Yeah, there were a few years in the early nineties where I really began to hate what was valued as funny and just sort of what was valued in stand-up, period.
Based on my own experience, when you’re going through adolescence you don’t know how the world works. You can’t set a story in the world you live in because you don’t know what a utility bill is, or how to budget your paycheck.
A lot of nerds aren’t aware they’re nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, ‘I speak Klingon – who am I fooling? You win! I’m just gonna openly like what I like.’ Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves.
To get asked to do stuff like ‘United States Of Tara’ and ‘Caprica’ is terrific. I can’t complain.
Now we live in this DVD, iTunes, Hulu age, and show creators and networks are realizing that and letting shows develop on those terms rather than ‘We gotta just punch it week to week, man.’ Now they’re like, ‘What will happen if someone watches the entire show?’
I’ve had some pretty good arguments with people, but I’ve never regretted it. I’ve had people come up where it’s all emotion and no fact. That’s always sad.
There are times when I have to take, I call it a ‘silence bath,’ where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.
I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form.
I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.
I think the kind of person that gravitates toward New York is a person that’s not so much focused on controlling exactly how they appear and how they exit. They’re more fascinated with the process.
I really had to imagine the kind of person that I would have been if I had never left my hometown. I don’t think I would have been a very pleasant person.
It’s the method of consumption, not what’s on the plate.
Any comedian who tells you how dark and dangerous they are, they’re not dark and dangerous.
There’s nothing wrong with doing comedies, and I’m not against comedies, either, but I always want to do stuff that keeps me off my guard and gets me out of my comfort zone.
One of my groupies gave me a film that they made, and it ended up being amazing, so I got it shown at South by Southwest. If I can help get their stuff out there, then great.
What you want to worship above youth, I think, is beauty, and beauty is so beyond just appearances after a while. Because you can be with someone who’s good-looking; if they open their mouths and they’re an idiot, then they cease to be beautiful very quickly.
I think right now is the best time for stand-up, ever. I sincerely do.
There’s something kind of beautiful about that pure love of things. Like, “I’ll show that I love the thing I love by hating everything else.”
The process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.
You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early ’90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there’s nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they’re not interested in.