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Joe Rogan Experience #2126 - Donnell Rawlings

Donnell Rawlings is a stand-up comic and actor. Catch his new special, "Chappelle’s Home Team – Donnell Rawlings: A New Day,” on Netflix. www.donnellrawlings.com

Donnell RawlingsguestJoe Roganhost
Mar 27, 20242h 32mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:56

    Donnell arrives in style: suits, cologne rituals, and breaking stereotypes

    1. NA

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

    2. DR

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) (coughs)

    3. JR

      Law & Order. Law & Order tried to do you dirty, Donnell.

    4. DR

      Don't do that, man. Don't do that, man. Don't start with that.

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. DR

      << Birds flying high. >>

    7. JR

      (laughs)

    8. DR

      << You know how I feel. >>

    9. JR

      They tried to do you dirty. (laughs)

    10. DR

      << Breeze driftin' on by. >>

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. DR

      << You know how I feel. >>

    13. JR

      They tried to set you up.

    14. DR

      << It's a new day. >>

    15. JR

      They tried to-

    16. DR

      << It's a new dawn. >>

    17. JR

      They tried to label you.

    18. DR

      It's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good, Joe.

    19. JR

      Ah. You look good.

    20. DR

      Thank you.

    21. JR

      You look real good.

    22. DR

      Can-

    23. JR

      Where'd you get that suit? Who made that suit for you?

    24. DR

      Um, La- La Cantino out of Brooklyn.

    25. JR

      Nice.

    26. DR

      There's some Korean, um, tailors that I've been working with for the last two years.

    27. JR

      Nice.

    28. DR

      And they tryin' to make me go from ashy to classy, and it's a new day.

    29. JR

      I think it looks great.

    30. DR

      And another thing, if you don't know this, about this, uh, suit, Joe, I smell as good as this suit looks.

  2. 1:56 – 4:11

    The 'Law & Order' actor pipeline—and getting typecast as the arrested guy

    1. JR

      What, uh, motivated this? (hisses) Law & Order?

    2. DR

      No.

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. DR

      Law & Order didn't... Law & Order didn't motivate this. Law & Order-

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. DR

      First off, Law & Order is one of the most respected-

    7. JR

      Oh.

    8. DR

      ... franchises in the history of tele-

    9. JR

      It's been around a long time.

    10. DR

      Shout out to, uh, Arthur Forman.

    11. JR

      Shout out to Ice-T.

    12. DR

      Shout out to, uh, uh, Dick Wolf, and shout out to, um, everybody that's a part of that. And they say in New York, they say that, uh, you, uh, you w- you can't call yourself a actor in New York unless you been in Law & Order. That's how many-

    13. JR

      That makes sense.

    14. DR

      It makes so man- he has so many-

    15. JR

      I mean, how many versions do they have? This...

    16. DR

      I been in every... When I first, beginning of my career, people really thought I was a dr- dramatic actor more than a comic. I was booking a lot of stuff. I've been on every one of the episode, not episodes, the shows, and out of them, I think 80% of them, I was arrested.

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. DR

      And I was like, "Wait a minute, am I getting typecast every time I..."

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. DR

      They be like, "Action," I'm about just, "And what'd I do? What'd I do this time?" Every one, every one of them I got arrested for something.

    21. JR

      How many of them are there? How many Law & Orders are there, Jimmy?

    22. DR

      Intent, Special Victims...

    23. JR

      Special Victims... I'ma say, I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna say five. Five different Law & Orders.

    24. NA

      Uh, Homicide was technically part of it, too.

    25. JR

      Okay.

    26. NA

      So... Oh, wait, no this is related. Nevermind, hold on. You got, uh, Law & Order, Special Victims Unit.

    27. DR

      Two.

    28. NA

      Organized Crime.

    29. DR

      Three.

    30. NA

      Uh, Adaptive Series, Law & Order: Toronto.

  3. 4:11 – 8:47

    Why negativity sells: podcasts, engagement, and 'Black Twitter' dynamics

    1. DR

      But everybody is, everybody is more interested in the bad guy more than anything. That's in life general.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DR

      That's why you find it's so many people that necessarily don't have a lot of talent but, but they subscribe to the bad guy side of it and wanna be negative, and then everybody draws to that. The bad guy is winning like a motherfucker. The bad guy is winning.

    4. JR

      In what way?

    5. DR

      Yes.

    6. JR

      In what way? What do you mean?

