All language subtitles for Misery Loves Comedy 2015

Am I gonna get fed?

There's like a table,
I'm leaning on it,

I feel like I'm alone
in an airport.

What's the second question?

God, that's a great question.
Uh...

Let me see that.

I'm curious if you're just
making this up at this point.

I will never be seen
on camera nor my voice heard.

It's one of those things where
you kind of have to reiterate

the question and the answer.
Hey, then you have
a shot at a hit.

Do you think emotionally
questionable people

are drawn to stand-up
slash performing?

It was a way for me to deal

with my chronic shyness
and introversion.

I'm crazy already, so don't try
and make me the responsible one.

Or are they done in
by the life

that opens up to them?

I don't know if all comics
go through this, where you go,

"I'm never gonna be
funny again.

I don't know how
I was able to go this far."

But I always assert
that the funniest people
aren't comedians,

just like the best-looking girls
aren't models or whatever.

You'll meet people
that are shoe store salesmen

that'll fucking
knock you over.

And then it's just my job
to sit there and yell at drunks.

And that's kind of
the difference between
comedy and theater.

But I can do that.
I'm from a large family.

It's okay if I use all that, right?
Use whatever you want.

You know, here's the thing, that
you can use whatever you want

because what's gonna happen?

You're gonna get people--

They're gonna not call me?

They're already
not calling me, so--

so it doesn't
matter what I say.

The Mexicans, the Jews,
the Blacks, the Irish.

Not a lot of funny Germans.

It'd be much better
if you were mediocre,
'cause if you were mediocre,

then you would actually have
to get good at something else,

and you know, comedy would be
just something you do
by the water cooler.

But if you're truly
brilliant at being funny,

then, yeah,
you can guarantee

that your marriages are
not gonna work and your kids
will turn out fucked up.

Well, this is
a deep question.

Action!

A'ight.

What's the name of this thing?
"Misery Loves Comedy."

And do you think that's true?
That's the last question,
so wait.

Okay.

My dad was always
the funny guy of the family.

My dad made me laugh
a whole lot.

My dad.
My dad.

My father.
My father was probably

the first guy that I said,
"Oh, man, he's funny."

It wasn't that
his jokes were great,

but I could see
the silliness

and I saw that,
uh, how much fun

he was having
making other people laugh.

And he always had a ton of,
like, basic, like,

down the middle street jokes

and I would see him,
like, kill.

- He loved-- Can I swear?
- Please, yes.

He also loved, like,
shit jokes and fart jokes,

so I still don't like 'em,
'cause that's my rebellion.

He told me, he said,
"If you swallow gum,

your shit comes out
like a yo-yo."

And I didn't find out until
years later that he was lying.

He would just make up these
crazy stories about my life.

He said--

there's this Pakistani dish

called biryani
that's my favorite--

and he said, "Oh, it's 'cause
when you were a little baby,

we dropped you in
a pot of it and we forgot."

And I didn't know until
I was 13 that that was a lie,

'cause it was just
part of my reality.

I was like, "Oh, yeah,
that's what happened to me."

And he was like, "No, I was just
trying to impress your mom."

Like, he was flirting
with my mom. I'm like...

As he was five-years-old,
he's flirting with your mom.

Yeah, yeah.

I was like, "I think
it's in the bag, I'm five.

I think you got this one."

Um, so, yeah, my dad
was always very funny.

My dad and I don't really
get along that well.

He's actually stepdad,

and was not supportive
at all of the career.

In fact, at one point,

I played ukulele in my act

and did very well,
got on television doing it,
the whole thing,

but I remember the first time
I played the ukulele for him,

he just looked at me
and was like,

"What the hell do you think
you're gonna do with that?"

But I did have, like,
so many teachers, especially--

There was a teacher
named Mr. Beasley,

psychology teacher,
and he was just, like,

"Wayne, you really
got something.

"Like, you're funny in class,
you're not disruptive,
you're smart.

Like, you should try this.
You should definitely try this."

I was like, "Oh."

So she was always like, "Yeah,
this is never gonna happen.

You're insane.
I don't know what you're doing.
Nobody knows what you're doing."

My father was pretty low-key,

but my father was like,
"You happy? Good."

My father was a lot
fucking smarter about it.

My dad was funny, but not in
the way he thought he was funny,

so he would try
to tell a joke,

or tell a joke that
he thought was funny

and then he would laugh very
loudly at the end of the joke

and everyone around
the table would kind of--

You'd hear the "clink,
clink, clink" of the cutlery

as the joke didn't land.

And then you'd think,

"Please, I don't want
to catch anyone's eye,

'cause if I do,
I'm just gonna go."

She came to the show

two hours early
and stood in the lobby

and introduced herself
to every person who came in.

"Hi, I'm Blanche Lewis,
I'm his mother.

Hi. You're coming
to see my son."

So everyone knew her

and she sat right in
the middle of the theater.

So I say, "So my father,
you know, he had six penises--"

I'm just saying something dumb,
and she would literally,

I don't want to get out of shot,
she'd stand up and go--

"Oh, Bill never had six penises.
How dare you?!"

It was absolutely
the oddest show,

'cause they all went, "Boo!

You're putting your dad down."

No, it was a joke
before she showed up.

HBO used to do
a thing in Bryant Park,

where you'd face the library

and they would
have comics on stage,

live, and no censorship

during afternoons
in the summer.

My mother and father
happened to be in for that

and the place is packed

and it's spectacular to be able
to yell the word "fuck"

and throw it out
and have it hit the library

and bounce back at you is--

It's like heaven.

And the crowd was great.

I finished up
and my mother goes,

"Oh, my God,
they really do like you."

There's always
been a judgment.

"That was funny."

Almost like a comic, like,

"I know, but you
should have laughed."

"Oh, I was thinking about it,

if there was any ways
to improve it."

I just did Letterman last week.
He found--

"I found no room
for improvement."

That's always
the first thing out of--

"However,
you can tell David Letterman,

"if you have a chance, I don't
know if he's talkative,

"that that set is too busy.

"I mean, why are you standing
in front of New York City?

"What-- what is that?

There should be a nice curtain
that goes with your outfit."

Well, you let me
get right on that.

By the way, he's not wrong.
He's not wrong.

That's the frustrating part.
He's not wrong.

If you change your mind, you can
always go back to Conan, right?

I mean, that was
literally, within--

that was within
the 10 seconds

of-- of his
first reaction was...

"When the world
beats you to shit,

you can come back with your tail
between your legs, can't you?"

And I said,
"Yeah, but I'm not really--

that's not really kinda what
I'm focused on right now, Dad."

Now, one could make the case
that he was right.

I came crawling back

after being chewed up
and spit out

by this goddamn town.

But I would just like you for
once to go, "That was great,"

but there's always a criticism.

"Okay, so we're not allowed--

So, should I say something nice
first and then I can say--"

That'd be nice.
That's a start.

Let's start there, but then it
comes out as Irish sarcastic.

"Well, your jeans fit great."

Acceptance is...

has al--
been a big part of-- of

dealing with who he was

and realizing
very early in life

that I was far from perfect
made it a little bit easier,

but not much, and there's
a whole 'nother layer to it.

It's like, when you're--
when you're a junior,

you're really just
a statue built to honor

that which walked
before you, right?

Like, your name is his.

You're-- you're going
to do what he was going to do

and there's not a discussion.

And as my grandfather said
before he passed away,

"You're gonna fix
what he fucked up."

And so whether that's
rightful pressure or not,

that's-- that's pressure, so...

How old are
you when he says that?

I was 15 years old. 15.

He told me he was proud of me--

He was sick and he was
in hospice care at that point

and he said, uh, he said,

"Freddie, did you
clean your room today?"

I said, "Yeah, Papa,
I cleaned my room."

He said, "I'm very,
very proud of you."

And you're 15, you don't realize
he's saying it for everything,

but he's too much of a man
to say it, right?

I go, "Yeah,
yeah, no problem."

And he goes, "You know, your
father really fucked things up."

"What?"

He goes,
"And it's your job to fix it."

Four hours later,
he was dead.

I literally was just like...

"Um, I gotta get into acting."

Literally, I saw Neil
Patrick Harris that summer

getting people excited
for acting in my high school

and I was like,
"I gotta do this shit."

98% of kids suffer
from "Hey, look at me,"

desperate for attention.

Is there a way to explain
why any of us actually chooses

"Hey, look at me"
as a career?

"Oh, I'm gonna devote
the rest of my life

to being the center
of attention."

Those early teens where you
get to sort of hang out

with your father and his
friends, you know, occasionally,

and just sort of getting
a sense of their--

of their kind of adult humor

and just seeing
little glimpses of it.

They were still
moderating it for the kids,

but you could see
between the cracks,

there was something
a little bit more edgy there

and a little bit naughtier

and the bad language
was kept to a minimum,

but, you know,
you could see it was brewing

and the off-color subjects
were in the air.

I remember that being
very tantalizing, you know?

Kind of wanting
to hang with them.

I would sit in the pub garden,
'cause I wasn't allowed
in the pub,

but sitting in the pub garden
with them and, you know,
eating a bag of crisps

and kind of excited,

and so that excitement of when
do I get to be part of that?

And it was this dynamic of
the laughter, you'd hear, like--

As a kid,
I'm just hearing, like...

And you'd hear
this rumbling laughter

and I was completely
taken by it, fascinated,

and it was some of these
relatives from the past

that really got me, like,
"Okay, this is something.

Something going on here."

- And it was alcohol.
- Uh-huh.

That's what I realized.
It was the booze.

I was sitting around the table,
and from a very, very young age,

I always dominated
the conversation.

It was the one place that,
like, I fucking hung out in

I could hung out forever
because people were laughing.

And that was, like,
every Sunday or every Friday

or every time we would have,
like, a big meal

where everybody was there,
for some reason,

they would always be
laughing at me and I would be
telling stories about--

Sometimes it was like,
you know,

terrible things, you know,
like, I got beat up a lot
when I was a kid

and, like, my sister thought
it was hilarious, you know?

I remember one time
and she was like, "Oh, my God,

how many times
did Dominic Dipento
kick your ass this week?"

And I'd be like,
"It's not funny, all right?"

And I'd start to cry
and then I'd turn into a joke,

and then, like, it would turn
into, like, a bit or something.

I don't remember a lot--
making the family laugh.

More that I would laugh a lot
at the family, you know?

I would laugh a lot
at my uncle's jokes

and comedy shows

and things like that.

And it was
the feeling of that

- that made me interested in comedy, I think.
- Right.

It was quite a while
before you consciously made
the decision to try to make--

To make a joke, yes.

How much later? How old--

My first joke was--

I was a late joker.

My first joke was at 21.

Seriously?

No, no, no, no.

That was great.

I just like telling stories.

I would have my family sit
around and I would be like,

"Guys, I have this story,
you have to hear it."

And they'd be like...
I would just make up a story

as I went along,
a horrible story,

just about, like, fake--

Animals, I'd be like...

"So this rabbit

just was in the forest."

And they were just like,
"We know you're making this up

as you go along
and it's not good."

And-- but-- and my dad would
film it and then we'd watch it

and I'd be like, "Oh, my God,
this girl is gonna make it."

So it was definitely
for me, personally,

'cause I really don't know
about kids on purpose,

but for me personally, I--

My narcissism

and thinking that I

deserved attention

was-- was reinforced
by my parents.

Every kid makes up
knock-knock jokes,

but it takes kids
a long time to understand it.

- They'll still try it.
- Right.

They'll make up their own rules,
and they're funny

because they've got
the idea wrong.

You know, I actually
was a very, very shy kid.

I don't think I was funny
until after-- until I left home.

And so that's why my parents
are still surprised.

They're like, "What is--
what is happening?

Why-- Why are you
on Letterman?"

There's something about
family, that connection,

and then to have
that secret kind of

sense of humor together,

where the same goofy shit
makes you laugh.

Like, everyone loves
my dad's political stuff

and his serious
sledgehammer stuff,

I love his goofy shit.

I love the little moments
where he's just got a phrase

in between even two bits

and he'll just
say a little something

about Uncle Fred
or something or Steve or--

just a little something,
and that--

that's like the humor we shared,
was that little stuff.

And I do have a memory of,

I guess it was,
like, junior high,

I think we were at Gelson's,
first when Gelson's
first came out,

and we decided to do--

It just came up.

A whole produce section
in gibberish.

We had an argument over
the tomatoes in gibberish.

We ended up singing some sort of
gibberish folk song together

and just improvised
and played and for me,

that's, like, one of my most
joyful moments with him.

It's the fun part
about being a dad,

because there's
nothing funnier

than a little kid
really hitting it right.

And so my son,
I remember is he would try
to do a joke in the room,

when he was like five,
he'd go--

he'd try to do a joke,
he'd look at me at go,
"It didn't land, did it?"

And I'm like,
"No, it didn't land.

It didn't land."

Take your desk, take your chair,
sit in the hallway.

And I'd sit in the hallway

of an elementary school

and people, you know,
teachers would walk by

and they'd go,
"Why are you out here?"

And I'd go,
"'Cause I killed in there."

If you were making
a movie about somebody

who became
a stand-up comedian

and you put this into it,

people would go,
"It's a little on the nose."

The only way I could get
attention as the fifth of six

was to do my bits

and, literally, my dad
would have his friends over

and I would get to get
out of bed and come down--

"Do Nixon!"

And I would do it and I was
eight, seven, eight years old.

I mean, there's
an old picture of me, you know,
wearing Groucho glasses

and, you know,
holding a bottle of booze

and, you know, they used to have
a little bar area in their den

and I'd go back there,
I'd try to make--

What he used to tell me
to do is like, the--

You know, because he sold,
you know, appliances,

you know, he was always
on the cutting edge of things

and you know, I think
he was one of the first guys

to have his television
in a wall,

so the TV in the den
was in the wall

and the closet was behind it
so the back of the TV was there

and I would go in the closet
and I would stand behind the TV,

you know, and my grandfather
would go, "You're on
the television!

I see you on the television!"

He was a very funny fellow.

There was a moment when I was
little in elementary school

when I realized,
I'm not good at sports

and this is
a daily humiliation.

They would pick sides,
I'd get picked last,

after the girls,
after disabled kids.

And it happened every day,
twice a day,

in gym class and at lunch.

And I just remember
putting rocks up my nose

and pretending
I was a slot machine

and having people,
like, pull my arm down

and then opening my nostrils
so rocks fell out.

That was-- I don't think
that made me any cooler,

but at the time,
it seemed like a good strategy

to distract from the fact

that I was not
a good soccer goalie.

And then I started doing
impressions of people,

you know, around the same time,
like, junior high.

And that's the first time
I ever thought of myself

being funny that way.

Probably around when I was 15,
that's when I realized,

like, this is--
I'm good at this,
I can do this.

I just annoyed people
endlessly from then on.

It was just way too much fun

and I couldn't understand
why people would be upset.

Like, I would, you know,
I was pretty relentless.

I could even just pick
one person out from
the crowd of kids

and I would try to crack
that person and make them laugh,
you know?

I knew if I could make
this kid Damien laugh

that everyone would be like,
"Oh, yeah, that-- he killed."

But I thought
I was a nice kid.

In my heart,
I looked at myself

as a nice, sweet kid.

So when a guy would frown

or, you know,
even seemed sad,

I'm like,
"What's wrong with you, man?

This is funny.
You're a 12-year-old guy
and you have breasts.

I mean, come on, why isn't--
what's not funny about that?"

And you know once you kill,
you want to, like,
leave the room.

You know, you have
a great joke, you're like,
"Oh, that was great.

I gotta get out of here now."
It's, like, 'cause that
was so funny.

You were aware of you need
to exit after the laugh?

Get out, 'cause that's--
Yeah, 'cause if you stay
too long, it's like,

"You want me to do
that bit again?"

I don't remember how
I found this out,

but I could make a sound
that was essentially

a ventriloquism sound

that the teacher thought
was coming from another place.

Like another student?

Or just another place
in the room?

Another student
or another-- yeah.

And I didn't--
I don't know, to this day,

I know conceptually
what ventriloquism is,

but at the time,
I just came upon this.

And I could make this sound--

I'll make the sound,
it might be--

just warning the sound people,

um, which was,
if I can still do this--

Ahem, I don't do this anymore,
I should tell you, because...

- So...
- What the hell?

The teacher would do that

and the teacher would
throw a kid out, not me.

It wasn't really
even for attention,

because I wasn't
getting attention,

it was more for,
I guess I was--

couldn't come to grips

with the idea that they were
trying to teach something.

I would go to
where they were

with an enormous tape recorder
from the AV squad

and I would lie and say
it was a real radio station.

And when I got there, a child,
you know, had just shown up

and they would
realize they got duped,

but they would talk to me anyway
'cause they were really nice.

And I would just
say to Seinfeld,

"How do you write a joke?"

And I would force him
to walk me through it.

Or Harold Ramis--
"How do you write a movie?"

And those interviews

changed my life
because they really told me.

It was my college,
I had my college in
junior year of high school.

I was just so obsessed.

So I thought,
"I'm gonna try to interview

every original writer
from 'Saturday Night Live.'"

So I interviewed Al Franken
and Tom Davis and--

You can't just call
these people up.

Well, what would happen
is someone would be nice,

like, Alan Zweibel.

I'd interview him and then he
would take out the phone book

and say, "I'm gonna
hook you up with this person."

And he would start
giving me all the phone numbers

and I was obsessive.

I was always trying
to get Andy Kaufman,

but I couldn't get him
because at the time,

he was down South wrestling,

and I would call his management
office and they would say,

"We don't even know
where he is.

He's off the--
he's off the grid."

He was off the grid
before there was a grid.

And then I was watching Richard
Pryor with my parents on HBO,

it was "Live in Concert"
from Long Beach.

And that was
when I knew, like,

"Oh, that's what you do
with being funny."

And I remember being amazed
that my parents and I

were enjoying
the same thing so much.

That's the first time
I can remember us-- me saying,
"That's what I want to do,"

as far as it related
to my family.

I mean, as far as
my own quirky weird shit,

I mean, I've-- I've been
a little pervert my whole life.

I've had that whole weird
addictive personality thing

since very,
very early childhood.

And being funny
was just kinda--

It was also a way
to balance out

people picking on you.

Nobody fucked with you
if you were funny

because they were scared
you'd mock them.

It's the one thing I could do
to a football player that
he couldn't do to me.

I started doing drugs
when I was 15.

I started doing drugs heavily.

So I went to rehab
when I was 16.

And I got out of rehab
and, like, all my friends

that I hung out
with just ignored me.

They never
called me anymore.

I lost my entire
friend base.

So my grades were so bad

that I took theater
to get an easy A.

I'm like, it's the easiest
A I can take.

So I do that.

And I do a monologue

that had--
that was comedic.

We would put on plays
for the entire school

and, uh, it was like,
super Def Jammy,

so, like, people would,
like, boo and throw stuff.

And we did this play
that we had written

and I was one of the leads

and I came out and, uh,

just completely had the entire
theater just destroyed, rolling.

Like, just murdered
with this character,

and, like, to the point--
I mean, people, like, lost it.

And my teacher was just like--

I walked offstage
and she was like,

"There's way more here
than you're seeing."

She's like,
"You gotta, like..."

So I joined an improv group

and just started, like,
getting into comedy.

But it kind of,
like, comedy took over for
what the drugs did for me.

I just became--
was so obsessed with drugs

and then that was gone
and so I just completely--

completely threw
myself into comedy.

You're controlling
this whole room.

You're giving them--
you're like a drug dealer.

You're giving them this drug
that's making them feel really
good all at once.

From the time
I was a kid and I got addicted
to people looking at me,

it's like, the reason
I want to do that for work

is because you get
addicted to that feeling.

You get addicted
to that immediate high.

I mean, that's why people
become addicted to sex
or drugs or alcohol,

because it gives you what you
want or what you think you want.

Um, and with this,
it's a healthy way

to get love or whatever
it is that we call it.

But it's a constant--
it's like an adrenaline.

You know, there's nothing like
getting a laugh from people.

It's a really weird,
addictive high,

whether it's on a stage
or just with a--

It's a weird power thing,
which--

there's no other way
for me to achieve that.

There's no other way
for me to feel that

and nothing else
can compare to that,

so what kind of job
would I do...

I would go to work all day
and be miserable,

'cause no job is gonna
compare to that feeling.

So I think that was why I had
to keep doing it because this--

I'm always chasing that feeling.

How did that feel?
Oh, it-- I'm sorry.

When you finally had--
Crack cocaine.

Yeah.
Rock-- crack-- rock cocaine--
crack cocaine.

Because...
Big rock cocaine.

Because, um, when you're alone
and you're solo up there

and you can modulate them
and you get the laughs

and you can build on it
and you can go back and
forth and you can--

the power of, like, calling back
something and having them--

It's like you're
the one-man show

and the adrenaline and blood
shoots through your head

in a way that I think is
identical to--

- to crystal meth.
- Yeah.

I would do gigs,
I would do a shot

at 12:30 and at 4:00
in the morning,

I still can't figure out
why I'm not asleep,

because it had just shot,

you know, the adrenaline
shoots through you.

I feel like comedy
is a drug in a weird way

and I don't know what
it's a gateway to,

but, doing more drugs?

Hour-long specials?

Hour-long drugs?

What does it lead to?
A sitcom of--

And you want a nightly drug.
A nightly thing?

I mean, it is,
it really is.

And it's a buzz and you go,
"I gotta get that again."

I mean, you go to another
club the same night.

'- Cause you go, "I did this club already.
- " Yeah.

I did all these drugs here.
That's awesome.

And now let's go to another
place where there's more drugs.
That's old porn.

That's old porn,
yeah, that's old porn.

I wanna go to a place--
I need some fresh.

It is a drug, you know?

And the closest thing--

When you have a-- when you
have a moment of-- of either

hilarity or vulnerability
on stage

or something that--
where you--

It's the closest thing
I've ever come to,

even in acting class,
of spirituality

where you kind of,
like, anything--

and I hate that
I'm even saying that word,

but like,
of any kind of, like...

But it's that powerful.
It is that powerful.

It's the closest thing
I've had to, you know, like,
people speaking in tongues

or whatever and getting--
having an enlightened feeling.

Uh, when you have a moment on
stage or in film where you're--

But especially on stage,

where you're in front of
a live audience, where you're--

It's only happening
in that moment.

Yeah, yeah, and it's like,
bang, and it's your--

It's a feeling
of enlightenment.

A feeling of freedom,
liberty, yeah.

It took a big chunk of time
for me to discover it,

to discover that silence

is the root of all comedy.

That's where it lays.

Um, because, uh,

all silence did
was panic me, so I--

If there was silence,
it meant they weren't laughing

or they were contemplating
how to kill me.

I don't think
there's any bigger thrill

in comedy

than when knowing

a big laugh's coming up
and they don't know.

When you've got
that little secret

where you're like, "In a second,
you're gonna be laughing."

And maybe they're
uncomfortable, or maybe--

I have-- I have
a routine where, uh,

I took a friend of mine with
muscular dystrophy to a brothel

and there's
this moment just before

the woman sucks
the disabled guy off,

on stage, where they're
all going, "This is horrible,"

and I have a punchline that's
gonna zing, and that for me--

Silence is...
sometimes when you watch--

Do you ever watch,
like, movies being made
and you can tell the editing?

When you can tell
jokes where you go,

"That joke worked,
but you cut it off too quick."

And someone who was
editing it went, "Well,
that joke's over," boom.

You can gauge what that--

you know when the laughter
is gonna come.

You get that response built-in
so that when you're in the
vacuum of an audience,

you know-- you understand
timing, you understand
the fundamentals.

Comedians, you know,
you have certain laugh ears,
you can hear.

That's where you're
listening to the audience

and that's where some,
you know, new comedians,

you know, they bomb
and they come off stage

and they're like,
"That was pretty good."
And you're like, "You're--"

You know, they have
no laugh ears, right?

I-- I just have
the approach of

never give them a second.

Never give them
a second to...

It's like someone's
off balance.

That's the best time
to hit someone, right?

They're like,
that's kind of-- Oh!

We all have friends where you
sit there and you talk to them

and you know
they're just thinking of
what they're gonna say.

They're not even listening.
That's what comedians do.

You know, you walk off stage
and you're at the bar

and you're not magic anymore.

And then it's almost
like when I would walk off,
like, the spell is broken

and then I realize I'm a fucking
zilch and then they realize it.

They like, "Oh, God,
we allowed him to control us?"

We got involved
in a dangerous situation,

you know, doing drugs and then
being-- just constantly working

and not dealing with it.

And the one thing
about Mitch that's weird is,

um, a lot of people view comics
as, especially someone that,

you know, dies tragedy, like--
tragically, like Mitch did,

and, um, you know, drugs, it
comes with all these thoughts,

and a lot of people think
it's someone--

Something about Mitch
is he didn't really have
that kind of negative side.

In a fucked up way,

it was almost
was his downfall.

Like, I would say, "Mitch,
we can't do this anymore."

Like, and he--
like, Mitch wasn't stupid,
it wasn't fun anymore.

Doing-- doing
an opiate isn't fun

- after it isn't fun anymore.
- Right.

Who's the pumpkin chick?
Cinderella?

Whichever one-- whichever one
that turned into a pumpkin,

like, that's what it's like.

I'm a fucking
zilch again, ugh.

I would come off stage
in Hartford, Connecticut,

or whatever shithole
I had done, you know,

and I was just drinking
my water and I'm still
the same frightened idiot.

And I'm like, "I have to
go back on to achieve that."

Definitely a certain point
in my life where I was--

I was-- I was
at ease most on stage

in front of strangers

as opposed to, uh,

being with anyone I knew,
I would just--

Not that I was antisocial,
I don't know, but I was just--

I looked forward
to getting on stage.

I was like, "That's where--
that's where I really
can be loose

and have fun and, you know,
I just love doing that."

I mean, now I have a talk show
where I just talk to strangers

and people I haven't met.

A healthy person probably
looks around and says,

"It's a wonderful world
full of wonderful things."

And a non-healthy person says,

"I want people to think
I'm one of the wonderful things.

"I want people to be glad
that I live on Earth.

I need to hear it."

Rather than just think,

"Oh, isn't it wonderful

to have people like
that who exist to entertain me?"

You go to a place of,
I gotta--

How do I become that person?

That someone else will feel
that way about me, you know?

That's...

that's what I guess separates

healthy people
from non-healthy people.

There's a protective element,

I think, that we all kind of
share with one another,

because no one knows
but us what we go through.

The insecurity and the,
you know, the childishness,

the-- the gaping hole

that can only be filled
with the love of strangers
laughter every 15 to 30 seconds.

That is something that unless
you do it, you don't know.

No manager knows it,

even if they're a real
astute, empathetic manager,

and there are such people,
no agent knows it.

I do this every night.

Every night, 300--

I work, you know,
250, 300 nights a year,

and so don't tell me.

- It's failure.
- Yeah.

I think, it's failure
is what it is.

And-- and the whole thing,

all these 27 years of me
doing stand-up have been a fluke

and today's the day
that they all figure it out

and you walk out there and it's
the first time you've ever--

And you're never funny again.

Well, I think
everyone can be funny,

but not when they want,
you know?

That's sort of the trick.

Sometimes when people
want to be funny

and they try,
it's a little painful.

- But...
- But the fact that they can try,

that's the thing that
to me that dilutes it,

because when you're at a party,
nobody dabbles in dentistry.

But everyone can, if they want,
choose to dabble in comedy.

They can be horrible.
Right.

But they can at least do it.
That's true.

That annoys the hell out of me.
That's true.

Well, I meant,
I think everyone's capable

of-- of being funny

at some point or another,
you know?

I think-- And I--

Definitely,
I think every actor

is capable of being funny,
I really do.

The first person
from my real life that
made me laugh really hard?

Dan Rather, I guess,

is the first guy

who really made me
sort of have that--

that I-think-
I'm-gonna-throw-up laugh,

when he switched
from suits to sweaters.

When I did stand-up,
I always thought,

"I'm just some fucking idiot.

Why would you sit and listen
to me talk for 20 minutes?"

I didn't have that confidence

that I could do some great
George Carlin monologue

that would inspire people.

And it took me another decade

to feel that in my movies

I could open up my heart

and tell people what
I felt about being alive

and that it was
worthy of being told.

And the moment I realized
that I can open up

and that it is okay to share
my way of looking at the world

with other people,
then my career took off.

I got to see Richard Jeni.
You know, I always loved
Peter Sellers.

An early,
early Peter Sellers.

You know,
or even Phyllis Diller.

Like, those kind of
threw me more than...

Stephen Wright.
Who gets on and is
so quiet and withdrawn.

Dennis Miller's second special,
"Black and White."

Bill Cosby and whatnot.

And watching that master,

watching Johnny Carson
and seeing...

The Woody Allen movies,

and then
the Steve Martin specials.

Steve Martin.
I wanted to be...

The greatest stand-up with
the most weapons in history.

'Cause I thought then
I could be the right kind of
Lenny Bruce funny.

And that's something
that Adam Sandler, like,
really ingrained in me.

I saw "Spinal Tap," went,
"Who are these guys?

How come they're, like,
making fun of us in a way
that's really accurate?"

And I went in doing
Alan Partridge,

there's a bit in it where
I steal from Michael McKean.

There's a scene where I say
something like...

"Who... do you think you are?"

And while I'm saying this,
there's a scene where
Michael McKean--

when Christopher Guest
comes in,

he says, "I've come to re-plug
your life support machine.

"I've come to--
We can re-- do a tour of Japan."

Our single, "Sex Farm,"
was a big hit in Japan.

And he goes,
"Oh, so you've come to re-plug
our life support systems?

"The...

fucking nerve you display."

And-- and I--
I use that sometimes.

When we first started
making "The Office,"

uh, I was walking down
the street with Ricky Gervais,

and Steve Coogan
was coming the other way

and I was very excited and
kind of-- but slightly daunted.

Like, "Ahh,"
and I have this weird thing

when I meet people I admire

that I don't want to seem
like a fawning idiot, you know?

Like, I want to seem,
kind of--

I don't want
to give them, like--

Be effusive and going on
about how great they are.

I feel like that
just will seem vulgar

or kind of ass-kissy
or something, you know?

And so I had this kind of,

this thing, which is to
sort of be slightly, kind of,

a little bit cheeky, like,
we're comedians, you know?

You know, I'll have
a little dig at you and
you have a little dig at me,

but it's all done
with good humor.

And Coogan comes out and he-- he
introduces himself to both of us

and he's very sweet
and he says, "Oh, I--

I've seen your show
'The Office' and I'm a big fan."

And then he said,
"If my career is ever
on the skids,

I'd love for you to
write something for me."

And my mouth-- I just went,
"Well, you'd better get
in touch now, then."

But, like,
for no reason, like...

His career was going
from strength to strength,

it was-- like, it was just--

What?

And he sort of went--
He kind of-- "Eh?"

And he sort of was--
And Ricky just looked at me,
like, that's a weird--

And I would--
No, I just-- no--

"Obviously, you don't--
your career is going so good
that you don't--

"It's ironic,
I'm saying, you don't--

"It was absurd. You don't need
to get in touch, 'cause--"

And I just--
I think he went, "Right."

And they kind of tried to have a
conversation for a little while

and then, he went,
"Sorry, I-- sorry,
what did you mean?"

And I went,
"I'm sorry, I--

"What I meant was,
your career is clearly great,

so you don't need to
get in touch with us."

"But why would you say that?"

"No, but that-- yeah."

And it just--
and it kind of--

it just fizzled out,
you know,

and we just went off
into the day.

And I don't-- I've never
really been able to, you know,

never had the opportunity
to sort of explain myself
or apologize to him.

He must have just thought,
"What a dick."

I'd like to be able
to try and make a point

and then still be able
to tell a joke

about fucking getting shit on
you dick or whatever, right?

And I love that Carlin
can say something so precise

and so well and then,

"Now I'm gonna talk about
farts for five minutes."

He had the same hard line
when it came to farting,

if that makes sense.

But as I said,

I only became
a huge fan of Carlin

when I realized how hard it was
to be really good at this.

Groucho, Groucho,
Groucho, Groucho.

Not so many people talked Zeppo
or Chico, but I loved Harpo.

I loved-- Because Harpo,
to me, was insane,

and there was
an unpredictable nature.

He'd just, you know,
be cross-examining
the passport guy

and he'd just jump on
the thing and start, you know,

doing the pens
like it was a plane,

and then start chasing women.

And I thought, this guy,
because I don't know,

literally, there's no way I can
look away for five seconds

because I'll miss
some transition.

Lenny Bruce decides

that that kind of
philosophical honest speech

is gonna be called
stand-up comedy.

And right from that moment,
you've created Pryor and Carlin.

We don't know who
they're gonna be, you know,

but they have to happen.

I remember seeing
Richard Pryor

on an "Ed Sullivan Show."
Yep.

In which the routine was about

the toughest kid in school.

And for no reason at all,
the toughest kid in school

would like point at ya
and say, "You, after school,

I'm gonna bite
your foot off."

And you'd have to believe him
because he'd be walking around

with a big shoe
hanging out of his mouth.

I mean, that was
his routine for the--

for "The Ed Sullivan Show."
Ed Sullivan. Yeah.

The actual routine was,
"You, after school,

I'm gonna bite
your dick off."

And you had to believe it
because he walked around
with a dick hanging--

I mean, no, it was pretty funny
when you realized that.

I mean, my favorite
is Richard going to Africa

and sitting--

sitting in the coach
with the African guy,

and he says, you know,
"The man smell,"

and he does this thing and it
was like--

And this whole--
and it was like,

"Oh, I'm watching the smell,
I can see it."

But then he says,
"And then I looked at him,

and he was like...
You stink, too."

And I thought, "Oh!"

Okay!

And I understood.

Richie Pryor, who had
a big acting career,

did his greatest acting
in his stand-up,

where he would break your heart
and involve you in story.

I mean, you know, and you could
see it in his concert films.

Extraordinary,
realistic acting.

And with movies, it was--

He just didn't give it
that kind of dimension
that he did to his stand-up.

Richard was in love
with Pam Grier,

okay, like every guy
was in the '70s.

And he got his hands
on an old tape

of some of my dad's stuff
that wasn't so funny,

that wasn't that good.

They sit down and Richard says,
"Oh, I got some stuff, I got--

Y'all gotta hear this,
this is some great shit."

And he starts playing
some of my dad's old material

and my dad's
getting hot, right?

He's kind of
shitting all over him,

my dad finally
just says, "Fuck this!"

And he gets up
and he lays out Richard,

takes both girls,
and splits.

Now, I'm not lying.
I didn't make this story up.

This story was told to me
by-- by "Growing Pains,"

by Joanna Kearns, man.

Like, I'm sitting
in the trailer

and about right near
the end of the story,

I think she realizes,

"Oh, shit, he was married
and this is his son,"

and, like, goes into
this reserved, kind of--

But he was-- he was
a very sweet man.

The news came on and they said
that Freddie Prinze

had just killed himself.

A comic could make
so much of a big--

make a big splash
in this world, you know,

and so many people
are affected

by somebody
who makes them laugh.

It's an important job.

And for some reason,
his passing

was the thing that
sent me out to L.A.

I was in Rochester, New York.

I was an absolutely
nobody, part-timer,

just jack of all trades, would
do whatever the radio station

asked of me and one day,
Sam Kinison walked in.

The mic went on
and he just spoke his mind

and he was outrageous,
he was funny.

Uh, he was sensitive at times

and a lightbulb
went off in my head

where I realized, "Oh, my God,
I could do this different.

Just you gotta
just be yourself.

And, uh, and just--
I started blowing off all--

Everything I knew about
radio after that day.

I think the only vision
I had of it,

and many people
I believe say this,

is of "The Dick Van Dyke Show"

and the writer's room

of Buddy and Sally,
and, um,

uh, Rob Petrie
thinking of ideas.

I used to sit home
and I used to watch it.

And I look at this
guy Rob Petrie,

and, you know, he was married
to Mary Tyler Moore,

he had a very nice house
up in New Rochelle,

he had a kid named Ritchie,

and he spent his days
at work lying on a couch,

just, you know, joking around
with Buddy and Sally

and I went,
"I think I want to do that."

I feel like I had a vision of,
"Oh, I'll write."

Somehow I'll get in a office,
but I think it was more

I just want to be around

people who do comedy
or say funny things.

As a got older, when Letterman
came on in high school,

then I had an idea,
I would like to write

for the Letterman show
and live in New York,

but it's not like I had a talent
for it, you know what I mean?

Excuse me, I have tuberculosis.

Um, I don't think it's
contagious, Kevin Pollak,

who is not
sitting here with me.

Kevin Pollak,
Kevin Pollak.
I think it is.

No, it might be.
Contagious.

I might have to
take the waters.

It took me three years

to get on stage
for the first time.

Because-- and the reason why
I finally got on stage

was that there
was a contest.

It's always a contest.

So the prize was, um,

a check for $200

and the opportunity to
perform at the DC Improv.

Then thing that I worried about

when I first started
doing stand-up

was whether or not
I was crazy enough

to be a comedian, you know,
because I didn't really

understand what
being a stand-up--

I mean, I was doing sets
in comedy clubs

for almost a year
before I realized,

there's guys who you haven't
even heard of who don't
have a day job

who are just doing
comedy clubs, you know?

I didn't know that that was
a thing that could happen.

I thought,
"I'm going to the club
where Robin Williams started

"and someone's gonna
see me like they saw him

and then I'm gonna be
in a TV show."

That's what I thought
was gonna happen.

And I said
to the club manager,

I said, "I want to do this
again, when can I do it?"

And they handed me a mop
and they said,

"Well, there's
no spots available,

"but, uh, but if you, you know,
if you run food to tables

"and sell tickets and things
like that, then we'll,

you know, we'll keep you in mind
for fallouts and cancelations."

And so I kicked around
the DC Improv for about
three or four years

and eventually I was opening
for people like Brian Regan

and Jake Johannsen
and Mitch Hedberg,

these incredible comics

who taught me

everything about comedy.

It's about immersion,
it's about living--

Like, when I worked at
the DC Improv, I was there
all the time.

I was there the nights I worked,
I was there the nights
I didn't work.

I would--
I went to every show,

I saw comedians
who were nothing like me.

I-- I saw Larry the Cable Guy
and Rodney Carrington.

People who you think you have
nothing in common with,

but really, comedians
have everything in common.

Cab driver, paralegal,
private chauffeur,

you know, stuff like that,
and I'm lost.

- I'm a lost soul, you know?
- In New York.

Yes, a lost soul.

Parents beside themselves.

"What are we gonna do?"
Yes.

Went to university.
I would overhear conversations

that were heartbreaking,
you know, terrible.

About you?
Yeah, about me, yeah.

"Oh!" you know,
"What are we gonna
do," you know?

"What's he gonna do
with himself?"

They sent me to
a psychiatrist, you know?
Sure.

And, um, so I take
the subway

to Brooklyn to
the psychiatrist

and, you know, what--

what are you-- You can't
do anything for me.
No.

So, um, then I--
then--

I don't know how or why
I thought of this,

but I decided to
take an acting class.

When I saw Bob Odenkirk and
David Cross for the first time,

I was like, "Oh, they're
doing what I could do.

"That's my sense of humor

and they're making a living
at it, maybe I could do this."

I always assumed no one--
Because I--

Look, I grew up
as a terrible nerd

who was considered
to be ugly

and undateable,

- so...
- Chapter one.

So to-- so I used humor,

but when you are
ugly and undateable,

the thing that
people say to you

when you're trying to be funny
is, "Stop trying to be funny.

You're not funny."

At 25,
I saw other comedians

doing the stuff that
I thought I was funny at,

so I did it,
and within a week

of performing comedy
for the first time,

I now was a comedian.

And I told people,
"I'm a comedian,"
and people went,

"Oh, that's why you act the way
you act. Oh, you're funny."

We do come from
the misfit island of toys,

so we should be kind of
weird looking.

I try and communicate
that to my children.

I'm like, "There's nothing
wrong with being weird."

Um, you know,
it's a very strange--

'Cause I wish someone
would have told me that.

'Cause I feel like
that's something culturally

that we kind of toss around

but really,
being different is good.

Um, so I guess, uh,

yeah, when I...

And I know this has been
talked about before

and it's a lot more
open in society,

I know Jonathan Winters
talked about it in the '60s,

um, but, uh,

being in a psych ward,
like, I--

That was just--

To talk about that, like,
that was, like, really, uh,

I felt very ashamed of that.

And then to now,
you know, in stand-up,

you say it the first time
and it's like your voice is
kind of shaking,

- you know?
- Yeah.

And then, like,
10 times in, it's like,

"Oh, so you're in
the psych ward, as you do,"

and you get so much
more relaxed about it.

And then finally, it's like, you
can talk about it with anybody.
Yeah.

And that has been
a real gift to me, to--

that the art form
allows us,

like, you can talk
about anything.

"I'd like to go on."

On a Saturday night.
On a Saturday night.

He said, "Who are you?"

I said, "I'm just--

I'm in the audience."

He said, "Have you ever
done comedy before?"

I said-- I said, "No."

He said,
"No, you can't go on."

He said, "You have
to audition," you know?
Yeah.

I don't think I got into it
because I was essentially
narcissistic

or even that I was
looking for love.

Like, I feel like
I got into stand-up

because, you know,
I needed to be seen.

And I-- and I thought that,
like, that stage,

I can do whatever I want,
whatever I want.

The only context is,
you should get laughs.
Should.

That's even conditional
depending on how much
you're being paid

and if you're not
being paid at all,
you can do whatever you want.

You can yell,
you can spit,

you can tell people
to fuck themselves.

It's great, you can do that
publicly, yell in front of--

But I think that,
like, for me,

it was just a matter of,
like, you know, I felt that
I had something to say

and I thought that comedy,
for me, when I watched it
when I was a kid,

I was like, these guys
have a handle on things.

They can take life
and just turn a few phrases

and, like, they got a handle
on it and you learn things,

you see things in
a different way and they
seem to be, you know,

in control
of this horrendous

you know,
hurricane of bullshit

that comes at us every day
and I think that's what
appealed to me,

is like, how can I get a voice
that somehow can manage life

and-- and be seen,

kind of like, "I exist
and I have things to say."

It's easily

the single craziest thing

that I have ever done
in my life.

Was...
Going up to Bud, asking him to go on.

Thank God he said no.

You have to
nourish a delusion,

uh, you know, to sort of
you know, make your way--

to keep pushing
in show business.

You really have to
nourish your delusion.

And what's frightening,
I think, sometimes,

is that, you know,
people don't know when to stop,

you know what I mean?

It's like...

Comedy intervention.
Yeah, but does that really exist?

And what-- how can you break
somebody's heart, you know?

Their heart's gonna break
on their own or it's not.

Here's the evolution of it,
I think.

It's first,
I want you to like me.

Then I want you to tell me
that I'm normal.

And then, "Listen, can I tell
you guys about this thing
that happened to me?"

And the relief of,

"Yeah, I totally get
what you're saying."

That's happened to me, too.

And I think the older you get,
the more mature you become,

the more you really feel
that connection.

Even if they're just
sitting there in silence
during the setup,

you really feel

that we are just talking here

and we understand each other.

And it's not so much
about me being understood,

it's about
we understand each other.

I...

This is a horrible thing,

but my dog, um,

died from a thing
that I did.

Like, I removed a ramp from
the backyard to the front yard

and I forgot to put it back
and she extreme sports'd it

three-and-a-half feet
to her death.

And I felt terrible
about that and I do
a whole shtick about it.

But the great thing is,
like, after shows,

people would be like,
"I sat on my rabbit!"

Like, you're, like...

"I squeezed
my hamster too hard.

I thought I was hugging it."

"Oh, yeah, okay,
right, right, like..."

You become a safe haven.
Yeah, yeah.

Like, uh, just--

Like, it doesn't
become this private,
horrible, horrible thing.

And it took me years
to really understand
that's what you're doing.

You know, the desire
to control an audience.

Or is it a desire to connect?

Is it a desire to say,
"Hey, we're all together,

"I'm part of you,
I got in there,

we have a recognition,
we know each other."

And thereby, I go,
"Okay, I do know who I am."

There's two kinds of laughs.

There's the kind of laugh
you get when you--

you do a good gag
and do it well

and the audience laugh.

And then there's
the other gag.

The other kind of
joke you do,

when you say something
which reveals a truth

about the way men behave
or the way women behave

or something that everyone in
the room acknowledges is true,

all at the same time,
and they laugh,

and their laugh is
a laugh of recognition.

And that kind of laugh
comes from the gut,

because they're laughing
'cause they go,

you've just shone a light
on what it is to be human.

You could, you know,
walk into a notes session

and you could threaten
to walk off a movie

if you change
one frame of that gag

'cause I am sure that this works
and I will not change it.

It ruins the character, if--

You don't understand
what movie we're making.

This is something that's
important to me and I am--

This is-- I will
go to the mat on this one.

You show it to an audience,
if it doesn't get a laugh,

you're back in
the editing room, "Okay,
let's blow this thing up."

What do we do here?
Let's recut it.

Anybody have any ideas?

And that's, I guess,
our greatest success,

is creating that image
in their brain.

If it's a story piece

and they can see it,
hear it,

taste it, smell it,
and then, boom.

The fireworks go off.

Every comedian will tell you

the most entertaining
show to watch

is your good friend
who you know

is really funny,
on stage, struggling.

Bombing so hard, but I had to
keep doing the impression

and I'm talking like Cliff--

Hey, there, Normy.

You know, the actual fact--

And I was looking,
Jon Stewart was in the crowd
and he was going...

He was going...
Like...

There's a show where I've never
bombed so badly in my life.

I went on
and I fucking tanked.

I was a Saturday night.

I did two shows
and the audience stared at me

and it was a living hell.

It was a nightmare
and I bombed.

Never forget, it's the only time
I've ever bailed on my time.

You know, everyone bombs.

And again, you know,

what might be a bomb today

might be considered
grand art 10 years from now.

I find stand-up really tough,

'cause if it's not great,

I find that the actor in me
just wants to die.

I have to leave the theater.

If they're dying,
I'm dying worse.

I so vicariously
suffer with them,

but when they're
good at it, it just--

it's a mystery to me.

I don't get how they do it.

I wouldn't do stand-up
with a gun to my head.

What goes through your
mind when you just hear

crickets in
the audiences?

Uh, failing on stage
as a stand-up

is a quick descent into,
"They hate me,

"my life has no value, uh,

I'm alone,
I'll never be funny again."

My father watched me
get no laughs

on my set-- like, none.

And I got off stage, 17,

and I went to the bathroom
and had a little cry

and then I got
in the car with my dad,

and my dad said, he goes,

"Aw, I don't think this
is for you, mate,

"this is not a bad
little hobby.

And, you know, if it means
anything, I think you're funny."

You know, he was very
supportive, but he told me

to quit it and I did.

I did one more go,
and it went average,

and I thought, "Well,
this is it, it's not for me."

The one thing I think
is a common denominator
of all comedians

and that is a bond.

Is that, uh,

in order to become a comic,
pay attention,

you have to love

watching yourself die.

You have to-- because
when you're learning it,

you're bombing a lot,

there's more than crickets,
there's hate.

There's, like, sharks,
and you're bleeding

and they're nipping,
and, you know...

One of the great lines
ever yelled at me,

"Why don't you go home
and gargle with razorblades?"

Which crippled me.

I laughed so fucking hard,

I said,
"I'm done, you win, that's...

that's so good,
I'm gonna use it."

Probably one-- maybe
the first or second time I ever,

like, bombed,
I don't know why,

but my fight-or-flight
instinct kicked in

and evidently,
it was flight.

I was supposed to do
seven minutes

and I got up there

and I already told the host
what my closer was,

and I got up there and I did

probably three minutes
of my act

to silence,

and then I was like,
"Well, I have four minutes left

and I'm not gonna spend it in
four more minutes of silence,"

so I just immediately
jumped to my closer,

which takes-- probably
took about 35 seconds,

and I did my closing bit
and went, "All right, thanks."

Total time on stage was probably
four minutes, if that.

And then one of
the other comics went,

"Yeah, I know, it sucks to eat
shit, but you can't do that."

I was like, "Oh, really?

I can't just bail if
it's not going well?"
"No!"

This did happen recently,

semi-recently, Spinal Tap,

based on this movie I did

with Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer,
Michael McKean,

we have played live
for the last 30 years,

and we were doing
a show in Canada.

That's because at that point,

you're gonna
cut to a maple leaf.

Um, we did a live performance

and it was nothing.

I mean, zero. It wasn't--
There was no recognition.

Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Spinal Tap.

Singing, playing, big bottom.

Jesus.

And then we said...

You know, that thing.

And it truly was...

something I've never
experienced before or since.

The award before me
is won by Raul Julia,

a brilliant, wonderful actor,
who had died that year.

- And the widow Julia comes up...
- No, no.

...to take the award
and accept it.

And it was an amazing speech,

but I mean,
people are weeping.

And I'm backstage and I go,

"For fuck's sake,
I keep having to do this shit

following dead people!"

Well, the crew backstage is
going, "Oh, that's so funny!

You gotta say that!
You gotta say that!"

And I went-- having
no experience with this,
I go, "Really?"

This is like the band has said,
"Hey, that's a great joke,

you should tell it on stage."

So on live television,
I decide to go off-script...

and I come out and I go,
"What the hell is it?

"On the Emmy awards,
I follow dead Jessica Tandy

and now I follow a dead--
another dead guy."

I mean, the boos
and the hisses

and the hostility.

And I--

I had never produced sweat
like that in my life.

It was like Albert Brooks
in "Broadcast News."

So I-- I go to close up
and same deal,

I say, "I'm gonna tell you
one more thing then go."

Some guy yells out,

"Don't even tell us that,
just go!"

And another sailor--

it's a naval base,
another sailor stands up

and says, "Leave him alone,
I think he's pretty funny."

And looks around,
nobody's on his side.

And he goes,
"Not that fucking funny."

Sits down.

I do my closing joke
to silence and I say,

"Well, that's it for me,
if you see a dick, suck it."

And I run off the stage

and the woman has my check
in one hand and my jacket
in the other

and she says, "Get out of here,
they will kill you."

So they literally are chasing--
I'm running to my car

and they're chasing me and
it's almost like a horror movie

where they never
get closer than 15 feet.

Like, consistently,
they're like--

And I get to my car and there's
always that scene in the movie

where the guy
tries to open up the door

and you think
it's bullshit, it's not.

I all of a sudden don't know how
to use a key and I'm panicking

and I'm trying
to get in my car.

And to look at it
objectively as an adult,

to be in a bar,

in a spotlight,

with a stick that
makes your voice louder,

like, to just
demand that attention

and to not pay it off,

and to have people hate you,

I mean, that is
a really naked,

creepy, uh,

kind of torment
to put yourself through.

If I'm on stage and it's not
going as well as I'd hoped,

perhaps in the past,
I might've sped up.

Now, I have a little trick.

I just slow...
right... down.
Yeah.

And I smile a bit
and you just trick 'em.

You think, "My God,
I thought he was doing badly,

"but look how relaxed he is.

"It must be me.

"I must be misreading this.

This guy's actually
very good."

I was up for this pilot
for a reality show

and I was doing it
with Adam Sandler.

Me, Adam Sandler, and I think
Rob Schneider or David Spade,

and it was gonna be guys
travelling across America

with video cameras and, uh,

we were all unknowns
and Jim Henson was the producer.

So we went out and we filmed
our own audition ourselves.

And then they called me
and they said,

"Jim Henson would like
to buy your ideas.

"He liked a lot
of your ideas,

"but he doesn't think
you should be on camera

because he thinks
you lack warmth."

And I thought, "This is the guy
who taught me how to read.

"This is Kermit the Frog.

"This is Sesame Street.

"This is the warmest man
in the world

telling me I lack warmth."

So I think all of
these things made me think,

"Oh, maybe I just
should not be on screen.

Jim Henson hates me."

If I couldn't do stand-up,

I am out of luck.

That power of, like, writing
a joke and going up that day

and not having to worry about
anybody else chiming in.

Only two things
I wanted in life--

one was to be from New York City
and the other was to be Jewish.

But then, you know,
I learned to juggle

and all hopes of being
taken seriously go away.

Or Jewish.
Yes.

All hopes of being
Jewish go away.

It does feel really good to--

I felt like there was just
something a little bit weird
about you your whole life

and why do I want
to make people laugh,

but then I want
to disappear also?

And then you--

You meet all these
other people

that are just like you,
and they liked the shows

that you liked
when you were a kid,

and people thought
they were mean,

and people
thought they were weird,

and you're all weird
together.

And they become
like your family,

but then it makes you...

retract from--
from normal people.

We speak the same
language,

and I never
really feel

as comfortable as
I feel with comedians

with anyone else.

And then bringing a guy
around comedians, like,

"This is Joe,"

and they're all
like, "Okay."

And I'm like,
"Oh, you're right."

How much of it is
an enjoyment of--

of making
the other two laugh?

Oh, it's the best.
Well, I'm--

This is where I'm a little
more different than these two.

There are guys that
Jimmy doesn't like us

talking to
on the radio,

and I can't wait
for them to call in,

hit that phone, knowing
it's gonna drive him nuts,

or, you know,
back in the old days

more than now,

I would really push
people's buttons

to the point these two
would get so uncomfortable,

and you would think
that would be my cue

to back off,
but now I'm like,

"Oh, they're
uncomfortable?

Let me see how far
I can take this."

And I've had these guys,
like, walk out of the studio,

walk behind equipment.

Oh, yeah, yeah.
Just completely...

Horrified.
Horrified,
embarrassed.

It really is uncanny
how uncomfortable

he could make me with
talking to certain guests.

It was-- it was funny,
and I look back on it,

and they're some
of my favorite moments,

and it's-- but it's like--

I don't have the ability
to do that.

Like, I would just go,
"Oh, no, I'm just kidding."

Right, right.
Like, I would have
to fucking, you know,

emotionally whore it out
and ruin it.

I've always been
self-centered.

I think you have
to be self-centered

in order to do
this kind of thing,
a little bit.

So much of comedy
is confidence

and believing, you know,

faking it till
you make it, I think.

When I was doing
"The State,"

I was among
11 friends,

ten of them guys,

on MTV doing this show
in our early 20s,

and it was
a dream for us

because we had the keys
to the kingdom.

We got to make
our own TV show

just out of college,
it was crazy.

But among the group,

the 11 of us,
it was very competitive

and very painful
at times.

March of 1977,

and Paul Shaffer was
in town, in L.A.

And Nancy and I were

staying with
a friend of ours, and--

My girlfriend Nancy,
later to be my wife--

and Paul was in town,

and he was gonna have
dinner with Billy Murray,

who just, you know,
started that year

on Saturday Night Live.

And Nancy and I were
walking along

Santa Monica Boulevard.

We're going to go
to the Sunset Marquis Hotel.

And I just
said to her,

"I can't walk
anymore."

"What do you mean?
Are you having a stroke?"

I said,
"No, I just--

I gotta sit down."

So we sat in the bench.

She said,
"What's wrong?"

"I can't go and have dinner
with Paul and Billy

"and pretend to be happy
for everyone's success,

"because I am floating,

and I don't know
what to do."

"Ahh."

"How long
do we sit here?"

"I don't know.
I don't know.

Maybe the night."

So later on, whenever
we would pass it,

we'd call it, oh,
"There's Breakdown Corner."

Remember
Breakdown Corner?

We had a conversation
once where, you know,

you were trying to do a TV show,
and I was saying,

"All we're trying to do
is get movies."

And it's
this sort of...

not happy with
the room you're in

no matter what
the room is.

So...

We're on this gigantic
television show,

and all of us are
just thinking, well,

"On hiatus,
we gotta get a movie,

"'cause we want to be
a movie star,

because we should
be movie stars."

That, thankfully,
has completely changed,

and now
I love vacations

and love having downtime
to a certain extent.

But there is still
that part of me that,

you know, wants to be--
wants to be working.

My dad was very
protective of me,

another way in which
he protected me

was actually say to me,

I really would
not forbid you

but really, really
encourage you

to stay away from
stand-up comedy,

because
it's a ruthless world

and it's a tough life,

as I knew,
as a kid,

and then
the club circuit,

very different
than what he did,

an even tougher life,

and I think he really
wanted to protect me

from that moment when
some heckler shouted out,

"Where's the funny,
Carlin?"

The theory,
that comedians are

veterans of a shared
combat experience,

not foxhole buddies,

more like
snipers who've--

- Did you write that?
- Yes.

With similar stories
of kills and misses.

Ahh.
That's fantastic.

There's only so many
bell towers.

Yeah, no kidding.
I brought my lunch.

I could be up here
all night.

I have a box of dynamite, too,
in case it gets out of hand.

I think there is
a fraternity of comedians.

That's how
I look at it.

Men and women.

Other than
one or two people

that you detest
beyond all measure,

we all get along
with each other,

and when you're
working together,

you're on their side.

I've been
in many shows

where even people
I didn't like very much,

the crowd will
have a go at them

and I would go on after
and fucking mop up,

on behalf of them.

I've done it before,
I remember a time in L.A.

I won't say who the comic was,
but he didn't do very well,

and the crowd was
on his dick,

and I came up
after him and went,

"You people are
fucking morons.

"That guy's a genius,
and don't ever,

ever do that in
my presence again."

You know, and then
I've had crowds

be racist when
you're with a black comic,

to the black comic, and then
I'll get up and go,

"You're making
a mistake, you think that,

"'cause I'm white,
I'm on your side.

"I'm on his side,

'cause we're friends,
and I hate you."

One time
I masturbated in a church.

Um...

We'll take that.
Okay.

Yeah.
I mean, I was--

I was, you know,
a teenager.

It was
almost a soc...

a socio-religious experiment.

I'm gonna do this,
and I wonder if

anything bad's gonna happen,

or I wonder
if this is okay,

or if this is natural.

And then I did it,
and nothing really happened,

and I was like,
"Well, I guess I can

check that
off the list."

I've not done that
since then.

It was really
just the one time.

Was it during
confession?

It was--

I didn't masturbate
in front of the altar.

No, that's--
If I had done that,

I would have been
a serial killer,

as I was
shaving my whole body,

masturbating
in front of--

that didn't happen,
it was, you know,

I-- look, look.

I masturbated
in a church

in the best way
that you could have,

which was quietly
in the bathroom,

like,
it wasn't out in public.

Well, I think it's
important you clarify,

'cause a lot of us
had you in the pews.

I was not in the pews.

I was going pew-pew-pew,
pew-pew-pew-pew-pew.

I always find it
fascinating even now,

but when I was back
just doing stand-up

that, if you go to parties,
comedians end up together.

They flock,
they flock together,

and, like, you can be
at a party, any--

You can be
at the biggest,

craziest, you know,

Oprah's whatever party,
you can be at the--

And all the comedians
end up at the same table
or in the same corner.

And then we get
together and talk about
the hits and misses.

The hits and misses,
that's exactly what it is.

You get together, and you want
to hear road stories,

and you want to hear, like,
"Oh, no, I know that booker,

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,"
or "I opened for that person,

oh, they're the worst,"
or whatever it is.

It's just--
it fascinates me.

Or you can go like,
"Who is that comedian that

"did the-- remember, they did
the bit with the--

"There was, like,
a midget in--

And you go, "Oh, I know
who that was, that was--"

And you just say
the person's name,

it's like, thank God
you were here 'cause

no one else
would get you.

By the time I got
to be 15,

the juggling in the show

was shrinking,

and I was talking
more and more.

And then I realized,
though, after that,

that all the jokes
these comics were

handing back to me
were about me.

And I went, "Wait a minute,
you don't have to be a--"

You know, a hen could
figure this shit out.

I have to talk
about myself.

Let's talk about
anything but this routine.

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to say it,
I know it's gonna work.

I don't care, it's worked
a thousand times--

I don't give a shit.

I hate you for laughing,
you sheep, you lemmings.

For 40 years, I've been punching
out of a paper bag

to find out what I'm allowed
to say and not allowed to say.

So take your pants off
and don't move

is kind of
the theme of my comedy.

The first thing you learn
is how to avoid...

pain and the ultimate
failure, which is death.

You'll never be dead, they'll
just make you finish one day.

And I was in Buffalo,
and I was in the middle of--

It wasn't a packed house,

but I was in
the middle of a joke,

and I'm like,
I can't do it.

I just--
I'm tired of myself.

I'm saying this out loud.
I'm like,

I don't know what
we're gonna fucking do,

but I can't do this.

And they're all sitting
there like, you know,

you're in charge,
and you're just

looking out
at people like...

- You know, right?
- Is this part of the act?

Yeah, right.
And I'm like--

But you know, we really--
my fans are like,

"All right, Maron's just
gonna... let him find it."

He's struggling.
He does this sometimes.

You know,
on some level,

if they are my fans,
it's like,

"It happens,
I know him."

So...

So I sat up there
for, like, 45 seconds

just sort of like,
"Oh, shit."

Like, in that silence,
and there's nothing more...

There's no more present
than that.

You know,
where you're like, you know,

they have expectations,
you're not filling them,

and you're alone on stage

and they're watching you
sit there,

and I'm like,
"Oh, goddamn it."

Nobody wants my advice.
No comedians want my advice,

but if I was gonna give
advice to people,

my advice would be,
if you say something funny

in the moment, you better
write it down.

Stop editing yourself.

"Oh, that won't work
on stage"

or "That was too funny" or--

I am proud of myself
that I write

almost every
single thing down,

funny, unfunny,
laundry lists.

I heard a thump,

and I looked
to the side of the stage,

and somebody threw their
prosthetic leg onstage

with a shoe on it,
a hiking boot, and a sock.

It was kind of rubber.

And...

the crowd was
just as astonished as I was,

and I said, "Who threw
the leg up here?"

And nobody
would answer.

And I think if you're just
starting out as a comic,

it might throw you,
but, because I've been

doing it so long,
and I'm looking

for something like that,
we had a lot of fun with it.

You know, I put it up
on the stool,

we tried doing
forensic research on it.

Well, you know,
from the--

You know, from
the texture of the rubber,

it doesn't look like this
person works out much.

It looks like
a male Caucasian leg,

about five-eight,

about 200-plus pounds,

and you know, the audience
was loving it, you know.

Whose is this?
Hop up here and get it.

Houston Laugh Stop,
it was one of the...

craziest ever,
just chaos.

Like, literally
people beat each other up.

Just customers beat the shit
out of each other.

I was like, "Wow."

I'm ordering beers on stage,
no one cares.

Just a free-for all,
so after that, I have no plans.

Once people start
beating each other up,

I'm now just another
customer.

You know, you can be on stage
doing your stand-up routine,

and because you've done it
50 times already,

your mind can
slightly wander,

even as you're saying
your act.

You're doing your act,
the audience is responding,

but your mind is
actually thinking
about other things,

You can consciously be
in two places at once.

You can hear
your mouth moving,

but you can be
thinking,

"Where are we gonna
eat after this?"

It's a very
bizarre thing,

and I remember once
being on stage and--

and I just was very aware
of the absurdity

of the whole situation,

like, not just
the fact that

I was in front of a room
talking, which was weird,

when you step above it,
that seems weird,

and that your job is
to make them laugh,

like a jester,
that was weird,

but also the--
the pointlessness of it all

and I remember sort of
feeling...

and then kind of
coming back again,

back into that moment,
and, like, oh, well,

there's
nothing else to do.

This is as good a thing
to be doing at this moment

as anything else.

Should I share my life
with somebody?

Uh... was I
a good enough husband?

Can I actually
coexist

with another
human being?

Do I tell people that I love
that I love them enough?

Have I told my parents
enough that I love them?

Am I honest enough with
the people in my life?

Am I grateful enough
for how lucky I've been?

These are the questions
that nag at me

when I'm in the car,

when I wake up
in the middle of the night,

and I'm just-- I'm up
from 4:00 to 6:00 a.m.

And this is the stuff that
I end up making movies about,

and I think this is
the stuff that we end up

all... writing comedy,

writing books,
making movies,

painting paintings,
this is the stuff

that finds
its way into the work,

and if you're not doing--
if you're not

working on that stuff,

then you're not really
working on anything.

I've carried for so many years
a chip on my shoulder

from my childhood
or my working class background

that, you know,

when I meet a kid
who grew up with cash,

and he's a comic or something,
I'm very dismissive of them.

I'm like,
"You don't fucking know.

What do you got
to talk about?"

And now,
I'm bringing up one,

and it's like... I guess
what you do is

you don't give them anything
and you make them have jobs,

you make them
buy their own car,

and there's things
that I can do

that my parents
made me do through necessity

that I can just do
to be a dick.

But there's things
that I'm not willing to do.

I'm not-- I'm not willing

to take him on
shitty holidays...

and that was a lot
of my memories,

is sitting
in a caravan park

with my parents, 'cause
I don't want to have

shitty fucking holidays.

I want the coconut
on the island,

so that means that
little cunt's gonna be

sitting there with
a coconut, too,

being waited on hand and foot.

So how do I stop him
from being a fuckwit?

And then if he wants
to be a comic,

I-- you know,
I think about that as well,

like, people go, "You think
he'll want to be a comic?"

I go, "Why the fuck
would he want to be a comic?"

It's like, I was watching
some talent show,

"America's Got Talent,"
and they had a family

of people that were
on unicycles

spinning basketballs,

and they had eight kids
or 12 kids or something--

there was a lot of kids,
and all the kids...

were spinning
basketballs,

riding unicycles.

And I just think,
that's got to be

one person's passion
in that whole group.

It can't be that much
of a coincidence.

It can't be
that much of a coincidence

that the whole family is going,
"You know what?

"That's what
I'm into as well.

Unicycle basketball
spinning."

And especially
to be spinning a basketball

when you're 19,

and your sister's
three.

It's like,
"Come on and practice

with your sister on
the unicycle,"

and you're like,
"I don't wanna--"

You know, I don't care
how religious you are,

or that you have
so many kids,

and you want to have
a family that sticks together,

but I think--

I know you didn't
ask me about parenting,

but I think about it
a lot at the moment.

I think parenting

is getting them
so they don't need you.

Stand on your own.

Yeah, I think
it's getting--

And then, hopefully...

they love you and want
to visit you occasionally.

I feel that
there's safety

in accomplishing
something

and being in
the middle of a task.

Safety.

Yeah, the safety is
in the doing.

You know,
for a long time, I thought,

"If something succeeds,

that'll make me
feel better."

And having had certain
things succeed,

I've had
certain things fail,

but I've had things
succeed,

to the point
where you think, "Well,

that's the moment where
happiness will happen."

You know,
the movie did well,

or people liked it,
and I realize,

I'm getting almost
no happiness out of it.

That, for me,

it's all in the moment.

- It's just...
- The doing it.

It is,
it's editing, it's...

it's trying to figure
things out,

and that makes me
feel a little safe,

that I'm in the process

of trying to make
something work out.

And so...

that's not
healthy either.

And so, to realize,
"Oh, I need to find

a way to be happy,

not when something
worked out,

and not in
the process,

but just in nothing,

and I am so far
from accomplishing that.

Right, so that's
the essential question, right?

That's what every--
every comedian wonders.

Do you have to be miserable
to be funny?

Every comedian's
history and background

and reason that they--

you know,
realized they were funny,

and they started to do comedy
in one form or another,

it has some roots in
trauma and pain and sadness.

Not misery
but maybe annoyance.

Jesus, why be miserable?

I don't--
what's the upside in that?

So when I see a vegetable tray,
I'm annoyed.

I'm like,
no one wants that.

Why are you putting it
out there?

Trying to pretend
that you're healthy?

People are just gonna
eat the guacamole.

Don't even
put out the radishes.

What is this,
a seder?

No one's gonna eat that.

I think people who
don't quite fit in,

given the subject today
and find an outlet in comedy

and find that
that's the thing where,

if you-- the steam lets out
if you can just find that knob

and make a joke
out of it.

Yeah,
I think that happens,

and I think it's one of the
great reasons for comedy.

I'm not
personally miserable.

I make those around me
miserable.

You know what
makes people miserable?

My gesturing.

But he had said
at one point, he goes,

"I've had my foot
on the stool."

And I was like,
what does that mean?

And then I was like,
oh, my God,

literally, like, he's thinking
about not living anymore.

And I'm like,
how could somebody

this funny and original
not want to live?

So I said, hey, man, before you
think about killing yourself,

why don't you go
record a podcast?

And he goes, yeah,
that's the cure for death.

I was like, it could be,
I was like,

every time
you're on Smodcast with me,

people love you.

People love Walt,
they think you guys are funny

and original and stuff.

Three weeks after
he records the first podcast,

he sends me this e-mail
where he's like,

"I backed off the stool,"

and I was like,
"It's the talking cure, dude."

As long as you're always candid
with them, it's win-win.

The audience will
stick by you

and be like,
"This motherfucker--

"He will tell me horrible things
about himself.

Like, he'll tell me
that he takes

fucking dick medicine 'cause
it don't get hard or whatever,

he'll tell us--
if he'll tell us that,

next ten things he says are
fucking honest and shit.

It's more of...

Just accepting
who he was, man.

I think once my mom was okay
with it,

I was okay with it.

As long as I saw that
it was hurting her,

and she was having
a tough time on her birthday--

that was the day he chose
to end his life--

you know, it...

Then I didn't enjoy
any of it,

but once I saw that
she was more comfortable

and once
she saw that I--

that I had done
what I did,

and I wasn't gonna fall
down that route,

it's just not--
it's just not in me.

I think everybody
has that...

has that moment
at some point in their life

of, "Are people better off
without me?"

And your brain is
either gonna allow you

to pull the trigger
or take some pills,

or it's not,
and mine won't.

So she-- and we had
that conversation,

so once she knew that,
everything else was kinda--

just sort of
fell into place.

You know, there's still
things I can't

possibly
wrap my head around.

But I'm just wired
differently

than my father was,
you know what I mean?

I'm not-- I'm not
as funny as him,

he's not as cool as me.

That's just the way
it goes.

He was just like,

"I'm so far away from the stool
at this point,

"and it's all from
talking about who I am

"and who I am was who
I hated the most

that put me
toward a stool."

So this was a guy who never
thought about doing comedy,

but comedy saved
his fucking life.

And it's not traditional
comedy in the way, like,

you'd find a guy
at a mic,

standing on a little stage
with a mic, you know.

It's a guy
talking out his shit

but with an inability
to do it in a dry way

or in a serious way.

He has to deflate his own
balloon constantly,

and, in doing so, like,
sharpen his comedic chops,

introduce himself
to an audience

who were like,
"We like what you have to say."

Suddenly, you can make a living
off of doing that stuff,

and not just make
a living, like, pay his bills,

but he can live.

He's living
because of this.

I wanted to tell him, like,
I booked my first job,

right, I booked...

There was a show called
"Family Matters"

with Urkel, right?
Everybody knows Urkel.

And I had, like,
four lines.

I was a kid who
brought a gun to school,

and they were trying
to get me--

Don't I look thuggish?

Don't I look like
a bad kid?

- And...
- Also, who would say--

Also, who would say,
"Get me Freddie Prinze Jr.

for the kid who comes
to school with a gun"?

Yeah, right?
That's the only role I book,

is the gangster,
right?

Scooby Doo was
way gangster.

So I booked this job,
and I was crazy excited,

the audition was at
Warner Brothers.

Forest Lawn is
right behind Warner Brothers.

I drove straight there,

and I just
had to say "Sorry,"

and I had to say
"Thank you,"

and I had to get angry,

all in
one conversation.

It was like, "Thank you,
I love you, fuck you."

It was everything,

but it all came out,
and it was just--

When you can sort of
vomit emotion like that,

everything else starts
to kind of mellow out,

and then when
people tell you stories

about your dad...

fucking everything in L.A.
but his wife,

it doesn't
hurt as bad,

because you've kind of gone
through way worse.

So you know,
as far as...

My mom's relationship
with it,

she has to believe
what she has to believe in,

and I respect that,

and she very well could be
right, you know,

but for me
to get by,

and for me to accept

in any way,
shape, or form

what kind of a man
he was,

then I had
to be okay with...

with how I perceived it
and how I saw it.

When someone dies,
the last thing

you think of is,
"Did they do the dishes?"

You're like,
"Oh, my God, I hope...

he had enough sex, I hope
he was happy--" you know?

It's awful.

You know,
once we started speaking

honestly about
ourselves,

and having
a point of view

and not just being,
you know, a type of clown.

Once comics started
to talk out loud

about their life
and life around them,

people made this assumption,
like, "Oh, they got--

They're all
incredibly fucked up."

But I don't-- I think
that's a mischaracterization.

You know, I...

I think that struggle
is necessary,

but I don't think
misery is necessary.

You know
what's an interesting thing?

Maybe you have to be insecure
to be funny.

Maybe that's part of it.

You don't have to be
miserable.

But there has to be
something wrong with you.

I don't think in theory

one needs to be miserable
to be funny.

But I don't know
anyone close to me

that's not miserable.

The people
I know really well

that are the funniest
are the most miserable.

I'm not miserable.

I think
I'm just indifferent.

I'm miserable
right now

because of what I'm going
through with my finances,

and, at 58, I didn't want
to be in this position,

and whoever said
"money doesn't buy happiness,"

I hope you're fucking dead,
'cause you're an idiot.

'Cause
you know what?

I'm only miserable

because
I'm so depressed

because I'm working
so hard for so little,

but there's a lot of people

doing a lot worse
than I am, you know?

"At least you got
your health."

Whatever Jewish idiot
said that, you're wrong.

Health is good,
money is good.

The combination is
just great.

And I've talked
about this on stage a lot.

I've suffered
from depression.

Been on and off antidepressants
for the last...

Probably ten years or so,

and at times
I've been suicidal

and not because of comedy,
but just, you know,

other pressures
from the world,

and whatever,
and I realized

that happiness isn't...

isn't all about
stand-up comedy,

and I've only realized that
just recently,

and people ask you
in interviews, they go,

"How would you like to be
remembered?"

And I've got
to come to terms with--

I might not be remembered,
and that doesn't matter.

The only thing
I care about now

is how my son
remembers me.

And if everyone else sorta
liked me, that's all right,

but as long as he thinks I was
a good guy, you know--

When my dad dies,
I don't think

he was just a carpenter,

I don't think
he's gonna be remembered

by the whole world,

but he'll be
remembered by me.

And that's--

I'm working on
making that more important

than being remembered as
a great comedian.

Everyone's miserable, everyone
has misery in their lives,

but really, you know,
misery is just a form

of dissatisfaction,
and so maybe--

You know,
maybe comedy is really

just taking dissatisfaction
and discomfort

and spinning it

in a way that helps you
deal with it,

and then
people relate to it.

Um, I think you at least
have to know misery.

I don't think
comedians corner the market

on loneliness and need
for attention,

but I think they have
to know it, certainly.

Yeah.

I think that's
where it comes from.

Sort of a fear

and...

a protection of
that fear.

To this day, I'm...

there's nowhere that
I'm funnier

than in a doctor's office,

'cause I'm a little scared
and a little--

I'm hilarious
in a doctor's office.

I bartended for
a long time.

Let me just tell you,
the general public's

kinda miserable.

I don't think
it's because--

I think we just have
a faster track to misery,

and it's more
available.

I mean,
we walk into work,

our job,

and somebody goes,
"You want a shot?"

Well, that doesn't
happen at IBM.

You don't show up
at 9:00 in the morning,

there's a guy with a bottle
of Peach Schnapps.

"Hey, you in?"

So if you are leaning
toward any bad habits,

this is the perfect lifestyle
to engage in,

but again,
rule follower.

Control, I'm never gonna--

I'm not shooting
heroin with you

by the trash can
at 9:00.

What, are you crazy?

I do try to,
on some level,

even if I'm telling a joke
about a gaping butthole,

I do try to have it
colored by the fact

that I like people,

I enjoy being alive,

and, um...

Gratefully, you don't
have a gaping butthole.

Yeah, not yet,
you know?

You know,
the self-loathing darkness

where you wake up 3:00
in the morning and kinda go--

but this is
an old Steve Martin bit

where you just kind of,
like, go in,

you sprinkle
some water on your face,

and you look at yourself in
the mirror, and you say...

"What is
happening to me?!"

You know?

"Why am I in this hotel?"

By the way, I figured that out
two-and-a-half years ago.

That's right.
That would be...

54-and-a-half years of living
in self-loathing darkness,

so you get past that,

and things seem to be a little
bit better, don't they?

I had a panic attack on stage
once that was terrifying,

because I did not know

there was such a thing
as panic attacks.

The thought of
having to be on stage

for another 50 minutes

and then two more hours
after that

was unendurable,

and I walked offstage,

and I walked
out of the club,

and the club owner was
in the lobby,

and he looked
at me, and he went,

"Who's on stage
right now?"

I just went, "No one."

And I walked into
the men's room,

and I just stood
in the stall for a minute,

and it kinda passed.

Then I finally get
to the right doctor,

who said,

"I think you might want
to take a pill for this."

And he just--

"Yeah, panic disorder.

People have it."

My sort of hippy-dippy
friends would say, like,

"You know, you're still
feeling the anxiety,

you're just
masking it with medication."

And I go, "Yes."

That's what it says on the label
of the prescription, "masks."

In the winter,
I still feel the cold.

I mask it with
a coat.

Because I'm a coward.

I wrote "Swingers" after
suffering from a breakup.

That aspect was
autobiographical,

and through the experience
of writing that thing

alone in my rented room,

I was pouring my heart and soul
into this thing,

and then...

By the time
I had to perform it,

I wasn't really connected
with that pain anymore,

and then,
by the time I showed it,

there was laughter
and the opposite

of the feeling
I felt in the breakup,

because I was now connected

with these thousands
of people around the world,

and everybody who saw it
or a screening I went to,

now I felt like I was
part of a collective,

I felt like I was-- people
understood me,

I understood them,
and we shared a heart.

I've done a lot of plays in
Midtown, Broadway and whatever,

and, like,
I'll do the walk,

I'll do the 40-block walk,
full talking to myself,

full talking to myself,

reliving shit that
just happened,

having full conversations with
people that I wanted to have,

"Fucker, why the fuck
do you keep doing this?"

Something like that,
you know,

you want to have that
conversation, you don't,

you have it with the other guy,
and you're like,

"I swear, tomorrow,
I'm gonna say something."

It doesn't happen,
but I--

I get it all out,
like, in 40 blocks,

walking and talking.

Nobody fucking
bothers me.

I think artists are,
you know, brave people,

but we're fucked up.

Yes, there are...

really fucked-up people
in show business.

The people
that talk about

how fucked-up people are
in show business,

have they met anyone
that's not in show business?

The same pain,

the same suffering,
the same angst,

the same
tortures,

the same doubts,

the same misery are
all there.

In show business,

you show what
you're feeling.

So, yes, they show
the angst,

but they're showing
the angst of humanity,

the angst
that we all share.

If you had a comic

that truly had
experiences

that were
outside of the realm

of the general
humanity,

no one would
go see them.

Right now, I'm still
making the decision of,

am I a comedian?

I shuffle
the job title

on the web with what
I do first,

depending on
what I'm doing.

And I'm a comedian,
and I'm proud to be a comedian.

It took me
a really long time

to take out the word
"American"

and put "comedian."

Don't you take my truck,
I'm a comedian.

You know, we'll do
a montage at the end.

It can be viewed as
questionable babysitting.

I'm in charge of
these people,

but I shouldn't be.

But I am, and let's just hope
it doesn't get weird.

To this day,
I don't know what happened.

I don't. I don't.
All of a sudden,

it went from them
loving me to them hating me.

But maybe I'm not that funny,
so I'm not that fucked-up.

That's the consolation.

The best type
of conversation you'll have,

you're talking,

and someone's
listening, right?

It's the narcissist
fantasy.

Don't be--
don't ruin it for everybody.

With your feelings.

Exactly.

This whole thing about
feelings, I just--

I couldn't absorb it.

Yeah.

Even though I had them.

I made a girl cry
in college.

I feel bad.

I'm a horrible person.
They hate me.

This is the end
of my life and career.

I will never recover.

They will never
like me again.

I'm stupid, I'm--

It's all of that
put together.

I used to be
a smart-ass in class,

and I'd get sent to the
principal's office.

And now...

You get sent to the bank.

I get sent
to the bank.

If the ego is making
the decisions,

then you're never
gonna be satisfied.

It's also hard
to imagine

somebody...

anywhere near normal writing
the great American novel,

you know, I think.

Exposing the absurdity
of life, like,

its preposterous
pointlessness.

Not just like,
"Oh, it's a powerful drug,

and you can make a lot
of people laugh,

and it feels great
to make people laugh.

Comedy can save your
fucking life.

I think artists are,
you know, brave people,

but we're fucked up,
and, like...

You know,
it's the difference between,

like, us,

and the guy who,
you know,

kills a whole
bunch of people,

you know, is not that wide.
It's very small.

I don't believe you have
to be miserable to be funny,

but I do believe you have
to be miserable

to be really funny.

I hate to say it,
I really do,

I just think you're funnier
when you're miserable.

I think you are,
I think it's funny.

You laugh at how miserable
you were,

but I think that's
what makes you laugh,

'cause you're just going,

"This is awful,
my life is awful."

And then you're like,
"Wait, my life is awful,"

and you're like,
Yeah, that was awful,

and that was bad.

And then you're,
like, you're through

your whole
Mead notebook of,

like, all these-- "Oh, my God,
that was awful, too."

And you get excited
how awful things were

because that feeds you,
it feeds the beast.

So, sadly,
I would--

I don't know,
I think-- I think,

Yes, you have to be miserable
to be funny.

But there's ways
you can turn it on and off,

and the older you get,
you'll figure

how to enjoy
parts of your life.

Yeah, I wish I had
a better answer.

So sad.

It's so true,
oh, my God.

Cut, great.

Genius, perfect.
Perfect.

What does everyone say?
What does everyone say?