Stand-Up Adam Cayton-Holland on Hitting the Comedy Jackpot

Joel Warner & Peter McGraw: Describe your comedy-creation process, as well as your revision process.

Adam Cayton-Holland: I used to try and force it. Like go spend an hour a day writing. But that just led to shitty, forced jokes. When I have a funny thought or conversation with a friend, I’ll usually jot a note down in my phone — a premise, or a ridiculous situation. Then I’ll go back and hash that thought out with a cup of coffee at a cafe so as to be a complete and total cliché. Then I take it to the stage, where revisions sort of occur naturally. Editing the stuff that doesn’t work out. Tagging the stuff that does, etc.

JW&PM: Can you give an example of when one of your jokes failed badly?

ACH: I have a million examples. Most of the time a joke fails because you haven’t put in the ground work to really make it good yet. You just took a sloppy premise up there without a punchline conclusion. But most of the bombing horror stories are usually circumstance: a shitty setting where comedy should have never been happening in the first place, an audience that does not want to sit and listen to the type of performer in front of them and a scared performer hating his way through 30 minutes for a paycheck. It’s like a perfect storm of everyone not wanting to be there. Like Vietnam.

Stand-Up Adam Cayton-Holland on Hitting the Comedy Jackpot / By Joel Warner and Peter McGraw / July 25, 2012 / wired.com

Interview with Eric Myers

Chris White: One thing you are pretty unflinching about is self-deprecation. You're definitely not afraid to make yourself the punchline of a joke.

Eric Myers: I don't have a problem making fun of myself, cuz growing up my friends and I would always make fun of each other. If you ripped on your faults first, it was like taking the power out of it and other people couldn't make you look stupid – you’ve already made yourself look silly, you've already put yourself down, so now they can’t. I guess I have that mentality where if I say it now you can't say it later, and so it's kind of a defense mechanism.

CW: As someone who has seen you perform a lot over the last few years, I'd say your act has evolved. How do you think you’ve changed and improved over that time?

EM: I think over the years I have become more confident onstage, both with my performance and with my jokes. I don't know if my style has changed that much. I can't remember to be honest. I used to be a lot dirtier. I still am dirty, but I learned that some dirty words and premises are softer and more socially accepted. You can talk about a lot of things if you just use the right words and set it up so it seems non-threatening to the crowd. It is palatable for their minds. I love dick jokes but you have to make them cute as well as over the top to make them less harsh and vulgar. If you want people to come into your world they have to want to come, so you have to make yourself and your jokes soft and appealing even when you are being harsh or talking about a touchy subject. Having a silly voice helps a lot.

Interview with Eric Myers / dcstandup.com

CNN LARRY KING LIVE / Interview With Roseanne Barr

Roseanne Barr: I remember my favorite Shelley Winters story, when she says to her assistant, she screams across the stage, "Who was that guy I slept with the night the war ended?" That was just my favorite.

Larry King: Did you feel with all these great actors around, a little out of place?

RB: Yes, at first I did but I think that I learned to hold my own with them and I think that I became, you know, I became a good actor, too. I learned from — you know, you can't help it if you learn from people of that ilk. Laurie Metcalf is like the greatest actress in the world, I really think so and so do a lot of other great actor people think that of her, and so is John, so I mean you're going to learn.

LK: Yes, John Goodman is.

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

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #38: Jimmy Pardo

Jimmy Pardo: My friend Paul Gilmartin… Paul is one of my best friends in the world and he sat me down a couple of times while I was drinking and saying, “You know, I think you’re getting out of hand.” And I’m like, “Nah! I’m not!” Cause in my head I was like ‘I’m not addicted to it…”

Aisha Tyler: And its not affecting your ability to perform your job…

JP: Only twice it did. One time I had a meltdown on stage. Rockford, Illinois. Where I ended the show in a fetal position begging people to leave. And I stayed on stage for 2 hours because I wanted them to leave so that I didn’t have to walk past them.

AT: Oh! So, once the room is clear it will be safe…

JP: That’s what I thought. And I actually heard a guy come in and say, “This guy is still up there?”And then I came off stage and the manager is like, “What was that?” It was a shitty one-nighter in Rockford, Illinois. And I said, “Yeah! Where’s my check?” And he goes, “I should pay you for that?” And I go, “You’re damn right you’re paying me!” And I think he just paid me to get me the fuck out of there. Because he shouldn’t have paid me. I didn’t do anything. I just cried on stage for…. I was going through a shitty time in my life and had a horrible breakup and over-drinking and that was maybe a time where I was… it was more than just boredom. I was trying to numb myself.

Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler #38: Jimmy Pardo / 3/13/12 / aprox 1:22:00

Standup in Stilettos’ Christina Pazsitzky on Emasculating Hecklers

Joel Warner and Peter McGraw: In your opinion, what makes a good comedic performance space? What makes a bad space?

Christina Pazsitzky: The ideal space is a small room made of brick with low ceilings. The audience all faces one direction — towards you, and they’re not chomping on nachos. The sound is great, lighting is bright, but not blinding you to the point of not being able to see the crowd. I need to see the disappointment on their faces.

Things that make a shit room: The bar is in the back of the showroom so you can hear all the daiquiris being blended, ice being crushed, orders being yelled, etc. The servers talk loudly to the patrons taking orders. Patrons eat seafood or some type of cumbersome food during your show. Patrons are allowed to talk, yell, whistle, be on their cellphones during your set and nobody polices the room.

But the thing that ruins stand up the most is DRUNK AUDIENCE MEMBERS! I hate when clubs let in the drunks who have been going at it since 5 p.m. that night and it’s now 11 p.m. and they’re hammered. They don’t listen to jokes, they are disruptive and ruin any ability for me to be vulnerable up there.

Standup in Stilettos’ Christina Pazsitzky on Emasculating Hecklers / wired.com / By Joel Warner and Peter McGraw / June 14, 2012

Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction No. 64

The Paris Review: So every afternoon you would go to the Echo office—

Kurt Vonnegut: Yeah. And one time, while I was writing, I happened to sniff my armpits absentmindedly. Several people saw me do it, and thought it was funny—and ever after that I was given the name “Snarf.” In the annual for my graduating class, the class of 1940, I’m listed as “Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr.” Technically, I wasn’t really a snarf. A snarf was a person who went around sniffing girls’ bicycle saddles. I didn’t do that. “Twerp” also had a very specific meaning, which few people know now. Through careless usage, “twerp” is a pretty formless insult now.

TPR: What is a twerp in the strictest sense, in the original sense?

KV: It’s a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass.

TPR: I see.

KV: I beg your pardon; between the cheeks of his or her ass. I’m always offending feminists that way.

TPR: I don’t quite understand why someone would do that with false teeth.

KV: In order to bite the buttons off the backseats of taxicabs. That’s the only reason twerps do it. It’s all that turns them on.

Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction No. 64 / Interviewed by David Hayman, David Michaelis, George Plimpton, Richard Rhodes / The Paris Review

Bill Murray: The ESQ+A

Scott Raab: Your Second City teacher/mentor Del Close is a guy I've never read enough about. What was it that made him so influential?

Bill Murray: Well, he was a guy who had great knowledge of the craft of improvisation. And he lived life in a very rich manner, to excess sometimes. He had a whole lot of brain stuck inside of his skull. Beyond being gifted, he really engaged in life. He earned a lot. He made more of himself than he was given. Came out of Manhattan, Kansas, and ended up hanging out with the Beats. He was incredibly gracious to your talent and always tried to further it. He got people to perform beyond their expectations. He really believed that anyone could do it if they were present and showed respect. There was a whole lot of respect.

SR: Sounds like a great teacher.

BM: He taught lots and lots of people very effectively. He taught people to commit. Like: "Don't walk out there with one hand in your pocket unless there's somethin' in there you're going to bring out." You gotta commit. You've gotta go out there and improvise and you've gotta be completely unafraid to die. You've got to be able to take a chance to die. And you have to die lots. You have to die all the time. You're goin' out there with just a whisper of an idea. The fear will make you clench up. That's the fear of dying. When you start and the first few lines don't grab and people are going like, "What's this? I'm not laughing and I'm not interested," then you just put your arms out like this and open way up and that allows your stuff to go out. Otherwise it's just stuck inside you.