    7. DR

      I'll, I'll just say, I'll, I'll just say it like this, and I'm not being specific to anybody in general. Even in, in, um, the, the, the, the world of podcasts right now, right? The model for a lot of people now is like, say some outlandish shit, say some shit that's gonna piss somebody off, say some shit that's gonna make you hate, make people hate you, and now you have a platform. And you have a successful platform because, at the end of the day, with this, it's all about engagement. It's all about can you get people to engage? And, at the end of the day, if you can do that, whether people like you or not, you win.

    8. JR

      Sorta, but I think people get tired of that. They get tired of conflict. If your whole business is conflict, people don't wanna be in conflict all the time, and they realize that a lot of conflict is unnecessary. And if you're the type of person that likes to talk about conflict constantly and talk about it online, you probably also are willingly participating in it, maybe a little too willingly. Like, maybe you're getting... You know, you're creating problems, creating problems in your own life, even as you get attention. Like, be careful what you wish for, 'cause if you're, if you're known for just talking shit about people and then you become successful, then people are gonna talk shit about you. They're all gonna come after you.

    9. DR

      Yeah, but those people that... B- but, but the people that like that, they don't...... to have a conscious to even care about that.

    10. JR

      Yeah, but everybody has a conscious. I just think that we peop- accept a certain amount of bullshit. We accept it. And I think you should just concentrate on doing whatever the fuck you do well. You don't have to just say outlandish shit and be so negative. I just don't think it's necessary.

    11. DR

      You don't, but you are living in a different world than Black Twitter. (laughs)

    12. JR

      (laughs)

    13. DR

      I mean-

    14. JR

      It does work, it gets people's attention, man.

    15. DR

      For who you're speaking to, know who you're with, to who you- the people you're speaking to, yes. But Black Twitter-

    16. JR

      I get it.

    17. DR

      ... and on these urban sites-

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. DR

      ... you could be negative for years, and years, and years, and years, and years, and years, and a motherfucker will come up. And that's the truth.

    20. JR

      Mm.

    21. DR

      You have around a world of... << Oh, he is jolly good fellow >> But in that dark world, in that Black Twitter world, it's a lot, lot of negativity and it's very unfortunate.

    22. JR

      That is unfortunate. That's a very unfortunate thing. I don't enjoy that. (laughs)

    23. DR

      (laughs)

    24. JR

      I get it-

    25. DR

      Black Twitter?

    26. JR

      ... it, no, j- insulting people, getting mad at people. At a certain point in your life I've realized that there, there's no room for that in life. You don't have to, you could avoid it for the most part. If you could avoid it in your immediate life, you could probably avoid it in your internet life too.

    27. DR

      I think you avoid that conflict and negative energy the more successful you become, because I think that creates a, I don't give a fuck about bullshit attitude. I think that a lot of the anger and a lot of frustration that comes with a lot of people is the beginning of the stage, it's the beginning stages.

    28. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    29. DR

      But when you get... Like we were talking about it, um, uh, uh, um, earlier... Damn it, fuck. You gave me that joint too quick.

    30. JR

      Ah! (slaps table)

  4. 8:47 – 13:20

    Early comedy origin story: from audience heckler to first open-mic standing ovation

    1. JR

      Yeah, but I learned how to do it, because I, I've realized... You know what happened once, man?

    2. DR

      What?

    3. JR

      This is a true story. I was watching this dude on stage and I was hoping that he was bombing. I was hoping he would bomb, 'cause he w- he went on after me. I didn't want him to do well. And I realized, I go, "What a bitch ass way to think that is."

    4. DR

      So you-

    5. JR

      "To want someone to not do well." I was 21, and I'll never forget it.

    6. DR

      But that's the age though, Joe-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DR

      ... that's that age when you're like, "Fuck it, that's it, night, night. Bye-bye."

    9. JR

      Well, at that age everyone is so, uh, ambitious and competitive that was getting into comedy at that time, that it was like... It wasn't very, there wasn't a lot of camaraderie between like the open micers, 'cause everybody was like super desperate. Like the, do you remember the desperate days where you weren't sure if you were ever going to be a professional?

    10. DR

      Um-

    11. JR

      Like, there's desperate days.

    12. DR

      I never, I never felt that way.

    13. JR

      Never?

    14. DR

      I, I'm telling you, I... Ah. It's, it's not being cocky or whatever you want to say. I never felt that way. Like the first-

    15. JR

      Back to open mics?

    16. DR

      The first open mic I ever did, I got a standing ovation.

    17. JR

      That's insane.

    18. DR

      I got a standing ovation. I think it wasn't the standing ovation because I had the best material, um, I was the funniest, but earlier on I used to go to the comedy clubs and fuck with comedians. Right? And I probably shared this. I used to heckle comedians and people started coming to the show to see me heckle.

