It’s a Tuesday night in downtown Austin, and Joe Rogan is pretending to jerk off right in front of my face. The strangest thing about this situation is that millions of straight American men would kill to switch places with me.

Centimillionaires generally pride themselves on their inaccessibility, but most weeks you can see Rogan live at the Comedy Mothership, which he owns, in exchange for $50 and a two-drink minimum. About 250 tickets for each “Joe Rogan and Friends” show go on sale every Sunday at 2 p.m. central time, and disappear within seconds. When you arrive at the Mothership, the staff locks your phone in a bag, which both ensures that you cannot leak footage online and makes you think you’re about to see some really forbidden shit.

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print edition with the headline “You Think You’re So Heterodox.” It has been updated to reflect that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his 2024 presidential campaign after the issue went to press.