Bill Murray: The ESQ+A / by Scott Raab / May 23, 2012

Woody Allen Explains Why Annie Hall And Hannah And Her Sisters Were Disappointments

Eric Eisenberg: You once said that you had a drawer that you pulled out and looked at all the ideas and said, “This is a good one.” Was this one of the ideas that you had in your drawer?

Woody Allen: Yes. I have a lot of notes. Ideas come to me, in the course of a year, and I write them down and throw them into a drawer in my house. And then, I go and look at them, and many of them seem very unfunny and foolish to me, and I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I originally did it. But sometimes, there will be a little note written on a matchbook or a piece of paper that says, for example, “A man who can only sing in the shower,” and it will occur to me, at the time, that it could make a funny story. That is what happened with this. There were some ideas in this movie that did come out of the notes that I had given myself, over the year.

Woody Allen Explains Why Annie Hall And Hannah And Her Sisters Were Disappointments / by Eric Eisenberg / cinemablend.com / June 22, 2012

Comedy and Everything Else Episode 137: Jimmy Pardo

Jimmy Pardo: Well then on Sunday I was hosting a Comedy Showcase for Conan (O'Brien) at The Comedy Store. I was hosting it. And I walked out and instantly realized nobody is there to see me. And so I got dry mouth, I, I, I became timid. Like every… like I wish I could see a video of it to see me walk out with the swagger, go, “Hey everybody,” and realize ‘oh, I’m the first guy…”. And by what you already said – the MC has been undervalued. So here’s a roomful of people that don’t know, and please pardon this, that the great Jimmy Pardo is… that they’re lucky I’m hosting. And I was, “Hey, everybody… (oh, nobody is here to see me)… we got a great show.” And all of a sudden nerves hit like I’ve never experienced, like I haven’t experienced that in years. And that’s a month and half ago. The answer is yes.

Jimmy Dore: That is so funny that you say that. I had a similar experience almost a month and a half ago. I’m not kidding. I was on stage, I don’t want to say where, I don’t know what the hell happened but I got dry mouth, I was in my head, I was like, “What if they don’t laugh at this next thing?” And I literally panicked. I’ve never panicked on stage. But I didn’t panic and run, I just kind of like (breathes deeply)… I didn’t know why this was happening and so I was just like I’m going to do one more joke, I don’t care how it goes, and I’m getting off stage. And I did one more joke, and I realized I can’t get off right now, so I did one more and then I said something and I got off. And nobody said anything. I wasn’t a great performance but I got through it and nobody said anything like, “Hey, what’s your problem?” I went home and I told Stef, “I don’t know what the hell happened tonight.” And I started asking my friends if they ever got nervous, and it turns out, yeah, people still do get nervous.

Comedy and Everything Else Episode 137: Jimmy Pardo / aprox 1:28:00

(thanks Mark)

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld

Robin Milling: Tell me about when you first realized that this is happening for me and I’m on my way.

Jerry Seinfeld: I think just now. Just this week, I started thinking that this is really happening. I got a great review in TV Guide. Did you see it?

RM: No, not yet.

JS: I just got this rave review for the show in TV Guide and I thought, “Wow, this is really happening.” At first you just think of it as a lark, and then it becomes just something that you do, and then you stop thinking about it. I kinda forgot that like, just, if I get really good at this or I become really popular I’ll be like some kind of a star or something. I kinda really forgot about that. For years, literally.

It was just I worked on my jokes, I go do my shows, I never think about catching on. Its just not in my mind. I’m too busy working on my stuff, you know? Cause that’s what I really like about it. I don’t really care about the attention or the fame/notoriety. Those things don’t really excite me, to tell you the truth.

What excites me is working on jokes and figuring out, you know, how to make this funny, and how to do that so that people will like it, you know. I don’t think of it as a vehicle to get me somewhere. Like to get a movie, or get a TV series. Those things don’t really seem that exciting to me. What excites me is to get a joke to work that no-one’s ever heard before — that’s never been a joke — a laugh that no-one’s ever laughed at this subject before. That excites me.

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld / by Robin Milling / 1987

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels: Everyone knows when it matters. The brilliance of the show (SNL), and I don’t mean the on-air brilliance, I mean the brilliance of it as a form, is that everyone is necessary till the end. If that guy isn’t there to put that prop in your hand or that music cue comes in late or the writer didn’t get those changes to cards… everyone needs everyone else.

It’s a team sport. Its one of the reasons why I so connect to baseball. You play a whole season. You know, it starts in spring and its still cold, and the it ends up in… now it ends up pretty much close to winter and it gets cold again. During that time there’s a rhythm to it. You get use to the rhythm of it and you know that its incremental. And that there’ll be slumps and there will be periods where you’re not hitting. And everybody understands the off day.

When the show isn’t good, its not as if we don’t know it. It isn’t as if we just love them all. That audience just becomes quiet… you’re taking full swing at the ball, and if you miss, you know you missed. And performers will come off after a piece where there were misfires and you will see… just the look on their face. And quite often you will make eye contact. I see what they see and you don’t go, “Oh, it was way better than you thought it was.” You go, you don’t say the word ‘shake it off’, but that is what it is. Its like, you know, you’ll get ‘em the next time. And hopefully they do. 

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels / Aired: 01/30/2011

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky

Tom Segura: I kind of feel like you get, well I get like energy out of opening with new stuff. 

Christina Pazsitzky: I like to do it too. It’s risky. It’s scary. 

Joe Rogan: Christina, you’re a risk taker! 

CP: Yeah! I’m a daredevil, man! 

JR: Thrill seeker! 

TS: That’s exciting… 

JR: Yeah, you have to be, to be a comedian, right? 

CP: Oh yeah! 

JR: Don’t you? 

CP: Oh, you have to be completely willing to not have comfort financially, emotionally…. Sometimes physically. 

JR: But if it works out… 

CP: It’s awesome. 

JR: If it works out, you have such a much better way of life than doing something you don’t want to do. 

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky / aprox 2:20:00

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky

Joe Rogan: Yeah. Well I’ve definitely… we’ve all gone through that experience of recording something and then the next week you have a new tag line.

Christina Pazsitzky: Oh, it kills me. It kills me.

JR: Mitch Hedberg actually redid a bit on the second album because he didn’t have the tagline and said it on the album that he was doing that. “Here’s the new part…”

CP: Yeah, cause that’s tempting when you’ve actually recorded the bit… then maybe you should throw it out. Because you’ve recorded it. You know, why hold on to something that you can’t use again?

JR: Well, I talked to (Jim) Gaffigan about this and he and I are sort of in agreement about this. Yeah, you gotta have all new shit but you also have to do well. You can’t have a bad show and if you’re tanking it with all your new stuff it might be time to bust out some shit that really works and just pull this bitch out of the fire. You have to find… when is that time?

Like some guys, I think Louis CK pretty much just guts it out. And when he does new stuff he just does only new stuff. You know? Chris Rock used to do that too. Remember he used to come to the (Comedy) Store and he would just do only new stuff. And you know, not be concerned whatsoever about it not going well. He’s trying to make it go well, but if it doesn’t, he’s sticking to it. He’s not going to pull out some old shit out of his bag.

Tom Segura: Well, that’s the way you build.

JR: That’s one way. That’s certainly a way. Some guys like to sandwich it between other bits and you know, then slowly develop them as new chunks. 

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky / aprox 2:20:00

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky

Joe Rogan: …like Ari (Shaffir) had a real good point. Like he was saying that, you know, if you worked on a bit and you decided to work on that bit for 5 or 10 years, you know, that all that energy you could’ve used on that bit you could’ve abandoned it two years ago and then worked on a new bit for another 2 years. And then you end up completely abandoned it and started all new and all that creativity would’ve gone into something completely new and different. It’s totally true, isn’t it?

So there’s a line you have to cross. Like when is it? Is it a year for a new act? Is it 2 years?

Tom Segura: I think a year... If you start always turning over stuff after a year you actually lose something. I think a year, you have to be… if you’re like talking about just abandoning everything and doing stuff every 12 months. I mean just from experience of watching stand-up I feel it gets better in that 16 to 24 month frame. Where it gets super tight, you know?

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky / aprox 2:18:00

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky

Joe Rogan: When you have a bit, man, it’s like a samurai sword. You fuckin’ bend that blade and hammer it down and sharpen it up. And as time goes on you’ll edit some lines out and add some to it and then, somewhere along the line it reaches its perfect form. You know? And I think when you, ah… you can use that sword to cut heads off after a couple of weeks. But it might not be the same sword… the delicate instrument of destruction that you’ll have after 2 years when its your closing bit.

Is there a better feeling than coming up with a new bit and having it crush? I wonder. I wonder. Cause I have this new bit and I have… like its my little toy. Like I can’t wait to use it. And then I use it  and I’m like, (sigh), okay let’s play with our old toys. The new toy is a monster right now. Wooo!

I love the fact that, too, that as you get older and more experienced and more education, and more information in your head and better as a comedian, that every time you come up with new shit it’s like better new shit. You know, its scary to abandon everything. But once you do and then you come up with…

Joe Rogan Experience #207: Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky / aprox 2:17:00

Steve Byrne Interview

Melissa Parker: How long does it take to write a comedy routine for these specials?

Steve Byrne: Well, the first half hour special took me 8 years to write. Happy Hour took me 2 years and this one took me a year and a half, so I’m getting better at the writing (laughs). I’m trying to churn one out every 2 years now so by 2012, I’ll have my third hour.

MP: What makes a routine work?

SB: The secret in it all is that I’ll never know what really works. Night after night I’m taking a blank slate of what I think could possibly be funny and saying it to an audience. They’ll let me know if I’m correct or not which is a very odd way of going about a profession but ultimately, collectively, the audience always will be very honest with you.

The audience will either laugh or they won’t. That’s when I know if something works. It’s very troubling, it’s frustrating, but a lot of fun at the same time and I have a blast doing it.

Steve Byrne Interview: Hot Comic on the Premiere of His Comedy Central Special ‘The Byrne Identity’ / Smashing Interviews Magazine / JULY 23, 2010

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

Aisha Tyler: One thing I think is interesting about being a comic is that you are uniquely positioned to be the architect of your own salvation. Because you really can just go do comedy. You can just go be a comic. Under almost any circumstances with no help and no money. Where as for actors, they’ve just got their hands out and they’re just constantly in a begging posture… just contantly begging for something.

Paul F. Tompkins: Well, my wife is an actress, you know. It is, um, the times when she has to wait between jobs, its terrible. And its hard to watch too because I know that, at the very least, I can just go out and perform. Even if I’m not getting paid for it…

AT: You can ply your craft…

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

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld

Jerry Seinfeld: You always have to try something that you don’t know how it’s going to go. Experimentation, I think, is part of what every human being has to do to become anything. You got to try things. You never know if you can do anything before you try it. So with material, there are things that are funny about me that I don’t even know about. Audiences tell you.

You just do it and then they laugh. So it’s just trial and error — of trying all different things, making faces, moving, saying different things. You just try, try, try. In the old days you think, I think the audience will laugh at this. And now I think it starts more from what I believe — that this is funny and I make it work because I believe in it. But before, you’re kind of like following the audience around. It’s kind of like the tail is wagging the dog when you start out. And then as you go on you start to have your own opinions. You get more confidence, and you can never have too much confidence in comedy—in anything, really. As long as it doesn’t become arrogance.

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld / by Robin Milling / 1987

The A.V. Club Interview: John Leguizamo

Nathan Rabin: Looking at your filmography, you've only really carried one film, The Pest. How did that come about?

John Leguizamo: I really wanted to make a movie, so my best friend at the time, we wrote a treatment together, and I bet him $1,000 that he couldn't write the screenplay for it. Then he had it written in three days. Maybe that shows a little. And then I wrote a lot of the gags, the opening shower sequence, the tortures, a lot of stuff.

NR: Were you anxious about carrying the entire film yourself?

JL: Yeah. I wasn't really prepared for the amount of responsibility it was going to take. I have a lot more respect for lead actors now that I've been in their shoes. I was like, "Wow." You really have to be on top of everything, and you can't slack on anything. It's not like they just ask you what you want, either. You have to fight for everything. When I'm doing my one-man shows, I just say what it is, and then it is, but in movies, they don't listen to you. They can't, because you're dealing with a corporation.

NR: Can you see yourself starring in another Pest-type movie any time soon?

JL: Yeah. But I'd probably do things a little differently, like not having it be written in three days. You know, maybe it'd be more like a month. A month would be cool. I kinda fucked up.

The A.V. Club Interview: John Leguizamo / By Nathan Rabin / July 25, 2001

Interview with comedian Lisa Lampanelli

David Medsker: Did you start off like that? Before you were Queen of Mean, were you Princess of Propriety?

Lisa Lampanelli: Aw, I like when you use big words. What a turn on. I was never nice, but I was always likable. I started out like a normal comic, writing out five minutes of material about what was going on in my life. And eventually I started listening to tapes of my shows, and I was like, Wow, the funniest stuff, and the stuff I’m laughing at, is when I’m fucking with the audience. So I thought, Okay, I’m going to do more of this. About seven years ago, I guess I started committing hard to it, and saying (to myself), the more that other people aren’t going to say about these issues, the more I’m going to say. I’m not going to be that typical chick comic who talks about PMS, and dating, and-

DM: And thank God for that.

LL: Well, I had someone come up to me after a show and say, “You don’t make fun of men enough.” I said, “I’ll leave that to every other woman comic in the world, you twat.” I mean, come on, man! Why do I have to do that? I just went through the breakup of this relationship. I would never get up there and start man-bashing like that. Too many people do it already.

Interview with comedian Lisa Lampanelli / by David Medsker / 10/05/05 / bullz-eye.com

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels: Fatigue is your friend. Through exhaustion and through people just being so depleted, the stuff around the nerve endings gets worn away and other things begin to emerge and you take way bigger risks. Whether its through impatience or the inability to, you know, just defend your game, things that you would normally not write or normally not say get written down or spoken. Its coming from the unconscious. Its not so much thought through as instinctive. It’s the closest they are to their core sensibility, to who they really are, at least in comedy.

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels / Aired: 01/30/2011

Kevin Perry Interview at “The Fort”

Kevin Perry: It was probably my third show ever, and I didn’t know who Adrian Mesa was, and it was a show with Wendi Starling, and I didn’t know all these people. I had just met them. I had brought a friend out there, this dude was just in prison for doing two murders. He had just got out from doing twenty years and it was at this little artsy place.

Adrian Mesa was doing this thing on the piano, and the piano breaks. And it took him like 20 minutes to fix the piano, and he went right back into doing a piano bit instead of just moving with the show. So I go outside, and I didn’t know who he is, and I’m like:

“Yeah, the piano thing kind of messed things up”

And he’s like “Who are you?”

And I’m like, “My name’s Kevin.”

He goes, “How long have you been doing this?”

I go, “About a month or two.”

He’s like, “I’ve toured all over the world and stuff, sir.” (Kevin laughs here)

And I’ve always regretted that I opened my mouth like that. I thought I was just being helpful, but nobody gives a shit about your opinion, you tell everybody, “Nice set.” “Great set” “Nice set” “Great set”

And they’ll ask you about their opinion.

Unless it’s somebody close to you, the guys you do this stuff with every night, and they really want it. For the most part nobody gives a shit about your opinion. Nobody gives a shit about your opinion until you earn it.

Kevin Perry Interview at “The Fort” / by Chris Topher and Nelio Costa / funnysouthflorida.com

Joe Rogan Experience #220: Bert Kreischer

Joe Rogan: When I realized that I had to stop fighting and stop teaching and just do comedy was… I was talking to a kid, his name was Jonathan – I wish I remembered his last name, we were open mikers together. About 6 months into comedy. I was still dabbling in it; I still had my feet in all my other worlds… trying to find my place. And this dude who I had done open mics with goes, “You were really funny in the beginning, but man, you just kind of petered out after a while.”

