Joe Rogan | Louis CK is NOT Like Bill Cosby

So were you pissed off when that Louis C.K. recording got released and comics were denouncing it? Yeah it was weird. I mean it's a bummer. First of all, people, a lot of people were like these aren't even jokes. He's not even joking anymore. And you're like, no, no they're jokes. Like I understand if you're don't like it or you're offended, but you're like they're definitely jokes. He's on stage. He doesn't really think that they threw a fat kid in front of them. That's not how he feels. He's saying something that's fucked up and funny. And it's funny because it's fucked up because you're not supposed to say it, which is the exact thing he's done his whole career. Right, and it's a new bit. It wasn't supposed to be heard outside of this. It wasn't done. And for these people, look, there's a lot of times you'll say something one way and then you're like, ah, it's not working. And then you'll figure out another way to sneak in through the back door and it works way better. And then if they heard the first way, and like this joke sucks, like no, no, no, I figured out I'll say it later, but now it's already on YouTube. You've ruined the material. Yeah, I mean, he dropped the bit because it's just kind of like, Yeah, it's out there too much. But- He had a fucking hilarious line. If you ever want people to forget about you jerking off, make jokes about kids getting shot. Yeah, there's also a funny line where he's like, why are you in a suit? Which is funny. But yeah, and then people were talking about how now the parents have to hear this and stuff. And you're like, well, they weren't going to. You took it and put it out and then CBS picked it up and put it on CBS. So now they're hearing it. But before that, there was just 180 people on Long Island hearing it. Yeah, which is what it was supposed to be. But the thing about working on material is if you like comedy, you can't release people's shit like that because you're never going to get good comedy because everyone's gonna, like every time Dave Chappelle does a workout set or anybody, you're gonna get these half cooked bits and then you're gonna release them and it's gonna ruin it for you. It's gonna ruin it for the people that listen. It's like for the people that are in the room, that's for them. If you're taking it out, like there's been a lot of talk about Louis making this copyright thing saying that, you know, that there was a legal action. If you print or you do anything to record or do anything to put the material online. And someone's saying he can't do that. I'm like, well, why can't he do that? The difference between that and music. Like if you go to hear someone sing a song and you write down the lyrics and go, oh my God, Gary Clark Jr. has this amazing new song, here's the lyrics, that doesn't ruin the song. Right. But if you say, oh, he's got this hilarious joke and the twist is he says this, well, you just fucked that bit up for everyone that's ever gonna listen to it or read that. Right. Yeah, it's frustrating. It was frustrating. People start being like, he's alt right now. He's gonna do it. No, he's not. People are goddamn crazy. But the comedians that denounced it were embarrassing. It's like, do you not know what a workout set is? Do you understand this guy was out of comedy for almost a year? Do you know that this guy was doing a fucking hour after being out of comedy for almost a year? Fuck you. Stop pretending that what you do is different. Stop. And so many people were doing it. And it turned out that they had a bunch of jokes that were awful or about a mass shooting or about pulling your dick out in front of someone or about anything along those lines. It's also a bad precedent to start where I'm like, do we really wanna start publicly shitting on comics, unfinished bits? Exactly. That seems like, I don't want that. No, I suppose I'm not. I saw a list at the fucking seller and he's got this hack, and you're like, give me a moment or tell me behind the closed doors that like my bit pack here or something. How long is you're a bit ready before, do you have a Comedy Central special? You have something, right? I have a Netflix half hour and I did a Comedy Central half hour. Okay, so how long did you have to work on those bits before you were ready to put them on Comedy Central or Netflix? Quite a while. I like to do a bit at least three months before it's somewhere. Yeah, it's gotta be close. At the very least. At the very least. Yeah, yeah. And it depends on the bit, right? Some bits are pretty fucking good a couple weeks in. Yeah, yeah. And other bits are, I've got a couple bits in my act now and I'm like, this motherfucker needs an overhaul and I don't even know where to start. Yeah, I've had bits that I've done for two years and then you finally find a line, you're like, ah, there we go, that was it. And then you're like, now it's more of a bit. Because it takes time to figure it out. But yeah, comics should, but I understand people hate Louie and they're gonna hate him, so whatever he does or says they're gonna be upset. I don't even believe they hate him, I don't believe it. You know what I think a lot of it is? I think people are justifiably upset the idea of him jerking off in front of women that didn't want him to. Here's, there's a couple factors to that though. One is that he asked. You know, yeah, it's a weird thing to want to do, jerk off in front of people, but he asked. And a lot of these stories, the way you're getting the version of it, it's like worst case scenario. It's like he blocked the door. He didn't block any doors. He got it. You know, and they were laughing, like people were joking around. Like it became this traumatic thing years later talking about it after the fact. But then on top of that, it's like, God, don't you think the guy has suffered enough? Like when is he suffering enough? You see this lack of empathy with people where they don't even want to respect that he's a human being. They don't want to appreciate any of his old work. They don't want to, they don't have anything that he could do that would make them just go, all right, well, I know you're not gonna do that again. And you seem like a reasonable person. It's like, you can't be your past. You're not the guy who shit in that sneaker, right? You're Joe Liz today. Yeah. Yeah, nobody wants to be remembered for the worst thing they did. And I think it's just a thing where they know it's an easy target. I really do. I think at a certain point in time, people just decide that this is a guy that you can take a free shot at and you can shit on him. And you can attribute things to him that aren't true. You can attribute a bunch of things to him that are not accurate. And it's easy, like calling him alt right, or saying Louis C.K. showing his true colors now. Jesus Christ, go back and watch his bit about hitting a deer, okay? It's a fucking ridiculous, really funny material. And that's what I enjoyed about his act. That bit, if left alone, I mean, it's out of his act now, but if left alone in X amount of time, he would have crafted that into a great bit. I'm sure of it. Yeah, I agree. And there was a bunch of shitty, fucking half-assed comics that came out and were talking trash about it. And I was like, you guys should shut the fuck up. Because this whole art form is about trial and error. This whole art form is about being able to work. It's one of the rare things that we need a crowd in order for these things to come alive. We need it. And you have to take chances. I just saw, ironically, with Louis, we went and saw Apocalypse Now during the Tribeca Film Festival. And Francis Ford Coppola was there, and he came out and he spoke about the film beforehand and after. And Robert Duvall was also there. And he came out and went, Charlie, don't surf! It was amazing. And it was really unbelievable. But Coppola was talking after the film, and he was like, I don't know, have you know the whole story about Apocalypse Now? That documentary Hearts of Darkness, which is amazing. And he put his house up for sale, or put everything on the line to make the movie himself. And he was just talking about, you have to take chances with art. There's no art without taking big chances. You're taking a chance by doing a joke, I mean, I wouldn't do a joke about the Markland shooting. I wouldn't either. But it's a risk and it might go bad, and it went well, it got laughs. Yeah, it got laughs. But certainly if you take anything outside of... A comedy club. A comedy club, and put it out in the public. It's not for those people, it's for the people that bought the ticket. Well, it's also in context of the experience in a comedy club, having a couple drinks, watching a hilarious guy talk some shit, especially a guy coming back after a national scandal. Worldwide, worldwide scandal. Yes. And it's just, look, I wouldn't joke around about them getting shot either. But one of the things that made that bit work was that, yes, it was a horrible tragedy. Yes, those kids went through that. Yes, they're teenagers. Yes, they're trying to figure out life, and they're being interviewed on CNN. And some of them were changing their opinions, and they're developing and growing as we speak. But one of them, David Haw guy, he wrote fuck the patriarchy on his Twitter the other day. That was his tweet, not even as a joke. That's an 18-year-old, that's what kids do. They say silly shit, that's why the bit worked. He was like, why are you interesting? Why do I have to hear from you? But, well, you have to hear from them because their friends got shot. Obviously, this is not a conversation. This is stand-up comedy. It's an art form in saying things that are funny that are fucked up. That's part of the art form. If you deny that, either that's not the kind of comedy you like, or you don't appreciate what comedy is. Yeah, and also, it's a weird thing where I'm like, I'm for those kids. I'm like, yes, great, this horrible thing happened. And you're like, we're gonna use what power we have. I'm like, I think that's great. And they might actually fucking do something. I mean, it's like they're making changes, and I'm like, that's fucking power to the people. God bless you. But I can still laugh at a joke about it. It's still funny to me to see someone be like, why are you in a, both things can exist. You can have empathy for murder victims, and even be like, rude to me, like, wow, that's amazing what these kids are doing. Or these young people are doing. And still be like, ah, that's funny. It's funny. It's not his best joke, but it wasn't done, you fucks. And here's the other thing, like, do you know what Brian Holzman is? I don't think so. Gotta see him when you're in town, if you can. He's fucking hilarious. He's a legitimate maniac. He's a legend in Los Angeles. When I started the comedy store in 94, he was already there. And he's really fucking funny. But he had, do you remember when Susan Smith drowned her kids, that lady, she pushed her fucking car into a river or something and drowned her kids? No, but it sounds hilarious. He was on stage a very short amount of time afterwards going, ladies and gentlemen, I heard those were bad kids. He goes, I heard they sat that close to the TV. They never put away their blocks. They always spill in their fucking milk. Those kids will not be missed. And you were just like, what? It's not, he didn't really think those were bad kids. It's a fucked up thing to say that happens to be funny. You might not be into that kind of humor. That's okay. Well, that's part of, I think, what comedy is, or has always been, is saying a thing you're not supposed to say. That's, like, to me, the very idea of comedy. Is you're saying abnormal things. Right, like you talking about coming in your own face and whatever, or someone coming in your face. Yeah, you're not supposed to express your sexually desires so openly. It's not that you really mean that. I do not. It's funny, right? Right? I think so. I mean, it's incredibly funny. It's an art form that is often cited or quoted as if it's a statement. You know, like, he said this. He said that on stage in a comedy club as a part of a big giant chunk about this. And you're taking it out of context and you do it in the worst possible way. You put it in print. Of course it looks terrible. Of course it looks terrible in print. Because it's not in a comedy club, but it's not in context. It's like, that has no relationship to the actual bit itself. Your print version of it, it's a lie. You should go to jail for saying that's the joke. You're a liar. You're a liar. You're defaming someone. You're taking what they're doing and you're pretending that what they were saying is what they mean. You know that's not what they mean. But you don't care. Remember that Lenny Booth in the movie, Lenny, I think, when he talked about, they were reading his act. Yes, exactly. And he's like, but you're not saying it right. You know, let me say it. Exactly, exactly. It's the same thing. It's, look, no one thinks school shootings are a good thing. No one does. No. They're doing jokes about it because we know it's a horrible tragedy. That's why jokes work. And they don't work because you're mean. They don't work because you're horrible. They work because everyone knows you're joking. If everybody really thought you were a horrible person and you were happy that people got shot, they wouldn't laugh at a goddamn thing you said. Right. That's, it's a fucking weird art form. It's a weird art form. And for it to be dismantled and disrespected the way it is, where people are, when people break down people's bits and take them out of context like that, it's so foolish. And the fact that people don't stand up for it, that are in the art form itself, that drives me fucking crazy. It drove me angry. These are a bunch of people that I won't even talk to anymore. I'm like, I'm not talking to you anymore. Like this is what you're gonna do if I do a bit that's half cooked and then you're gonna talk shit about me? Right. Like this, you're doing this for your own favor. You're not doing this for the art form. You're not doing, you're not an empathetic person. You're not looking at him as a human being, saying well clearly the guy fucked up. He made some mistakes. Oh that bit was good. But look, if you listen to that set, that's a good set. Especially for a guy who's been out of comedy for almost a fucking year. Yeah, it's gotten a lot stronger. I'm sure. Yeah, that's why I put that. He's a hilarious comedian. I mean, he's gonna get to a point where he's got a real motherfucker of an hour and then someone's gonna have to figure out whether or not they're willing to take a chance and put it on. Well it's like you were talking about earlier too. I mean, you can also just put it on. YouTube. His website or YouTube or whatever. Yes, I hope he does that. You know, I mean, it's this idea that he should be punished for eternity. It's