Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction No. 64

The Paris Review: Was your sister funny, too?

Kurt Vonnegut: Oh, yes. There was an odd cruel streak to her sense of humor, though, which didn’t fit in with the rest of her character somehow. She thought it was terribly funny whenever anybody fell down. One time she saw a woman come out of a streetcar horizontally, and she laughed for weeks after that.

TPR: Horizontally?

KV: Yes. This woman must have caught her heels somehow. Anyway, the streetcar door opened, and my sister happened to be watching from the sidewalk, and then she saw this woman come out horizontally—as straight as a board, face down, and about two feet off the ground.

TPR: Slapstick?

KV: Sure. We loved Laurel and Hardy. You know what one of the funniest things is that can happen in a film?

TPR: No.

KV: To have somebody walk through what looks like a shallow little puddle, but which is actually six feet deep. I remember a movie where Cary Grant was loping across lawns at night. He came to a low hedge, which he cleared ever so gracefully, only there was a twenty-foot drop on the other side. But the thing my sister and I loved best was when somebody in a movie would tell everybody off, and then make a grand exit into the coat closet. He had to come out again, of course, all tangled in coat hangers and scarves.

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

Oprah Presents Master Class with Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels: Generally, with writers, its been my experience that unless actively discouraged, you tend to write your last hit. Over and over, until the audience or someone else, discourages you from doing it.

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Lorne Michaels: My only real plan was to find the most talented people I could find. It had to be people that made you laugh, but it also had to be people that you could drive across country with and not kill.

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Lorne Michaels: As a producer your job is to actively discourage creativity. Creativity is generally defined as, “I want to express myself and I need a lot of time to do it.” If you’re writing a front page, there’s only so many things that you can say that are important enough to be on that front page.

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

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld

Robin Milling: You did the TV show Benson… what part did you have?

Jerry Seinfeld: Oh, I had a very small part in there. I was the governor’s joke writer. And it wasn’t too good. The one thing I do give them credit for is they really taught me to appreciate the luxury of being able to write your own material. When you’re on a show like that and they’re telling you what jokes to do and you don’t want to do them and you have no say in the matter… I really appreciated what being a stand-up means. I never took it for granted after that experience. I really kind of hated it.

RM: Would you like to get involved in your own series?

JS: No. Not unless I could, you know, if it was done by some very high quality people… like a Cheers type of situation. Something like that. But, uh, you know, I have no desire to be part of most of the crap that you see on TV. So I could say, “Hey, I got a TV show.” That’s no big deal. Facts of Life. Things like that.

RM: (laughing) I could see it now. So tell me then what are your other aspirations.

JS: I don’t really have any. I mean, I just want to get good at this. To me its like I feel like I’m a musician,  this is my instrument, and I want to master it. So whatever else happens I’m sure I’ll end up doing a TV series. I’m sure I’ll end up doing a movie or something like that. But my real aspiration is to get good at… this. This is my thing.

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld

Pitchfork Interview: Aziz Ansari

Carrie Battan: It's not like a ton of people are making year-end lists of their favorite jokes or comedy routines.

Aziz Ansari: I don't want that kind of approval, but I want more respect for it because it's such a unique art form. It's so much of one person unfiltered to an audience. I've been trying to develop movies and all this shit, and, god, there are so many people involved with that process. You can have an idea and you have to deal with a lot of people giving you notes. And then if you end up making the movie, there are so many other people involved — the actors, the director, the editors. It's not one person's singular thing.

But with stand-up it's like: That's all me. That's something that I thought was funny, that I developed myself. No one can really tell me anything about it or be like, "Mm, can you change that? That doesn't work," because I'm like, "No, it works — it just got a huge laugh."

Pitchfork Interview: Aziz Ansari / By Carrie Battan / July 22, 2012

Joe Rogan Experience #223: Bobcat Goldthwait

Bobcat Goldthwait: I have a blue collar background so my whole thing is actually trying to go out and do a show for people, you know? I mean, it sounds corny and stuff but if you're there to see me I try to work really hard. Now if I end up on a bill with other comics then I don't mind screwing around. You know what I mean. On Comic Relief I would dress up as Christ and do magic tricks, you know, "Water to wine, wine to water, tap the deck, and back to rice again." And I was The Amazing Christo and stuff. That's an example of me just having fun. But if you come out to see my show I am going to work really hard. I mean, you don't want to disappoint people that have actually paid to see you. 

