I was slightly observational at first, going back to my early, early open mics. I was just writing any joke, because I wanted to be a real comedian. But my personality was always there and some of my material naturally became about me — about looking Jewish or hairy or whatever — and people liked that. Your voice and your persona will come out of that, the more you're comfortable with it. So when I tried to fit myself into a Seinfeld mold and I didn't get the laughs, that brought me out. And then comedians said, "Keep doing that." And then it was all about honing it and writing jokes for it. But if you ask me, honestly, I wish I could just go up and do jokes. Boom boom boom bing bing and I'm...
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It’s just a series of steps that take place haphazardly. The file cabinet contains most of the things that are sort of in waiting, ready to be transformed into a usable language, you know? That’s the holding pen. The observations keep coming and the comparisons that the observations represent that are, you know you have a world view and it’s like your matrix and so, when you see things happen, you’re comparing those things to what you already know and how you already feel. That produces your impression. So those are things I write down, those impressions that I get from the world. So, some of them are in half form states, some of them are just ideas, just highlight, the key words, patterns, ...
I always record my sets at least on audio. A joke really evolves the more you do it which is why doing the road is so important. You need those reps to make something polished and perfect.
There are subjects that I hope to figure out how to talk about. You know, different topics take time for me to figure out an angle into it. Whether it be something really dark, like on my last special I had a bunch of jokes about cancer, obviously not about someone having cancer, but about the shared human experience that we all have, it's touched everyone's life. So figuring out a way for some of these dark heavy topics to bring about humor and light surrounding them, if that makes sense? Because I certainly don't want my comedy to make anyone feel bad but I also do enjoy the challenge of making something humorous. Like being able to do a joke that is about religion that an atheists and an ...
When I started out, I was doing more conceptual bits that were just kind of silly. And then gradually, I expanded my premises. Everyone when you start out, for the most part, your material is very brief. You don’t trust that you can stay on stage for that long and get laughs. You don’t want to overstay your welcome. So you tend not to flesh out your premises that much. As you get more confident and more relaxed, you’re able to give a premise the treatment that it deserves and really explore your ideas. That’s what happened with me—I gradually expanded, and my comedy slowly became more about me and less about high concepts.
I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of getting out of my comfort zone. I think that’s what you should do. I understand the temptation if you’re an alternative comic to just do alternative rooms. Or if you were a club comic to just do club rooms. Or if you’re a white comic just to do white rooms. It’s because bombing is so humiliating that you want to avoid it. But humiliation is where the growth is. This is also like why I enjoy drinking and I don’t like pot. I feel like with drinking you have to earn it. You gotta get those drinks down.
i think i have way more patience now and can be funnier. as you get older you get more self esteem so you can get to the joke in a more graceful, artful way without rushing to the punchline in a desperate need for validation :) oh and I've accumulated way more mistakes to talk about which is always good. and I'm more humble now so can make fun of myself more because i now can tell how much of an idiot i am being :)
I think what's unique about stand up comedy is the overall commitment that you have to make to it, meaning you can't not do it for 6 months and then pick it up and expect to pick up where you left off. It's an ongoing preparation. That being said, the longer you do standup comedy, I believe the better you get at it. Obviously, stand up comedy is point of view driven, and having done it for 25 years I believe that I'm getting better at it. Also, finding newer ways to articulate my point of view.
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I always hate seeing performers going out and saying things like ‘I would like to talk seriously about the current political situation.’ Fuck that. I came here for the jokes, and that’s hopefully why people come to see me, as well.
I think when you see the word 'clean' associated with comedy, a lot of people think that that's the point of it. "Like, 'Oh he's trying to be wholesome. He's trying to make a statement.' And that's not it at all. There are comedians out there who work dirty who I think are great. But I found that that didn't feel natural to me. You want to feel like you're as in-the-moment as possible. You want to feel real. And that stuff doesn't feel real to me.
Finding a scene where it was like, “Oh, this is the kind of stuff I’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t in the clubs in Philadelphia.” I wasn’t able to completely see myself on stage and be funny in the way I truly wanted to be. The alt scene helped me shape a much more conversational style and gave me the confidence to be as creative as I possibly could be, and not have a voice in my head saying, “That’s going too far, people need that club rhythm in order to digest what you’re saying.” The alt scene showed me a different way of doing things.
I just noticed that audiences didn't want to laugh at me because of the way I looked, so I just went with that. It seemed fun to play a villain on stage and I wanted my jokes to be so good that I could just calmly tell them on stage. I didn't want to show any neediness. It was important to me to be cool up there.
I’ve learned that if I foul it up, if I pause wrong or stumble over a word, the joke doesn’t go as good, and sometimes it doesn’t even go at all. It’s so much about timing. If there’s a three-second gap and I don’t say the next joke, I can lose the whole thing.
It really is a lesson I realized early on: You better know what you’re gonna say and say it the right way. Even if I wasn’t doing one-liners, even if it more traditional, telling stories, I’d still have to say it in the exact right way. It’s just how my brain works. I’m lucky all of this just meshed, you know? I didn’t decide to talk like this or sound like this. The surreal jokes and the voice just worked together. It was all by acci...
I like that the show goes in different and unexpected places. It's sometimes fun to set thing up then take a step back if the business owner starts having their own ideas or pushing things forward. Later this season, I encounter a business owner that actually gets more into the idea than I am. But yeah, I like a variety of responses or reactions.
I just tell jokes about my own life and try to make it relatable enough for as many people to enjoy as possible.
I'm considered a "clean comedian" or "family friendly comedian," but that's just how it comes out. There's no incredible calculation behind being clean or family friendly; comedians talk about what they can get away with. Chris Rock or Lewis Black are just gonna do the type of comedy that they're going to do. If you know them, it makes sense what type of comedy that they're doing. I'm always hesitant to be identified as a clean comedian because all comedians, whether they be clean, female or African American or transgender, the only adjective they want is to be funny.
I sometimes I feel as though "clean" is this asterisk that kind of disqualifies some of my success. People are not coming to...
I don’t understand that term. I mean, I do those rooms that are called alternative comedy. In the 80’s, there was a formula that started happening with the airline jokes, just a person with a microphone, doing very conventional material. But everything before that was alternative comedy. Like when Albert Brooks used to go on Johnny Carson and literally read the phone book. Or Steve Martin would do those great bits. I guess I am. I really don’t know. I’m alternative (he says with raised eyebrows). I lead an alternative lifestyle. (laughs)
I’m 100 percent okay with it. For a while it was like, I don’t want to be a Moth person. Not like that’s bad, but the Moth is usually looking for one-offs from humans that have one incredible, life-changing story. But comedy’s evolved and there’s something for everybody, and more than ever, my people kind of find me. Of course, in a comedy club, you have a lot of seats to fill. I’m popular in some markets more than others, and so I can feel when it’s like 30-70, 50-50, 80-20 my people.
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