Satiristas

by Paul Provenza

  I always make sure at least twice during a show to let people know the limited reading I’ve done in my life and how I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Like them, most of my opinions are based on movies and shit I overhear in bars—and that’s why I ask questions: “Am I weird because I think this?” Or, “I’m asking this, because I know I don’t know anything and I’m trying to educate myself.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Growing up in Boston was racially charged, wasn’t it?

  BILL BURR: I describe Boston as “a racist San Francisco.” I lived the whole spectrum of it. Growing up, we were friends with only one other family—a black dude my father had been in the Navy with. So, early on, black/white was no big deal. But we moved to a very blue-collar town where I was surrounded by racist jokes at school, and I went through a period where I thought racial slurs made you sound tough. I told all the jokes and laughed at them all—but that frame of reference, growing up friends with this black family, was in my mind, too. Then you grow up, you go to big cities and meet a range of people: black people, gay people—even Asian people! That changes everything.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you get flak from women for jokes like, “Of course men make more money for the same job. There’s a dollar an hour surcharge for the fact that women get to get off the Titanic first”?

  BILL BURR: One time I started going off about women, and this woman yelled out, “Watch it!”

  And I said, “Or else what?”

  You know what that’s about to me? It’s an over-correcting. There was a time when smacking a girl on the ass and having a bottle of booze in your desk like Lou Grant was considered acceptable. We came up during this over-correcting period, and we’re all trying to find some balance.

  But let’s bring up whatever fucked-up ideas people have, instead of pretending they don’t exist. If anybody watched a special of mine and demanded an apology, I’d say, “I’m sorry you thought you were watching the State of the Union Address. I’m a comedian. I’m joking. Don’t take it seriously.”

  I hate when they make artists apologize. A lot get railroaded into it. When you apologize, on some level you’re saying they’re right, you did mean it, and now you’re sorry you said it. That’s why I never liked that expression, “getting away with” something. That implies you meant something malicious and just didn’t get in trouble for it. You can’t “get away” with anything; if you say something malicious, it comes across as malicious. I don’t “get away” with anything, because I never mean anything malicious.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I think one reason comedians may be misunderstood is because most audiences aren’t very comedy-literate. They may not pick up nuances or a particular irony, or more subtle sarcasm in things. Most people only know the comedy equivalent of “Top 10” pop music.

  BILL BURR: It’s funny you put it that way, ’cause I view all this just like music: if you want pop-star status, you basically have to do Britney Spears tunes. If you don’t do that, you can’t get upset that you don’t sell as many records as Britney.

  But not knowing a lot about comedy doesn’t mean people are dumb. Again, it’s like me with music: I listened to hair metal in the eighties, so what the fuck do I know about music? It’s not that I’m dumb, I just didn’t listen to much else.

  The comedians I like are ones who don’t pander to the crowd, but it’s hard to get your name out there in the business without being a cheese-ball about it. I’d love to fly in on my private jet to do one-nighters in theaters instead of being stuck in some strip-mall hole Wednesday through Saturday—who wouldn’t? But I’m trying to get my name out there without tattooing 1-800-COME-SEE-ME on my forehead. You lose a little credibility that way.

  Some guys will turn some joke into a hook, ’cause that’s the quickest way to get out there if you haven’t found a real voice. Suddenly you’re “The Suitcase Guy” and everyone knows you. “There’s this guy—he just talks about suitcases! It’s unbelievable!” Then you’re stuck just talking about suitcases.

  I want a balance of personal stories, comments on stuff going on in the world…and then some shit jokes. I don’t wanna put myself into some box, like, “the guy who talks about race,” or “the guy who talks about M&Ms.”

  I had a bit where I imitate some girl at brunch going, “Is that pesto? Is that pesto in your omelet?” When I did my HBO special, a lot of people wanted me to do that joke and that voice. Immediately, I ran in the other direction. I don’t want to suddenly be “the pesto guy.”

