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Hey everybody, how's it going I'm Chase.
Welcome to another episode of the
Chase Jarvis Live Show here on CreativeLive.
You guys know this show.
This is where I sit down with amazing humans
and do everything I can to extract
all the valuable stuff out of their brains
to help you live your dreams.
Whether that's in career, in hobby and in life.
My guest today is an amazing stand-up comedian.
You definitely know his voice.
And he from Bob's Burgers,
my guest is Mister Eugene Mirman
in the house - hello.
(theme music)
(audience applauding)
- We love you!
- Hi.
- Hi.
- Thank you so much.
This has been a couple of years in the making.
- Yeah, finally we're here.
- I gotta give a shout out to Meagan.
Thank you for introducing us.
I had the good fortune of connecting.
Well, it's probably in Seattle a number of years ago,
but I wanna open with a little story.
And the story is real simple. - sure.
- It is we're sitting in Province Town
- Yeah.
- We're having lobster rolls in the summer time.
It's--
- Cape Cod.
- Yes, up in Cape Cod.
It's just epic weather, perfect day
and we're sitting there, we're talking
and someone walks over,
I believe it was even the servers like,
"one of you guys sounds just like Gene on Bob's Burgers.
"Didn't put your face with your voice."
- Right.
- And we kind of each one of us was like,
"was it me? was it me?"
And of course you opened your mouth
and it was shocking to me that,
I mean I know you're human
and most people who watch you on stand-up know your face,
but is it weird to have a voice that is like-- (laughing)
- I mean--
- Is it your best feature?
- I mean it's no honer than anything else.
Meaning some people know me from that.
Some from you know, Flight of the Conchords,
or Delocated or stand-up and it
sort of becomes a mishmosh.
- It's a blender?
- But yeah, I mean definitely now
a lot of people from Bob's Burgers,
- And McSorely.
- Yeah, and people do hear my voice and go like,
"oh that's weird, you sound like that guy.
(laughing)
And I'm like, "I am that guy."
(laughing)
- Does it ever happen on the phone
with customer service like Comcast?
- It has not, maybe has. - (laughing)
- I feel like occasionally at the end maybe
somebody will go like,
"we're not supposed to say this.
- (laughing)
- It's more like in a store or something where they're like,
"my boss will kill me, but I really like you."
I'm like, "why would your boss be mad?" But anyway.
- (laughing)
And then like they let you humor with them.
- Yeah, like I would call back angrily
and be like, "your employee said they like me.
"I'm furious" - (laughing)
Let's go early career.
- Yes.
- So this the show.
You know the show we talked about before,
but it's a lot of people - Yeah.
who are aspiring, you know, they wanna live their passions
and they might be locked up in a cubicle firm
somewhere trying to get them out of that
or they're their life long creators
or entrepreneurs, that are trying to figure out
their next move and so not only are you inspirational,
but I like to unpack early childhood
and help people understand what it takes to take that step.
And you agree, so take me back.
- So, well I started stand-up basically
the summer after high school.
And then I Went to Hampshire College
where you can design your own major.
So I majored in comedy
- (laughing) That's amazing.
- When you're piecing together a major like that,
you're sort of just doing what you think might work.
You know, I did stand-up shows at random.
There was like a Chinese restaurant there
in Hadley Mass where I did stand-up
in sort of coffee houses on campus
and eventually I ran a weekly show
because my thesis, my final project was a
one hour stand-up act that I sort of wrote
and produced and performed and it's funny doing
something like majoring in comedy
'cause basically what it turned out is all the different,
like I sent out press releases.
Like, I faxed press releases from whatever computer I had.
Which was my first computer that I had ever had
like my senior year.
And I didn't know if it would work.
And I just faxed every newspaper in the area.
College papers whatever and regular papers
and was like, "there's a kid doing a
"stand-up comedy show as his major he's crazy."
- How'd that go?
- First of all they printed little things about it.
And then, you know there was one U Mass paper
wrote a story about it and then the sort of weekly paper,
not weekly, daily paper of the area
sent a reporter and wrote a little article about it.
And then I was like, "oh my God.
"You can tell the press about things
and they'll come and write about it"
- (laughing) Note to self.
- Yeah, and so when I moved to Boston,
I would constantly fax things to the Boston Globe,
and to various radio stations.
And then it started where like there was like
a section that was like names and faces.
Which was like their kind of like
Boston Globe's celebrity section.
And they would start reaching out and going out like,
"what are you reading this summer?"
And I remember saying that I was reading,
I think it was like, I forget.
Wolverine and Kitty Pryde.
(laughing)
It was some comic that was probably,
at that time, 10 or 15 years old, a mini series.
And I think they printed it.
I think it just said probably,
he's reading Anna Karenina and Wolverine
and Kitty Pryde this summer.
(laughing)
So I did all that stuff and I always found it easier
to start a thing than to become part of something.
I had a weekly show for a while in Cambridge.
In a place called The Green Street Grill.
I had a weekly show there
and I would hand out like a thousand flyers for it.
And eventually, I had a show on the third floor
of a Chinese restaurant in Harvard Square.
The comedy studio which should been
a club there for a long time
and is now moving,
but me and Brendon Small who
created home movies and Metalocalypse,
and Patrick Borelli who's now a writer at Fallon.
The three us had this weekly show,
But I would just go and hand out a thousand flyers.
What I did largely, was basically everything
I thought you could do to try to become a comedian.
At the time it was the mid, late nineties
and comedy had largely crashed in stand-up.
- Because that was was like early
Richard Pryor bug stuff, right?
- Right, or even like the eighties had so much stand-up
and then as the early nineties approached,
there was just sort of a saturation of tons
of people doing, I was just starting,
but there was like all these people,
wherever you could put a microphone they'd have a show,
but you often wouldn't have enough comics
that could do stand-up well.
So it just kind of became so saturated I think.
That it kind of died and by the time I started,
I didn't have a particular,
other than I knew I wanted it to be a career,
I didn't really have an expectation
of this is what it should be,
or this is how it would work.
And the thing about Hampshire that was great,
what that you would basically set a goal,
and then you would just do all the stuff
you thought you could try to make it work.
And then you would do more of what worked.
I would send out more press releases
because it turns out that's a thing you can do.
And then people would write about you,
and then they'd send a reporter to write about a show.
So that was sort of the early days
and I did that for a while in Boston
until eventually moving to New York.
- Are you still faxing people?
(laughing)
seems like faxing was a big part of (laughing)
- I know, it's true.
I am like, "what you guys needs is
like a, God what is it?
Morse code. Anyway. Telegraph.
(laughing)
If you had only done this show in like 1898,
you'd have basically Marc Wayne telling you
about how to telegraph newspapers.
No, but you're right.
I have said, "the key to success is faxing."
which is maybe not today's lesson.
But, I guess I see it as,
the lesson being just do 20 different things.
- Do more of what's working.
- And then, yes see what works
and try different stuff.
I think it's more about having a goal
and then trying different ways to
just make it happen or get closer to it.
I think that if you look at,
or for me If I look at any day or something.
I'll be like, "oh, I maybe didn't do anything.
Or it feels like I didn't do anything."
But If I looked at like a week or a month,
then I'll see these things that I sort of
did that moved a goal closer.
And I think a lot of it is that it's
about just having a slow, steady, long-term,
thing that you're slowly working towards
as opposed to thinking,
when people talk about someone's break
or anything like that, that always seems weird to me
because I think of nothing,
There's things that you can do that are helpful to you,
but without it, there's probably 20 other things that
could have been or might be.
- It's a little bit more of the daily drum beat.
So goal plus daily drum beat.
- Yeah.
- Did you have a sense while you were doing that?
And plus you've been there two concepts
that I wanna focus on for a second.
One is that you sort of made your own luck, right?
- Yeah.
- You had a goal and so it doesn't happen
if you don't promote it,
so you had to find a way to promote it.
- Right.
- Whether it's faxing or smoke signals or whatever modern--
- Right, or like there's no reason for someone to come
to a comedy show of some guy that they don't know about
or a group of people that you don't really know about.
So you try to convince them that it was,
and then people would come and then they tell their friends
and then it was all that,
- Was it lonely and dark and slow?
Or was it just a rocket ship.
- Well, it wasn't lonely in the sense that there was
a bunch of comics who around the same time
we all had similar type of thesis and goal
and when you're building something
from there not being much of an audience.
In a sense it only just slowly gets better.
And I did the same thing when I was in New York.
Me and Bobby Tisdale and Holly Schlesinger
who is a writer for Bob's now.
And I knew from Boston she booked the show
and Invite Them Up that Bobby and I did.
And that also took a year and a half for something to.
This is also before social media,
so even if someone was gonna stop by who was popular
and people would wanna see,
there was largely no way to tell anyone
- (laughing) Yeah. - if they were coming.
You know I used to have like a weekly AOL email
that I would send out
- (laughing) I love it.
- I don't know If I faxed press releases in New York.
I might have emailed them.
At this point I might have switched to email
'cause that'd probably taken over.
- 'Cause your Hotmail account is just crackin'?
- Yeah, exactly. (laughing)
- I think that's one thing you need to make your own luck.
The folks at home who are just starting
or hitting a road bump somewhere.
The fact that you were out there promoting,
there wasn't some fancy machine
that's you sending faxes or flyers or what not.
I think that's a great take away.
Also, you talked about in a sense it was iterating.
You try something if it's working you do more of it.
If it's not working you do less of it.
Is that across everything?
Is that the craft?
- I mean, yeah.
I guess it just depends what the goal is.
Meaning, say the question again.
- So you wanna, for example with promotion,
500 people show up like, "ahh what did I do?"
you're deconstructing your success at all times.
- Yes, totally, but a lot of it also is like,
I remember when I first,
I did this show at the Green Street Grill
and somebody from the Boston Phoenix,
which was to me like the paper I grew up with
as a kid, it was like the Village Voice of Boston.
And somebody came and they wrote a story about it,
and I was like, "oh my God. Here we go.
"This is now. - Now I'm crackin'
"Finally there is a story in the paper
"about this fun comedy show that I'm doing."
And I remember the following week
four people came as a result of that.
There was maybe like eight total,
but four from the paper and then four that were friends.
And I was like, "oh I see this is not,
this is all a very long, slow.
So you sort of have, to me, was a success.
Which is this article, this write up.
- Mainstream.
- But then I photocopied that article
and put it with a little flyer
and would hand that out and you sort of do what you can.
But I definitely remember being like,
"now this is the thing and that its like--
- This is my big break.
- And then it's like, "oh nothing is."
- Crickets.
- And everything, if you think of whatever comics
who are on a show that's like
from 10, 15, 20 years ago and you think of it
as the biggest thing and then some shows
stay forever with people and some don't.
So it's sort of this continuous thing.
I think when you free lance,
you believe in a sense that everything can all apart.
And I don't know that that feeling ever leaves you.
- (laughing) At all.
- Even if it's like, fine,
and by all observation you'd be like,
"well that's a crazy thought."
I definitely have friends who I'm like,
who in my head I'm like, "you're wildly successful.
"How could you possibly be like anxious
"about something changing?"
And It's like, "oh I guess it's just forever, that anxiety."
- I wonder if that's a human,
is that people like that become creators and entrepreneurs.
Or is it when you're a creator and entrepreneur
and you've had the rug yanked out
from under you a couple of times.
You start living--
- Right, yeah. I don't know.
- Observation.
- Yeah.
- I don't know my comedy genre as well as I should.
It's all funny to me,
but you--
- That's the next time of my album
(laughing)
- But you, I read this once, observational comedy?
Is that right?
- Sure, meaning like omedy?
- You bring in shit that you find in the world.
- Oh that's, yeah, I mean, I don't know what you'd call it.
And I will say that partially it's because
when I was in college there wasn't a stand-up scene.
There was just, I ran a show,
but I would just ask anyone I thought was funny
to tell a story or do something.
I would basically try stuff in front of whatever audience.
And some of it was jokes,
like a sort of straight up joke.
And sometimes it would be a letter,
and sometimes it would be some weird thing.
And basically if it made people laugh I would keep it.
And if it didn't, I would try to change it
or get rid of it.
And so it was that sort of trial and error thing.
But then as a result, a lot of my act is
here's a letter I wrote,
or heres a weird thing I did,
of I recorded this--
- Sorry (laughing)
- That's okay.
(laughing)
So yeah, it's become a range of everything,
from here's an observation or here's a story,
here's an anecdote and then here's some weird internet,
not prank, but sort of bit.
Like, I made a LinkedIn profile,
or I did this but then I really do it.
Or here's a calendar I made of paintings.
Or I tried at some point to get paintings
into a Whole Foods near my house
because they said they were gonna partner
with local artists and so,
I made a bunch of paintings and the closest I got
was when I got to perform that bit on Seth Myers.
And then that like escalated how close I was.
And they had set a meeting,
and then it clearly fell away.
Like they definitely did not wanna
put my stuff up next to the broccoli.
(laughing)
But it was very close to being discussed.
And I kind was like, "well I
"mostly wanted to make the joke--
- More than that--
- Well, I would be very happy to have had it.
And I had a lot of people being like,
"will you put the paintings up at our cafe or gallery?"
And I was like, "no, no, no, I really just want
"them at this Whole Foods.
"That's sorta the joke." But anyway.
- Well, what about the LinkedIn profile?
'Cause I think I've heard that bit. Tell me.
- Yeah, so that was basically,
and it's funny once I think I did it on a special.
Then LinkedIn was like, "no you can't, actually.
- So that's the terms of service
- But I basically wrote that I was the VP of PP of Verizon.
When you're filling it out,
the little drop down thing's like,
do you mean this Verizon?
Like the official Verizon?
and I was like, "yes."
And so as a result, for two years or whatever it was,
I would get a lot of like,
"join this organization of Vice Presidents."
And here's other offers for you.
And they'd all be kind of within my area
of various Vice President and similar roles
that they would be pitching me
and I imagine recommending me
to whatever company where Pfizer's is like,
"I don't know.
Oh, the Vice President of VP from Verizon."
"He would be perfect to run."
- Give me some more examples of that.
I've heard the LinkedIn one.
- So I took out Facebook ads at one point
- That's the one that I saw.
Okay, that's so good.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I took out ads
because you could just target.
You can go like, " I want people who like
"hockey and Belle and Sebastian."
(laughing)
And then you could put some really weird ad.
And then here's the funny thing.
You can also direct.
I don't know if this is still true.
I did this what?
five years ago.
So you could at that time direct them to any website.
So you could be like,
"I want this weird ad 'Go Hockey Fans'"
And then sends then to CNN,
or sends them to the White House
or a page or your website.
Whatever, you could put it anywhere.
I don't know if that is still the case.
- I think it is.
- I guess the assumption is no one will--
- Spend their money on--
(laughing)
- Spend their money on ads for other people.
But it also is very fun to play around with.
And depending on how you do it,
so you could be either charged with people seeing it
or charged I think by clicks.
And if you just do it where you don't care
if anyone clicks on it,
you just want it to appear.
You can really reach a lot of people.
(laughing)
It's very easy to reach thousands of people,
as long as clicking isn't what you're going for.
As long as you don't wanna be fully effective with your ad.
(laughing)
- While you're paying for the ad to go to someone else.
- Yeah, or whoever.
- You could spend a lot of money--
- I can't remember what I sent people to.
I think at times it was my site,
but at times it was just whatever
I thought would be funny and related to the ad.
- Is that your primary source of comedy?
- It's a mix of that and anecdotes
and yeah, things like it.
Things that sort of interact with the world,
Oh yeah, you know what it was.
The reason I did the Facebook thing.
So a lot of it is triggered by something.
So the reason I did a Facebook thing is,
I can't remember if this was when my cat had died
or before my cat had died,
but basically ads possibly before started popping up
for cat cremation service at your home
- (laughing) Oh my God.
- Or sort of cat funeral, pet funeral stuff.
I think that it was meant that they would come to your home
and take, I don't know.
They way that they presented it is
that they will come to your house
and burn your cat.
(laughing)
Is definitely how it is confined messaging read.
And so I was like, "how does this happen?
"What have I been looking up?
"Or has it just over heard?"
This is also several years ago
when I think the idea that--
- Facebook is listening to you.
- You're talking into your phone,
or is the beginning of your talking
and it picks up you constantly going,
"oh no my cat is dying."
And then it's like, "I got something for you.
"we'll come to your house and we'll burn your cat."
(laughing)
And so that, and then LinkedIn similarly was like,
tons of, for whatever reason I think
either people I knew or something.
Or I would constantly get
these requests. - LinkedIn updates.
- Like I think probably people putting
it in their address book in or something.
And I was like, "I'm not putting my resume up."
And then finally I was like, "fine."
- I'm gonna put up my resume.
- I will join LinkedIn
and I then through and did all the stuff.
I was like, "oh, you can write anything you want.
"This is a lot more fun than I thought
because I'm not trying to get a job.
- So, we're at a 90 degree turn here.
Part of comedy of course,
there's the laughing part, there's the joy.
I've seen you do Kareokaides it's pretty entertaining.
What about the hard parts of comedy?
I think there's so much comedic genius that comes.
It's a topic in our culture,
that it comes from a lot of pain, a lot of struggle.
What sort of connection do you have with that?
And, or what should the folks at home
who don't understand that,
help bring some insight to the--
- I mean, I think that it's--
- The comedy tragedy or I don't know what--
- Yeah, I don't know.
I mean that's funny.
- Help us understand it.
Cause I consider myself
an outsider to the comedy scene,
I love it, I appreciate the craft
and I see the connection between pain.
- Well I think that it comes out,
everyone's comedy is from some version of their experiences.
And how they sort of process it.
So I think that I do some stuff that's sort of
about personal things or starting to do things
that come from tragedy.
But also even the sort of angry letters I write or whatever.
It's all about your frustration or whatever it is.
And there's some comics who are like,
I don't know if you've seen Patton Oswalt's last special.
It's wonderful and he talks about his wife dying
and a lot of it is very, very funny
and very touching and very sad.
But I think that it's just to every comic
there's whatever inspires them.
So some people are particularly good at reframing pain
or processing it through the funny parts of it.
And there's funny, all of it.
Like Paul Tomkins has a really funny story
about his mom's funeral.
So everybody has--
- Their muse or the thing--
- Yeah, they're thing
and some people do more of that some do less.
I don't know that everyone's tortured per se.
I mean, everyone has tons of sad things
and some people turn that into comedy.
But some people a lot like
Steven Wright or like Emo Philips,
they do incredible one liners
and I wouldn't be like,
"those guys' feeling is sadness."
- (laughing) that's why I'm asking, right?
Because it seems like I don't know if comedy
over indexes on tragedy or over indexes on pain
and I'm hearing you don't think it does.
- I mean, I think--
- Culturally I think that's the concept--
- Right, but that's because the idea that idea
that comics are sad is ironic.
And the idea that firemen or lawyers are sad nobody cares.
- Firemen are poignant and strong--
- There's so much water around you and yet I don't know.
So I think that--
- Well, that's great. This is helpful.
- And also each person can assume
what ever comedy they like.
So, If you're someone who really likes
very personal or intimate comedy, you could do that.
If you like sort of silly stuff you can.
And some comics are a mix of it all.
- Sure, that's range.
That's like range in acting or range in--
- Yeah, and some people, like in acting
they'll do lots of different characters.
And some people are just very good at
a kind of similar person,
but emulate different emotions.
- Is it too inside baseball to talk a little bit about
when you were talking about reading for Bob's,
that there's this other layer of --
- That's for them to animate.
No, I'm happy to describe.
I mean, I only saw it once,
but I'm happy to describe it.
- Yeah, I'm fascinated by,
of course and it makes sense now
that you're talking about it,
but it's a thing that I have never heard before.
And that's part of what I wanna do in the show
is take people on a like, " what?
"There's someone who thinks about mouth shape,
relative to sound?"
Of course there is, right?
- Yes, so we go in and record.
So, I'm generally actually in Boston,
but sometimes in L.A. or New York,
but we record on an ISDN line,
all of us at the same time on Wednesdays.
And we record together and we get to improvise,
and then we do the scene as written,
but then, and I just saw this for the first time,
they sort of showed the break down.
It takes about 9 to 12 months to make an episode.
And they have--
- 9 to 12 months!
- Yeah, so they I think,
do this very rough sketching.
they basically break down every syllable.
To one of the aid of mouth shapes
and then they write it out
and you kind of have every noise that's being made
and it's in the number that correlates to the mouth shape
and they do that for the whole episode.
So, it's this crazy detailed thing.
I'm sure that if someone know how animation is made
they're like, "yeah that's how you make it."
But I had not seen it and I was here.
Because I mostly don't record here--
We're in L.A. for this-
- Yeah we're in L.A. as you can tell.
Mmm - mmhm
Enjoy the city scape behind us.
You can hear the fire engines
and the hot cars and annoyances but.
- So yes, it's this kind of neat,
but very, very involved process.
I mean again I saw it for the first time.
There was much more but it was pretty incredible.
- Can you do the eight mouth shapes?
- I don't know.
I probably have just now with what I've said.
(laughing)
So just pause this.
Other than maybe the ZZZZ.
- Or O.
- OOOO.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I hope it's A some animator being like, "it's nine"
- Dude, it's nine.
I can't believe you totally thrown it.
- But if it is eight, wow!
- He's throwing me under the bus here.
- Wow. You really remembered that from that one time?
Seems reasonable.
- Go back to the source of your comedy,
pop culture, you tell me.
What do you consider your source?
- I mean, I consider it experiences and there's a certain,
the thing about pop culture which I'm sure I reference.
I think it's more like I had a bit
about banner ads on MySpace.
And it was basically that they would
create these very divisive ads,
but the goal is just for you to click on it.
They didn't care what you thought about the thing of course.
And the concept make sense.
And it's funny because MySpace has gone away.
So I think that to me--
- Ads?
- Ads have not, sorry,
but meaning, I'll have references to a thing.
That you're like, "oh, that's not a thing anymore."
I mean not that you can't get it,
but meaning, I probably wouldn't be
doing a bit about MySpace now.
Even though it's really about broader advertising.
So in terms of pop culture,
I am sure I have plenty of references,
but I think because there's elements
of it that are fleeting,
I try often not to too much.
Or something that's so in everyone's consciousness
that who could forget the A-team?
And the answer is probably anyone born after 1998.
(laughing)
- Alright so, process, I'm obsessed with people's process.
And you talked about in college your thesis
was an hour long stand-up routine.
Take us into your process.
Whatever the out put is.
Let's not do anything about Bob's Burgers
'cause that's just voice,
you're reading somebody else's lines.
That's of course, your craft in and of itself.
Let's talk about stand-up.
- Sure.
- So, what's Eugene Mirman's process for stand-up?
- I mean, it's sort of having an idea.
And then sometimes it'll be,
especially these bits like LinkedIn or something.
Though again that's maybe a little simpler.
But somethings where I'll have an idea
and then slowly over a period of months,
I'll be like, "oh, maybe I could try it that way,
or this way, or do this sort of thing with the ads."
With the Facebook ads I think I tried different versions of,
and you try to pack as many jokes in
and then trim it if it doesn't work.
So at first you have,
okay well, you can write this funny ad,
you can direct it at someone,
you can have it go to a website or whatever.
But then you kind of find like,
"oh, is that too many things?"
It's more funny to read the ads than it is to
have four other jokes on each one.
So there's sort of this trial and error.
But even to come up with it,
or what you might do.
I also started taking screen grabs
of actual laughs they had to sort of set up.
This is the set up.
This is what they do.
And then if those also, do you read one, two, three.
You do as many as are funny and then stop and then move on.
So I think that a lot of my process is.
You have the thing that you know is funny to you
and then you have to figure out
how to make it funny to people.
And I've certainly had jokes where,
So, a friend of mine told me that
when we were in elementary school
that a teacher of ours told her to not be my friend
because I was a loser which is awesome.
So it took me a very long time
and I was like, "well that's really funny."
But when you say it on stage people either
kind of laugh because it's horrifying
or it's sort of like, "well, what's the joke?"
you just gave us what is obviously sad information.
And it's also funny.
And it took me a really long time
to figure out how to turn this thing
that I thought was a wonderful piece
of sad, funny information into an actual joke.
So, a lot of it is time and trial and error.
And you have these ideas and then--
- Are you writing these things?
- Yeah, I write them on my computer.
But it's funny sometimes I'll go back
and see the joke written out
and it'll be a little more rebose
or it'll have four more things that are kind of funny.
They don't seem as conversational
or it starts to to feel a little written or jokey or forced.
But ill try to go back and re-write it
and have it all written down.
- And then how per script is getting super, super heavy.
So you got an idea.
My fourth grade teacher told Sally
to not be friends with me 'cause I was a loser.
So you write that down.
That's like the kernel of the idea
and then are you just like--
- And then you try to figure out
what's the joke part of that.
How do you turn it?
And again LinkedIn.
So there's the section where you can write in your skills.
Each of these things has different
little sections and things.
And you adjust it.
Here's five skills and you read them out.
Does that make people laugh?
Well, three of them do two don't.
Okay, let's switch two skills out.
Oh, it turns out reading more than four skills
in a row that's the cut off
and then you can move on to what where your previous jobs?
- And are you testing these on your friends?
- No, no on an audience.
You test it all on an audience.
Or I don't try jokes out on my friends
You're trying to see if it'll work at a club.
- Right, different environment.
Well you're saying this like it's so obvious too
and I love--
- No, no, no, no.
No, I know I think people have--
- You have to take all your crap
and air it on stage every time.
- I think so.
Sorry, when I say that, what I mean is
some people definitely do try their jokes,
tell their jokes to each other
or comics or friends.
Especially if I have a thing where I'm holding something up.
And a lot of that stuff also shows often
when I hold up the ads or whatever it is.
It's mostly to just show that it's real.
I know that people can't really see it per se,
but they get that it's a real thing I do.
And so, I think that that helps the authenticity of
"oh, I really think he did do this
"or did make these paintings."
- Yeah, you're flipping pages on stage.
- You're holding up paintings
and they get that I really did make these paintings
and genuinely reached out to Whole Foods.
Then that sort of thing.
- So you're writing these jokes out
and then how do you know what 20 minutes is?
Are you practicing in the mirror?
- What does it matter?
Meaning, so it matters if you're doing it on television.
In terms of you need five minutes or 60 minutes
or whatever it is.
So then you need to know that everything,
but also stuff's edited.
For whatever reason, in fact I think my last Netflix special
was a little over 60 minutes.
So, you can do whatever.
Especially now that it's changing,
but mostly what you try to do is
make it continuously funny more than,
If I have 20 minutes, great.
The problem isn't I made people laugh for 20 minutes,
I need to only make them laugh for 10 minutes.
- Yeah, you made them laugh way too long.
- Yeah, that was to much they really enjoyed it.
Really you try stuff and for me I know that I have,
some of it is sort of unconventional.
But often it is basically still setting up a punch line.
I think people think of,
I'm still going like here's the premise.
I made a fake resume.
Here's my fake resume.
I took out an ad, secure the ads
and so you have this one premise
and then you have seven jokes.
And some of them are about the ad itself,
some of them are about it.
So, it's sort of just like a dead spin.
- And you're talking about being able
to practice on front of audiences.
You have an audience in the laundry room
and you can just walk in there and--
- There's in most major cities,
certainly in New York or Boston and L.A. or wherever,
Are lots of comedy shows that happen
in the back rooms of various places
and some are better than others and you can find them.
The ideal show to me, is a show where the audience,
one when you're trying stuff out.
It's basically, they probably paid a small amount,
if its not funny they won't laugh,
but they won't be mean about it.
- There's an understanding there.
- There's an understanding.
You're in there to try stuff and this is sort of fun.
And you can fail.
You don't wanna perform in a room where
people are just kind of laughing, which is rear.
People will generally not laugh at a thing that's not funny.
But some places they'll be very mean about it.
This sort of you don't wanna fight drunks verbally.
(laughing)
It can't be a room that you can't get sense of
whether your joke works or not.
- And so on the comedian side they're like,
"oh you gotta go play at a Frank's club
because it's a great audience.
So that's like--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you have a very fun show,
in whatever city, people will totally
wanna stop by and perform there.
I mean, that's a thing that is good.
Meaning, in the shows that I did
various times with various friends,
the goal is to build up a show
where comedians would like to go and perform at.
