Comedian/actor/host Joe Rogan performs at The Wilbur Theater on Friday, September 12th. If you can't make his show in Boston, he plays two shows in Chicopee on Saturday.

Most people know Rogan from his TV work: his part as Joe Garelli on "NewsRadio" with Phil Hartman, hosting "Fear Factor", "The Man Show", and commentating on Ultimate Fighting Champoinships (Rogan himself was the Massachusetts full contact Tae Kwon Do champion for four consecutive years). Rogan was raised in Revere, MA so this show at the Wilbur is a bit of a homecoming for him. An active blogger, Rogan just reminisced about his beginnings in comedy on the 20th anniversary of his stepping onstage in Boston to become a standup comedian.

In 2007, Joe released the live comedy CD, Shiny Happy Jihad, on Comedy Central Records, premiered his first hour comedy special, “Joe Rogan Live,” on Showtime and released “Joe Rogan: Live” on DVD.

Last week Bostonist had a chance to talk to Rogan about his upcoming trip to Massachusetts.

Bostonist: So you got your start in Boston back in the last 1980s?

Joe Rogan: Those were some great and inspiring times, Boston had such a tight scene with so much talent every night. It wasn't just about The Comedy Connection and Comedy Studio, there were a lot of places to perform and a lot of comedians. You could actually make a living as a comedian just playing gigs in Boston back in those days. Now that's pretty much impossible anywhere, you have to go on the road and since I love performing standup, it's what I truly love to do, I hit the road.

Learn about Joe Rogan's position on plagiarism and the lunar landing after the jump!

Bostonist: You're based in LA now, am I correct, what's it like doing comedy there?

Joe Rogan: I'd say it would be pretty much impossible to get your start doing comedy in Los Angeles, there is so much competition for so few slots. It's also humiliating too for the comedians, go drive by the Comedy Store and you'll see the comics standing outside the place starting in the morning just to get on the list for a 3 to 5 minute slot later that night. I mean, have a signup sheet or something--don't make people literally stand all day.

Bostonist: On and offstage you're an advocate for anti-plagiarization of comedic bits. On YouTube there are videos of you castigating performers for stealing other people's material, really sticking your neck out there on something that's important to you.

Joe Rogan: Well, think about it, if musicians' songs are protected, if you have to at least say that "I'm covering this song by [blank]", then there's an acknowledgment that you are making that this is someone else's material. There are these guys on TV and in comedy who have built entire careers based on ripping other people off. There was that guy from the New York Times, Jayson Blair, who was found out to have plagiarized material and it turned the entire newspaper industry upside down but somehow it's OK to rip off another artist if they're a comedian.

Bostonist: There's another topic that you like to push the status quo on and that's whether or not the Apollo moon landings happened. A couple weeks ago, they repeated the Penn & Teller "Bullsh*t!" show that talked about the moon landings and you've had some debates directly with them about it. As a kid who walked around with an astronaut lunchbox back in the mid-70s, I've always thought it was weird that we haven't been back on the moon in almost 40 years.

Joe Rogan: I just think it's not smart to just accept things if you have this kind of doubt about them. It's not that we haven't been back to the moon, it's that we haven't been more than 400 miles from the earth's surface since the last Apollo mission and yet supposedly we traveled a quarter of a million miles out and back. There's too many inconsistencies with the evidence and data from Apollo for me to not question it. What's funny is that I've been on the radio and debated an expert [Dr. Phil Plait] and the guy just couldn't answer my questions about the photography, the press conferences, and other things that just seemed inconsistent.

[Rogan sent Bostonist several links of videos that present counter evidence to the Apollo landings: astronauts on wires, Neil Armstrong's cryptic speech on the 25th anniversary of NASA's mission, the weird post flight press conference, problems with the photos]

Bostonist: That's pretty compelling stuff there and it should at least make people think about what might or might not have happened. What else is going on with you right now?

Joe Rogan: I'm very much enjoying these live shows and I'm constantly on the road, always working on new material. I hope to have a new CD out soon. People can keep up with me at my website or MySpace.

Pic of Joe Rogan off of JoeRogan.net