Virzi29:54

        Yeah.

    22. JRJoe Rogan29:55

        This is a real network-

    23. PVPaul Virzi29:56

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan29:56

        ... in terms of like, all the comics that come in here.

    25. PVPaul Virzi29:58

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan29:59

        We are, you know, we're all very supportive of each other.

    27. PVPaul Virzi30:01

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan30:01

        Everybody is out there telling stories on the road and doing their thing and having a good time. And-

    29. PVPaul Virzi30:07

        Yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan30:07

        ... and t- saying, "Hey, you gotta go see Mark Normand. Hey, Shane Gillis is fucking killing it." And then, anybody who hears, you hear it on Twitter, you hear it on Instagram, and that's the real industry now. The industry is live-
11. 37:57 – 49:59

    Comedy heroes and moments: Chris Rock drive-by, Rock’s mom in the crowd, and Eddie Murphy’s legacy

    1. PVPaul Virzi37:57

       Oh, I was... I... The, the set that I had at The Garden, somebody was like, "Dude, Questlove and, and Chris Rock are in there. Chris Rock just said you killed."

    2. JRJoe Rogan38:04

       Ah.

    3. PVPaul Virzi38:04

       Right? So, so then I'm all excited, but listen to this shit. (laughs) So then I walk out, Joe, of like... of our dressing room. I, I was in a dressing room. It was like, uh, me and Joe Bartnick had our own thing, Bill's in the other thing, and we were just... And I go, "Hold on, let me go get something." And I walk out, dude, and it's me and Chris Rock after the set I- of my life, and he said I killed. And I'm going, "Here it comes." And he's walking and I'm walking, and we just made eye contact, and he just kept walking, dude. And I was like, "Fuck, I..." (laughs)

    4. JRJoe Rogan38:30

       (laughs)

    5. PVPaul Virzi38:31

       I was like, "Fuck, I know you wanted to. Uh, you just saw. You just said I killed. Come on, man."

    6. JRJoe Rogan38:35

       (laughs)

    7. PVPaul Virzi38:35

       But it... (laughs) You fucking... Come on, give it to-

    8. JRJoe Rogan38:39

       Yeah.

    9. PVPaul Virzi38:39

       Um... Oh, dude, you'll love this. One of the first times I'm headlining, I'm in, I'm in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, or right outside Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at a place called Carolina Comedy Club. It's not there anymore. And I was just able to headline a B-room. Okay? So you figure there's a good 45 minutes, nothing great. And they got the local radio guy opening, and this kid's fucking killing. I mean, he's fucking... He's doing local shit.

    10. JRJoe Rogan39:07

        Local shit.

    11. PVPaul Virzi39:08

        These people are just fucking... People are jumping off... You know, and I come out there and I could have... I'm like, "Look at this fucking Yankee." Like I... You know? And I'm fighting through it, I'm fighting through it. But you know who was... Jordan Rock, Chris's youngest brother, who does standup, he was hosting.

    12. JRJoe Rogan39:22

        I don't know him. I know Tony.

    13. PVPaul Virzi39:23

        Yeah, there's three of them.

    14. JRJoe Rogan39:24

        Oh, wow.

    15. PVPaul Virzi39:24

        There's three of them that do s- There's like a... There's like seven of them, but there's three that do... Oh, Tony's fucking incredible, man.

    16. JRJoe Rogan39:28

        He's fun.

    17. PVPaul Virzi39:29

        Oh, dude, he's one of the...

    18. JRJoe Rogan39:29

        Tony's one of the so underrated...

    19. PVPaul Virzi39:31

        I, I said that. I said Tony's one of the most underrated com... Dude, I, I opened for him like eight years ago, and I went in to go watch him for five minutes, and I just stayed there for 40 'cause he was killing. But their younger brother, their youngest brother, Jordan, he was hosting. And I'm up there in South Carolina, they love the middle, I started to win them, but there were two people in the crowd that were smiling and laughing that gave me the strength and energy to just... I mean, I had it anyway, but like they... I was like looking to them, and it was Chris Rock's mother. It was Chris Rock's mother and her friend.

    20. JRJoe Rogan39:59

        (laughs)

    21. PVPaul Virzi39:59

        And she's just laughing. And she had the New York thing-

    22. JRJoe Rogan40:02

        Wow.