Joe Rogan: I feel the exact same way and I know what you're saying about, "It sounds kinda corny." But its admirable. That's the relationship, that's how its supposed to be. They're paying and you wanna do the best fucking possible job you can. Just the fact that you're asking people to pay to hear you talk sounds ridiculous.

BG: You gotta work really hard. But my friend John Evens and I always say this and its kind of true... Unfortunately in comedy, you're trying to keep the dumbest person in the room occupied. You know what I'm saying?  

Joe Rogan Experience #223: Bobcat Goldthwait / aprox 1:48:00

Comedy and Everything Else Episode #137: Jimmy Pardo

Jimmy Pardo: (talking about ignoring requests from headliners when you're a feature not to do crowd work) I ignored one guy.

Jimmy Dore: I thought it was in general that you were like, "Hey, this is my act. This is what I do."

JP: No, because nobody ever said anything to me because nobody ever really had trouble following me. Even though I did crowd work for 30 minutes. Only one time did somebody say 'hey, I'm having trouble following you..." Two times. One guy I did say, "That's my act." And then that guy and I... it was tense the rest of the week.

This other guy... I wish I would have understood what he was getting at. He was not, he should not have been headlining and I should not have been featuring. And because I should not have been featuring...

JD: You should have been headlining?

JP: Oh yeah, over this guy, yes. I shouldn't have been opening. I should have been open miking! So I went out and didn't have an act so I worked the crowd for 30 minutes. And by the way, 25 is plenty. 30 minutes in the middle... that extra 5 means a lot.

JD: I know! People don't realize that. People don't...

JP: So this guy, Mike, I don't even think he's a comic anymore. After the first night he said, "I really need to ask... don't do that crowd work. I'm treading water myself." But I'm insecure and I have that mindset, "You can't follow me! You can't follow me!" I go, "That's my act. Do what you gotta do." 

It wasn't until maybe a year later that I was like, "Oh no. He needed me to not work the crowd because he didn't... he shouldn't... he couldn't fill the time either." He needed to work the crowd to fill the time. Like we both were in the wrong spot. And I didn't set him up well on a show. I didn't do him any good by going up and working the crowd in front of him. And if I ever see him, I'll tell him that. And I will! Because there are like five things in my life and that's honestly one of them that are like, "When I see that man, I will apologize for being so self involved that I have to do well at Lassen's Comedy Club in the basement of a bar in Homewood, Illinois that I sandbagged this other performer."

Comedy and Everything Else Episode #137: Jimmy Pardo / aprox 1:04:00

(thanks Mark)

A Chat with Rob Schneider

Will Harris: During your time on “Saturday Night Live,” were there certain sketches that made you twitch when they were pitched to you for the umpteenth time?

Rob Schneider: Well, the thing that drives you insane…you’re watching, but if you’re on the show, you see these fucking characters too many times, but you can’t bite the hand that feeds you. I was tired of “Wayne’s World” after the third time I’d seen it, but fucking people went apeshit for it, so those are the things that keep the show fucking going. You can’t hate those things. I only did, like, six Copy Machine Guy sketches in four years. Maybe I did seven, at the most. When Al Franken wanted to do Stuart Smalley for the 80th time, I was, like, “That’s enough!” 

Any griping about that show is a quality problem, because it’s a great show. 90% of the stuff that got on the air was what got the biggest laughs in the read-throughs. If you wrote something that got read in front of anybody…it was so democratic that you got spoiled after awhile. But people complain wherever they are. All in all, I had a great experience at “SNL.”

A Chat with Rob Schneider / by Will Harris / Interview date: 03/23/2009 / Run date: 03/30/2009 / www.bullz-eye.com

Louis C.K.: "I have an insane amount of power over the audience"

"Stand up is crazy because I know what I'm going to say, and they don't know," he said in an interview for Elvis Mitchell's "The Treatment" Wednesday on Los Angeles station KCRW. "They are just sitting there, listening. So I can take a second because I know I'm about to ruin your life with this material."

