Fitzdog Radio: Eddie Brill

Eddie Brill: My comedy has really changed in a way… I’m really talking about stuff that I want to talk about. You know, I was very close to a lot of really great comics who are no longer with us. And I will name drop to help the story: Bill Hicks, George Carlin… people who gave me a lot of advice and they always told me ‘just to be yourself and you’re so funny and smart off stage and when you go onstage you’re doing this dance and you’re funny but it’s not really you.’ So in the last three years or so I’ve really just told it like it is and people are really responding in an incredible way. Even my peers are like, ‘Eddie, this is really what you should be doing.’

Greg Fitzsimmons: I’ve seen the change. Because you know what it is? You’re a guy who is… as a laughs-per-minute guy, you’re probably up there with the best of ‘em. Constant. And then to go into more of a free-form, ‘Here’s what I believe, here’s what I feel passion about…’ You’re not getting laughs-per-minute, but you realize it doesn’t matter. Because when you hit one, it’s like…

EB: BOOM!

Fitzdog Radio: Eddie Brill / aprox. 12:30

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart

Oprah Winfrey: Is it harder to perform when the audience is drunk?

Jon Stewart: Easier. Inhibitions are gone. These days when people come to see me, it's more of a theater experience. They've paid their money, they're sitting down....

OW: And their expectations are higher.

JS: Yes, but their willingness to believe I'm funny is also greater. It's like, "I've paid $60 to see this man, so clearly, he must be good. Otherwise, why would I have paid such ridiculous money?"

Comedy is the only form of entertainment where the audience doesn't know what to expect. In an evening, you might get ten comics doing ten different things. That's not what happens when you go to hear music. There isn't a classical performance followed by a hoedown followed by rap.

OW: Comedy is a ride.

JS: Some people respond to wordplay, others to props. Everybody thinks they're funny or knows somebody who's funny, so people don't view comedy as a talent. They view it as a cry for help.

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart / From the June 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 251: Matt Graham

Matt Graham: …and those guys really found their true voice. And I don’t think I ever really did that because of my commitment to the joke telling school or whatever. The fact (is) that I sewed myself in, into that conceptual joke school. You know, based on Steven Wright’s influence. And I liked that stuff…

Marc Maron: It’s almost like math, in a way.

MG: In a way. And I love it, you know, like I mean the things I do are math. But anybody who knows me knows how hyper-verbal and kinetic and wired I am. So I was always kind of at cross-purposes with myself.

----------

MG: But I couldn’t bomb and not comment on it. You know, if I bomb then I digressed and whatever. So that’s one thing. I never really found my true voice. And that was through… and that’s the other thing I point to which is just laziness and alcoholism. You know what I mean? Two things which are not going to… if you’re already lazy, and I was before I started drinking heavily every day, then you’re not going to have a work ethic. And you still need, you know, I know some of these other people that they had drive and a work ethic, you know?

MM: I think your true voice might have been that moment of digression. You know when your anger was focused it was fuckin’ frightening. Your precision at gutting somebody, almost instantaneously, was tremendous.

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 251: Matt Graham / aprox 19:00

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: From 'Seinfeld' To 'Veep'

Dave Davies: Elaine Benes (Seinfeld) and Christine from New Adventures (of Old Christine) are both working women and really kind of insecure. Is there comedy in the insecurity?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Absolutely. There’s no comedy in security. And I don’t think there’s any comedy in things working out well. Conflict is where what’s interesting. And I love playing that undercurrent of a lack of confidence. I think I can tap into it very easily. And um, but yeah, insecurity is great fun.

DD: I have to ask, are you really insecure as an actress? Most people will never have a hit like Seinfeld.