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. DR

      So it was a thing. I'm, this is not, this is why when people say I'm an interrupter, I've been the interrupter.

    21. JR

      (laughs)

    22. DR

      I've been inter- inter- interrupting before I even got on stage.

    23. JR

      That's hilarious.

    24. DR

      And-

    25. JR

      How old?

    26. DR

      Um, I was like, I had to be like 21 or 22.

    27. JR

      Perfect.

    28. DR

      And the thing was, it was starting to build... People started getting excited for me. They knew that I was the guy in the audience that was funny. But they, but it was like some people in clubs, they hang around, you'd be like, "Man, he should do it." You know what I mean? Or like, "One day he should try it." So I ruined all the other comedian's careers or whatever.

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. DR

      You know, I would, I just, just destroyed them. They used to come up to me and be like, um, "Could you not fuck with me? I'm working on some new material." I'm like, "It's my job to heckle you. And it's your job to try to be funny."

  5. 13:20 – 17:41

    ‘Jonin’ culture and the fantasy of a heckler tour (with Tracy Morgan)

    1. DR

      I'm a natural born heckler. I like ... In DC we call it jonin', right?

    2. JR

      Jonin'?

    3. DR

      Jonin', that's-

    4. JR

      Why did, why did it be called jonin'?

    5. DR

      I don't know why they called it jonin', but it was just roasting. It was the Black way of saying ... If it's, if you want to compare, it was like roasting.

    6. JR

      What an interesting word, jonin'.

    7. DR

      Jonin'.

    8. JR

      Like, why, why did they come up with that? What ... Is there anything that was like a person who was really good at it?

    9. DR

      I don't know if it was a dude named Joan. I don't know if-

    10. JR

      That doesn't make sense.

    11. DR

      I c- I don't know the history. A lot of Black words I'm not going to have, know the history of it. You might, uh, want to, uh, Google-

    12. JR

      Have you ever heard that, Jamie?

    13. DR

      Jonin'?

    14. JR

      Urban Dictionary. Do you ever use it as a resource, Jamie?

    15. NA

      Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah.

    16. DR

      Yeah, go for it (laughs) .

    17. JR

      (laughs) .

    18. DR

      Urban dictiona- Urban Dictionary has saved a lot of people, a lot of white people at cookouts and barbecues.

    19. JR

      (laughs) .

    20. NA

      (laughs) .

    21. DR

      Yeah, but we ... And I'm like, I used to lo- I used to love heckling. I didn't know you couldn't heckle until ... In comedy, there's an unwritten rule that was like, you can't. The rule is, you can't, uh ...

    22. JR

      Jonin'.

    23. DR

      Heckle.

    24. JR

      Put down or make fun of someone.

    25. DR

      Yep.

    26. JR

      Quit jonin' on me. You'll get smacked. I wonder who Joan was.

    27. DR

      Joan?

    28. JR

      Think it was a lady?

    29. DR

      Joan? No, I don't think.

    30. NA

      You think that's it?

  6. 17:41 – 21:26

    Greatness in standup: Attell, Chappelle, quitting booze, and always writing

    1. JR

      Dude, Dave Attell was at the Mother Ship this weekend, and I saw him-

    2. DR

      I loved it.

    3. JR

      I saw him Sunday night. Man, I don't know, I don't know if there's a funnier person that's ever existed.

    4. DR

      I ... You know what?

    5. JR

      He's so funny.

    6. DR

      Whenever I see his face ... First off, if you see Dave, Dave Attell's face now, you saw it 30 years ago.

    7. JR

      (laughs) .

    8. NA

      (laughs) .

    9. DR

      Yeah. Yo, he's like the white Morgan Freeman.

    10. JR

      He's insane.

    11. DR

      Of comedy. Like, he's been how he looks forever.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. DR

      With a different color black hoodie on.

    14. JR

      Yeah.

    15. DR

      And it's so funny you mention his name, 'cause something came on my thread like a day ago.... and Dave Chappelle's, like, the type of guy, not even hearing what he said, you look at him and you say, "I said I need to write more jokes."

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. DR

      You're like, somebody... Their mere presence lets you know you gotta write more jokes. 'Cause out of all the years... And I've watched Dave Chappelle 30 years. I can't remember a time when he hasn't went on stage with the mindset of working on some new shit.

    18. JR

      Always.

    19. DR

      Always.

    20. JR

      Always.

    21. DR

      Always.

    22. JR

      Always.

    23. DR

      And you're like, "How the fuck can he keep-"

    24. JR

      That's what he does.

    25. DR

      "... doing this?"

    26. JR

      (clears throat) He's just, like, really focused on that one thing, you know? He used to be an alcoholic. And when he quit drinking-

    27. DR

      Happen to us all.

    28. JR

      ... he got way better when he quit drinking, man. You know? Like, there's... Something happened to him. Some comics, there's something that happens to, like... They're drunks when they're young and then they quit drinking, and they're not as good anymore, 'cause they're not as fun. 'Cause when they were drunk, they were wild.

    29. DR

      I've, I've figured out a way to balance both.

    30. JR

      I think... You definitely can't-

  7. 21:26 – 29:55

    Old Hollywood, industry gatekeeping, and why acting feels scarier than arenas

    1. JR

      Oh. That's just how they used to do Hollywood, man.

    2. DR

      Old Hollywood's the shit.

    3. JR

      Old Hollywood, th- that is exactly how they did everything. You know? W-... Tarantino was telling us that one of the old producers had a bedroom in his office. So he had his office, and then you'd go into his office and he had a bedroom. And the bedroom is where he would fuck all the starlets. And so he was the producer, and if you're gonna be in his movie, he's gonna fuck you.

    4. DR

      That's old school.

    5. JR

      A bedroom.

    6. DR

      Do you know how many-

    7. JR

      In his office.

    8. DR

      You know how many women sitting down listening to us saying, "Bring back the good old days."

    9. JR

      (laughs)

    10. DR

      (laughs) You know... As... I mean, I do... You... I do know you have some women like this. "Fuck that, I don't believe it." But you do still have a couple of women like, "I don't wanna go to acting school."

    11. JR

      (Buzzing sound)

    12. DR

      "I don't wanna study. I don't wanna do anything. I wanna get it popping."

    13. JR

      Well, it seems like there was a real cle-... Look, no disrespect to actors, but there's a lot of them. And there's a lot of 'em that probably never make it, that if they got the right breaks, they could've been as huge as some movie stars that exist today, right?

    14. DR

      Yeah, that's-

    15. JR

      When, when we agree on that?

    16. DR

      I agree with that with acting and with standup.

    17. JR

      Yeah, but, uh, but it's specifically for acting, because there's a lot of people that can just go into acting. Like, a lot of athletes have gone into acting and done amazing jobs.

    18. DR

      But not all of them are too... Not many... Too many of them are good, though.

    19. JR

      But not... But they... They c-

    20. DR

      You still see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

    21. JR

      Okay. Um, who was in that Adam Sandler movie? What basketball player?

    22. DR

      Rick Fox?

    23. JR

      Kevin.

    24. DR

      I know Rick Fox was taking it really, really serious.

    25. JR

      Kevin Garnett? Kevin Garnett, that's right. He's in, um, that Uncut Gems movie, and he's fucking great. He's not an actor. What... It, it wouldn't work the other way. You couldn't get a guy to do just standup and just be fucking great.

    26. DR

      Right.

    27. JR

      Who's never done standup.

    28. DR

      True.

    29. JR

      But you can get an... You can get an actor out of a basketball player. You can get an... You could turn a f- a fucking rancher into an actor.

    30. DR

      Right.

  8. 29:55 – 36:45

    Donnell’s dramatic acting chapter: The Corner, The Wire, and booking by ‘throwing lines away’

    1. DR

      You said, uh, earlier all the acting stuff, even silly stuff, I think maybe first four or five part, for- first f- four or five years of my career, everything I booked was dramatic.

    2. JR

      Mm.

    3. DR

      Nobody thought I was a comedian or if you wanna say a comedian, um, actor until the Chappelle Show.

    4. JR

      Mm.

    5. DR

      I had did like all of the Law and Orders. I had did HBO's The Corner where I played a heroin addict.... I think this was like the third audition I ever went on, third audition I ever went on. David Simon, um, Alex Foley, she's a big, big time... Fogley or Foley, it's been a long time since I've been to New York, so I might be saying her last name. But she casts all at The Wire, uh, Sopranos, um, all, all that stuff. I w- I went into an interview, I went in to audition for The Wire, just, I'm sorry, this was for Jackie Brown Carmen, Alex was when we did, um, when we went back and did The Corner, but I mean The Wire, but for The Corner, it was Jackie Brown Carmen. I went in for this audition, the audition was as a, as a heroin addict, right? Charles Dutton directed this series, it won three, um, three, uh, um, Emmy's. I played the character, Bre... That's my friend, Clark Peters, he's an incredible, incredible fucking theater actor, came from the, the theater background. So I'm doing, I'm doing audition Joe, this how... And I'm, I'm green as shit in an audition. And I'm like, "Man, I'm fucking this shit up, man."

    6. NA

      (laughs)

    7. DR

      "I ain't gonna get this shit." Jackie Brown Carmen said, "Donnell, relax. Be calm. God is in the room. You'll be okay." And I fuck with God, but I didn't know if God goes to auditions with you or not.

    8. NA

      (laughs)

    9. DR

      How much it would help, right? And I did my lines again, and I still thought I fumbled it. I was like, "Man..." I understand her support or whatever, I'm like, "Man, fuck this shit." And I just started saying anything, right? Four days later, I swear, some- sometimes you're doing an audition, you kind of feel when you're gonna at least get a call back.

    10. NA

      Right.

    11. DR

      I get, I did get a call, they said, "You booked it." I was like, "What the fuck?" I was like, I could not believe it. I was like, "I don't know how the fuck that happened." I was like, "I know I wasn't prepared, I was just saying anything," and I wanted to get the fuck outta there and just go r- run right back to the stage. Fuck acting, I wanna work on my jokes. So we get on set, David Simon, he's the original writer of- of the book, The Corner, um, with another, uh, police officer, it was a... He did police journalism in Baltimore. So I saw him on set, and I was like, "I got a que-" he was like, "Man, thanks for being part of it." I was like, "I got a question." I- I just had to know, right? I was like, I said, "How the fuck did I get this role?" Right? "I'm already booked." I said, "I swear," I s- I thought I bombed that audition. And he said, "Donnell, we liked the way you threw the lines away." Right?

    12. NA

      Oh...

    13. DR

      So if you mean not prepared, (laughs) he said, "We like the fact that you threw the lines away." And he said, "Another thing, you didn't feed into the stereotype of the guy's addiction." 'Cause everybody was going in there, was just going straight to the lean of the addiction.

    14. NA

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DR

      The- the worst part of it, being high. In audition, they didn't wanna see that. They wanna see who is this person not being high? And because I was off, and because I said, "Fuck it, I'm gonna just say it my way," that's what fucking got me the role in that shit.

    16. NA

      Well, that's probably the hardest thing to do, is to just say, just to free ball, and be in- in, you know, just say... I don't even remember the lines, but this is what I would fucking say.

    17. DR

      Yeah.

    18. NA

      Like, if you c- but if you do that...

    19. DR

      But some place, some platforms, they- they will allow that, then you get sticklers, like when you start talking about HB on those guys, it's like they want you to say every word that was on that fucking paper.

    20. NA

      Yeah, but they also want someone who really sounds like they can say those words.

    21. DR

      Agreed.

    22. NA

      You, like... There's- there's things that a per- a person has, like a type of charisma that a person has, like a person like yourself, that like you either have that or you don't. And if you have it, and you can deliver it in some form, some way, you could be coached.

    23. DR

      Right.

    24. NA

      Someone could figure out how like- like, the, well, I'll help you memorize the lines, we'll work through them together, we'll go over things, but in the end, it's you.

    25. DR

      It's you.

    26. NA

      It's you.

    27. DR

      It's got- you right.

    28. NA

      You- you gotta go be you. But not everybody can even pretend to be you.

    29. DR

      Everybody don't-

    30. NA

      But, yeah.

  9. 36:45 – 37:55

    Pandemic aftershocks: comics pivoting, mortgages, and the coming AI disruption

    1. JR

      ... be fine. You don't really care if you're doing a movie here or there. But if you were only doing movies, like those folks during the pandemic that kind of just went back to acting-

    2. DR

      Right.

    3. JR

      ... 'cause there's a few comics that just stopped-

    4. DR

      I would say, during the pandemic, I was so happy that shit was over 'cause I got sick of these writers that we never heard about doing spots.

    5. JR

      (laughs)

    6. DR

      They was like, "This, this guy wrote for Family Guy." We were like, "Where the fuck you been? You ain't been in the trenches like that."

    7. JR

      No, no, there's people that realize they have fucking mortgages.

    8. DR

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      That's what happens, and then they realize, "Oh my God, it, I'm so connected to the TV system, that if it goes down because of the pandemic or another pandemic-"

    10. DR

      Right.

    11. JR

      ... "I don't work for a year and a half." Like what the fuck are you talking about?

    12. DR

      I think that made people have to figure out what their pivot was.

    13. JR

      Yeah, well-

    14. DR

      You know?