He said he performs the same trick on "Louie," which he writes, directs and stars in. One of the show's trademarks is its willingness to go for long stretches without jokes.

"If I'm slowing things up a little bit, it's because I know the next scene is going to be an assault on your senses," he said.

Louis C.K.: "I have an insane amount of power over the audience" / August 22, 2012 / by Tim Molloy

Eddie Murphy: The Rolling Stone Interview

Brian Hiatt: You had a great line about showbiz: "You get born only once in this business, but you can die again and again."

Eddie Murphy: I said that? You can die again and again. But I've been making movies for so long that now it's all just one body of work. If you have a flop movie, so what? And if you have a hit movie, it's "so what," too, it's on to the next movie. If I do something and I die in it, at least I took a chance. There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but that's part of it.

Brian Hiatt: When your career hit its first bumps at the end of the Eighties, people seemed eager to say you were washed up.

Eddie Murphy: You have to remember, there was no hip-hop back then, or hip-hop was still novelty music, and for years I'm the whipping boy. Anybody that wanted to vent, I was the one. I got a lot of shit that wasn't fair. The root of it was racist. If I was rubbing you the wrong way, at the core of it was some racist shit: "Look at this arrogant nigger, two thumbs waaaay down" [laughs]. Then I wasn't helping, either. I wasn't giving no humble pie: "Fuck y'all, suck my dick, motherfucker!"

Eddie Murphy: The Rolling Stone Interview / by: Brian Hiatt / November 9, 2011

FADER: Interview: Hannibal Buress

Naomi Zeichner: When did you start doing standup?

Hannibal Buress: Almost nine years ago. At first I was doing it as an amateur and really trying to be a professional comedian. Now it’s my job and people pay me to do it, so I keep that in mind and approach it like that. I wasn’t super into comedy when I was young. My interest in comedy really happened right before I started. I guess when I was young I watched “The Cosby Show,” so Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy and those guys. I wasn’t a big comedy fan as a kid; I didn’t really study it like that.

NZ: But people must have let you know you were funny—

HB: I think Seinfeld said this: “When you’re a kid, everybody’s funny.” Who had a friend that never said anything funny? I was funny with my friends and in class sometimes, but it wasn’t anything I decided to pursue until college. I saw that some people weren’t that good at it so I tried it.

NZ: And your move to New York worked out well.

HB: It’s going pretty well, I write at “30 Rock,” and I used to write at “Saturday Night Live.”

NZ: What’s the difference between the two?

HB: It’s two different formats, a sketch and a sitcom. I put a lot more work into the writing of a 30 minute show. SNL is written the week of the show with some pieces even being written on Friday, so it’s more of an against the clock type of thing, whereas at “30 Rock” you’re working on it for a while, and it’s rewritten and written.

FADER: Interview: Hannibal Buress / BY: NAOMI ZEICHNER

The A.V. Club Interview: Rob Delaney

Kyle Ryan: What are the advantages of coming to comedy later? Are there any?

Rob Delaney: Well, for one, I think you’ll be funnier—just because you’ve lived more life. You’ve had more bad things happen, you’ve lost things you cared about, you’ve made mistakes and bad decisions, you’ve caused yourself a lot of pain. Maybe you’ve figured out one or two ways to do less of that, so you can offer something of value to an audience.

Comedians who are 22 years old can certainly be funny and clever, and be capable of telling jokes—but are they talking about their favorite TV shows, or a particular brand of shampoo? Whereas when you see someone who’s 42, and they’re talking about how much their adolescent son hates them, and is like, “We were fighting, and my son knocked over my television, and it broke my foot, and then he gave me a ride to the hospital, and he’s not allowed to drive, but I couldn’t, because my ankle is broken, and then we stopped and we shared a cigarette.” You know, there’s just more recipe for laughs—you’ve had more time to collect ingredients, and there’s more of life’s tapestry that’s been woven.

KR: Do you think there are any disadvantages?

