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Joe Rogan · 2024-11-12

Joe Rogan Experience #2227 - Adrienne Iapalucci

Comedian Adrienne Iapalucci and Joe Rogan riff on gambling addiction, prison, dark comedy, Genghis Khan, CTE, and ancient Roman toilet sponges.

Joe Rogan Experience #2227 - Adrienne Iapalucci
The guest

Adrienne Iapalucci: Bronx-raised stand-up comedian known for dark, taboo-pushing material; her Netflix special The Dark Queen was filmed at the Comedy Cellar.

What this episode covers

Joe Rogan and comedian Adrienne Iapalucci have a wide-ranging, irreverent conversation that touches on P. Diddy, politics, prison and private-prison incentives, and the rise of content creation as the most common US job. They dig into addiction, gambling, porn, food, and sugar, drawing on Adrienne's experience growing up with a gambling-addict father in the Bronx. Long stretches cover history's brutality (Genghis Khan, Pompeii, Roman latrine sponges), psychedelics like ibogaine for veterans, and the physiology of brain trauma and CTE. The episode ends with an on-mic smelling-salts bit and reflections on how comedians like Mitch Hedberg need audiences who already know them.

Recommended on this episode

MediaRecommended

Uncut Gems

Josh and Benny Safdie

“I think his best movie ever; it's so good”
“it's uh it's Adam Sandler I think his best movie ever and it wasn't even a comedy at all it's a drama he kills in it too it's so good”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended

Hardcore History

Dan Carlin

“an amazing show”
“there's a guy named Dan Carlin he's got an amazing show called hardcore history and he's got this one episode called the wrath of the con”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended

Three Body Problem

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss

“a really really good show; she loves it”
“the point is like it is a really really good show like really fun and science fiction and my wife who's not even into science fiction she loves it”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended

Painkiller

Peter Berg

“it's great it's so good”
“Jamie painkiller is that what it's called that's the Peter Berg One Peter Berg came in and explained it all to us and talked about the documentary it's great it's so good”— Joe Rogan

The guest's own work

MediaBy the guest

The Dark Queen

Adrienne Iapalucci

“speaking of Netflix rck kills it in that too go watch my Netflix special yes the dark queen the Netflix special”— guest

Also referenced (named, not recommended)

MediaReferenced

Dopesick

Hulu

“there was one on I think Kulu and there or and then there was one also on Netflix yeah there was dope sick”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced

Game of Thrones

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss

“when you're in Game of Thrones and that lady standing there and then you see the dragon's head slowly... I know it's so good”— guest
MediaReferenced

The Walking Dead

AMC

“when I first started watching The Walking uh what is it yeah Walking Dead you're like I can't believe they just did that”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced

Starlink

SpaceX

“like they give Amazon tribes starlink and they give them phones”— guest

Big reveals from this episode

  • They cite data that 27 million paid creators operate in the US with 11.6 million working full-time, making content creation effectively the number-one job, overtaking retail.
  • Discussion that 1984 marked the rise of modern private prisons, with prison guard unions later lobbying to keep marijuana illegal to keep inmate numbers up.
  • Joe recounts visiting Dana White at Red Rocks where he was $600,000 down on Blackjack but ended the night $600,000 up after playing until 6am.
  • Joe says he discussed psychedelics with JD Vance, who was unaware of ibogaine's potential, and hopes to connect him with people doing veteran treatment work.
  • Adrienne shares her 23andMe results: mostly Italian with some Irish, 1% Asian and 1.6% African.
  • They discuss Aaron Hernandez having the worst CTE ever diagnosed while alive at 28, and a study finding 91.7% of former NFL players studied had CTE.

Worth remembering

  • They reference a claim that people who spend less time in the sun are more likely to get deadly skin cancer, tied to vitamin D's role in immune function.
  • A 12-ounce serving of fresh-squeezed orange juice has roughly the same sugar (~30g) as a Coca-Cola (39g), spiking insulin similarly.
  • In a story from Hardcore History, a Shah's caravan abandoned roads clogged with decaying bodies and mistook a mile-high pile of a million corpses for a snow-covered mountain.
  • An Indian cow-dung festival has participants throwing dung at each other, believing it protects them from viruses.
  • Two scientists filming bats exiting an African cave were covered in bat feces and died of a hemorrhagic virus; bat guano also turns African cave crocodiles orange.
  • A 4,300-year-old bat-guano core, two meters tall, in a Jamaican cave records climate change and shifting bat food sources over millennia.
  • Roman philosopher Seneca reported a Germanic gladiator killed himself by shoving a communal toilet sponge-on-a-stick down his throat to avoid fighting.
  • Phineas Gage survived a 13-inch iron rod shooting through his skull in 1848, destroying his left frontal lobe and dramatically changing his personality.