Taken from JRE #1929 w/Louis CK:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/177plfcE2xWKrOJUfnn13S?si=3189cb33e78e4833

I remember the first conversation we had, I guess I was like 20.

Okay, so we must have both been around 20 you when you started comedy.

all right, so I must have been the same age But we talked about fight because I find out you were a Taekwondo guy or something.

Yeah, and I asked you about fights like I said, do you have skills for fighting in real life?

And you said well, that's just some things, you know That are you put you know They put you way at advantage with people that aren't fighters Like you don't wait for the fight to start you told me like you told me you were in a cafeteria once in South and Some some kid came up and you know people think they're gonna get to do a preamble They think that there's gonna be a whole hey, fuck you And now we're at they think there's going to be like Yeah, and as soon as you knew he was there to threaten you you just punched him in the sternum, and he just went Anyway, so that was the first time you'd explain that to me.

I thought about that 1 for a lot afterwards.

Sometimes you jump the gun because like there with great power comes great responsibility.

It was just a knucklehead Yeah, I should probably let him slide

Yeah, I think that's how you've changed too because you were really wired that you were tightly wired

Well, we're talking then about like me being 15 or 16.

Yeah, it was and a trained fighter at a young age

There's also like you got this thing you want to try out.

Oh yeah, because people you know in the high school you're kind of trying out bowing up on people

pretty pretty Nuanced thing to ask a kid that age to know like how to back how to back off I don't need I don't need to fight you.

I just watched this horrible brawl today that someone had put up on Twitter in a high school.

Where like all these kids were fighting in the hallway and teachers were trying to separate it.

And this 1 kid threw this kid to the ground and punched him unconscious, and the kid went into a seizure, and like, oh God.

And it's awful, and a lot of it is people that just don't know how to fight, and they don't know how to defend themselves, and then they're fucking flailing wildly at each other, and this 1 guy knew something, and he threw this guy to the ground and punched him out.

It's, ah, fucking, school's so dangerous.

It's so dangerous because kids are just starting to get testosterone.

They're just starting to become like strong and like a, like almost a man.

And lopsided too because there's other kids who didn't, it just didn't kick in yet.

Well these kids were it was all There was none of that or they were similar sized, but it was just awful.

It's also weird energy in school for kids that age that's it's intricate like I remember I saw a lot in my high school fights that were between friends Because there's always somebody who wants people to fight There's somebody who doesn't fight but wants a fight to happen.

Everybody wants to see it so you take a Kid who's trying to get some kind of status with a certain group and they go why are you friends with that guy?

You know like that guy's a pussy and they actually turn him on as they want to see if they can make a kid fight a Friend of his I saw that so many times Yeah And I saw a lot of kids that were tough and but had a head, you know smart kids Who were I remember this 1 kid his name was Chris and his friend Doug was pushed into like he's got I'm gonna kick your Ass And Chris could have beat Doug, but he just started crying.

And he didn't want to fight his friend, and he could hurt his friend real bad.

He's like now the kid, the fag, you know?

And then everybody starts laughing at him because he's crying.

He's mad, and he just beat Doug's face to Pain in his face right

1 of the most humiliating fights I ever got into was, there was never even a punch thrown.

It was me, I was 14, and there was this kid in the locker room.

And I don't remember what words were said, but we were standing in front of each other.

And this is before I even was really into martial arts.

This kid grabbed me in a headlock, threw me on the ground and was gonna punch me in the face but then stopped and decided not to.

It would have been better if he hit you cuz then you look a little bit tough for taking the pun

well at least I Mean he was so unconcerned that I could do something to him that he just let me up And then I like would avoid him like in school like if I would like look down the hallway Yeah And like I would open up the door to the outside breezeway and I saw him on the other side of my car I gotta go around this way.

I was terrified of horrible terrified of him

I was kind of bigger than a lot of kids my age, so I guess that, you know, I just didn't, and I didn't have a lot of conflicts with people, so I never really got much into fights.

And then senior year, I don't remember, junior or whatever, but I was high a lot.

And I was in the library, and I was laughing.

I was making a lot of racket in the library.

I used to get yelled at all the time for being loud in the library.

And this kid who was a sophomore, little kid who was like this on me, kind of skinny and wearing a leather jacket.

And the worst part is he was right, like I knew in my head I'm being annoying.

Like and I'm just like, status, I'm a senior, you're a sophomore.

