Satiristas

by Paul Provenza

COLIN QUINN: I want an audience to take away the feeling of having had two overpriced drinks each, and then I watch them go, “Did we just spend $104 for three people??”

  If my audience isn’t laughing, I’m just not doing my job. I don’t care if I provoked thought—unless I happen to accidentally provoke a thought that helped somebody cure cancer; that I could care about. But you hear some comedians go, “Hey, I don’t always have to make people laugh every night.”

  Well, if you take money you do. Unless you’re working a thought club instead of a comedy club.

  Of course, the ultimate challenge is to have both.

  PAUL PROVENZA: As much as we want to make people laugh, shouldn’t it be on our own terms? Some people seem to feel like they have some right to “censor” a comedian if they don’t like what he or she chooses to do. If you see a movie you hate, you don’t demand it be edited to suit you, or that a play be recast to your liking. It’s always fascinated me that people sometimes feel entitled to not just judge a comic but to demand that a comic actually change what they do.

  COLIN QUINN: Well…Sometimes the audience is right to kinda censor a comic. Like after 9/11, a lot of comics were like, “People are freaking out when we talk about this…” And I was like, “Yeah, but they’re not freaking out because they’re trying to be fascist, they’re freaking out ’cause it still hurts.” I mean, I had relatives and friends who died in 9/11, too; I understand it. You can’t yell at people for going, “Uhhh,” if that’s what they feel in their gut.

  That’s the hardest thing about comedy. We all wanna say, “You have to laugh at this and you can’t tell me I can’t say it.” You can’t force people to laugh, even though we’d all love to.

  PAUL PROVENZA: But people are sometimes “offended” not from any gut emotion the way you’re describing, but from some self-righteous “hall monitor” thing. Or some lock-step mind-set they’re in.

  COLIN QUINN: You’re right, sometimes it’s political correctness or a kind of mob mentality, but sometimes it’s just a human response. Everyone has their own pain.

  There is a question of humanity and complicity in jokes. It’s not just, “Who’s the victim?” That’s just part of it. If you make a joke about some idiot who blew himself up ’cause he lit a cigarette filling up at a gas station, the audience will laugh. But if people know his family’s there, they won’t laugh. That’s humanity; you can’t expect them to laugh. They’re going to say, “In the name of decency, don’t do that.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: I want to talk about the PC thing for a moment. I know it’s well-intended, with meaningful goals, and I appreciate any effort to promote decency and respect between people. But like so many good ideas it’s been co-opted. It’s become a tool for some people to arrogantly parade a holier-than-thou attitude, someone’s refusal to deal with their own fears can be disguised as socially acceptable righteous indignation, and some people avoid addressing any real racism or injustice but still believe they have because they once stormed out of a Friday late show at the Chuckle Hut.

  COLIN QUINN: I agree one hundred percent. And a lot of times it’s people speaking for other people. I’ll say something about black people and the black people are laughing but some white people are offended for them. And sometimes they’ll even give you that condescending, “Hey, I get the irony or whatever, but other people don’t, and it’s a slippery slope with that language and behavior.”

  “Really? Other people don’t, but you do? Well thank God you’re here. They have to live their lives, so it’s good that they have you to watch out for them.”

  I grew up with black people, everybody goofed on everybody. If it’s funny you get away with it, that’s the way it is, and nobody saw any flak. So I take that license.

  I grew up in a mixed neighborhood with a lot of black and Puerto Rican people. My sister and my brother are both married to black people and my nieces and nephews are half black. I never mention any of that on stage because I don’t want that to be a reason I can say anything.

  But the big problem in our business is that people who grew up in lily-white neighborhoods end up being TV executives who go, “That’s offensive to black people.” I go, “Shut your mouth and mind your business. If black America’s proven anything, it’s that they’re very capable of speaking up for themselves when they’re angry; don’t worry about it.”

  But that’s troublesome for people in the business; they’re uncomfortable with that language. They had all these rules at college and political correctness is the only way they know to deal with any of it.

  Tough Crowd was a great example. We were on literally two hours after Chappelle’s Show. Now, you’d figure we’re on later, we’d be able to get away with more, right? On Chappelle’s Show, they’d say “nigger” thirty times a show. Our show? Black comedians would say “nigger” and they’d bleep them.

  Because it’s a “white” show. And that was white people making that decision. That’s part of the disease.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Is it because your audience was mostly white?

  COLIN QUINN: Chappelle’s audience was mostly white. And his show was huge, so if only half his audience was white, it’s still more white people than my entire audience.

  PAUL PROVENZA: You represent white America, Chappelle represents black America? I’m trying to posit a reason.

  COLIN QUINN: It’s because they just live in fear, and they make decisions that affect everybody.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you think there’s any validity to their decision?

  COLIN QUINN: Nope. None. I’ll debate anybody, anytime, anywhere about this shit; put me with Al fucking Sharpton right now. There’s no validity to any of it, because what they’re actually saying when they’re doing this stuff is, “Don’t get black people mad. You know how they are. They’re a little different.”

  They think they’re being sensitive, but they’re actually holding black people to a lower standard.

  And what it does is create illusions and fake realities. We’re so enlightened and sensitive to never be using the word “nigger” or let anyone hear it, yet the underclass stays the same and there are more black people in jail now than ever, so how’s this whole patronizing-everyone-and-trying-to-be-sensitive thing working out? Is it really working out societally? For black people, white people, or anybody?

  Obviously, it’s not working out at all—because it’s bullshit. It’s a lie. Truth is the only thing that works, and that kind of shit ain’t it.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Does any of your stuff ever get you into racial altercations?

  COLIN QUINN: Minor ones. Most black people understand by my jokes where I’m coming from. And everything I say is based on shit that I’ve lived. It’s about real situations and real people, so I don’t really get much of that.

  But I also don’t just blurt shit out, I do my homework. I don’t assume I can just get away with things, and I’m not just, “Fuck you, I say whatever I want to.” I make sure what I’m saying is what I really believe, and I make sure the setup’s clear so no one’s wondering, “Where’s he coming from with this?” and I make sure it’s fucking funny.

  If you’re coming from an ugly place, or you’re trying to be slick, or be a guy who says “nigger” on stage so you can say you’re a guy who says “nigger” on stage, then fuck you, you know?

  PAUL PROVENZA: The audience can tell that, and they won’t accept it.

  COLIN QUINN: Exactly. You’d better know where you’re coming from and you gotta be sure they know where you’re coming from, and then it’ll either be fine, or it won’t. But if you’ve done all that work and it’s not fine, then you can think, “Fuck you, audience.” If it’s not fine and you haven’t done all that work first, you can only go, “Fuck you, you.”

  But that’s the beauty of comedy: there’s no hiding. A lot of showbiz, all they do is talk about it, write it, research it, market it…We actually go out and live this shit every night. We can talk about it all we want, but ultimately when we live it,
there’s no more hiding.

  Television, radio, movies—they have the courage of the knife, but not the fucking blood. We go out to a fucking club and deal with it face-to-face, and they’re real people now. And that’s the beauty of it.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I think the difference between comedy on TV and doing live stand-up is like the difference between playng a war video game and being in a war.

  COLIN QUINN: Perfect example! That’s exactly it! People have no idea.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I also think comedians treat audiences with more respect than television ever has.

  COLIN QUINN: We have to! We know them. We live with them. We know them as people, not just as some demographics. We don’t have the fucking luxury of assuming anything about them or second-guessing them. They’d be, “Motherfucker, I just paid twenty bucks, this is my one fucking night out this month, and you’re treating me like I’m some idiot?”

  If for nothing else, comedians treat the audience with respect because they gotta sell fucking CDs after the show and you just can’t go, “Fuck you people!” and then stand by a folding table in the lobby going, “Uh…they’re $10 each, two for fifteen.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Network people just don’t seem to get any of this.

  COLIN QUINN: It makes me crazy. They go, “Well, the people in the Midwest…”

  “I was in the Midwest three weeks last month, I was in Kentucky last week, I’m in Missouri next week. What are you telling me? They’re the fucking same as me and you, stupid.”

