#2050 - Ehsan Ahmad

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. What's up, brother?

Ehsan Ahmad (0:15)

Good to see you. Glad to be here.

Joe Rogan (0:17)

Glad to have you, finally, man. Dude, I was probably around, when was your first time on stage?

Ehsan Ahmad (0:23)

My first time on stage was in this place called Tommy Tees in Livermore, California.

Joe Rogan (0:30)

Oh, I know that place.

Ehsan Ahmad (0:31)

Yeah, it was an open mic at 2012, end of 2012, early 2013 Yeah, that's when I started. And I remember going up on stage, my first joke kind of hit, and I bombed the whole time. But that one little hit was enough. Do you remember what it was?

My name is Ehsan Ahmad, and I know that's very 9-eleven-y. That was my opening line in comedy.

Joe Rogan (1:01)

So I probably met you around 2014, then.

Ehsan Ahmad (1:04)

2015 is when we met. Okay. And this is a story I tell to all the door guys on what it's like to be a door guy at a comedy club, because this is the first time we've ever had a conversation. I was sitting by the back door, and you had just stopped, and you just talked to all the new guys. I've noticed that you do that.

And then you were showing me your phone and telling me your process and how you write and how you listen to every single set as you drove back home after the store.

And you talked to me for like 20 minutes. And then you left, and Curtis came up to me and was like, hey, so someone pooped in the bathroom and missed. And I had to go clean it up. And it was pure liquid.

SPEAKER_4 (1:46)

It was pure liquid.

Ehsan Ahmad (1:49)

Every time I kept wiping, more would come in. It was unreal. Unreal. And I told you, I would tell all the door guys, that's what it's like working at a comedy club.

Especially at a high level one. You get these really cool moments, and you also learn your place a little bit.

Joe Rogan (2:08)

I didn't know door people have to clean shit.

Ehsan Ahmad (2:11)

Really?

Joe Rogan (2:11)

Don't they have a janitor or something?

Ehsan Ahmad (2:13)

Not during the night. This is what made it crazy. This was at like 7.30. It was way too early to be pooping and missing.

Joe Rogan (2:23)

Oh my god, there's something about bar poop. You know, poops when people are drinking.

SPEAKER_4 (2:28)

It's just, it can be so chaos.

Joe Rogan (2:30)

Like every time I've ever gone into like a bar bathroom, and there's dudes in there shitting, it's just like, oh my god, I can't wait to get out of here quick.

Ehsan Ahmad (2:38)

If you're shitting in a bar, it's basically like, oh, this is the last resort. I have no other options.

Joe Rogan (2:42)

Yeah, nobody wants to do some fucking public shitting.

Ehsan Ahmad (2:45)

No, and it was back when the store in the hallway had the single bathrooms. So those were like extra gross.

Joe Rogan (2:51)

Oh, those were a disaster.

Ehsan Ahmad (2:52)

Those were absolute nightmares.

Joe Rogan (2:55)

Remember when comics would be in that one little bathroom and then there'd be the staircase up there? So people would be talking shit to you while you're in the bathroom.

Ehsan Ahmad (3:05)

No, I never had that experience at the store.

Joe Rogan (3:07)

Yeah, you know the stairs to the belly room?

Ehsan Ahmad (3:10)

Yes.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

You know where that is? There's a window right there for the bathroom that comics always use.

Ehsan Ahmad (3:15)

Oh, there is.

Joe Rogan (3:16)

So guys would be talking shit while the other guys were shitting. They'd just rag it out of yelling in the window.

That back parking lot, before they invented sacred grounds and before they had the back bar, that was where we'd all hang out. But the problem is you'd get randoms from that little back area that would come and they would come and interrupt a conversation and get in the way. We're like, we've got to go to a place where we could just chill by ourselves.

Ehsan Ahmad (3:44)

Right, right. And then by the time I had gotten there, you had just gotten back.

Joe Rogan (3:47)

Yeah.

Ehsan Ahmad (3:48)

And so for you to hang out, it would really be interesting to watch as a door guy because you'd have to watch people would be like making game plans to talk to you.

They would, you know, you could see them like, okay, if I do this and I do this and I do this, and you'd have to just tell people like, hey, maybe you should go hang out in the patio or something like that. Yeah.