Jim Gaffigan

Yeah, it’s a sweet gig.

I don’t really do that kind of thing. I’m not really the guy who makes fun of people’s shirts or whether someone’s boss is drunk at a Christmas party. I talk about more inane things like cake and food.

We all got to eat it, you know? You talk to different comics and it’s like you never know where you’re going to go with topics and stuff like that but I feel that over the past two years I really ended up concentrating on it. Five minutes on cake is kind of surreal but it is fun too. On my other album I had this stuff all about Mexican food and then I had a joke all about bottled water. Food and sex are universal.

Yeah, I’ve done some food corporations and they love it. I did an event for Viacom and the Food Network guys were there and they asked me “Did you write that joke just for us?” I didn’t.

You also want to be fresh and I’m not really a social satirist or at least not an obvious one. So you want to find topics that haven’t really been beaten to death. I felt that Hot Pockets haven’t really been talked about and I don’t know many people who had jokes about cakes.

If I could figure that out I’d have eight more albums. I write a lot with my wife and we’ll go on the topic. The Hot Pocket thing started from how ridiculous I thought those commercials were. It’s obviously a calzone or a Jamaican meat product but they’re selling it like it’s their own food and I just thought that was hysterical. But I really didn’t know that Hot Pockets were something that every single guy eats. The Hot Pockets thing writes itself because they keep coming out with new products like the Sub Pocket and the Breakfast Pocket. They’re not any different from when you’ve had White Castle at three in the morning. You know it’s a bad idea but it tastes good for that two seconds.

Yeah, totally. The gift of stand up is the immediacy. You write something, you get to go on stage and try it. Since it is also a verbal thing you can bounce ideas off of people. Ever since I started dating my wife we’ve always had this connection when discussing topics and it really works well together. She’s somebody that understands my point of view and where an idea can go.

She did before I met. She is mostly a sketch performer but she’s also an actor. She could probably do standup but it’s weird because now I feel like her comedic voice has been co-opted by mine. This lazy indulgent sloth of a character has influenced her point of view.

I really wanted to do the special there because I always found it odd that they always did specials on the east coast or the west coast. Like Comedy Central had this view of the mid-west of “Do they have cameras there? We don’t know if they have cameras.” I grew up in Indiana and I remember thinking “I got to get out of here, I don’t fit in here.” But now I’ve lived in New York for 15 years and realized that I am a mid-westerner. Also The Old Vic has a lot of the charm of one of those old time theatres but the functionality of a big theatre.

I would say it’s a culmination of two years. My last special was done in 2000 so when Comedy Central approached me to do another special I had a lot of material. That’s why the DVD has a half hour more of material than in the special that aired on TV.

I think it’s perfect because SuicideGirls is like a Goth thing, right?

Growing up really pale I looked at the Goth community like “Hey, you’re like me.” Like I was born Goth. We’ve done this thing on Conan O’Brien called Pale Force which is animated by a friend of mine named Paul Nodes. We just did another one that introduced the Council of Pale. One of the people on Council of Pale is a Goth girl. When we were writing it I had to convince everyone that a Goth girl had to be on the Council of Pale.

Did I answer the question?

Now I’m going to sound like a dick, but I was working on a movie and I was talking to the still photographer and because I came up with the name of the album I wanted to do a picture where I was white on white. She said she knew exactly how to do it. In between takes she would come over and take these shots. I love the way people react to it. The cover for the CD was also going to be the cover of the DVD. But the DVD distributor said that some of their buyers didn’t think me just staring out was funny. I’m like “What do you mean they don’t think it’s funny? Am I supposed to be juggling?” If people don’t know who I am anyway they’re not going to buy it. Almost as a joke we submitted the one where I’m eating a bowl of cereal and they thought that was funny.

I’m eating but I’m sexy.

Thank you, the irony is that sometimes people might as well be saying I’m a Republican. It is not that I aspire to be clean. Any comic would tell you that a joke is going to do better if you say the word fuck. If you say “fuck those Hot Pockets fucking are weird” it’s going to get a laugh. But if you just say “Hot Pockets are weird”, you’re not going to get a laugh. I found this one review on the internet where it said “it’s a great album but unfortunately there’s not enough cursing.” Like that’s the reason people would be buying an album.

The whole cursing thing is pretty amazing because you throw and F-bomb and it’ll help the joke. It panders to the audience.

Not really. When I started I didn’t even realize that it’d have any effect. I mean I wasn’t conscious of it I don’t think. Does that make sense?

Some of my favorite comics aren’t cursing the entire time and some do curse a lot.

It’s called Stephanie Daley. It was at Sundance so I was out there for a couple days and everyone thought I was Philip [Seymour] Hoffman so it was fun. I did a film that’s coming out in May called The Great New Wonderful.

Yeah. You interviewed Danny?

I play Sandy, the guy that Tony Shalhoub fucks with.

I’m like anyone else in the entertainment industry, I also have a screenplay. But a movie takes a lot of work.

It’s a really simple idea so I don’t want to bring it up, not that you would write it but I don’t want some other pervert that’s looking at SuicideGirls to steal it.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck