Joe DeRosa — Stand-up comedian, writer, and actor known for performing at the Comedy Mothership and co-hosting the horror-movie podcast 'We'll See You in Hell.' He just released his self-directed special 'I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.'
The gist
Joe Rogan and Joe DeRosa sit down for a rare one-on-one conversation, drifting from the supportive family-like culture of the Austin comedy scene to the corporate sociopathy of the insurance and politics worlds. They dig deep into a shared love of horror and sci-fi movies, debating the scariest films ever and trading concert stories. The back half turns to anxieties about AI: voice-cloning scams, AI replacing Hollywood crews, ChatGPT-induced psychosis, and China's tech dominance. Throughout, DeRosa talks about quitting drinking, the exhaustion of modern outrage culture, and his deep affection for old sitcoms like NewsRadio.
Big reveals
- Joe DeRosa reveals he has basically quit drinking, calling sobriety a life-changing energy boost.
- DeRosa recounts his pre-comedy job as a radio reporter for the Texas Senate Media Department, partying with hammered senators.
- DeRosa credits the sitcom NewsRadio with 'saving his life' during a bleak, lightless COVID lockdown.
- DeRosa names The Exorcist the scariest movie of all time and says he rarely re-watches it so the fear never wears off.
- DeRosa tells the story of a friend who got an AI voice-clone kidnapping scam call using his daughter's replicated voice.
- Rogan and DeRosa argue social-media flexing reveals an 'attention deficit' and cite brain scans showing holes in heavy users' brains.
- Rogan claims a Chinese car factory is bigger than San Francisco and that China now makes the most advanced AI-integrated cars on earth.
- DeRosa names The Twilight Zone his favorite TV show of all time and Rod Serling the greatest TV writer.
Things worth remembering
- An exterminator told DeRosa to mix glass into concrete because rats will chew straight through plain concrete.
- The Netflix doc 'Rats' suggests NYC's rat biomass may equal the city's human biomass.
- An Iranian lock box built 800 years ago reportedly had around 4 billion possible combinations.
- To save money, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings generated thousands of orcs from only about five actors in makeup.
- Heavy ChatGPT use is linked to cognitive decline because users stop doing their own critical thinking.
- In China, a wallet of cash can reportedly sit untouched on a bar for hours because fear of harsh punishment keeps crime near zero.
- Ozzy Osbourne died about two weeks after performing the final original-lineup Black Sabbath show.
- The doc 'Best of Enemies' frames the 1968 Buckley vs. Gore Vidal TV debates as an early prototype of podcast-style media.