#2296 - Big Jay Oakerson

Big Jay Oakerson (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Big Jay Oakerson (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

SPEAKER_4 (0:13)

Big Jay.

SPEAKER_3 (0:17)

Yeah, buddy.

SPEAKER_5 (0:17)

What's happening?

SPEAKER_3 (0:18)

Hell yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

You went with the three nose rings now.

SPEAKER_5 (0:20)

You're getting crazy.

SPEAKER_3 (0:21)

Yeah, it's getting carried away. I went to go, I had a cold, and I think I blew my nose one of them out. So then I went to go get it re-put back in, and I was like, throw another one in there while you're at it.

SPEAKER_5 (0:32)

Fuck it.

SPEAKER_3 (0:32)

Me fighting age, I think.

SPEAKER_5 (0:34)

Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_3 (0:35)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_5 (0:35)

There's something weird when you're fighting age. You know you're doing it, but you can't help it.

SPEAKER_3 (0:40)

Oh yeah, absolutely. When people make fun of the way I dress or whatever, coloring my hair, my piercings, and they're always like, is it going to change at some point? And I am hitting an age where I'm like, I can't just do a hard shift one day, but it is funny to think, I can't see myself at 65-

SPEAKER_5 (0:57)

With painted nails.

SPEAKER_3 (0:59)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_5 (1:01)

Why not? Who gives a shit?

SPEAKER_3 (1:03)

You can, but it's also like, I feel if I saw it, I'd have a million and one jokes about it. But it's still at the end of the day, you're like, you know, I'd walk out and go, oh, I forgot my pocket scarf. I got to go back upstairs. I forgot my couture months.

SPEAKER_5 (1:16)

As long as you're still funny, you can pull it off. But when you're bombing with red hair and three nose rings, Shit, that's true. It becomes an issue.

SPEAKER_3 (1:25)

That is true.

SPEAKER_5 (1:25)

As long as you stay funny.

SPEAKER_3 (1:26)

That's why I think when I first started, I tried to blend in whatever I was. I started in that black circuit, so I had so much FUBU shit on.

SPEAKER_5 (1:32)

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_3 (1:33)

And just like, yeah, jerseys and stuff. So I definitely played it up. The funniest was having a big silver chain with a cross and I'm Jewish. But it just really was like, I think they'll like me more if I have a cross.

SPEAKER_5 (1:44)

When I first started, I thought you had a dress like those guys on Evening at the Improv. So I got a blazer and I rolled the sleeves up and I had a wacky t-shirt that I wore.

SPEAKER_3 (1:53)

The costume?

Joe Rogan (1:54)

Yeah, the costume.

SPEAKER_5 (1:55)

You have a button on your blazer, some wacky button.

SPEAKER_3 (1:58)

I watched all those shows growing up even at the Improv, Caroline's Comedy Hour. The evolution of comedy is insane.

SPEAKER_5 (2:05)

It's pretty insane.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_3 (2:06)

The evolution, just like the fact that these guys, I watched Wally's Laugh and Go Back, and I watched Bill Kirshenbauer. Do you know that? That was the guy.

Joe Rogan (2:14)

I don't remember him.

SPEAKER_3 (2:15)

He was the coach on a sitcom. He got a sitcom called Just the Ten of Us where he had like eight kids or something. He was like a coach. It was a spinoff show of some sort, but he was just like a zany comic. He just would go on stage and he was just loud and weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_5 (2:29)

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_3 (2:31)

But these were the guys who made the rounds.

Joe Rogan (2:33)

Right.

SPEAKER_3 (2:35)

Monologists.

SPEAKER_5 (2:36)

Yeah. Well, it's almost like their act just got them to a sitcom. That was a real strategy back then. You had an act that could get you to a sitcom. That's all everybody wanted.

SPEAKER_3 (2:46)

When I did New Faces at Montreal, my manager at the time, Terrible, just gave me... I mean, he was just pushing the old advice. He was like, don't be yourself at all.

Write a set that's going to be, what's your sitcom, basically, and dress a certain kind of dress, like first stage. I don't know what I was... I didn't know what he meant. Nice clothes, so I had black loafers and straight leg, like dark blue dungarees, and like a short sleeve button down shirt.

SPEAKER_5 (3:20)

I just pictured you with black loafers on.

SPEAKER_3 (3:23)

And a short sleeve, like blue button down shirt. It looked ridiculous, and it was so dramatic. It's also funny, too, doing it as long as I have now, 27 years I think I'm doing it. Like the hilarious, like, fake emotion you put into things. I remember having, my daughter was a baby when I did New Faces, and talking to the picture backstage before I went on stage, like, we're going to go do it. And then had a mediocre set, and all I got from New Faces was like a MTV 2 talking head, one off, like, what were they thinking? What were they wearing? MTV 2 Presents.