Misery Loves Comedy Page #3

It just came up.

A whole produce section

in gibberish.

We had an argument over

the tomatoes in gibberish.

We ended up singing some sort of

gibberish folk song together

and just improvised

and played and for me,

that's, like, one of my most

joyful moments with him.

It's the fun part

about being a dad,

because there's nothing funnier

than a little kid

really hitting it right.

And so my son, I remember is he

would try to do a joke in the room,

when he was like five,

he'd go...

he'd try to do a joke, he'd look at

me at go, "It didn't land, did it?"

And I'm like,

"No, it didn't land.

It didn't land."

Take your desk, take your chair,

sit in the hallway.

And I'd sit in the hallway

of an elementary school

and people, you know,

teachers would walk by

and they'd go,

"Why are you out here?"

And I'd go,

"'Cause I killed in there."

If you were making

a movie about somebody

who became

a stand-up comedian

and you put this into it,

people would go,

"It's a little on the nose."

The only way I could get

attention as the fifth of six

was to do my bits

and, literally, my dad

would have his friends over

and I would get to get

out of bed and come down...

"Do Nixon!"

And I would do it and I was

eight, seven, eight years old.

I mean, there's an old picture of me,

you know, wearing Groucho glasses

and, you know,

holding a bottle of booze

and, you know, they used to have

a little bar area in their den

and I'd go back there,

I'd try to make...

What he used to tell me

to do is like, the...

You know, because he sold,

you know, appliances,

you know, he was always

on the cutting edge of things

and you know, I think

he was one of the first guys

to have his television

in a wall,

so the TV in the den

was in the wall

and the closet was behind it

so the back of the TV was there

and I would go in the closet

and I would stand behind the TV,

you know, and my grandfather would go,

"You're on the television!

I see you on the television!"

He was a very funny fellow.

There was a moment when I was

little in elementary school

when I realized,

I'm not good at sports

and this is a daily humiliation.

They would pick sides,

I'd get picked last,

after the girls,

after disabled kids.

And it happened every day,

twice a day,

in gym class and at lunch.

And I just remember

putting rocks up my nose

and pretending

I was a slot machine

and having people,

like, pull my arm down

and then opening my nostrils

so rocks fell out.

That was... I don't think

that made me any cooler,

but at the time,

it seemed like a good strategy

to distract from the fact

that I was not

a good soccer goalie.

And then I started doing

impressions of people,

you know, around the same time,

like, junior high.

And that's the first time

I ever thought of myself

being funny that way.

Probably around when I was 15,

that's when I realized,

like, this is... I'm good at this,

I can do this.

I just annoyed people

endlessly from then on.

It was just way too much fun

and I couldn't understand

why people would be upset.

Like, I would, you know,

I was pretty relentless.

I could even just pick one person

out from the crowd of kids

and I would try to crack that person

and make them laugh, you know?

I knew if I could make

this kid Damien laugh

that everyone would be like,

"Oh, yeah, that... he killed."

But I thought I was a nice kid.

In my heart, I looked at myself

as a nice, sweet kid.

So when a guy would frown

or, you know, even seemed sad,

I'm like,

"What's wrong with you, man?

This is funny. You're a 12-year-old

guy and you have breasts.

I mean, come on, why isn't...

what's not funny about that?"

And you know once you kill,

you want to, like, leave the room.

You know, you have a great joke,

you're like, "Oh, that was great.

I gotta get out of here now."

It's, like, 'cause that was so funny.

You were aware of you need

to exit after the laugh?

Get out, 'cause that's... Yeah,

'cause if you stay too long, it's like,

"You want me to do

that bit again?"

I don't remember how

I found this out,

but I could make a sound

that was essentially

a ventriloquism sound

that the teacher thought

was coming from another place.

Like another student?

Or just another place

in the room?

Another student

or another... yeah.

And I didn't...

I don't know, to this day,

I know conceptually

what ventriloquism is,

but at the time,

I just came upon this.

And I could make this sound...

I'll make the sound,

it might be...

just warning the sound people,

um, which was,

if I can still do this...

Ahem, I don't do this anymore,

I should tell you, because...

- So...

- What the hell?

The teacher would do that

and the teacher would

throw a kid out, not me.

It wasn't really

even for attention,

because I wasn't

getting attention,

it was more for,

I guess I was...

couldn't come to grips

with the idea that they were

trying to teach something.

I would go to where they were

with an enormous tape recorder

from the AV squad

and I would lie and say

it was a real radio station.

And when I got there, a child,

you know, had just shown up

and they would

realize they got duped,

but they would talk to me anyway

'cause they were really nice.

And I would just

say to Seinfeld,

"How do you write a joke?"

And I would force him

to walk me through it.

Or Harold Ramis...

"How do you write a movie?"

And those interviews

changed my life

because they really told me.

It was my college, I had my college

in junior year of high school.

I was just so obsessed.

So I thought,

"I'm gonna try to interview

every original writer

from 'Saturday Night Live.'"

So I interviewed Al Franken

and Tom Davis and...

You can't just call

these people up.

Well, what would happen

is someone would be nice,

like, Alan Zweibel.

I'd interview him and then he

would take out the phone book

and say, "I'm gonna

hook you up with this person."

And he would start

giving me all the phone numbers

and I was obsessive.

I was always trying

to get Andy Kaufman,

but I couldn't get him

because at the time,

he was down South wrestling,

and I would call his management

office and they would say,

"We don't even know where he is.

He's off the...

he's off the grid."

He was off the grid

before there was a grid.

And then I was watching Richard

Pryor with my parents on HBO,

it was "Live in Concert"

from Long Beach.

And that was when I knew, like,

"Oh, that's what you do

with being funny."

And I remember being amazed

that my parents and I

were enjoying

the same thing so much.

That's the first time I can remember us...

me saying, "That's what I want to do,"

as far as it related

to my family.

I mean, as far as

my own quirky weird sh*t,

I mean, I've... I've been

a little pervert my whole life.

I've had that whole weird

addictive personality thing

since very,

very early childhood.

And being funny

was just kinda...

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