    23. PVPaul Virzi40:03

        ... so, so... Yeah. And like she... And then afterwards I went up to her and I said, "Hey, I gotta tell you something." I said, "I was up there. I was struggling. They... You know? And I was trying to find it, and, uh, you're laughing." And she's like, "Oh my God, no. That was so good," this and that. And, and I told her, you know, and she was telling me about how Eddie was cr- um, Chris's guy, because E- my hero was Eddie.

    24. JRJoe Rogan40:22

        Yeah.

    25. PVPaul Virzi40:22

        Eddie, for me, my dad took me to... and my brother to see Raw when I was 10, 1987-

    26. JRJoe Rogan40:28

        Ah.

    27. PVPaul Virzi40:28

        ... at Movieland in Yonkers. And my, my grandmother and mother were like, "You can't take him to that." And he's like, "Nah, okay, I won't." He took u- he took us. And I just remember being there. And for you, it was probably Delirious, right?

    28. JRJoe Rogan40:40

        No. Well, m- well, for Eddie-

    29. PVPaul Virzi40:42

        Eddie?

    30. JRJoe Rogan40:42

        Yeah.
12. 49:59 – 1:20:22

    Crowds, ‘woke’ interruptions, and why Austin/Texas feels freer for comics

    1. JRJoe Rogan49:59

       Yeah.

    2. PVPaul Virzi49:59

       ... but I think comedy clubs should have a disclaimer, outside, before you walk in. I've had pe- well, people are still, in New York City, and as much as I love New York City man-

    3. JRJoe Rogan50:06

       Yeah.

    4. PVPaul Virzi50:06

       And New York City's, New York City... I'm gonna tell you man, when New York City is popping, and there's no pandemic, and the comedy clubs are packed, I don't know where is... I mean, it's, it's as good as it can be. But, but now, lately, there's always, always a table or two of "Why would? Why?" You know, and, "Don't say that. Don't." And you could-

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:25

       Wokesters.

    6. PVPaul Virzi50:26

       ... and you could, and you could see, you could see him shut down, and you could see this. You know?

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:31

       Let them shut down.

    8. PVPaul Virzi50:31

       And it's like, well, of course.

    9. JRJoe Rogan50:32

       Fuck off.

    10. PVPaul Virzi50:32

        Of course, yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:33

        But that's just... You know, when Ari said it best, he said, "Those people aren't even from New York." He goes like, "They grew up in Maine, and they have this idea of what you're supposed to be when they come to New York."

    12. PVPaul Virzi50:42

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan50:42

        So they come to New York, they dye their hair blue, and they start complaining about everything.

    14. PVPaul Virzi50:45

        That's true, but there are some New York liberals that were like-

    15. JRJoe Rogan50:49

        Yeah.

    16. PVPaul Virzi50:49

        You know. There's, there's, you know, it's... That's really, really, like, over the top. You know, over the top.

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:54

        Yeah, um, Schultz was telling me that. He's telling me that he did some sets, and like two sets in a row people got upset at his subject matter. He's like, "Gimme time. I'm going somewhere with this."

    18. PVPaul Virzi51:04

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:04

        Like, don't just fucking get upset at a premise. Like-

    20. PVPaul Virzi51:07

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:07

        ... the thing about comedy is you could set up a premise where it seems like you're gonna say something awful, it seems awful-

    22. PVPaul Virzi51:13

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan51:13

        ... and then by the end of the joke, it's on you.

    24. PVPaul Virzi51:16

        Right.

    25. JRJoe Rogan51:16

        'Cause you're the one who's the b- the brunt of the joke, and it's, it's not awful. But j- if you interrupt it in the fucking beginning-

    26. PVPaul Virzi51:23

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan51:23

        ... you're gonna ruin everything.

    28. PVPaul Virzi51:24

        See where I'm going? I'm gonna take you somewhere.

    29. JRJoe Rogan51:27

        Yeah, yeah. I had this bit, this lady who was, she, it turned out she was like an executive at some television, um, network. Which makes sense that she was so confident. She interrupted, twice she interrupted my set. And to, to like, about, I was doing this bit. I said, "Women can do everything men can do, right?"

    30. PVPaul Virzi51:46

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 3:03:58