So, when did you first become interested in writing comedy?

     Well, I started doing comedy in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale. I had moved 
around the country with my friends, and we eventually landed in Florida 
because we'd grown up in Minnesota, where it was pretty cold, you know, and 
wanted to hit the Southern states. So we went to Florida, and I worked as a 
cook for a long time, gettin' jobs everywhere as a cook, and my friend, who 
was a cook as well, was doing open mic night in the evenings. And, you know, 
I didn't really think the guy was very funny, so I said, I gotta check this 
out. So I went down to the open mic with him and watched him and a bunch of 
other people be shitty so I said you know, I'd like to try this myself, you 
know? So I basically started comedy while I was cooking, just started going 
down to the open mics in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Did you have any influences at the time?

     When I started, I liked Steven Wright a lot, and this guy named Drake 
Sather, who's a producer now, and I really liked Pauly Shore when I started 
comedy, believe it or not; I thought he was hilarious. And Steve Martin, he's 
one of my favorites. Those are the people I got into, but I never really 
thought about it much... I kinda fell into standup comedy by accident, so the 
people I liked were just people that I happened to think were funny, but I 
wasn't particularly looking for influences.

And the style you have now, particularly in the way you speak, is that an 
act, or is that just you talking?

     It's really just me talking... Of course, how I sound onstage comes out 
slightly different than how it does offstage, but it's pretty much just me. 
And, of course, throughout joke writing I'll work on the jokes and try to 
make 'em perfect, and once I think they're as good as they can be, I usually 
end up saying the jokes the same way. So it becomes an act, but still it's 
the way I talk initially, you know what I mean? It does come from a natural 
space, no doubt, but after a while, you start to realize that after you tell 
a joke so many times, you're using the same inflections here and there.

So do you ever sit down to write jokes, or do they just come to you?

     That stuff just comes to me, man. Sometimes I'll sit down and think, "I 
gotta write some jokes," but most of the time I'll just be hanging out 
somewhere and I'll think of something and think, "Hey, that'd be a funny 
idea." So I'll just write the thought down on a piece of paper, or scrounge 
for a matchbook cover, and later on I'll try to flesh it out. But I find that 
whenever I sit down to write jokes, it's a pretty desperate affair.
     If I ever do sit down to write, I'll start with a bunch of those little 
pieces of paper where I've written ideas down already, those ideas I thought 
of while I was off just fucking around, and I'll try to flesh them out. But 
yeah, if I try to come up with a whole joke just by sittin' down, then that 
gets a little tough; you don't wanna force it.

Once you have the jokes, do you rewrite them? I mean, do you find that your 
jokes are funnier if told a certain way?

     Usually, the jokes that work tend to come out right the first time, but 
there are those jokes that you have to go back and work on again. And then 
there are those times when you realize that you have a good idea, but you're 
just not relating it to the audience well enough - that they're losing you 
somewhere along the line - so again, you have to go back and fix it. But the 
more you work on it, man...I mean, I've come up something that I think is a 
great joke and it won't work, so I'll keep redoing it and changing it and it 
still won't work, and that gets frustrating. So yeah, most of the jokes that 
work seem to come out right the first time; it's kinda cool that way, you 
know?

Do you ever test jokes out on your friends?

     Man, every time I do that, I get embarrassed. People always ask you to 
tell 'em a joke and if I do - if I'm at a hotel or a friend's house and I 
tell 'em a joke, most of the time they don't laugh, because you think, and 
you stutter, and you lose confidence. So I prefer the stage. Occasionally, 
I'll try to sneak it into a conversation and try to act like I just thought 
of it, but people always bust you - they can always tell when you're 
rehearsing jokes on them. So, I try not to tell too many jokes offstage; it's 
rarely ever a satisfying moment...
     Even on the radio, you'll be doing an interview and they'll ask you to 
tell a joke, and then you got these three DJs just sitting around staring at 
you. It's kinda rough, so I try to get 'em out on stage first.

So what do you do if a joke bombs onstage, or if your show isn't catching on? 
Have you had any really bad experiences onstage?

