Ever hurt myself? When I was younger, like 13, 14, I was always skateboarding, and I would get hurt all the time. I had a ramp in my backyard that I would fall down from a lot. And a skatepark opened near us, and one night my brother took us, bought us 2 hours of skating, I went to the big pool and tried to learn aerials, and I got hung up and fell backwards, and broke both wrists, and every told me to get out of the pool so they could skate. Then the skatepark owner made my brother take me to the hospital to get X-rayed, and he was so mad, he screamed at me the whole way, because he couldn't skate his 2 hours. So my stepdad was a doctor, and he saw on the X-rays that both my wrists were cra...[Read more]

In the pilot when Bill is up in the tree and the big kids are throwing stuff at him. That happened to me and my best friend, minus the fireworks. We were hanging on and crying. That was just such a regular day back then. No supervision, no cameras, didn't even dawn on me to tell my mom what happened. There's also a scene when Kevin sneaks out of the house w/ his amp and guitar, and he falls on his face to save his gear. That was my friend Dave Kushner, it happened to him. He does all the music for F is for Family. He was the rhythm guitarist for Velvet Revolver, I can't believe I even know the guy! He landed face first and knocked all his teeth out. The next morning he drank a 40 through a s...[Read more]

This is how much I wanted to be a comedian and didn’t realize it: I had a paper route for years when I was a kid, and when I was on my route I used to recite George Carlin bits, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy — I used to recite his “Hit by a Car” bit word-for-word. I would fantasize about doing it in front of my entire grade in the school auditorium. But I still wasn’t able to make the connection of maybe that means you want to be a comedian. It didn’t seem possible. But I know the exact moment when it seemed possible. I was working in a warehouse with this guy and he was into comedy — first time I’d ever met somebody who was into comedy the way I was. And I used to go over to his house to drin...[Read more]

I always think about my junior high dance, everybody grinding to Jodeci and thinking about how we were all literally children and how weird that would’ve been to look at as an adult. Like, 300 children grinding to Jodeci, just the funky sweat smell in the auditorium. What were we doing? But that’s the power of Jodeci. [Laughs.]

When I was in first grade on the last day of school, Mrs. Stafford, our teacher, said, "I want to give out a special present today, to a kid in the class who has tried so hard to improve his handwriting." And she's going through this whole speech about this kid; I'm staring at this kid that I knew that she liked, and I just hated him, and I was getting more and more angry. And then at the end, she said it was me! The present was a Dr. Seuss book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, that I have since thrown out. But I remember it was in purple cellophane wrapping, and I still consider it the greatest honor to have received that gift. So, that was my favorite book.

Constantly. We all thought he was crazy. Little did we know!

Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.

I didn’t start coming into my own as a guy until I was 12 years old. I can actually remember the moment. I went to a party. I was scared to go to this party, but I ended up going anyway. And when I got there, it was like I could tell everyone was really happy I came. And then a kid explained to me, "Man, it’s not as much fun when you’re not here." And I was like, Oh, I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize that kids thought I was funny—that I had actual friends. Even at 14, when I started doing stand-up, I was always a pack animal. I’d like to be a lone wolf, but I’m just not.

Q: You once recalled a story about when you were a very shy and very young boy and had to take your dad's friend (who was blind) to a store. The blind friend requested that you describe the world around him, what the grass was like, the street lights, etc. The friend was happy and loved that you were describing such things to him. You said for the first time this made you look outward at the world, not inward, and that you fell into a kind of hysteria, laughing uncontrollably. Another time you were talking to a homeless guy who was saying he knew John D. Rockefeller, was at John D. Rockefeller's funeral and all this insane stuff and again you fell deep into laughter. I had a similar experie...[Read more]

HOOK AND THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE

But I also had this thing where, when I was growing up, I got picked on a lot and I also beat some kids up. [Laughs.] I had a nice balance. I also felt like a freak because of how I looked. And I thought that if I became a comedian, people would see me on stage and go, “Oh, he’s a great, funny guy,” and then everyone would stop fucking with me. I thought that becoming a comic was going to fix these other problems. Of course, it didn’t. I just believed that it would for 15 years.

Due to multiple herniated discs, my pain level on a normal day is through the roof.

I don't really like to focus on barriers because I don't like giving them that kind of power. But I will say that going on the road, as a female stand-up, is rough. Mostly because I'm just scared of my safety sometimes when I'm all alone in a shitty hotel. Also most women can't just eat a twinkie at a gas station like some men can.

Anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome