Satiristas

  MARC MARON: And they’re barely accepting that.

  DANA GOULD: I’d just like to point out that all chaps are assless. The essence of “chaps” is “asslessness.”

  Anyway…I lived in San Francisco, and when you see a guy screaming for acceptance while Rollerblading down Market Street in a feather boa and spangled jockstrap, it sends a mixed message.

  MARC MARON: “Fuck you! Accept me!”

  DANA GOULD: “Suck my dick! Let me in the library!” That’s kinda like a Stepin Fetchit for gay people. “Stepin Suckit.”

  And I know this is pointless to mention ’cause all three of us can shoot this fish in its barrel, but the whole controversy over gay marriage is insane. Jesus had no comment whatsoever on gay marriage, but specifically singled out divorce as a sin—and you won’t find anything about that in any Defense of Marriage Act.

  It’s not about defending marriage. It’s the defense of straight people’s privileges.

  MARC MARON: I think in a lot of straight people’s minds, they’re shouldering tremendous responsibility, but gay people can have the good part of marriage without being saddled with biological kids and all that. So, “Why should they get the privileges that come with marriage? What risk do they take? What do they have to put on the line?”

  DANA GOULD: But the other side of that, and this comes from a homo friend of mine who said, “Jerry and I live together, have been partnered and built a life together for eleven years. Britney Spears goes to Vegas, gets drunk, and marries a guy she met that day, and they instantly have more rights than we do. Does that sound fair to you?”

  No, it doesn’t. And if what you want is a Defense of Marriage Act, make it a Defense of Marriage Act, not just a “Gay People Shouldn’t Get What We Have” Act.

  PAUL PROVENZA: But of course, the debate is all couched in that religious nonsense that pushes that reality right out of the picture. Which brings me to that phenomenal line of yours, Marc, about religion.

  MARC MARON: You mean when I do a Jesus joke that’s not as bad as the ones I’m about to do?: “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not here to mock the myths that define any of you.”

  I do that to get that weird, ironic laughter from the people who understand me.

  PAUL PROVENZA: What a nugget of gold that line is.

  MARC MARON: I sit there sometimes and just plead with them, “You know it’s just a story, right? You’re believing in a story. I know you really believe it, but there are lots of stories.”

  I have no patience for Christians who do that “If you believe in Jesus, that’s it, there are no conditions and there’s just our one God” thing. And then there’s the “tolerant” ones, “I’m just happy you have a faith,” and try to reach out across cultures to other religions, but because of their devotion to Jesus, underneath it all it’s really, “But you know you’re going to hell, right? There’s no way you’re not going to hell.”

  DANA GOULD: I know enough to know that whatever there is, I don’t know it. To me being a devout atheist is almost as silly as being a devout Christian. “You know exactly what it is, because you can’t rationalize how it could be true?” Because there’s no way my dog can comprehend my computer, my computer doesn’t exist for my dog?

  MARC MARON: Atheists are control freaks.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Quite the opposite. God is the attempt at control; it’s an explanation created to somehow define and structure the mystery and chaos of a world we can’t make sense of. Atheism accepts the mysteries of life rather than just making up or accepting explanations that defy reason. I think the idea of a god, frankly, cheapens the wonders of life.

  Atheism—“a-” meaning without, “-theism” meaning belief in the existence of a god or gods—is simply a state of not believing there’s a god. It’s not about “knowing” anything at all, it’s just not believing something. It’s not a belief itself, and if there’s any “doctrine” it’s reason, which leads not to the conclusion there definitely is no god, just to the conclusion that believing there is is irrational. Atheists don’t claim to know anything more than anyone else knows, just to believe less than some others believe.

  Neither of you believe in Zeus or Thor or Xenu or Quetzalcoatl or hundreds of other gods by precisely the same reasoning that I’ve chosen to reject only one more than you’ve both rejected.