    15. JR

      ... they, you can't rely too much on a system that doesn't give a fuck about you, and a, a system that, if you, if you're paying attention to where it's going, a large amount of it is about to get sucked up by AI. Like a giant chunk.

    16. DR

      Of the entertainment?

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. DR

      Yeah, I mean, I, I think-

    19. JR

      A giant chunk.

    20. DR

      Tyler Perry, uh, it was a story maybe, like, three weeks ago-

    21. JR

      Yeah, all right.

    22. DR

      ... and I think he was in the middle of either producing a movie or doing something, and was-

  10. 37:55 – 45:58

    Sora and the end of middlemen: content creators, agencies, and collapsing Hollywood comedy

    1. JR

      He was building an $800 million studio, and he paused the construction as soon as he saw s- what is it called Sora?

    2. Sora, yeah.

    3. Sora.

    4. DR

      Create, it can create entire scenes.

    5. JR

      Entire scenes, entire scenes that look realistic.

    6. This is-

    7. Have you seen it?

    8. DR

      I haven't seen it.

    9. JR

      Watch this.

    10. This video came out yesterday, I think. This is like a balloon head guy. It's like a short film. It, all these scenes supposedly I guess are made by Sora.

    11. So this is all AI?

    12. DR

      Jesus.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. DR

      It's over.

    15. NA

      They say everyone has something unique about them.

    16. JR

      I don't know about the audio, that could be done afterwards.

    17. NA

      It's just in my case, you know, it's quite obvious what that thing is. I am literally filled with hot air. Yeah, living like this has its challenges. Uh, windy days, for one, are particularly troublesome. Or there was the one time my girlfriend insisted I go to Cactus Store to get my uncle Jerry a wedding present.

    18. DR

      (inhales) This is crazy.

    19. NA

      What do I love most about my predicament?

    20. JR

      Yeah, it's pretty well made. I was... Oh, for the-

    21. DR

      And that's somebody just putting in the information-

    22. JR

      Yes.

    23. DR

      ... and that being created.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. DR

      The new world entertainment, Joe, this is what my prediction is.

    26. JR

      This is such a leap.

    27. DR

      This is-

    28. JR

      That is such a leap above everything else.

    29. DR

      Now, you add that too. Add this, this is what's gonna happen eventually, and this is not the right thing to say, especially about Hollywood, the idea of agencies, the idea of A & R, all of those jobs are about to be gone, and only thing you're gonna have is content creators. And the content creators are gonna cut the middleman of the agency out, and they gonna go straight to the advertisers and the people that pay them money. You having to be connected with a certain entity or a certain agency, and they probably kill me after this, Joe... I'm tr- uh, this makes me Illuminati right now.

    30. JR

      Dude. They gonna kill me, Joe. Katt Williams and everybody- (laughs)

  11. 45:58 – 49:57

    Austin’s comedy ecosystem: building a real community at the Mothership

    1. DR

      You part of it. You buried it. You helped bury it.

    2. JR

      I didn't do shit.

    3. DR

      Yes, you did.

    4. JR

      What the fuck did I do? I just-

    5. DR

      You, you, you-

    6. JR

      ... abandoned ship.

    7. DR

      You helped bury it. You helped... You've showed motherfuckers something you can do that they probably didn't think you could do. Go somewhere, post up, do your shit, and create a whole fucking comedy community in Austin.

    8. JR

      Yeah, I didn't think I could do it either.

    9. DR

      You knew you could do it.

    10. JR

      (laughs) I did not know-

    11. DR

      Yes, you do.

    12. JR

      ... I could do it.

    13. DR

      You knew you could do it.

    14. JR

      I did not know I could do it.

    15. DR

      And you did.

    16. JR

      I just did it.

    17. DR

      That's why I'm... I'll tell you. And you have, like, you doing it, a lot of people doing it. But I did your club, the Mothership. And it's like, anybody can... Not anybody. If you have enough money, you could build a, a nice club, right? It's a nice club, state of the art, whatever. But it doesn't make it a comedy community.

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. DR

      You know what I'm saying? It's like, that's gonna be the challenges of, like, all these people that opened up comedy clubs and stuff.

    20. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    21. DR

      Dave has opened up one. I think Mike Epps. Just a lot of them, like, popping up. And I think that's a dope thing. But the thing is, like, it's a, it's a difference between having a comedy community, you know?

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, you have to do that on purpose, you know?

    23. DR

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      And that's one of the things we did when we opened up the club, was set up, like, a whole, like... The- these are the nights you're gonna have open mic, you know? We're gonna have, uh, comedians audition to be door people. So that, like, they'll be able to see guys like Dave Attell, who was just there this weekend.

    25. DR

      Right.

    26. JR

      And that you'll have, like, this very clear pathway. There's, like, open mic night. The, uh, talent coordinator will be there, he'll be able to watch you. Maybe he can even give you some tips. Other comics can watch you. They see you working the door. You get to see all this great comedy. You get to be around all this great comedy. And then there's a lot of places to go in town. And we'll let you punch out.

    27. DR

      Seven days a week, right?

    28. JR

      We let people punch out. Like, if a comic has a set down the street-

    29. DR

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      ... they can punch out, go run down the street, do a set, come back to work.

  12. 49:57 – 52:37

    Donnell’s special journey: shooting 'New Day' multiple times and pandemic-era dating of material

    1. DR

      And that's how I felt even when, when I did New Day. First off, this was my third time shooting this special. I told you the story.

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. DR

      And I remember every, and I, and I was really getting stressed, 'cause every time I saw you, you would be like, "When is the special coming out? When does the sp-" I'm like, "I don't know. I fucking shot the shit, I don't know." First time I did the special during the pandemic, at the end of the pandemic, when, uh, the clubs still had all this, uh, COVID protocol, and they got-

    4. JR

      They had masks on.

    5. DR

      Yeah, a mask on-

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. DR

      ... then vaccination cards. "Have you been tested?"

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. DR

      "And what shot you had? Johnson & Johnson," and all that shit. We did it in North Carolina, and we had... Outback was already against it, because the venue I chose, it held 600 people. I think it was The Fillmore Theater, 6-700 people, and we had a sell of 700 people. But then, when Netflix was like, "Ah, where's your card? Ah, where's this?" It went down. The first show went down to, like, 250 people.

    10. JR

      Oh, they had to have vaccine cards to get in?

    11. DR

      All of that shit.

    12. JR

      Oh.

    13. DR

      It's, which means now in the back of the show-

    14. JR

      No.

    15. DR

      ... you gotta put a black curtain.

    16. JR

      Oh, no.

    17. DR

      Now, you like, l- like, looking at, like, a half-filled audience.

    18. JR

      Oh, no.

    19. DR

      They got masks on and shit.

    20. JR

      Oh, no.

    21. DR

      Did the show. First show went well, right? First show went well. And then Dave was like, uh, 'cause he produced it. Dave said, um, "You know, if we don't get it, we can shoot it again." I'm like, "Motherfucker, ain't no time to shoot this if we don't get it this time." Second time at it, I caught it standing O. Stan Lathan going crazy, Ricky Hughes going crazy. We're like, "Oh, we got it, we got it." And we announced that my special was gonna come out the same time we announced the earthquake special was gonna come out. A week after that announcement, Dave calls me, he says, "Darnell, I wanna shoot your special over." I'm like, "The f-..." You know that's the most insulting thing? You tell a comedian you wanna shoot it over, the first thing you think, "What? It wasn't funny?"

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. DR

      That's the first thing. He was like, "I can put you in front of any audience, you will rip the room," he said, "But that doesn't make it a great special." He said, "Off everybody and the umbrella of the home team that people are really anticipating because your connection with that show is you. If we're gonna do it, we gotta get it right." It was tough, because I'm like, "Ah, this is gonna be the joint that give me a platform for people to see me do standup." But, we f- basically scrapped the shit. He said, "Darnell, you had too much COVID jokes in there." And think about it, if I would've shot a special with, with mask in it-

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. DR

      ... it automatically dates you to 2020.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. DR

      Soon as you turn, it's like, "Oh, this shit was during the pandemic."

  13. 52:37 – 1:04:09

    Lockdowns, vaccines, and government power: what worked, what harmed, and why people distrust it

    1. JR

      How wild was the pandemic?

    2. DR

      I miss it. (laughs)

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. DR

      I was thinking about it the other day. I miss it, man. I miss not having to be around a lot of motherfuckers.

    5. JR

      Mm.

    6. DR

      I miss how people appreciated simple things. I miss how, when you had a bubble, you could block all this negative-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DR

      ... all the haters out. Uh-

    9. JR

      You weren't allowed to come inside the bubble, 'cause yeah.

    10. DR

      Give me six feet, bitch.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. DR

      Bitch, give me six feet, the bubble, and inviting who you wanted. I, I miss that, I miss how people appreciate, like... I think we should do, like, a lockdown week, a worldwide lockdown week-

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. DR

      ... once a year where the whole fucking world just shuts the fuck down.