JLD: Um, yes, there is, I do have, I am insecure. Of course I am. Who isn’t? Who isn’t insecure? Can I just say that? Who isn’t? And also, in showbiz particularly, you know, you sort of… it’s kind of an unforgiving business, um, in case you hadn’t noticed. So it’s like whatever your last job is, is sort of like ‘are you in, are you out’… it’s very fickle and it can be very nasty and you know, so that plays into the security thing. For sure, you know? I fight it. I try not to give it any credence or anything like that but you know, easy come easy go.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: From 'Seinfeld' To 'Veep' / NPR Fresh Air Weekend / Interview by Dave Davies / May 5, 2012

Fitzdog Radio: Russell Peters

Russell Peters: I always tell (Bill) Burr, I go, “Listen Burr, I don’t ever want to go on after you.” He goes, “Fuck you, you made me go on after you in Toronto.” I go, “It doesn’t matter, you’re Bill Burr.” That’s the bottome line. There’s three guys: There’s Bill Burr, There’s Louis C.K., and Patrice. You don’t want to go on after them.

Greg Fitzsimmons: I know. Well, I’d put (Dave) Attell up there.

RP: Oh fuck yeah, Attell. Anytime I don’t want to go on after Dave.

GF: But we were talking about that before. You do it in New York long enough; It makes you such a stronger comic because it forces you, before you go on to go, “Who am I?” Don’t be that guy, don’t go on that energy. You gotta give 30 seconds to the crowd to settle. Show ‘em that you fuckin’ mean business. You don’t have to talk a lot. You stare ‘em down. And then you begin.

RP: That’s what Patrice and Keith Robinson taught me in ’96.

GF: Really?

RP: At that point I’d been doing stand-up for 7 years and they were like, “You need to go on stage…” You know Keith… you know how Keith is, “You need to go on stage and stop that fuckin’ horseshit. No nigga, you go on stage and you take that shit. You take that shit, nigga! You’re gonna get kicked in the fuckin’ throat up there and you’re going to like it.”

GF: (laughing) Yeah, it strips you down.

Fitzdog Radio: Russell Peters / aprox 37:00

The A.V. Club Interview: Conan O'Brien

Nathan Rabin: Was writing for The Simpsons like being back at the Harvard Lampoon?

Conan O'Brien: Not really, because it's very different. A job is a job. There's a reason it's called a job. So many people come up to me and say "It must be a dream to work at The Simpsons." Well, it was a great job. That room was one of the funniest rooms I've ever been in. It's terrific in a lot of ways. But you're still pulling an oar to make something move forward, and that's a long day. There were no vacations at The Simpsons that I can recall. You're in a poorly ventilated room with horrific furniture, worse than any furniture that had been in my dorm room. In my dorm room, we had, like everyone else, found furniture. Like, "Look at this thing on the sidewalk! It looks pretty good!" When you're there, it's really fun, but when it's 10 o' clock at night and you just want to go home, but you can't until you figure out what Marge says after Homer shoves the plutonium rod through his ear, and you've got to come up with that next line: "Oh, Homey!" It gets kind of grim. 

The A.V. Club Interview: Conan O'Brien / By Nathan Rabin / August 30, 2006

Q+A: Steven Wright's History of Humor

Steve Ciccarelli: How long does it take to refine a joke after it comes to your head?

Steven Wright: When the idea comes, the wording comes within, like, five seconds later. My mind just says, okay, this is how it will be said, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang — like that.

SC: So you basically have a comedy assembly line in your head.

SW: There's really only one way, for me, to say it. So I guess I figured that out pretty quickly. There's not, Well, I could say it like this, or I could say it like that. There is none of that.

SC: Has it always been that way? Has your process changed?

SW: I'm not trying to write jokes. I've been doing it for so long that that part of my brain is, like, exercised to know that things could be jokes, even though I'm not doing it consciously. You know what I mean?

SC: Like muscle memory.

SW: It's like I walk into a Sears or something, and this thing is on display, and my brain will go, Wait a minute — look at this. That could be a joke. But I didn't go into Sears. I can't believe I'm talking about Sears. I have nothing against Sears.

SC: Steven Wright has no opinion on Sears.

SW: No, nothing against. I don't go into Sears thinking there might be a joke in Sears. But if I'm in there — you know, you just notice something.

SC: So you're filtering out.

SW: I'm a filter, but in a very laidback, casual way. I don't get up, get dressed, go out, and think, Okay, I gotta find eight jokes.

Q+A: Steven Wright's History of Humor / By Steve Ciccarelli / Esquire / April 30, 2012

Emo Takes Ownership of Long comedy Career

Because these sort of jokes (one-liners) are so simple, they're easy to plagiarize on the Internet.

