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I kind of knew inside that I wanted to try comedy, but it was a mystery. How do you start? So when I hit 30 and I had done everything I wanted to do in journalism, so I went to a comedy class. I figured I'd learn how to do five minutes and see how it feels.
I get burned out on standup. But I like acting. I do like it. But sometimes you just feel like a monkey. You just feel like a complete tool. But I like it. I do like it. Stand-up is just more free. A lot more freedom because you just do what you want to do.
I get facials. I get a manicure and pedicure every week. I get my hair cut, and I oil myself down from head to toe. I got that from my brother. I was so impressed with how high maintenance he was. When he left the room, you could still smell him for an hour.
I hate when your friends quit drinking on you, don't you? It's sad. I've lost more friends to AA than Liberace did to the virus. It's sad to see 'em go. You see a thirty day chip on your buddy's key ring, it's like seeing a toe tag on his cold, stiff corpse.
I like to weed out the people who aren't going to enjoy me straight off the bat. If you look at all my specials, I do start more extreme and then, as I get into it, sort of at the three-quarter mark, I normally have a bit of pathos. Is pathos the right word?
I usually get so warned when I go to Detroit, like, 'Oh my God, don't go to this section, don't go to that section.' I've never had any issues in Detroit. I love that there's enough of a racial mix of people to make fun of. I've always had a good time there.
I don't know how it is with other people's relationships, but my wife is always much more tired than me because she works much harder looking after the children, which is an endless battle - a lot of it is battling with them to stop battling with each other.
There are things that are only palatable until they become uncomfortable for us, so it's very easy to complain about some problem the minute it becomes a problem for you. But you're okay with certain aspects of gentrification if they're the aspects you like.
There's always a certain concern whenever you go and shoot a field piece: that maybe all the elements won't come together, knowing that you have limited time to tell a story, hoping that you get all the elements you need, hoping the subjects are comfortable.
I think when you write something as standup material, it forces you to think about how you're gonna tell that story in one way, and then, when you get the opportunity to shoot it, you almost have to reframe how you go about it and rethink the entire process.
I have a healthy relationship with food. My problem is, as a comic, I eat dinner late. But I'll have a smoothie for breakfast every morning, and I keep it pretty low-carb and healthy during the day. At night, I'll have a basic protein, quinoa, and vegetables.
I don't know how doctors pick one specialty over another. Some you can understand. Pediatricians. Or gynecologists delivering babies, bringing a new life into the world, but how does someone want to be a proctologist? How can you fall in love with proctology?
A friend of mine told a story about a date with a guy she was really excited about: He stood her up. He then called her, begging her forgiveness and giving some excuse. She told him to get lost, telling him that he only gets one shot with her, and he blew it.
With acting, it [auditioning] is very frustrating. I'm not very good at auditions. Sometimes I audition for a role and I'm like, I'd be really funny in that role, but I'm not good at auditions so I guess I'm not getting that role. It's a very frustrating job.
When I'm doing stand-up, it's just me depending on me. I know how to go out there and make people laugh. I've been doing it since I was a teenager. I trust my instincts. I just go out and talk. A lot of the time I let the material come from the top of my head.
My brother and I both like sarcastic, insulting comedy, so that's a way we communicate. Somehow that's what we learned. My mom is not a really sarcastic person. She's a really sort of overly loving person, and my brother and I came out little cynical bastards.
For me, funny is funny, and what's unfortunate is these comedians aren't being allowed to operate in rooms for everybody and that everybody can laugh and say, 'Okay, I find that person funny, and I don't just have to find them funny because they look like me.'
The Senate was holding hearings on deceptive sweepstakes practices. These companies target the elderly, making them think they're going to get a bunch of money, when in reality they never see any of it. The most popular of these scams is called Social Security.
Night to night, doing the clubs is a lot of fun too because you have a lot more freedom and you don't have to worry about swearing or going off the script or going long or going short. If you bomb, only a handful of people see it. On TV, a lot of people see it.
Could you imagine me and the roasters taking on the GOP field? It would be the greatest show ever. Prove that you can take a joke. Prove that you're a man or woman of the people. Prove that you're not above criticism even in the form of a backhanded compliment.
There's a lot of guys up there who like wearing a suit or try doing jokes that they think will play to a certain crowd, or maybe get them corporate work. I've always written jokes that I would want to hear. So, I'm trying to entertain myself more than anything.
Philosophy is problem-solving. There's a philosophical problem, and then you try to solve it by approaching it from different angles and seeing what way works. That's what comedy is: you have a topic and you try to just hit it as many different ways as you can.
I remember Tim Meadows gave me a radio. It was a radio he didn't want anymore. I gave it to my grandmother, and she had it 'til the day she died. To me, it was, 'I got a thing from Tim Meadows!' I think my grandmother was like, 'I got a thing from my grandson!'
I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of those things.
I think hard work is definitely a huge thing, but there is something, if you want to call it luck or whatever - a window of opportunity - that is totally outside of your control, and it's that thing that will sometimes separate a good career from a great career.
I had a head injury when I was living in England; I was in the hospital for three days, and they didn't even ask for my name. I spent three days in there. And then, when I was done, I just got up and left. I wasn't a British citizen; I was there on a work permit.
It really helped to have someone whose taste I really trusted who I knew was really smart and a really good writer. Sometimes I find it hard to judge my own work so it was good to have someone who could look at it. It was like, "Oh, she likes it, then it's good."
And as a stand-up comic, that's the one thing I'm a little uncomfortable with. I'm not uncomfortable with sincerity in my regular life, but, like in terms of my product that I offer, I think that it's weird, because comics used to be way more sincere in the '80s.
When you put comedy in the room it's supposed to be in, you start learning it's a process. Not everything is a home run. You have singles, and you ground a few out. But ultimately, it's the journey you have with that comedian, whether it's ten minutes or an hour.
The thing where I thought I made it was when I paid my house off. It wasn't actually a moment on stage - it was the first bit of financial security. It was the first time I looked at my house, and it was all paid off, and I thought, 'Alright. Jokes paid for this.'
I'm a take-no-prisoners type of comic, and I'm lucky because my fans get me and never have a problem with the politically incorrect themes of my act. But I am continually amazed by how a certain section of our society seems to be so freakin' sensitive about jokes.
The role of a comedian is to go in and make something funny. That might be a situation where I'm writing, a situation where I'm in control, like standup or something of my own that I'm making, or it might be something like being an actor in someone else's project.
I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I'd go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on 'Laugh-In,' Flip Wilson.
The world is in a bit of a state. I don't know how it's happened so quickly but everyone's a bit on edge. I'm not sure that our leaders are doing a great job globally. We're hoping on Trump and Kim Jong-un - these two people who maybe aren't necessarily the sanest.
The majority of the DC and Marvel comic lines are white male characters, and the minute you make Thor a woman or Captain America a black guy, the Internet is filled with hateful comments and people saying, 'That's not what Captain America is supposed to look like.'
I've always been a reserved cat. When I play sports, there's people used to get mad at me because I didn't hang out and things like that. I've never been that kind of person. Nothing has changed in that regard. I've never been posse, and all that. I'm a quiet storm.
Doesn't it get on my nerves when people say science doesn't know everything. Science knows it doesn't know everything otherwise it would stop. Just becuase science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy-tale appeals to you.
Some people are just really goofy kind of guitar acts, and they go out and do these colleges and start making a fortune pretty early on. And other people - I know guys who are great comics, who've done the Letterman show many times, who still barely pay their bills.
I'm really happy that I've been able to make people laugh and distract them from their day to day bullshit at a comedy show or because they enjoyed one of my CDs or TV specials, but I don't know how many people have actually had life changing thoughts because of it.
I don't have a gun. But I think they level the playing field. I accept that there's really nothing you can do about it. It's like nuclear weapons; if they exist then eventually other people are going to have them. Maybe just take away people's motivation to use them.
I've never tried to drive my career in any particular direction. I've always been an in-the-moment, live-for-today guy. I've never had a goal, and nearly everything I've done has been an accident. I just play to me, and if I can amuse myself, I consider it a victory.
My brother is a tax guy, and the way I look at it, it's like he's spending his life saving money for rich people. So I think making strangers laugh, at least having a creative component to your profession, is more manageable for me. I can live with that a lot easier.
There are certain families who absolutely incorporate their nanny as part of the family, and there are other people, and there are codes for this, when they call in, they say, 'I am really not looking for a friend.' It is clear they will not be members of the family.
New York Stat agreed to pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed three decades ago by inmates swept up in the bloody 1971 revolt at Attica prison. The settlement will be paid in the form of chocolate bars and packs of Newports that can be picked up in the commissary.
I don't ever want to become Bill Maher where I have to find some strong opinion on something just because it's in the news. That's the guy that comes off like you have to be angry every week about new topics and snotty about something. That's what I'm trying to avoid.
I go to the fanciest restaurants in the world and try them out. I like to see these chefs that are wizards do their thing. I like two types of food: cheap fast food - In-N-Out Burger, Taco Bell, stuff like that - or expensive food. Anything in between just bothers me.
There's nothing better than having a bright, blinding light in your face and being guided by big, rolling laughter. There's nothing more encouraging than hearing that huge sound. I've waited my whole life to hear that. You come away with the biggest high of your life.
I feel like you know what you're going to be good at when you're older based on what you like when you're younger. When I was younger my best friend was Tony, this kid Tony, and he loved rocks. He was always playing with rocks, counting them, and now he's a crack head.
When you're standing around for an hour doing stand up it's no big deal but when you're standing around watching a show for an hour - it's a big difference. It's annoying - your feet hurt, your back hurts - it's just not the most comfortable way to see stand-up comedy.
How do you pledge allegiance to a government? That's all America is: a government. There's no such thing as 'we're Americans.' That's just trivial bullshit to get you rooting for the home team. You're not an American. You're a guy, you're a person, you're an individual.