Satiristas

  If you don’t, then just don’t talk to me. I don’t wanna talk to motherfuckers who don’t think.

  EDDIE BRILL

  ALONG WITH A thriving, global stand-up career of his own, Eddie Brill also holds the rarefied position of stand-up comedy talent coordinator for Late Show with David Letterman. By choosing which comedians will appear on that show—still a major barometer of stand-up success—his conscientious judgment informs America’s comedy scene. Giving seminars for stand-ups around the world, Eddie holds forth on how to succeed in the television talk show format, but he’s not above learning a few things himself. His own artistic journey brought him to the realization that he’d been on cruise control for far too long, and he’s finally taken over the wheel to discover more power under his hood than he’d ever thought possible.

  EDDIE BRILL: I knew Bill Hicks really well, and he once said to me, “Eddie, when we have a conversation you’re so funny and smart. Then you get onstage and just dance around going, ‘La, la, la…Love me, love me, love me.’”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Were you conscious of that at all?

  EDDIE BRILL: Semiconscious. I just kept doing it because it was easy. I guess I’d call myself a panderer for many years. When I started, I was whatever vehicle I could drive around the stage. I started wanting to please the audience, and it was really fun and easy.

  One cold, rainy night, I was so sick of my act and in such a gray mood, so I rented some Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks videos. I watched Pryor do a bit which just killed, but instead of basking in that huge laugh, he turns around and drinks some water, his back to the audience. He gave them their chance to laugh, but he didn’t need their laughter; he knew it was funny. I watched how Hicks talked about what he wanted to talk about, not caring what the audience thought. I learned a lot that night.

  What put me over the top was becoming close with George Carlin, who was my hero. You know how when we start out we’re not really comedians yet, we act like a comedian? I acted like George Carlin.

  George pointed out that he did the same thing I was doing; he pandered to the audience, and then grew into something else. He wasn’t embarrassed by his work—he was funny, it was successful, clever, different—but then he saw Lenny Bruce and thought, “This guy’s telling the truth. That’s what I want to do,” and a light switch flipped on for him.

  At Late Show I’ve given many comedians the advice I never took myself until now: tell the truth. Get out of your head and talk from your soul. Talking from the heart and soul is Ray Charles; from the head is Kenny G—and I’m feeling more and more like Ray Charles these days. Now it’s not about trying to please them, it’s about being funny, about being a shining light and, hopefully, inspiring a little. Corny as it sounds.

  PAUL PROVENZA: That kind of paradigm shift fifteen, sixteen years into a career can be devastating.

  EDDIE BRILL: Thankfully, a lot of comedians supported me in it. Like when you saw me in Sydney, you went, “Wow. Really cool, man.” For an hour I was just ad-libbing things I was thinking about to an Aussie crowd who weren’t gonna put up with the pandering that American crowds are used to.

  I never realize how much we pander here until I worked in England the first time. I gave my credits to the emcee, the “compere” as they call it, and he looked at me, like, “What an asshole.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Because the attitude over there is, “We don’t give a shit what you’ve done. Are you funny right now?”

  EDDIE BRILL: Right now. That was 1989, and I’ve worked all these countries since then—France, Hong Kong, Holland…That made me really think about what I’m doing—the same way talking with George did. At one point, a lightbulb suddenly went off for me and I just started talking about whatever I wanted. It felt like this weight was lifted. I’ve been telling the truth ever since then, and the material’s flowing like never before.

  I met with this “life coach” and asked, “How can you help me?”

  She said, “The Michelangelo method. Someone asked Michelangelo, ‘How’d you make this perfect statue out of a block of stone?’ And Michelangelo said, ‘It was in there the whole time. I just chipped away at the parts that weren’t it.’”

  So I started getting rid of all the crap. All the stuff I preached to younger comics for years, I’m finally actually doing on my own. Comedians who thought of me as “Eddie Brill, the booker—who happens to have a serviceable, professional act” are looking at me now, like, “Wow. Eddie’s really got things to say.” It feels incredible.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you feel like an artist now? Or just a different kind of artist?

