The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2144 - Chris Distefano
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,381 words- 0:01 – 3:41
Chrissy Chaos returns to Catholicism—and admits he panic-sold his dream house
- NANarrator
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music)
- JRJoe Rogan
I never know what's going on with you, if this is, like, an act or if this is part of the fun-
- NANarrator
N-
- JRJoe Rogan
... of being Chrissy D.
- NANarrator
I mean, no, well, Chrissy D was all fun and games.
- JRJoe Rogan
Was?
- NANarrator
Was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Third person.
- NANarrator
Now, we're coming into a part we're c- two, two major things have happened here. Okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- NANarrator
One, I've, uh, refound my love for Christ and I'm back believing. I'm back being Catholic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- NANarrator
I'm back in-
- JRJoe Rogan
Nice.
- NANarrator
... got two feet in Catholicism.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- NANarrator
We're back, baby. And then the other thing is, is I made... I, I, uh, six months ago, I had this beautiful house, Staten Island, right? Everything we wanted, (snaps fingers) sold the house because I was having anxiety about doing a show at Radio City. Swear to God, I, I, my brain couldn't process it that way, but through therapy, the therapist figured out, and it's right because I checked on this with my girlfriend and she was like, "That's exactly what you did." I was very nervous about Radio City, didn't know where to put that energy 'cause it was a big show. I'm a New York guy, big, biggest weekend of my life, uh, so I said, about two weeks before Radio City, came home and said, "We're putting up the house for sale. I wanna be able to walk to a bagel store. We can't walk to a bagel store at this house on Staten Island. I need that for my creative process." And my girl was like, "What are you doing? We just renovated our kitchen, the living... We just, you just poured money into... This is our home." I was like, "I can't walk to a bagel store and my, uh, it's gonna fuck my comedy up. I, I, I- it will."
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- NANarrator
And, and she... Yeah, and, and then, you know, if... and then people, if you knew my address back then, you would know that there's a ba- there was a bagel store .9 miles away, um, that I didn't know about, but...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But... But you had a dream house.
- NANarrator
I had a dream house that I, that we put to our liking and I said I couldn't... Didn't understand it then. I said, "We're selling the house." And I convinced my family, 'cause that's what we can do, right, as comics? I convinced them. I had them buy this story. Convinced my girl, my family.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
What's gonna be better for us is to sell this five bedroom house. Here's what we're... here's the move. We're gonna sell this five bedroom house for about $300,000 under asking price. We're gonna get out of this puppy. We're gonna sell that. We're gonna move to Queens where we can walk to stuff and bagel stores and be in civilization. We're gonna temporarily live in a two bedroom apartment, um, and, and, and then we're eventually gonna move into a, a condo and life's gonna be better because, uh, you know, we won't have to... I won't have to care for these grounds anymore. I won't have to throw out the garbage. We'll be safe and in an apartment. People can't come in the back window of our home. And this will be the move. And, um, I did that, and then the apartment that we had lined up fell through. Uh, we ha- we left the apartment we were living in 'cause it had roaches. Uh, Jasmine almost left me. She was almost like, "I can't be a part of your chaos and self-sabotage anymore." And I had to kind of really just say, "What the hell did I just do? How, what..." Figure this problem out. Went back into therapy, turned back into religion. Starting to find some answers, and now we're living in a home that we're renting that we like and we're kind of settling in. But that I learned a valuable le- I learned the lesson of self-sabotage the hard way. The hardest, the... It's weird. What's going on in my career right now, selling the most tickets I've ever had, financially the best I've ever done, getting all these opportunities, was the worst vers- was the worst version of me as a human being. Be- not because I was just self-sabotaging after self-sabotaging, and I couldn't, didn't know why.
- 3:41 – 7:22
Success-triggered anxiety, impostor fears, and why friends weren’t enough
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have friends that you can talk to about this stuff?