And then the audience will come or both.
They'll each come to each other.
- Without faxes.
- You don't even have to fax.
Well now, yeah you can Instagram fax.
- Insta fax.
Okay, so let's talk in terms
of some successes and some failures.
- Sure.
- 'Cause there's a lot of fear around
putting your self out there and bombing
and people are always also curious about
sometimes what felt wildly successful to you
and things people didn't know.
Or was it obvious sometimes you win a big award,
of course that's a big failure a big success.
But talk to me a little bit.
I wanna cover both ends of the spectrum
'cause I think that...
- Right
- Comedy is an esoteric thing relative to
building a company or designing a whatever.
But there's craft and that's why
we're sort of trying to unpack comedy successes and failure.
- Well, in terms of stand-up,
you know you can always fail like on stage,
meaning especially if you're trying stuff.
But that also in just environments.
I've toured with bands where sometimes it's good
and sometimes it's a real sort of battle.
And that's largely sort of at the beginning
of my career in New York.
You sort of do what you can.
So I did a tour with Modest Mouse.
Some of the shows were awesome and then some,
there was one in Miami that was just disastrous.
And it was like a woman sort of heckling me
in really weird specific ways.
Where it was someone, she was basically trying to
convey Ayn Rand's philosophy without
having known that it was that.
She just trying to distract me
and saying that she was lived a selfish life.
She was trying to get the band on earlier.
It was just super weird and then also
the room was insanely hot
and it was just chaos and it's terrible
but on the other hand there was other shows
like Jacksonville that were really, really fun.
But you kind of put yourself in whatever.
You just have to do whatever it is
that will get you to the place where you're a comedian
or you're whatever you wanna be and--
- Is it small failures like having jokes
completely flop on a regular basis
that's sort of builds up a muscle where you've
become inoculated against it?
- Or if you do it.
I've probably done stand up for 20 something years.
I don't know that you have a joke.
You either have a joke work kind of or not work.
You can be working it out and then
it repeatedly sort of doesn't.
You would never have, not never.
You largely wouldn't have the same exact thing not work
because you would change it
and what you could have is a joke
that almost always works and for whatever reason,
whatever the environment is it doesn't,
But that's pretty rear.
I did a tour a few years ago with Flight of the Conchords.
And those are playing much bigger venues
and I remember people being like,
"oh, do you have a different act for these shows?"
As if I have one act that destroys
in front of 10 thousand people
and I refuse to do it for any smaller rooms.
So it's like, "no I have the thing that works."
And depending on the environment
or if you're in a very hot place or whatever,
there could be things that will kind of throw it
and you have jokes that work better and that works.
But largely, if a thing works, it kind of works.
But to get it to that place you definitely
go to these various other shows
and you try stuff and you completely might fail.
Or more often than failing,
what you'd have is,
especially with bits where I'm like holding up five things.
I have four that are funny and one or two that aren't.
And then you kind of - you flow you could feel it.
- You cut those and then you switch them out,
so there's that process.
- So is it word for word when you walk out there?
How much is, "I'm definitely doing these three things
"and I know I'm gonna do these three things."
Versus, obviously you're trained in
professional improv comedian as well.
How much of that is--
- I mean when you have a joke that works,
it is sort of word for word kind of.
With often the same pauses and affectations essentially.
And then some things do sort of change.
It depends, like often for me, if I have a bit
where I'm holding up things or saying a thing,
sometimes the preamble to that might be different.
And that sort of stuff
- Contextual for Miami or something like that.
- And It might work better and worse.
Meaning, part of me is like, "oh, I wish
"I did have a consistent thing."
But also sometimes it makes it funnier
and it makes it more organic to have
a setup that's not as set in stone as the rest of the bit.
- Yeah, so is the Miami show with Modest Mouse
your worst experience ever on stage?
- No.
- Talk about just a dive on--
- I mean meaning, sorry that was terrible.
- How do you mean?
Oh. you meant terrible.
Oh, yes it qualifies.
- There's lots. There's a--
- And I know we're trying no to think about it too much,
but I'm trying to help the focus
and help them say, "yeah, it's okay to--"
- No, no, no, there's lots of,
meaning when you do standup,
I mean there's years of (interviewer talks over guest.)
for Conan in like '99 probably in New York.
I lived in Boston and came here
and definitely bombed and someone heckled me
and it was like I hadn't been on TV
and it was sort of like this might be my chance to be on TV.
And it went terribly.
And then of course, the producers, very nice,
was like, "well, that didn't go,
but we'll have you back and look at you again."
That's the thing about sort of this notion of breaks.
And I remember when I got Conan.
Asking the producer like why?
And it was this sort of thing where I got a call,
but was like I had been out of this thing
for like maybe a year and a half or something for them.
And then I got a call that was like,
"we might need you on Friday."
And it was a Monday and I was like,
and I lived in Boston and I was like, "sure."
and they were just like, "practice your set."
And then I remember they called and they were like,
"we do. We need you, we'll bring you down
It was like a guy at the airport
met me with a sign with my name on it.
It was incredible and I remember being like,
"why do you need me?"
- Why do you need this
- Right now? Like Friday?
- Well, like why do you need a comic to
come from Boston to do this thing
and they were sort of like,
"we're just as excited to
find you as you are to be on the show."
And I made me sort of realize that it was like,
oh yeah, they're out looking for people.
If you have five minutes that are funny
that you can do on television,
you'll probably be on television to do those five minutes.
It makes sense for everyone involved.
- Was there a point where you had to put
yourself out there where you went
from just being in small clubs
and doing that till you had to decide to shift gears?
Or was it very organic, you keep stepping up in the ranks?
- I had thought originally that I was gonna live in Boston
and I would move to New York once I got a job in New York.
And then it became increasingly clear that,
that's not a thing.
That you can't get a job in comedy,
not you can't but it would be unlikely.
I certainly know people who have in fact done it.
So yes. So I think at some point.
Here's another great failure.
I remember getting hired to write.
This would have been my first writing job ever.
It was to write for some show,
I think on VH1 maybe.
And being so excited, you know it was probably
2000, 2001, very broke, very excited
and then I went after I got the job
to get sushi somewhere.
It was forty dollars which was
definitely a percentage of my net worth.
A calculable percentage.
I was like, "this is awesome
and then the next day
there was an article about how
all these executives from basically MTV
and VH1 had been let go, show went away, everything was gone
And then I was like, "oh, I see,"
That was a fun job that almost happened.
And then you sort of realize how it's like
everything can always fail.
- I want a little bit more on that last question.
So you have to ultimately decide that you're
gonna put yourself out there
- Yes.
- And you have to throw your hat in the
ring for the next level.
Are there a series of levels?
And again, we're talking about comedy,
but this is really about...
- Levels.
- Yeah, about everything in life.
You have to decide that you want the thing.
And how proactive have you been with that?
Or yeah you're just like, - well so, I think that
I've decided "the magic carpet weee.
- Oh, I see. I would say that I guess one thing
that was probably convenient for me is that
since I was a kid I decided that I wanted to do comedy.
So I've always basically, slowly worked towards that.
But if I hadn't had that, I don't know.
Maybe it would be very hard.
So for me, I at some point,
I spoke at my college at Hampshire graduation
now five years ago or however many
and this was actually, I did some interview.