And he comes over and he goes, you wanna go right now?

He's smaller than me, but he's wiry, and I'm like, I'm scared, I was terrified.

Even if I win, I'm not gonna go unscathed.

I don't want any of this to happen and he's standing above me And he's like you want to fucking go and I was just like no, I don't I don't want to I Don't want to fight and he's like then shut the fuck up then

and my friends were so ashamed of me and for the rest of the year I was terrified of this little this little kid scare I did an episode about it in my show and where there's some high school kid threatens to beat me up and I back off I back down and I apologized to him oh because I don't want to get yeah I that kid really He'd haunted me for a long

I got beat up on a bus by a girl when I was 14 Cuz I didn't fight back.

Yeah when I live in Newton in Newton South We would go to I think it was Round Meadow, which was the The middle school.

And we would walk across the field because My sister was going to the middle school and I was in ninth grade and she was in eighth grade.

So I would go and take the bus with her because the bus was earlier or something.

So I went over and something happened when I got on the bus and there was this girl who was this tough girl, smoked cigarettes, she had a leather jacket on.

I don't remember what the conversation was, but she either decided I was in the wrong seat or whatever.

Like it wasn't even, It wasn't even like I didn't argue back.

It was just like she just started punching me.

And then this little guy who was like, wound up being my friend, his name is Muggsy Malone.

He wound up being, he later went on, I think he was a politician at 1 point in time.

He was like in fifth grade Yeah And in like the girl beats me up and and then and then he comes over he goes I ain't fucking afraid of you either I'm like Jesus

Yeah, it was like 1 of those things where I was like, my God, I got to learn how to fight.

It's like really what turned me into a martial artist.

It's like I was tired of being terrified.

This girl kicked my ass, and I didn't even fight back.

with a leather jacket on a fucking cigarette

What is her life that she needed to go right to Defcon 5?

Well, she wound up being the girlfriend of the guy who's the toughest guy on the wrestling team, which I joined the next season, so thank God I didn't swing back.

This guy Mark Collins, who was like the neighborhood tough guy, who wasn't even a small guy.

He wasn't even a big guy, rather, he was a small guy, but he was just fucking intense and he's a really good wrestler

Yeah, I lived in Newtonville, which was like I am right along the highway Mm-hmm and I right next to an anthem which was all those Irish and Italian kids And so that's who I went to junior high school with and mostly high school, but there is a lot of really terrifying kids there's a lot of scary kids

well blue-collar communities like I was in Upper Falls yeah Newton Upper Falls there was a lot of fucking a lot of drinking yeah they were everybody would hang out by Echo Bridge right Echo Bridge yeah sure that's where my house was

Yeah, Newton had a lot of hang, like Cabot, I went to Cabot School, elementary school, and Cabot Park was a hang.

And to cross Cabot Park, sometimes you'd get these guys that would just converge on you, And they would play games with you.

You're like, hey kid, come here, come here.

And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of the park and you're like, fuck.

I remember once as a kid, he said, he had a hundred dollar bill for some reason.

And he said, we're gonna play this game and they're all surrounding me and he puts the $100 bill on my hand and he gives me a cigarette and he says, if you can burn a hole in his head all the way through, I'll give you the $100 bill.

I'm like, I was like, I don't wanna do it.

And I was trying to do it and it hurt like fuck and I don't remember how that ended like I just remember that terrifying and they're all Staring at me 1 time some kids had a cup of puke.

It was like a with puke and he said can you drink this whole thing if you drink this whole thing?

We'll give you a beer that was that thing Yeah, these guys just scared me and then when I grew up I hung out with those kids and smoked cigarettes where I learned to smoke cigarettes in that park.

But there was kids, there was a kid named Mike who was the toughest kid in Newton.

And there was 1 point where, this kid named David Russell, he was, his family lived in Boston.

I don't know if you guys had Metco kids, the kids that were bused from Boston into our schools.

Black kids, all black kids from Boston who were bused into our school system.

It wasn't part of that Boston thing, it was out to the suburbs.

And these were kids that got up at 04:00 in the morning to go to school, you know, they were living a particular life and coming out to this suburb.

1 of them was Ronnie DeVoe, of Bell Biv DeVoe.

And I knew him since junior high school, through high school, he was a nice kid.

And when he was in, what are you, first edition or new edition?

They used to come get him in a limousine.

And people would say, shout racist shit at the Bobby Brown.

So David Russell was a Medco kid and his family's house burnt down in Boston.

And a family in Newton, actually friends of mine, they had a rental unit and they let the Russells live there.

So it was like, there's a black family living in Newtonville, it's a big deal.

And everyone was into, because it was all liberal teachers, everybody was into like, we're hosting this family because they lost their home.

So all of a sudden David Russell's living in Newton, he's not just going to school there.

And 1 day, Mike and his group confront David Russell at the park and they go, hey listen, we're really happy you're here, We wanna show you this bench right here.

And I remember I heard that story and I went to the park that day and there was a black bench and a black swing.

I mean, I remember I went back when I was in my 20s and it was still a little black.


Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan experience.

Speaker 1: I remember the first conversation we had, I guess I was like 20.

Speaker 0: Ever? Really?

Speaker 1: Yeah. How old are you? Because this reminds me of it. It was about Newton South. Oh, okay.

Cafeteria. I'm 55.

Speaker 0: 55 too. I'm 55 as well.

Speaker 1: Okay, so we must have both been around 20 you when you started comedy. You were 21

Speaker 0: Yeah,

Speaker 1: all right, so I must have been the same age But we talked about fight because I find out you were a Taekwondo guy or something. Is that what you'd fight? Yeah, and I asked you about fights like I said, do you have skills for fighting in real life? And you said well, that's just some things, you know That are you put you know They put you way at advantage with people that aren't fighters Like you don't wait for the fight to start you told me like you told me you were in a cafeteria once in South and Some some kid came up and you know people think they're gonna get to do a preamble They think that there's gonna be a whole hey, fuck you And now we're at they think there's going to be like Yeah, and as soon as you knew he was there to threaten you you just punched him in the sternum, and he just went Anyway, so that was the first time you'd explain that to me.

Speaker 0: Yeah that could have been avoided. I thought about that 1 for a lot afterwards.

Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. You think you'd jump the gun?

Speaker 0: Sometimes you jump the gun because like there with great power comes great responsibility. You know the guy had no chance. He was just bowing up

Speaker 1: right.

Speaker 0: It was just a knucklehead Yeah, I should probably let him slide

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's how you've changed too because you were really wired that you were tightly wired

Speaker 0: Well, we're talking then about like me being 15 or 16.

Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, it was and a trained fighter at a young age

Speaker 0: There's also like you got this thing you want to try out. So you got a fast car. You want to hit the gas? Yeah, of course. Let's let's see what happens.

Oh yeah, because people you know in the high school you're kind of trying out bowing up on people

Speaker 1: right,

Speaker 0: you know It's a

Speaker 1: pretty pretty Nuanced thing to ask a kid that age to know like how to back how to back off I don't need I don't need to fight you.

Speaker 0: Yeah, no, it's hard. It's hard for kids. I just watched this horrible brawl today that someone had put up on Twitter in a high school. It was terrible. Where like all these kids were fighting in the hallway and teachers were trying to separate it.

And this 1 kid threw this kid to the ground and punched him unconscious, and the kid went into a seizure, and like, oh God. And it's awful, and a lot of it is people that just don't know how to fight, and they don't know how to defend themselves, and then they're fucking flailing wildly at each other, and this 1 guy knew something, and he threw this guy to the ground and punched him out. It's, ah, fucking, school's so dangerous. It's so dangerous because kids are just starting to get testosterone. They're just starting to become like strong and like a, like almost a man.

Speaker 1: And lopsided too because there's other kids who didn't, it just didn't kick in yet. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Well these kids were it was all There was none of that or they were similar sized, but it was just awful. It's just awful.

Speaker 1: It's also weird energy in school for kids that age that's it's intricate like I remember I saw a lot in my high school fights that were between friends Because there's always somebody who wants people to fight There's somebody who doesn't fight but wants a fight to happen. Everybody wants to see it so you take a Kid who's trying to get some kind of status with a certain group and they go why are you friends with that guy? You know like that guy's a pussy and they actually turn him on as they want to see if they can make a kid fight a Friend of his I saw that so many times Yeah And I saw a lot of kids that were tough and but had a head, you know smart kids Who were I remember this 1 kid his name was Chris and his friend Doug was pushed into like he's got I'm gonna kick your Ass And Chris could have beat Doug, but he just started crying. Because it was too much.

Speaker 0: Yeah, pressure.

