Fitzdog Radio: Merrill Markoe

Greg Fitzsimmons: I’ve never done the same set because I have ADD and kind of jump around and do new stuff and crowd work and whatever, you know, mix up my material. So this was 1 hour, same jokes, same order, and I was crushing like I normally don’t  and I was like maybe I’m supposed to be doing it that way?

Merrill Markoe: Yeah!

GF: But its not as much fun.

MM: Yeah, no it isn’t as much fun… It’s a one man show.

GF: Yeah, exactly.

MM: That’s the reason I’ve never done a one woman show. I’ve thought about it before, people have suggested it to me, and I’ve just thought, but what happens the thirtieth time you’ve done it just exactly in that order. How do you not want to pull your hair out?

GF: Well some guys do this whole discipline thing, like Chris Rock does it and Louis CK and Carlin did it, where you take a year and you add jokes in and you refine them and at the end of the year you do the special and you just throw it away. Start from scratch. That’s just not the way my mind works, you know. For me its about finding the moment in the club at that time and pulling jokes that work that I’ve written and then, you know, if I’ve got something new that’s what I’m focusing on. You know I’ve got a 5 minute chunk on immigration and I’m adding jokes in and taking them out and then they become this chunk where I’ve got 7, 8, 10 chunks in a one hour show, in any order, but I’m pulling from 20 chunks. And so I find that’s just my style and, ah, its not conducive to what makes comedians really big.

You know you look at guys like Jim Gaffigan and Birbiglia that are selling out theaters and its that structure thing. That 1 hour, put it out, start again… You know when you put the hour out you go do Letterman and Conan… you do little chunks of the hour to promote it. It’s a whole science.

Fitzdog Radio: Merrill Markoe / aprox 00:47:35