This is the thing I said where people.
Sorry terrible story teller.
Basically somebody asked me
what my back up plan was at a college event.
And I said that I believed a back up plan
was the first step toward failure. (laughing)
And I think of that a little tongue and cheek.
But do I do think that there's
an element of that, that's true.
And again, it accounts for you,
for many years I didn't have any health care
until eventually I could get it
through free lance or whatever.
So partially I could this because
I happen to not get sick in my twenties.
But there's obviously things that will set you back
or change the course of your life that can't be controlled.
But shy of those sorts of things,
I had always kind of been like I wanna do comedy.
So in terms of stepping up to the next level,
I didn't have another thing I could do or wanted to do.
And I think at each age I was
fine with whatever I had.
I lived for a long time in a studio apartment.
Meaning you can really scale down your life
to a point where you're like, "this is fine."
And then at some point you're like, " this is madness.
But then to me those things happen
that stages where I would find work.
So I would write close to breaking.
Somebody would be like, "you wanna
make a bunch of web videos?"
I'd be like, "yes, very much."
Or like getting an agent.
when I first got a booking agent.
That helped me go from
I didn't exactly know how I could make money.
But now I could make 150 dollars a day.
Not everyday, but enough days that I could cover rent.
So there's that.
So I don't know if there's as much of a stepping up,
the biggest thing to me was moving to
New York City which I was terrified of.
- Yeah, do you think that's a requirement
in this day and age now with the web.
And is there still absolute pockets
that if you're trying to,
and again were talking about comedy,
but its like universally if
you wanna be in fashion you go to Milan.
If you wanna be in show business you go to Hollywood.
- Well, I think it depends now with a phone.
A phone is better film equipment
than I had through out college, through out life.
- Until two weeks ago.
(laughing)
- So I think it just depends.
What can you do?
Early on I made a website with
an office mate of mine in Boston Scott Barris
who was a designer and we took a photo of me
from when I was four in Russia
and it was black and white.
It looks like it's from the 1930's.
And I sang and pitched a bunch
of classic rock songs in a really silly way.
And then he animated the mouth
and that was the late nineties
And that went sort of viral
to the point at which Pete Townshend from The Who
emailed me and was like, "I love your Who medley
"and I put it up my site."
And I sort of was like, " I don't know what I was trying to
"do those website, but it definitely worked."
And I also had made these little videos
that also would go around and they were like one megabyte.
This is before YouTube, so it's like '98, '99, two thousand.
And those would sort of circulate.
So I did that in Boston because
that's what was within my means.
A lot of it was literally me
talking into a camera saying,
silly stuff as different characters, making this website.
So in that sense, you could do whatever
and you can whatever is in your means.
And if you can stay in Boston,
now I'm back in Boston.
The reason I'm can be back home is because
now I've created a career where I don't have to
be in a specific location and that's my situation.
I definitely couldn't have done it
without living in New York for 17 years.
So, I don't know.
So, you do or you don't have to go to New York or L.A.
I think if you wanna be a comedian
it would help to move to New York or L.A.
for 10 to 20 years.
- Just to put a little time work on it.
(laughing)
- I mean it depends what you want.
But I know people who live in Texas and have a career.
It just depends what you want.
What you enjoy doing.
- But there's clearly a scene that you have to be apart of.
Right? Don't you think?
Is there a thing or is that still--
- I mean, it's just depends.
- I call it a community 'cause a scene sounds too trendy.
- Yes, I think being part of a comedy community,
certainly I was and remain part of a comedy community.
Yeah, I think that that's really helpful.
But again, I think it's whatever works for you.
So if you have a way...
Personally, I think in terms of comedy,
if you're a comedian who can get on stage
and kill for 45 minutes you're just going
to be a professional comedian.
Someone will want to put you on television.
They will want to have you do a show with them or whatever.
And admittedly you need to be seen by people
who would put you in those positions,
but if you become, then yeah you have
to come to L.A. or New York
for whatever period of time, the more people you meet.
But it's like any job or any thing in life sort of.
You have to make inroads with people,
but its much more about being good
at the thing you do personally.
- You can meet a lot of people,
but if you don't got the craft it's not gonna stick.
- Right, and I think it is much more
about tenacity and craft.
I feel like people sort of talk about talent,
but I think there's people who you see are like,
"oh, that person is gifted at music and impressions."
and all these things
and that is clearly helpful,
but a lot of it I think is really just tenacity
and there's plenty of people who are huge.
Who are like mediocre when they started.
And then just really, they do 10 shows a night
and they just get better and better and better over years.
And admittedly that's also someone who has the time
to do that and what put them
in that situation, I don't know.
- Or they create the time for themselves to do that.
- Right, right. But I mean it means they,
the people I'm thinking of as before they have children.
- Ate Ramen and lived in it.
- Yeah, or had four roommates or whatever it is.
I mean and now also in some places like New York
maybe is particularly expensive.
But I think L.A. and other cities,
you can totally live outside of New York
in a place that you can go do comedy shows.
- So, I wanna talk a little bit, shift gears.
This has all been about craft
and about sort of career and career arch
and managing all that stuff.
Let's talk about personal.
You referenced being born in Russia.
- Yes.
- And what impact do you think that has
had on you personally or relative to your career?
Anything, extreme positives or negatives how do you?--
- I mean, I think it makes me,
in certain ways very optimistic.
I think that I have a very genuine belief
in the American dream.
I think of it as very practical and reasonable.
Which I think also is helpful only in the,
even if I'm wrong the belief that you can do a thing
is probably so helpful to doing the thing.
So I think it's had that kind of impact.
And then also it created for a traumatized childhood.
In terms of being the Cold War
and growing up with Russia as the enemy.
- Were you overtly the Russian kid at school?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like in sixth grade
I remember being blamed for when the Russians
shot down the Korean, or maybe it was third grade,
shot down a Korean airliner.
And definitely kids were like,
"you shot down a Korean airliner."
And I was like, "I didn't, but why are you threatening me
"if you think I shot down an airliner?"
But yeah, there was a lot of that kind of
thing of people thinking I was a commie,
even though I really don't like communism
because I'm one of the people that left.
- Yeah, clearly I'm here.
- Yeah, so there was tons of that growing up.
- Any detail you care to share about the leaving Russia?
- You know, I was four. - You were like four .
Has back your bag parents or--
- Yeah, I think that yeah, my parents were like,
"we should get out of here."
I think Russia is a some version of
anti sematic and communist
and I think it just makes for a bummer of a time.
Is the feeling I get.
- Actual Moscow, right?
Is that where you guys were?
- We were from Moscow, yeah.
And I haven't been back.
And I've wanted to and I wanna go
and hopefully at some point I will.
My experience of coming here was mostly the...
I don't remember Russia, I mostly remember here.
- Do you still feel a connection there?
You said you wanted to go back, but is there inherit danger?
- I think it would be interesting
- Yeah, I feel a connection like I speak
Russian to my parents and to some Russian friends and stuff.
Mostly because I'd be curious because it's a country that
I feel half tied to and half don't know at all.
- And has that in any way, is that material for you.
I haven't really heard you use any of that material.
And is it a reason that you're not tapping into that
or you're just not--
- Well no, meaning I think I've maybe mentioned
or told stories, I don't know.
There isn't a reason.
Meaning the reason would be if I thought of
a funny thing, I would certainly if I thought of
jokes involving the Cold War,
from my experience as a kid or
obviously Russia is in the news now.
So it's like I easily could do something.
My reason for not doing anything
is basically that I don't have any thing
particularly funny and that I thought of.
- You were four, right?
- Yeah, and I feel like I've referenced it.
And I've certainly actually like,
Or actually I say that I haven't done anything,
but I played a sort of goof ball,
Russian hit man slash stand-up comic
on Delocated on Adult Swim.
So that's totally a use of all that.
Meaning I spoke Russian on the show
and there's other things where I've done
a sort of Russian accent.
So yeah, so I've used it that way.
But I haven't done I guess regular stand up.
- Was there any particular event
besides getting picked on,
or blaming the shooting down of an airliner,
anything else that really impact your career,
you feel like or is it just a bunch of
small, like the same things that we've all experienced?
- I think that it's largely the way that everyone
feels that junior high wasn't a great time.
So I think my version of that is that
there was a lot of Cold War stuff.
So it was like whatever goes into being a weird kid
and at some point also probably it went from
oh that kid is a Russian commie
to that's just a weird kid and I don't like him.
And who know knows, I may have also been annoying.
It's probably a whole mix of everything.
I feel like as I got older and everyone got older,
it's just like everybody's experience.
Most people I know, things got much, much
better for them around tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade.
- Start to get under you skin a little bit.
- And I think people are just a little older
and like, "wait, I shouldn't be a monster."
"Why do I keep hitting that person in the face?
"Or pushing them?" Or whatever.
- Clearly, there's a pattern with your answers
that there's a lot of different paths, right?
- Right.
- And I think you're wisely reluctant to ascribe
any amount of success to a particular set of behaviors.
There's a lot of luck involved,
there's your past history,
What is a consistent thing you feel like has,
was it just declaring that you wanted to be a comic.
Was it just relentless and ruthless effort toward
the thing that you cared about?
Was it all of these things?
None of these things?
- I think it's all that stuff.
I think that, to me luck is the part
where you're physically able to accomplish these things.
When I first lived in Boston,
I worked at an ice cream parlor and
I temped at Fidelity at one point.
When I was temping at Fidelity
I was answering phones and I would basically do it
for two or three days and then call in sick the other days
because my rent was two hundred sixty three dollars.
So I was kind of like, "alright well I made that
and I can make 80 dollars from my comedy show.
And that's basically the money I need for whatever,
a week or something.
And so a lot of it was just,
you just had the bare minimum of what you needed
and then you could do the thing.
And also I was 20 something and that seemed fine.
A mattress on the ground seemed great.
- Great! I got a place to sleep.
- Who needs a frame?
And then at some point I was like,
"oh my god I need a frame!
"I'm 29 years old."
- I think box springs are overrated.
I don't know, maybe that's a thing of the past.
- But yeah I think that, that sort of thing aside.
Yeah I think it's just consistently working towards a goal.
Basically within whatever is within your means.
So, that included for me making a weird website,
making videos putting them online,
handing out flyers, handing out press releases.
All while trying to be good at comedy.
All while trying to,
when you came to the show being like,
"oh, this is fun."
"This is a great way to spend an evening."
- How about the people around you?
Did you find that people around you were supportive?
Did you have to seek those people out?
Were there people that were haters and you had to avoid?
- I mean largely, its a very supportive community.
And I also find the idea that
comedy is competitive or something.
And I imagine most fields.
To me not at all the case.
Where basically I'm not up for the same thing.
And certainly if you're making your own thing.
No one's up for your stand-up.
If I'm doing stand-up and I can
do a good job and that's fine.
But yeah, I will say I remember meeting Bobcat Goldthwait
early on he was very nice and through a friend
Tony V who's a comic in Boston
who would come to this show that I did with friends.
And he was really supportive
and he had been someone who had, when I was in Boston,
he had been on Seinfeld and stuff
and he was sort of this very
supportive figure and remains so.
And then there's comics when I got to New York,
I toured eventually with Stella,
which is a comedy troupe of
David Waine, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter.
And they were really instrumental in helping me
as well as Patton Oswalt and David Cross and Bob Berry.
There's a lot of comics that have been
very supportive and very helpful.
John Benjamin, and he's someone who I tour with now a lot
and you sort of meet different people
and you find people who you like collaborating with
or touring with or people that,
or there's comics that I try to help.
And I think it's a very warm,
very supportive community, personally.
- I'm also guessing on that last line of questioning,
but it sounds to me like you're reluctant to give advice.
- What do you mean?
- I'm just not picking that up from,
I think you're getting your--
- What's the advice?
- Which is good.
It's in there and I'm trying to--
- No, no, what's so funny is I'm like,
giving advice, which is do the thing.
I think to me the advice is whatever
your goal is, I don't know.
If you wanna be a film maker,
find a way to make a film.
If the only way you can do it is with your iPhone, do that.
No one is stopping you from making a thing
and then try to figure out how to get that thing out there.
Submit it to 25 festivals.
If that doesn't work, make another film.
Write a script, take a script writing class.
I don't know, I feel like my advice is do everything.
And then when you're running out of time
or energy for focus,
but yeah, it's not that I'm not willing
to give advice - No, I love it.
- My advice is think of the goal and then
think of like five ways that you could succeed at that goal.
And then try them and then narrow it down
and think of another goal.
I think that that's probably,
is that helpful?
- It's beautiful.
- Right.
- To me, you could put your arms around that.
What I'm also trying to connect,
it's the same for everything, right?
And we make things a lot more complicated.
I think you deciding that
you were gonna be a comic and early,
you basically said the best way to achieve plan A
is to kill plan B.
- Right.
- There is no other plan B.
- I also was 18.
So I think if you're any where under the age
of 23 right now, watching this.
You can totally start right now
and you'll be fine.
And if you're 40 you'll also be fine.
I know people who started doing comedy when they were 40
and they're now wildly successful.
- They just had to make some special concessions
with their mortgage and their family or whatever.
- Or they were in New York
and they had none of those things.
- As New York often can do.
- But yeah, I mean my advice is
that you should in a thoughtful way
spend all your time trying to achieve your goal
through whatever means you have access to.
I think that people maybe don't think of
what their opportunities are,
what's in front of them.
And I know that it's a terrible slog
and there's so much failure,
and it's years of it.
I mean I started when I was 18.
So, I got to fail for five years or six years even,
before I was even in the city doing stuff.
- That's a really important message I feel.
- So, I do think that vaguely if you try to do a thing,
that within 10 to 15 years you'll probably succeed.
And I think that that's true
with so many of the people around me.
Most of the comics that I started out with in Boston,
who moved to either New York or L.A.
I think they all became professional comedians.
And I don't know if it's a self selecting group
or what it is,
but I will say that virtually everyone I know
is now either has a T.V. show
or tours as a successful stand-up
or works on a show.
- There's an element of stamina clearly, right?
- Yeah, like stamina, tenacity,
and then of course being good at your craft.
I think that that is very important.
But something like 90% of the people I started out with
in the late 90's are all working, professional comedians.
- 28 years later, that's the stamina part.
They're still doing it.
And you almost have no choice but
to become good at your craft,
assuming you're putting in the time.
- Right, and assuming that nothing that you can do.
- So let's shift gears and look into
the future a little bit.
Married, child--
- It's true already I'm already married.
- Child?
- Yes, I have a child and I'm married.
You're like "lets just be clear we're looking
at the future, but you mean - Today.
- like a few years ago.
Yes, I am married, I have a child.
He is 17 months old.
- Your descriptive for him is he's large.
(laughing)
- Yes, he's the size of a three year old,
but he's 17 months old,
size of a two and a half to three year old.
- Wow! - Yeah, that's very big.
- Has that shapend your career in a new an different way.
I hear you're out her working getting some sunshine in L.A.
It's 80 degrees in Boston right now.
- Yes, somebody was like, "sorry it's cold in L.A."
And I was like, " it's 70 degrees warmer right here.
"Are you kidding me?"
- Anyway, how is that shaping--
- Yeah, do you feel different about your career now?
'cause there's a lot of folks out there
that family does take priority over their career.
Just wanna know how you work those to things together.
- Well, I mean, part of it is that I've try to
create a career that is adjustable.
So, obviously, something like Bob's Burgers,
which is a cartoon that I can record once a week.
And then other shows, there's other cartoons
and podcasts and various things that I do
that are very conducive to being home with a family
and not having to travel as much.
Though I am about to also go on tour for several weeks.
But yeah, the way that it's affected it
is that I try to do stuff that it lets me be home more.
And again that's because I have a few jobs that allow that.
And I have a podcast for Audible
so that lets me be home.
If I wasn't I'd probably be on tour more.
- But you also, do yo do that out of intention, right?
You wanna be able to spend more time with your family.
What are things that don't require me
to be in Tuscaloosa today?
- Right, I intentionally try to do more of those things
and meet with people who will facilitate that.
Yeah, so that's true.
- Let's talk about some of those things.
You got Audible, let's talk about your tour,
let's talk about audible and what else is
in the making right now for you.
- What do I do?
- I know you're this wildly passionate chef
the last time we were together.
I think you do an amazing duck.
- I do love cooking.
I wonder if I have that photograph.
- You probably do have a photo
of me holding a duck some where.
- (laughing) I'm such a good picture.
So tell me about the Audibile show.
- Hold On is a show where basically,
comedians tell a story
and I ask them questions through out their story.
I don't know there's something like 50 episodes
or so that we've done there on iTunes
and wherever people get podcasts
and also on the Audible app.
Neil deGrasse Tyson told a story
about how he almost became a mail stripper
when he was in college to make money.
- Wow!
- So if you wanna hear that story,
I know I did it's really funny.
- Wow! What episode is that?
the Neil deGrasse Tyson episode--
- Yeah, that's what it would be called.
Meaning that one's I think just on Audible.
'Cause they're releasing them in seasons.
So yeah, there's that show,
there's a kids podcast for WNYC that I do.
And stand-up and actually I had a comedy festival
that me and my friend Julie Smith
did for ten years in New York
and though the festival had it's last one,
we're making a documentary about it
so I'm working on that now.
But again that's like a thing where
we would film something and now I can
watch cuts at home and give feedback
and again it lets me be home.
- So, you told the anecdote about Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Presumably that's a story he doesn't
walk around talking about all the time,
that you are able to extract that brilliantly from him.
- Well, he came up with that as the story he wanted to tell.
The way the podcast works is
people have a story they're going to tell
and I ask them questions.
So he didn't suggest other stories
and I was like, "How about this one?"
He was like, "this is the story I'm gonna tell,
"I don't tell it a lot."
So, it's great.
- Do you have one of those for us today?
No can be the answer, but lets try and find one.
No, meaning I can sit and try to think of something.
The way the podcast works is that
people are asked before hand.
- They know.
Oh, I get it.
- Is there something that you have
told to some friends that you would share with us today?
- I mean I'm sure there is.
I like that is seems like I'm evasive,
but I'm not evasive.
You're like, " do you have any stories?"
And I'm like--
- I've got many stories.
I am a credible story teller.
- I don't have one off hand.
I don't know. I don't know what a story,
because also what would come to mind
is the stories I tell, that like the stories I don't tell.
I probably rarely talk about the Korean airliner thing.
So that's the whole story.
- And what age was that just to
replay that for a second.
- I think that was 83 three that it happened,
so I don't know however, I guess I was like eight or nine.
Which is way too young to shoot down a plane.
Just to be clear.
- From wherever you were.
- Right, from Lexington Mass,
the birth place of America.
A great place to come to from Russia.
Came right to the heart of the American Revolution.
- Very hard to shoot down a Korean Airliner from Lexington.
- Yeah, especially with the stuff I had as a kid
which was maybe a kick ball.
(laughing)
- Alright, so there's the audible show.
Tell us a little bit about the tour.
I'll come find ya.
- I don't think, it hasn't been announced yet.
- Oh I didn't think about that, okay.
- But I will be doing tour dates.
- I've seen you in San Francisco.
Last time Megan, Bryan and Kate
and I were in Boston we saw you there.
Do you have a favorite place to perform?
- I have favorite places.
I mean those cities are great.
Seattle, Neptune, Dollhouse in Brooklyn,
where I've done many, many shows.
With dunar festival that's like on of my favorite places.
Paradise Rock Club in Boston.
The Black Cat in D.C. and Cat's Cradle
in North Carolina is great.
And Austin as a city.
So anyway, I mean I like all the places
that lots of people come to to enjoy comedy.
(laughing)
I feel like I could keep naming,
but I've also had like a wonder time
at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
There's tons of sort of,
just smaller cities that are great,
- Favorite co-conspirators.?
- Julie Smith who I produce a lot of stuff with.
We did a festival and various shows together.
She's someone I adore working with.
Comics John Benjamin and Kristen Schaal, Kurt Braunohler.
There's a poet who I adore.
Who I have open for me now Jack Brown.
He's really funny and just wonderful.
- Did he open for you at Sketch Fest in San Francisco?
- He probably did, yeah he's amazing.
I met him through David Cross and Amber Tamblyn.
He officiated their wedding
and he's just amazing.
he has this amazing way with words
and convey things that is probably stand-up
in a certain way where you convey things
that are very familiar but you never thought
to look at it that way.
- I'm taking notes right now
and ask this questions for people.
Who do you like and then we could sort
of go off and explore that.
- Yes, those are derrick brown really amazing.
Those are some of my favorite co-conspirators I would say.
- I love it.
- Yeah.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Sure, thank you.
- I hope I have helped people
become photographers or writers.
- No, no literally the goal is to,
this is the spice to anything
and it's been such a treat to follow your career
over a long period of time.
- You're welcome
And occasionally bump into you
in random ass places with our mutual friends.
Thank you for coming to L.A. or thanks for being in L.A.
At the same time we're filming.
Okay, good luck. - Awesome
- Thanks a lot buddy - Thank you so much
- Thank you.
- This was really fun, bye bye.
- Bye friends byre bye
- I hope what I've said is fair and reasonable.
- Fair and reasonable, balanced.
- Yup.
- Generalism not (music drowns out speaker)
Until tomorrow.
(theme music)
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