like, what are we Catholics? Like what's going on here? Like what is this? You know, what did he do? I mean, he did something that cost, wound up costing him $35 million. Massive public shame. Still to this day, more than, it's almost like two years later. Was it like a year and a half now? November 2017. Yeah, I mean, what the fuck? Like what do you want him to do? You know, I mean, we're not talking about Harvey Weinstein here and this idea that you're, you know, that you're not even supposed to compare offenders. You're not supposed to make judgment calls. Well, of course you are. That's why some people go to jail for life and some people go to jail for two years. And this is the reason why we have lesser punishments for lesser crimes. Right, right, yeah, there's a system in place. If you ask people if you can jerk off in front of them and they say no and you don't jerk off in front of them, good for you, you got some restraint. If you ask people if you can jerk off in front of them and they say yes and you do it, like maybe it's a weird thing to do, but you're not Bill Cosby, okay? To say that you're not supposed to make these comparisons, it's like this is a loaded subject too, right? Like we're talking about this and I see you're nervous. Oh yeah, I'm terrified. But yeah, no, I love Louis. I love Louis too. He's a great comic. Yeah, he's a great guy also. But yeah, I understand people are upset. I get it, I get it, but I think it's disproportionate. I really do, you know? I have a degree. Yeah. A little hardly, but yeah. How long do you think it's gonna be before people just let it go? Well, I think there's actually, the group of people that are really upset about it, I think it's probably like a quarter of a million people. That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people, but there's like 300 million people in the country. Maybe it's less than a quarter of a million. I think it's the minority. So you think most people are like, ah, he did something crazy. But the other thing is like you wanna kinda see the guy who jerked off in front of women. So people wanna go see him live. I mean, he's a great comic stuff, but I mean the shows, I mean, I'll read Twitter and stuff. Sometimes I'll go on, we'll hang out and I'll just search his name to see. Like once we went out to eat in New York and there was a kid, you know, like a hipster, he looked similar to me actually. But like a young kid and he stopped and just like stared at us and was like, and he started taking photos and then he left. And then I looked up Louis' name on Twitter and I found the kid and he wrote, just all caps, just gave Louis the finger, which he didn't, he didn't give us the finger. And then he wrote, and then he wrote, attention NYU students, this is all caps, Louis CK is in the neighborhood, make him uncomfortable, exclamation point. We were like, that's like psychotic. You're a, but that's what I was talking about earlier that I think he's a target. And I think they just decided this is what they're gonna do now. And like that guy was saying that he gave you the finger when he didn't. The virtue signaling aspect of it is one of the weirdest parts about social media because it's people that ordinarily, like in a real world scenario, you have an opportunity to say something if you really feel so compelled, the guy's right in front of you. You don't say shit. And then you get online and tell other people to do it. Other people to make him uncomfortable. Well, for the most part, yeah, we'll go around and it is, everything is, it's the weird thing about online, most people are much different in person because you realize it's a human being. I think the natural thing is like, oh, this is a person. Exactly. And then, you know, we'll go to like these kind of hipster coffee shops where you think that, that kind of person would be. And then he goes, hi, how are you? Can I get a, and they go, oh, sure. Yeah, that nobody, I mean, people get dirty looks and stuff here and there, but there's way more online than not online. But the shows are all selling out and there's a few people outside. Has he ever talked to those people outside or does he just get in? No, I don't think so. How does he get in? This is kind of a back door. We just went in the back and, you know, good for them. I think that they're misguided, like you said. Yeah, I think they want him to be this evil person. They should be protesting against, but I think if you look at it on paper, what he did was just not good. It's like, it's, you know, the worst that I had heard was that some people's careers had suffered because they were talking about it. But I don't know how much of that is accurate. I don't, I'd need to find out about that. Yeah, I don't know either. I don't know the whole thing. I always feel like I love Louis. He's one of my best friends now, which is weird to say, but we're close. But I don't really begrudge the women. I think that two different people can have the same experience and