I think as long as he's interested it's a fine time if you find a really good instructor. Don't take him to the first place you can find, look around and do as much research as you can. mixedmartialarts.com is an amazing resourse for finding out about schools near you. I think for little kids one consideration is to not push them and make sure they're having fun. He's just a little boy, and as long as he's enjoying it he's going to grow, but I always worry with kids that age that if you push them into something it can deter their enthusiasm for it for a long time. Another thing that can be of benefit to young kids is learning traditional martial arts. I wouldn't recommend many forms of tradi...[Read more]

Stanhope is a national treasure and a voice of reason and humor that in a sane society would be heralded as a prophet. He's proof that alcohol when consumed wisely can have great consciousness managing benefits. He's proof there are no rules. He's one of the greatest comics ever, and I love the shit out of him.

I probably wouldn't tell me shit. I would probably say, "Good luck, bitch!" One of the most fascinating lessons I've absorbed about life is that the struggle is good. You can't know tomorrow, because if you did you would never go about trying to create it the same way. The uncertainty and doubt that fuck with our minds are the same forces that make accomplishments and achievements so fucking amazing when you pull them off. It's almost like life has to suck sometimes to appreciate what's cool. My 20 year old self would have to figure out all this shit the hard way, just like I did. Just like I'm still doing today. If I could go forward in time to when I'm 90 I would probably give the me of t...[Read more]

It's one of the greatest books of all time, and the greatest character is The Mule

1. Richard Pryor Live In Concert 1979 2. Paul Mooney: Jesus Is Black. So Was Cleopatra 3. Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly 4. Eddie Murphy: Delirious 5. Bill Cosby: Himself 6. George Carlin: Jammin’ in New York 7. George Lopez: America’s Mexican 8. Steve Harvey: One Man 9. Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays 10. Andrew Dice Clay: The Day the Laughter Died 11. Ron White: They Call Me Tater Salad 12. Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now 13. Sam Kinison: Louder Than Hell

1. When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron 2. Holocaust and Human Behavior 3. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein 4. Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins Memory of Fire: Faces and Masks by Eduardo Galeano Ways of Seeing by John Berger Honey and Junk by Dana Goodyear

1. The Third Man 2. Short Cuts 3. 12 Angry Men 4. Straw Dogs 5. Five Easy Pieces 6. The Killing 7. Rosemary’s Baby 8. Blow Out 9. Veronika Voss 10. The Big Chill

Finished [Running the Light by Sam Tallent]. One of the best books I've read. Ever. Especially if you're a comedian.

Bonfire of the Vanities.

You could never do it. You could never recreate these guys [The Marx Brothers]. Remember they did that Three Stooges movie? My manager, George Shapiro, says trying to get someone to act like a comedian is like trying to get them to act like a baseball player. It’s almost impossible. There’s so many tiny polished movements they have that the best actors struggle to replicate. I mean, Dustin Hoffman is a wonderful actor, I love him. But he can’t do stand-up. Because actors are acting. Comedians are talking to a group of people as if they are an individual. They are locked in on those people. They’re not really thinking about performing. The focus is who they’re talking to. There’s a certain ob...[Read more]

There was a book in the early ’70s called “The Last Laugh,” by Phil Berger. That was the first book I ever found, and I think it’s the first book anybody ever did, about the world of stand-up comics.

My favorite memoir is Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up.” I think that’s the best book about being a comedian, written by a comedian, ever done.

The Marx Brothers book is a great book. Before that, I read another book about comedy — I think I’m doing this because it gives me that feeling I’m missing, of being around. When you’re in comedy, you’re like a tropical fish in an aquarium, or at least I am. That’s my life. If you said to a tropical fish, Would you like to go anyplace else, he’s going to go: You know what, I think I’d like to just stay here, I like the aquarium. So I am a tropical fish in an aquarium. And since I can’t go onstage and hang around other comedians, I read about them. So there’s this other book I just found on my bookshelf — I bought it, and never read it — it’s called “Seriously Funny,” by Gerald Nachman. This ...[Read more]

I don’t like to read at night, because it puts you to sleep, which I don’t like. I like to get up in the morning, and before I get dressed and leave the bedroom, I like to take the book and just spend a half-hour to start my day. That’s how I like to start the day. It’s very comfortable, and you always have a lot of energy. I don’t know, I just enjoy it more in the morning.

To me, the history of the Marx Brothers is kind of the invention of comedy, not just as a substance but as a business. And also, if I can put this the right way: They emerged as Jews in New York City, just kind of coming out and going, “By the way, we’re better at this than anybody.” And ever since then you can trace — I mean, you can trace comedy obviously back to the Greeks — but in terms of what you see now, in the world, the Tigris and Euphrates to me is the Marx Brothers and vaudeville in the teens and early ’20s of the last century.

I only have one book on the night stand at a time, because I’m a very slow reader and I really enjoy making a book last. If I’m going to bother to read a book I don’t want it to end quickly. I don’t binge. I like to sip. If I like the world, I want to stay in the world. And I don’t read a lot of books, honestly, but I have really turned to it during this virus time, because it’s cozy and I like it better than most shows — when I watch a show, I see script pages and I see acting. Having done what I’ve done, I find it harder to get into. So the book that’s on my stand right now that I’m really, really enjoying is called “Four of the Three Musketeers,” by Robert Bader, and it’s a very, very lon...[Read more]

This was elementary school, but once I fell from a swing when I was a little kid cause some bigger kid named Forrest was pushing me too hard. He had me going way too high and the chains got loose and I fell, and I landed on my head really hard. Forrest came up and said, "Are you okay?" and I said, "WHAT DO YOU THINK ASSHOLE?" But it wasn't Forrest, it was a nice teacher named Mrs. O'Tuel. Cause I was a kid, I was dumb, and never even cleared that up with her. Oh well.

Talking to the women in the retirement homes was really interesting. A lot of them talked about living at home with their parents when they were 20 and having no options as far as their lifestyle. They couldn't go to college, have their own careers, etc. So they basically said they got married to get out of the house and have basic adult freedoms. It made me think about how lucky all of us are to now have the "emerging adulthood" phase where you basically just have a chunk of time to dick around and have fun as an adult and not live at home. That kind of independence was something a lot of these women yearned for and didn't get.

One time at some old theatre somewhere I was holding a dude's phone to read his text messages and it slipped from my hand and fell through a crack in the floor and went into some deep, deep basement and broke. (I bought him a new phone).