Speaker 1: And he didn't want to fight his friend, and he could hurt his friend real bad. And he's isolated. Everybody's around him. He's like now the kid, the fag, you know? And he just started crying.

And then everybody starts laughing at him because he's crying. Oh now. He's mad, and he just beat Doug's face to Pain in his face right

Speaker 0: 1 of the most humiliating fights I ever got into was, there was never even a punch thrown. It was me, I was 14, and there was this kid in the locker room. And I don't remember what words were said, but we were standing in front of each other. And this is before I even was really into martial arts. This is 1 of the reasons I got into it.

This kid grabbed me in a headlock, threw me on the ground and was gonna punch me in the face but then stopped and decided not to.

Speaker 1: So I was like

Speaker 0: I'm just gonna let you up. And I was like, I

Speaker 1: was like so humiliated. I

Speaker 0: was so humiliated.

Speaker 1: It would have been better if he hit you cuz then you look a little bit tough for taking the pun

Speaker 0: well at least I Mean he was so unconcerned that I could do something to him that he just let me up And then I like would avoid him like in school like if I would like look down the hallway Yeah And like I would open up the door to the outside breezeway and I saw him on the other side of my car I gotta go around this way. I gotta keep away from that guy. I was terrified of horrible terrified of him

Speaker 1: There was a year when I was a senior. I never really got in fights. I just didn't. It just didn't happen to me. I was kind of bigger than a lot of kids my age, so I guess that, you know, I just didn't, and I didn't have a lot of conflicts with people, so I never really got much into fights.

I just sort of slid through, you know? And then senior year, I don't remember, junior or whatever, but I was high a lot. And I was in the library, and I was laughing. I was making a lot of racket in the library. I used to get yelled at all the time for being loud in the library.

And this kid who was a sophomore, little kid who was like this on me, kind of skinny and wearing a leather jacket. He goes, hey, shut the fuck up. Because he was just annoyed. And the worst part is he was right, like I knew in my head I'm being annoying. But I said fuck you.

Like and I'm just like, status, I'm a senior, you're a sophomore. Fuck you, shut up. And he goes, what, fuck me? And I go yeah, fuck you. And he comes over and he goes, you wanna go right now?

I'll fucking kick the shit out of you. He's smaller than me, but he's wiry, and I'm like, I'm scared, I was terrified. Because I don't wanna fight this kid. Even if I win, I'm not gonna go unscathed. I don't wanna get hurt.

I don't wanna be punched in the face. I don't want any of this to happen and he's standing above me And he's like you want to fucking go and I was just like no, I don't I don't want to I Don't want to fight and he's like then shut the fuck up then

Speaker 0: Oh, it's like

Speaker 1: and my friends were so ashamed of me and for the rest of the year I was terrified of this little this little kid scare I did an episode about it in my show and where there's some high school kid threatens to beat me up and I back off I back down and I apologized to him oh because I don't want to get yeah I that kid really He'd haunted me for a long

Speaker 0: Yeah, it can happen

Speaker 1: yeah, and he's somewhere now You know

Speaker 0: I got beat up on a bus by a girl when I was 14 Cuz I didn't fight back. I didn't know what to do. I Wasn't sure if I should hit her back. Yeah when I live in Newton in Newton South We would go to I think it was Round Meadow, which was the The middle school. Yeah, that's what it was

Speaker 1: Okay

Speaker 0: And we would walk across the field because My sister was going to the middle school and I was in ninth grade and she was in eighth grade. So I would go and take the bus with her because the bus was earlier or something. I forget what it

Speaker 1: was.

Speaker 0: So I went over and something happened when I got on the bus and there was this girl who was this tough girl, smoked cigarettes, she had a leather jacket on.

Speaker 1: She was a Newton tough girl.

Speaker 0: And I don't remember what happened. I don't remember what the conversation was, but she either decided I was in the wrong seat or whatever. So she just starts wailing on me. Like it wasn't even, It wasn't even like I didn't argue back. It was just like she just started punching me.

And then this little guy who was like, wound up being my friend, his name is Muggsy Malone. He wound up being, he later went on, I think he was a politician at 1 point in time. But he became my friend. Yeah, but he was just a tiny little guy. He was like in fifth grade Yeah And in like the girl beats me up and and then and then he comes over he goes I ain't fucking afraid of you either I'm like Jesus

Speaker 1: Jumped on her side. Yes.