RD: I really don’t, because the odds against success in comedy, and in most things that are difficult to achieve, or are “dream careers,” are so severe, so stacked against you, that any asset you can have, you just have to snort up and internalize and use. Having life under your belt and a work ethic that you have honed—maybe you were lazy until you were 27, and then you looked around and realized, “Holy shit, if I don’t get my act together and produce dependably, then life will definitely pass me by.” You know the value of a dollar.

Four years ago, when I started tweeting, people would say, “How do you feel about giving away material for free?” I said, “Well, no one will pay me for it, and I’ve got to get it out there.” So I would constantly churn out jokes saying, “Hey, look at me, I have a work ethic. Please, please, please world, hire me so I can afford pants, and cheese, and heat.” That was another thing, being married—my wife was not yet pregnant, but I didn’t have a choice but to succeed. It was either that or the unthinkable, a fate that I associate with death, which is not doing comedy. That was the other choice, so I just had to work furiously to get out there, with no promise of success. When I thought about other careers, I thought about death. I know that might sound morbid and not funny at all, but it is truly how I felt.

The A.V. Club Interview: Rob Delaney / By Kyle Ryan / June 1, 2012

Rita Rudner: Interview

Rita Rudner: I love to write jokes and that's all I think about. I get so happy when I write a joke. It's a very satisfying, liberating feeling. If I say a joke and the audience laughs it makes me feel good. I'm a very simple person. I'm very shallow. Shallow, simple, easily pleased: that's me.

Ben Williams: When you first started stand-up, with your soft, gentle delivery, did you struggle to hold people's attention in the more rowdy clubs?

RR: I was careful not to rehearse any putdown lines or anything. I wanted to say things that were natural coming from me. If you are who you are on stage people pay attention. The only time anyone really ever heckled me was my very first time on stage. They said, “Go back to your real job” or something, and I just said, “I'm sorry, this is my first time on stage and I don't know how to respond to a heckle yet. Could you please come back and heckle me when I'm more experienced?” I was always armed with nothing. I go in armed with nothing and hope to come out alive.

Rita Rudner: Interview / By Ben Williams / Jun 9 2011 / www.timeout.com/london

Tony Law: Interview

Ben Williams: Deconstructing your own comedy has long been part of your act. How did that start?

Tony Law: It came out of necessity. At some gigs I predicted that certain members of the audience wouldn't understand a joke or routine and, without being a prick, I would explain why I knew they wouldn't like it. But then eventually I got into a fun, weird position where they get the jokes, and they get the explanation of the joke. It was initially a fallback, but now I do it anyway. It's fun.

BW: Your material often goes in unexpected directions. What's your writing process?

TL: I used to have a burst of creativity and then periods of lulls. But I went on tour with Stewart Lee and watched how he works: the pressure of doing a new hour every year forces him to constantly write. Now I keep doing new material nights, every week. Even if I haven't had time to write that week, I'll quickly jot down some topics on the tube and then see what comes out on stage. Probably 30 minutes of last year's show was written in that way. Then you decide whether it works perfectly just the way it is, however clunky and awkward, or do you hone it? When I do it again, I rely on my brain to filter out the bits that didn't work and remember the significant parts.

Tony Law: Interview / By Ben Williams / Posted: Fri Nov 25 2011 / www.timeout.com/london

When It Comes To Comedians, Where Is The Line?

Chris Rock explained the problem to The New York Times last week: “When you’re workshopping [material], a lot of stuff is bumpy and awkward. Especially when you’re working on the edge, you’re going to offend… Just look at some of my material... ‘Niggas vs. Black People,’ probably took me six months to get that thing right. You know how racist that thing was a week in?”

Comedians like Rock take a sensitive subject and hammer on it until it changes shape, becomes funny. If you can find humor in racism, you make it manageable. Take the adage about getting over public speaking by imagining the audience naked; imagine a group of klansmen naked and what do you have? Whatever it is, it’s not particularly threatening.

Jim Norton, whose standup special, “Please Be Offended,” came out on June 30, put it this way: “We take these knots in society — like, you know how you get a knot in your neck — and our job as comedians is to take our knuckles and kind of work it out.” Jeffrey Ross, who made headlines just this week at Comedy Central’s “Roast of Roseanne” for telling an Aurora-related joke, suggests that allowing that process to happen serves a greater good. “I think it’s our job to go too far. That way we know as a society what too far is.”

