[In reply to Louis CK, who was leading a discussion about the importance of maintaining a physical training routine and its relation to comedy]
Louis,
I concur that poor health leads to sloth and effects your creativity.
Repeating any behavior continually will effect your writing as it gives
you nothing new to say. I do drugs, yes I do but I only do them socially. Its the fact that I
talk openly about it that gives the impression that there is a
frequency. I’ve probably done mushrooms 6 times this year, acid once
(poor quality), coke maybe 5 or 6 times, and about three xanax a week
to sleep. I dont smoke pot.
So smokes and drink are about my only habits and the cigarettes
certainly n...
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i think having kids and getting into my mid 40s and some minor health issues have focused my thinking on the subject of death a little more than when i was younger.
[Are you a healthy comedian? - Louis asked this question to those in the "Alt Standup Comedy Google Group"]
I know a lot of you out there have a diet that consists of Hardees and Taco Bell with the occasional frozen buffalo wings heated up in the condo microwave, and that your exercize regimen… doesn’t exist. Personally, one of the reasons I chose standup as a life is because it allowed me to lie on a floor for several hours eating lard and crying, only having to pull myself together for an hour a day or so. But if you want to have any longevity as a comedian, or if you want
your brain and body to provide you with any consistent creative flow,
you have to eat somewhat right and do some ex...
The best part is standing on the stage with your comedy being able to turn a passive audience into an unruly mob. The worst part of standup comedy is the insane pressure on the spine and lower back from standing up for so many hundreds of hours.
Well, I would say: Holy Ghost Power (you've got to be one of God's favorites, because he whispers in my ear EVERY Day).
But here's the REAL answer: moderation, and do what you are supposed to do. Listen to that little voice. You'll be a lot less stressed. Most stress comes from the fact that we're lying to ourselves and the people around us. Follow your primal impulse. And realize that there's no escaping plain old death.
For me, it’s not really about weight loss. Training just makes me sharper and mostly increases my endurance. let me put it to you all this way: Trying to be a standup comedian for
a living, or beyond that, trying to pursue a life in comedy that has
longevity and bredth, is crazily hard.
Lots of folks say it takes 15, maybe 20 years to make a great comic.
Lots of people start out with a lot of talent but by the time they hit
that many years they’ve given up, become bitter and crusty or have died
from ill health and depression. Outside of all that, it seems to me that if you’re trying to do
something extraordinary, which succeeding as a comedian is, if only by
virtue of the fact that...
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sure, i think it naturally boxes me in. One fun thing is to always try to working outside of boxes though... and i think people have gotten a little too concerened about things like genres and labels. I'm hoping this record is additive to my body of work and makes me a more interesting person to pay attention to.
creatively you use all the same tools. you tend to steer towards people you like being around... you try to make it the best thing possible given your restraints... i guess framing it for people is the most challenging part
it all comes in seasons and waves. the best we can hope it when we are called on, we are in a creative season! and if we're not, sometimes that panic of a deadline is enough to snap me out of it. but it's all self love. if youre blocked, love youself anyway. it's a better strategy and will make it go away faster than being hard on yourself. take a nap! take a walk! take a drive! watch a movie! it's all writing. just in your subconscious
Your dreams are very well written. I know this, without knowing any of you. People turn anxieties, crises and longing, love, regret and guilt into beautiful rich stories in their dreams. What is it that allows us the creative freedom in our dreams that we don’t have in our waking lives? I don’t know, but I suspect part of it is that in our dreams we are not constricted by worry about how we will appear to others. It’s a private conversation with ourselves, and if we’re worried about it, this becomes part of the dream. I think if we were better able to approach our work this way, the results would be different.
I was just on twitter talking about Roseanne because she gave mea first job, and I thought of her and Chappelle who I have both worked with, and who have both been called "Difficult" or "crazy." And that word crazy when it's applied to an entertainer can torpedo their career. One time I was on a show, and I wanted to get Burt Reynolds to play my father, and the director said "You don't want Burt Reynolds, he's crazy." I said "I don't want you to be my director. I want Burt Reynolds." So crazy just means creative. And difficult just means hardworking, and opinionated. And Roseanne was a victim to this specifically because she was a woman, which is very sad. But that's all I was saying.
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It’s crazy. Seinfeld calls it the “kit.” You’ve got to have a podcast, a web series, a TV show, you’ve got to be on social media constantly with Snapchat, Instagram, and tweeting all the time. You can’t just have standup anymore. That’s not enough. It’s a lot.
[Are you a healthy comedian? - Louis asked this question to those in the "Alt Standup Comedy Google Group"]
I know a lot of you out there have a diet that consists of Hardees and Taco Bell with the occasional frozen buffalo wings heated up in the condo microwave, and that your exercize regimen… doesn’t exist. Personally, one of the reasons I chose standup as a life is because it allowed me to lie on a floor for several hours eating lard and crying, only having to pull myself together for an hour a day or so. But if you want to have any longevity as a comedian, or if you want
your brain and body to provide you with any consistent creative flow,
you have to eat somewhat right and do some ex...
You know it's weird, because comedians, like a band will go on tour but comedians, we're always doing it. We're always in the process of creating new material and doing shows. There are people who will not tour, but like, Seinfeld is always going out doing theatre shows.
What we intentionally planned, my wife and I, was I wanted to tour and I also wanted to be with my family. So I will get on a tour bus and go city to city with my kids, and I'll check into a hotel. There will be a hotel pool, or we'll do some local activity, and I'll do my show at night. Which is exhausting, but it provides some normalcy, and I won't be absent from their life. I don't know how much longer we will be able to...
[In response to Louis CK's question: Are you a healthy comedian?]
I try to do coke a couple times a month to get my heart rate up though Viagra can really get the ticker running at high speed especially if you are trying to come while you’re extraordinarily drunk. Cialis to a lesser extent but for a longer duration.
Often times on the road I will take very long walks when I wake up and
don’t know where I am and need to get back to my hotel. Terror can at times be a great replacement for a sauna to help you
sweat out the toxins. Sushi is very healthy I’ve heard and will help clean out your system
the longer you leave it sitting around before consumption. Dry heaves
help keep the abs ti...
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Damn. There's so many.
I'll give you a couple.
We're all meaningless. In the grand scheme of history, we are a blink on the timeline. A blink. So I took that to mean I should live what makes me happy before I'm dust.
I can tell people what I think about them when it's a good thing. I was holding it back too much. After my first real shroom trip, I sat in my car on the way down and texted Chris Fairbanks to tell him that I thought his delivery style was really unique. Things like that. Why keep it to yourself.
There are hundreds more. These are just a deep one and a simple one.
ate prob bout a fifteenth of a garbage bag of mushrooms in eight grade. thought i was in a mass grave for 3 hrs but was just laying on dark carpet. Also once tripped really hard in a fridge box with some dogs in it and one of the dogs gave birth while i was in there. And i felt something.
The drugs didn’t make me funny. God made me funny. The drugs kept me up in my imagination. But I felt ... pathetic afterward. Drugs messed me up.
Well that's a large question, isn't it? Because you're talking about recreation, which everyone is in favor of. You are also talking about something that has been illegal for so many years, and marijuana is responsible for such a large part of the prison population, for the crime of self-medication. And it takes millions and billions of dollars by incarcerating people for this crime against oneself as best can be determined. People are realizing that the war on drugs is a failure, that the amount of money spent, you could have bought all the drugs with that much money rather than create this army of people and incarcerated people. I think the terror of marijuana was probably overstated. I do...
So I guess what I learned about that is I don’t want to be written about any drug point of view, you know? Because I think that kind of thing is just…no one nowadays ever keeps to themselves. Everyone talks about shit, and you can’t just do stuff these days without someone talkin.’ Those days are over. As far as what I’ve learned, I guess is to stay under the radar as far as possible and just, you know, I mean, I’ve definitely learned over the years that you can’t do copious amounts of drugs and stay alive; that’s not going to happen. So not all drug use has tapered off, much to many people’s misunderstanding, but I’ve learned just to stay under the radar, and do what you do and keep it in c...
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