  EDDIE BRILL: I always felt like an artist, but now I feel like a real, true artist. I’m not worried about people’s acceptance. To be a big star or to be rich and famous? That’s horseshit. That’s not my goal, those are by-products of what you do. I can now live the rest of my life knowing I’m doing what I want to do and saying what I want to say.

  Like I’m talking about how I feel about religion—and people might not agree with me but they respect that I’ve given it a lot of thought. The key, of course, is to get a laugh with it.

  I played to a very conservative crowd in Boise, Idaho, and talked a lot about religion, and of course they’re tightening up; they don’t want to hear that stuff. I had a friend there, and she told me that in the ladies’ room, all these old, conservative ladies were saying, “Well, we didn’t agree with one word he said, but we respect him.”

  I thought, “That’s the greatest compliment I could ever want.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Did you get laid?

  EDDIE BRILL: Not even a little, dammit.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you now feel like you have an agenda up there, to change minds or anything?

  EDDIE BRILL: I’m not trying to change the world; I’m being a comedian. I’m still just a jester with bells on, I’m just also now making a point. For example, when I heard they wanted a constitutional amendment to keep gays from getting married, my stomach went, “Aaargghh!” like someone punched me in the gut. I feel the same way when I think about how women couldn’t vote or blacks had separate water fountains and all that shit. I had to write about it: “If you don’t like gay people, get counseling, because gay people exist. They’re not gonna go away just because you want them to. And I understand people can be uncomfortable about gay people, because we grew up in a small-minded world. I’ll admit I don’t want to see two gay guys making out. I don’t wanna see two fat people fucking, either. But I have no choice.”

  It was a nice way to get the laugh, make a statement, personalize it, and show some vulnerability—which is something I’ve noticed about all the greatest comics: a thread of vulnerability.

  PAUL PROVENZA: You’re in an interesting position, being a “gatekeeper” for the Letterman show, a major platform for comedians. I know there’s politics and network guidelines regarding how often you can have stand-ups on—which isn’t as often as it used to or should be, in my opinion.

  EDDIE BRILL: I agree.

  PAUL PROVENZA: And with some exceptions, I don’t see particularly politicized or confrontational comedians.

  EDDIE BRILL: I disagree with part of that.

  First of all, it’s David Letterman’s show and my job really is to make Dave laugh, and Dave likes smart/silly. But I’ve pushed the envelope a bit myself, talking about religion and politics on the show. I’ve also had Jim Norton and Nick DiPaolo on the show, Colin Quinn, Lewis Black…

  After 9/11, Colin Quinn had a fantastic joke—it didn’t make fun of 9/11, because there was nothing funny about 9/11—but it was a great joke about how New Yorkers reacted to 9/11. The producers were scared, obviously, so I went to Dave, because I really believed in this joke. Dave said, “It’s really funny,” so Colin was able to do it just a couple months after 9/11, and it was a very cathartic laugh that people really wanted to have.

  Of course, it’s network TV, so there are places we can’t go, even in late-night. But we have pushed it, as much as we could. I r
eally want that, but these shows are cookie-cutter shows: forty-four minutes of show, sixteen minutes of commercials. All network television is really advertising—with some TV show around it. That’s the bottom line. Advertisers want a show to be a certain way so they can sell their product the way they want it to be sold. So are you looking for the greatest artists to come out there and do their edgiest, most provocative satirical piece? You and I are, but advertisers aren’t. And, in a sense, it’s really their show.

  I understand how a network show has those parameters that keep people from doing what they really want to do, but that game is a given; that’s why people watch HBO, that’s why people go to live comedy shows—or if they don’t, they should—because that’s where the real meat is.

  The six-minute sets that comics do on this show really are basically just little promos for “go see this person live.” Just like with a band: here’s one song from the album; if you like it, buy the rest of it. It’s just a nice, crafted, six-minute promo to interest you in seeing more of what this person does without the limitations of television.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Kinda like “First taste is free?”