When It Comes To Comedians, Where Is The Line? / By Carol Hartsell / 08/08/2012 / www.huffingtonpost.com

Exclusive Interview with Comedian Jim Jeffries

Jim Jeffries: Well, I officially started at 23, but ah, I’m 35 now. But I did three open spots when I was 17 in Sydney. And, the first one went really good and the second one went really badly and the third one went even worse. The third one, ’cause I was 17, my dad had to walk me into the venue. I had to have a parent with me.

So when I went in with my dad, after the third one, he said it wasn’t for me. And he gave me a fatherly chat and said, “I don’t think this is for you (laughs).” And I still wanted to do it.

I don’t watch any stand-up comedy really any more on account that I don’t like to get influenced by anyone or have anyone’s jokes start seeping into mine or anything like that so I just don’t watch anything. But when I was a young fella, when I was 14–15, that’s all I did… was watch stand-up comedy.

Exclusive Interview with Comedian Jim Jeffries / by Chris Topher / funnysouthflorida.com / Excerpt 1

The Humor Code: Professional Laughers, Straight Out of Central Casting

In the 1950s, talk show host Steve Allen purposely substituted nonsense words for his punch lines during rehearsals, so his band would be sure to laugh when they heard the real ones during tapings. Around that same time, a CBS sound engineer named Charley Douglass developed the “laff box,” a machine that played prerecorded laughs, itemized by laugher style, gender and age, during episodes of The Jack Benny Show and I Love Lucy to fix inconsistencies in audience guffaws. It was the dawn of the laugh track.

But what about live studio audiences, still a fixture for many sitcoms: Is there a way to guarantee they laugh at just the right time, with just the right amount of enthusiastic mirth after a particular gag? The television industry thinks there is, and that’s why it’s developed professional laughers — folks so good at guffawing they’re planted in live studio audiences to get everyone else sniggering, cackling or howling at just the right moment.

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She (Lisette St. Claire) started auditioning people, looking for dominating, infectious laughs that were explosive and unique. If folks made the cut, she put them into one of three tiers: top-level Group A, second-string Group B or “when hell freezes over” Group C.

She aimed for a 50-50 mix of men and women, and she discovered those in their 40s and 50s tended to be the best. She doesn’t know why; maybe it takes more life experiences, more joy and sorrow, to find things to really laugh about.

Her formula was a hit. Her phone was soon ringing off the hook, with three to four shows a week planting Central Casting’s cacklers in their audiences. Laughers got $75 for a day’s worth of chuckles, slightly better than your typical extra.

As crazy as it sounds, Hollywood might be on to something. Scientists have discovered that laughter really can be contagious, almost like a social disease. In 2006, London researchers found that the sound of laughter triggered parts of the brain that are activated when we smile. It’s as if the brain is primed for laughter even when it doesn’t know what exactly it’s laughing about.

The Humor Code: Professional Laughers, Straight Out of Central Casting / By Joel Warner and Peter McGraw / wire.com / January 25, 2012

JIM CARREY COMES UNDONE

Heather Wadowski: Over the years you have obviously become known for your improvisational skills. What percentage, if any, was improv on Bruce Almighty?

Jim Carrey: Ninety-nine point nine percent, just right off the top of my head.

Tom Shadyac: I’ll answer part of that and let Jim go because I think the mistake that most people make is to think that, because Jim is so creative and he has this genius about him that — see how I suck up, by the way? — but he is so creative that you just put Jim in a room like this with another actor and you say ‘improv.’ No, this is very carefully thought out. Jim and I and Steve Oedekerk, we go through every scenario. It’s not unusual for Jim and I and Steve to take a whole day to write one joke. And then based on that structure and that well thoughtfulness, Jim gets to go. It’s really a well thought out process. Based on that structure, Jim gives us 20 options that may not have been there had we not had that day to sit there and think about that scene. 

JC: You have to know what you’re doing going in and then hopefully you think of 50 other ideas as you’re doing it, and it’s always been a combination of everything. 