  It’s like UFOs: I don’t believe aliens are visiting us, all the sightings are explainable, it’s irrational for me to believe they exist here on Earth. But that does not mean that if there were some rational indication that aliens have come I wouldn’t be the first one to go see ’em, because how fucking cool would that be? There just isn’t any reason I know of for me to believe it yet.

  Likewise, there’s no reasoning that makes it irrational for me to believe that somewhere in this vast universe, the edges of which we cannot even comprehend, there aren’t aliens who could come visit Earth some day.

  But we may never know, ’cause they probably have way better vacation destination alternatives than this place.

  DANA GOULD: My attitude toward UFOs is the same as my attitude toward a woman’s orgasm: I’ll believe it when I see it.

  PAUL PROVENZA: And by the way, I can prove to your dog that your computer exists. Can you do the same with me for your god?

  DANA GOULD: All I know is, I don’t know.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Neither do I. But I won’t accept some mythology in place of knowing.

  DANA GOULD: In terms of God or Jesus, that’s what I was raised with, so I’m comfortable envisioning the god of my parents’ choice, knowing it’s just an icon. Like a shortcut on my computer’s desktop.

  Like when we had our daughters baptized. My parents were upset, my wife’s parents were upset, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. I was like, “Fine! We’ll have a pedophile dunk my kid’s head in a bucket so when she dies she can live in an invisible castle in the sky. Let’s go! What time do I get up? I read the Bible, I know how much Jesus hates kids with dry heads.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Isn’t that an atheist statement?

  DANA GOULD: No, I think it’s an anti-Catholic statement.

  PAUL PROVENZA: An invisible castle in the sky??

  DANA GOULD: An atheist would say, and correct me if I’m wrong, “You die, that’s it.” But I say, “Maybe I die and evolve into a higher form of energy or a being that no three-dimensional-plane organism can comprehend.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: That’s more reasonable to me that an invisible castle in the sky.

  DANA GOULD: I think it’s silly, but I will accept that it’s possibly true.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Reason doesn’t make me reject that as a possibility, either. It’s theoretical. I won’t accept that it’s true just because it might be. Do you believe everything that you can’t disprove?

  MARC MARON: I’m willing to keep the jury out on all this. If you want to build your life on being the guy doing the big work, taking the pictures, discerning the texts, great. Send me a memo when you have something conclusive; I’ll be more than happy to look at it.

  Faith without works is dead, right? That’s a fucking Jesus thing. But faith without God is possible, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And if you find yourself struggling with existential fear, the only thing God’s supposed to do when you’re in your darkest moments, basically, is be a big voice that goes, “Watsa matter, li’l guy? Everything’ll be okay.”

  DANA GOULD: “You’ll find your flip-flops.”

  That’s what 90 percent of prayer is: “Where are my flip-flops?” There’s the fear that the universe is indifferent, which is terrifying to people, and the inability to accept the fact that decency is its own reward.

  See, I have no fear in my life. That’s why I get on planes and travel thousands of miles to get on stage and beg strangers to love me.

  MARC MARON: And then not even believe them: “They don’t really like me.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: That need for love can really get in the way of speaking hard truths wh
en you’re doing political and social commentary in stand-up—

  DANA GOULD: This show I’m doing at the HBO Comedy Festival is a political stand-up show, but the only reason I think I’m on it is, “He’s smart, put him on the political show.” I’m not a “political” comic.

  Most “political” comics are encapsulated one-liner comics that talk about things that are esoteric to most people in a tone that implies all knowingness. Who really wants to be that guy?

  MARC MARON: “Two presidents walk into a bar…”

  PAUL PROVENZA: I was about to say that both of you also get really personal and intimate in your work, too.

  MARC MARON: They categorize me as a “political” comic, but only by virtue of the fact that I hosted a show on Air America. I had to learn about all that. Before that, it was a very broad range.

