After overhearing part of a podcast titled “Why Count Chocula is a Groomer,” I decided to whip through planes of existence (no need to go into the specifics of how) in order to prove that we are living in the worst dimension. I scoured the multiverse in search of true peace—a world without Joe Rogan.
Alternate Universe No. 1
The first world I checked out was one in which Napoleon had triumphed at the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, making much of the planet Greater France. The atmosphere was aggressive, but the air smelled of buttered pastries and universal health care. A young man in a bicorn hat handed me a business card shaped like a guillotine. His title? Podcaster. I began backing away, but he explained that his podcast was about evolving hair styles in Godard films. The title, “Director’s Coif,” was only a minor crime, and I laughed until I collided with a cart full of macarons.
“Oh, no,” I whispered as I spotted the macaron seller, whose bald pate and dancing pecs I knew all too well. “Do you want to try our newest flavor?” he asked. I felt sick as he pointed to a macaron with Napoleon’s favorite horse, Marengo, crudely drawn on it. “It’s flavored with horse dewormer!” he exclaimed. “Don’t listen to stuck-up doctors—the stuff will drive disease right out of your system.” I scanned a list of the other flavors—testosterone, beer, barbeque—then sprinted off, afraid to look back. I did manage to swipe a bacon-flavored macaron, though, because world-hopping is hard work and I deserved a little treat.
Alternate Universe No. 2
When I stumbled upon a barren dimension of neon deserts and belching geysers, I revelled in the quiet. The last bit of stillness I had experienced was in the year 2005 P.J.R. (Pre-Joe Rogan). That summer, I was innocently flipping through TV channels in a Portland hotel when I landed on the image of a taut-skinned man encouraging people to eat bugs for money. Nothing was ever the same again.
But, in Alternate Universe No. 2, far away from feminazi hashtags, I finally felt serene. Just as I was nodding off, one of the geysers started to convulse. It expelled a lime-green goo that congealed into the shape of a familiar face, which gurgled: “It’s hard for a chick to do comedy.” As I ran, the geyser sputtered, “Wokeness killed all the laughs—the last great comedic film was ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop Two’!’”
This dimension was not Joe Rogan-free.
Alternate Universe No. 3
My trip to Alternate Universe No. 3 began blissfully. In this world, Al Gore had won the 2000 election, and the landscape was dotted with trees that were not on fire. I found myself humming Aimee Mann’s latest hit on a high-speed train from Chicago to New Orleans. There, the early two-thousands were revered as a belle époque. Low-rise jeans had never become popular, and I crossed my fingers that Joe Rogan hadn’t, either.
“Shall I activate your solar-powered entertainment hologram?” a train attendant dressed in a sustainable seaweed onesie inquired. I scrolled through documentaries about thriving monarch-butterfly colonies and advances in deëscalating dolphin conflicts before I saw him, surrounded by ivy, smiling at the camera. “Welcome to the Joe Rogan Nature Experience,” he intoned before grabbing a daffodil. “This little guy is the G.O.A.T. of spring-flowering perennial plants!”
I winced, but thought, This universe’s Joe Rogan is benevolent, at least. Then he ripped his shirt off and shouted, “Enough plant talk—it's time for some Mixed Mammal Martial Arts!” He pitted hedgehogs against chipmunks, squirrels against tree shrews, commenting from the sidelines, “Whoa, this dude is landing some serious blows with that bushy tail!” I sighed and headed to the next universe.
Alternate Universe No. 4
In this universe, an overzealous film student took David Cronenberg’s 1986 movie “The Fly” literally and started splicing human and fly DNA. People actually enjoyed the greater sexual potency and shorter life spans, and now almost everyone was some kind of fly-human hybrid. I fully expected Joe Rogan to occupy this realm of literal shit, and I wasn’t wrong. I recognized his voice first: “I like my fly-women to have at least twelve compound eyes. And I like ’em neurotic. Crazy thorax is the best thorax, am I right?” I flew out as quickly as I could, although it took me quite a long time to find the door.
I went to thousands of other universes before giving up my quest to locate a Joe Rogan-free cosmos. Unless you’ve heard of something? No? O.K. Then I suppose I’m stuck here. I may never achieve true Rogan-less peace, but at least now I know where to buy virility-enhancing hemp necklaces. ♦