     Oh yeah, I've had all sorts of experiences. I was just playing this show 
in the Cayman Islands about two months ago and it was a bad situation: it was 
a restaurant at the hotel, and the staff was serving food, and there were 
others just sitting around waiting for some comedy. So I go on stage, and my 
first joke don't work, which is always a bad time. So I keep going on, and I 
know the show is spinning out of control, so all I can really do is try to 
remain likeable, 'cause if they're not gonna laugh at me, I don't want 'em to 
hate me too. So, I'll try to smile as much as possible, but it's hard to be 
happy when you're bombing; it's kind of a Catch-22. I don't like to shock or 
offend anyone when I'm on stage so if the crowd ain't laughing and I think 
they hate me, I'm in double shit. The bad shows are the ones where I just try 
to grin and bear it. Obviously, if they don't buy the first five jokes, 
they're not gonna buy the rest of the act, 'cause it doesn't change much, you 
know? Hopefully, if they're not buying the show I can just bail early and 
have someone else come up on stage.
     But yeah, I've done all sorts of scenarios: I've opened for bands, where 
you're onstage and the audience is just shouting for the band. But, I just 
don't want anyone to hate me, cause you can feel it when they hate you, and 
if they hate you it's just no fun.

Ever get heckled?

     I used to more than I do now. The thing about heckling is, they like to 
chime in when they sense that you have no idea what the hell you're doing; 
then they like to bust on you. But I find I don't get a lot of heckling these 
days; at least, not at the comedy clubs. I used to play a lot of bars, and 
there they'll heckle you like crazy 'cause they're drinking and all...I mean, 
they drink at the clubs too, but usually there's more of an air of 
professionalism there. I was just doing this show in Dallas and there was a 
girl fucking with me during the show, and afterwards my wife heard her saying 
that she was just trying to help me, and that's the thing-they always think 
they're helping you by shouting shit at you. It's crazy, man. Some comedians 
use lines to shut 'em up, but I don't like to use those, because if I shout 
during my show, chances are it's just gonna create an awkward moment.

So you just ignore it?

     Well, I'll acknowledge it. You know, if someone shouts something out and 
you don't acknowledge it, you'll just look like an idiot. So yeah, I'll 
acknowledge it; or, if it gets too bad, I'll just try to ignore it, because 
I'm not gonna make fun of where they work and shit like that - so hopefully 
I'll just try to move on and ignore it.

What's it like being on the road all the time? Do you like it?

     Yeah, I dig the road. I love the hotel lifestyle, 'cause you get your 
bed made and all that. And, when you're on the road, you don't get any of 
your mail. Every time I go home and look in my mailbox, it's just a bunch of 
bills and late fee notices, so I like the anonymity of the road: You can 
choose whether or not to tell people where you are; it's up to you. No one 
can find you.

So I hear you wrote a movie. And directed it too?

     Yeah, I directed it, acted in it, paid for it - got it all the way to 
the Sundance Film Festival...
 
And it's about a Mexican restaurant?

     Yeah. I grew up in the Midwest, so it takes place in this cheap Mexican 
restaurant in the Midwest on the day before Cinco de Mayo, and throughout the 
day some events happen and eventually the restaurant has to close down on the 
biggest day of the year. It was my first film, man. I've been doing comedy 
for nine years, and this was my first film. It's pretty good - I like it - 
but I think some people have some high expectations when they see it. But I 
like it. I want to make more movies, and make a funnier one. I needed a test 
audience. It got some laughs, it was a good experience, and getting into 
Sundance was awesome. Man, people ask about it all the time...I just don't want 
people to be disappointed when they see it.

Well congratulations on getting into Sundance.

Thanks, man.

How was it received?

     Well, I didn't sell it. Some people liked it - It got mixed reviews, you 
know? I got a couple reviews printed in the paper - the gist of it was that 
people sorta liked it. On a scale of one through ten, people were giving it 
about a six; that was the general vibe, I guess. So essentially I put my 
hundred-thousand into it and no one bought it, so I'm just sittin' with a tax 
break on my shoulders. [He laughs]. 

So what's the difference between writing standup and writing a script?

     With the script, I actually had to try and write characters, to really 
flesh things out. Whereas with the standup, it's just ideas, thoughts from 
one guy, now I had to think like seven or eight people. I also had to know 
who wouldn't be funny. In my first draft of the script, everybody was funny, 
everybody was firing out jokes - but eventually I had to realize who in a 
situation would be funny, who'd be normal, who'd be stupid, who'd be 
ignorant, who would be smart - I had to think from everyone's point of view. 
So the difference is, I had to jump out of my own skin and think along the 
lines of a different person - I didn't want everyone to sound like they were 
being me, like eight different versions of me in different managerial 
positions in the restaurant.

Did you rewrite the characters' jokes more than you rewrite your own standup?

