Patrice Oneal is a funny motherfucker. After seeing him on pundit shows and especially Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn I knew he was a smart guy but it wasnt until our conversation that I realized just how intelligent he is. He can pontificate on nearly any subject and is always dropping funny barbs throughout his dialogue. Besides talking about his latest appearance on Fox News and his two shows at Comix in Manhattan this weekend we also touched on just what the guys at Tough Crowd would have done during the Joe Rogan/Carlos Mencia battle.
See Patrice May 25 and 26 at Comix
Daniel Robert Epstein: Some comedians say that New York City is too good of a place to do sets because of how different it is from when you play in a place thats not as savvy. Do you find the same thing?
Patrice Oneal: No, Ive been doing this for 15 years; it dont matter. I could be doing it in front of fucking idiots or geniuses. Im pretty good at all of them, you gotta be. I dont know who the fuck said that but people who say that are usually in basic training. But when youve got to go all over the planet, it dont matter. Theres so many different people that you have to perform in front of that you just dont give a shit about it. You just dont want to be in front of a bad crowd. A bad crowd are a lot of the fucking foreigners that come to the shows. As long as there American people who know America and not fucking foreigners who got their idea of what America is from a movie like [in Patrices famous foreign accent] this is the land of opportunity. Their shitty country has a lot of rules and a lot of civil rights violations and stuff like that. They watch a lot of TV and they think that this country doesnt deal with those types of things. Our country deals with the same type of shit that their country does. Were a country of covert ops, so everything is covert here, including restrictions and racism and shit. But wherever theyre from, their president can round up 2000 people and chop their heads off. They come over here and sit in the audience and they just dont get it. But when you go over to a foreign country, you have to get their shit or else you can get in trouble. Here you dont really have to say anything. They come over here and you do some comedy, and some dude or chick from Czechoslovakia is like, You not funny and Im like, Shut up, you dumbshit. What do you know about funny in your shitty country? When the fuck do they get to deal with funny in their country? So the bad audiences now are the shitty foreigners that the clubs get off the street.
DRE: Youve played plenty outside the US, do you have to change up your act?
PO: Hell no. You dont change it for the audience. Theyre coming to watch you. You ever go to a movie and the movie goes, Wait a minute, let me make a special edit because youre in the audience. You go to a Broadway play and they say, Whoa, wait a minute. Were going to sing this song in French. Fuck that. They come to watch me, they need to adjust.
DRE: Do you do well outside the States?
PO: Yeah, foreign comics just arent as good as we are. Talk about spoiled. Audiences from England, they listen. An American audience is always going to be better than a foreign audience because foreign audiences really listen. Thats the one thing I give them credit for, but it does hurt their comics a little bit because they start to pontificate for a long time. You can just sit there and just relax and puff a smoke ring and figure out what you want to say and theyll wait. Theyre very polite, very well behaved, but again, they arent real seasoned and theyre not real passionate unless you say something they dont like. But otherwise, youre just doing your thing. When I traveled to England, I got to do a lot of good work because I was actually able to expand on my act mentally and they would go with me. You can do that in America too, but its rare that the audience is so engrossed in your lexicon. You dont even have to finish some thoughts when theyre with you like that, which is pretty good. I dont count English or Irish because they speak English. The colloquialisms for their particular country is the only thing you have to go through. But American audiences are very unforgiving to Americans, very abusive, very masochist. Were very mean to each other and thats my comedy. Its more than social commentary, its empathy. Everyones in real pain about the things going on, but they try to hide it. Like with this whole n-word situation and the freedom of speech issues thats going on now, people just want hide from reality, but Im not the fucking guy to do that. So my comedy sometimes might not be what the average Joe thinks they need. They may need it, but they dont want it.
DRE: I saw the trailer for your podcast and I thought it was pretty funny [laughs].
PO: [laughs] We were just fucking around and talking shit. They edited it real nice. I like it because theres nowhere now where you could be outlandish. Id rather watch somebody at a Ku Klux Klan rally where the guys are passionate about how he hates Jews and niggers and spics than watch Regis and Kathie Lee in the morning. I dont want to see that horseshit. That fucking morning croissant sandwich shit with a cup of coffee, I hate it.
