#793 - Whitney Cummings

Whitney Cummings (0:00)

Can I get the comedy story?

Joe Rogan (0:00)

I don't know, I never catch the checks. So, how'd you get into comedy?

We are live.

Whitney Cummings (0:06)

Real answer, bad childhood.

SPEAKER_3 (0:08)

That's everybody's real answer.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

If you didn't get into that, for that reason, you'd probably have a shitty act.

Whitney Cummings (0:12)

Yeah, that is so true, because unless you weren't seen as a child or heard as a child and have this insatiable need to be seen and heard and understood.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

It's definitely a deficit.

Whitney Cummings (0:23)

You can't be funny.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

Dude, what the fuck were you doing in Vietnam? Because this is one of the reasons, I didn't want to talk to you about this before, I didn't want to see you before this. I just wanted to get you in. And I'm glad we didn't talk about it before. But I went to your Instagram page and I saw these pictures of you working with these children that have cleft palates.

And I saw all these photos of you in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_4 (0:42)

So tell me, what are you doing?

Whitney Cummings (0:44)

So there's this charity called Operation Smile. And I usually work in animal charities because people I think are usually the problem. And helping people just seems to make more proliferate.

And in terms of charity stuff, I think that just why I started wanting to get more involved is like, if I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I started not liking the person that I was. I started realizing I was the person who was like, God, traffic is like crazy today.

And like, oh my God, Starbucks is out of soy milk, what the fuck? I was just like, whoa. That is-

Joe Rogan (1:22)

What made you feel like you were going to a place that you didn't like or becoming a person you didn't like?

Whitney Cummings (1:27)

I think it's like, you know, doing like working with animals and like, you know, going to sort of parts of town that I wouldn't normally go to to rescue animals and dogs. You start going like, oh, there's a real world outside this Truman show that we live in of the fake sets and the fake this and the fake people and the fake, you know, makeup and the fake clothes and everything. And I was just like, oh, like that. I live in a fun house, you know, sometimes when you're in this business. I mean, stand up keeps me, you know, a real person.

Joe Rogan (2:00)

Is it TV shows that get you?

Whitney Cummings (2:01)

I think it's TV shows. I think it's writing fake scripts about fake people and fake lots and fake houses and, you know, fake edit bays. And I just was like really concerned about, you know, and knowing you know way more than I do, but what I do know about neurology is that our brains acclimate to whatever environment we're in. And I was like, if I'm in this environment all the time, my brain is just gonna start acclimating accordingly. So it's like, you know, I find it in little ways. Like, you know, if I have a small purse, I only need a small purse. If I wear a big purse, all of a sudden I filled it up with shit. You know, it's like you kind of acclimate to what you have. And so I was like, yeah, I don't like the things that come out of my mouth. I don't like my inner monologue. I don't like the fact that I get annoyed when, you know, my Uber's, you know, not on fucking time. Like I just, I was like, so I kind of wanted to get some perspective and like really get out there and not just like give money for my own selfish, like guilt shit. Like, oh, I'm just gonna give money.

And so I went to Vietnam for two weeks and did this. I went to Tokyo for a couple of days before then, which was actually really interesting. And went and got to, you know, watch the surgeries and it was also cool because I don't know if you are at this, ever went through this, but I think I got sick of myself.

Like I just kind of was like, I'm sick of my voice. I'm sick of my making jokes. I'm sick of being funny. I'm sick of like, and there's something about being around people that don't speak English that kind of strips you of your like persona, you know, of your, all the things that you just, because I mean, I just, I don't want to go through life like a sleepwalking zombie who's just like doing a bad impression of myself every day because it's so easy to do. And I find, I felt like life was a little bit of a groundhog day, but get up, work out, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, bits, bits, bits, you know, insecure, insecure, you know, and I got a little bit sick of that rhythm. And I was like, there's got to be something more deeper. And, you know, we're seekers. And I was like thinking about my next special and the next thing I'm going to write. And I was like, I don't want to just, and I felt like my brain was, had this, there was like patterns and rhythms that I was like, I keep going to the same place for, you know, creatively. And I was like, I want to go to a different place entirely, so I got to like challenge my brain and throw some new shit at it.