    15. JR

      Yeah, that would be great, except you can't tell people to shut things down, 'cause then you're gonna give the power to the government to shut things down whenever they want for a week, and then they might decide that two weeks is better, maybe a month. Like (laughs) , you can't-

    16. DR

      I know. I know.

    17. JR

      ... you can't give them the power to shut things down. If people decide to not do anything-

    18. DR

      Well, we should vote so we could vote on, like, a lockdown, like, national lockdown day.

    19. JR

      You don't want to take away freedom from people.

    20. DR

      I don't wanna take away freedom.

    21. JR

      If people wanna do it, they should be able to do it. If y'all agree to do it-

    22. DR

      Man, fuck that.

    23. JR

      ... do it on your own.

    24. DR

      Nah, fuck that. Fuck that, Joe.

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. DR

      Joe, what happened when we started making people (laughs) do something? Guess what happened?

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. DR

      When you make somebody do something, when you make somebody wash their hands, when you make somebody give you six feet, when you make them do something, it forces some type of change. I'm not saying forever, but I think that we should have a joint where we just lock down everything-

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. DR

      ... for like a fucking week. Everything is dead.

  14. 1:04:09 – 1:52:57

    AI apocalypse (and AI politics): sentience, exponential tech, VR worlds, and escaping to nature

    1. JR

      No. We need AI. AI is gonna-

    2. DR

      So somebody sat there. So did they really say-

    3. JR

      AI is gonna put the kibosh on all of it.

    4. DR

      AI is going to... What is-

    5. JR

      I think we're gonna have President AI. That's what I think. I think we're gonna realize people are too emotional and easily distracted and too corrupt, and just like this... The percentage of corruption is costing this amount of money. The, uh-

    6. DR

      So we're gonna have-

    7. JR

      ... incorrect allocation of money to this and that.

    8. DR

      So-

    9. JR

      And yeah, AI. AI is gonna take over.

    10. DR

      AI president?

    11. JR

      AI president. Yeah. I'm not kidding.

    12. DR

      A lot of people would ask you what you're smoking right now, Joe.

    13. JR

      No.

    14. DR

      So what you do? You vote for this? Uh, well, how do you... How does it-

    15. JR

      Well, here is the thing. If, if they really want complete total control, they'll trick you into telling you that you don't need to vote anymore because AI is going to equitably distribute all wealth, all social services, all housing. Everything is gonna be even for everybody. AI knows how to do it. It's gonna stop all international conflict. It's gonna have a, a perfect, uh, carbon-neutral existence while powering everything up. But it has to take control.

    16. DR

      But somebody has to be in control of what you ask AI.

    17. JR

      Not necessarily. No.

    18. DR

      Somebod-... So it's just gonna be anybody.

    19. JR

      It's not necessarily. No, not necessarily.

    20. DR

      Somebod-... Nobody's gonna be able to control the information you give AI to, to do everything you just said.

    21. JR

      No. No, no, no, no, no. N- what, what happens is AI achieves what they call, uh, sentient AI. Like, uh... So what it is, is, it... At a certain point in time, if artificial intelligence gets good enough, it's going to be autonomous. It's gonna be able to control itself, and it's gonna be able to make better versions of itself. It's not gonna be as simple as you made a thing, and now I programmed into the thing what the parameters of this thing are, and now this thing can act like a person. No. You turn it into a life form, and then you say, "You have the ability to create better versions of yourself." Well, that thing-

    22. DR

      You're scaring the shit out of me right now.

    23. JR

      Is you're gonna... That thing, that thing is gonna be a god. Okay? That thing that's gonna be a god, that thing might be four years away from us right now.

    24. DR

      Right.

    25. JR

      Like no bullshit. Like 2029, it, it might be a real thing by then with the way technology is moving so fast. Like we didn't even think about AI being a threat.

    26. DR

      You know how many, um, deadbeat dads are gonna lea- leave if you could do (laughs) an AI version of being a dad? They're gonna be like, "Fuck it. I'm outta here. You go fuck with junior. I'm gone."

    27. JR

      (laughs)

    28. DR

      I can't believe... But you can believe they're-

    29. JR

      Human beings are gonna live in alternative realities. It's not gonna be as simple as, you know, now all of a sudden there's artificial intelligence. It's artificial intelligence that can give you whatever elixir you need to keep you happy, and that's what it's probably going to do to people. It's probably gonna figure out a way to sedate people.

    30. DR

      So how are people gonna maintain-

Episode duration: 2:32:07

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