anderswolleck

The era of the working comedian is in full force. After standup got so popular in the 70s and 80s, most comedians were leaving the stage to create their own movies and television shows, very often never coming back. Nowadays many comedians want to create their own TV shows and movies but dont get the chance so we get to see them perform standup in nearly every venue out there. Dave Attells Insomniac Tour was a great tour which featured Sean Rouse, Greg Giraldo, Dane Cook and Dave Attell of course. I got a chance to talk with comedian Greg Giraldo about putting together the DVD.

Buy the DVD of Dave Attells Insomniac Tour

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

Greg Giraldo: I'm writing a damn show. Tuesdays just suck. I don't know what the hell we were thinking, but you know what, fuck it. It's all about us right now.

DRE: Have you heard of SuicideGirls?

GG: I've actually read a bunch of things on it over the years.

DRE: I know you are married now but were those ever the kind of girls you were into?

GG: I didn't really have a type. It really depended a lot on my mental state. I pretty much was into all types of girls. Would I like those types of girls? Less so now, when that whole look doesn't necessarily mean they're dirty whores. It was a lot better back in the day when a few tattoos meant you were really in. Now it's a personal statement all of the sudden.

DRE: You have some tattoos yourself though.

GG: Yeah, I have three. I want to get more, but now that I'm not drinking as much, I'm less motivated. I got a band on my forearm, a dragon in a clown suit on my shoulder and my wife's name and our wedding date on my arm because I was feeling particularly Hispanic that day.

DRE: No Mama tattoo?

GG: No, I got to get the Virgin of Guadalupe on my full back piece.

DRE: How did you end up on the Insomniac tour?

GG: I'm not sure how it all worked out. I've known Dave forever and hes one of my good friends. I think Dave wanted it to be some real decadent, drunk bash but then I stopped drinking and Dane Cook doesn't drink, but he's such a giant draw. I think the whole nature of the thing changed. It was a wild time in Vegas.

DRE: Do you guys count drunk Vegas laughs?

GG: It's a little over the top. On the DVD were all ranting and the crowd is on fire. But then when you watch it at home, you're like, "Dude, calm down." Its the Howard Dean effect, when you're screaming and you look like a maniac. You're like, "You should have been in the room. It was crazy."

DRE: Obviously, you're a veteran comedian and people drink. Do the laughs count when the guy is falling over at his table laughing at you?

GG: You don't get that much of that. I guess you do, but you're so used to it that it's irrelevant. You don't get crazy, falling down drunks. Actually I take that all back. That happens all the time. Sometimes you just get through. There are times when people are laughing too drunkenly, but it doesn't usually help. When they're not drunk, they're falling over. We had a guy who almost fell out of the balcony. That would have fucked up your rhythm and timing.

DRE: Did you watch the other acts that night or watch them on a DVD later on?

GG: Yeah, but I didn't do the whole tour but I did a few shows in San Diego and LA before we got to Vegas. I saw most of them.

DRE: Obviously, you and Dave have a similar energy. How do you think the whole show held together?

GG: I like every comedian. I guess it holds together. If everyone was similar, then two hours of that would get pretty draining. We do have different styles and different fans. It was pretty rowdy, energetic, but I guess that was Vegas. I thought it was pretty interesting for everybody. I had no idea at the time what a monster star Dane Cook had become and this was a little before he really blew up. It was a little weird to go on stage and see tons of chicks screaming Dane's name. Always an ego boost.

DRE: What was the off-time like in Vegas?

GG: Mostly just cried alone in my bathtub. We actually shot all of our DVD extra with us just bullshitting. When they have those cameras following you, you feel this need to chimp it up and be all amusing but we went the other way; miserable and serious. I think it plays pretty funny. We walked around to different Vegas hangs and let the cameras follow us. I gambled a lot and sat quietly wondering why my career hasn't taken off.

DRE: Speaking of your career not taking off, was Stand-Up Nation the show you were going to do after Tough Crowd ended?