  I want to be “The Talks About Whatever He Wants To, However He Wants To Guy.” But I could easily have been “The Pesto Guy.”

  PATRICE ONEAL

  MOST CULT FIGURES wind up cult figures by accident, on their way to being something else. Not Patrice Oneal. Attaining some conventional success only to find it hollow and lacking, he ditched the tepid atmosphere of L.A. for the edgier comedy scene of London, where he honed an act and persona that revels in the shocking and profane as he thoughtfully tackles subjects social, political, and disturbingly personal and honest. He returned to the States a true artist and a “comedian’s comedian,” delivering three cable specials and filling a cultural niche as a thinker and sometimes pundit—occasionally on, of all places, Fox News. Here, he discusses his need for authenticity and personal truth, and why anything else is just a waste of time.

  PATRICE ONEAL: I was “the Web Junk guy.” I used to do Web Junk on VH1 and could’ve probably been a celebrity if I stayed there doing that, every day another video of some Chinese guy kicking another Chinese guy in the balls. But then I would’ve had eighteen-year-old girls at my live shows going, “This is not the Web Junk guy. This is weird. Why’s he talking about fingers in girls’ butts?”

  And I’d be, like, “Why don’t you just get the fuck outta here?” That’s what would happen. I’m not dying to be a celebrity.

  It’s kinda like selling drugs: I could sell them to anybody, but I don’t want everybody fucking up the neighborhood. I want my clientele. I’m happy being boutique. I want customers who want what I’m selling, and for anyone buying it to know what my deal is. If I have only a hundred thousand people in the entire world that love me, that’s all I fucking need. I need my people, that’s all.

  I don’t wanna set myself up for any kind of “fall from grace” like Pee-wee Herman, or Michael Richards, you know? Richards deserves what he got. I defend his right to say anything, but internally I go, “You got the fall, and you deserved it because you’re a phony. You’re a goddamn racist, you tricked us all for years, and you just got caught being who you are.”

  Same with Pee-wee Herman jerking off in public. That’s who he always was, that’s always been inside him, but he decided to be a kids’ superstar. No one gave a shit when George Michael got caught giving a blow job, because they know George Michael gives blow jobs; he never tried to hide that.

  I know I have a propensity to do crazy shit like jerk off in public. But unlike Pee-wee Herman, I’ll have a hundred thousand fans that know the real me and would just go, “Patrice, you got caught jerking off in a theater?” And I’d go, “Yeah, motherfucker, I did. And I’m doing a show over here all week, two shows Saturday.” And they’d go, “I’ll be there.”

  I don’t even bother to present myself in certain ways, because I know my inclinations. I have to be who I am ’cause I’d eventually just destroy anything else anyway. I just gotta be who I am and find out who the fuck’s gonna ride with me.

  PAUL PROVENZA: So you look at your fans almost like a group of personal friends?

  PATRICE ONEAL: Yeah, man. They trust me; they know I won’t betray them. Even when I do bad shit, they go, “Fuck it, go ahead, do some more. We know you’re trying to get someplace with it and we wanna go there with you.”

  What keeps your integrity going is the journey to find your people. That’ll keep you alive when you’re dead in the business, man. I know one guy, whose name I won’t mention, who got elevated to “genius” status. “You a genius! The great
est comic ever!” That’s worse than people saying you suck, because this guy is now stuck right at that point where they said he was a genius. He’s doing the exact same material he was doing then, and he’s irrelevant now. He stopped growing, because the world stopped spinning soon as he said, “I want my due. I want what I’m owed for being the shit.” That’s what gets you fucked up in this game. And depressed.

  I was very sad and frustrated that my HBO special didn’t get the response I wanted in the business, you know? I was proud of it, but that makes you question what you do. But I realized I’d just be betraying myself, which is sacrilegious—because then you’re betraying the people who love you, too. I would hate to have people who love me as a comic have to ask, “What happened to you, man?”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Did you grow into that perspective? And do you feel your work has grown because of it?

  PATRICE ONEAL: Yeah, of course. I never studied art, but I’m pretty sure Picasso’s art was different when he first started. Van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, or whoever were probably painting a lot of horses before they went on to other shit.

  Comics who don’t elevate their comedy to where they’ve grown suck, man. I used to just talk about being fat, you know? But as I got on in life, I hate being fat now. Being fat bothers me now; I don’t want to be fat. It’s a struggle and it’s a pain in my life. But when I was twenty-six, twenty-seven, it was, “Hey! This makes the crowd laugh!”

  Just making the crowd laugh is not really doing things for me anymore. That’s just knowing how to kill; I’ve learned how to kill. But I also learned when a crowd’s laughter is meaningful.

  I acknowledge the pain I went through trying to be part of the status quo, and I learned that the pain of doing that is much worse than not making all that money. I took a two-year retirement from creativity at that time. I was performing, but wasn’t really creating. I just rode off of my backlog of shit I already had. Nothing I was saying was new or meant anything to me. There was nothing making me mad.

  PAUL PROVENZA: And what’s making you mad now?

  PATRICE ONEAL: Right now, what’s making me angry is that people don’t get context. I’m tired of someone saying I’m anti-Semitic because I say something about Jews, or that I’m racist because I say something bad about black people, or I’m sexist because I say women sometimes do and say retarded shit. I’m none of those things. I just feel how I fucking feel, whatever it is.

  Everybody tries to back you in a corner and make you defend what you feel. I’m not saying it’s always right, it’s just the truth of how I feel. Don’t get mad at me for telling you instead of hiding the truth of what I feel. Let’s explore it.

  Like I’d prefer white people to not like me openly, so we both know where we stand: you don’t fucking like me because I’m black. Got it. I’m still gonna force you to stop doing unlikable shit to me, but your sentiment will still exist, and we’ll all know the truth.

  Racism today is covert. I’m from Boston, and I’m lucky that I understand covert, snide racism. Racism so nasty you can’t even be sure if it’s racism or not. When motherfuckers in the South came at you with dogs and a hose, you knew, “Okay, that’s some racist shit right there.” But if I’m sitting here and don’t understand what passive-aggressive is or can’t recognize snide sarcasm, then white people’s mouths have power to control how I live my life.

  I’m a master at that shit ’cause I learned it from the best, from white people. I want black people to understand how that shit operates, like I do. If you’re a black quarterback and white people go, “He only runs,” why the fuck would you stop running?

  So fucking what if Bill O’Reilly says, “I was surprised the blacks didn’t order loudly and everyone wasn’t eating fried chicken.” Why do I give a fuck about what he said? To let his words affect me like that is to allow him to be superior to me. That disgusts me.

  This racial shit’s a pimp game, man. Any black person trying to be successful in this world’s gotta deal with a fucking white person. This victim shit perpetuates a resentment now that’s even more dangerous than where it came from. Black people have not closed the chapter; it still permeates. We haven’t moved on.

  People go, “It’s been two hundred years, move on from slavery.” But that’s easy to say when you’re not still under it. It’s not about hanging from trees and getting beaten now, but instead there’s this nasty film, this nasty undercurrent we feel—and white people feel, too. I believe black people have got to learn how to move on, we just don’t know how to move on.

  See, “white” is not a skin color now, it’s an idea. Whiteness now is only a vague reminiscence. You’re not a white guy; you’re a symbol of what’s oppressed us. “White” is like Hitler’s moustache, that’s all.

  See, slavery is for black people like the Nazi Holocaust was for Jews, but the Nazis were labeled criminals. If you were a Nazi at that time, you’re going to jail. To this day, you’ll still be arrested if they find you. Hitler was the architect; Himmler, Goebbels, and all these people helped out. We know who’s responsible, called them criminals, and make them pay for it whenever possible. So Jews can move on and don’t have to hate every German forever.

  When black people were freed, it was, just, “Oh, well. We just fucked you all over for four hundred years, you don’t have any culture, don’t have any shit except for what we gave you. Okay, so long; take care of yourselves.” So it’s, like, “I’m living next door to my fucking tormentor, and it’s not even a crime what happened?”

  I think right now we just enjoy hating each other; it’s just a part of our culture. White people and black people are mortal enemies. But it would stop if we would just both be honest.

  Black people are not being honest right now. We’re phony right now. We’re not honest and saying, “Here’s the deal: we want a double standard. We wanna be able to say words that you can’t. We were slaves here, okay? We should get to use words that you can’t anymore. That’s not asking too much.”

  “Hey, this guy said it, why didn’t you try and fire him?”

  “Because he was a black guy saying it, and we want double standards.”

  “Don’t you think that’s racist?”

  “Yes. It is. He’s black, and we’re not gonna chase black guys, we’re only gonna chase white people.”

  Just be honest about it. It was white Kramer. It was white Don Imus.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do black people in your audiences think you’re selling them out with some of that kind of thinking?

  PATRICE ONEAL: Yeah, I used to get in fights when I was younger. Because, for black people, the only real crime is not being black. When I was younger, I’d have this duality: I love black people, I love being black—I love it—but there needs to be a growth, you know? Where you free your mind. Some black people are just unreasonable—just like some Asians and some white people are, too—and those are not the people you need to reach. But the status quo majority of black people are unreasonable when it comes to race. If you’re black and you confront that, you’ll be called a sellout. They’ll say, “This fucking guy takes white people’s side!”

  But I’m, like, “Man, I’m not on nobody’s side, I’m on the side of right. I’m on the side of God.”

  See, as a white person, your particular pain and suffering is your particular pain and suffering; you don’t have to suffer for your whole race. If you watch the news and see some white guy who eats ten hookers—he stabs them, chops them up, and eats their fingers—no one talks, like, “What is it with white people eating hooker fingers?” You don’t have a white community to answer to; there is no “white community.”

  But for black people, for some reason, it becomes this thing. Like with Michael Vick, it was, “Why do you people fight dogs?”

  And we can’t just say, “Fuck Michael Vick for hanging and drowning dogs. Fuck him.” We can’t do that.

  PAUL PROVENZA: If you don’t back up Michael Vick, you’re “selling out” your whole race?

&nbs
p; PATRICE ONEAL: Exactly. Drowning dogs in a bucket was despicable shit, and black people are gonna associate ourselves with even trying to think of a way to defend that shit? I have to defend drowning dogs in a bucket? Are you out your goddamn mind? That’s hard for me to fight. But I think sometimes we just gotta let some people go. For black people to rise up, man, some people have got to fall. We just gotta let Michael Vick go, because nobody should be defending that shit.

  That’s why you need thinkers, man. I get caught up trying to be black and have individual thoughts at the same time. I’ve got to be an individual and a part of the black community at the same time. That’s why I’m afraid to say, “Fuck Al Sharpton”—because if a cop shoves a plunger in my ass, Al is the one who shows up, going, “Hey! Somebody stuck a plunger in this black guy’s asshole!” So I can’t just go, “Fuck Al Sharpton.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Whenever I watch you work, you absolutely destroy. Big, huge, consistent laughs. You’re one of those powerhouse comics—but those big, powerful laughs come from your ideas and points of view. They aren’t jokes at all, they’re actually the points you’re making, just made really funny.

  PATRICE ONEAL: It has to be organic; something of who you are. That’s why when I talk to some comics, I don’t respect them—because all they talk about after a show is how many T-shirts and CDs they sold. It disgusts me, because I know it’s just about the money with them. Look, we’re all in this game and we’re not in it to not make money, but it’s, just, “What are your goddamn thoughts, motherfucker? Do you have a life philosophy? Do you have any goddamn ethics, you piece of shit?”