Rich Vos: A veteran New York standup comedian, the first white comic to perform on HBO's Def Comedy Jam and a longtime Opie & Anthony / Tough Crowd regular. Married to comedian Bonnie McFarlane; a recovered crack addict with nearly 40 years sober.
What this episode covers
Vos opens by confessing his addictive personality and a career-long sense that one more thing would put him over the top, prompting Joe to push back that he may be confusing self-sabotage with simply being accustomed to a certain result. They swap decades of comedy war stories from the old New York and Boston scenes (Patrice O'Neal, Norton, Bill Hicks, Otto and George, David Spade), then move into a long political stretch on Israel/Palestine, campus protests, bots on Twitter, and climate activism. Vos recounts harrowing drug-addiction stories from his standup road days before getting clean. The episode ends as a health intervention: Joe talks Vos into stem cells, BPC-157 peptides, testosterone, a blood panel, and proper rehab for his torn rotator cuff, plus a June 30 shape-up challenge.
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Lexus IS 350
Lexus
“What kind of car are you driving? Alex Lexus IS-350. Oh, those are fun. It's nice. That's a good car.”— Rich Vos
Sermorelin
Various
“There's stuff called like samoralin that makes your body produce more growth hormone. So like your body repairs itself better like when you're younger.”— Joe Rogan
The Real Anthony Fauci
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“If you read Robert Kennedy's book, The Real Anthony Fouchy, it's all about that. And the beginning of it is all about the AIDS crisis”— Joe Rogan
Dallas Buyers Club
Jean-Marc Vallee
“Do you know the Dallas Buyers Club where they were limiting the medication that gay people could take? That was about Fouchy.”— Joe Rogan
G.I. Jane
Ridley Scott
“the mo GI Jane. Like that's the most that was a powerful movie. It was a great movie about a strong woman.”— Joe Rogan
I Am Legend
Francis Lawrence
“But what? I am legend. Ali. All those different things he did that were awesome. Nobody cares anymore.”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- Vos says a club owner once offered him cocaine or cash after a show; he took the coke, and the comic who took the money was Adam Sandler.
- Vos describes the bottom of his addiction, a chaotic Boston coke-and-crack trip, that landed him in rehab nearly 40 years ago, after which he stayed clean.
- Vos reveals the real reason he came on: a torn rotator cuff he wants treated with stem cells and BPC-157 instead of surgery.
- Vos confesses he repeatedly stole and cooked his friend's cocaine into crack across four trips to a convenience store in one night.
- Vos identifies the terrified 'little white kid from Arizona' he and Frankie Bastile held hostage while doing drugs in the car as a young David Spade.
- Joe insists that at 68 Vos can absolutely build muscle and get stronger, challenging him to a June 30 shirtless before/after photo.
- Joe argues Anthony Fauci was responsible for the AIDS panic and the harmful early use of AZT, citing RFK Jr.'s book.
Worth remembering
- Vos owns seven bird feeders with a video camera because his addictive personality always wants 'a little more.'
- New York comics did marathon 'prom shows' at Dangerfield's running 7pm to 5am with no breaks, repeating the same jokes for new busloads of kids.
- Joe explains BPC-157 stands for 'body protection compound 157,' a peptide that helps heal soft-tissue damage.
- Iran in the early 1970s had women in miniskirts and beach freedom before the 1979 revolution turned it into a religious state.
- An FBI analyst reportedly estimated Twitter was as much as 80% bots before Musk's purchase.
- Joe warns paper coffee cups are lined with plastic, so hot liquid leaches chemicals, use glass or stainless steel instead.
- Joe claims AZT, originally a failed chemotherapy drug, was given indefinitely to HIV patients and killed many faster.
- At a 2005 Friars roast of Trump, Vos's line that Trump puts his name on buildings 'so the banks know which ones to take back' made the papers.