  EDDIE BRILL: That’s exactly what it is.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I know this is not in your purview on the show, but when I watched that “feud” Dave had with John McCain, and watching other politicians on the show, the way Dave humanizes them is entertaining and it’s great to see them playing ball with Dave, but I also feel like it’s somehow trivializing, playing into the dumbing down of politics, playing into a really big problem in the political process right now, which is that it’s all become personality over substance or policy.

  EDDIE BRILL: Dave doesn’t like political people to campaign or do talking points. What he likes is to get them to just be a regular guy or a gal; just have a conversation, see what they’re like as human beings. He has real questions he wants answered, so he does as much as he can to get people to really be truthful in doing that. Sometimes he’ll get angry because someone’s playing a game or some weird political card.

  And as much as I agree with you, a lot of people wouldn’t even come on if they had to defend themselves politically. People are so egotistical and have so much to cover and so much insecurity, why would they want to be on a show where they could be attacked?

  RICHARD LEWIS

  AT THE HEIGHT of the eighties’ comedy boom, Richard Lewis’s neurotic paranoia gave voice to the lingering fears of the Baby Boomer generation. His one-of-a-kind persona and performance style has been discovered by yet another wave of fans through his starring role on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, enabling him to inflict his obsessive worries on a whole new generation. Having sobered up and matured, Lewis finds himself more politicized and emboldened than ever. He takes on a wide range of topics—some of which he’s made peace with, many of which he hasn’t, and all of which drive him crazy.

  RICHARD LEWIS: I didn’t know how to be provocative at first. By my second or third decade, stuff started to come out naturally because I knew the craft so well and I had more confidence to say what I wanted to.

  Growing up, I heard Lenny Bruce, saw Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, and others, and I realized the risks they took. It took me fifteen, twenty years to really say, “Wait a minute…I’m taking risks, but I’m not going all the way.” I’d been unconsciously afraid to go to the depths of how I was really feeling.

  But what’s the point of being a comedian if you don’t go all the way and risk people throwing you off stage or not hiring you anymore? Luckily, I found a knack to say what I want to and have people say, “Ooh!” but not have the owners say, “Don’t come back.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: So what are the issues that are most important to you?

  RICHARD LEWIS: Number one is separation of church and state. It’s the most horrific abuse of the Constitution.

  Bob Dylan had a line in “Time Out of Mind” that goes, “I was born here, and I will die here against my will.” Now, whatever he meant by that only he would know and good luck finding out—but I use it onstage. I say, “I could have popped out with a turban on, been Chinese, African-American—you name it, but I’m not. I popped out a Jew, and I was whining and didn’t like it ’cause there wasn’t enough applesauce with the matzo brei—that’s who I am. If you want to believe in Christ and the Bible or Koran or whatever, that’s up to you.”

  I try to disarm an audience by saying, “Believe whatever you want. If the Rapture exists and you want to leave me down here playing pool with a couple of Buddhists and cold pizza, fine. But how dare you? Christ was a Jew, by the way.” I like to remind them.

  If Jesus lived and he’s the prince of peace, fine—but don’t give me these evangelists in Armani suits and bad rugs with a hundred thousand people putting money in boxes held by beautiful women, and a guy limping out with no tongue and one foot, who gets a hand touching his forehead and suddenly he’s opening for me in Tahoe doing a tap dance. It’s such bullshit.

  I’m spiritual in my own way. Spinoza, a Jewish philosopher, said, “God is everywhere,” which is more of a nature sort of a thing and I’m not so far from believing that, but this country was based on laws, not on Moses or Christ or Mohammed or anyone else. So when you hear Mike Huckabee—wasn’t he the gas station attendant on Mayberry R.F.D.?—not believing in evolution, it makes me sick to my stomach. I know I came from a monkey. I am a monkey. A monkey with a skull cap. And I think I have a little aardvark in my posture. One more bad disk, my nose hits the ground when I walk.

