Felipe Esparza is a standup comic, actor, and host of the podcast "What's Up Fool?" Watch his new special "Raging Fool" only on Netflix. www.felipesworld.com Save $20 on your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Get working on a better you with therapy. Visit BetterHelp.com/JRE today to get 10% off your first month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did Felipe Esparza start in comedy?
Just get a refresh.
Yeah, and you pass by and you see, oh, that's, man.
Arsenio Hall. That's Elaine Boosler. Right.
OG right there. Right, right, right. You're like, what? Right. I used to see her at Dodger Stadium when I was working at Dodger Stadium. And I would ask her for advice. And she was just, you know, like, every comeback back then, just keep writing. She was a funny comic, man.
She was a funny comic. Who's that lady that was on Curb Your Enthusiasm? She's very funny, too. Old school comic. God damn it. I'm very embarrassed that I forgot her name. She hasn't done comedy in a long time. Look that up. Susie? Yes, Suzy Essman. Oh, Suzy Essman did a stand-up? Yes. Oh, she was great. She was really funny. I middled for her once in, like, fucking 1989 or some shit.
Way back in the day, my friend.
William Middleford, that lady? Wow.
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Chapter 2: What is the impact of cocaine on comedy and culture?
Yeah. Yeah. Someplace on Long Island. It might have been like Governors or something like that. I do not remember, but I remember she was very nice. She was very funny, very nice, very encouraging, which is the best, man. When you get to work with someone that you see on television and you're just like starting out and they're nice to you, that's so valuable.
I can't believe it. There she is.
Suzy Espin.
There she is. Whoa. She looks like Elaine from Seinfeld.
Yeah, similar.
But that's the haircut back then, huh?
Yeah, well, they all had crazy hair. Everybody lost their mind in the 80s.
Ali Lieberman?
Yeah, they all lost their mind back then. Because from the 70s to the 80s, nobody knew how to dress. They did crazy shit with their hair.
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Chapter 3: Which comedians have made a lasting impact on Joe Rogan?
And him and his girlfriend, they had this attic apartment. And they would just hang out and do coke and sell coke. And they would just watch TV and do coke. Wow. It was like they got bit by a vampire, man.
It scared the shit out of me. I was afraid of cocaine, man. Because when I started stand-up, I started stand-up in 94, 93, at an open mic. And I was clean. I was sober. I was in rehab. and I wanted to be a comedian. So I went to a library to learn about writing, Jean Perrette, comedy writing, step-by-step. Another book called How to Write Funny, Be Funny, and Make Money Being Funny.
And that was a real great book, bro. I mean, it had comedy clubs locations in the back, and it had booker numbers to submit your comedy.
Yeah, well, remember the Comedy USA Industry Guide? Yeah. $100. Yeah. Can you believe that shit? Bro, I remember dudes used to take out full-page ads. That's how you knew they were killing it. When a dude would take out a full-page ad in the Comedy USA industry, I'm like, wow, he's got a full-page ad.
I remember, bro, when I was looking for gigs in 2000, right? And I remember this comedian named Shang and Dante. Yeah, I remember those guys. Those guys had a list, like a five-page list of comedy bookers' names, NACA numbers to call. And the back of the page was shitty bookers to avoid. And they had to sign it to the comics for like 75 bucks.
Wow. I got lucky that I was in Boston. And Boston had – that was like the boom happened in Boston when like Stephen Wright got on The Tonight Show. Everybody found out about Boston. But it was already this like crazy – this is a great documentary called When Stand-Up Stood Out.
You had that guy on the show here.
I've had a few of those guys on the show.
It was like a Chinese restaurant.
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Chapter 4: How did Joe Rogan and Felipe Esparza discuss iconic comedy shows?
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I had a first comedy album, the one he did with Roaring or something.
Oh, the one we did with music in the background?
Yeah. That was great. That's a great album. There was a place like that, a Boston place, but not in a documentary, but Will Durst, he's a San Francisco comedian. Sure. He had a room like that called the Comedy Zoo or the Zoo. Holy City Zoo, right? Holy City Zoo. Yeah.
And there's a comedian that came out of there that's a killer comic and he's still alive and he opened for me and he opened for Rob Schneider and Papa and he opened for a lot of people. Larry Bubbles Brown. Oh, cool. And he's an old school guy. After every joke, he goes, mer. Mer. But he did Letterman in 1992. And then he did it again in 2006.
So he has a record for doing Letterman between 30 years. Wow. But he's one of those comedians that never left San Francisco.
There's a few of those guys that got trapped like that. Yes. That were really good guys. Remember that one guy in Chicago? Yeah. Fuck, what was his, Larry, Larry Reeb? Larry Reeb. Remember Larry Reeb? He was a guy like that, like a really solid national act, but it was so Chicago, it kind of stayed around there mostly.
But it was like every now and then, you'd find towns like that, you had like one murderer that lived in the town. Bob Marley in New England. Yes. Oh, Maine. Bob Marley was the murderer of Maine. And Robert Schimel was Arizona.
I love Robert Schimel, man.
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Chapter 5: How do comedians deal with strange advice from managers?
