Joe Rogan Experience #1848 - Francis Foster & Konstanin Kisin

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. KKKonstantin Kisin0:00

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

   2. FFFrancis Foster0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) What happened?

   3. NANarrator0:13

      (laughs)

   4. FFFrancis Foster0:14

      (laughs)

   5. KKKonstantin Kisin0:15

      (laughs)

   6. FFFrancis Foster0:15

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      First of all, gentlemen, welcome. I've been in- enjoying your show. So, it's nice to see you in real life and talk to you in person. It's cool.

   8. FFFrancis Foster0:23

      Yeah.

   9. KKKonstantin Kisin0:23

      It's really great of you to have us, man. It's such a pleasure, uh, to meet you, uh, 'cause, you know, uh, all of us are inspired by what you started, you know. We all look up to you, so, um, it's amazing being here.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Oh, thank you. Well, it's nice to meet you guys too. I, I enjoy your, your conversations. I really think that, uh, people like you that are reasonable and intelligent and have legitimate f- opinions grounded in facts, it's like, it's very important.

   11. FFFrancis Foster0:49

       Oh, it's tremendously important. But-

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       Oh, p- hold on a second.

   13. FFFrancis Foster0:51

       Oh.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       One microphone's not on.

   15. FFFrancis Foster0:54

       See, this is another one-

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       This is where I do most of the talking on our show, man.

   17. FFFrancis Foster0:57

       Yeah. This is how I'm getting fucking silenced.

   18. NANarrator1:00

       (laughs)

   19. KKKonstantin Kisin1:00

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       (laughs)

   21. FFFrancis Foster1:01

       It's the goddamn government.

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02

       Yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       (sighs) We'll figure out what's up with them.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin1:04

       Yeah, we were just shit talking about Joe Biden before we started, so that's-

   25. FFFrancis Foster1:07

       Yeah.

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin1:07

       ... probably what's happened there, man.

   27. FFFrancis Foster1:08

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       But why would he only cancel yours?

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin1:10

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       That Francis fella's gotta go.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      have a license to dismiss, like older white men-

   2. FFFrancis Foster15:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      ... th- that's... You have a license to dismiss them. Don't do that, because it's not right.

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin15:07

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      It's not.

   6. FFFrancis Foster15:07

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      It's, it's 100% out of their control to be who they are. Just characterize them and judge them based on who they are as an individual-

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin15:15

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      ... and to judge people based on their, their individual merits, their character, their personality, what they do. That's what we should all be aspiring to.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin15:25

       Right. And that's why we started our show. That's why we started Trigonometry, 'cause we-

   11. FFFrancis Foster15:28

       To protect white men, Joe. (laughs)

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin15:30

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       (laughs)

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin15:33

       Uh, because, you know, we both voted Remain in that referendum, so that's kind of, like, the equivalent of voting for Hillary Clinton-

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       Mm-hmm.

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin15:39

       ... versus Trump in '16.

   17. FFFrancis Foster15:41

       Mm-hmm.

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin15:41

       And suddenly there was this narrative, like what Francis is talking about, all... W- you know, old white people, all this. And for me, I'm a first-generation, dark-skinned I- Jewish immigrant from Russia into the UK. And suddenly all these people were, like, saying, "Oh, yeah, we've got... This country is really racist." And I was, "What? I've lived in Britain almost my whole, uh, life, since I was 13. That is not true. Half the country isn't racist." And I was like, "Wait, w- this doesn't make any sense. Let's work out what's actually going on," right?

   19. FFFrancis Foster16:10

       Right.

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin16:10

       And that's why we two Remainers started interviewing people who voted for Brexit, particularly from the left, because the narrative was only right-wing people voted for Brexit. Completely untrue, as it turns out. And we were trying to understand where they were coming from. That's kind of the genesis of our show, trying to understand people who have a different opinion to us.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:29

       Well, there's a lot of right-wing people that don't want to vote for Trump based entirely on his personality-

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin16:34

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:34

       ... but there's a lot of left-wing people that voted for Trump just because they didn't like Hillary and they didn't-

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin16:39

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       ... like the policies of the Democratic Party and-

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin16:41

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:42

       ... and all the stuff that she... She stood for this ancient form of corruption-

   28. FFFrancis Foster16:46

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:46

       ... that's been running America for a long time. It's i- i- it's a weird world that we're living in right now, 'cause we're, like, inundated with inter- information. We have more information than ever before-

   30. FFFrancis Foster16:56

       Mm-hmm.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yes. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      But what you're talking about is also framing things.

