Melinda Hill: The Accidental Bisexual

by Emma Kat Richardson

Melinda Hill’s new comedy album, The Accidental Bisexual, fulfills every wonderful thing we’ve come to expect from one of Maria Bamford’s best friends. All meek wit and doe-eyed innocence, with several splashes of deliciously sinful sarcasm in between, Hill’s self-deprecating and deeply personal authenticity ring particularly true with each of the album’s eight tracks – a very funny and affecting accomplishment spanning the worlds of both narrative prose and good ole fashioned stand-up.

Opening with a story about playing the lady lead in Creed’s “What’s This Life For?” video (“What’s this liiiiffffeeeee foorrrrrrrr?!” Remember that?) and closing with reflections on her own disastrous experimentation with bisexuality, The Accidental Bisexual makes for a short but power-packed listen – the sort of comedy set you’d find yourself not only laughing at, but perhaps not-so-reluctantly nodding in personal agreement with, too. Whether its describing her close brushes with destructive relationships, dabbling in working as a stripper, or just affecting a voice for the sake of a laugh, Hill is inarguably well adept at working past pain to present benefit: both hers and her audiences’.

Given that Hill’s success in the comedy realm extends well beyond the mere small-time stand-up circuit – she has written for television and film profusely, and made numerous guest appearances on shows like Reno 911! and The Sarah Silverman Program – it’s quite a lovely thing to soak in the stories of The Accidental Bisexual and gain some remarkable insight into what turns the spokes of Hill’s hilarious thought process. If this is what accidental feels like, well, we should probably start slipping up more.

Grab yourself a copy of The Accidental Bisexual by clicking the image below!

Comedy Matters with Amy Schumer, Rachel Feinstein, Nick Kroll, more!

by Jeffrey Gurian

The Key of Awesome!

The Key of Awesome makes comedy video parodies. Their Kesha parody of her hit song Tik Tok got 63,000,000 views (that’s not a typo!) and still rising.

Their Lady Gaga video parodies get around 20 million hits plus and the star of those videos is Lauren Francesca, who has gotten over 150 million hits on all of her videos combined. These numbers are staggering, when you think that most comics would be thrilled with 100,000 hits on something they posted.

The Key of Awesome’s main players are founders Ben Relles, director Tom Small, and writer/performer Mark Douglas. You have to see Mark as Lord Gaga. The man is brilliant!

So why am I telling you all this? Because The Comic Strip will be the site for the presentation of the new video I created for the launch of Lauren Francesca’s new channel, which launched on Valentine’s Day.

In this film, (one of a series I am creating for her!), featuring the Comic Strip’s own Ray Ellin, Lauren plays a hot Latina named Besame Mucho who has been voted by three major men’s magazines, as “the best kisser in the world.”

She runs a kissing school for women, who need to improve their oral skills. It’s called “The Academy of Oral Skills” and she runs a tough class where she teaches women rare oral exercises like tongue push-ups, trapeze swinging by your tongue, and other assorted skills. The problem is that when You Tube saw “Oral Skills” they flagged it as possibly being too sexual when there’s nothing in it but kissing!

Even with the flagging we got 27,000 plus hits in only the first five days, and it was rated #1 on You Tube as the most subscribed, and watched comedy for the week. You can check out the film below.

World Champion Hangs at World Champion Club

Several nights a week you can find World Champion of everything, Judah Friedlander, hanging out at The Strip, waiting to do a spot. Not that he has to wait. He could go on whenever he wants but he enjoys the hang.

Judah came in recently in the afternoon to do an interview for the book I’m doing with Richie Tienken, owner and founder of The Strip, for the 35th anniversary of the club. We also filmed it for the Vook we’re planning, which is a video book, something very new.

We had the best time, because Judah just kicked back and told us great stories of how he got started, how it was a goal of his to pass and perform at The Strip, how he got 30 Rock, and lots of other cool things.

At the time he got the offer for 30 Rock he also received an offer to do a show in LA, but at 30 Rock he knew he’d be working with Tina Fey and would be able to keep his persona and dress like he likes to dress, so he made the wise choice of staying in New York and doing 30 Rock. He does have to shave off his beard for the show, but he doesn’t mind doing that. After all he’s the World Champion beard grower as well! It probably grows back in a few hours!

What’s great about Judah is that he hasn’t let success get in the way of being a nice guy. He’s approachable. He’s very kind to his fans who mob him after the show, and he’s very humble and grateful for his success.

I like the bit he does when he’s running on his treadmill that has hurdles on it while he’s shoulder pressing heavy weights. His new book is “How To Beat Up Anybody” and if you don’t run out and get it, he will definitely find you, and beat you to a pulp!

Also, many of you may not know that Richie Tienken is a comedy historian and through his exhaustive research he came up with the very first stand-up comedian from ancient Egyptian times, which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is a photo of the very first comedy cruise, captured in a sculpture and donated to the museum by Richie Tienken.

Gotham Happenings

Starting with their fabulous holiday party in January, Gotham has had a string of unbelievable shows one after the other. The holiday party was a smash, and packed with comedy notables, like Ted Alexandro, Mike Vecchione, Todd Barry, Judah Friedlander, and John Fugelsang, who was back in New York from Florida, getting over the loss of his Dad. Our sincerest condolences to John. He’s back making waves in the biz.

Dean Edwards formerly of SNL headlined a packed show, where the hilarious Marion Grodin was the MC. Harris Stanton told the story of being asked by an Orthodox Jew to turn on his heat for him on a cold winter day, because Orthodox Jews are not allowed to do things like that during the Sabbath, and Harris, not knowing that, responded, “ What did you have a mysterious beef with Thomas Edison?’”

Rich Francese said he wouldn’t mind being a rapper, cause there doesn’t seem to be any weight limit! He got invited to a birthday party on the internet so he sent them a picture of a gift!

In order to get SNL you can’t just be funny, you have to be able to do characters, and Dean is amazing at that. He does fantastic accents, and impressions of Tracy Morgan, Chris Rock, and even Denzel answering a phone call from singer Lou Rawls which was a gut-buster! (Where am I getting these expressions from? A dictionary of phrases from The Civil War??? LOL)

Anthony Anderson’s monthly Mixtape show never disappoints. It’s basically a comedy party where everyone is grooving on the energy that Anthony and his cohorts, like partner Royale Watkins, put out. (If there’s such a thing as a cohort, is there such a thing as a hort?)

Anthony and Royale call themselves The Goodtime Brothers and it fits. Everyone there has a good time.

Mark Viera opened the show and killed it as he always does. He had just come back from the Middle East entertaining our troops in 140 degree weather, so when he hit the 92 degree weather of LA, he was freezing.

Greer Barnes did a great set, and is another performer who can do really cool sound effects on the mike. He did an impression of a cop on horseback arresting a “brother”, and wondering where he would put him. Does he just say “ Hop on!”? Funny visual of a perp holding onto the cop around the waist as they gallop off into the sunset!

In the musical segment of the show they had Naughty By Nature do a set, and the great Chubb Rock was in the audience.

Gotham had an All-Star show which was aptly named. Rich Vos was the MC, and he often talks about his sobriety. He’s coming up on almost as many years of sobriety as Bill Wilson. Rich is another of those reliable acts that you can always count on to destroy the room.

Bonnie McFarlane was also on the show and to me is one of the funniest women on the scene today.

And then there was a guy I hadn’t seen before, which was an unusual and alarming experience for me, and his name was Louis Katz. I’m pretty sure his name is STILL Louis Katz since he has a half hour special coming up on Comedy Central on March 11th, and it would hardly make sense for him to have changed his name before it airs.

Commenting on his look, he told the audience he had spent the day balding. He also has a moustache and glasses, so according to him, with that look he’s just “a bowler away from being in disguise!”

Then I got to attend Rachel Feinstein’s CD taping for an album for Comedy Central to be released later this year,. The evening was hosted by Hot 97 morning star Cipha Sounds who I believe is back to hosting a regular show at Carolines on Tuesdays.

He describes himself as a Puerto Rican from The Bronx, named Luis Diaz, who can’t speak Spanish. He had a guy from the audience re-introduce him cause he said the audience was all white people who didn’t know him, and he didn’t get enough love.

He certainly got it the second time around. Cipha is a funny dude, and I gotta get over to Carolines to check out his show.

The great Jon Fisch had advice for anyone guy losing his hair. As soon as you realize you’re losing your hair, turn to whatever girl you’re with and propose!

Rachel Feinstein is cool. I don’t know how she was in high school, but she’s definitely cool now! She’s an original, and always fun to watch. She has the unique ability to imitate a guy’s voice and have it sound like a guy’s voice. Most girls can’t do that.

When she imitates her mother and grandmother , in that distinctly Jewish kind of inflection that only other Jews find hysterically funny and nauseating at the same time, you could “plotz”! (Look that up on Google!)

Rachel imitates street guys coming on to her with pseudo compliments, opening with “I’m sayin’ boo!” which might sound to an older person like you might be trying to scare someone, unless you are immersed in hip-hop culture.

But when she tells how her grandmother was a big fan of Biggie and is so glad the East Coast- West Coast wars are over, it reminded me of all the times I told people that my Mom bought me the AMG CD “Bitch Betta Have My Money.”

And then there was Pete Correale’s sold out show. Jon Fisch was MC’ing cause good comics know other good comics! Also on the bill was Veronica Mosey another fave of mine. She’s also one of the few women I see who can really command a stage, and take control of the audience. It’s all about energy and she puts it out there!

Pete is funny and clever, and makes any topic work. Like his “Killer Whale” bit, about the whale killing it’s trainer. How couldn’t she know when the word “Killer” is part of his name? He asks, “ How many animals DIDN’T get the name killer? He didn’t get the name from being sharply dressed! Killing is part of his name.

Then he did a bit I guessed was new, and it worked so well I was excited for him. He said during Prohibition, the only way guys had to get high was spinning around. If he had ended it at that, it might have gotten a chuckle, but he embellished upon it, and as he spun himself around it became hysterical. As a comedy writer I always appreciate what it takes to develop a bit to it’s fullest potential. A month from now I’m sure it’ll be even richer.

Pete and I had a laugh about the time he and Jim Breuer, and Greg Charles from Carolines played a practical joke on me on the air. I went on Breuer’s show to talk about my celeb joke book, “Filthy, Funny, and Totally Offensive”, based on my years of writing for the Friars Roasts, and all three of them were in the book.

Pete was Breuer’s co-host and on the air they confronted me, and accused me of using their jokes without their permission. They even went so far as to create a phony tape of them talking about me, like “ who’s that guy with the tape recorder trying to tape us?”

I turned white, and almost had a heart attack, sputtering, “ but you TOLD me I could use those jokes.” Finally Breuer blurted out, “ we’re just effin’ with you.”, but they didn’t do it right away, and it felt like it went on for hours.

They had prepared their audience in advance and said, “ Wait till you see what we do to this guy!” I was wondering why they didn’t let me listen to the show before I went on, as guests usually do.

I was put into an isolated room to wait for my turn to go on. Greg told me later that they only did it because they love me. I’m like, “try not to love me so much in the future” !

Comedy Matters Quickies

Judy Carter is a one woman comedy industry. She’s a comic, a coach, a comedy writer, an author, a speaker, and she has sets of DVD’s that you can purchase if you’re not lucky enough to live near her in Cali.

Her “Speaking Career in a Box” is 3 DVD’s and tells you how to take your skills as a stand-up and make a great living as a corporate speaker. That’s assuming of course that you DO have skills as a comedian! And if you don’t she can help you with that too! You can find out all about her at judycarter.com.

Comic Bob Greenberg made a surprise 88th birthday party for Larry Storch at Gabe Waldman’s Stand-Up New York, and it was a really fun event. Larry was so surprised he actually screamed when he walked into the room. I was afraid for his heart. I ran into my old, old friend Rhonda Hansome who is back performing again, and the great Jerry Stiller got up and said a few words. Even the legendary boxer Jake LaMotta came out to honor Larry.

Joey Reynolds has a new TV show called All Night With Joey Reynolds. After so many years of doing a hit show on WOR talk radio, which I was honored to be on so many, many times, Joey got his own TV show on NBC New York Nonstop.

It’s shot in the ground floor studio in the NASDAQ building right on Broadway in the heart of Times Square, and you can see the show going on from the street. It’s very exciting and I was really happy to be asked to do the show.

Not only did I get a chance to talk about my comedy projects but I got a chance to talk about my cure for stuttering which I used to cure myself. I was a pretty severe stutterer. Joey always asks me about it because he finds it fascinating, and I am very grateful to get that information out to people who need it. Stuttering can be cured.

And now with the popularity of The King’s Speech, there’s a lot of attention being given to stuttering. I was on the show with the super-talented Steven Scott, NY1 film critic Neil Rosen, innovative school principal Anthony Albano, ( brother of the late Captain Lou!), and a few others.

Steven imitates not only people, but musical instruments so well that he played along with the band, using only his mouth. Sounds like a graduate of The Academy of Oral Skills!!! The show is Monday to Friday from midnight till 2 A.M.

Frank Chindamo of Fun Little Movies, is just racking up the awards and honors. He hosted the Comedy Hotshots panel at NATPE in Miami and also has his own show on Direct TV called “The MoShow-The Pursuit of App-iness. You can check that out on www.gomoshow.com

The Writer’s Guild Awards is always one of my favorite things to cover because Sherry Goldman is a pro and makes sure everything runs smoothly. I take my position at the end of the red carpet cause I can’t stand being squeezed into places, and I greet the celebs as they leave the carpet. It’s so much more comfortable that way.

Hosted by Kristen Schaal, it took place in the gorgeous lobby of the Equitable building, and I got to meet and interview so many cool people, including director John Waters, Jenny Lumet, Liz Brixius who created Nurse Jackie, Matthew Settle from Gossip Girl, Wayne Federman who wrote for the event, and Vincent Piazza who plays Lucky Luciano on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, who said he really liked my scarf.

It just so happens I often wear 3 scarves at the same time, but that’s a whole other story. I’m a big fan of Kristen’s and I tried e-mailing her to arrange a quick photo shoot, but maybe her e-mail changed cause I didn’t hear back from her.

I also ran into the ubiquitous Judah Friedlander who’s at as many places as I am. People often say to me, “ I see you everywhere” and I assure them that I’ll probably be in their apartment when they get home. One very gullible girl once said “ Really?” I assured her that I would!

But most important, I found my Comedy Matters Girl of the Month there. Her name is Angela Phillips and she is spectacular. You’ll be seeing her in an upcoming film by Alonzo Anderson, called Step Sisters. She’s a 5’3” ex-basketball player, who became a successful petite model, and actress and is the nicest person you could ever meet.

