#1985 - Steven Wright

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. It was fun hanging out with you last night.

Steven Wright (0:18)

You know, when you're in one of those rooms backstage, it's the same.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

Yeah.

Steven Wright (0:24)

It's the same vibe, it's the same fun... Even if you don't know the actual people, it's connection.

Joe Rogan (0:35)

Yeah, in a good room, yeah. Yeah, we're all having fun, telling jokes. It's nice, the set up is so nice too, because where the green room is, it's in between the two rooms. So you can go to one room and watch, and then you can go to the other room, because we have the balcony set up.

Yeah, it's very nice. It's very, very convenient. And that actually was the projector room for the theater. So we converted the projector room for the theater into a green room.

It's perfect, it's a perfect position, because it's in between the two rooms.

Steven Wright (1:07)

So you got people going, leaving, coming back from the set, and then you can see them doing it on the monitor.

Joe Rogan (1:13)

You can see them on the monitor, or you could just step off into the balcony, because we have that comics balcony. So you could watch, like if you're on stage, I could just sit up there and watch, and I'll have to go downstairs. It's very nice.

It's a fun vibe, right?

Steven Wright (1:26)

Absolutely.

Joe Rogan (1:27)

It's great for me to watch someone like you appreciate it, like go and check it out and go, wah, wah.

Steven Wright (1:34)

Yeah, it's like the, you know, right from the beginning, the same, no matter where you go, I mean, if it's a good place, I would have stayed longer, but I didn't want to, is this going now?

Joe Rogan (1:50)

Yeah, we're going... You don't hear yourself?

Steven Wright (1:53)

No, maybe because I'm not, maybe because I'm not listening.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

Is that good? Do you hear it now?

Steven Wright (1:58)

No.

Joe Rogan (1:59)

Not at all?

Steven Wright (2:00)

No.

Joe Rogan (2:01)

Might have to bail on the headsets and go with real ones.

Steven Wright (2:06)

Oh there it is.

Joe Rogan (2:07)

You got it?

Steven Wright (2:09)

It was real once. I made these.

Joe Rogan (2:13)

In your wood shop?

Steven Wright (2:45)

The first one.

Joe Rogan (2:47)

Before Nix.

Steven Wright (2:48)

Before Nix.

Joe Rogan (2:50)

So it was the same comedy, excuse me, the same one that was the Charles Playhouse, right?

Steven Wright (2:59)

You got straight in, and it was right in there.

Joe Rogan (3:02)

It was an amazing room.

Steven Wright (3:03)

Yeah, little, like...

Joe Rogan (3:05)

150 people, probably?

Steven Wright (3:07)

I don't even think that many. Maybe 100, maybe 90

That was the first.

Joe Rogan (3:13)

The ceiling, yeah.

Steven Wright (3:14)

Yellow, that's where I went to see an open mic there. And then I thought, what I was doing is, I was into comedy from watching The Tonight Show. That's when I really got like, oh, these comedians, Carl and Robert Klein, all these guys. I had to watch The Tonight Show because my brother was older than me, and we had to watch what he wanted.

So I started watching, then I started to like it. And then I heard that there was a club in town, and I thought, I should go out. I was 16 when I really was into it, but then when I was about 23, I heard of the club. And I thought, well, maybe I gotta go try it out. I mean, I wouldn't have to move to Los Angeles or New York. And my character then, I couldn't have 23 I'm not gonna move to Los Angeles. It was like a...

That was too much for me. So I went to the Comedy Connection, and I watched a show, and then I learned that there was a...

The open mic nights was every Wednesday. So then I thought, I'm gonna go back in two weeks.

Joe Rogan (4:36)

Do you remember your first set?

Steven Wright (4:39)

I don't remember. I remember the first joke was, but I don't remember the rest of it, was I said I went into a bookstore, and I started talking to this very French-looking girl. She was a bilingual illiterate. She couldn't read in two different languages.

And then it...

Joe Rogan (5:00)

And that's how you started?

Steven Wright (5:01)

Yeah. I had about three minutes.

Joe Rogan (5:03)

So did you always write in that style, like the sort of non-sequitur absurdist?

Steven Wright (5:10)