(Steven) Wright has experienced that with a number of his jokes, which go uncredited. But (Emo) Phillips says its rarely other comedians stealing jokes, it's usually laypeople.

"There's a tremendous code of honour amongst standup comedians, which was another thing that drew me in to the profession," he says. "For instance, the Yuk Yuk's chain is run by Mark Breslin, who has a lot of integrity and bans comedians who knowingly steal material. There's a lot of honour and pride amongst comedians. We're like samurais."

Still, there are constant allegations on the Internet about one comedian stealing another's material.

Which brings up the question, does anyone really own a joke? Or is it public domain once it's been uttered?

Phillips himself had one particular joke (reprinted below) voted the best religious joke of all time on Anglican Church website Shipoffools.com — but he wasn't credited for writing it.

"It's nonsense to say that no one has ownership of a joke, of course you have ownership of a joke," Phillips says.

"I mean, you have ownership of a painting or a symphony or a novel, don't you? The problem is that no one comes up to someone in a bar going, 'Hey, you wanna hear a novel? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .' "

Emo Takes Ownership of Long comedy Career / By Nick Lewis /Published in The Calgary Herald on Sept. 14, 2006

Interview — Judd Apatow

Sean Lynch: Was there ever a time when you felt this story (Funny People) would be stronger as a TV series?

Judd Apatow: I don't like working in TV because they can cancel you at any moment [Laughs].

So when they tell you to do something dumb like : "Hey, why don't you add a hot girl neighbour" and you're like "I don't want to"... then they're like "Then we will cancel you".

So you always have a gun to your head.

With a movie at least, you can be like "Hey, do you like this movie? Want to make it?" and they are like "Yeah".

And it's as simple as that.

Interview - Judd Apatow / By Sean Lynch

Drew Carey on Johnny Carson's Impact on Stand-Up Comedy

Joel Keller: Do you see any show having that same impact now (as The Tonight Show)?

Drew Carey: No. None. None. Can't name one. I mean, there are shows that are good to be on, but now you have to be on multiple shows. But right now, there's guys on YouTube making stupid videos that are, they're fun, but they're not anything near what you would call professional entertainment. Just guys yapping and being snarky, and they're making millions of dollars a year from GoogleSense ads and stuff like that. I mean, the whole world's upside down. So there's like no place where, if you're a comic…

I'll tell you what can happen if you're a comic. You can be somebody like Kevin Hart, who does a Comedy Central special, and it's so good it just blows you up. Or Louis CK, you know, and do an HBO special or a Comedy Central special and it's so fuckin' funny that everybody is like "Wow, that guy's the greatest." That's what can happen for ya. But your special better be good, because there's a lot of guys that do Comedy Central and HBO specials. Comedy Central specials especially; they'll do a half hour and they'll be OK, you know, they're funny, but they're no Louis CK, they're no Kevin Hart, they're no Chris Rock. And that's your competition. But if you think you're as funny as that, and you can do a special that's that funny, and people are like, "Oh my god you gotta see this special," and they're trying to post illegal clips on YouTube or something, if you're that, that can blow you up, but there's nothing else. That's the only way.

Drew Carey on Johnny Carson's Impact on Stand-Up Comedy / by Joel Keller / May 14th, 2012

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins

Paul F. Tompkins: The first moment that I set foot on the stage, ah, even when we were a team. That first time I set foot on a comedy stage I knew absolutely… this is it. I mean if I had any doubt before. It was like, “Oh no, definitely, this is the rest of my life.”

-------

PFT: There’s so much nerves, its overwhelming. And there’s the tiny bit of self-delusion that you need in order to do it in the first place. Because, I can’t imagine how, um, mildly amusing we were, you know? But in my mind it was, “Oh that went great.” And you need to feel like ‘this went well’, so you keep on doing it, you know? And its also I think that there’s a lot of fear and anxiety that goes into it so any sort of positive response I’m sure is magnified 1000 times. You’re like ‘Wow that was…’

Aisha Tyler: And you have nothing to compare it to so…

PFT: Yeah, you have nothing to compare it to. Absolutely.

AT: I know my first set would have been just like, unacceptable. Let’s just poop that out and send it down the toilet. But at the time, “WOW!”

PFT: I like to think that, uh, that somebody seeing it would have the same reaction that you would have seeing a new comic that is not there yet but obviously there’s something, you know? You know what I mean when you sense somebody like, that was not, they have a long way to go but clearly there’s something in them… You know when they have, they’ll have a couple of jokes that are phrased in a certain way where you realize that this person is meant to do this.

AT: And they’re going to get there even if they’re kind of a hot mess now.

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins / 8/30/11

Dean & Me (A Love Story)

The people were laughing. Hard. Christ, what a sweet sound! More intoxicating than any booze. "Someone told me you had your nose fixed," I said in my 9-year-old voice.

"Yeah," Dean (Martin) said, pointing to his cheek. "It used to be here."

This got a roar of laughter. And I blinked. Something had happened in that instant, something only I had seen, and it was giving me goose bumps. Dean's ad lib had not just been fast but instantaneous. I'd already been in the business long enough to know how incredibly rare that was. Over the next sixty years, I would come to understand it better and better. The vast majority of comedians with good rhythm use beats—small hesitations, often with some comic business or other—to set up their jokes. Dean didn't use beats.

I was in the presence of magic.

I can't tell you what this looks like to somebody whose life is predicated on rhythm. Once we became a team, after we'd been together four or five years, there would be shows where I'd look at Dean and go, "Holy fuck." It was like being in a lab, watching this magnificent experiment come to life.

— Jerry Lewis

Dean & Me (A Love Story) / by Jerry Lewis / Copyright 2005 / page 42

CNN LARRY KING LIVE / Interview With Roseanne Barr

Larry King: Were you a frantic person to work for?

Roseanne Barr: Yes, I was frantic. I was always panicked and always rushing, you know, like thinking everything's going to go away really fast, so I have to do it right now and immediately and, you know, plus I'm a perfectionist or was and I was always talking bad to myself and, you know, all those things that happen.

LK: You mean you lose being a perfectionist?

RB: Yes.

LK: No kidding?

RB: You just eat yourself alive is what you do.

CNN LARRY KING LIVE / Interview With Roseanne Barr / Aired March 2, 2006 - 21:00 ET

Comedy Is Not Pretty. And Neither Is Gallagher’s Act

Ed Condran: You’ve received considerable grief from critics for using props.

Gallagher: In the early days, Jay Leno told me that props are the enemy of wit. Now Jay uses props on his show all the time. Dave (Letterman) has smashed things on his show and has worn a Teflon suit. (Editor’s note: Actually, Letterman occasionally wears a Velcro suit.) All that has that Gallagher flair, but I’m not on their shows. It’s amazing. Dave and I used to work the same club in the (San Fernando) Valley all the time.

EC: Why won’t Jay Leno or David Letterman book you for their shows, considering you started out together?

G: I don’t know. Johnny (Carson) hated me, and I was on his “Tonight Show.”

Comedy Is Not Pretty. And Neither Is Gallagher’s Act / By Ed Condran / Original article from The Oregonian / 2005?

Interview With Jake Johannsen

Jonas Blank: Okay. I've got a personal question. I went out with this girl who was a stand-up comedian a couple of times, and she wasn't very funny when I talked to her. So I'm curious if you consider yourself to be funny all the time, or if you like, "save it up."

Jake Johannsen: I think that's the thing that people have a perception that comics are funny all the time. I mean, if I was trying to be goofy and silly I would be funnier right now, but it would be annoying. In my show, I'm talking to the audience for 50 minutes to an hour. If you did that in real life, and you just met some people and you didn't let anyone else talk for an hour, you'd be kind of an asshole....

JB: Do you ever see yourself abandoning standup entirely and just doing film?

JJ: I don't think I would ever want to quit doing standup. It's such a good job in that you get to write it and you get to perform it and direct it. You can do whatever you want and you have the immediate feedback of the audience. It's hard to beat a job where you get to go on-stage and complain for an hour and have it validated by people laughing at you and your point of view and how stupid everybody else in all the stories is. So you complain for an hour, and then everybody gives you a round of applause and wants to buy you a drink. I mean, that to me is a good job.... It's the opposite of what usually happens when you complain for an hour.

Interview With Jake Johannsen / By Jonas Blank / The Chronicle / January 26, 2001

The Bearded, Hungry, Hilarious, Storytelling Genius that is Kyle Kinane

Serial Optimist: How did you get your start in comedy?

Kyle Kinane: It was the next enticing dead-end after I realized I was bad at music. I needed to have an outlet. I didn’t think it was going to be a career. Just needed something with my free time. Some people, it’s their jobs, or their relationships. At least comedy made me feel productive–sure, I’m sitting at a bar with my friends every night, but there’s an open mic in the other room, so I’m there as a responsibility to my craft. It’s like finding your retirement hobby when you’re 22. “Oh, this is why I get up every day.” I totally understand the model train enthusiasts. I get it.

The Bearded, Hungry, Hilarious, Storytelling Genius that is Kyle Kinane / Author: Zhila Shariat Published: Apr 24th, 2012 / www.serialoptimist.com

The GQ&A: Patton Oswalt

GQ: It must be harder though to develop new material when you're not able to perform as often.

Patton Oswalt: No, because if I'm just doing sets in and around LA I'm doing little 5-7 minutes at free showcases and that's when I'm working stuff out. I'm talking about going out to the actual paid gigs at theaters. I can't do that 'till I have the new hour. But up until the new hour, I do little sets everywhere.

GQ: Is it at all nostalgic to do those smaller comedy club sets?

PO: It's what I've always done so there really isn't any sense of nostalgia to it. It's what I've always done as a standup. It's like asking a writer like, "Wow is it weird to go back and write 5 pages a day?" It's like "No, I've done that since the beginning."

GQ: Do you differentiate between your job as Patton Oswalt the standup comedian and Patton Oswalt the actor?

PO: It's absolutely separate. It's like, standup is its own thing; acting is its own thing. If I took a job as a carpenter, I would start from zero and learn carpentry. I mean, each is its own thing. But I think a lot of comedians and actors mess themselves up when they go "Well, I've mastered comedy. How hard can acting be?" and vice-versa. I see each thing like its own thing. They are really completely separate disciplines.

The GQ&A: Patton Oswalt / BY DAN HYMAN / December 14, 2011

Jerry Lewis interview by Dick Cavett

Dick Cavett: When you have all of that great success like that it has to bring out some bad sides in a person and one of them is supposed to be that you’ll just snap your fingers and watch people jump for the fun of it… Did you ever catch yourself doing that? Just to remind yourself that you’re powerful?

Jerry Lewis: No, I don’t think that’s true.

DC: They say everybody does that when they get great success at an early age.

JL: I think you’ll find, not unlike Joe Mankiewicz, you’ll find that the dialogue of that nature… that you hear about people who are maligned unfairly and unjustifiably… It usually comes from incompetence. And it usually comes from people who think they’ve been told to jump, when they were in fact not even invited in the room.

You’ll never hear it from heavyweights. You’ll never hear negative things from important people. You’ll only hear productive things and constructive things. There isn’t anybody I can rap or will I rap, at any time, about anything. I may disagree, I may have another opinion, but I respect the fact that they have to that opinion. 

And I haven’t go the time to be negative. That makes ya old. And it makes you tired and sick.

Jerry Lewis interview by Dick Cavett / Date: ?

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart

Oprah Winfrey: In 1993 you were a finalist to replace Letterman on NBC. Weren't you disappointed when you didn't get it?

Jon Stewart: Oh, yes. The Letterman job was big. But, you know, this is a business of rejection. I remember my first night onstage was at the Bitter End at 1 in the morning on a Monday. I was heckled almost immediately. On your first day of work at McDonald's, there's at least someone behind you who knows how to work the register. At some point, you can say, "Could you come over here, please? This guy just ordered a McFlurry, and I don't know what the hell that is." In stand-up, there's just you. You have no idea whether what you say will work. I was always funny in a back-of-the-room way. I can make my friends laugh. But the people at the Bitter End weren't my friends. They were drunk—and they thought I was going to be good.

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart / From the June 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins

Paul F. Tompkins: Fred (Armisen) was a guest on the show and he did this character, and we were at the Nokia Theater, and it was weird. And Fred was bombing and, uh, which is first of all weird to see because Fred is so funny and people know who he is, you know…

Aisha Tyler: And there’s something about familiarity that you already get like a bonus…

PFT: Yes, you get a little buffer so you can get into it. So people were not responding to this character at all and I was watching Fred from the wings and I was thinking, all of a sudden it dawned on me, I bet he thinks its hilarious how poorly he’s doing. Not that he’s trying to do some anti-comedy, he’s not trying to turn people off and he’s not looking for this response but I bet Fred is the kind of guy that finds this kind of funny. And that was a big turning point for me where I realized, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time and that’s kind of the place you should be. You try your best, you do the best you can to try and turn it around, but if its not going well, it is kind of funny. When its not life or death anymore, “Oh my career is over because I had a bad set.”

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins / 8/30/11

Charlie Rose: An hour with actor Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey: ...this is the thing, its like, God, you better own it. You know? Whatever it is, you better own it.

Charlie Rose: I know, I know. I understand that.

Jim Carrey: And uh, I talked, early on with my father, who was a jazz musician. He had an orchestra up in Canada and there was a point where I was hanging out with Sam Kinison and then we were experimenting with all kinds of different craziness. And uh, and I saw, I saw people going up on stage stoned. I saw, um, incredible things being expressed and I in fact did it myself.

You know I went up on stage that way. And I remember going up one night on stage that way and having, you know, Kinison and all the rest of the gang, all the comics at the back of the club trying to heckle me. And I was unstoppable. I mean, I couldn’t be penetrated. My defenses were just right on. Man, I was loaded. And it was an amazing thing. But when I walked off the stage and they came up and said, “Man, how did that happen, what did you… what was happening there?”

You know, and I said, “It’s not me. I’m high. I can’t own this.” 

You can’t own it. You can’t own it. You know. So what’s the use of having it? I mean that’s the worst thing in the world to get to a certain point in your life where you receive accolades and things like that and go, and go, secretly to yourself, “I wonder if I could’ve done it if I was, you know…” 

That’s not a... I choose early on to never go that route.

Charlie Rose: An hour with actor Jim Carrey / aprox. 24:10

The Bearded, Hungry, Hilarious, Storytelling Genius that is Kyle Kinane

Serial Optimist: When you get hecklers, what is your reaction? Do you ignore them, bust their balls, have fun with it, or just embarrass the shit out of them?

Kyle Kinane: I hate them. I don’t travel all over the place to come babysit drunks. If they’re malicious, I go after them. I have no qualms asking people to leave or having them kicked out. If they’re drunk and affable, I try to have some fun but let them know that they should shut up after a minute. But if they’re dicks, I want them gone. If I’m in the middle of a longer story, and I get interrupted, it messes with the whole flow. I don’t care what Bill Burr says about how comedy should be this tough guy boxing match between a performer and an audience. I don’t believe that at all. Bill Burr is great at it, don’t get me wrong, as are a lot of guys. But it’s not my style.

The Bearded, Hungry, Hilarious, Storytelling Genius that is Kyle Kinane / Author: Zhila Shariat Published: Apr 24th, 2012 / www.serialoptimist.com

The GQ&A: Patton Oswalt

GQ: This is a different brand of comedy than people may be accustomed to seeing you play. It comes from a much darker place.

Patton Oswalt: I didn't try to be comedic. I tried to play [this role] very, very straight and very sorta serious. If you play comedic scenes like they're really serious, then it's so much more funny than if you're going for a laugh. The perfect example of that is the movie Repo Man—that is like a master class in how to deliver comedic lines perfectly, in that everyone says everything as if it's the most deadly serious thing in the world and it becomes so funny when you watch it.

The GQ&A: Patton Oswalt / BY DAN HYMAN / December 14, 2011

Jerry Lewis interview by Dick Cavett

Dick Cavett: How long did it take you to learn to trust your instincts? You know what I mean? You know, when you started making films, the thing to do is take everybody’s advice, supposedly, when you’re new… and it usually turns out that the performer’s instinct is right…

Jerry Lewis: It is true. Your instinct, you have to follow it. Because its easy as hell to buy a ticket to get into the arena, but that one guy who is going, “Ah-Hi”… its whole different story and opinions are important. You should listen to them. Sounding boards are important. But if you don’t follow your instinct and you follow the words of those on the perimeter, you’ll wind up being what they are and you’ll be what they think. And you’re not your own man. Nothing is worth that.

Jerry Lewis Interview by Dick Cavett / Date: ?

A.V. Club Twin Cities INTERVIEW: Maria Bamford

AVC: Well, why do you think you’re drawn to speaking in these different voices?

MB: I think it’s because my own voice doesn’t command a lot of attention. In fact, I’ve been told that it’s irritating. So if I become something else—well, this is the sad answer, by the way. The uplifting answer is that it’s fun.

I did it when I was a kid. I remember mimicking different commercials and stuff. I guess my aunt, my dad’s sister, who I never really knew—she does voices, sort of just part of who she is. She’ll do different characters. She was a children’s librarian, now retired. I think it was just something that felt good or fun. [Low, husky voice] You just do it because it’s fun. [New, lower voice] It’s fun. I’d love to get better at it. I’d love to have the ability to learn more accents—sit down with a YouTube clip, or something like that.

AVC: Do you use voices with friends?

MB: I don’t think I do, but then sometimes people will say something about it. People will say, “That’s weird. You just went into that whole other thing [character].” So I must. I must do it. To some people it’s disconcerting, and to others, [charming voice] it’s charming! [Laughs.] Those are the people I choose to spend time with.

I am extremely lucky that my family is so open about being, what some might say “mocked,” but what I would call, “given eternal life through homage.” But yeah, I’ve had impersonations done of me, so I realize you have to have a loving detachment, and realize that if someone’s doing an impersonation of you, it means they’ve thought about you long enough to want to do one. So that’s a sort of love.

A.V. Club Twin Cities INTERVIEW: Maria Bamford / By Jason Zabel May 12, 2011

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins

Aisha Tyler: We are not, as a culture, good at being present. We are not good as a culture in being satisfied. If you think about it, the way we measure success in this country is by growth. Like, its never good enough, we gotta grow more, we gotta have more stuff…

Paul F. Tompkins: In comparison, you’re saying, “Here’s what this guy has, I don’t have that so I must not be doing well. This is the baseline.” I am the baseline. If anybody is above me, they’re doing well and I’m not doing well.

AT: And I, ah, yeah, I remember I used to really compare myself with guys who started earlier than me. Like, if I had only started when I was 18, or if I had only started when I was 15 I would be ‘here’ now and…

PFT: You don’t work at a bank. That’s not how it works…

AT: It really is not a meritocracy, this business…

PFT: No…

AT: There is no…

PFT: And time has nothing to do with it. It not like 5 years in and you get a promotion…

AT: Exactly, and you only move upward and you don’t move downward… You can go up and plummet to the bottom and nothing that you’ve done before means anything…

PFT: Several times…

AT: Yes, repeatedly. Like in any other business you could say, “Well here are my previous jobs so I’m not going to take a position any lower than this one, because this is what I’m qualified to do.” In this business they’d be like, “We don’t give a shit what you did before, you know, now you get to be the third lead in Booty Call"... which I might take under certain circumstances.

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #7: Paul F. Tompkins / 8/30/11

Charlie Rose: An hour with actor Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey: I did 15 years in the comedy clubs before I really started acting… which is a PHD of some kind.

Charlie Rose: Well it’s a PHD of being able to relate to an audience.

JC: Yeah, yeah… handling drunks.

CR: You told me a story that was amazing, at the comedy club, near the tailend. We were talking about all the people had been a part of that sort of career that you saw in stand up when you were doing stand up and impressions and all of that. Richard Pryor backstage and saying to you…

JC: “I’m not sure that I’m funny right now. You know, I don’t really feel funny.” And you know, there was a period where he went up on stage and he would say that to the audience as well. And the audience would try to support him. They would say, “No, you are, you are! We know you are!” And it was a tough time he went through. You know, when he was getting sober. And he was trying to figure out what he was about. And I think he had lost a lot of… this is the thing, its like, God, you better own it. You know? Whatever it is, you better own it.

CR: I know, I know. I understand that.

Charlie Rose: An hour with actor Jim Carrey / aprox. 24:10

Paul F. Tompkins on why he’s more storyteller than comedian these days

The A.V. Club: Since we first spoke in 2007, your material has grown increasingly personal, and more story-oriented and less joke-joke-joke, like Impersonal. The conceit of the special, a run through the jobs you’ve had, makes it one-man-show-esque. Do you feel like this special is the apotheosis of the slow change of your material?

Paul F. Tompkins: Yeah, the last couple of hours that I’ve done, and the current one I’m working on, have been story-oriented like that, and it’s just really creatively satisfying for me to just go at a different pace and at a different length than just the traditional stand-up that I started out doing. It was kind of a turning point to letting myself be able to do that because there’s a lot of “rules” to how you’re supposed to do it, and you’ve got a lot of unsolicited advice, and then there’s a lot of people that will rail against other types of comedy that they don’t think is true stand-up comedy. Then after a while I just sort of felt like, “Well, maybe what I’m doing is not stand-up comedy anymore. It’s not really a play, but maybe it’s somewhere in between, and it’s just storytelling.” I just think of it now as storytelling.


Paul F. Tompkins on why he’s more storyteller than comedian these days / by Kyle Ryan / April 20, 2012

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart

Oprah Winfrey: I've heard a lot of comedians say their humor is born of pain. Do you believe that?

Jon Stewart: If you looked at anybody's life, you could find the pain in it and say that what they do is born of that pain. Everybody's got their shit. I come from a straight-up middle-class existence. It was the seventies—"I'm OK, you're OK"—and we got hit with all of that.

OW: How did that affect you?

JS: Man, I wish I knew. I'm sure I'll find out ten years from now. Someone will spill the gravy, and I'll flip out and start yelling. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this: I don't think what I went through is any more remarkable than what anybody else goes through. My way of handling it was with humor.

OW: I read that you were teased as a child.

JS: Who wasn't?

Oprah Talks to Jon Stewart / From the June 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Just for Laughs exclusive — Bill Burr interview

Class Act Comedy: Last time you were on Greg's podcast you had 1 of the funniest lines I've ever heard on a podcast. You were describing how all "alternative" rooms are the same by saying, "You go in there, and they all have their f***ing Buddy Holly glasses..." And I think it perfectly described most of the "alternative" rooms and open mics here.

Bill Burr: Those "alternative" rooms, I'm not saying they're all bad, but there is that error, of that these crowds are really intelligent and they're smarter than the crowds in comedy clubs. It's just something about it, like, "You are performing in front of a crowd like you." So I don't see where the challenge is. As much as those guys make fun of like the Blue Collar Tour, it's like 4 southern guys performing in front of a bunch of southerners, you're doing the same thing. You go into those rooms and people will have bits about like reading comic books or Sci-Fi movies that fing destroy. And you're just sitting there like, "Okay, that was funny, but it wasn't that f***ing funny, why is it killing that hard?" Then it's like, "Oh, he's basically doing an I love Texas bit in Texas." 

I don't know, this is weird. It probably sounds like I'm disrespecting their scene. I'm not. I'm not, because I've seen absolutely brilliant stuff, but I've always maintained that there's no difference, when you really look at both, between a comedy club and an "alternative" room. You look at 10 people, 3 of them are awesome, another like 6 or 7 are trying to get to the level of the 2 best people on the show. And then there's that 1 or 2 when you're like, "Who the f**k ever told you you were funny? Why are you onstage?" 

But one thing I don't like about those "alternative" rooms is I don't like how it's too safe an environment. That's why I don't like them. It's like declawed comedy. Like you're going to go in there, everybody is going to be sober, everybody is going to be paying attention... Which is a great thing, but if that's all you perform to... I don't know, you start packing on the pounds. You get a little lazy I think.

Just for Laughs exclusive — Bill Burr interview / by Scott King / www.chicagonow.com / June 15, 2011