He's always been a guy we all watched. He was always the guy that at the end of the night, especially if something fucked up happened, like there was a plane crash, like someone got eaten by a lion.
You mentioned a plane crash because I was there when he did that joke. I was in the back of the comedy store. He said American Airlines is hiring him. And then he said, because I remember who survived that airline. And he said, fuck that. Everybody says, how come they don't build a plane out of the black box or sit me next to the black box? Sit me next to a fucking baby. Baby survived.
Give me a hold of that baby, bitch. A baby survived? Yeah, a baby survived an airline, the flight one time. And he said, I want to hold that baby. I want to hold somebody's baby in an airplane. Just in case it goes down. Because if a baby survives, I'm going to survive.
You have to see him say it. I don't think we're doing it justice.
I'm fucking it all up.
My favorite one was when Susan Smith got arrested for drowning her kids. He goes, I heard those were bad kids. I heard they sat that close to the TV. They didn't put away their blocks. Those kids will not be missed. The fun thing about Brian is if you know him, like in real life, he's like the sweetest guy on earth.
He's such a sweetheart of a guy, like super friendly to everybody, loves everybody. Like he doesn't even have an enemy. Like Brian Holtzman has no enemies. He's always sweet and friendly. And then he gets on stage and it's like he becomes like his version of George.
Yeah. I hung out with Brian Holtzman. I hung out with Brian Holzman and his mom in San Antonio, Texas.
Oh, wow.
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Chapter 6: What roles do nostalgia and history play in Felipe Esparza's comedy?
We went round to his hotel room, got a handful of pills, stuffed them into his mouth, then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe. Hendricks is found dead at the Samarkand Hotel on 18th of September, 1970. The cause of death was recorded as barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit. I can still hear the conversation, Wright wrote of Jeffrey's confession.
See the man I'd known for so much of my life, his face pale, hand clutching at his glass in sudden rage. Hendricks' manager died in a plane crash in 73. So this guy's dead, supposedly did this. Listen, man, they did that back then. They were gangsters. There was gangsters running everything. If there was a lot of money to be made, scary people moved in, and it became a real problem.
Yeah, man, gangsters own a lot of stuff that a lot of people wouldn't want to own, like a gay club.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Like in LA, they own all the gay clubs. They were not rated because they were paying money.
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Chapter 7: What are Joe Rogan's thoughts on the evolution of media and entertainment?
Yeah, man.
They will come for you.
Especially when Devin Williams and Devin and Greer were doing men on film. There's an episode where fucking the camera falls.
They gave it two snaps.
Yeah, the camera falls on Damon Wayans, and he becomes heterosexual all of a sudden. And then David Languille starts touching him. He goes, make your life away from me, man. How about when he played Handyman? He played a mentally retarded... I love that one. Oh, my God. That's my favorite movie.
Yeah, a handicapped superhero. It was... And he made a superhero movie about him, Handyman. He would fly like this. Yeah. Dude, this show was wild. Hilarious. Wildly offensive, but so funny. Even Fire Marshal Bill, bro, he's making fun of a fire victim. I was just going to bring that up.
Let me tell you something.
That guy's fucking whole face is burned off. Jesus Christ.
My daughter's a burn victim, by the way.
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Chapter 8: How does Joe Rogan address the issue of pollution and health hazards?
Scented candles apparently are not healthy. Jamie, Google that. Maybe I should say some scented candles. Maybe there's a way to do it organically. We should find out if that's true too because that would be a good thing to know. Because I think there's some things in some scented candles that you're not supposed to inhale. And when you're a person that likes to have candles, and who doesn't?
They're cool. You want to have candles in your house? That's dope. Like candlelight dinner with a bunch of friends is dope. Right? But I think it's the scented ones.
It says it's the ones that are made from paraffin.
The ones that are made from paraffin are the problem. It's a cheap byproduct primarily sourced from the refinement of petroleum. So you're burning petroleum. Paraffin is the most used candle wax worldwide according to the National Candle Association, the major trade association representing U.S. candle manufacturers and their suppliers. So it's all candles made from paraffin?
However, few studies on candle emissions or their potential effects on human health exist, and conclusions from the research are mixed. There is no overall conclusion that paraffin candles will or won't harm your health, says pulmonologist Dr. Sobia Farouk, a clinical assistant professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.
But the risk may also depend on various factors, including candle type and quality. how often and how long you're burning it, the airflow and the space where you're burning it, your health status and more. Well, Either it's not good for you, or it's fine. These are the options. And it seems to me like there's a little gaslighting going on here.
Like, how could it be good for you to have petroleum burning in your house? I want you to show me a study that's... Measure the fucking air in the room when you have three candles. Measure the air in the room when you have four candles. Keep going. Tell me when I'm going to get lung cancer from this shit. Because... Wow. Yeah.
Benzene, a known carcinogen, is another VOC released by paraffin candles. Hawk added, long-term exposure to this chemical has been linked to blood disorders such as leukemia. When inhaled, benzene can also be a respiratory irritant, which means it could probably, yeah, fuck.
Fuck.
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