Speaker 0: Yeah, it was like 1 of those things where I was like, my God, I got to learn how to fight. It's like really what turned me into a martial artist. It's like I was tired of being terrified. This girl kicked my ass, and I didn't even fight back. I was just like covering my head up

Speaker 1: and she's just terrible

Speaker 0: with a leather jacket on a fucking cigarette

Speaker 1: What is her life that she needed to go right to Defcon 5?

Speaker 0: Well, she wound up being the girlfriend of the guy who's the toughest guy on the wrestling team, which I joined the next season, so thank God I didn't swing back. Yeah, that would have been horrible. This guy Mark Collins, who was like the neighborhood tough guy, who wasn't even a small guy. He wasn't even a big guy, rather, he was a small guy, but he was just fucking intense and he's a really good wrestler

Speaker 1: Yeah, I lived in Newtonville, which was like I am right along the highway Mm-hmm and I right next to an anthem which was all those Irish and Italian kids And so that's who I went to junior high school with and mostly high school, but there is a lot of really terrifying kids there's a lot of scary kids

Speaker 0: well blue-collar communities like I was in Upper Falls yeah Newton Upper Falls there was a lot of fucking a lot of drinking yeah they were everybody would hang out by Echo Bridge right Echo Bridge yeah sure that's where my house was

Speaker 1: okay

Speaker 0: house was right next to Echo Bridge.

Speaker 1: Yeah, Newton had a lot of hang, like Cabot, I went to Cabot School, elementary school, and Cabot Park was a hang. And to cross Cabot Park, sometimes you'd get these guys that would just converge on you, And they would play games with you. And you didn't know what was going on. You're like, hey kid, come here, come here. And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of the park and you're like, fuck.

I remember once as a kid, he said, he had a hundred dollar bill for some reason. And he said, we're gonna play this game and they're all surrounding me and he puts the $100 bill on my hand and he gives me a cigarette and he says, if you can burn a hole in his head all the way through, I'll give you the $100 bill. I'm like, I was like, I don't wanna do it. No, try it, try it. And I was trying to do it and it hurt like fuck and I don't remember how that ended like I just remember that terrifying and they're all Staring at me 1 time some kids had a cup of puke.

It was like a with puke and he said can you drink this whole thing if you drink this whole thing? We'll give you a beer that was that thing Yeah, these guys just scared me and then when I grew up I hung out with those kids and smoked cigarettes where I learned to smoke cigarettes in that park. And I drank my first beer in that park. But there was kids, there was a kid named Mike who was the toughest kid in Newton. He was just a fucking terrifying person.

And there was 1 point where, this kid named David Russell, he was, his family lived in Boston. I don't know if you guys had Metco kids, the kids that were bused from Boston into our schools. Black kids, all black kids from Boston who were bused into our school system. It wasn't part of that Boston thing, it was out to the suburbs. And these were kids that got up at 04:00 in the morning to go to school, you know, they were living a particular life and coming out to this suburb.

And some of them were my friends. 1 of them was Ronnie DeVoe, of Bell Biv DeVoe.

Speaker 0: No shit.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to high school with him. Wow. And I knew him since junior high school, through high school, he was a nice kid. And when he was in, what are you, first edition or new edition?

Speaker 0: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: They used to come get him in a limousine. And people would say, shout racist shit at the Bobby Brown. All these guys would be in the scene

Speaker 0: in high school. It

Speaker 1: was so racist. It was so crazy. Yes. So David Russell was a Medco kid and his family's house burnt down in Boston. And a family in Newton, actually friends of mine, they had a rental unit and they let the Russells live there.

So it was like, there's a black family living in Newtonville, it's a big deal. And everyone was into, because it was all liberal teachers, everybody was into like, we're hosting this family because they lost their home. So all of a sudden David Russell's living in Newton, he's not just going to school there. And 1 day, Mike and his group confront David Russell at the park and they go, hey listen, we're really happy you're here, We wanna show you this bench right here. This is your bench.

And they had literally painted it black. And they painted 1 of the swings black. They said, this is the Russell swing. This is the Russell bench. You can use it many time you want.

Whoa. And I remember I heard that story and I went to the park that day and there was a black bench and a black swing. And they were there. I mean, I remember I went back when I was in my 20s and it was still a little black. Kind of black.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was Newton, Massachusetts. That's crazy.

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Joe & Louie Laugh About School Bullies; Growing Up in Boston