Joe Rogan - Performance Art vs. Comedy

So you started out as a performance artist, like that was your idea. What did you want to do? That was your big idea. I went to art school for painting and I was, uh, got really frustrated when people started to critique the paintings and I was supposed to be, you know, getting more serious in art school and more conceptual and everyone was doing something different and everyone was critiquing it in a different way and none of it made sense to me. And then the idea of having to sell that object that you made. So you're going to make something that's useless. I mean, it makes it sound like I don't like or appreciate art. I just, for me, I didn't, I couldn't grasp what the next thing to do was. You know, you're poor, you're in art school, you're making something and then you have to go sell and market that thing. And, uh, I also was frustrated and kind of like boiling inside and needed to express myself. So I started doing performance art in school. And then when you say performance art, that's a pretty open ended description, right? Oh, it's so open ended. There were so many like weird performance art things that would happen. We, I mean, we had performance art class. There was a guy that like taped his genitals to the side and put on lipstick in a mirror. And that was his performance art piece or the girl that we would all sit there and watch it. And did you see his genitals? Did he go naked and pull it aside or how did he do that? That's a really good question. I like how your mind just went there. You're like, what actually happened? I think I blocked it out. Because I think you could probably get away with doing that. Or the guys of it being something you're doing, you know, in a class somewhere. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You can get away with that. So pervy. I think I was focused on his beautiful lips. I was trying to be polite and not look down there. Another woman was obese and her piece was she had pre-set up. We weren't where she was doing the performance butter pats in like dominoes, like, you know, a few thousand of them. In a line. And she was obese and she crawled on the ground. She didn't actually eat them, but it was something. That's weird. My mind kind of drops off. I remember specific parts of it, but I don't remember. I think she just was collecting the butter pieces and crawling. And that was her performance piece. Another guy. This was I went to Detroit and then finished in San Francisco. And San Francisco is known for being a real performance art history. A lot of the, you know, the most famous performance artists. Nobody knows where that was the scene was in San Francisco. So it was two story, really beautiful campus overlooking. You could see Lombard Street on one side. You could see the water on the other side. And another guy's piece was to jump from the second story to a tree. And just like that he may or may not have made the jump. And that was his art piece. His art pieces jumping from a window to a tree. Yeah. What the fuck? I know this other guy, the room where we had our class, he had a bread machine. This was back, you know, bread machines were new technology. Had a bread maker. You know, those machines you can make. I guess it just does the dough, right? Right. Maybe it bakes it. I think it just needs the dough and then you bake it. Or I don't know if you bake it in the machine. No, you bake in the machine. It's all coming back to me. He bakes it in the machine. We come into the classroom as he's baking it. There's always like a reveal in these pieces, right? So we come in. He's taken plaster from the wall and put it in the bread. He's fed us the bread. Half of us get it. Half of us don't. And there's plaster in the bread. Why do you put plaster in his bread? It was something about communism. Some get the bread, some don't. But even if you get the bread, there's plaster in it. So in your face. What the fuck? Oh my God. See, there's something about like performance art and slam poetry. I did slam poetry too. That was one of my... But you did. You know I did. Here's the best part. I got zeros. You got zeros? Yeah. You didn't get any... Why? I never really wrote any poetry. I was just into the performance of it. And I... So you didn't have a poem? I think I was doing comedy. Oh no. And they wanted a real... And I was doing like an awkward thing. I mean, which was very real for me. But I think I just wanted to express... I also had an ex-boyfriend who he said that comedy was his life. This was when I was like 19. And I think I attached to people... Like I thought he was the shit because he would be rude to people. Like that was his version of comedy. It was like bossing people around. Or one of his bits was like having a whistle and directing traffic. I mean really adolescent like... But for some reason I was really attracted to him and... Like I wanted to be him. Anybody who was like extroverted or something that I wanted, I was attracted to that. Right? Right. So he was like comedy is my life and I do this open mic. And I was like I'm gonna do that open mic. And I had taped like phrases to my body and phrases from commercials or snippets of conversation that I had heard. And I went up and I started reading them. And then I would improvise a little bit and I'd be like waxy build up or whatever. And just repeating, just letting it all filter through and come out my mouth for five minutes of whatever the open mic was. And I started getting laughter but it was like awkward laughter after the fact of that uncomfortable... Like what is she doing? But my commitment level was so high that the fact that it didn't make any sense just caused laughter. Right? Right. Right. Right. Well that works sometimes with just even with comics. Yes. Absolutely. There's a lot of people that are just really odd. And if you saw them you would get it. If you saw what they wrote on paper or what they said just written down on paper you would be like what? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Well I thought you were gonna say which is a similar point that it comes in the pause and after what they're saying even if it doesn't make any sense. But you're saying sometimes people write things and it makes its own sense when you hear them say it. Yes. Yeah. I mean but it's also just about being fully committed. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah and those pauses. Yeah that gives you especially if something's really absurd gives you that opportunity to go what? Yeah. You don't want to just hammer them over the head with it.