Joe Rogan

Today, Joe Rogan is my fucking hero.

You see, he took a big one for the team by defending his and other comedians' rights to not have their creative work stolen from them and performed by talentless little shits who can't or won't do the work themselves. And every single person who works in a creative industry should stand the fuck up and support him, because he took one for all of us.

If you work in an industry where your mind is your paycheck--where the words, worlds and images that you create keep a literal roof over your head--you need to care about this. For those of you not in a creative field, consider this: plagiarism, copyright infringement, and any other whored up name you want to give to stealing is the equivalent of you building a house, then having some jackass walk up and declare that it's his.

That's how fucking bad it is. Because that creativity is a part of our souls. We take pride in our work. We've logged long, painful, and not always successful hours to hone what we do--for many of us, the only thing we feel we do well. In the commercial world, that creativity is also our bread and butter, along with the occasional philly cheese steak and dry martini.

I feel very fucking passionately about this topic. I've been plagiarized. And for three straight days after discovering the intial instances, I was nauseous and repeated the same twelve or so lines of "fuck"-filled vitriol to anyone who would listen to me rant. It felt like the mental equivalent of being raped. Someone reached in and plucked something from inside of me. And they were profiting off of it, like a roofie rapist with a web cam. I pursued the plagiarists, but had to take a break from what I now call the Plagiarism Project when my list of offenders hit 65. And Google Alerts sends me at least three new ones each week.

The last offender I identified is a certain Utah visitors' bureau website. Since ConVis folks tend to happily pass along 'their' work to anyone willing to promote their fair cities, that one instance of plagiarism has resulted in over 125 different businesses, proposals, et al, reproducing *my* work, without my permission, knowledge, or compensation. Just thinking about it now makes my stomach twist in knots again and brings to mind my new favorite phrase that "My ass is fucking killing me because there's a huge Mormon cock stuck up it."

I also have a friend who is breaking his ass right now to work on his stand-up almost every night of the week. I'm seeing all of the work that he puts into getting people to laugh for a few seconds. (For all of us out there who have cracked up a few drunk friends up at a party, let me just tell you, there's no fucking comparison.) The hours of watching tapes of yourself, critiquing things like pauses, timing and pitch; reworking everything from the jokes themselves to the order they're delivered, all for a 3 to 5-minute set...it's beyond daunting.

This brings us back to Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan confronted so-called comedian Carlos Mencia onstage during one of Carlos' performances. He called him out about stealing other comedians' jokes, while the fucking thief denied, denied, denied. Happily, several comedians that Carlos had stolen from were actually in the club that night, and folks like Ari Shaffer and Bobby Lee back up Joe's version of events.

Thank god there was a camera in the club that night, so everyone can see what a whiny little scumbag and theiving bastard Carlos Mencia is.







Okay...you see the look on Joe Rogan's face when he's yelling at Carlos Mencia? I know that look. I've worn that look. And if I ever got the chance to be in close proximity to someone who had stolen my work, I seriously think they would have gotten a lot more than The Look. Because this is one of those situations where every cell in your being understands the phrase "murderously pissed off."

But of course, no good deed goes unpunished. While Carlos Mencia is lined up to "perform" at the Comedy Store this weekend, (click and scroll down) Joe Rogan has been blackballed. Yep, for making a scene. Oh, fuck, it's okay to steal someone else's intellectual property, but calling someone on it is apparantly unacceptable.

Here's the scoop on the fallout, straight from Joe Rogan:

"It’s also indicative of this massive problem we have in the comedy community in general. Here you have a club that basically sells other people’s art. They put the chairs there, sell the drinks and turn the mic on, and the artists do the rest. You have a situation where a comic that’s been known for stealing other people material gets called out onstage, exposed, and then the video is put on the internet for all to see, and their reaction is to ban the guy that exposed him and made the video. To the thief, they sit back quietly and profit from his crime.

It’s truly fucking mind blowing.

There’s not another art form in the world where the creative rights of the artist get as little respect. If they banned the both of us for this incident, then I would understand that they're just trying to avoid conflict, but the fact that they have told me to "take a break" but they have him onstage this weekend is just a tremendous slap in the face to me, and to the art of stand up comedy."

So if you're in the L.A. area this weekend, Joe Rogan will be appearing at the Hollywood Improv. Definitely head out and support a REAL comedian. All of you painters and poets and advertising people, you singers and songwriters and sculptors...this guy took one for all of us. And right now he's just one guy out there screaming that it's not okay to steal other people's shit. We all need to stand up and be counted.