WTF with Marc Maron / Episode #255: Big Jay Oakerson

Big Jay Oakerson: Its interesting you said being influenced by (Dave) Attell... especially when you start off, when you're one of the new guys, there's always people like if you're doing well at all, or you're getting better, all of these people come out of the woodwork that hate you and they tell you why you're doing so good. And Keith Robinson gave me advice in the beginning. He goes, "Look, you don't have to worry about like writing your manifesto yet of what you're going to do." He goes, "Get your 15 minutes that works and work it. Like work it hard. And then when you're in everywhere and there's a confidence in you, you can do whatever you want."

I barely do material at comedy sets in the city. I just talk to the crowd and see where it goes. But um, and Kurt would tell me, "Jay's getting into the comic strip now in Stanton, NY." And they'd be like, "Yeah, doing the same 15 minutes." And he's like, "Yeah, but he's getting in. He's getting the work now." 

 And all that kind of hatred comes your way... That was the big dig on me, "He's just doing Attell. He only sounds like Attell." And maybe one of the reasons why I was able to kind of develop my own voice from it was my first instinct on that when they said that was to attack the problem. I went right to Dave Attell and I said, "I keep getting told that I sound exactly like you and I'm just doing what you do. Like, can you watch me and if you have any thing, please, I love to hear it." 

And he watched me at the (Comedy) Cellar and he was like, you know, in his own way, giggling, 'cause you could still smoke inside of there. I remember watching him intently because I admired him so much. He's like 'mnh, mnh, mnh' cause he's so nonchalant. And I went out into the hallway and I go, "Whadya think?" And maybe because he thought I did sound like him, and maybe because he thought I didn't, but he goes, "What are you doing two weekends from now? You wanna open for me at The Stress Factory?" And I went, "Yeah". And from that point I became like one of his staple guys that would go on the road with him. 

WTF with Marc Maron / Episode #255: Big Jay Oakerson / aprox 00:17:00

Sex, Drugs, and Seminary

Mike Moody: What is it about standup?

Ari Shaffir: I don’t know, I just like it. I don’t know. I could try to be a poetic person, but it’s just the feeling. It’s a good feeling I get when I do it. It just makes me happy. Whatever gives you fulfillment, this is my thing that gives me fulfillment. For some people it’s building race cars or whatever it is. I just like doing it. So I’m always sort of surprised that I get paid at the end of week. Well, not surprised, but it’s like, “Hey, that’s nice,” because I would do it for free.

MM: Your comedy is pretty dark and personal. Tell me about the moment or the time when you found your voice on stage and you could just be yourself.

AS: I don’t know. It’s like you get closer and closer to it as you go. It’s like you get it in moments, and then you get it in more moments, and then you sort of become yourself and just not give a fuck about what anybody else thinks. It’s like you almost completely stop pandering to everyone and you are completely yourself. Probably in the last couple of years I feel I’ve just sort of been saying the things I want to say the way I want to say them. They talk about “finding your voice,” and it’s like I never really understood what that meant. I think it just means talking the way you would to your friends. Once you start getting like that on stage and making jokes, it’s more rewarding.

Sex, Drugs, and Seminary: An Interview with Amazing Racist and Comedian Ari Shaffir / Mike Moody / April 23, 2012

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

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

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.

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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