GG: Not really. There was a lot of other little things that happened in the meantime and this ended up being the consolation prize. I did two other pilots. I actually hosted the original pilot for the Hollywood Show with David Spade. It was developed for him and he was one of the producers but he was working on a sitcom so he didn't have time to be an in-studio host. He was going to be a correspondent every once in a while. Then his sitcom got cancelled so he came back, which is totally cool. It wasn't even really my kind of thing. I didn't want to move to LA and do entertainment jokes everyday. I did another pilot that's sort of a version of Tough Crowd that I did with Lewis Black and Patton Oswalt. It was a discussion-type show. I guess it was still soon after Tough Crowd and it felt like Tough Crowd 2 which they didnt want. Then they asked if I would host this Friday thing, which evolved into much more than it initially was. I was supposed to sit there and talk between these half hour clips and we ended up writing a half hour show every week. It's cool in that sense, but it's also frustrating in a sense that if you don't like the comics that are on that block, you're not going to love the show.

DRE: Is there a hole in the comedian world now that Tough Crowd isn't there?

GG: Yeah, I think there's a dark void in the soul of comedy right now.

I miss it. A lot of guys miss it. The thing that's frustrating about it is that's the kind of show that I want to do on my own. Some kind of thing where comics talk about current events stuff, which obviously has been done on Politically Incorrect before and will be done again. Yet, I'm so closely associated with the Tough Crowd idea that it's a little frustrating because I wouldn't mind doing a version of that show without feeling like I'm stomping on the Tough Crowd legacy.

DRE: As a pretty smart guy yourself, were you surprised that some of these comedians were as smart as they were?

GG: Most comics are pretty smart. In fact, comedians also have a lot of time on their hands. So even if they're not brilliant, you'll find certain conspiracy theories among comics like the Kennedy assassination. Even if you were a complete fuck up for years people do develop some smarts along the way. When you're traveling on the road you get 23 hours a day to read. The surprising thing is the comics who seem smart in their acts are usually not the smartest comics and the guys that do the really dopey bullshit are just brilliant.

DRE: How do you tweak your act, do you riff and record or just write?

GG: Mostly, I get half finished ideas or a premise. Something will occur to me as a funny idea which I will start talking about and I'll write that down to remember it. Around New York, there are so many clubs where you're doing short sets so on a weekend, I can do five, six a night where I can just start babbling away. By the fifth time you record and listen to it, by the fifth or sixth time you start to flesh it out.

DRE: Would you ever do a corporate gig for that law firm you used to work for?

GG: I'm at a crossroads with the whole corporate thing. I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to approach earning a living going forward. Right now, I would accept the corporate gig and then right before I got there, I'd have a panic attack and cancel it. .

DRE: I'm sure you've heard of how much money guys make at corporate gigs.

GG: I've done corporate gigs and if you're really going to focus on that and keep your act acceptable to them and jump through all the hoops you have to, you can really make a lot of cash doing corporate gigs. I'll still do them. I just don't pursue them that aggressively because I guess if you did too many of them it'd eventually wear you down. It's hard to say no to that money.

DRE: It feels like a very Roman, decadent thing for comedians to do those corporate gigs. It sounds like it's so much money that it's just whores and caviar once it's over.

GG: Strangely enough, that is sort of what ends up happening. There's a lot of money, but it's also relatively sanitized as opposed to going to nightclubs on the road. These are pharmaceutical sales reps on their annual sales conferences. They're not that wild but you end up having a lot of time with all that money in that great hotel which makes it hard not to go a little ballistic.

DRE: Does your wife avoid hearing your act or seeing it because so much of it is about your lives together?

GG: No. It's funny in recent months or years, people have been saying that. There's not that much about that. There are a couple of chunks. They're not the most flattering, but at this point I think even she would have to acknowledge her part in inspiring those things.

DRE: You have three kids, how old is the oldest one?

GG: The oldest is about to be six.

DRE: It's a boy?

GG: Yeah, they're all boys. Right now.

DRE: [laughs] Are they funny yet?

GG: Yeah, they are. They're all cute funny like little kids are. They're not crazy characters. I've also tried not to train them as little chimps. There's nothing worse than when you meet someone's kids and they're like, "Do that thing. Sing that song." They're more observationally funny. I was shy as a kid so I think that's healthy. I also try to instill a real sense of insecurity and fear in them so that they never really feel comfortable in their skin. That'll help with their standup later on.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck