I think one of the best things that's ever happened to my stand up is the podcast because now I no longer have any motivation to send a "message" in a joke form. I just want my shit to be funny. If I can make points and be funny at the same time, awesome. I'm all for it, but most importantly it has to be interesting and funny to me. I can explore ideas until the end of time on the podcast and never need it to be funny, but for me as a fan at least, the comedy that I truly enjoy is the comedy that makes me laugh the most. In the past comics didn't have something like a podcast where they could go into great depth about a fuck load of different subjects, so to get their ideas across and expres...[Read more]

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.

I had stopped doing standup because it had stopped being fun, and the reason it stopped being fun was it was harder to write — and this is before the internet — it was harder to write new stuff. It had gotten so crazy. Like if I went to the club and tried out a bit, the next day it could be like “Oh I saw Eddie was onstage at the so-and-so and he said yada yada” and I’d be like “Man, I ain’t even finished that bit yet!” And it’d be people talking about it: “What’d you think of that new joke?” And it was like “What the f*ck?” And this was years ago it started, so it was like “ Maybe I’ll take a little break from stand-up.” And then the break got longer, then the whole Def Jam thing started wi...[Read more]

I enjoy doing stand up way more. Acting is fun, but it's slow-motion and I like immediacy.

The most common question I see here on Twitter is if I have any advice on being a comedian. I have never given any but I will. It is said that you must write what you have experienced, that great comedy comes from truth, or from tragedy. All of this is nonsense. I am crushed by the time, gone and irrevocable, that these 300 pages have cost me. But here are a couple of stand-up tips. I am not sure if this can be done by the novice, but if I could go back and do stand-up differently, I would. The big problem, oddly enough, when a comedian performs, are the laughs. Stand-up comedy, as it is customarily produced, is a craft and not an art. Here is the reason. The stand-up comedian must create a ...[Read more]

Question: I worked as a PA at a show of yours in Toronto. You were doing two shows that night and during the break a girl came to the stage door and when you came out she said (in front of half a dozen other fans, and myself who was holding the door for you) that she lived nearby and wanted to have sex with you before the next show started. You laughed and said thank you, and when you came back inside you told me this never happens. That was a few years ago. Does it happen a lot now? Answer: haha. i remember that. are you female? Because the funny thing is I remember there was a young working woman standing there with a walkie on her hip as this kind of desperate (not uncute) young girls i...[Read more]

It's a tough question. What we're talking about here is comics who are way too undeveloped on stage to be where they're at in their careers. The same thing happened with some of the roasts. It elevated features into headliners. That doesn't hurt standup, that just exposes audiences to standup who are less developed than they'd normally be exposed to. On one hand, though, people leave those shows thinking the whole art form isn't that great. So that does hurt the perception of standup. On the other hand, those people bring in new audiences to shows. People who would normally never have seen anything. And they'll then be fans of the craft and many will see other shows. So that's really grea...[Read more]

The podcast as it is now without a guest is much easier for me to generate stories and material for because I am not trying to impress someone I'm intimidated by or trying to make someone who I feel might be bored or annoyed feel comfortable. It's just about me and Sara and now we have Andrew to supply us with topics. Like "Syria".

At the end of the day when Duncan and I sit down and have these podcasts it's just two comics trying to make sense of shit and bouncing ideas of each other and out to you folks. I try to emphasise things that I've found to be true in my own life, and things that have resonated with me, and Duncan does the same, but we're really just two stoned comedians shooting the shit. All of us, you folks included, everyone that is really pondering the mysteries of life - we're all doing the same shit. We're thinking, pondering, dissecting - and hopefully extracting something out of these conversations that we can hold onto, like some sort of a psychic shield protecting you from worthless thoughts. Dunca...[Read more]

I am a huge fan of James Adomian's Tom Leykis, Lauren Lapkus' Traci Reardon, and anything Andy Daly ever does.

I liked how he said "Being late" when I asked him what he does that drives Michelle crazy.

It's a tough question. What we're talking about here is comics who are way too undeveloped on stage to be where they're at in their careers. The same thing happened with some of the roasts. It elevated features into headliners. That doesn't hurt standup, that just exposes audiences to standup who are less developed than they'd normally be exposed to. On one hand, though, people leave those shows thinking the whole art form isn't that great. So that does hurt the perception of standup. On the other hand, those people bring in new audiences to shows. People who would normally never have seen anything. And they'll then be fans of the craft and many will see other shows. So that's really grea...[Read more]

It's something I seriously enjoy. In a way, "it's almost better than hanging out with my friends in real life," because you're being silly and having a good time... but you turn your cell phone off and are 100% committed to bits; without any outside interruptions.

Well, be interesting. Immerse yourself in the space. And talk about what YOU think is interesting. Talk to people who are more interesting than you are. And good luck!

i spend the 30 minute drive to meltdown just thinking about the guest and how i want it to go. picture them laughing, myself listening, us connecting. a little visualization. then a quick Wiki search, three Alpha Brain (for real, not a plug -- www.alphabrain.com/weird) and ONE sip of coffee.

The one that aired was great. Very rarely does my brain come through for me at just the right time. In that case, it did. Marc is very smart, but sometimes he can use his intelligence to be reductive and disrespectful. That's what I felt he did on the WTF episode that I asked him not to air. One of the things about my career is, I used to work the door at a comedy club in the early 90's. Some of the guys from that era (Marc, Attell, Jeff Ross) had to adjust to me becoming a comedian/writer. They still see me as a doorman at times.

It’s a matter of easing into it and sacrificing the idea of “this is what I need to know by the end of this”. I’m doing interviews in an audio format - all the things you’re going to feel listening to that interview might not be about information per se, they’re about engagement. If people are caught up with what they want to ask and what they want to know, they can get detached from what’s happening in the present, because they want to get at something else. But if you let things unfold, and talk about nothing, that often leads to the bigger thing, and I’m like “Well, I didn’t need to talk about that, it just happened”. We just have a conversation. And the thing is, I’m not a journalist. I’...[Read more]