- NANarrator
Yeah, but they're, you know, not... They call me gay, you know what I mean? Like, they're old school New York guys that are like, "I don't fucking know, dude. Get a therapist." And I'm like, "Well, yeah, I, I, I, I..." What I had to do, what I... I, I really felt like nobody could really help me with this. I was like, "I gotta just turn to a professional therapist." And then I go into... And then I turned to, back to going to church, and I was like, "Well, at least I have, like..." If anything, for me, church is just an hour a week to just meditate and sit there, and I have nothing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
I have no thoughts. I have no technology. I'm like, "It's just me and whoever I think God is."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
That, that's how I feel about it. But that chaos stuff, that, you know... 'Cause people always... You know, Chrissy Chaos. But I, I was actually living in it, and I was like, "Okay, now what I've done... Now I've, like, hurt my family. Now I've, now I've done a thing that's, like, not funny. Now I've, like, taken things from my kids." Because I thought my kids would be like, "Oh, yeah, Dad." Like, like, my eight-year-old, we had that, you know, this moment that kids are just kids. I'm, like, telling her, I'm like, "Isn't this great, baby? Like, we can walk to the bagel store now. We can go to the park. We're not, like, living off the side of a highway." And she was like, "Well, I love that we had a pool." And I was like, "Yeah, but isn't it better that we can, you know... don't have a pool now and we can go to, like, the pool club?" And she was like, "You know, no." She was like, honestly. She was like, "We're... did it for you, so I'm happy that you're happy, but I, I miss my friends." And then I was like, "Oh my god. What the fuck did I do?" So, so I kind of have been, like, backtracking as much as I can, little by little, to try to, like, re-correct these mistakes. And now my family is more on board. Now my family's like, "Hey, we're, we're un- we're, we're with you. We're, we, you, you know, we're with you."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
"But we gotta figure this out." So now we're, we're settled, finally, in a place, and we're kind of falling in love with the neighborhood we're living in as time has went on. Um, and my kids are finding friends and all that, and we are not gonna t- I'm not gonna take that from them. I'm not gonna, you know, be like, "Well, you know, where, wherever we are now, we're gonna stay for years so they can build the bonds and the friendships that they need that I inadvertently took away from them without me even realizing."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm. So-
- NANarrator
Can I have those edibles?
- JRJoe Rogan
So this, uh, anxiety ramped up when success ramped up.
- NANarrator
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
So here, here, I th- sound like a therapist here. But are you... Is it because you're worried it's gonna go away? Is that the anxiety? Like, what is the anxiety? Like-
- NANarrator
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... what is the fear?
- NANarrator
No, it wasn't any of that. It, it was...... it was, I believe, I have confidence. I believe that I'm in this business, I can do it. And I believe that, like, we're all together now, especially how comedy is now. I feel like we're all like this big brother/sisterhood. Like, we'll help each other. If one of us is falling, like, we, we got each other.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
I believe in that. But I think that the actual anxiety of the day of, you know, again, being a New York guy, one night Radio City, the next night, the theater at MSG, all these, for me, a lot of tickets, you know, 10,000 plus tickets, which is, you know, that's huge for me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
I, I, I, I was like, "How am I gonna balance all this? What if I don't do well? What if, what if, what if one of these 10,000 people realizes that I'm s-... thinks that I'm some kind of fraud, thinks that, like, 'Hey, you don't-'"
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, one is going to.
- NANarrator
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Always.
- NANarrator
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's always people that are gonna find some negative thing in anything.
- NANarrator
So now, now, I've gotten to that point to accept that. I'm wildly different, not wildly different, but I'm much better now than I was in September when all this stuff was going on because I've just kind of accepted that I don't really have control of what others think.
- 7:22 – 10:11
Focus shifts: parenting as grounding, time off after a special, and Joe’s work ethic
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe you need a thing other s-... other than just comedy that you do that's not, like, career-oriented, like a hobby, like some-
- NANarrator
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... some kind of other interest that you really enjoy that you could focus on.
- NANarrator
So what I did, I'm ge-... I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
Trans people, is that what it is? (laughs)
- NANarrator
That's... Yes, transfeet. I'm really into twiki feet for specifically trans women. And, um, so, no, what I think is... Well, what I've done 'cause I haven't gone to the hobby yet, what I've done is I've really... I thought I, I was always focused on my kids. Always being a father is everything to me, but I said what you just said. I s-... I said, "I'm gonna really just focus on being a dad, being home, coming off the road a little bit, just, just temporarily doing my thing in New York, keeping my podcast going, keeping my name out there, but not going on this national tour, getting away from that for now." I've shot a special. It's gonna come out at the end of the year. I'm like, "Be home. Be with the kids. Be picking them up. Be at the park with them. Focus on... Like, s-... Give yourself a schedule. I'm a comedian from 9:00 to 5:00, and then we-... or 9:00 to 3:00 when you pick up your... and then when you pick up your kids, just for now, you just be with them." And then... and that's really helped. And now, like last night I was at your club, which is awesome. I was at your club, and that was the first time I was on stage in about six weeks since I shot the special.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, really?
- NANarrator
And I felt so... I did some of the same material that I was 'cause I'd been writing, but I was like, "I don't wanna try a brand new thing right here." I did one new thing, but I was like, "Oh, wow." I felt like that little mental experiment helped me, like I was so excited to be on stage again. I've found, like, reconnected. And you, something that you do that I noticed last night, and I was like, "Huh," you, you know, h- how much... There's really n-... uh, there's really nothing more you can do in comedy, right? I mean, you've done everything. You know, the biggest you can get is, is you've achieved, which is beautiful. But I still saw you yesterday obsessing over your hour and thinking about like, "How do I make that joke better?" H-... uh, which is why you've gotten here. And I've had that question in my head yesterday when I got back to the hotel. I was like, "Do I have that? Do I... Is it okay that I don't have it like Joe? Does that mean I'm gonna not be successful? Does that mean I... Does that kind of, uh... Are we all just different?" Because I love comedy, but I was like, "I don't know." Like, I've... I just shot a special and was like, "You know what? I need some time off." Where I don't know that you've ever done that, right? I mean, you've never taken a big break from standup.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I took a big break during COVID.
- NANarrator
Right. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
But other than that, you've always been like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
You have a love and a passion that's... It... You're not worried about... Like, you're never looking at your watch being like, "Is an hour up yet?" You know, when your podcast, you're never being like, "Oh, I gotta get an hour." You just flow. You're just free in the moment, flowing with passion, which is very admirable. And, and I l-... and I look at that sometimes and I question myself where I'm like, "Do I have that?" I know I've been relatively successful in this, and I do love it, but I'm like, "Do I have that?"
- 10:11 – 13:06
Is therapy making it worse? Workouts, obsession cycles, and “anxiety as self-conspiracy”
- JRJoe Rogan
I wonder if therapy is not a good thing for a person like you.
- NANarrator
Okay, why do you think?
- JRJoe Rogan
Because-
- NANarrator
I've never heard that.
- JRJoe Rogan
I wonder if, like, obsessing about your problems makes your problems bigger.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that maybe you just need another thing to focus on that maybe alleviates anxiety, like some kind of a... like a hardcore workout thing.
- NANarrator
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you work out?
- NANarrator
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you do?
- NANarrator
Uh, well, yesterday, yesterday I did hot yoga.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's great.
- NANarrator
Yeah, just because I was like... I was on the plane, wanted to do the hot yoga, dripping sweat.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a great thing to do.
- NANarrator
It was crazy. And then today, today I did, uh, I ran, uh, two miles, and then I did, um, with 30-pound dumbbells, I did, uh, one burpee, one press 10 times, ramped that up to five. So, you know, went all the way up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
... to one, two, three, f-... so it was a lot, lot of burpees with that. Then I did farmer's carries, ball slams, thing where I was dripping in sweat. I was trying to do that, started to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Does that help you?
- NANarrator
It does. I always feel, I always feel after a workout great 'cause I was an athlete. I played basketball my entire life to the point where my friends from home are like, "You never mention basketball, and that's the thing you were known as in the neighborhood." Everybody kn-... knew you as basketball. They used to call me Gums 'Cause I have big gums. So they would call me Gums, but they would call me Dirk n-... you know, Little Dirk. Like, basketball was my whole life.
- JRJoe Rogan
You have big gums?
- NANarrator
See how they're, see how they're kind of big?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, you're doing that. I can do that too.
- NANarrator
No, I know, but when I smile, like, they're just... I have gingivitis.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let me see you smile. No, they seem-
- NANarrator
No, they're kinda-
- JRJoe Rogan
... pretty fucking normal.
- NANarrator
No, they, they, they-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think you're thinking too much.
- NANarrator
Well, they used-
- 13:06 – 20:27
Family burden, enabling relatives, and the gambling gene expressed as life-risk
- NANarrator
Right. Yeah, uh, it feels th- specifically, yeah. It fe- I feel like if I... I do feel like it's all on me with my family.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is.
- NANarrator
Nobody else in my family works, and I take care of-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
... multiple family members, which I'm proud to do. I don't feel like that's a burden. I feel like this is great.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
This makes me feel... At times when I feel emasculated, that's something that makes me feel masculine, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
When I'm like, "Oh, I don't know how to build anything," and I'm, you know, I got my girlfriend here putting up Sheetrock, and I'm like, "I can build fucking walls emotionally. I don't know how to do anything else other than that."
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- NANarrator
I'll be like, "You... At least I can... At least I feel like, you know what? I can f- take care of this family, like, you rely on me for that." And I guess there is something in comedy, you know, um, I guess because it's not like a day job, a- a daily paycheck coming in every two weeks, maybe that seeps in. But it's weird because I am very conf- I've always been confident in anything I do, but I've always felt like I... My father would tell me from when I was a little kid, "You control your part. You control the output, not the outcome." He said that to me a million times, "You control your output, not your outcome."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- NANarrator
"Just control your output, and the outcome is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you win or lose. I don't care about that. How are you playing?" And so, I feel like I control my output as best I can, but yet- yet then I sit with these thoughts kind of, uh, you know, they- they- they eat at me sometimes, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
But... And then maybe it comes out in weird ways where I'm like, "Well, I'll just sell my house," or I'll, you know, I have a great family thing right now, but maybe I'll, you know, maybe I'll fall in love with the actress from Baby Reindeer. I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you ever talk to anybody before you sold your house, like talk to one of your friends?
- NANarrator
I was able to convince all of them that it was the right move.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you couldn't have convinced me. I wish I got on the phone with you.
- NANarrator
I know. I wish you... And I ge- got l- got rid of a great mortgage rate. I- I really fucked up. So, but I-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
But I take... I mean, I had a three... I was-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so silly.
- NANarrator
I had- I had like free money from the bank. I really fucked up, and... But I- but I'm aware of that, and I'm kind of saying along these lines, you know, "I really fucked up." I do believe I've learned a lesson. I do believe that I would never do that again, and I do believe it wasn't fatal for us. But I was like, "I really"... Like, I've never been that guy. I would manufacture problems in my brain. I would say, "Oh, you know, this is an issue, but it's minor." It's not. It's self-obsessed, narcissistic, like disgusting, like, "Chris, get over yourself. Self-obsessed bullshit. Get over yourself."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
I would- and I would- and I would do that, and then kind of tell myself, like, "You're being gross. Stop, Chris. Like, your family... Y- you have a pain in your big toe. It's not brain cancer. Shut up. And, you know, your family needs you." And then, so, I would- I would do that, but then I actually did give myself a big problem. I had two major problems. I had this s- house sale, and then I had a family member who really was acting crazy, like crazy, crazy, crazy, where I was like, "This is now a nightmare. This has become an issue." So I'm like, now, for the first time in the past nine months, I'm like, "You- you... One self-induced, one not, and you've created... Now, how do you deal with this?"
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you think you created the problem with your family member acting crazy?
- NANarrator
Because I enabled them. I- I'm- I feel a r-
- JRJoe Rogan
Specifically, how'd you do that?
- NANarrator
I feel... Well, because I was giving them, you know, m- money. I was g- I was le- I was not aware that an issue was going on. I was kind of giving th-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, like a drug issue?
- 20:27 – 25:52
Staten Island fallout: bagel shop revelation, neighbor politics, and trying to buy back in
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially if there's a real bagel store .9 miles away.
- NANarrator
.9 miles away. Shout out Manor Bagels on Staten Isl-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
They had excellent bagels.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
Shout them out.
- JRJoe Rogan
He just didn't know?
- NANarrator
Yeah (laughs) he didn't know until I sold it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe you can buy back into the neighborhood.
- NANarrator
I know. Well, that's funny. My girl was like, "Do you think we can contact the people who bought our home-"
- JRJoe Rogan
And buy it back?
- NANarrator
... and buy it back even though it's twice the mortgage rate and you'll have to pay more money? Like, it would make us happy." And I reached out to him and he was like, "No." He can't do it. And it's funny, I sold it to ... You know, Staten Island's like a funny, it's ... The people in Staten Island are great. They really, really are. But like, when we first got there, you know, it's like an old school ... If you don't know Staten Island, it's like an old school New York City neighborhood. It's like the only borough that is like, you know, kind of like more Republican than anything. Like, they are like freedom, like American flag-
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh-huh.
- NANarrator
You will see American flags everywhere-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yep.
- NANarrator
... on Staten Island. And, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
And Wu-Tang Clan.
- NANarrator
And Wu-Tang Clan, right? Wu-Tang is on one part, but you know, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Staten Island.
- NANarrator
Staten Island, baby. And, uh, and, and so, they, you know, their ... Like, when I moved in, you know, I come in here, it's me, you know, uh, like, you know, I'm Italian, whatever, but then my whole family's Puerto Rican. And my neighbors, for like the first two weeks, just 'cause I didn't know, I told my neighbors that my wife was Italian, that my girl was Ital-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- NANarrator
... not Puerto Rican.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) You lied.
- NANarrator
I swear to God, I told them they're Puerto Rican. And then, and then my neighbor, who's a great guy, he's a doctor, he finally came over to me once and he goes, "You know we know she's Puerto Rican."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
He said, "Chrissy, it's no issue."
- JRJoe Rogan
Why did you lie? That's so crazy.
- NANarrator
'Cause I thought that that's what I was supposed to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- NANarrator
And then, and then I sold the house. And again, it's not ... You know, I sold the house to a Palestinian family, which whatever, right? Who c- ... They were-
- 25:52 – 34:25
Austin vs. New York: safety, crime, policing, and uprooting kids (again)
- NANarrator
Dude, by the way, I love Austin, uh, so much. I really do. I've n- I got into the car today, um, you know, the, the... You sent a car for me to come here. I appreciate. I get in the car, you know, real nice suit-and-tie driver, and then he stepped in dog shit as soon as he got into the car. Uh, he's walking and I see him go, "Oh, fuck." And then he steps in dog shit, and he's just driving in the car, and it smell- the entire car smells like dog shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
And I said, "Sir, did you step in dog shit?" And he said, "Yeah, I did." And I was like, "Uh, okay." He was like, "You want me to take my shoes off? I can throw them out right here." And I was like, "You'll drive this car barefoot?" He goes, "Absolutely."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs) And I was like, "No, dude, it's okay." I was like, "You're willing to drive this car barefoot?" He goes, "You're my customer. I'll drive barefoot for you." And I was like, "Dude, I fucking love it." And then he's waiting for me here, and I was like, "What are you gonna do, man?" He was like, "I'm gonna find a paper towel, and I'm gonna wipe down these shoes. You better be- you better believe it ain't gonna smell like shit in here when you come back."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
I was like, "Good for you, dude. Thank you." But full dog shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
Good people out here.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're good people out here.
