3:08 Mountain Time.
Had two great fucking shows tonight. They were just awesome, enthusiastic crowds out here in Denver. Last night I got loose after almost a week off of performing, and tonight I got my set for next weeks Spike taping down solid.
Stand up comedy is like a lot of things in that the more you do it, the smoother it gets.
You get into a certain groove when you’re performing a lot, and that groove allows you to create new material with less effort and to connect the material you already have in the most effective way possible. When I really “get there” it’s exciting because once you tune into that perfect comedy frequency you just have this feeling like you can make almost anything funny. I get done from these shows and I want to rush back to my laptop and start pounding out new ideas while the muse is still at my back.
These ultra creative bursts come in peaks and valleys, and it’s all directly related to how much energy and attention I give to my act. Right now I feel really positive about it, and I’ve been especially inspired by all this extra writing that I’ve been doing with the daily blogging and because of that the shows have just been fantastic. It all feeds on itself and builds like a giant snowball of synergy.
I also feel like now, more than any other time in my life, I’ve got a far better handle on how I operate my mind. I’m on a focused path right now, and with each passing day and each passing workout and meditation session I travel further and further on it to the point where if feels like the more I push in this direction the deeper the revelations become. With my mind constantly striving each day for the perfect frequency, and always being consciously navigated towards positive directions I feel like the universe is slowly coming into better focus to me. Each day the fog of reality is lifted ever so slightly more.
I can never completely grab a hold of it except for these maddeningly brief moments of extreme clarity whose memories become crude treasure maps of the promised land of “enlightenment.”
After they pass, you keep moving. The more I write, and the more I try to create the more it comes into focus. It’s this almost subconscious revelation that the more energy you put into honestly, freely expressing yourself the more you can tune into the “source.”
Stay on the path. Turn on the computer even when you want to crash and catch up on sleep. Recognize that energy and focus directed towards creativity designed purely for other people’s enjoyment – once put into motion – it becomes this incredibly positive momentum that fuels your entire life. I get a fucking powerful charge out of it – the feeling that you’re creating something inside your mind that’s entertaining thousands and thousands of people.
I’ve never felt more satisfied, and I’ve never felt more motivated.
I want to thank all of you cool motherfuckers that have left all of these fantastic and insightful comments on this blog, and I want you to know that I am honored to no end that so many cool and intelligent people read these posts. I want to thank you all for the countless cool emails that I’ve received as well since I started writing this daily blog, and how much all your kind words and expressions mean to me.
I’ve gotten an incredible amount of emails from people that have said that these blogs have inspired them, and I want you all to know what an incredible source of inspiration that is to me in return. I try to make these entries interesting, and sometimes I try to make them funny, but most importantly I try to make them brutally honest. I think the only way you’ll ever know me is if I show you me, and with your emails and your comments you exposed yourself the same way as well, and I’m truly humbled.
I’m going to the mountains tomorrow to check out a house I’m interested in.
I fucking LOVE Colorado. This place is ALIVE.
Awesome post Joe. I’ve been working a fucking 40 hour week this week and reading your blog entries are keeping me going! Hopefully see you back in the UK soon too. You need to come to Scotland man. There are so many people dying for some good comedy.
I think it’s awesome that you take the time to write the blogs. There are so many out there that wouldn’t bother. Even after the show, it’s always a pleasure to chat with you. I don’t know if you’ll remember this but after your show in Newcastle, England, my girlfriend and I spoke to you for a while about stand up and what inspired you to get started etc (my girlfriend always gets you to take a photo with the penguin and then tells you to get your ass to Scotland, lol). Even chatting to you for those 20 minutes had a big impact on us, especially my girlfriend. It was cool of you to take the time out and talk to us when many others would just head off stage and out of the building. It’s good to hear you are feeling motivated too, although from watching your live act you always seem that way to the audience I think.
I got your dvd when it was first released and passed it on to someone, then to someone else, and someone else, who then told someone else about it and so on. I think I must have passed your dvd to at least 40 people who have each passed it on to others. Everyone keeps asking me “when is that Joe Rogan guy touring? When is he coming to Scotland?”. Hopefully if the UFC comes over you’ll be here.
Oh, and I hope you do move to Colorado. I have family in L.A and they HATE it there. They pretty much just have the same opinion as you and are also thinking of leaving.
Joe u are simply the man.
Hi Joe,
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve found our blog to be seriously insightful and provocative. I find myself walking around the grocery store, or smoking blunts with my friends, and thinking about a sentence or two I’ve read here. I enjoy your perspective in life, the extraordinary amount of time you spend searching and pondering… you have a depth and quality of mind I’m constantly searching for. It’s invigorating. For me, reading this post about this wild path you’re on is like visiting a crazy ass friend.
So thank you for sticking to your promise of writing everyday. Something stood out to me in two places on this site. For one, your idea here of creative energy. That’s fascinating… I’ve felt it too.. how that “force” of creativity sort of comes up behind you and is whispering in your ear what to do next. And I think it is through that force that we then inspire ourselves to create art. Since reading your blog, and hearing your process, I see that comedy is just like any other fine art in the sense that it is all about CONFLICT and COLLISION. How you say fucking funny shit, resolve a joke, the punchline hits your audience, and there is that intangible response of people understanding life from your perspective.. they laugh. The same way I would “oooh” or “ahhh” when I study a painting by Caravaggio.
Secondly, a while back you mentioned something about ants. It might sound odd, but this really caught my attention and I’ll tell you why. I was watching a documentary about bugs– it’s one of those ridiculous Blue Planet productions called “Life in the Undergrowth.” It had all these never-before-seen images of even the intimate details of the lives of various bugs (aka mad bug sex). The cameras somehow capture these creatures as they work to survive, create supersocieties, and reproduce at a rate we could not possibly achieve. The whole segment they had on ants, I couldn’t get over how vicious these creatures were: they go to war and you can see they have clear strategies and everything! And they will fuck you up! But like you said, wave your hand over an ant hill and they don’t even notice. That’s us too. Even the smartest of them could not grasp simple concepts like running water or laughter. Computers? Cruise ships? Mix tapes? Even if I took one of those ants hostage and tried to nicely explain these things.
Well, that’s what we are to the universe. When things happen and we don’t know why, and we don’t really know why we’re here, and we’re confused sometimes and some of us buy isolation tanks so we can REALLY think about it….. we just are not capable of getting it. Whatever “God” might be waving his hand right over us, or trying to show us the way, we just don’t get it. And never will. I appreciate people like you who explore their intellect and I envy you for being able to share your thoughts with the world…. but I know neither one of us will ever truly get it, though perhaps when we are dead.
Thanks again.
-Claudia
My quality of life has definitely improved because of getting to know you through your blogs over the years. Thank you for being so honest.
Great job Joe, way to go out there and “kill it”. I’m a HUGE FAN of your comedy and your MMA commentating. Hope to see you here in Ohio next month!
Whats up Joe, I saw you in a comedy shoe about 3 or 4 years ago at the Irvine Spectrum in Orange County. Dude you are one dam insightful mother fuker. Honestly before i really got to hear your work, I was like Joe Rogan aint that funny, little did i know you are one intellectual pothead. After your great show that night with Charlie Murphy, you had a little incident outside the club with some dumb ass. I was the dude telling you to put him in a kimoro and you responded, “I’m not gonna put him in a kimoro, I’m gonna choke him out.” That was some comdey right there. But yea your blog is the shit and I love reading the stuff you talk about. Keep up the good work and watch out for my boy BONES JONES!
Hey Joe, here are some quotes that have meant a lot to me and maybe they’ll to add to the momentum.
“The best antidote to fear is knowledge.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” – Henry David Thoreau
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Plato
another great post, Brother… thanks. Keep it up
peace
been silently following the blog for a while and felt i just had to chime in a little bit… lately you just seem to be this wellspring of positive energy, and if its moving to this cynical guy way the fuck off in portland maine then it must be doing at least some good work in all the many stages and places in between.
thank you
j
Im a freshmen in college now and a couple months ago I was sort of in a negative state of mind. I would looki at the world cynically, never realizing the true beauty of the mind. My uncle showed me this blog when I was alot younger a blog about some porn party where the guy didn’t know his girl was a pornstar. Then I saw the DMT video on youtube and all the shit Joe was saying was really smart and true. Who thought a UFC anoucer was this chill. I like how Joe has said that people were similar to bacteria and we are just a reflection of earth. Its all true but people now adays get to wrapped up in the media and all that shit. After studying the colors that the media shows its all about the red and the black. Today in the background It was the shape of America in black with a red ocean effect. How fucked is that it subconsciously is meant to unsettle you whether you think it or not. Everything in life is subconscious we rarely ever realize anything till its too late. As I would say it people are pennies. Pennies are useless on their own but together you can get anything you want. Right now we haven’t realized what we want to buy with all these pennies but they are out there. The golden age of humanity is upon us whether we realize or not. This blog has inspired me to write down all my ideas all the time and im getting some really constructive things. We just gotta get past the fear factor.
Goddamn it i missed your show in Vernon Hills, IL a few months ago. I live in Chicago, when the hell are you going to make it back near here for a show?
everything is possible
I haven’t been commenting til recently, but your blogs are inspiring. And I feel more confident and focused on what I want to do. For me I want to make music, and get in shape and eventually get really good at bjj to a point where I can teach it for mma and real life situations. I’m not trying to mimic Eddie Bravo lol who is an awesome guy btw, but I feel like I can make money doing something I love with grappling, and continue playing music which is another thing I love.
I swear I thought I’d finally get to see your show live, but the stars were just slightly out of alignment. Wound up in Denver visiting family this week and lo and behold Joe Rogan is in town doing a few nights at the local club.
Wound up not being able to make it, just wasn’t meant to be this time. Even worse was seeing the comedy club on the way to the airport to return to dreadful New Orleans today.
Anyway glad that went well, was my first trip to Denver and it is an amazing city. I can see why you’d want to move there.
If you’re ever looking for untapped regions to come do some gigs, come down south. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Biloxi… South is untapped from comedians and as stupid as things get down here we could all use a good laugh.
Keep up the great work.
COLORADO FUCKIN’ RULES!
It’s a completely different mindset. I feel that all I can remember, from the two years I was there, is waking up in a completely new surrounding than that of Florida. Landscape, architecture, people… they’re all different. I can only imagine that it’s just as different, and just as breathtaking, within every other place in the world.
Also helps to develop good associative memories. Like, when I was tokin’ it up at someone’s house in California, I’d be walking around, getting this super warm feeling of familiarity; as if my mission transforms, from merely perceiving new experiences as chores to developing a supremely personal relationship with my surroundings. Being there, a foreign environment, felt like a dream. Life is a dream, anyway, so might as well make it have clarity.
I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about.
I was born in Colorado Springs and was fortunate enough to live there for 9 years, greatest time of my life. I think you mentioned it in an earlier blog, about the clarity and clenliness in the air. It’s seriously that after-the-rain smell 24/7.. which is absolutely fucking invigorating. I’ve never felt so more one with the planet than when I lived there, yeah kinda hippieish and at least 12% gay but it’s true. I know this will be a move you won’t regret.
take care man
-seth
p.s. also without a doubt you’ll need to check out aspen and durango in the spring/early summer..I garuntee it will blow your mind.
Aspen
http://www.thomaspeckham.com/images/MaroonBellsbyKipAUT_4831%20500×375.jpg
Durango
http://www.durangoreservations.org/Images/durango_colorado_5.jpg