Bert Kreischer: (laughing) Really?

JR: And I couldn’t even say anything because I knew he was right. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything because in my head… like if someone says, “You don’t work hard enough.” My instinct is always to go, “Fuck You.” But I know as a person who has, you know, benefitted greatly from very uncomfortable criticisms before… some of the biggest growth moments you can have was where someone knocks your dick into the dirt so you know what the fuck is up…

BK: Great statement…

JR: And you step back… and so I recognized early on to be able to step back and objectively assess when challenged like that. So when that guy said that, I wanted to go, “That’s a dickhead thing to say.” Cause, you know, he was my friend. But, I was like, he’s right.

BK: Oh!

JR: I couldn’t say anything. So I said, “This is it. Fuck this. I’m a fuckin’ professional comedian. I’m not having one foot in the door.” I closed down my school. I quit my job.

BK: Shut the fuck up.

JR: I was teaching Tae-Kwon-Do at Boston University and I had a school in Revere at Nautilus Plus…

Joe Rogan Experience #220: Bert Kreischer / 05/24/2012 / aprox 55:00:00

The A.V. Club Interview: Scott Adsit

David Wolinsky: It's certainly a polarizing show. William Salyers from the show posted on the Adult Swim message board saying you had a blow-up with your sister and family over Moral Orel. Is that true? What happened?

Scott Adsit: [Laughs.] I did, yeah. In the first season, we—I made the mistake of showing her and some of her friends the pastry-bag episode, where Orel impregnates a bunch of neighborhood women. And they're all very good Christians. Very not-hypocritical. They do religion right. 'Cause the show is not against religion: It's against mistreating religion or using it for your own ends and convenience and bending the lessons of religion to suit what you already believe. So my sister and her friends are Christians—not exclusively. But she's got a lot of Christian friends, and she's a devout person who goes to church every week. And she's also the coolest person I know. And she's raising her kids really, really well. So she's someone that makes it work and isn't hypocritical.

I showed her the thing, and they were all just kind of silent afterward, and they didn't know what to say. And I was kind of nodding with my eyebrows up, going, "Eh? Eh?" It was a happy party going on until then, and they all kind of shuffled out.

And later I went back to California and had a discussion with my sister on the phone about it, and she just did not like the idea that we were portraying Christians the way we were—as if all Christians were like that. And I was defending the show and saying "This is about hypocrites, it's not about not Christians." And she just did not feel that way at all. She was insulted, and I kept defending the show and that just led to a huge argument.

And usually my sister and I don't argue at all, and we get along just fantastically. So this was a very odd occurrence, and we hung up after the first argument without resolving it. And then we called again the next day to bury the hatchet, and it started up again. And we just were yelling at each other.

DW: So what you're saying is that Moral Orel is tearing families apart.

SA: [Laughs.] Well one, anyway. No one else is watching it.

So we had three conversations [when] we were yelling at each other. And I think at the end of the third one, I said "My family is more important than the show." And so I told her I'd quit, and I went in the next day and I quit. And [writer and creator] Dino [Stamatopoulos] and [executive producer] Nick [Weidenfeld] tried to convince me not to. And I said "This is family over the show, obviously. I mean, otherwise what are we learning from the show? The show's about how important family should be, and how it's mistreated." So I had to go. [Laughs.]

A few days later, my sister and I just decided she was proud that I was doing something, and that I was on the air, and all that. So she said, "Let's just not talk about it." So that's what we did. We stopped talking about it.

The A.V. Club Interview: Scott Adsit / By David Wolinsky / October 28, 2008

Selene Luna

Punk Globe: Have you had any really bad shows?

Selene Luna: Ha! Yes, of course! Bad shows are learning moments for performers. I did a comedy festival in Maine last summer where I completely bombed. I simply wasn’t connecting with the audience, and that happens sometimes. I was tortured about the experience for months. I had the opportunity to return to Maine this January where it was much of the same audience. This time, my set went great and felt thoroughly redeemed. My work was simply better because I learned from previously bombing.