take different things from it, feel different ways. And I understand sexuality is weird. So like they could, in the moment, his perception might be, well, they said yes. And I think he kind of talks about this a little bit on stage. And I don't want to tell his stories to tell, but I think one person can be like, I thought they were into it. I thought they were saying yes and they're into it. And those women can say, can feel, yeah, we kind of said yes, but we felt fucked up and pressured. Two people can have the same experience and have different perspectives. So I don't begrudge any of the women. I understand that they are hurt and feel mistreated. Well, even if you say yes, you're still, and you see something you didn't want to see, you're like, whoa, and then you can never unsee it. It's like it's in your head. Yeah, I understand they're affected by it. But that's it. Does he ever jerk off in front of you? No, I keep asking. He won't do it? No, no, I ask him to come with me. Maybe he has to ask first. Maybe that's his thing. No, maybe I initially, I blew it. Yeah, maybe you have to like pretty shy. Yeah. So you know what I would hate if you jerked off in front of me? Say like drop in. Yeah, yeah, maybe I will. But he's a good person and a great dad, and I love him, I love the guy. Yeah, everybody wants to erase everything he's ever done. It's so, like, didn't FX like not just cancel it, but they made the show unavailable? Yeah, I think you can get it on iTunes, but yeah, it's done, and then, I think he's still on Netflix though. Yeah, yeah. You can still see it, but. Yeah, you can still see it, but they canceled the new one that he was gonna do. Yeah, he's supposed to do it. And then Pets 2, they dropped it too. They got rid of him. So it was a bummer. But it's weird with people, I mean, shouldn't we be empathetic to all people? Yes, I think we should. I think we should, and I think, you know, maybe it would serve him if he went out and talked about it extensively, like had a conversation about, like maybe videotaped it or something. I don't know. Like, if people had his take on it other than that little letter that he wrote right after it happened, maybe that would help. Yeah, which I thought was a good, apology, a good statement, I thought. Yeah, some people will never be happy, and some people were happy with it, and some people just felt like it wasn't enough, that he didn't specifically say, I am sorry. I feel horrible, I'm sorry I did this. He basically said he did it, and those stories are true, and that he fucked up, and he thought that they, he thought about them saying yes, that that was okay, but meanwhile he took advantage of the fact they admired him. Yeah, and he expressed regret. People are like, but like he said, people are gonna be unhappy no matter what. No matter what, even if he said I am sorry, that's not good enough, you're only sorry because you got caught, like people, they're always gonna have, there's some people that are just not empathetic, and this is what I really got very angry about with the leak of the recording. My cat's not his best material. Of course it's not, he hasn't done comedy in 10 months. When I was hearing it from other comedians, I'm like, how do you do this? Don't you do the same thing we do? Like what are you doing? He's a fucking person, he's a human being. He's a year and a half of him being stared at everywhere he goes, and fucked with. He gets it. And losing friends. Yes, I'm sure, yeah, but those friends, if he lost some friends, he's better off. If he lost friends because of that, if that was Ari, I would call him up, if there was a New York Times article about Ari jerking off in front of people, I'd be like, bro, I'm a little hurt. You never jerked off in front of me. I feel like I wouldn't, if he said I got fucked up, I've had conversations with Ari about things where he's like, ah, I fucked up, I shouldn't have done that, it was a bitch move. He'll tell ya. You can't do anything, once you're my friend, unless you're out there murdering kids or something, or doing something really fucked up, or actually raping someone. Yeah. Any friends that Louis lost for that, like, come on, man, what did you think? Did you think he was a perfect person? He's a nut, he's a maniac. God damn professional comedian. Right, right. You know? Yeah, we're flawed people. Yeah, that's how it all comes out good. It's like, there's gotta be something fucked up about your head, where you can come up with these, and another one that drives me crazy is these guys who you know are freaks and they're out of their fucking mind off stage, but on stage they have sort of a more squeaky clean thing, and their public thing is more squeaky clean, and they're judgmental about it, I'm like, oh my God. Please stop, you're fucking crazy as anybody. You just have a good squeaky clean act, so shut your hole. Yeah, sometimes I think the people with the cleanest acts are the wildest animals. It's often the case. Yeah. OK.