#2126 - Donnell Rawlings
2024-03-27 02:32:08
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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I don't want to try to do you, dirty, Darnell. Don't do that, man.
Don't do that, man.
Don't start with that. Birds flying high, you know how I feel. They tried to do you dirty. Breeze, drifting on by, you know how I feel. They tried to set you up.
It's a new dawn.
They tried to label you.
It's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good, Joe.
You look good. Thank you. You look real good. Where'd you get that suit? Who made that suit for you?
La Catino out of Brooklyn. There's some Korean tailors that I've been working with for the last two years. Nice. And they're trying to make me go from ashy to classy, and it's a new day.
I think it looks great.
And another thing you don't know about this suit, Joe, I smell as good as this suit looks.
Okay. What are you using for smell?
What is it called?
Portrait of a Lady.
Oh.
It's an Arabic company. That's all I know. And I got a guy that outsources my colognes. What do you do?
Like a little here, a little here, and a little on the wrists? How do you do it? I smoke. Or do you spray it and walk through it?
That's a good one. I spray it, walk through it, and then I ch-ch-ch. I do that annoying amount, like, okay, we get it. You got some nice cologne on right now. But it's good to be here.
There's something nice about a nice suit, man. It does make you look professional.
It makes you work on your posture. And one thing I did, another thing, that I came here today, and it was my intent, Joe, to break all the stereotypes. So I got here 20 minutes earlier than I was supposed to be here. You came 20 minutes late. You enforced the stereotypes.
And I wore a suit without a court date, without a funeral, and without a marriage proceeding. So this is the whole thing of Donnell. in a new day and changing his life. I'm going through a transition.
What motivated this? Law & Order? No.
Law & Order didn't motivate this. Law & Order, first off, Law & Order is one of the most respected franchises in the history of television. It's been around a long time. Shout-out to Formie.
Shout-out to Ice-T.
Shout-out to Dick Wolf and shout-out to everybody. that's a part of that. And they say in New York, they say that you can't call yourself an actor in New York unless you've been in Law & Order.
That makes sense.
It makes sense.
I mean, how many versions do they have?
When I first began in my career, people really thought I was a dramatic actor, more than a comic. I was booking a lot of stuff. I've been on every one of the episodes, not episodes, the shows, and out of them, I think 80% of them, I was arrested.
And I was like, wait a minute, am I getting typecast? Every time they play action, I'm like, what'd I do? What'd I do this time? Every one. Every one of them, I got arrested for something.
How many of them are there? How many Law & Orders are there, Jimmy?
Special victims.
Special victims.
I'm going to say, I'm going to guess, I'm going to say five. Five different Law & Orders. Homicide was technically part of it, too. Oh, wait, no, this is related. Never mind, hold on.
You got Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, Organized Crime, Adaptive Series, Law & Order Toronto, Criminal Intent, Law & Order Criminal Intent. Trial by Jury. Six. LA. Seven.
True Crime. Eight. Hate Crimes. Oh, this is in development. Hate Crimes for the defense.
They're going to have a whole show dedicated to hate crimes.
But that brand is like, and I don't think those guys, I mean, Dick Wolf and Arthur Formey, when I first, I did it years ago. When I first did it, Arthur Formey was the director when I did it. And that was like in, I think, like in 2000.. And then recently.
People love to watch those shows where they get the bad guy.
Yeah.
You have to catch the bad guy.
And you have to have a bad guy. Yeah.
You got a bad guy and you got to catch him.
But everybody is, everybody is more interested in the bad guy more than anything. That's in life general.
Yeah.
That's why you find so many people that necessarily don't have a lot of talent. But they subscribe to the bad guy side of it and want to be negative. And then everybody draws to that. The bad guy is winning like a motherfucker. The bad guy is winning.
In what way?
Yes.
In what way?
I'll just say, I'll just say like this. And I'm not being specific to anybody in general. Even in 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 going to piss somebody off. Say some shit that's going to 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.
Sort of. But I think people get tired of that. They get tired of conflict. If your whole business is conflict, people don't want to 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. Because if you're known for just talking shit about people and then you become successful, then people are going to talk shit about you. They're all going to come after you.
But the people that like that, they don't have a conscience to even care about that.
Yeah, but everybody has a conscience. I just think we 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.
You don't, but you are living in a different world than black Twitter.
It does work.
It gets people's attention.
The people you're speaking to, yes. But black Twitter and on these urban sites, 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. You're around a world of, oh, he's a 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.
That is unfortunate.
That's a very unfortunate thing. I don't enjoy that. Black Twitter? No. Insulting people, getting mad at people.
At a certain point in your life, I realized that there's no room for that in life. You don't have to. You can 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.
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 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. But when you get, like we were talking about it earlier.
Damn it. Fuck, you gave me that joint too quick. You gave me that motherfucking joint too quick. We were talking,
this is a bad one.
Because I tried to get that pause to get my thought back. I don't know what the fuck you just gave me, but it just erased everything I was just thinking about.
You were talking about. as you get successful, it's easier to avoid conflict, which I probably agree with. Also, you're comfortable enough where you could recognize the patterns that are beneficial and not beneficial to you in your life. And conflict is never beneficial to me. Even conflict that I've engaged in.
that was necessary.
So that's been your entire, not even as a fucking young Joe Rogan, you didn't have to end your life. Fuck this or fuck that motherfucker. I don't give a fuck. You've always been this calm. You've always been this collected and this calm your entire career.
No, definitely not.
So that goes to my point.
Yeah, but I learned how to do it. Because I realized, you know what happened once, man? 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 because he went on after me.
I didn't want him to do well. And I realized, what a bitch-ass way to think that is. To want someone to not do. well. I was 21.
And I'll never forget it.
But that's the age though, Joe. That's the age when you're like, fuck it. That's it. Night-night. Bye-bye.
At that age, everyone is so ambitious and competitive that was getting into comedy at that time.
There wasn't a lot of camaraderie between the open-mikers because everybody was super desperate. Do you remember the desperate days where you weren't sure if you were ever going to be a professional? There's desperate days.
I've never felt that way. Never? I'm telling you. It's not being cocky or whatever you want to say. I've never felt that way.
Back to open mics?
The first open mic I ever did, I got a standing ovation.
That's insane.
I got a standing ovation. I think it wasn't a standing ovation because I had the best material. I was the funniest. But earlier on, I used to go to the comedy clubs and fuck with comedians. And I probably shared this.
I used to heckle comedians. And people started coming to the show to see me heckle. So it was a thing. This is why, when people say I'm an interrupter, I've been an interrupter. I've been an interrupter before I even got on stage.
That's hilarious. How old?
I had to be like 21 or 22.
. Perfect. And the thing was, it started to build. People started getting excited for me. They knew that I was the guy in the audience.
that was funny. 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? Like one day he should try it. So I had ruined all other comedians' careers or whatever.
I just destroyed them. They used to come up to me and be like, could you not fuck with me? I'm working on some new material. I'm like, it's my job to heckle you. It's your job to try to be funny.
You were a professional heckler?
I was a professional heckler.
That is so insane.
So much that, and I drew. I was drawing the audience.
How does this happen?
It just happened. And then eventually the club wanted me to shut the fuck up. They were like, we'll shut his ass up if he go on stage. And then the audience, people really started coming to see me talk shit. And I think the night, the first night I went on, I think it was the buildup, like something people felt like this dude is gone.
It felt like I was working for Safeway as a security guard in a grocery store. And the first time I went on stage, all the people that from my job used to come, they all looked at me like he's about to quit or get fired. You know, it was just something that by chance, I never thought about doing comedy. I used to go to it because I got free promotional tickets. I never was the guy when I was younger than 13..
When I first looked into the mirror, I knew that comedy is what I wanted to do. It was never that. It just so happened. being in that situation, I went up, I ripped it. And when I ripped it, the first time I went on stage, I knew, I was like, this is what I will be doing for the rest of my life.
And I didn't say it, and with that thought, Joe, I didn't feel like I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be famous. I'm going to have a TV show. For the first time I went on stage, only thing I want to do is be good. That's almost to this point in my career.
now. I'm like, if you're good, and this applies to anything in life, if you're good at something, and you're really good at it, and you're passionate about it, and you study it, and you just live by that, eventually you're going to get the rewards of that. I never was like, I'm going to get a TV show. I was just like, man, if I'm good, I'm going to be able to work at this club. If I'm good, I'll be able to work at this club.
And then things would start happening for me. So I think when I first started, my friends and family, they was really, really rooting for me to do it. And the moment I went on stage, I was like, this is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. Wow. And never thinking about it's going to make me rich or anything.
Do you ever feel guilty that you started off as a heckler, now that you're a comedian?
No.
Yo, Joe, I got to be honest, man, Joe. I got to be honest. I like heckling motherfuckers, Joe. I'm a natural born heckler.
In D.
C.
, we call it jonin, right?
Jonin. Why did it be called jonin?
I don't know why they called it jonin, but it was just roasting. It was the black way of saying it. If you want to compare, it was like roasting.
What an interesting word, jonin. Why did they come up with that? Do you think that was a person who was really good at it?
I don't know if it was a dude named Joan.
That doesn't make sense.
I don't know the history. A lot of black words I'm not going to know the history of. You might want to Google.
Have you ever heard that, Jamie? Jonin?
Urban Dictionary. Do you ever use it as a resource, Jamie? Yeah, go for it. Urban Dictionary has saved a lot of white people.
I used to love heckling. I didn't know you couldn't heckle into it. In comedy, there's an unwritten rule. They were like, you can't. The rule is, you can't, jonin.
Put down or make fun of someone.
Yep.
Quit jonin on me. You'll get smacked. I wonder who Joan was. Joan was a lady?
Joan? No, I don't think.
You think that's it?
I know this fool ain't jonin.
Whoa, let me get that part, Joe. Let me get the rest.
I'll take the second half. You get the first half, I get the second.
Does that make sense?
Someone just joked. It was probably just someone named Joan that was really good at insulting people.
No, no, no, I understand that sentence.
Where I came from, that's what it was, to joke on a nigga.
That's what it was. Urban Dictionary nailed it. That's what it was. But it wasn't like script. It wasn't like you had writers or anything like that.
Right. It was just you.
In the moment.
In the moment, you look at a person up and down and you just go for it. And I used to, oh, man, I used to jon motherfuckers out. And then the rule was, in comedy, you're not supposed to yell out. In comedy, you're not supposed to jon or say anything to another comic, which I fucking hate, this rule.
Yeah, people don't like to be interrupted, Dono.
I know, but don't.
Not everybody likes to do it your way.
All right. But, Joe, have you ever felt, and you have discipline.
You've been watching a motherfucker and you're just like, I just want to say something. You've never felt like, I just want to say, I don't want to wait until you get off stage. I want to just say something in that moment.
Especially if you've had a drink. Yeah. If you've had a drink and you're like, this is nonsense.
You would just want to yell out.
Yeah.
And it's not to be nasty or nothing. You just can't help it anymore. You just feel like you've got to say something. It's so funny. So, years ago, me and Tracy Morgan was at a show.
And me and Tracy Morgan started comedy about the same time. And he was like, man, I'm sick of these whack motherfuckers, man. I just want to say something. I said, but you know you can't heckle the comedians. He said, we should do a tour.
Go all across the country to comedy clubs. Not to perform, just to heckle motherfuckers from the seats. Which I thought was a fucking brilliant idea. That would be so, you talk about something that builds character.
It's almost like a roast battle. Can you imagine putting mediocre comedians on stage and having great comics in the audience? heckle them?
Yep. You know what?
That would be terrifying.
It would be terrifying. But guess what? I guarantee you, Joe, if you had 20 mediocre comedians, one or two would stand out as the one that would break away. Yes. And if you did something like that, that's what you would be looking for.
Somebody is going to say fuck it.
It's going to be a shark tank. Yeah. Right? So you'll recognize like real early on what of your material is soft.
What out of your material is bullshit if you have to do it in front of people that you respect.
It's going to make you step your shit up. Or it's going to make you have enough attitude and personality to pull any joke off. Because you know what it is. Half the shit that you deliver, for the most part, is stage presence. Yeah.
It's stage presence. You know, it's how you respond, how you react to an audience coming at you.
Dude, David Tao was at the mothership this weekend. I love him. I saw him Sunday night.
Man, I don't know if there's a funnier person that's ever existed.
You know what? He's so funny. Whenever I see his face. First off, if you see David Tao's face now, you saw it 30 years ago.
Yeah.
Yo, he's like the white Morgan Freeman of comedy. Like he's been, how he looks forever, with a different color black hoodie on. Yeah. And it's so funny. you mention his name because something came on my thread like a day ago.
And David Tao's 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. You're like somebody, their mere presence. lets you know you got to write more jokes. Because out of all the years, and I've watched David Tao 30 years, I can't remember a time when he hasn't went on stage with the mindset I'm working on some new shit.
Always.
Always. Always. Always. And you're like, how the fuck can he keep doing this?
He's, just like, really focused on that one thing. You know, he used to be an alcoholic. And when he quit drinking, 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. They're like they're drunks when they're young and then they quit drinking and they're not as good anymore, because they're not as fun. Because when they were drunk, they were wild.
I've figured out a way to balance both. Young drunk and older drunk.
What I was going to say is that it tells the best example, because what he did was he quit drinking and then immediately got way better. And just keeps getting better. Like all that focus is now just on stand-up.
I get it. I think about that sometimes.
Dude, he was so good. It was mind-blowing. He was just on fire. He has a recorder. He plays like a little flute.
I saw that. That's the clip that came up. And I just thought the one part I remember. he said you have this instrument and he said you have the head, the shaft, and the taint. He was referencing the flute or whatever it was.
Of course, it was a penis, but I was like that was just, fuck, he's nice to shit at.
He's got like a formula in his mind of how to make fun of everything. And he's so in tune right now that he can just kind of plug it into any subject. And he just starts writing material and he's always working on it.
But he's not a fun guy to hang out with.
He's fun to hang out with. What? I like hanging out with him. I get nervous.
I feel like he's about to be on Law and Order or something. When I hang out with Dave, Dave will be talking to you, and then all of a sudden he just disappears. But maybe it's just me. But, yeah, he's not the party guy.
He was fun hanging out at the mothership. It was like because we have like the green room. It's like a nice, relaxing place where everybody can hang out together. But he's, you know, he's an odd guy. He carries around a flip phone.
He texts you with do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Like where you press four R's to get a.
Oh, he's doing the old school text?
Yeah. You got to press it five times to get an S, or whatever it is.
You remember those? I remember those.
He does that. That's how he sends you a text message.
That's true.
He's doing that with a flip phone.
But that just kept him off of Diddy's yacht.
Yeah.
Oh, no. Not being connected. Not being connected with too much communication, keeps you out of those back rooms and keep you off those yachts. That's hilarious. You don't invite a person to the back room or to a yacht if he has that phone.
Yeah. Something is very suspicious about that. You don't get invited to those parties that get you movie deals.
That's just how they used to do Hollywood, man.
Old Hollywood is the shit.
Old Hollywood, that is exactly how they did everything. You know, Tarantino was telling us that one of the old producers had a bedroom in his office. So he had his office, and you 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 going to be in his movie, he's going to fuck you.
That's old school. A bedroom. Do you know how many. You know how many women sit now listening to us and bring back the good old days.
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 want to go to acting school. I don't want to study. I don't want to do anything. I want to get it popping.
Well, it seems like there was a real look. No disrespect to actors, but there's a lot of them. And there's a lot of them that probably never make it that if they got the right breaks, they could have been as huge as some movie stars that exist today. Right. Wouldn't we agree on that?
I agree with that. Would acting and it would stand up.
Yeah. But, 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.
But not too many of them are good, but not. You still see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
OK. Who was in that Adam Sandler movie with basketball player Rick Fox?
Kevin, Kevin Garnett.
That's right. He's in that Uncut Gems movie and he's fucking great.
He's not an actor.
It wouldn't work the other way. You couldn't get a guy to do just stand up and just be fucking great. Right. Who's never done? stand up.
True. But you can get an actor out of a basketball player. You can turn a fucking rancher into an actor. Right. Just teach him how to do it.
Some guys can do it.
What role did he play?
He played a basketball player. Come on, motherfucker. But he played a dude who was ripping off Adam Sandler.
Did you hear what the fuck you just said?
But he played a dude who was ripping off Adam Sandler.
It doesn't matter, Joe.
I get that.
I thought you was going to say he played a rocket scientist.
I'm just saying, listen, when he was going through, when he was doing his lines to Adam Sandler, it's very realistic.
That he's a basketball player.
That he's not just a basketball player. He's a basketball player that's ripping off Adam Sandler. He steals a rock from him. He doesn't want to give a rock back.
There's no way that Kevin Garnett could have fucking ruined his role. Even Joe, listen to me.
Are you hating?
I'm not hating what I'm trying to explain.
I feel he's hating.
No, I'm not. Don't start it, man. Black. Twitter will come for me. I'm not saying that.
There is no way he could have been bad playing a basketball player.
He was good, dude. I mean, it's a good scene.
Okay, let me see.
I'm watching this. Yeah, we can't watch this. I know.
Just fucking, watch it.
We'll get in trouble. All right, you can't watch it.
But I just want to see him stand up. Listen. Because right there, I can see the dramatic side you're saying. But when he stands up, he's playing a basketball player.
He is, but I'm telling you, it's not about that. It's about gambling addicts. The whole thing's about gambling addicts. The whole movie's about gambling addicts. It's a fucking amazing movie.
Right. I mean, I'm not even seeing the dialogue. I mean, hearing it or anything. I can see, like, his face looks submissive, but I still see a basketball, Kevin Garnett, basketball player. It's just tough.
Yeah, I know what you're saying.
And is that a Celtic? And it's a basketball ring.
Yeah.
Joe, he played a basketball player.
Yeah, but he played himself in this movie. He's doing this thing where he's involved in gambling addiction. They're all just making crazy bets. Dude, the movie will give you anxiety.
I'll check it out.
Like, real anxiety. Like, oh, don't fucking do it. Don't fucking do it.
And Kevin Garnett is a good guy. I wasn't trying to shit on him.
I know you weren't. I know you weren't. What I'm saying is that, like.
Because the minute you start, Joe, you say, why are you hating? The next thing? you know, I'm being attacked by every urban bloc in the country.
Joe Rogan was hating on Kevin Garnett. The nigga shouldn't act. He should just play basketball.
That was certainly not my words.
I know it's not your words, but it was the passion of my words.
Yeah.
And that's how it starts.
Even that's not what you really meant. But what I'm saying is, like, I think, out of all the things, acting is probably, even though some people are ingenious at it. Don't get me wrong. The most doable to a person. Like, that's the most.
I mean, it's. You're most likely to be able to figure out how to do it. You might not ever be able to figure out how to sing. You might not ever be able to figure out how to do stand up. But you could probably figure out how to act.
Yeah. Just pretend. Pretend, and then you could get trained. But I still think it's something inside of you as an actor that takes you above the person, just, like, equally trained.
Yeah.
There's something that drives you to want to do something different and make different choices as an actor.
Yeah. It's called being mentally ill.
Yep. And I agree with you 100%. Most actors have some type of mental disorder. Think about it. It's like you're playing make-believe.
All the time. Professionally. And then, if you get really famous for playing make-believe, at a certain point in time, you're probably like, who the fuck am I? Who actually am I?
Or who do I want to be?
Yeah. I mean, but you think you are this person because you are getting all this adoration from all these people to see you play different people in movies. I didn't even know you. Right. And then you're like, what the fuck?
How weird is this world that I've created, where everybody loves me and they like me to pretend to be different. people? Like, who the fuck am I?
But at the same time, you can give them whoever you want to be that day. Yeah. I think we fucking, when we wake up in the morning, we get in acting mode. You go to bed, you fucked up about something, and you wake up in the morning, you're like, you know what? Fuck that bitch.
I'm going to have a great day. You're acting like you're not dealing with what you did the day before. I think that's a part of our life. You, and I know this is a crazy question, you've heard it before. And it's like a generic question when you have a comedian that's done some acting stuff.
Is it more challenging for you acting or more challenging as a stand-up, developing new material?
Well, it depends on what you'd be doing for acting. Like, I've never done a real dramatic movie or a dramatic role on a TV show. Everything I've ever done has just been silly.
So that's a different kind of acting. Like, comic acting is, you know, it's just, it's basically scripted shit talking.
Yeah, but at some point, even with acting, there's a moment, this is the scariest part for me. I can go in front of 25,000, and thank you, you've created platforms where I can do that many people. I can go in front of 25,000 people and it feels, and I can hear, and it feels amazing. Yeah. But it's the silence of when you know there's like 150 people behind the camera, that relying on what you do right now.
And that silence, quiet, when everybody's completely focused on that one person, one of you got to deliver that line, and then action, that shit is terrifying. That shit is fucking, I'm telling you, I've done shows with you and Dave where you guys create platforms and come out in the arena like I'm about to beat the fuck out of Werlo. But the minute you say quiet, and you're like, and action.
Action.
Yeah. And then you got to go.
And you got to really rehearse that thing, really know what you're saying while you're saying it, because you have to repeat these words in that order. You're not freestyling.
You said earlier, all the acting stuff, even silly stuff. I think maybe the first four or five years of my career, everything I booked was dramatic.
Nobody thought I was a comedian, or, if you want to say, a comedian, acting to the Chappelle show. I had did all of the law and orders. I had, did HBO's, The Corner, where I played a heroin addict. I think this was the third audition I ever went on. Third audition I ever went on.
David Simon, Alex Foley. She's a big, big time. Fogley or Foley, it's been a long time since I've been in New York, so I might be saying her last name. But she casts all, The Wire, Sopranos, all that stuff. I went into an interview, I went into an audition for The Wire.
I'm sorry, this was Jackie Brown, Carmen. Alex was when we went back and did The Corner, I mean The Wire. But for The Corner, it was Jackie Brown. Carmen. I went in for this audition.
The audition was as a heroin addict. Charles Dutton directed this series. It won three Emmys. I played the character. That's my friend, Clark Peters.
He's an incredible, incredible fucking theater actor. Came from a theater background. So I'm doing an audition, Joe. And I'm green as shit in an audition. And I'm like, man, I'm fucking this shit up.
Man, 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, how much it would help. 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.
Four days later, I swear, sometimes you do an audition, you kind of feel when you're gonna at least get a call back. They 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 out of here and just go run right back to the stage. Fuck acting. I want to work on my jokes. So we get on set.
David Simon, he was the original writer of the book, The Corner, with another police officer. He did police journalism in Baltimore. So I saw him on set, and I was like, I got a question. He was like, man, thanks for being part of it. I was like, I got a question.
I just had to know. I was like, I said, how the fuck did I get this role? I'm already booked. I said, I swear, I thought I bombed that audition. And he said, Donnell, we like the way you threw the lines away.
Right? So if you mean not prepared. 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. Because everybody that was going in there was just going straight to the lean of addiction, the worst part of it, being high.
In our audition, they didn't want to see that. They wanted to see who is this person not being high. And because I was off, because I said, fuck it, I'm going to just say it my way, that's what fucking got me to roll on that shit.
Well, that's probably the hardest thing to do, is to just say, just a free ball.
And just say, I don't even remember the lines, but this is what I would fucking say. But if you do that.
But some platforms, they will allow that. Then you get sticklers. Like when you start talking about HBO, and those guys, it's like they want you to say every word that was on that fucking paper.
Yeah, but they also want someone who really sounds like they can say those words.
Agreed.
There's things that a person has, like a type of charisma that a person has, like a person like yourself, that you either have that or you don't. And if you have it, and you can deliver it in some way, you can be coached. Someone can figure out, 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. You've got to go.
be you. But not everybody can even pretend to be you.
You know what I'm saying? And everybody don't have the heart to take those chances. And I've never been trained, but one thing that's always resonated when you talk about acting is make a decision and let them bring you back. You know what I mean? It's better to go all out than to not do it.
When I was doing HBO's, The Wire, there's one scene when I get pulled over in the car, and I got like $30,000 of people don't know if it's drug money, political money, or whatever, and I get arrested for it. And then the next scene, some kind of way, they have to let me go with the money. Basically, I came in with $30,000, and I'm leaving with $30,000.. And I just said, I'm going to do a little improv, right? So it was like, cut, action.
And when I left out the room, I threw the money over the back of my shirt, and I said, some people got to have it. Some people really don't let money change. And then I looked back at the car and I said, oh, mighty dollar. Everybody laughed, but it was like, nah, we ain't going to be able to use that shit.
Bring it down.
But it's like making, like, at least they knew that I would take the chance. You'll free ball.
Yeah, you'll be loose. And that's the thing. It's like some people just can't be loose. They just can't figure that thing out to be free. They're just always in their own way.
But I think for me, even with acting, that's made it, like, fun, the times I get it is that I've made enough success in comedy and created a pretty good lifestyle off of that that I don't have that pressure of having to book a role. Right. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of actors now, it's like, they've got to get this series. You know what I mean?
Right. Just to continue the lifestyle they have. So it's always, for me, acting's always been like, oh, I'm just playing around. It's fun. I mean, you know, get it?
That's the best way to do it.
Yep.
Especially if, you know, if your stand-up is going well, like, everything, just sort of can 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. Right. Because of a few comics that just stopped.
I was sick during the pandemic. I was so happy that shit was over because I got sick of these writers that we never heard about doing spots.
It was like this guy wrote for Family Guy. We were like, where the fuck have you been? You ain't been in the trenches like that.
No, but there's people that realize they have fucking mortgages. Yeah. That's what happens. And then they realize, oh, my God, I'm so connected to the TV system that if it goes down because of the pandemic or another pandemic, I don't work for a year and a half. Like, what the fuck are you talking about?
I think that made people have to figure out what their pivot was.
Yeah, well, you can't rely too much on a system that doesn't give a fuck about you and a system that, 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.
Of the entertainment? Yeah.
A giant chunk.
Tyler Perry, it was a story maybe like three weeks ago, and I think he was in the middle of either producing a movie or doing something.
He was building an $800 million studio, and he paused the construction as soon as he saw, what is it called, Sora? Sora.
Sora. It could create entire scenes.
Entire scenes. Entire scenes that look realistic. Have you seen it?
I haven't seen it.
Watch this. This video came out yesterday, I think. This is like a balloon head guy. It's like a short film. All these scenes, supposedly, I guess, are made by Sora.
So this is all AI. Yeah, it's over. They say everyone has something unique about them. I don't know about the audio.
That could be done afterwards.
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. Windy days, for one, are particularly troublesome. There was one time my girlfriend insisted I go to the cactus store to get my uncle Jerry a wedding present.
This is crazy.
What do I love most about my predicament? Yeah, it's pretty well made.
And that's somebody just putting in the information and that being creative. Yeah. The new world entertainment, Joe, this is what my prediction is.
This is such a leap. That is such a leap above everything else.
This is what's going to 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 the only thing you're going to have is content creators. And the content creators are going to cut the middleman of the agency off and they're going to go straight to the advertisers and the people to pay the money.
You having to be connected with a certain entity or a certain agency, and they probably kill me. after this, Joe. This makes me Illuminati. right now. They're going to kill me, Joe.
Cat Williams and everybody.
I'm telling you, it's going to come where all of those things that you needed to make it aren't going to exist anymore.
And we're close to that right now.
Well, we already lost sitcoms. So sitcoms were number one. That was like a number one job for a comedian. You get your own show.
Yeah, that was the only job you wanted.
That was the job that everybody wanted. And then they had comedy movies. Well, comedy movies have been drastically reduced. So the sitcom's gone, and then the comedy movies have drastically been reduced.
But what did most people want that for, Joe?
Comedians wanted that for two things, money and fame.
Yeah, because there was no social media and there was no YouTube. And so ticket sales were really dependent upon you being on a television show.
100%.
Yeah, it was a big factor.
And this is why you probably heard this, and it's a conversation, especially when it comes to comedy. You got the YouTube comedians. You got the social media comedians. Comedy now has broken down into so many definitions of what comedy is now. When we first started, there was only one definition.
The minute you heard someone say comedian, it was nothing but a guy who grabs a mic, stands flat-footed, and entertains an audience. It wasn't a comedian on boats. It wasn't that. When you said comedian, you just associated with it.
Comedian on boats?
You know, I mean, just like no disrespect to the cruise guys.
Is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, they find their lane and they love it.
But that's a tough life, man.
That's a tough life.
Trapped on that boat telling them some fucking jokes.
But then some people got mouths to feed. Some people like this. They look at the level of competition. They look at this. They be like this.
You know what? And those guys are six figures.
Yeah, they make six figures.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Most of the guys that do it, it's sticking to a point.
I've talked to guys that didn't like doing it. They're like, it's kind of depressing for some reason.
Your first year or so, it's probably not. Especially if you're doing like $30 spots in Brooklyn here. That was a come up when I started. When I started, it's like, oh, you're on cruise ships. Really?
Oh, yeah. Because we didn't really have a lot to look up to other than just making money off of it. You know? So that was. It was a regular job in stand-up comedy.
But a point I was making about, even with the different definition of comedian and people, and they always think like, oh, the old heads have a way of thinking. Yeah. Isn't that. The thing that you have to credit is the work ethics you have to have to get to a certain level. As if you want to say a social media comedian or you.
It's a certain level. It's a certain work ethics you have to be to do to get consistent with that. But the problem is, what some people have issues with is like, yeah, but some of them not that good. You know how hard it is to get good at something when you're already a millionaire doing it at whatever level? You know, what pushed us when we were coming up was that if I get good, I can get the money.
Right. But now it's like they got the money. So what is the urgency? unless you get that one or two, that's really, really care about the craft? What is the who cares about being good at it when the end result is I'm getting paid off?
Well, you always want to be good at what you do, don't you?
Some people. But the level of getting good at now is different. Like today, people getting good at knowing algorithms.
There's a lot of that.
You know what I'm saying? And they get good at knowing what the system is, which is which is fucking incredible. If you put talent on top of that.
Right.
You know, it should be.
Yeah. If you're a smart person, you know how to really utilize the system. I want to say manipulate, but that's the wrong word. It really is utilized.
Utilize.
It's just. you're like Mr. Beast. That's a perfect example. Right.
Figured out like how to make the right captions and how to make the right image that you click on for the YouTube videos, the right title. And then he figured out how to just keep dumping money into his product. And he figured out exactly where the algorithms are. And he has it translated into different languages.
Definite. That's what I'm saying is that's the skill set that's going to get rid of a lot of jobs.
That guy's a unicorn, though. But here's the thing. I feel like if you have AI,
like. whatever the next generation of chat GPT is, you could be able to devise a very effective business plan that, like, really made sense. The AI would sort of guide you step by step. Like this is what you're going to do to achieve success. It'll probably even break it down.
If you write for 20 minutes every day, that will increase your time of material by 50 minutes over the course of the next 10 months. And, if you like, do all the calculations, like, holy shit, is that real? And if you really thought about it that way, like through artificial intelligence, you let it guide your career. It would probably do a fucking amazing job, like putting you into the perfect position to be.
I mean, if artificial. So we're going to be auditioning against motherfuckers. Artificial intelligence guy. You, like you. You send your tape in and then they got a motherfucking audition like this.
Hey, I need, I need Joe, to be a police officer. Arrest these guys for stealing.
Donna, we have to realize we're that close to them. They're being fake people. We're that close.
I'm dead before they show. No, it's because I already deal with regular fake people.
Now we got artificially created fake people. Oh, Hollywood is fucking.
Oh, they're in trouble. Oh, Hollywood's dead. No, no, no, no. For real, though. Hollywood's dead.
Just look at that movie.
You buried it. You help bury it. I didn't do shit. Yes, you did. You, you, you, you help bury it.
You help.
You showed motherfuckers something you could 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.
Yeah, I didn't think I could do it either.
You knew you could do it.
I did not know I could do it. Yes, you knew you could do it. I did not know I could do it. I just did it.
That's why 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, not anybody, if you have enough money, you could build a nice club.
Right? It's a nice club, state of the art, whatever. But it doesn't make it a comedy community. Right. You know what I'm saying?
It's like, that's going to be the challenges of, like, all these people that opened up comedy clubs and stuff. Dave has opened up one. I think Mike Epps. Just a lot of them, like, popping up. And I think that's the dope thing.
But the thing is, like, it's a difference between having a comedy community, you know?
Yeah, you have to do that on purpose. Yeah. You know? And that's one of the things that we did when we opened up. the club was set up, like, a whole, like, these are the nights.
you're going to have open mic. You know, we're going to have comedians audition to be door people. So, like, they'll be able to see guys like David Tell, who's just there this weekend. And then you'll have, like, this, very clear pathway. There's, like, open mic night.
The 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.
Seven days a week, right? We'll let people punch out.
Like, a comic has a set down the street. They can punch out, go, run down the street to a set, come back to work. That's how it's supposed to be.
You do seven days a week, right?
Yeah, we're seven days a week.
That's how I gauge whenever I go. And you don't ever see anyone.
Two nights, open mic nights, too.
I always gauge a club. Not gauge it, but you can tell how successful a club is if they can run fucking seven nights a week.
Well, it's, um, you know, it was the perfect timing. It's just a weird coincidence of all these things happening that opened all these doors at exactly the same time. Like, it's like going down the street, and you hit every green light, like, magically. And it just goes.
You know, it's a system in New York. If you on those streets, 2nd Avenue, any of those streets, if you drive 28 miles an hour, you will catch every light from, like, 23rd Street to up 150.. That's a fact I know you didn't know when I tried it.
I've heard that.
Yeah, if you do it, I think it's 28 miles an hour, you use a straight shot. Wow. A couple cats and dogs will get ran over in that process, but as long as you maintain that consistency of 28 miles an hour, you won't stop.
Hmm.
That was a fact that I know you didn't know.
I had heard that before. I had heard that from cab drivers.
Is there anything you haven't heard, though?
At this point in time, I always think that, but then Jonan comes along and throws me for a loop.
That's 16.
. It's 16.. The last time I was here, you didn't know what a hot 16 was.
That's right. I didn't. Yeah.
But you asked me about this suit.
It looks sweet.
And as I'm watching myself in the camera, I'm like, did I go overboard in this suit?
No, no, no, no. You look great. I wish I'd known. I would have wore a suit, too. I like wearing a suit.
I know.
I remember when we did those arena shows.
When we did arena shows. And your whole energy changed when you had a suit on. Like I did on my sweater. I said, stomp my feet. You start stomping your feet.
And you said, you know, you could do your set, but it's just something about, something that's classic, about being able to do stand-up in a suit.
There is something about it.
And that's how I felt. Even when I did New Day. First off, this was my third time shooting a special. I told you the story.
Yes.
And I remember, and I was really getting stressed, because every time I saw you, you were like, when is the special coming out? When is the special? 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 the clubs still had all this COVID protocol.
They had masks on.
Yeah, masks on and vaccination cards. You've been tested and what shot you had. Johnson and Johnson and all that shit. We did it in North Carolina. And our back was already against it, because the venue I chose, it held 600 people.
I think it was a Fillmore Theater, 600, 700 people. And we had a cell of 700 people. But then, when Netflix was like, ah, where's your card? Ah, where is this? It went down.
The first show went down to like 250 people.
Oh, they had to have vaccine cards to get in?
All that shit. Which means now, in the back of the show, you got to put a black curtain.
Oh, no.
Now you like looking at like a half-filled audience. They got masks on and shit.
Oh, no.
Did the show. First show went well. Right? First show went well. And then Dave was like, because he produced it.
Dave said, you know, if we don't get it, we can shoot it again. I'm like, motherfucker, ain't no time to shoot this. We don't get it this time. Second time at it, I caught a stand-in. Stan Latham going crazy.
Ricky Hughes going crazy. We're like, oh, we got it. We got it. And we announced that my special was going to come out. the same time.
we announced the Earthquake special was going to come out. A week after that announcement, Dave calls me. He says, Donnell, I want to shoot your special over. I'm like, you're not supposed to insult the thing. You tell a comedian.
you want to shoot it over, the first thing. you think, what, it wasn't funny? Right. 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 it doesn't make it a great special. He set up everybody under the umbrella of the home team that people are really anticipating, because your connection with their show is you. If we're going to do it, we got to get it right. It was tough, because I'm like, oh, this is going to be the joint to give me a platform for people to see me do stand-up.
But we basically scrapped the shit. He said, Donnell, you had too much COVID jokes in there. Think about it. If I were to shot a special with masks in it, it automatically dates you to 2020..
Yeah.
As soon as you turn around and say, oh, this shit was during a pandemic.
How wild was the pandemic?
I miss it. I was thinking about it the other day. I miss it, man. I miss not having to be around a lot of motherfuckers. I miss how people appreciated simple things.
I miss how, when you had a bubble, you could block all this negative, all the haters out.
You weren't allowed to come inside the bubble.
Give me six feet, bitch. Bitch, give me six feet, the bubble, and invite who you wanted. I miss how people appreciate. I think we should do like a lockdown week, a worldwide lockdown week. Once a year, where the whole fucking world just shuts the fuck down.
Yeah, that would be great, except you can't tell people to shut things down, because then you're going to give the power to the government to shut things down whenever they want, for a week. And then they might decide two weeks is better, maybe a month. I know. You can't give them the power to shut things down. If people decide to not do anything.
Well, we should vote so we can vote on like a lockdown, like national lockdown day.
You don't want to take away freedom from people.
I don't want to take away freedom.
If people want to do it, they should be able to do it. If you all agree to do it, do it on your own.
Nah, fuck that. Fuck that, Joe. Joe, what happens when we start making people do something? Guess, what happens 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 for like a fucking week. Everything is dead. That shit was fun. Some people died.
Not that many.
In comparison to the people that lived.
Not already sick. Point. It is a disease that killed people, for sure, but it's a disease that killed people. with, what was the percentage? A large percentage of them had four comorbidities.
A large percentage of the people that died from COVID. Four. Four different things that are killing you.
Just say it. Wrap it up.
It's like that came along to an already compromised human, which is not to say that we shouldn't try to help compromised humans, but I'm saying that it's not what they were selling it as or what people were terrified that it was going to be.
Yeah, but I know it was.
I mean, for me, it was so weird what it did for us, man. When do you remember those days at Stubbs? I went to Stubbs the other day to see the Black Keys and it just brought me back to those days at Stubbs. We did those shows there. It was like there was a wild, crazy feeling about doing something when no one else was doing it.
It was fucking. I got high off.
It was exciting. We were still doing comedy. Comedy was shut down everywhere.
We were still doing comedy. We were still eating with groups of people.
We were hanging out.
That's what I'm saying about appreciating. A lot of people thought we were reckless, but you know, every part of this, it was protocol. Yeah. It was like. every part of it was protocol.
You weren't going to be around anybody that hadn't been tested, period. Right. It was just something about it. Even when we saw each other, it was like, oh, shit. We got excited about doing regular shit.
Yeah.
All of our crew caught COVID at the same time. It was like a chicken pox party. We went down from a team of 24 and every day, this is what I knew was getting bad, because I used to plan the lunches for everybody and we had lunch at 12 o'clock every day. They were like, I wonder what we're going to have for lunch. It would be 24 people.
Then, once the bubble popped, one day, it was 22,. it was 20, it was 19,. it went down to 12 to four people. you had to fend for yourself. The whole fucking crew caught it.
And this is pre-vaccines. This is pre-.
That was right. It was right when vaccines was about to pop because I had somebody. I know this sounds so ghetto. I had somebody that could get me to Johnson & Johnson on the low.
On the low. People were excited to get it at the beginning.
All of it.
Yeah.
I got it. I got it quick too.
I almost got it. Yeah? I got lucky.
See, now you like-.
I got lucky. I dodged that.
Now I'm wondering, ever since I got it, I'm waiting for some shit to happen in my body that I can contribute to that shit.
Well, a lot of people can. It did something to a lot of people.
It's got a very high rate of side effect.
Why are you fucking with me now, man?
It does.
Which one?
I think all of them. I don't think any of them are good for you. I didn't- I think if you were an old person and it was the first go around of COVID, it probably would help you. But I think there's a lot of problems with that thing.
What's been the-.
Well, there's a lot of side effects. I mean, there's-. The craziest thing that's going on right now is the increase in all-cause mortality. That's the crazy thing.
Due to the vaccine?
Yeah, there's an excess death. There's like an excess death number increase. that's pretty- It's-. If you were a statistician, if you're a statistics person, and you were looking at indications that something went wrong, you would say, well, was there anything that caused these people's bodies to change? where we're getting this large number of excess deaths?
Why are you fucking with me, man? As many as 40% in some age groups. Why are you fucking with me, man?
40% excess deaths.
And what type of shit?
I think it just means like 40% more people died than normally do. Basically, that's what it means, right? Black. Jamie?
Black.
Excess deaths?
Black.
Everybody. Everybody. And a lot of it is cardiac stuff. Cardiac stuff went way up.
But a lot of people got it and nothing happened to them. They're fine.
I feel like that was a personal attack on me. You were like, Donnell, you got the jab twice.
Listen, I would have got it. I was ready to get it. I didn't get it just because they couldn't do it. I had to go to a clinic or the hospital or wherever. And then I said, I'll get it when I come back next time.
And between that time and me coming back next time, they had already pulled it. They pulled it because of blood clots.
Yeah, I got it because of footwork. I know this sounds crazy, but you couldn't like if you were working as a working actor.
You couldn't work. You couldn't work.
You couldn't work. So I know some people made it. I mean, I know people are like, Yeah, you compromise your body. And then some areas people think it's like, Oh, it's the white man trying to control you. But it was at one point.
it was like, if you were trying to work, you wasn't working unless you had a vaccination.
Yeah, you weren't going anywhere. You weren't flying anywhere. Yeah, it was a real issue. And there's still. there was a lot of countries that, until recently, you had to have a vaccine card, including America.
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