  There is no finite difference in what people get or what offends them between anywhere else and New York and L.A. As if New York and L.A. are the hotbeds of intelligence? Get the fuck outta here. Iowa has the highest reading level in the nation.

  It’s not 1950. Everybody has the same cable, the same stores, the same fucking iPods, gets the same movies, the same news…Most of this country has pretty much the same fucking life now, more or less.

  We’re all the fucking same.

  BILL BURR

  SOME TIME AGO, white America withdrew itself from any substantive discussion on race, ceding the field to black artists and commentators, for fear of saying the wrong thing—or of genuinely lacking insight into it. Comedy is one of the few arenas where white people can speak freely and fearlessly on the volatile subject if they have the courage, the talent, and—most important—the heart to tackle it. Bill Burr does. Burr talks about the racial divide with intelligence, honesty, and such deep, intuitive understanding of the subject’s complexities that people of every color laugh about its absurdities together. He approaches that risky subject as if it were no different from any other comedy fodder, and in his experience, it isn’t. His observations are as profound as they are hilarious; as revealing as they are recognizable. He relates the personal experiences that shape his perspective, and what happens when he shares them in parts of our country where few have what it takes to do it more than just once.

  BILL BURR: When I was eighteen, I saw Rodney Dangerfield live. A master comedian. Right after that, I saw Eddie Murphy—another monster performer. Back to back, Rodney then Eddie. At Rodney’s show, everybody looked like me. But looking at Eddie’s audience, I remember consciously thinking, “He’s making everybody laugh.”

  Five years before I even started, I knew I wanted to do what Eddie did: make everybody laugh. Of course, in this country, “everybody” means black people and white people—I wasn’t really thinking about Asians.

  I’m joking about that, but really, no one ever does think of Asians with the same sensitivity as black/white stuff. I saw an Asian duo once, and one of them was rapping. He’s already Asian, but he put on extra-Asian-looking glasses, and—literally—a big fortune cookie hanging off a gold chain. He absolutely destroyed—which I thought was so fucking funny ’cause you won’t get some black guy up there eating watermelon and fried chicken, ’cause other black people wouldn’t let him get away with it, but you get some Asian guy with a fucking fortune cookie. Granted, that was his choice, but still, it was one of the most cringe-worthy moments I ever saw. No Asian Al Sharpton is complaining about shit like that, so everyone laughs freely, but I was, just, “Christ, man! Have some fucking respect for yourself.”

  Here in L.A. some club has an Asian comedy night called “Slanted Comedy.” It’s insane! What’s next, “Gook Gags”?

  PAUL PROVENZA: Asian comedy shows almost always have awful, racist names! My pal Dan Pasternack says if they had an all-Asian show at the Aspen Comedy Festival, they would’ve called it “Hit the Slopes.”

  BILL BURR: Fucking hilarious! See, when something’s offensive but really smart and funny like that, you can just take it at face value.

  PAUL PROVENZA: It’s surprising how people can be hypersensitive to offense at some things, yet such patently wrong things can go completely unremarked upon.

  BILL BURR: It’s weird. When I’m down South, I always ask, “Did you find Dukes of Hazzard offensive? A couple of rednecks driving an orange car through a barn, screaming, ‘Yee-ha’?” Where was the Redneck NAACP on that one? That was the Amos and Andy of white Southern culture.

  People never see redneck jokes as racist or offensive, because if you’re a white, heterosexual male in America, you couldn’t have been dealt a better hand, let’s be honest, so you get less sympathy, that’s all there is to it. But it’s fucked up that, to the media, poor white people don’t even exist. When media show poor people, they always go to the projects and pan across a bunch of black people. Poor white people are always some “Joe Dirt” character; like it’s comedy. Poor whites are only there to be made fun of, it seems: mullets, guns, drinking, ignorance, racism…No one ever defends poor white people, not even other white people. Maybe because of the idea that if you’re a white, heterosexual male and you fucked all that up, you must be a fuckin’ idiot.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you find it different playing all-white or all-black crowds versus mixed crowds?

  BILL BURR: I started doing black rooms and did BET and The Apollo for the same reason I love doing stand-up in cities where you get those mixed crowds: what you’re saying doesn’t get lost. With an all-white crowd, the same joke can take on a whole different meaning, whether you want it to or not. Back in the day, I used to do a joke about kids acting like gangsta rappers. In New York, people were, “Oh yeah, I know guys like that. They’re hilarious.”

  But in South Bend, Indiana, I go, “What’s up with these white kids acting like gangsta rappers?”

  And this angry white guy in the back goes, “YEAH!!”

  I was, like, “Hey, easy, fella. I’m not going the Klan route with this, I’m just making fun of ’em.” On the road, I always have to make sure what I was saying wasn’t being twisted by the crowd to mean something I never intended.

  But I find it interesting that people think we can’t openly discuss race or gender or any of that, ’cause it’s really not that big a deal. People say it’s “taboo” or “edgy,” but those walls were broken down long ago; people aren’t nearly as shocked as we think they are. You can watch a guy get fucked to death by a horse on the Internet, so nothing we say onstage is gonna shock anyone.

  I’ve maintained for the longest time that most people really don’t give a shit about most of these things. Like when Janet Jackson’s titty pops out during the Super Bowl. Now they didn’t get anywhere near this number, but even if they got a million complaints—well, there are three hundred million people in this country. Do the math. The amount of people who didn’t give a fuck is staggering.

  Obama’s election should shed light on just how many white people couldn’t give a fuck about skin color in this country, either. But during Barry Bonds’s attempt at breaking the home-run record, ESPN did a study to find out if more blacks were rooting for Barry Bonds than whites! He got booed everywhere on the road, then comes home to a Giants game where about an 80 percent–white crowd gave him a standing ovation every time he went to bat. Plus, he was breaking a record held by another black g
uy! Now why would ESPN deliberately go out there with a study like that? They just tried to shoehorn some race bullshit in there. I don’t want to watch the ignorant fucking moron who makes white people look like we have some problem with Barry Bonds when in reality it’s, “We don’t give a shit. It’s baseball. It’s boring. Hit a million home runs, Barry, nobody gives a fuck.” I’m for steroids, myself. Score more runs; knock yourself out.

  But the bottom line is that whenever a black guy’s involved, any idiot can easily find racist shit to talk about. They need to shine some light on all the people who just don’t give a shit about race.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you think people find racism in comedy because they’re looking for it more so than that it actually exists there?

  BILL BURR: Context is everything—and that’s the problem with the whole “politically correct” thing, too. Basically, “politically correct” is, “These words are good, these words are bad. The good words are always good, the bad words are always bad, and if you only use the good words, then you’re a good person.” Well, all that does is give psychotics a roadmap to navigate it. A complete psychopath can convey really fucked-up thoughts at any dinner party if he just doesn’t use those bad words.

  I saw some guy on TV after some school shooting, who said, “The Second Amendment has to be defended. If anything taught us that, it was Hurricane Katrina.”

  Then this big pause, and he covers his ass with, “You can’t just have roving bands of…violent people.”

  He said “violent people” instead of what he really meant, which, you know, was “black people.” So he never used any bad words, he just danced around it, and there’s no way to call him on it.

  People just don’t own up to the fact that everyone has issues with race. We make judgments all the time, but silently, in our heads, so unless you have a meltdown that shows up on YouTube, you can pretend you’re walking around with no issues whatsoever—but we all have issues.

  Whenever anybody gets caught saying something fucked-up, white people with their white guilt go, “That guy’s fucked up. He’s the reason we get a bad rap; I’m not like him.” Everybody really should admit, “I’ve thought that way myself at some point, but now I think this other way.” But we can’t, ’cause it’s like we’re not allowed to have evolved or learned something: you’re either in the Klan if you admit you’ve been ignorant at some point, or you’re some saint who’s never been wrong about anything. It’s complete bullshit.