- NANarrator
Have you met...?
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause-
- NANarrator
You... I mean, there's nut jobs everywhere though, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, sure.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You... There's a lot of, lots of crazy people here.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's crazy people whenever you have a large population. There's two million people in this area.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But that's not that much.
- NANarrator
No. No.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's, that's what's good about it. It's like people aren't a burden.
- NANarrator
Yes, 'cause you have the space.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. If you live in New York City or if you live in LA, people become a burden, because there's so many of them, you don't appreciate them.
- NANarrator
See, the thing with New York... I agree. And New York now, it never felt that way, I've... you know, my whole life there. But recently, New York has become a place... Still great, still my s- home city, but the problems that you would always hear about, like, you know, people would say, "Oh, it's conspiracy," or like, "You're, you're watching that shit on the news." Now you're actually seeing it. Okay? So for, you know, 39 years, I never had one altercation, not one altercation on the subway or in the streets with any kind of mentally unwell person in New York. There's a lot of crazy people, but, like, they not really fucking with you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
Three times in the past year, three times in the past year, I've been physically a- assaulted or, like, o- c- had to defend myself against a, f- a, a ho- a, a mentally deranged homeless person.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- NANarrator
One time I was walking to the Comedy Cellar. Some guy came at me and, like, just put his elbow in my chest, and I had to push him, and he fell over a pile of garbage. I just had to push him as hard as I can, where I'm like, "I never dealt with that." And now you're starting to hear people who, like, would always kind of, you know, never ever ever even think about, like, voting any other way but the traditional New York way are like, "I have to now vote another way, because it's not safe for me anymore anymore."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 34:25 – 38:14
Teen years and first sex stories—Catholic silence, anxiety, and embarrassment
- JRJoe Rogan
I think before, uh, just this is my personal opinion. You m- I might be wrong. For whoever is listening to this that's about to move their kid. 'Cause listen, I moved, my family moved me to Newton, Massachusetts from Jamaica Plain for my first year of high school, and it was actually good.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was good 'cause Jamaica Plain was fucking sketchy. Jamaica Plain, which is, uh, nice now. It's like they've done, uh, you know, as Boston expanded, like, they sort of, like, made, they renovated a lot of places-
- NANarrator
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and added m- Jamaica Plain is a, like, a much more calm neighborhood. When I was there in the 1970s, it was sketchy as fuck.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was sketchy. It was like, we, I think we moved there in '78 or '79. It was fucking weird, you know? It was danger- I had dangerous neighbors. These kids are d- they're already having sex. Like, I was 11 and they were like-
- NANarrator
Jesus.
- JRJoe Rogan
I remember this kid was telling me, like, "You don't even know how your dick goes in a pussy. You probably think it goes in straight." I'm like, "It doesn't?"
- NANarrator
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's like, "No, it goes up." I go, "It goes up? What?"
- NANarrator
Uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
I thought... You know, I've never seen, like, a girl's vi- no, no girls had ever shown me their vagina when I was 11.
- NANarrator
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
But they, they were trying to explain to me that it's, like, in fr- I guess I wasn't, I guess I wasn't 11. I guess I was 13.
- NANarrator
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, it was like, we only lived in Jamaica Plain for a year and a half. Yeah, I think it was ab- I think we moved there before school, and then we went through the summer, and then we went, I went to s- school was sketchy. So, this is where I went to eighth grade. I went to this, like, public school in Jamaica Plain. We didn't have any money. We lived in... It was a shitty area. But the kids were like 17 in the eighth grade, and they would show up for the first days of class and then quit. And it was just like they were just... They had dropped out so many times, and here they were, the age where they should be graduating, and they're not even in high school yet.
- NANarrator
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was weird. It-
- NANarrator
Is that, you think, got you into martial arts then? Did you feel like you had to defend yourself in some ways?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I definitely was, I felt super vulnerable, but I didn't get into martial arts until, till the next year. But it was, um...
- NANarrator
What'd you do? Did you lose your virginity first or you got into martial arts first?
- JRJoe Rogan
Martial arts.
- NANarrator
Nice.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Actual sex-sex. I mean, I'd been, uh-... fondled by a lady. She was 21.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was 13. That was a lot of fun.
- NANarrator
That's interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
She was very pretty.
- NANarrator
Yeah, believe it.
- 38:14 – 47:35
Where Chris’s anxiety began: 9/11 imprint, obsessive safety checks, and basketball panic attacks
- NANarrator
Anxiety for me is this interesting thing. I know a lot of people suffer from it, but it's this interesting thing where I've connected now a-... I used to m- lean into my anxiety, right? I used to... especially doing comedy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
... I would like make it a thing, whatever. I, uh, Pandora's box of anxiety opened up for me on, um, 9/11 'cause I thought my mom was dead, this whole thing, so I c- I couldn't shake that feeling for y- 10 years after that. I could not shake the feeling of thinking my mom or anyone I loved, any woman that I loved, girlfriend or mom or aunt, if they did not respond to me within five minutes of a text, I assumed they were dead. That feeling of 9/11 every day came back 'cause I was calling my mom, no response, no response. Every day, coming back, coming back. And so, I would deal with that, and then something happened where this an- I started to look at my anxiety like, like narcissism and like disgusted with myself to the point where... 'Cause I used to put out these videos, Anxiety Tuesday, talk about my anxiety and people were still sometimes be like, "Oh, that Anxiety Tuesday stuff, it helped me so much. Why don't you do it anymore?" And I'm like, "I hate that, I h- I hate that guy. That guy was so pitiful," like because you were being worried about things that really didn't matter. What I should have done and what I know now is, dealt with that anxiety in a healthier way, so instead of subconsciously, you know, selling my house because I was really nervous about a big show, would've been able to deal with that anxiety in a healthier way and make a better decision. So, I think like this relationship with anxiety is so like big and swings in my life that I used to kind of let... I'm trying to use the energy now to be like, "Well how can you learn from this? How does this build you up? And how do you make better decisions, you know, by- by doing this?" So, I- I struggle with that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have friends that you grew up with that also had anxiety too?
- NANarrator
No. Anxiety wasn't a thing that you could speak about in my neighborhood. It's, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, this was only like you on your own developed this?
- NANarrator
100%. And then it, and then, like I remember, I, my anxiety was so bad, I played college basketball and I would, I would text my girlfriend at the time to make sure she got home from s- uh, work, or, you know, whatever, what she was doing. And if she didn't text b-... I remember there was this one game, we were playing Brooklyn College, which was like a big rival, we needed to beat them. I was, I was, you know, one of the best players on the team. I, I remember I would, um... she wasn't texting me back. I s- foolishly texted her before the game, like when we were in the locker room, and then thinking, "Okay, we're gonna go in for warmups." 20 minutes later, I would have to leave my phone in another room 'cause the anxiety of like, "Is the phone ringing or not?" I couldn't handle it. So I, if I texted her and then I went and did something else for 20 minutes, I would say, "At the end of this 20 minutes, she's gonna have a text, she's home, and you can relax." Right? Even though it was f- pure daylight, in New York, like she was always gonna be okay, but my brain convinced me otherwise. So, one day, she's not texting back, and now the game has begun. So I'm playing this game like, "I- I can't even feel my body, like I am paralyzed, p- truly. I cannot feel my body. My mouth is numb. I'm having like a full panic attack, but I am the lead player on a college basketball game that we need to win."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- NANarrator
So, so I don't know like what the fuck to do. So, I call a timeout. I call a timeout, overrule my coach, I'm like, "Timeout, coach. I just need a breather." Okay. I, I say, uh, "I'm just gonna go back into the training room, I just wanna tape my ankle." Which is normal, okay? I come back out, sh- I, j- 'cause I wanted to look at my phone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
I look at the phone, still no message. Still nothing. You know, t- turns out it was just a, a delay on the train and she, whatever, she's a 21-year-old girl, she's not looking at her phone all the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
And I come back and I have the phone stuffed in my pants.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- NANarrator
I stuffed it in my like tidy shorts and I played the game with the cell phone stuffed in my pants because I said, "The only way I'm gonna be able to do this is somehow, s- y- when nobody's looking, even though it's a packed college crowd, pull out this phone and make sure that she texts me or else I can't play. I'm gonna be paralyzed and I can't play." So I had it and then I- I was playing the game realizing this is worse 'cause now I have the ph- I'm waiting for the phone to vibrate and every time I thought it was vibrating, it wasn't. I was just running in the game. So then I stuffed it in towels and the warmups, which was in a pile in the back of the bench, and they would call...... coach would call timeout or I would call a timeout, I did that twice, and get out, and then I would su- I would go over and look at the phone to see if, if, you know, she had texted me. And I dealt with this anxiety. And then what happened was, is, w- my f- I was, you know, we were kids, 19, 18, 19. They, I opened up to one of my friends about it. We used to call him Bam Bam, he's a big boy. And we, I, and, and, and I opened up to him about it, thinking, you know, whatever, and then what they did, again, back then not knowing anything about mental health, not really caring, being from deep in Brooklyn, what they did is they, on a road trip, one time we were going to a game, they found a way to star, uh, they star 67'd, called me from a, you know, unrestricted number, it won't, it'll pop up nobody, and they said, the girl's name was Melissa, they were like, "Hey, we kidnapped Melissa."
- CDChris DiStefano
Oh, Jesus.
- NANarrator
"We have her in the trunk of our car. She's gonna die." Like, everything that they, I confessed to them, they said, and I had, and it was crazy, my freshman year, when she also played basketball as well that year, when I was freshman, she was, she was a senior, so we would always be in the same gym at the same time so I had no anxiety. I was 90% free throw shooter, nine-zero. My junior and senior year, when I was a better basketball player, in better shape, the leader of the team, but she was not with me every game, 50% free throw shooter because my brain, I couldn't feel my body. And I somehow got people, my teammates didn't even know this, I got all the way to Division III All-American. I was like, I'm my school's all-time leading scorer, or maybe second now. But I did all this stuff, and I was completely, 100%, absolutely having, like, this mental health crisis. Like, I, as anxious as I could be where I swear, I'm not, I would never joke about this, like, I was like at 21 years old being like, "I am gonna have to kill myself. I'm gonna ha- I cannot live like this." And nobody could help me. My mother didn't know what to do. No, nobody, this was, you know, when, 20 y- five y- no, yeah, 20 years ago, I, nobody, there was no mental health. Nobody knew that. Nobody knew about, like, s- that. I just dealt with every day reliving I think my girlfriend's dead, I think-
- CDChris DiStefano
Jesus.
- NANarrator
... reliving that 9/11 Pandora's box, and it affected me, and, and to the point where, like, every relationship I had, they broke up with me 'cause they were like, "I can't deal with this." Th- to them, it was control, and in a way it was. I was trying to control. I wouldn't care about if they cheated on me, where are you, I was never jealous about that. I'd be like, "Oh, have fun. Have sex with him. Let me know how big his dick is. I'm kind of into it."
- CDChris DiStefano
(laughs)
- NANarrator
I don't give a shit. But I, I, I, I cared about their safety always, and it was this thing I could not let go of, and I, the biggest fear I have, the biggest fear I have, and that's why I'm trying so hard to work at this now and sometimes it's fucking exhausting but I'm trying so hard, is I don't want that anxiety to come back and then I put it on my daughters.
- CDChris DiStefano
Right.
- NANarrator
'Cause I don't want them, I don't wanna be, they're 18, 19, wanna live their life, and dad's here texting him and they don't write back and now I'm thinking, "Who has my daughter?"
- CDChris DiStefano
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
So I worry about that. That's-
- CDChris DiStefano
Yeah.
- NANarrator
... that's the first fear I had when I h- held my oldest daughter, who was, you know, love of my life, I've held her and I was like, "When am I gonna, what's gonna happen when she goes outside?" Which I know you gotta stay in the present, you can't worry about that, but sometimes it, it, it, it hurts me.
- CDChris DiStefano
How did you get over this everyday crippling anxiety to the point where you thought you were gonna kill yourself? How'd you get past that?
- NANarrator
So what happened was, is, is I, the only advice that I, I did get from a- a friend of mine who's my kids' godfather now, um, was like, "You are so much better basketball player," which is, that's what I cared about back then, "You are such a better basketball player when you're single. When you don't have a girlfriend, you are such a better basketball player, and that's what you need to do." So, the w- only way at that time I could overcome it is to be single and to not connect to a girl in any way, shape, or form because then, if I was single, I wasn't worried as much. 'Cause my mom always would text me back, or if I called her, she was always pretty much home. I very rarely dealt with instances where my mother was not responding. It's 'cause my mom, she'll, she is thinking about me all the time.
- CDChris DiStefano
Right.
- 47:35 – 57:39
Resilience vs. rumination: therapy doubts, weird health spirals, and fleeing gigs over gas pain
- CDChris DiStefano
So, life experience, therapy, all of the things.
- NANarrator
Yeah, but y- it's interesting what you said to me about therapy, is I felt that way myself. I was like, you know, sometimes I feel like I have, we all have issues, but I'm like, sometimes I'm just, like, bitching to my therapist, and I'm forcing myself to talk about these things that I feel like I have a better handle over from, like, my own, kind of, you know, meditation and just, you know-
- CDChris DiStefano
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
... thinking, you know, like, seeking out help for myself, listening to people speak, having life experience, I'm like, you know, I like th- my therapist, but I'm like, I don't know, man. Sometimes it's like you don't wanna be the guy that's like, "I don't need help," 'cause I get it, but I'm like, yeah-... I didn't f- I didn't need this today. I feel like I, y- you made me nervous again now. Like, I didn't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
... I didn't need this at all today. I was okay today.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
But, but it's Tuesday, 11:15, so that's our session.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what Abigail Shrier was saying. I, I had her on. She had written a book about therapy and kids, and that obsessing about problems sometimes can exacerbate the problem, make them worse.
- NANarrator
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So instead of just, like, allowing that problem to sort of go away and naturally recover from it, now you just rehash it over, and over, and over, and over, and-
- NANarrator
And that's no good.
- JRJoe Rogan
... then it becomes a thing that you're s- you're concentrating on all the time, and that you're not developing the ability to be resilient. And resilience comes from a lot of things, you know. A lot of things that is like, if you have bad things happen in your life, you could develop anxiety. But also, when bad things happen in your life and you recover from them, you realize you can recover from bad things.
- NANarrator
Yeah, that's how I feel now. I feel like I'll, I'll just, you know, I've been through it. I'm o- like, I'm not scared-
- JRJoe Rogan
(clears throat)
- NANarrator
... of anesthesia anymore. I used to be that guy that's scared of anesthesia 'cause I had to get a colonoscopy 'cause I took a shit that looked like it had some blood in it, and it turned out it was just a bunch of boysenberries. But they, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
... it's what it was. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You ever eat beets? (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you have beets, you go into a panic.
- NANarrator
So I didn't know, so the doctor, I showed him a picture of my shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NANarrator
I, I, and he was like, "That doesn't look great. Let's just get a colonoscopy." And I got the anesthesia, and I woke up and everything was fine. And I'm like, "Well, now I'm not scared." Now I feel, 'cause it, you, a big anxiety for me would be, okay, I feel a pain in my chest, my stomach, you know, whatever. Like, I had gas once in my stomach, and I had shows in England, and I got, I literally went from literal gas pain, 'cause you were eating all this British food, just this minor gas pain that was gonna go away in 10 minutes, to brain exacerbated it into, uh, potential appendicitis. I'm across the ocean. So now, I have three more shows left, so what I'm gonna have to do is figure out a way to get home preemptively. So what I'm gonna do is I called the venue, I said, "I have an emergency." They said, "What's the emergency?" I said, "My stepmom died," which wasn't true. And I got on a flight.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) No you didn't.
- NANarrator
I swear to God. And I got on a flight. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- NANarrator
Yes. I got on a flight, didn't tell the other people on the show, got on a flight, and got home, because, and, and when I landed back at JFK, my stomach pain went away. And it was all in my head to begin with, because what I was saying was, at that time, was, "I'm gonna get my appendix removed over here. I might die in the hospital."
- JRJoe Rogan
Amazing. (laughs)
- NANarrator
I don't know how, I don't know how I'll react to anesthesia.
- 57:39 – 1:17:10
Bombing for billionaires and Mets fans: the Steve Cohen gig, NDAs, and Jumbotron disaster
- NANarrator
Dude, you know why I'm a Mets fan? I was born in Queens. My father's from the Bronx, diehard Yankees fan, but Mets fan, the owner of the team, Steve Cohen, right? He's, you know, big owner, you know, whatever. Really nice guy. I did, in the pandemic, I did his 60th birthday party.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh no.
- NANarrator
Private party, right? In a room like this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did it suck?
- NANarrator
Here's what happened. So... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs) So...
- JRJoe Rogan
I can't wait for this bit. (laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs) So... Okay, so h- here's what happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- NANarrator
All right. So...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs) So... All right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh. Oh...
- NANarrator
I get a call, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- NANarrator
You're gonna do this show. What happened was I talk, I, my, Jasmin, my family's Puerto Rican, my kids are Puerto Rican, I have material about having this Puerto Rican family, right? Steve's wife is Puerto Rican, okay? They have his 60th birthday party and what I thought the birthday party was gonna be was him and his family. I'll do my Puerto Rican jokes, you know, the, the wife will like it. You know, whatever. It's 20 minutes, you know, great money, it's, you know, cool opportunity, do it. It's a challenge, right? It's the pandemic, not much going on. They rented out this restaurant. Nobody was supposed to know about it. It's like in the back room thing. So I go. So I get there and it's no... it's h- him and his 10 friends, all guys. Just all guys sitting at a table like this having dinner. They do not know comedy's supposed to happen. The wife thought it'd be a good idea to get a comedian in there for his 60th birthday that she wasn't invited to 'cause this was a guys thing. And so, uh, a 60-year-old billionaire doesn't know who the fuck I am. If you're gonna have comedy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- NANarrator
... have Jerry Seinfeld.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NANarrator
Have Joe Rogan. Have somebody that they know. They have no idea. So the, the guy who, you know, was like Steve's assistant who the w- you know, has to answer to his wife, I think his name was Ned. He goes, um, "Are you the comedian?" I was like, "Yeah." He goes, (sighs) "All right." He goes, uh, "What, what's your name again?" And I was like, "Uh, it's Chris Distefano." I, I thought like Mrs. Cohen knew me. She was like, "Yeah, she's not here." Like, that's, uh, this is, it's all guys in there. I said, "Well, you know, do you not want me to do it?" He goes, "No, she already paid you." Like, "I, I, I ha- you have to do it." So I was like, "Okay." So I was like, "Well, where... Just show me where like the microphone is." He was like, "We don't have anything."... there's no microphone, there's no lights.
- JRJoe Rogan
(buzzing sound) (laughs)
- NANarrator
He goes, "We were thinking..." He goes, (laughs) he goes, "They just got served their entrees, so we were thinking you can just stand in the front of the table and do a few minutes."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- NANarrator
So I was like, "You know that this is gonna be... This is a nightmare." And he was like, "It doesn't feel like they're gonna like you."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
So... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Oh my God.
- NANarrator
So Ned...
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm... My hands are sweating for you. Ugh, ugh.
Episode duration: 2:46:18
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Transcript of episode reQgoSdOYBs