     Man, I did a few rewrites, and after a couple, I just wanted to shoot 
the damn thing. I could've rewritten it 'til I was blue in the face, but I 
figured I'd just make the movie and give it a shot. I think I spend more time 
on my act because every night I get to go out and work it out. If I could've 
tested my movie script out every night and played it in front of a large 
audience to see what was working and what wasn't, I'd have had a better 
gauge. In a sense, with the movie, I wasn't able to rewrite it as much as I 
wanted to because I just wanted to make it, I didn't want to just sit around 
waiting forever. I probably would've spent all the money on CDs and clothes. 
I'm a heavy roller. With the act I get night after night of honing and 
working on it; I get plenty of opportunities to make it right.

What's it like to direct?

     That was scary, man, to be honest. I didn't know what the fuck I was 
doing, so a lot of the other guys on the set, the cinematographers, were 
trying to help me out. As a matter of fact, if you don't take an 
authoritative stance on the set, people will jump right in there and voice 
their opinions. A lot of people like to give you their two cents when you're 
directing - even the lady who's running the food table will try to tell you 
how she thinks a character should act in the scene. Everybody wants to tell 
you how they think a character should act.
     Besides, I had to direct all my friends, and it's no fun to tell your 
friends that you don't think they're doing very good, you know? They'll get 
mad at you and take it personally. Next time I make a movie, I think I'll 
probably work with more strangers. I worked with friends who I thought I 
wanted to be in the movie. In fact, I pretty much surrounded my entire crew 
with friends, so I didn't want to come off as an asshole - so when people 
gave me suggestions I'd have to listen to them, 'cause I didn't want to shut 
everybody down and have them think I was a freak. But I think next time I 
direct a movie, I'm definitely gonna be more authoritative. Gonna be more of 
an asshole, throw my weight around a little bit...

Sounds good...Any other advice for prospective directors?

     Sure, man... The break I got was that I had my own money to make my film 
with, which gave me some freedom because I didn't have to seek investors and 
please anyone with my script, besides myself. You know, I've found that if 
you have a script and you're showing it to people, and they read it, no one's 
ever gonna say flat out, "Hey, this is fucking brilliant," because it's not 
an official product yet--it's still just a script. People don't seem to take 
things seriously until it's a completed project that has been accepted by 
other people.
     If I have any advice, it would be this: if you have a script believe in 
it, don't spend too much of your time trying to make it conform to other 
peoples' opinions. Eventually, when you think you've got something good, you 
should go for it at that moment. I could have turned my script in over and 
over again and people would have kept saying "Well, I think this character 
could be better," but sometimes you just gotta shoot it. And in the end, I 
did get into Sundance, so maybe I had a little bit of a premonition. 
Sometimes you just gotta go ahead with the project - you can't let it sit 
around and let people critique it and tell you that's it not quite right. And 
as far as investors go, fuck that -- try to get your money. But it cost a 
fortune. I thought I was gonna spend about 25,000 and I ended up spending 
about four times that much.

Any screenplay advice?

     Well, it depends. The thing is, when I had my first draft of the script, 
I realized how much I could edit our of that damn thing - I realized how much 
nonsense was in there and how meandering it all was. So here's my official 
advice: if you're gonna write something, just get to the point and move the 
show along - don't throw a joke in that's gonna divert the whole drive of the 
movie. I had too many of those at first, too many jokes for joke's sake. Next 
time I'm gonna be more lean with the writing...

Any standup advice?

Yeah, wear lots of jewelry onstage...

Okay...

     No, I'm just kidding, that's just some advice I got early on from some 
woman-her idea was to wear lots of jewelry onstage so you'd be shiny and the 
crowd would look at you more.
     [He laughs].
     But I don't really have any advice. See, I never listened to advice when 
I was starting out. I hated advice, actually. It seemed to me that whenever a 
comedian I admired would give me advice I'd hate it, even if I really liked 
them. If I had to say something, it would be don't believe going to a school 
is gonna help you out - a lot of times they'll encourage you to go to a 
comedy class, but I'm not down with that shit. I think everyone's an 
individual and when it comes to standup, too many people don't listen to what 
happens in real life; they try to write jokes from the point of view of, 
"well, this is what a comedian would say." But everyone is an individual, and 
if you just take what happens in real life and embellish it, you're gonna 
have an original act.
     Like, I don't do any sex material, but if sex material is what you're 
down with, just go for it. I just say do exactly what you wanna do and fuck 
what other people say because man, I got some shitty advice, and most of the 
people I got advice from, I don't know where they are now.

     So, no sex material...Are there any other topics you specifically won't 
do, or things you particularly address? I mean, the way Jerry Seinfeld has 
his "nothing" act, and Steven Wright has his own thing?