DRE: I thought it was ballsy for a big guy like yourself to pull up his shirt and play with his nipple like that.
PO: Whatever, you know what Im saying, whatever. Theres no way in the foreseeable future you can ever really contain the internet unless they make vulgarity a crime and they start arresting people for having vulgarity on their computer. Now the internet is going to be a bastion for bastards unless they figure out a way to arrest people and check their computers to see if theres any porn or vulgarity on there. That makes it fun for a guy like me because now even satellite radio is in danger. Its in danger of people coming in and saying, You cant say this, you cant say that. Im a guy who has practiced very hard to not self-edit in his life.
DRE: Speaking of all that, I saw the clip on Fox News where you talked about donkey punching. It is so obvious that guys like you arent there with an agenda. Youre there to speak your mind, to speak the truth.
PO: Yeah, I dont know what they get out of it. My agenda is to get my fat face on TV because I am in the business. But at the same time, I have an actual thought on the issue. That woman [NOW President Sonia Ossorio] didnt have a goddamn thought about the issue. I dont know your life story, but Im sure if you were to sit down and talk to yourself, you would have a prejudicial judgment of certain people you just dont like. Some people just get on your fucking nerves. If a man says he hates women, it aint that we want them dead or burned or to kill them. In order to hate something, you have to have the potential to love it. No heterosexual guy wants women gone so that means we hate what we have to deal with to be around women. The stories, the crying and the fact that they dont really have jack shit to say. Im sitting across from the head of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women and shes a fucking nincompoop. She has nothing to say, Why dont you say something for real? Why dont you say something you really feel? Do you really think that women are oppressed in this country? Women arent oppressed. Black people arent oppressed. Black people and women are discriminated against and discrimination is different from oppression. Fucking beating you in the face for trying to learn to read is oppression. Telling you, you cant vote is oppression. Poverty is oppression. This is the problem with this country, people dont understand their overt nature of this country has turned covert. So I let it all out. I want people to not be able to hide behind the n-word and act like that makes everything better. It dont. Its like, Okay, ladies. Nobody in this country does anything to women anymore. You got a fucking animal that will rape a chick, but thats a different issue. Women run the world right now. Same thing with Black folks and the same thing with Asians. You want people to get fired and that will make people love you and respect you and revere you. No, now it just goes underground with even worse public sentiment than it was before. Because jokes are jokes, man. It bothers me. Nothing evil in this world ever stemmed from a joke. Hitler didnt sit there and go, Wouldnt it be funny if we killed six million Jews? Fuck no, he didnt. Do you think it would be funny if we owned a person and made him work for free? Wouldnt that be funny? No, its the evil that men do. Joking and comedy keep us from blowing up internally and people dont get that.
DRE: The first rape joke I heard was from George Carlin back in the 80s.
PO: Right, Porky Pig raping Miss Piggy or something. That took it to a whole other level like Carlin always does. With jokes, theres nothing sacred. Im a funny guy and I dont mean Im a funny guy because I can make people laugh. My whole life has been attributed to trying to be funny. Ive been kicked in the face. Ive gotten robbed. Ive been kicked out of school. Ive been chased home from school. Ive gotten fired from jobs. Ive been thrown out of classes. Ive been arrested for trying to make jokes. Anybody who talks or expresses themselves for a living should never call for another persons firing for saying something. Youre a piece of shit and now when shit happens to you, no one is going to be there to open their mouth for you.
DRE: God forbid if someone close to you was raped but do you think you would still do rape jokes?
PO: Absolutely. If someone close to me got raped, it would be as horrible for me as it was for them. But the only way to get out of that sorrow, is jokes. Its trying to pick up your emotional pieces instead of sitting there and wallowing in your own self-pity and sadness. I had so many things in my life that I could be miserable about. The fact that I can get them out of my system with humor makes me alive.
DRE: Did you get that gig on The Office through an audition?
PO: I met with [The American Office producer Greg Daniels] and he liked me. It may have been before the show was even on.
DRE: Does anyone call you the sea monster as a result of that one episode?
PO: No, man. No one calls me the fucking sea monster.
Fucking MySpace people will call me that and I dont say that like Im angry. Nobody whos really a fan of mine would do that. Sometimes people will see me and say, Hey, theres the sea monster, but for the most part people know me from three things. Number one would be when I was hosting Web Junk, number two would be Tough Crowd and number three would probably be my HBO special.
DRE: You had a dramatic role on The Jury a couple of years ago. Is acting something you want to get serious about?
PO: I think serious acting is easier than being comedic. It is easier for me to be dramatic on camera than it is for me to be comedic. I enjoyed being serious on camera. I would love to have a great role. I was looking at Dane Cook in Mr. Brooks and it looks like hes doing something thats going to bring him out of that whole standup world. I would love to do a great villain role like what John Malkovich did with In the Line of Fire.
DRE: Im really sad that Tough Crowd isnt on anymore. I would have loved to see what you guys would say about the whole Joe Rogan/Carlos Mencia thing.
PO: Whatever it would have been, it would have been honest. Im sure we would have found a way to have them both on and had our debate. I dont know Carlos enough to know if he steals but if he steals, Im with Joe.
But let me put it this way, I know so many fucking people who steal that you cant trace it to one villain. This business is lawless. Its almost like tracking the first case of AIDS. Its really hard to do. A lot of guys steal. If I have a watch a lot of motherfuckers wont steal the watch they will just steal the little piece that keeps it on your wrist. They steal just enough to make it useless for you. Its tough to go out there on stage and not be funny. So they steal because they are under pressure. I happen to be one of those guys who can do it. Ill fucking bomb for weeks until I can get it right, because I dont really give a fuck. Some guys got to get that quick fix every second of the day, so they steal. They take proven material. You dont have time to experiment if you are one of those guys who cowers on stage. I cant see how it can be proven that Carlos is a thief unless you just come out and say, Hey, hes a thief, and this is how I know, and its proven in the pseudo-court of the comedy law niggers, then off with his head.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
See Patrice May 25 and 26 at Comix
Daniel Robert Epstein: Some comedians say that New York City is too good of a place to do sets because of how different it is from when you play in a place thats not as savvy. Do you find the same thing?
Patrice Oneal: No, Ive been doing this for 15 years; it dont matter. I could be doing it in front of fucking idiots or geniuses. Im pretty good at all of them, you gotta be. I dont know who the fuck said that but people who say that are usually in basic training. But when youve got to go all over the planet, it dont matter. Theres so many different people that you have to perform in front of that you just dont give a shit about it. You just dont want to be in front of a bad crowd. A bad crowd are a lot of the fucking foreigners that come to the shows. As long as there American people who know America and not fucking foreigners who got their idea of what America is from a movie like [in Patrices famous foreign accent] this is the land of opportunity. Their shitty country has a lot of rules and a lot of civil rights violations and stuff like that. They watch a lot of TV and they think that this country doesnt deal with those types of things. Our country deals with the same type of shit that their country does. Were a country of covert ops, so everything is covert here, including restrictions and racism and shit. But wherever theyre from, their president can round up 2000 people and chop their heads off. They come over here and sit in the audience and they just dont get it. But when you go over to a foreign country, you have to get their shit or else you can get in trouble. Here you dont really have to say anything. They come over here and you do some comedy, and some dude or chick from Czechoslovakia is like, You not funny and Im like, Shut up, you dumbshit. What do you know about funny in your shitty country? When the fuck do they get to deal with funny in their country? So the bad audiences now are the shitty foreigners that the clubs get off the street.
DRE: Youve played plenty outside the US, do you have to change up your act?
PO: Hell no. You dont change it for the audience. Theyre coming to watch you. You ever go to a movie and the movie goes, Wait a minute, let me make a special edit because youre in the audience. You go to a Broadway play and they say, Whoa, wait a minute. Were going to sing this song in French. Fuck that. They come to watch me, they need to adjust.
DRE: Do you do well outside the States?
PO: Yeah, foreign comics just arent as good as we are. Talk about spoiled. Audiences from England, they listen. An American audience is always going to be better than a foreign audience because foreign audiences really listen. Thats the one thing I give them credit for, but it does hurt their comics a little bit because they start to pontificate for a long time. You can just sit there and just relax and puff a smoke ring and figure out what you want to say and theyll wait. Theyre very polite, very well behaved, but again, they arent real seasoned and theyre not real passionate unless you say something they dont like. But otherwise, youre just doing your thing. When I traveled to England, I got to do a lot of good work because I was actually able to expand on my act mentally and they would go with me. You can do that in America too, but its rare that the audience is so engrossed in your lexicon. You dont even have to finish some thoughts when theyre with you like that, which is pretty good. I dont count English or Irish because they speak English. The colloquialisms for their particular country is the only thing you have to go through. But American audiences are very unforgiving to Americans, very abusive, very masochist. Were very mean to each other and thats my comedy. Its more than social commentary, its empathy. Everyones in real pain about the things going on, but they try to hide it. Like with this whole n-word situation and the freedom of speech issues thats going on now, people just want hide from reality, but Im not the fucking guy to do that. So my comedy sometimes might not be what the average Joe thinks they need. They may need it, but they dont want it.
DRE: I saw the trailer for your podcast and I thought it was pretty funny [laughs].
PO: [laughs] We were just fucking around and talking shit. They edited it real nice. I like it because theres nowhere now where you could be outlandish. Id rather watch somebody at a Ku Klux Klan rally where the guys are passionate about how he hates Jews and niggers and spics than watch Regis and Kathie Lee in the morning. I dont want to see that horseshit. That fucking morning croissant sandwich shit with a cup of coffee, I hate it.
DRE: I thought it was ballsy for a big guy like yourself to pull up his shirt and play with his nipple like that.
PO: Whatever, you know what Im saying, whatever. Theres no way in the foreseeable future you can ever really contain the internet unless they make vulgarity a crime and they start arresting people for having vulgarity on their computer. Now the internet is going to be a bastion for bastards unless they figure out a way to arrest people and check their computers to see if theres any porn or vulgarity on there. That makes it fun for a guy like me because now even satellite radio is in danger. Its in danger of people coming in and saying, You cant say this, you cant say that. Im a guy who has practiced very hard to not self-edit in his life.
DRE: Speaking of all that, I saw the clip on Fox News where you talked about donkey punching. It is so obvious that guys like you arent there with an agenda. Youre there to speak your mind, to speak the truth.
PO: Yeah, I dont know what they get out of it. My agenda is to get my fat face on TV because I am in the business. But at the same time, I have an actual thought on the issue. That woman [NOW President Sonia Ossorio] didnt have a goddamn thought about the issue. I dont know your life story, but Im sure if you were to sit down and talk to yourself, you would have a prejudicial judgment of certain people you just dont like. Some people just get on your fucking nerves. If a man says he hates women, it aint that we want them dead or burned or to kill them. In order to hate something, you have to have the potential to love it. No heterosexual guy wants women gone so that means we hate what we have to deal with to be around women. The stories, the crying and the fact that they dont really have jack shit to say. Im sitting across from the head of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women and shes a fucking nincompoop. She has nothing to say, Why dont you say something for real? Why dont you say something you really feel? Do you really think that women are oppressed in this country? Women arent oppressed. Black people arent oppressed. Black people and women are discriminated against and discrimination is different from oppression. Fucking beating you in the face for trying to learn to read is oppression. Telling you, you cant vote is oppression. Poverty is oppression. This is the problem with this country, people dont understand their overt nature of this country has turned covert. So I let it all out. I want people to not be able to hide behind the n-word and act like that makes everything better. It dont. Its like, Okay, ladies. Nobody in this country does anything to women anymore. You got a fucking animal that will rape a chick, but thats a different issue. Women run the world right now. Same thing with Black folks and the same thing with Asians. You want people to get fired and that will make people love you and respect you and revere you. No, now it just goes underground with even worse public sentiment than it was before. Because jokes are jokes, man. It bothers me. Nothing evil in this world ever stemmed from a joke. Hitler didnt sit there and go, Wouldnt it be funny if we killed six million Jews? Fuck no, he didnt. Do you think it would be funny if we owned a person and made him work for free? Wouldnt that be funny? No, its the evil that men do. Joking and comedy keep us from blowing up internally and people dont get that.
DRE: The first rape joke I heard was from George Carlin back in the 80s.
PO: Right, Porky Pig raping Miss Piggy or something. That took it to a whole other level like Carlin always does. With jokes, theres nothing sacred. Im a funny guy and I dont mean Im a funny guy because I can make people laugh. My whole life has been attributed to trying to be funny. Ive been kicked in the face. Ive gotten robbed. Ive been kicked out of school. Ive been chased home from school. Ive gotten fired from jobs. Ive been thrown out of classes. Ive been arrested for trying to make jokes. Anybody who talks or expresses themselves for a living should never call for another persons firing for saying something. Youre a piece of shit and now when shit happens to you, no one is going to be there to open their mouth for you.
DRE: God forbid if someone close to you was raped but do you think you would still do rape jokes?
PO: Absolutely. If someone close to me got raped, it would be as horrible for me as it was for them. But the only way to get out of that sorrow, is jokes. Its trying to pick up your emotional pieces instead of sitting there and wallowing in your own self-pity and sadness. I had so many things in my life that I could be miserable about. The fact that I can get them out of my system with humor makes me alive.
DRE: Did you get that gig on The Office through an audition?
PO: I met with [The American Office producer Greg Daniels] and he liked me. It may have been before the show was even on.
DRE: Does anyone call you the sea monster as a result of that one episode?
PO: No, man. No one calls me the fucking sea monster.
Fucking MySpace people will call me that and I dont say that like Im angry. Nobody whos really a fan of mine would do that. Sometimes people will see me and say, Hey, theres the sea monster, but for the most part people know me from three things. Number one would be when I was hosting Web Junk, number two would be Tough Crowd and number three would probably be my HBO special.
DRE: You had a dramatic role on The Jury a couple of years ago. Is acting something you want to get serious about?
PO: I think serious acting is easier than being comedic. It is easier for me to be dramatic on camera than it is for me to be comedic. I enjoyed being serious on camera. I would love to have a great role. I was looking at Dane Cook in Mr. Brooks and it looks like hes doing something thats going to bring him out of that whole standup world. I would love to do a great villain role like what John Malkovich did with In the Line of Fire.
DRE: Im really sad that Tough Crowd isnt on anymore. I would have loved to see what you guys would say about the whole Joe Rogan/Carlos Mencia thing.
PO: Whatever it would have been, it would have been honest. Im sure we would have found a way to have them both on and had our debate. I dont know Carlos enough to know if he steals but if he steals, Im with Joe.
But let me put it this way, I know so many fucking people who steal that you cant trace it to one villain. This business is lawless. Its almost like tracking the first case of AIDS. Its really hard to do. A lot of guys steal. If I have a watch a lot of motherfuckers wont steal the watch they will just steal the little piece that keeps it on your wrist. They steal just enough to make it useless for you. Its tough to go out there on stage and not be funny. So they steal because they are under pressure. I happen to be one of those guys who can do it. Ill fucking bomb for weeks until I can get it right, because I dont really give a fuck. Some guys got to get that quick fix every second of the day, so they steal. They take proven material. You dont have time to experiment if you are one of those guys who cowers on stage. I cant see how it can be proven that Carlos is a thief unless you just come out and say, Hey, hes a thief, and this is how I know, and its proven in the pseudo-court of the comedy law niggers, then off with his head.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
badRonald said:
I know this is an old article but running it on the FP without a mention of Patrice's death is lazy and unprofessional in my opinion.
Totally agree. I'm gonna miss that guy...
Two) Dan Epstein is also dead.