Near the end of his hour-long set at Comedy Works South last night, Joe Rogan's previously polished routine devolved into a call-and-response act, with audience members yelling out keywords off of which Rogan could riff. They yelled DPT, he did five minutes on Dipropyltryptamine, a gnarly psychedelic and dear friend of his. They shouted Fear Factor, he did three minutes on the life-sucking qualities of reality TV. They yelled Carlos Mencia, and there went Joe, on another rant about his joke-stealing, not-at-all-Mexican arch enemy. And on it went, until Rogan ran out of time and Heineken.
No one yelled anything about the sole reason I was there: News Radio, Rogan's career catapult and one of my favorite all-time sitcoms. But despite not getting any good Andy Dick-doing-blow-in-the-bathroom stories or wistful Phil Hartman memories, the show was still worth pulling $30 out from under my mattress and trudging to Greenwood Village.
For a fuck-spewing, MMA-commentating, former Fear Factor-hosting, masturbation-and-pot-obsessed comic, Rogan was surprisingly cerebral and astute on some serious topics: aging, gay rights, death, religion and the like.
Still, if you go this weekend, a word to the wise: Try not to sit near anyone who appears easily offended. I sat right behind some folks who seemed to think Rogan would be asking audience members to eat worms or punch each other in the groins. Watching them squirm during Rogan's bit on how fellating a five-year-old should be legal -- as long as the perpetrator is hot and female, of course -- took away from the joke's mastery.
Expect some Colorado love, too: Rogan said he's planning on moving to Boulder soon and has already looked at houses. He also saved a few minutes for our state mascot of kookiness, Ted Haggard, and the retreat he and his fellow weirdos took to rid Haggard of his gayness. He imagined -- in great detail -- the strategy the preachers used to make Haggard quit men, which Rogan likened to the tack taken by his father to make him quit smoking: by forcing him to smoke the whole carton.
You can probably figure out the rest of that scene. But you're better off just buying tickets.
Joe Rogan is at Comedy Works South through Saturday. Tickets are $30. Do not bring your grandmother.