  DANA GOULD: Bob Goldthwait once introduced me with, “Please welcome the creepily personal Dana Gould.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: And you also go from substantive ideas with real points of view and smart, funny insights and commentary about big, heavy things like abortion, religion—but then you’ll just whiplash into surreal, absurdist things like John Lennon waking up with a giant cicada one morning because he’s run out of women on Earth to fuck.

  DANA GOULD: George Carlin is the best example of that. He’d do this amazing bit about God: “Religion has you believing there’s an invisible man in the sky who knows everything you’ve ever done and going to do, and he’s created a place of fire and agony where you’ll suffer forever if you break any of the things on his Top Ten list of Things You Can’t Do—but he loves you, and he needs money!”

  And then he’d just go, “Have you ever farted at a party and had to walk a football pattern?” It’s so great.

  MARC MARON: You gotta lighten it up, let them off the hook a little.

  PAUL PROVENZA: For Carlin it wasn’t just about letting them off the hook. I asked him about that and he said, “You know what? I think the joke about the fart is just as funny as the joke about God. To me, there’s no difference at all—and that’s what makes a well-rounded person. Not everything is thoughtful or meaningful; sometimes we’re just silly and goofy, and that’s the child in us we all embrace and put forth longer than probably is healthy for anyone else.”

  Especially with a real thinker like Carlin, without that streak of playful silliness eventually it can just turn into some free-floating rage at the injustice of mortality. Because lots of the time, we’re really ultimately just up there going, “I’m ALIVE! I’m STILL ALIVE!”

  Someone like Michael Richards may not have what it takes to do it well, but he’s still just gotta say, “I’m alive. I’m still here,” you know?

  MARC MARON: Well, I’ve never even acknowledged Michael Richards as somebody in the spectrum of stand-up comedy.

  DANA GOULD: That was the whole thing there: that’s what happens when you let people who aren’t really comedians perform at a comedy club. That’s what happens when being a celebrity becomes equivalent to being a real comedian.

  PAUL PROVENZA: George Wallace and I were talking one night…And Wallace is just an amazing performer—I’ve learned so much watching him over the years. He has amazing charisma and presence, such power over an audience, and at a George Wallace show, you just feel huge, expansive joy from him, you know? And I envy it. It’s really beautiful. But I don’t think that kind of thing’s even possible for me. So I asked him what his whole philosophy of comedy is, and he said, “People have hard lives, they come to a show to relax, spend hard-earned money to be here, look forward to it all week. And those people will never all be together in the same room again so it’s a once in a lifetime experience, and I want them all to enjoy themselves, enjoy being with each other, forget all their problems, and not think about any of that while they’re here with me.”

  And it made me realize that what really makes me happiest is the thought that people leaving my show are having an argument on the car ride home.

  DANA GOULD: I can’t relate to what George Wallace said either. At all.

  MARC MARON: I heard Dane Cook say that, too, in some interview: “I just want to take them away from…” From what?? In the culture we live in now, all you’re taking them away from is some other entertainment option!

  This idea that everybody is so weighted down by the world is such bullshit. Most people are just completely consumed with self and the tasks of living their lives. All you’re distracting them from is other distractions.

  DANA GOULD: I want them to look at me and listen to me and hear what I have to say and not interrupt. That’s why I do it. And if something’s not funny, I won’t do it.

  MARC MARON: Have you ever cried onstage? Seriously.

  DANA GOULD: I had a one-man show. I had to cry every fucking night. But my one-man show wasn’t just my act with some furniture.

  MARC MARON: But I mean a surprise cry. Like when you’re in the middle of something, and you just break down and cry.

  DANA GOULD: During the period I worked on that one-man show, I had a couple of those.

  MARC MARON: I hate that. But I constantly struggle, and I bring that struggle onstage.

  The only way I know I have any effect whatsoever from all the radio and stand-up work I’ve done, is that I’ll occasionally get really weird, heartfelt letters from people who’ve seen me saying they identify with my stuff about depression and that it helped them get out of a really dark place of their own. So, I changed their way of thinking about a certain thing, and for that they’re grateful.