     Right, right. Well, I do a lot of food material. I don't know why that 
is, but somehow I end up talking about food a lot. I don't consciously not do 
anything - for a while I consciously tried not to do sex material, but then I 
realized that if you can come up with funny sex material, that's pretty 
sweet. Someone's gotta be talking about it.
     And I used to consciously try not to do drug jokes either, because if I 
tell one drug joke, people will walk up to me after the show and say "man, 
you talk about drugs a lot." They misconstrue it.
     But now my goal is just the humiliation of being a human being - just 
being human, you run into situations that are profound or embarrassing, and I 
just try to talk about my experiences of being human.
     And, you know, I think I just love food, I just end up writing a lot of 
food jokes...

     I recently read an interview with Lorne Michaels where he stated that 
it's getting harder to do comedy these days because you're always worried 
about offending people, and that they did skits in the old days of Saturday 
Night Live that they'd never even think about doing today. Do you ever worry 
about that?

     Well, yeah...I don't think I've ever really written a truly offensive 
joke, but there are times when I think I'm offending someone. I don't worry 
about it much, but there is a heavy tension about offending audiences. My 
friend Doug is a comedian, and he's very vulgar and blue, but people love him 
just because he's charming. Like I said, I don't really worry about it 
because I don't have any offensive material, but people do get uptight and 
it's very bizarre. I've had people walk out of my show in the first five 
minutes of seeing me, because apparently they thought I was no good or 
because I said "fuck" or something; people can be very judgmental.
     One time I was working with these two ladies on either side of me - one 
was going on first, I was in the middle, and the other lady was headlining. 
So during my show these two women in the audience walked out on my act 
because they said they didn't like me saying "fuck." But then they come back 
in for the headliner and this woman just has twenty minutes of penis jokes. 
So, you know, people have to pick and choose what offends them, and sometimes 
it's hypocritical, but I don't worry about it too much.
     I feel that if I'm offending anyone, they're taking things way too 
seriously because I'm not out to offend anyone. Some people want to tear it 
up - they want to shock the people and shit like that, but I'm just not down 
with that. If someone at my show gets offended, it's probably because they 
misunderstood a word I said, probably thought I said Mexican instead of "mix 
a can" or something...

Any final thoughts?

    Sure, yeah...Did you say this was for a magazine about writing?

     Yeah, mostly. It's about creativity in general, about creating art in 
all its forms, from writing to painting to standup comedy...But yeah, we 
focus on writing.

     Well, I'll say this, man: I consider standup comedy to be an art form. A 
lot of people disagree, some agree, but I think it's a great art form, and I 
think writing has brought me where I am today. Ever since I started comedy, 
I've written jokes in a notebook that I carry around in my back pocket, or I 
write shit on my hand. I have tons of old notebooks, and all that writing 
I've done over the years has really gotten me to where I am today. And today, 
the road money's pretty good, you know? I get to go on the Letterman show, I 
got a half hour Comedy Central special... I'm just saying that all my writing 
has really led me into great space. But yeah, if you're looking to make some 
personal gain from writing, it's obviously going to happen. I've never 
perfected being physical onstage; I try to perfect my writing more than 
anything, 'cause my writing has gotten me far, so I'd just like to say, 
writing is the shit.

     Speaking of Letterman, I'm curious about how one gets gigs like that. Do 
people just come to your show and say, "Hey, do you wanna be on Late Night?"

     What helped me was hooking up with a very powerful manager early on-at 
the time he wasn't powerful, but he's grown very big in the industry and he's 
always gotten people out to see me. But the thing is, I know other people who 
don't have managers and they get around, get seen. The key is just to be 
flexible, to be willing to quit your job in order to fly out to Los Angeles 
to get onstage for one night. Flexibility. Because you gotta put yourself in 
front of the right people, and the right people sometimes go around to towns, 
and other times you gotta go to New York or L.A. and find them.
     And to me, the people who have the most trouble in this business are 
those people who have a regular job that they're afraid to quit. So I think 
you gotta have an air of recklessness and even foolishness. You almost have 
to be a little foolish to do your stuff right in front of the right people, 
so you just gotta go out of your way to make it happen. But I got lucky 
'cause I got my manager, and he helped me out from the start. So if you can 
find a manager who believes in you, jump on it, man. But they gotta believe 
in you; you don't just want to be on someone's roster just because they think 
they can make 20,000 dollars off of you with a sitcom deal. But yeah, you 
gotta be willing to jump anywhere at a moment's notice...