Selene Luna Interview from Punk Globe / Saturday, May 12, 2012

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Accidental Bear: What’s the best excuse you have ever come up with for calling in sick to work?

Selene Luna: Wow, it’s probably been like 15 years. Well, in showbiz nobody calls in sick, that’s like a foreign concept. Let me clarify, people think it’s all glamorous, but it’s not. There is no human resources, sick days, no calling in sick, there are no perks like that. It’s privileges to be working and nobody fuck with it.

Selene Luna Has a Passion For Bears and Her Spunky Career / accidentalbear.com

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Adam Lawton: Being involved in both standup comedy and acting is there one type of performance that has been more of a challenge than the other?

Selene Luna: I will do whatever I can get my hands on. To be honest it’s all equally challenging. As far as gratification goes I get the most gratification from performing live on stage. I love theater and live performance. That is my number one passion. Both types of performance are challenging and require tenacity and leather skin.

Selene Luna chats about her career and working with Margaret Cho / By Adam Lawton / May 18, 2012 

Fitzdog Radio: Margaret Cho

Mike Gibbons: Every comic I could name – I know has damage. So that’s why I’m asking you guys… The Regan Brothers? What about those fucking guys? They’re so funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons: Well, they have seven brothers. It’s like the Brennans (Neal). When You have that many siblings you can’t not feel cheated of attention, at some point.

Margaret Cho: Yeah, everybody’s got something… like the people that I know, the people that I’m closest with are more – they’re issues are like, not necessarily familial but what they’re own experience is like… My best friend, Celeny Luna is 3-foot-10. So all of her comedy is about being a little person. And so its not necessarily about like child damage, but being the eternal childhood of being in this body. So that is (where) an amazing comedy comes from: not necessarily from her family so, I don’t know, those are the comics I relate to… that are using their body and they’re experience in their body and illuminating that. But about damage, I think we’re all fucked up.

GF: Well, I think damage is actually a bad word because I think that, and again this is an ‘inside comic studio’, but I think that comedians are people that have been made to feel ‘other’. ‘Otherly’. And have fought back against it. Whether by directly by talking about being a little person or by virtue of standing on a stage when they were made to feel that they weren’t worth listening to. It’s a fighting back. That’s where the voice comes from.

MC: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

GF: So I wouldn’t say damage in that we didn’t get damaged. We avoided the damage by taking it on, on some level. And I think any artist you can say that about.

MG: And I guess the reason I use damage is just because, you’re right, its maybe the wrong word. But I think you develop. Like even in… I’m not a comic nor do I have crazy damage but the sense of humor develops from deflecting and from trying to make light and trying to you know, cope and manage, and you’re injecting humor to what could, the flip… like your book (Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons: Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox) the other side of it is crying. Clearly.

Fitzdog Radio: Margaret Cho / aprox 00:49:00

Comedy and Everything Else Episode 137: Jimmy Pardo

Jimmy Dore: Its just that thing that we’re doing is very… in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, “It’s amazingly delicate.” People have no idea how delicate comedy is, or even just performing. You know, and to do it at a certain level. You know it’s not just about doing it, we want to do it at a certain level… and the little things that can screw it up. And I don’t think its being a diva. Instead, comedians have such a trial-by-fire… we have everything thrown at us.

Jimmy Pardo: Everything is by fire.

JD: Yeah, everything. My wife Stef (Zamorano), who comes from the sketch world – she was at Acme, and when she comes to some gigs, stand up gigs, her mind is blown at how people act… there’s no reverence for the stage. There’s, you know, people on stage taking pictures before the show, or that kind of shit. Its not like Bill Cosby is going to sit down on the chair and everybody is going to….

JP: No, you’re right. “Hey its your birthday, get up there and take a picture.”

JD: And they’ll come up to you, “Could you fuck with…” This isn’t a carnival. This isn’t a side show. But people think that. Because when comedy is done well it looks effortless.

Comedy and Everything Else Episode 137: Jimmy Pardo / aprox 1:14:00

(thanks Mark)