TS: This is going to be on this movie, Jim and I decided we’re going to let people in a little bit into the process because we’ve done this so many times together. 

JC: For instance, right now my hand is on my groin. You might not know that. It keeps me up and ready to answer the questions. 

TS: But you’ll see when you get the DVD how we literally have 20 options. For example, when Jim lit the candles in this movie, you know with God’s powers there’s 20 options that we have again, based on improvisation and also forethought.

JIM CARREY COMES UNDONE / by Heather Wadowski / filmthreat.com

Mel Brooks Interview

Jeffrey Howard: Walt Disney once said that he could never consider the success of a film without thinking of the music that would accompany it. Is this the Mel Brooks ideology too?

Mel Brooks: No, that's not true. The first thing that comes into my head is a character, a crazy character, a desperate character, a insane character. That character would then motivate the story and other characters. As soon as he motivates the story and other characters, then three, I begin to hear the music. Music comes third in 101 in things that have to put in its place, so it's very important. Music is in the first five major things that have to happen.

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JH: Was it your idea to have the monster dance to "Putting On The Ritz" (in Young Frankenstein)?

MB: No, that was Gene Wilder's idea. I fought him desperately and I said, " It's going to cheapen the film and it's going to be silly, it's going to tear it..." He said, " No it's good, it's crazy and funny. It's a demonstration of the monster's agility, doing a buck and wing tapping." I said, "All right! What the hell." Everybody gives me credit for that bizarre insanity, but it was basically Gene's idea and it was my directing that helped make it work.



Lost Issue Wednesday: Mel Brooks Interview / 1997

Zach Galifianakis Interview

Brian M. Palmer: That must have been tough.

Zach Galifianakis: No, I didn't work very long, maybe just a couple weeks. And then I cleaned houses, I was a nanny, a private investigator, and then a bus boy. They were all pretty bad. But if I had a comfortable job I don't know if I would have turned to something like stand-up. I started doing stand-up because I don't have any skills; I don't know what else to do. They were all bad. I was a waiter at a drag queen restaurant in New York that was owned by Kurdish rebels. I remember that — his name was Talib — and he tried to get me to dress as a woman. He'd call me on the phone and he'd be like, “Ok Zach, this is Talib, your schedule is you work Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and don't forget to dress as woman.” And I'm like, “Talib, I'm not going to dress as a woman. That's not my thing.” And he'd say, “You'd make more money.” And I was like, “Why is there a guy from small town North Carolina talking to a Kurdish rebel about dressing like a woman?” It was so bizarre, but that was the state of my work experience. I would work there from 7 at night ‘til 7 in the morning. And then at 8 in the morning I would go baby-sit and just fall asleep. I would just fall asleep and hope that the kid wouldn't escape his duct tape handcuffs.

BMP: I read that one of the kids said that if you didn't let him watch TV he would say that you touched him.

ZG: Oh yeah, one of the kids that I was a nanny for said, “If you don't do what I say, I'm going to tell my mom that you're touching my penis.”

BMP: And did you just let him do what he wanted to?

ZG: No, I touched his penis, right after that. I was like, “Well, if you're going to run your mouth about it, here comes my mouth.” No, what happened is I freaked out about it and called all my friends and I was like, “What should I do?” and they were like, “You've gotta tell his mom.” Years later — last summer actually I was back in New York — I called them and I went over to dinner and all this stuff. I told the mother and she laughed — she thought it was so funny — and said, “That sounds just like my son.” I told him and he didn't remember. But yeah, he said it. He stood up right in front of his TV, “Beavis and Butthead” was blaring and he pointed right at me, and said it.

Zach Galifianakis Interview / by Brian M. Palmer / 2004

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 275 - Chelsea Handler

Marc Maron: When you did stand up, how much stand up did you really do? I mean, how many years were you doing it? When you were touring? Were you ever a draw? As just a stand up? Before the shows?

Chelsea Handler: Yeah, I was headlining before I got my show. Clubs and stuff. I started doing stand up when I was 21. I did my first week on the road with Zach Galifianakis and Dave Attell in San Francisco at The Punch Line. Which was the funniest week of my life. And I was really bad. 