She’s the regional director for Bella Petite Magazine, which caters to the petite modeling business. She’s also very humble, and the kind of person that when you meet them, you feel like you’ve known them forever. She has aspirations in comedy, and I’m looking forward to working with Angela on an upcoming project myself! Trust me, … you’ll be seeing a lot of Angela Phillips!

Madison Malloy and Andrew Schwartztol are running a new comedy show on Wednesdays at O’Casey’s on West 41st Street. It’s a great room and when I stopped by, one comic was late so I filled in and did a set. That was fun!

Jordan Ferber also has a great show and I went by to celebrate with him at the 2 year anniversary of his Thursday night show at Zinc Bar. Another “must see”!

Times Square Tidbits

They used to call James Brown the hardest working man in show biz. That title has now been taken by Dennis Gatti the one man show who runs the Times Square Comedy Club. When he’s not booking the shows you can find him behind the bar serving drinks. If he could, he’d take every table’s order, and even eat the food, and laugh at the jokes for you.

There are five showrooms of different size capacities, and Dennis runs from room to room making sure that everything is going as it should. He also has specialty shows like Manhattan Magic and the Ultimate Drag Off.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also manages talent, and the night I was there I had the pleasant surprise of seeing a great talent he’s working with, Bobby Johnson.

People often say I know everyone in comedy, but every so often someone escapes my radar. Bobby has a multi-cultural background, and has done lots of TV and has been a regular on 98.7 Kiss FM’s morning show.

This guy made me laugh out loud and that’s hard to do. In comedy nobody laughs. They’re like, “That’s funny”, but they don’t crack a smile. Bobby really made me laugh out loud.

His accents are great. His Latino accent rules, especially when he explains how all they want to do is dance, … even at a funeral. “Let’s dance!” But when he talked about how he hoped Arabs have to do the same thing in their airports as we have to do in ours, and mimed a guy unwrapping an Arab going through security, as if he was swathed in bandages, I totally lost it.

Nick Kroll On The Loose

Nick Kroll is a fixture on TV, and on the comedy circuit in general. You gotta love Nick Kroll. He’s written for Chapelle’s Show and Human Giant, performed at UCB on both coasts, on NBC’s Parks and Recreation, HBO’s The Life and Times of Tim, and is one half of the “Oh Hello” guys with his writing partner John Mulaney.

Nick creates memorable characters, like Fabrice Fabrice, craft services coordinator for the show “That’s So Raven”, El Chupacabre, and his newest character Bobby Bottleservice, plus he just aired his first Comedy Central special Thank You Very Cool!

Just before it aired I went to see Nick at a store down in Soho called The Hundreds, where he was doing a personal appearance. I also went to give Nick the script I wrote for The Key of Awesome comedy hoping he could star in it with Lauren Francesca. Fortunately he liked it, unfortunately he was on his way to Vegas and then back to LA.

However he did give me a signed Bobby Bottleservice poster on which he wrote, “To Jeff, U R the only person with better hair than me!” Bobby B. , and he gave me a Bobby Bottleservice T-shirt which was also very cool. What he gave me that I liked best was his friendship! Thank you, very cool!

Anyway, until next time, … remember, … Comedy Matters!!!

Lee Camp: Chaos For The Weary

by John Delery

As perceptive and profane and profound as Lee Camp can be, he really does not represent a generation of new comic as much as the regeneration of an old one: George Carlin. Lucky him! Lucky us!

His antic and intensely interesting new CD from Stand Up! Records, Chaos for the Weary (available Friday), even comes with the Carlin seal of approval, courtesy of Kelly Carlin, daughter of the late comic Zeus.

“He’s a thinking person’s comic, he may just piss you off a little bit, but the most important thing is he’s really fucking funny,” Kelly tells the audience in her introduction of Camp.

As if the praise were jet propellant, Camp launches onto the stage and soars into the sarcasm stratosphere, instantly displaying the verbal dexterity and indignation necessary to merit the mantel of prospective Carlin clone.

“I’ll get right into it, this shit storm we’re dealing with right now, and I’m speaking, of course, of the world,” Camp declares on “People Over 50 Suck,” the spotlight track of this mostly hilarious linguistic adventure involving the economy, the environment, materialism, consumerism, apathy, terrible TV and the two true hurdles to human happiness: too many toothbrush options and the effin’ Amish! “It’s a little creepy,” Camp continues, “because I feel like we’re in the midst of a shit storm, but I also feel like if you look over the horizon, there’s hints of a cluster fuck, and so I think they may merge into some sort of shitsterfuck…and that’s not good at all.”

Although clearly a Carlin acolyte (especially when decrying spineless, brainless, visionless politicians), Camp has his own style. He knows when to downshift, easing into another rant with amusing asides, effectively silly jokes that change the pace, lighten the mood. (“I don’t think we need the signs anymore, I think we could all just agree: Floors are slippery when they’re wet.”)

Unlike squabbling, petty pols, Camp offers solutions for our problems —particularly promising: his idea for an alternative-energy source that entails using the cast of Jersey Shore as kindling, an environmentally friendly way to reduce noise pollution without more regulation!

His approach can be scattershot (his mind works faster than the audience’s at times, creating pockets of silence that Camp acknowledges but bulldozes through), but his semiautomatic delivery sprays the crowd with a fusillade of words, ideas and images bound to nick a nerve and funny bone.

We highly suggest you pick up a copy of Lee Camp’s Chaos For The Weary. Just click the image below.

Michael Showalter: The accidental comedian?

by Emma Kat Richardson

When I was 17, it was a very good year. George W. Bush hadn’t yet had the opportunity to drive the country into massive collapse, and a friend of my brother’s introduced me to a wonderfully affecting offbeat comedy called Wet Hot American Summer – a film I loved and connected with so brazenly, not even the gifting of its poster from an evil ex could soil my adoration.

Ten years and the heaving death throes of the American planetary superpower later, and that film’s writer and star, Michael Showalter, has again taken the wit and the words and formed them into an engaging and cohesive gospel. With the release of his first book, Mr. Funny Pants – a comic memoir that winds through the personal and thoroughly abstract subconscious corners of both author and audience – Showalter continues to prove his gift for milking hilarity from the awkward exchanges that comprise an everyday routine.

Naturally, a career that includes membership in the much-lauded sketch troupe The State, a number of various television and film projects, and an unquestionable dominance over the feline-related comedy niche market is hard to quibble with. It would seem as though his life has been leading up to the inevitable publication of narrative, too, as he comes from a highly literate and Ivy-league educated clan: his mother, Elaine Showalter, is a renowned feminist literary critic whose work has been published frequently. If anything, the translation of Showalter’s oddball worldview into page-turning prose acts as a natural extension on his previous contributions to the comedy realm, and stands as resilient testament to why I would probably call him my favorite working comedian. (Favorite deceased: Chris Farley.)

That said, I confess that I spent the last several hours before our conversation nursing frightening fantasies of our exchange rapidly disintegrating into something like an episode of The Chris Farley Show. (“Remember… remember that time you were in Stella? That was AWESOME!”) But these fears, much like Showalter’s own self-professed insecurities, quickly proved unfounded, as we delved deep into funny and affable discussion of his internal monologue, our cats, and why he’ll always be a theater kid at heart. Take note, fans of the funny, and heed me when I say that hanging on to that poster was the right decision.

First of all, this is extremely important: I keep hearing rumors that Wet Hot American Summer is going to be turned into a musical, kind of like a Hairspray-update sort of thing? Can that be substantiated at all?
Well, what can I say? There’s definitely been discussions of that. We actually have written some songs, but because of our schedules and our lives, right now it’s sort of on pause. But yes, I think long term, it’s something we’d like to do.

Let’s talk about your book a little bit, specifically the genesis of it. How long has this project been in the works, and how closely do you think the final product resembles your original idea?
I think like a couple of years. Like, two or three years? I mean my original vision of it was that I would write like, you know, a memoir that would change people’s lives. And the result is closer to something you might read on an airplane, or in a bathroom. So I’d say that I fell short of my goal of writing a profound memoir. But I give myself a big ‘A’ for effort.

Are you proud of how it turned out? I mean, I really liked it, you definitely should be.
Um, yeah, I mean, there’s – not even specific to the book, but in general – whenever I’m serious with anything I sort of um, kick it to the side, like an orphan, and can’t think internally about what I wish I had done differently or what I’d like to do differently in the future. I think that for what [the book] is…for what it is, I think it’s good. It reminds me, in a good way, of a lot of books I read when I was in high school, when I started reading like, you know, Steve Martin’s, Woody Allen’s humor books, where it was just sort of odds and ends and kind of just sort of trying to [write] a funny book to pick up and read and get a strong feeling for someone’s comedic sensibilities: the kind of book that makes you smile.

As I was reading it, I kind of noticed that the first third seemed to be devoted to a lot of silly and abstract themes, and as it moved into the second third it got a little more auto-biographical and personal, and then the last third sort of went back to the silly. Was this a conscious decision on your part, to structure it that way?
Yeah, I mean the first third is sort of about trying to write the book. The first third is sort of like, you know, a little bit of meditating on what kind of book I’d like to write, and then, how am I gonna do that? And then the second third is sort of, as you said, it’s actually going a little deeper into some actual autobiography, a lot of stuff about my childhood. And then, the last third, I sort of thought of it as like the back of the magazine, where it’s just like….random stuff? [Laughs]. Just sort of random odds and ends. So I think the last third of the book was just kind of all the loose ends.

Gotcha. Was it at all cathartic for you to write?
Yes, in a sense, I mean, I think that I touched on things that I’d like to expand on, maybe. It was cathartic in that way, it was sort of like, putting some things down on paper and through doing that, kind of actually seeing what – in writing about some of this stuff and actually trying to learn a little bit about what the things that actually are important to me and interesting to me are. I think I went into it thinking that other things would be the things I liked writing about, and so, coming out of it, I sort of got a clearer sense of what actually is interesting to me.

Do you have an example of that, specifically?
Well, there’s some stuff in it about, like, being in plays. My early experiences of being an actor. Like when I was in Oliver, or in The Crucible, and things like that. And you know, when I was growing up, if you’d asked me what would my career be, I’d never in a million years have said I’d be a comedian.

Why not?
[Laughs] Why not? Because I don’t know. If you talk to other people from The State, I think a lot of people will tell you this: that we weren’t comedy nerds. Some of us were, but a lot of us weren’t necessarily comedy nerds. I mean I loved comedy, but I was more of like a theater kid. And, a lot of the people from The State were theater kids, and in a weird way, what I learned in writing the book, although again I don’t know if you’d ever glean this from reading the book, is that I’m still a theater kid. That’s really who I am.

And so, moving forward from here, there’s a lot more that I have, that I’d like to say about theater and live performance and plays and stuff. That there was sort of a moment in my life where – and I’m happy about it, I have no regrets about it – but where I sort of got lost in the shuffle. I mean I know I’m a good actor, and it’s not about wanting to be an actor or anything, but I think I just sort of realized in a lot of ways I’m still kind of trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. [Laughs].

Do you see yourself taking any radically different path from what you’ve already pursued?
No, definitely not. No, not a radically different path, but understanding this, it’s sort of hard to articulate. No, definitely not a radically different path, but maybe understanding more clearly what my own comedic point of view is, and embracing that.

That’s important.
It’s VERY important.

Yes, especially if you work in comedy, I’d say. Very important.
I would think so! Or say so. That’s a really astute observation.

I know it’s 10 am, but would you like to drink to that?
Absolutely! I have a cup of coffee in my hand. And it’s half coffee and half Irish whiskey. I don’t even know if that’s a real… I dunno what that is. I actually don’t drink.

Oh, really? Not at all?
No, I’m a teetotaler. I used to drink, copiously. Those days are gone. See, you don’t get a lot of that in the book. That’s sort of part of it, is that I could’ve written that story. You know, I could have written, like, the story of waking up on the bathroom floor with vomit and blood. And I started writing that, but it just wasn’t very funny.

Since you sort of have this grand literary tradition in your background, and actually in college I studied some of your mother’s work too…
You did? Where did you go to school?

Elizabethtown College, it’s in Pennsylvania.
Very nice! Lovely.

That being said, I’m curious to know what kind of academic curriculum you’d like to see your book taught in, if any? Just, hypothetically.
Wow, that is a genuinely good question. Um…. Stupid Shit 101?

That’s a genuinely good answer.
[Laughs].

Not long ago, Michael Ian Black’s book, My Custom Van, was adapted into a stage show. Would you like something similar to happen with your book, and if it did, how would you see a project like that unfolding?
Well, I actually have some ideas of my own that I would actually adapt it myself, into something of a one-man show. I’m going on this book tour, in March. I’m gonna be sort of performing a lot of the material that I touch on in the book, so I wanna kind of see what it’s like, up on its feet? And then, in the back of my mind, in the spring, in April and May, I’d like to start actually developing, you know, developing a kind of a one hour show loosely based on some of the stuff that’s in the book. And I don’t think it would be called Mr. Funny Pants. But maybe it would, I don’t know.

Do you have any other ideas for a title?
I did have an idea for a title, just yesterday I was thinking of it. Uh…oh, darn it. I literally just had a title yesterday and now I’ve already forgotten it! If I can think of it I’ll tell you, but, right now, no.

Okay. No worries, just curious. So, shifting gears a little here to kind of your overall comedy style. One thing that’s always kind of struck me as interesting about it is that it’s always very stream of consciousness? Is that reflective of some sort of inner monologue that’s constantly running through your head?
Probably. I mean, part of it is just a lack of discipline, let’s be honest. But I think yeah. I mean, I am genuinely obsessive compulsive. Yeah, I think if what you’re talking about is that to an extent it’s like, I’m in my own head, a lot of the time. Sort of like, I’ll say something and then that gets me off on another topic. Or I’ll comment on what I said, which then springboards into something else. Part of that too is just trying to be – and I say this in quotes… there’s no reason why it would be in quotes – you know, just trying to be “honest.” And so, sometimes it’s like I’m editing as I write. I’m editing myself as a writer, or performer.

Yeah, that’s interesting what you said, that you strive for honesty. Not to say that your work’s not honest, but when I was reading your book, I kind of felt like there were some parts where I wasn’t really sure whether to take it seriously or not, because you sort of set this like, very sarcastic, I’m-doing-a-character sort of tone, do you agree with that or not?
Say that again.

Oh, I don’t know, I was kind of just thinking out loud, I–
No, say it again!

Oh–
I wanna hear it!

Alright, I just think it’s interesting that you said you strive for honesty, which is not to say that your work isn’t honest, but as I was reading the book especially I noticed that there was, like I said, that first third, there was a distance from the personal, and then you kind of got more into it in the second third, so you managed to find a balance between completely sarcastic and aloofness in your comedy and the personal.
Well, i’m never intentionally aloof, but I think I was trying in that first third to be honest about the fact that I – and maybe it comes across – I mean I am being sarcastic, be-cause obviously I’m lying. That being said, the underlying premises are all true. Like, there’s a section in the book where I talk about, you know, if I was gonna write a book, I’d need to read one, too. And obviously I’m being sarcastic, but in a way, I’m not. In fact in a big way I’m not being sarcastic.

You know there’s like, when writing personal stuff, and other people probably have this problem less than me, there’s like this fear of too much information or it’s gonna feel awkwardly personal, [that] kind of thing. Um, or like, “who gives a shit?” And so I think that aloofness, or that sarcasm, is like a defense mechanism. It’s like, I can’t write about this stuff if I don’t sort of… if I’m not at the same time making fun of the fact that I’m writing about it at all. Like, it’s a disclaimer, it’s a big disclaimer. It’s like, “before you tell me you don’t like me, let me just tell you first, I don’t like myself more.”

Is that maybe a way of trying to subconsciously connect with your audience?
Yeah. It’s a way of trying to connect with the audience, but it’s also a way of checking in with myself and saying – and again, this has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve never really written a book. [Laughs]. Obviously, I’ve never written a book before. So any at-tempt to get personal, it’s like, it’s something I want to do, but just don’t have a ton of experience with. So it’s sort of a trial-by-fire process. Most people working in this kind of a medium have had a lot of experience with writing this way; I just haven’t. And so, it’s connecting to an audience but it’s also somehow connecting to myself and saying it’s that dialogue, as you said, inside my mind, I can’t really…

Turn it off?
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean it’s almost like I’m reading the book and writing it at the same time.

Ah, that’s a good way of putting it. This is something you make mention of in the text, but it’s also kind of a fairly common societal trope in that uh, there’s a lot of humor to be found in the stuff that hurts.
Yeah.

And, as you get older and wiser–and I know that you just got married recently, so congratulations on that–
Thanks.

Do you ever think that you might become like, too…content, or self-actualized, to keep producing that kind of comedy? Is that something you see happening, or are worried about?
Um… nah. I mean that, I think it would be impossible for me to ever be content. It’s just not in my DNA. Self-actualized, I’d love that. And I think, if anything, it would probably allow me to access in a more effective way what that pain is.

Well, I do have one more question for you, and I do need some personal advice. I moved into my house in September and my roommate has two cats, and I have one cat. And, six months later, they still hate each other.
Ahhh…

Your cats aren’t related, are they?
No, no. Actually, I had the same situation, which is that I have two cats and my wife has one cat. And we brought them together, and we had a very different experience, which is that they got along almost right away.

Really?!
Yep, it was pretty unusual, they – my two cats – are just really friendly and they wanted to be friends with hers. And um, there were a couple of days of hissing and stuff, but they’re like peas in a pod. Now, here’s the thing, when you brought them together did you just throw them together?

No. I mean we pretty much tried everything: we did the slow introduction, like through a doorway. And then my roommate got the pheromone plug-ins, which are apparently snake oil, because they don’t seem to work at all. I’m just wondering if you have any insight into what else we could do.
I had another experience many years ago where I had one cat, and one of my roommates had a cat. It took them about six months, before they could like, coexist, without fighting. Where are you at? How many months are you at?

Uh, six, actually, so that’s encouraging.
Oh yeah, yeah–um….I wish I could…I don’t have the answer, cats are weird that way. But I think eventually — and sometimes, too, you just kinda gotta let ‘em fight.

Gotta let ‘em fight?
Sometimes, yeah.

Mhm. Well I think part of the problem is that my roommate’s cats are mother and daughter, and they’re both older, and then my cat is this gigantic Maine Coon beast who likes to charge at them randomly because he’s still a kitten.
Oohhh.

Yeah.
It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.

Thank you, i appreciate that.
I have no idea if that’s true, but…what else am I gonna say?

Exactly. Alright well, that was my last question, do you have anything else you wanna add?
Do you live in Austin?

I do, yes.
Oh, okay. That’s great. Wonderful city.

It is, yeah, I just moved down from Detroit last year and it’s a vast improvement.
Uh, yeah, I would imagine. Not that there’s anything wrong with Detroit…

Yeah, it just needs a facelift.
I take it back, there’s a lot wrong with Detroit. But no, that’s great. That’s great.

Thank you, yeah.
I have nothing else to say, other than I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

For more info, check out michaelshowalter.net. To snag yourself a copy of Mr. Funny Pants, just click the image below. Do it!

Patrice O’Neal: Ready to challenge the mainstream

by Dylan P. Gadino

There are few comedians more divisive than Patrice O’Neal. In fact, the only reason he hasn’t ruffled more liberal feathers than he already has, is due to his lack of widespread mainstream exposure. But that’s about to change with his first hour-long special Elephant in the Room for Comedy Central– premiering Saturday at 10 pm EST.

Things are about to get better, or worse, for Patrice– depending on whether he’s looking forward to critics’ closer analysis on his theories on women, race, politics and everything in between.

We caught up with Patrice recently to chat about Elephant in the Room, where he sees himself in the world of stand-up comedy and whether the American people have a strong enough appetite for brutally, honest comedy that O’Neal could finally break through the underground and start pissing off the masses. Enjoy.

Why has it taken so long to have a one hour special?
I’ve done a lot of half hours— three half hours for Showtime, Comedy Central and HBO. In terms of comedy aspirations, that’s pretty good. But now, everyone is doing a half-hour and an hour is becoming what a half-hour used to be. Half-hours were really strong and really made you pop; I think an hour does that now. I think I never did them because there was this phenomenon of do-it-yourself specials, these homemade specials. I just never got into that.

I’ve been doing this 20 years. In my tenth year I did my first special, in my eleventh I did Comedy Central and my thirteenth I did HBO. So in a span of 13 years I had done three specials and I was on top of my game. I was younger and more aggressive. At this point in the last five or six years I’ve been ready to do an hour but I never wanted to do a do-it-yourself special. I wanted it to be real and authentic.

I wanted it to be full on. It’s like the difference between an indie film and an MGM film; I wanted an MGM special. Even though with an independent special, if it hits, you make all the money. But I wasn’t willing to gamble on that; on other things, yeah, but not on that. Comedy Central is invested in this. If I did this myself I’d have to call you and try to set up an interview, send out a pre-thing for the special, but now Comedy Central is invested. They put their money in and they want to get a return so they’re going to do what they have to do to make this thing work. They put a pretty penny in. We’re like partners— and we’ll see for the next time. We’re both getting something out of it. I probably could’ve made more doing it myself but I was willing to partner up with them. I think it makes sense.

You’ve named your special Elephant in the Room, which implies you’re about to tell people a bunch of truths that they would normally choose to ignore. Would you say that’s an accurate assessment of what you do?
I didn’t want it to be a douchey thing. I’m a fat guy, so there’s a dounble entendre. I think it helps those people who can’t focus to focus on something. In the Internet age there’s a lof of haters and that’s their job— to say, ‘go fuck yourself.’ I gave them something to say ‘go fuck yourself’ about right away. Elephant in the Room; I’m overweight. It’s like having a shiny object to distract them. But it’s a double thing. I would never have named it that if I wasn’t overweight; I think it’s funny because I’m overweight. But I don’t want to self describe my own comedy like, ‘I’m saying the things that should be said!’ The name is funny because I’m overweight.

But if you think my comedy describes [the] elephant in the room [concept], that’s a plus. I literally mean there’s an elephant in the room, but it’s also a statement. It’s just like another expression—the 800 pound gorilla. But I couldn’t name it that even though I wanted to. I don’t think white people would be able to deal with that. I think Elephant in the Room has just enough meaning. And using words that describe you as an artist should be done by other people; it’s how you perceive what you are. If you say, ‘I’m an important voice of our generation,’ you’re a douche.

Well, let me then describe your comedy, since you don’t feel its your place to do so: Your comedy allows me to not feel like such a piece of shit for thinking some of the horrible things I do. And I doubt I’m the only one who likes your brand of comedy (guys like Jim Norton, Nick DiPaolo, Bill Burr) for that same reason.
That’s something I wonder. Is there an appetite for that kind of comedy, a commercial appetite? Because none of us are in the realm of Jo Koy. He’s big. Russell Peters is big; Chelsea Handler and Whitney Cummings are big. They’re selling out all over the country. So, is their a true market for what I do or is this just a labor of life? After this special comes out, will anything happen? I’ve been doing it 20 years. I’ve been doing it at a decent level for years. I have a presence on TV but I’ve never broken the plane. If a club holds 300, I get 200 in. Its never broken the plane of 400 people trying to get in where 100 peopole get turned away. I’ve never reached that place. At this point, I’m really in doubt that there’s a market for the brand of humor I do.

Jokes.com
Exclusive – Patrice O’Neal – Tastes Like Hope
comedians.comedycentral.com

There’s definitely a market. It’s never going to be a mainstream market. But there’s always an appetite for fringe art in all forms.
That’s in interesting term—‘fringe.’ When I look at the top comics in the world, they all have a particular person that comes to see them that identitfies themselves with the other people that go to the show. Like, if I’m a Jo Koy fan and I look at another Jo Koy fan, I say, ‘well you’re me, I’m you and you’re me; we’re his fans.’ Larry The Cable Guy has a very particular market. Kevin Hart has a very particular market; Lisa Lampanelli, too. If you run down the most popular comis today in terms of selling out live shows, they all have a fanbase and it’s not a diverse fanbase.

I don’t think there’s a particular fan for me or for the type of comedy I do, whatever they call it: Cringe Comedy, but that’s fucking ridiculous. I can’t believe a guy like Nick [DiPaolo] just doesn’t have millions of fans, that millions of people don’t want to hear what Nick has to say. Or a million don’t want to hear what I have to say or Colin [Quinn] or [Jim] Norton. I think Bill Burr is getting bigger and bigger an I think he goes down that road of edgy. But I think he has a particular fan. I think he resonates to heterosexual men; they love Bill. I think he makes white, straight men feel good. I think.

Like, my harassment bit. [ed. note: Patrice does a bit in his new special, wherein he proposes that you should be allowed to sexually harass your co-workers one day of the year]. I’m not sure who that resonates to. It’s more of a question, I’m just curious. People laugh when I’m doing my shows; they’re laughing hard. They’ll say, ‘hey man you were great,’ but it seems like the reaction should be more of a powerful thing. And I don’t even mean it should go mainstream. I just mean that people that are into this particular kind of comedy should come out and enjoy it and support it, because there aint much of it out there. Really, there’s a lot of horseshit. And I’m just waiting to see if my special does anything for me.

I just did the Houston Improv and there was an ice storm here [in NYC]. And I didn’t want to fly in; I was like this is ridiculous, so I called the guy who was booking it and I was like, ‘can I pull out of this gig and reschedule it for when after my special drops because maybe it’ll bring more people in.’ He was like, ‘nah…. hour specials do nothing.’ And I was like, ‘damn, that’s deflating.’ He was like Chelsea Handler does more than hour specials. So I’m like, ‘should I just believe you?’

What’s the deal with the apostrophe in your name? I thought it was a thing that there was supposed to be no apostrophe. Now, on all your new projects there’s an apostrophe.
My manager is obsessed with apostrophe, and it confuses people. And I don’t really give a shit. If you don’t put in the apostrophe, just spell it right. I’d rather people just spell it right. When he’s doing things, the apostrophe means something to him. I don’t give a shit. I don’t even remember if its supposed to be there or not. Maybe he thinks its regal or something.

Do you plan on playing Montreal for Just For Laughs this summer, after you were denied entry last year? [ed note: Canadian border police refused to let O’Neal in because of a crime he’d committed in his youth. He had been in Canada 40 times since then].
If they want to try to get me in, sure. It’s one of those things— you have a hard lesson learned. And then you run into people…. People say life aint fair. Life is very fair. We all should have water and we all should have food; and life has given us all those things, but the thing that takes those things away is people. So it would’ve been different if I would’ve ran into a person at the border who was reasonable and who would’ve listened and just been very human about it. But I ran into a person who was put in a position where it was a little too much for her to handle. I’ve been going to Canada since ’96 for the Toronto and Montreal festivals, doing a commercials, a movie or playing nightclubs.

Canada is very racist. And this particular person looked like the Swiss Miss cocoa girl. I could understand her mindset. It’s ok. I don’t hate her guts at all. She didn’t even really do anything to me. She didn’t do anything to me for me to forgive her or not. I’ve ran into many people in my life who have been very unfair. And I’ve seen other people be treated unfairly. I’m a very empathetic guy when it comes to suffering. No one should be suffering at the hand of a loser who gets revenge because of how much of a loser they are. The TSA, a police officer— they could make my life miserable if they want.

Jokes.com
Uncensored – Patrice O’Neal – Bedroom Moves
comedians.comedycentral.com

So, if I can go to Montreal this year, I will. If I can’t… Well, I’ve had a long, fruitful relationship with Canada and I’ve put a lot of money into their economy. I have nothing against them. Some people are very cold. I always consider myself a logical person. I always try to look at both sides and be reasonable, and some people aren’t. And I think those are the people that go for jobs that can really fuck people over. I mean who would want to do something where, like an IRS person, like a guy who takes someone’s home— who would want to do that? Just the idea that someone would actually put in a application for that— like can I work for a company that destroys lives? That shit’s hilarious to me.

I don’t care much about the situation in Montreal because I don’t have much faith in people anyway. Anything a person does to another person doesn’t surprise me. You just hope that you bump into reasonable people. That’s all you can hope for.

For more info, check out patriceoneal.com. To snag yourself a copy of Elephant in the Room on DVD, just click the image below.

Featured review: Jim Norton– Despicable

by Jeff Havens

Release date: March 8

In case you don’t know, Jim Norton is what George Carlin would have been had Carlin not been such a sweet and sensitive guy. On his aptly-titled third album Despicable – over half of the track titles (“Penguins are Assholes,” “Ron Jeremey’s Giant Cock,” “A Pile of Pussy”) would be unprintable in a mainstream publication – Norton gives his fans exactly the kind of abrasive, vulgar and entirely unrepentant comedy they’ve come to love and expect.

Perhaps best known to television audiences as Rich from HBO’s famously cancelled-before-it-had-a-chance sitcom Lucky Louie and to Sirius XM subscribers as the perverted co-host of The Opie and Anthony Show, Norton vows early on that he’ll “watch anything with misery in it.’”

True to his word, Norton discusses such heartwarming subjects as Hurricane Katrina, suicide jumpers, a morbidly obese woman whose skin somehow got grafted to her own couch—and even outlines a few rather clever ways to get away with murder. An avid collector of celebrity autographs, Norton also shares a handful of stories about the people he’s met, including a hysterical accounting of how he ended up in a picture with Laura Bush. Oh, and don’t worry, Norton fans – there’s also plenty true tales of immoral and deviant sex acts.

Throughout Despicable, Norton defends himself with characteristic fervor. “People will say to me, ‘You got blown by a transsexual, how does that not make you gay?’ Real simple. I’m an American. I’m allowed to go to Europe – as long as I come back to America, I’m not European. I’m just an American who enjoyed Europe a lot more than he thought he would.”

The biggest pitfall for a cringe comic is that it’s often easy to rely too heavily on vulgarity to carry weak material. And indeed, there are a few times where Norton’s jokes don’t seem to be much more than a collection of epithets.

Most of the time, however, his wordplay is adept enough to make you laugh even while you’re telling yourself that you shouldn’t be. Despicable is not an album for the weak of heart. But if you’re in a mood to take a ride to places you know you’re not supposed to go, then fasten your seatbelt and hold on tight.

Pre-order a copy of Despicable now! Just click the image below.

Larry the Cable Guy: Traveling for laughs

by Dylan P. Gadino

Love him or hate him, you can’t deny Larry the Cable Guy’s incredible popularity– and neither could the History Channel, who has now employed the stand-up comedian to host his very own weekly travelogue show, Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy.

The hour-long show premieres tonight at 9 pm EST. In preparation for the big night, we spoke to Larry (real name: Dan Whitney) about the pressures of having his own show, his physical limitations and much more. Check it out.

You’ve sold out stadiums doing stand-up and you’ve starred in movies, but this is the first time that you and your name will have to carry a show week after week. Is this a new kind of pressure for you?
I just thought it would be a fun thing to do. I really don’t feel any pressure for it. If it does good, it does good. If it doesn’t, I know it’s a good show. I know that it’s funny.

Everybody I work with knows that it’s funny. And I think my fans will like it. But as far as if it does well or not, I don’t feel a lot of pressure.

Well, that’s good. What were some of the behind the scenes TV things you learned about that you never knew about?
How long it takes. [laughter]

Really?
I mean, how long it takes – it’s a whole different kind of deal. I mean, when I first got to doing it, I was thinking, ‘well, we’re going to film how many shows? Okay, we’re going to film this many shows, that’s 30 days. It’ll probably take, you know, 35, 40 days to get this done.’ It took 120 days! [laughter]

Dear lord.
And then that’s not it. Then you have green screens, voiceovers. So the travel part of it, once you got done with that, you’re on the road, you’re burned out, you’re doing other projects, and you’re like, ‘Okay, this is the last day. Our last History Channel show, we finished it,’ we’re going, ‘Okay, here’s the martini— boom.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh man, that’s cool, we got the first show in the can.’

And then you get home and three days later, it’s like, ‘Okay, now we need to schedule the next four months for green screens.” I didn’t know this came with filming a show. You forget about how much work it takes to do it. It’s just amazing.

Is the show set up to be one-time thing or is the plan to try to keep on doing the series as long as possible?
If it goes good, and they want me to do it again, I will. ButI enjoy doing stand-up, that’s what I do.

Yeah.
I am completely content in going on the road and doing 130, 140 shows a year, and working half the year. I’m completely content with that, because I love doing stand-up. I love it. These are little things that come along where you’re like, “You know what, it’s something different, I think my fans might like this. Plus, it’s something I think I’d like to do. I get to travel around, I get to meet people – yeah, I think I’ll do it.”

So it’s one of those things where I take it because I think my fans will enjoy it, but because I’ll enjoy it too, plus it puts me in a different light. It’s a whole different way of seeing me that I think would be kind of cool for people. That’s one of the reasons why I did it. I enjoy that kind of stuff, but as far as this show going on for 15 years – I never thought that at all. Every time I do something, I think it’s a onetime shot. That’s because I don’t know if I want to do it again.

I’ve watched five or six segments of the show. You met tons of just regular, normal people. Did you meet one person or one group of people that you really felt a kinship with, someone that you enjoyed hanging out with the most?
I felt a kinship with everybody. There wasn’t any place that I went where I was like, “Ooh, boy. I don’t wanna hang around with these people.” Even when I went and did the etiquette lesson in Vermont. They were completely opposite of who you would think would be fans of mine. And that’s why we did the episode, it’s out of my element. It turned out that they were fans, and they liked what I did. I bonded with them great. I thought they were really nice people, and fun. Everywhere I went, I had a great rapport with everybody.

There’s no place that I went to that I thought, “Well, I’ll never do this again.” Not once. Every week was just like the last week, it was almost like home. They knew who I was, I enjoyed being around them, so it made for good shows. I can’t really point to any one particular person. They were all fun. I mean that sincerely. I really had a good time.

It certainly comes through in the show. Every once in a while, like during the etiquette episode when you were cracking jokes, I was almost hoping for them to cringe. But that never really happened.
Well, yeah, they really did. They were awesome. In that episode, I was really playing it up. I was really trying, but it was just funny watching their reactions. The further and deeper I went, and reached in for something else, I just wanted to see how far I could push the envelope. They seemed to really enjoy the whole thing. They were awesome.

Did the producers ever tell you to do something you didn’t want to?
I didn’t do anything where I thought it wasn’t safe. If I thought it was kind of safe, I would do it. We did an episode in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And when the tide goes out, these boats go out and they get clams. And so there’s some parts that they gotta wade in the water and they sink in mud all the way up to their stomachs. Sometimes it’s even deeper than that.

Ok.
My cameraman was getting stuck, and my producer was getting stuck, and they wanted me to walk in that. I’m like, “I’m not doing it, guys! That’s dangerous.” But the guys who had done their whole lives were telling me, “Don’t worry, we’re here, nothing’s gonna happen, we’re in this all the time, we’re supervised.” Well, I gotta tell ya, everybody got stuck. And I got stuck all the way up to my chest in mud.

Oh man.
And I just started feeling the bottom. I had to grab onto these grasses on dry land over to my right and the tide’s coming in about three hours. And where we’re at would be filled with about 10 foot of water. It was rough. Then finally my producer said, “We have enough footage, this ain’t workin’.” I asked if they’d edited that up; they said it looks hilarious.

There were some pretty hairy moments. The only thing that I did not do was – I’m scared of heights – I did a lot of things that involved heights. But the one thing I didn’t do was with the Boy Scouts. They had a thing that was about a hundred feet in the air, and they hooked themselves with a rope and they jumped over the side of it and they’d scale down it. And I didn’t do that. The other thing I didn’t do was in Florida, the Crash-A-Rama.

They wanted me to participate in the trailer races. And the trailer races are basically just old race cars, or whatever kind of car you want to smash up, and you pull a trailer. Like five other people had trailers that they were pulling. One guy had a single wide. Four other guys were pulling campers. There were four other guys pulling jet skis, and there were literally like 25 people racing. They do about 15 laps, 20 laps, pulling trailers.

And, of course, they’d get smashed, and there’s cars jackknifing and slamming into one another, because it’s a Crash-a-Rama. And they wanted me to do that. And I was like, “Guys, I live down here, and I ain’t gettin’ in the same traffic with you sumbitches.” But they said, “They’re gonna let you win, they’re gonna rig it so that you win.” And I thought, “They ain’t gonna do that, are you kidding me? They gonna get me out here and go ‘Hey, look at Larry out here, we got the cameras rolling, let’s give him some bumps.’” You know? I knew that was gonna happen.

After it was over, my director came over and said to me, “Whoever at History told you to do that should be fired immediately.” Because you actually saw how dangerous it was, and they wanted me to do it. So those are the only two things I didn’t do. I didn’t drive in the Crash-a-Rama trailer race, and I didn’t scale down a 110-foot thing with the boy scouts. I did everything else, though.

I saw the episode with you and Bill Elliot. You gotta trust a guy like Bill Elliot, of course, but even so, I’d be scared shitless to be in that car doing donuts like that.
I get dizzy, I’m not a good roller coaster guy, and there I am with Bill Elliot. They would do stuff like that all the time. They’d have something planned that they wouldn’t tell me about. Which was fine. I never usually backed out. This was one of those things I didn’t know about, and we went to Bill Elliot’s and I’m like wow, cool, we’re at Bill Elliot’s. And then he said “Hey, come out back, I want to show you something.” I saw the car sitting there. So I’m like, “Okay, what’s going on?” And he didn’t even tell me he knew what we’d be doing. I saw that it was all camera’d up, it had cameras on it.

I said, “Bill, what are we doing? We’re not hauling ass in this thing, are we?” He said, “No, no, they just want us to drive around and that kind of thing.” I said, “Oh, okay, that’s reasonable.” As soon as I hopped in there, I said something about no seatbelts. He goes, “That’s right. Are you ready?” He floored it after that. Oh, dude, I was so pissed off. I was really, really pissed off.

It makes for good television, though.
Oh yeah, it makes for good television, but holy mackerel, there was some shit that I was doing that, in reality, on a regular day, there’s just no way I would do that.

I saw the episode with the moonshiners. How, is it that you were able to name these guys who are moonshining? It’s illegal, right?
Here’s a deal on that. They are actual moonshiners, or they were at one time. The still that was there was not a real still. The guy worked on that for two days, but it’s an authentic replica of a still that’s up in them woods not far from there. As far as anybody knows, he doesn’t do it anymore. He knows how to do it, his daddy used to do it, he used to do it, but he don’t do it no more. He’s got one or two up there but never would he ever show anybody, never would he say he does it. He built that one complete replica to scale just to show us how he does it.

Interesting, got it. At the end of the segment, you take a sip. Are you really drinking moonshine?
I was really drinking. He had some there that he just got out of a deal. He just got it from somebody. I gotta tell ya, it was pretty powerful. I’ll tell ya what, they were real good guys, I enjoyed hanging out with them.

What does moonshine taste like?
Kerosene. [laughter] Take a shot of Jim Beam and then make it about three times as strong, that’s your moonshine.

Yeah, huh?
Yeah, it’s rough. The flavored stuff – they flavor it down and water it down so it won’t kill ya if you drink a decent amount. But that stuff that I took, that was just hardcore. That wasn’t watered down, that wasn’t flavored, that was just right off the stills. That was the shit. That’s what you get before they water it down and flavor it.

And how’s your family life going? You have two kids, right?
Yeah, I got two kids, little boy and a little girl. My little girl is three, going on four, my little boy is four, going on Ritalin. They’re about to start school, so I’m looking for day care with dorm rooms. Kindergarten with dorm rooms. But they’re a lot of fun.

Yeah, I have a two year old son.
Isn’t it great? It’s really awesome. I never thought it’d be like it is, but it’s amazing.

Yeah, it is. It’s a lot of fun. Do they know you more than Daddy? Do they know that you’re on TV and millions of people love you? Do they get that concept yet?
I don’t think they do. Both them have pretty much grown up on a tour bus, my little boy way more than my little girl. They’ve seen the stage, the people after, they kind of figure it out. They know that I tell jokes. I’ll write a joke on my hand, they’ll want a joke on their hands. Any time that I leave for a two-day trip they want me to take a magic marker and write a joke on their hand because they know I do that, which is kind of cool.

I think the older they get, they kind of figure it out. I think they think that everybody’s dad’s on TV. It’s kind of like no, not every kid’s dad’s on TV. The funniest time was with some commercial, I don’t even know what it was, but it was just a guy in his underwear, big fat guy in underwear. My little boy goes, “Daddy! Daddy! There’s Daddy!” And I go, “That’s not me, Wyatt.”

Now, for Cars, there was this crazy thing when they were both really little, they would hear the voice of Mater, and I would do the voice as he was doing it, and it made them cry. They were scared of me. They thought that was weird, they started to cry. And now that they’ve seen the movie a bunch of times, I tell them that Daddy is doing another one of those movies. Now when they see it, they don’t even call it Mater, they call it Daddy. It’s bound to be kind of strange for them. I have no idea what it would be like for them, but it’s got to be kind of strange.

Are there any additional projects or anything we should know about?
I’m doing some shows with Bill and Jeff, about twenty shows with Bill and Jeff. Other than that, I’m just going to do my regular shows. Cars comes out in June, and I’m filming in February a sequel to The Tooth Fairy. Another one of my bonanza blockbusters. [laughter]

They’re obviously working, or else they wouldn’t be doing them again.
It’s definitely a franchise movie, so I’m sure they know what they’re doing.

For more info on Larry, check out larrythecableguy.com.

Jesse Joyce: Pro Joyce

by Jeff Havens

Jesse Joyce doesn’t do cocaine. It’s not his fault that he has ‘a look and demeanor that seems to imply I do a lot of blow.’ But his jittery, rapid-fire delivery, coupled with a keen pair of ‘enormous coke eyes,’ helps Joyce deliver big on his debut album, Pro Joyce.

Joyce, a well-established roast writer who frequently opened for Greg Giraldo, pairs a sharp wit with precisely the right amount of self-deprecation. I’ve always preferred comedians who exercise their vocabulary, and Joyce’s adroit wordplay is perfect for anyone who enjoys the occasional five-dollar word. His comedy is largely self-referential, and he addresses issues like his then-upcoming marriage and his struggles with alcoholism with equal ease.

Joyce has also traveled extensively – Pro Joyce was recorded during a tour in Canada – and his account of a night on the town in the Philippines is flat-out hilarious.

Even at his darkest – say, when discussing all the adorable ways one can kill a baby – Joyce maintains a wry charm that keeps his audience on his side. Case in point, and my personal favorite:

“They had to recall every GPS unit in all the cars in Germany a couple years ago because the satellite was telling Germans to turn six feet too early, and they were all just smashing into buildings. Which is more fuel for my argument that if you have a charismatic speaking voice, Germans will follow you anywhere.”

For an hour-long album, there are surprisingly few low points: a few of his observations about current events and relationships seem forced. But, thankfully, Joyce knows he’s at his best when he talks about his own experiences.

Fortunately for us, his experiences are varied, absurd, ridiculous, and more than funny enough to keep you laughing about them long after the end of the album. Buy it. Or you just might end up making the same mistakes in the Philippines that Joyce and his friends did. And trust me, you don’t want to.

Snag yourself a copy of Pro Joyce by clicking the image below.