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin30:02

      Yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Looking at things in a beneficial way-

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin30:05

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:05

      ... and as opposed to, like, a way that's gonna, uh, increase your anxiety.

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin30:09

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:09

      You know, if you think, "Oh, I don't want to fuck this up," you'll fuck this up.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin30:12

      Yeah.

   9. FFFrancis Foster30:13

      Like... Yeah.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin30:13

       The best piece of advice I ever got was plan to fail.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       Mm.

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin30:17

       Because if you expect to fail, it doesn't surprise you.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:20

       Right.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin30:20

       You know? Like, you get on a diet and the diet isn't work- uh, you know, you- the diet's working and everything is going great and then one time y- you fuck up and you have a binge. And most people, they get off the bandwagon at that point-

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:30

       Mm-hmm.

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin30:30

       ... because, "I fucked up. Oh, I'm this, I'm that." But if you expect that to happen, then you wake up in the morning and you go, "All right."

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:37

       Yeah.

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin30:38

       "It's time to get back in the saddle."

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       Learning how to think is a very difficult task that most people have to kind of figure out on their own. They figure out-

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin30:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:46

       ... through self-help books-

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin30:47

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       ... and Instagram videos. (laughs)

   24. FFFrancis Foster30:49

       (laughs)

   25. KKKonstantin Kisin30:49

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. FFFrancis Foster30:49

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan30:49

       They don't necessarily-

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin30:51

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan30:51

       ... figure it out from formal education.

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin30:53

       No. But I spent my- that's why I had to s- I had to spend my 20s doing a shit ton of personal development.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm. …

   1. FFFrancis Foster45:00

      Colliding, where I used to take... I don't know, this was in 2018. Take a topic like Trump, take a topic like supermarkets. I go, "Right, we're gonna create a, a joke about Trump and a supermarket." You know, Target, whatever it is. "Think about everything you can think of Trump. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Think about a spider diagram. Everything you can think about a supermarket. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. A particular supermarket, whatever it be. Okay, now trying to find links between the two." And then we would write jokes with Trump and the supermarket, and a lot of the time they wrote good stuff that you would never, ever have heard a comedian do before. Because I said to them, "It's not about first thought, second th- third thought." Because here's the thing, if the audience can predict your punchline, throw the joke away because it means that your joke isn't good. You... They can't predict the punch. That is the most important thing. So, we just went over it, and then we t- and then one of the things that I said to them was, "You need to tell a story. I want you to tell a story. I don't care about interesting, I don't care about funny, I don't care about any of that. I want a story that you would tell your buddies round the table in the pub." And they would get up and tell the story. And then I would ask them about their lives, who they are, where they're from. And here's the thing, we've all got stuff that's interesting about us. This is why this woke crap is so toxic, 'cause I used to hear people say more and more, "Oh, I'm just a White guy. I'm, I'm j- I'm just like..." Fuck off. It doesn't matter. "Where are you from?" "Oh, I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." "What about your mum?" "Oh, my mum passed when I was eight and then I did this and I did that."

   2. Mm.

   3. I said, "That's interesting. Let's talk about that. Talk about what it's like to grow up as an only kid in a school where you were bullied. You didn't have a mum, but you did this. That's interesting."

   4. Mm.

   5. And by the end, most of it, even if they weren't the funniest comedians in the world, they would come out and they would be interesting. You felt like you actually understood-

   6. Mm.

   7. ... who they were. And that's the most important thing, because most comedy courses were like cookie cutter.

   8. Yep.

   9. And I never wanted to create that. I wanted to create somebody or help somebody get to be authentic. 'Cause it's like David Mamet said, "Words that come from the heart go to the heart."

   10. And when you did this, was there an element of this course that involved them getting on stage?

   11. Yes, they got-

   12. And had any of these people never been on stage before?

   13. Some of them had never been on stage. And-

   14. Most of them, I think.

   15. Yeah, most of them.

   16. Mm.

   17. So, the first half would be on theory and we'd look at things like joke writing, you know, all the rest of it.... and the second half would be them being on stage, doing their thing on stage. And then I would give them feedback and I'd be like, "This is great. This is really interesting. Don't... You can do better than this, but really focus on this 'cause this is really interesting. That great joke you did there, maybe you can talk about this here and that and this."

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:52

       Hmm.

   19. FFFrancis Foster47:52

       And gradually, they got to have a really lovely five minutes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       Hmm.

   21. FFFrancis Foster47:57

       So, by the end of it, I think, like, I did it for about two years. Uh, one g- uh, one g- m- a lot of the guys that I taught, they got to the finals of competitions, national competitions, and they started to come through and a lot of them are still doing it and I see them on the circuit and it's great, man-

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:13

       Wow.

   23. FFFrancis Foster48:13

       ... 'cause they kill and then I go, "I wrote that joke."

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:15

       (laughs)

   25. FFFrancis Foster48:16

       (laughs)

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin48:17

       (laughs)

   27. How long did you do this for?

   28. FFFrancis Foster48:19

       I did it for a couple of years, man.

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin48:20

       Yeah.

   30. FFFrancis Foster48:20

       I did it for a couple of years and, and I loved it because it meant that I could cut down on teaching because the thing is with school teaching, it's just draining, particularly when the schools that I was working in, it meant that it freed up a little more time. And look, I'm a comedy geek. I just love, I love being around comedians, I love teaching comedy, I love the art of comedy. To me, writing a great joke is like alchemy.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:08:48

   (smacks lips) Oh. So no…

   1. KKKonstantin Kisin1:00:00

      crushed it. Will you come and help us raise money for charity at my college?" I was like, "Yeah, sure. Whatever." Next, uh, well, forget all about it, and then in about three weeks, I got an email from them saying, "Please, uh, come and help us, uh, raise money for charity. Uh, and, uh, in order to, uh, perform, we have a contract that you need to sign." Okay. I open the file and it said, "We have a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion, anti-atheism, and all jokes must be respectful and kind."

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

      (smacks lips) Oh. So no comedy?

   3. KKKonstantin Kisin1:00:38

      Right. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

      (laughs)

   5. FFFrancis Foster1:00:40

      (laughs)

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin1:00:40

      So, and I, I turned it down, right? I tweet about it to, like, 1,000 people at the time or whatever it was, and this thing goes super viral. Super viral. I'm talking about this was the day, the day that it went ... uh, it was the second most read story on the BBC News website, which is the biggest news website in the UK, on the day that the Prime Minister had nearly been removed from office by her own party. So, that's the equivalent of the Democrats impeaching Joe Biden and the second story on CNN and Fox is, "Unname- no name comedian turns down unpaid gig from two-bit college."

   7. FFFrancis Foster1:01:14

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

      (laughs)

   9. FFFrancis Foster1:01:14

      Woo!

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin1:01:14

       That's how it was. That's how big it was, right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:01:16

       And was it big because they were criticizing you or were they realizing how crazy it was?

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin1:01:21

       Uh, it was a bit of both, I think. And, uh, w- that's when I realized, Joe, this is the thing. See, I thought that Francis and I and a couple of other, the rest of us, we were just like these weirdos who were campaigning about, you know, s- the stuff that was going on in comedy and generally. But when that story went that viral, I got thousands of messages and thousands of emails from ordinary people saying, "I can't say what I think at work. I can't say what I think here." And that's when I realized, we've got a genuine problem in society where everyone feels like they're walking around having signed that contract.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       Yeah.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin1:01:54

       So, to me, that was a sign that actually societally there's an issue going on. Um, yeah. So, th- that's why, you know, I had a lot of attention and I sold a lot of tickets, and still, uh, I didn't make any money. So-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:02:05

       I'd like to see some of that comedy.

   16. FFFrancis Foster1:02:07

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:02:07

       Some of that comedy where they abide by all those rules?

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:10

       Right.

   19. FFFrancis Foster1:02:10

       Yeah.

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:10

       We had to-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:02:11

       I'd like to see that dance.

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:12

       Uh, listen to this, man. We have a comedy night in London where, um, first of all, you have to be triple vaccinated or whatever to get in. Uh, and the comedians have to submit their material in advance.

   23. FFFrancis Foster1:02:22

       Mm-hmm.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:23

       To get it proofread. (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

       (laughs)

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:25

       Uh, but to get it approved.

   27. FFFrancis Foster1:02:27

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:27

       (laughs)

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin1:02:27

       And the audience get given stickers to decide whether you can talk to them or not.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:32

       Wow.

Episode duration: 4:18:15