MM: Was Attell headlining?

CH: Yeah. And Zach was middling and I opened.

MM: Wow. 

CH: I was really bad. But I got good, I mean it takes a long time to get good at stand up. It takes a long time. And I didn't get good until I had to. Until I was headlining. Like I didn't have an hour until I had to have an hour. 

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode 275 - Chelsea Handler / aprox 00:29:00

Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank #35: The Jew, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Moshe Kasher)

Ari Shaffir: I used to think about (Mitch) Hedberg and stuff… why didn’t anyone get him help? Because everyone was doing drugs. They’re like, we’re all doing it…

Moshe Kasher: And its helping Hedberg look cool. Its bad. That’s the bad nature of this beast.

AS: Somebody, that same year in Montreal, somebody they know from here was in the film part and they saw some older, not older older, but like a little older, respected stand up comic and a bunch of people doing coke with him in a bathroom. And just saying, ick, all these comics are trying to do coke with this guy. And he was just like, “Blech.” And just turned around and left.

MK: Yeah, that’s funny, “Dude, I did coke with this guy! Whoa!”

AS: Way to go man, you did it!

MK: Congrats. I see, I don’t know if you see this, with younger comics. I’ve seen this sort of, this thing where they’re trying to become like desperate alcoholics.

AS: Oh yeah, because its cool.

MK: On stage.

AS: Its like, “I want to be Bukowski.” But you’re not one.

MK: They want to affect the kind of…

AS: They’re bragging about pain they don’t have.

MK: The nihilistic blight relationship with society that like Stanhope or Kyle Kinane have.

AS: But they don’t really have it. They’re just sort of trying…

MK: But they will!

AS: Hopefully, if they keep going.

MK: They probably won’t be as funny as Doug and Kyle but they’ll get there. I mean, you can get there. You know, and the other thing is, by the way, Kyle and Stanhope are very successful because they work super hard. It’s a flawed concept. But I just hate when I see some like 24 year old comic like, “I mostly just drink, man, because life fucks…” Get out of here.

AS: You’re just drinking because you’re a fuck up. Or because you’re a frat guy.

MK: You’re angst is fake and you’re alcoholism is fake but soon neither will be fake but you’re career will be non-existent.

AS: Soon you’ll need 5 beers before you get on stage.

Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank #35: The Jew, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Moshe Kasher) / aprox 1:19:00

Comedy and Everything Else Episode #137: Jimmy Pardo

Jimmy Pardo: The first time was great (working as a warm up for The Tonight Show). Just like stand up. The first time was great. I went out there, "Welcome The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien!" I was on fire. Some woman said something in the audience, like immediately... you know that's like my bread and butter. I mean, 20 years of working the audience, so I improvised off of what this woman said and I looked like a genius. The 12 minutes flew by and they went, "Jimmy, we're ready." What? And I came off like, "Holy Shit, Here we go!".

And then the next day was awful. I came out and I'm mumbling. I stumbled through the rules I had to give. I went up in the audience because that's how I've seen how warm-ups done it in the past. Walking up and down the stairs and getting to know people. Which then I realized is alienating 250 people on the other side of the theater/studio.

So I just made some mistakes. And then a guy blogged about it. He goes, "I went to the taping, the second taping of Conan, and it starts out... some jerk walks out on the stage and just yells at us and then Andy comes out and they try to riff but they can't because this guy has no talent. Andy was funny, but this guy couldn't keep up..." Just like, wow. And he wasn't wrong! Like, I stunk. He was right!

And that happened on a Thursday. And then we weren't going to be doing another show until the next week so I had like 4 days inbetween of going, "Oh, I kinda like this job." But the agreement was if they like me and I like them, I'll keep the job. And its like, well they have every right not to like me after that. That was awful.

So I spent 4 days panicked. "Oh, this great gig. Conan O'Brien! The Tonight Show." Now I'm going to lose it because I stunk. And luckily, you know, they kept me on. And I was there for the 7 months of The Tonight Show. And as I've said, somewhat maudlin-like, my dream was to grow up and host The Tonight Show. And I got pretty stinking close. Ridiculous. I'm not hosting it in any shape or form. But you know what? I got to go on the stage of The Tonight Show and do it every day.

Comedy and Everything Else Episode #137: Jimmy Pardo / aprox 1:04:00

(thanks Mark)

Joe Rogan Experience #223: Bobcat Goldthwait

Joe Rogan: Can you watch people bomb?

Bobcat Goldthwait: Yeah, I have no problem watching…

JR: It doesn’t bother you at all?

BG: Oh, it feels right. You know. Like watching people eat shit is probably one of the few things that entertains me in a comedy club.

JR: Really?

BG: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have no compassion for them. You know, I think its great. I love to watch someone eat shit.

JR: Why is that?

BG: Because, because, here’s the thing. Here’s something that at one point I took really serious and you’re trying to think that its just easy. Or you’re just thinking that…

JR: How about if they’re just bombing. They don’t have to be thinking that…

BG: Again, like a talented comedian bombing is hilarious, you know?

JR: Is it really?

BG: Oh my god, Kevin Meaney bombing is the funniest fucking thing on the planet.

JR: I can see that he’s very animated, very funny guy.

BG: It’s the best. Kevin Meaney bombing, “(singing) I don’t care if my jokes don’t go over…”

JR: But that’s just Kevin Meaney. That’s not even real bombing. He’s singing. He’s having a joyous time. Real bombing is not knowing what’s coming next… you’re just eating it up there… you can’t remember your material and your fucking mouth is dry… bricks of shit are tumbling out of your mouth and you’re trying to pass them off as gold to the crowd… overhyping every fucking premise ‘cause, “This is the one that’s going to turn this set around.”

Joe Rogan Experience #223: Bobcat Goldthwait / aprox 1:54:00

Pitchfork Interview: Aziz Ansari

Carrie Battan: Audiences sometimes treat comedy shows like sporting events.

Aziz Ansari: You should really treat stand-up like you would a play. It's a one-man play. It bums me out that people don't really respect it as an art form as much as they should. If you're in a comedy club here, people are eating wings and shit. Texting. If you went to a play, no one would be texting during the show. Every show I do, someone at some point starts texting, even after I make a scene about it, saying, "Please don't do it, I'm begging you. It's distracting, please don't." It's nuts. If you're sitting there flashing a thing in my face, that's gonna distract me. Stand-up has rhythms, it's like a performance.

In the U.S., critics don't really come to review stand-up shows. In England, they really treat it like it's an art form, and it's reviewed very properly; I did Dangerously Delicious in London and read a review afterwards that was very thoughtful. Here, writers usually come and take three jokes and misquote them. Or they write a preview: "This guy's comin' to town! He's talked about this in the past, what's he gonna talk about this time?" I wish comedy were treated like the way it's treated in England here.

CB: Do you crave that critical feedback cycle?

AA: Ultimately, you get your feedback right away with stand-up, more so than in any art form. You get feedback every second. But if you're a guy like me or Louis [C.K.] or Patton [Oswalt], it's a lot of work to do an hour-long show. There's not really any kind of recognition for stand-up; if you put out an album, you can get a Grammy or something, I guess.

Pitchfork Interview: Aziz Ansari / By Carrie Battan / July 22, 2012

Steve Byrne Interview

Melissa Parker: Do you believe that comedy can be a natural talent?

Steve Byrne: Of course, yeah. There are people I meet all the time that crack me up. But to have a conversation with just a group of friends … there’s some comfort to that and no real risk in it. It’s separate because when you’re doing standup you don’t have that camaraderie or that relationship already built in. These people know you, they feel comfortable with you and you with them.

Standup is just taking a raw idea and telling it to a bunch of strangers. These people don’t know you at all, but you have to see if you can communicate and elicit that one emotion which is laughter. It’s more difficult than just sitting with your buddies and cracking jokes.

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Melissa Parker: You’re on tour now?

Steve Byrne: I’ve been touring literally for 5 years straight. I think I’ve had 6 weeks off in 5 years. It’s been pretty grueling. You hear bands or musical artists say, “Oh, I’m on tour for 3 months and it’s brutal.” I’ve been on tour for 5 years and have no sympathy for them.

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