  DANA GOULD: Our biggest fans tend to leave our shows staring at the floor and shuffling. I just came from Minneapolis, “Land of the Sad-Eyed, Shuffling Dana Gould Fans.”

  MARC MARON: At this point in my career people leave my show saying either, “He’s hilarious!” or, “Ooh, I hope he’s okay.”

  DANA GOULD: A lot of Marc’s crowd is people from the night before bringing him food: “I made you a little something…“

  MARC MARON: “I made you some banana bread. It’s my mother’s recipe…”

  I’m fine with that.

  COLIN QUINN

  WHETHER AT THE Weekend Update desk on Saturday Night Live, as host of his own topical television roundtable, Tough Crowd, or in his gravel-voiced, unpredictable stand-up, Colin Quinn brings an everyman’s blunt honesty to the sometimes overly arch world of satire. His writing and stand-up have long been regarded by comedy insiders as possessing a highly original, often misunderstood, far too underappreciated brilliance. Here, he discusses how a real-world perspective and genuine honesty are the key to comedy. With them, you can cross any line you want; without them, you’ll go down in flames.

  COLIN QUINN: I don’t consider myself ironically distant; that’s not my style. And to me, “satire” implies ironic distance. It’s great when it’s done correctly, like Jonathan Swift or Mark Twain, but to me, it always seems like, “I’m not emotionally invested in this, so I’ll just mock it instead.” It implies a lack of emotion. It may have a passion, but it has an attitude like, “I’m not really part of this.”

  I just said Jonathan Swift ’cause everyone will think it’s smart, but—Mark Twain, who, once again everyone thinks is smart, I’ve never read.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Ironically, I sense ironic distance in this conversation.

  COLIN QUINN: See why I don’t care for it?

  I also don’t care for comedy that deconstructs comedy. It’s too presumptuous for my taste. Reading to an audience and boring them just to see their reaction ain’t comedy in my opinion. I’m not saying you gotta do, “Hey, how ya’ doin’, lady?” But, come on. Where’s your bigger point?

  A lot of people masquerade having a fucking point as if they’re Eugene Ionesco, but they’re not. His plays have an overriding point; these guys just wanna watch people’s reactions.

  I guess somebody can get up there and just jerk off, too.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Who books that gig?

  COLIN QUINN: I
think the guy who used to book “Last Comic Standing.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Well, what would you say is your overall point?

  COLIN QUINN: I don’t have an overall point. But I don’t presume to.

  My opinions on politics are different from most people’s in show business in that I’m not a conservative, but I’m certainly not a liberal; I’m not a believer in the idea that the evils of the world can be solved by some sort of “healing dialogue.”

  But I always believed being a comic means you point out the bullshit on both sides of everything—and in yourself, too. If you’re talking about politics, you have to see that Republicans and Democrats are both lying and hypocritical, and you need to point out how in your own personal life you are, too. And you have to at least try to get laughs with it.

  Some comics are one-sided, and it’s just divisive. It’s didactic. And really, the fact that hypocrisy is part of our common humanity is what’s really funniest.

  I always ask them, “Is it actually good versus evil in your world? Is it really black and white? Because it must be fascinating to live in such a simple world.”

  People think too much of their own minor perceptions. I hear people say things like, “The world was better when people respected each other, like back in the 1930s and ’40s, when you could leave your door open.” Yeah, except if you were a Jew in fucking Europe, when it might not have been that pleasant a time. Have you heard? There was evil back then, too.

  “The nineties were great! The economy was booming.” Except if you lived in fucking Bosnia or Rwanda it wasn’t exactly “great.” And I don’t mean to dismiss any of what’s going on now, I just get very cautious when people act like there’s some kind of definitive good and evil.

  PAUL PROVENZA: So what do you want an audience to take away from your show?