  But look at how they handled Hurricane Katrina—would Jesus leave those people down there with no homes for all this time? I don’t think so. But I haven’t read much of the New Testament—just bored one night in a hotel. And why am I stuck with the New Testament there? Why they don’t have a deli menu in the other bedside table? It’s not fair. Ah, it’s all about money; there’s only 2.5 percent Jewish people left in America so they figure why print a deli menu?

  But if Katrina happened on Rodeo Drive, I guarantee you things would’ve been fixed real fast. And that’s just it, man, that’s the dark side of capitalism.

  If you really boil it down, it’s all about the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

  I was broke for seventeen years, but I felt like a million bucks because I loved comedy. I loved hanging out with comedians, and was waiting for a break so I could pay the bills, live a little better, and help people I love. It took me a long time. Until I was in my late thirties I didn’t have much money, and I didn’t give a shit. I was lucky because I was passionate about what I wanted to do, and as this poor, talented guy I had the opportunity to go onstage and try to get a break.

  Unfortunately, most of the country has no breaks; they live on, like, two dollars a year. The world is fucked. When you think about the billions of dollars we spend every day…Even with Democrats in power you still drive through the same slums: the South Bronx, South Central…How come things don’t ever change much?

  It takes a consciousness to be raised, and I’m not sure how that’s done.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you feel you help raise consciousness through your comedy?

  RICHARD LEWIS: Live onstage, in a small way. On a network TV show in front of three or four million people, in a much larger way—but here’s the deal: I don’t care about raising consciousness; I just want to make people laugh. I do it for me.

  I got onstage in 1971 just to get some kind of test with an audience, to see if I wasn’t crazy—’cause I sort of felt like I was “gaslit” growing up. Growing up with my family problems, I didn’t feel I was on steady ground, ever. I always felt whatever my point of view was, it was wrong. And I had a lot of emotional problems, which I somehow churned into stand-up.

  I’ve always gone on stage just for me, because I got so little help from my immediate family—they have their own problems and I didn’t really get much support—so what was most important to me was to make the audience laugh so I didn’t feel so alone.

  Whe
n I go onstage now, I hardly know what I’m going to say. I ad-lib half the show. Whatever happens when I’m watching the news, I’ll talk about right when I go onstage so I don’t forget it. If the audience doesn’t like it, I’ll move off it, because I’m getting paid to entertain, but if they’re laughing I’ll continue.

  ’Cause all that matters to the people who pay you is that everyone there is happy, but what makes me happiest is that I’m expressing myself. Of course I like it if they agree with me, because they’re usually laughing then. I’ll get a couple of walk-outs, or some “Hey, come on,” but then I just deal with it when I have to. But I don’t care what they think, I want them to laugh. If they don’t laugh, I’ll get off the subject, because then I’m not doing my job I’m getting paid to do.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Are you writing edgier these days?

  RICHARD LEWIS: Well, I’ve told my lawyer to burn my computer if anything ever happens to me, because I write all these character situations about race, and you always see guys on TV who maybe get a little drunk or something and even if they’re not racist or anti-Semitic, something will pop out, something dark way down there, and their careers are over. And I happen to be a liberal and happen to be color-blind, but I’ll write things I think a racist might say, to try to turn it into a joke about racism—but if someone just read it, they’d go, “Oh my God! Lewis is like some closet neo-Nazi!”

  PAUL PROVENZA: Were you politicized at all in college in the sixties?

  RICHARD LEWIS: I was sort of a semi-revolutionary. We were supposed to burn down a building once, and they knocked on my door with the gas masks, but I said, “I can’t go. Jonathan Winters is on Hollywood Squares this week.”

  I felt bad, ’cause I knew a lot of the professors—and some of them were very liberal. We’d be marching through a building, “Burn it down! Burn it down!” But I’d probably pass my professor’s office and go, “Burn it down! Burn it down! Fred, I’m sorry! It’s not you! It’s the war! Burn it down!…”