Read Online Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians by Corey Andrew, Kathleen Madigan, Jimmy Valentine, Kevin Duncan, Joe Anders, Dave Kirk - Free Book Online Page A
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performed?
Dane: They were both performed about six months ago back in Boston, same weekend. There were eight shows, and these were two of what I thought were the highlight shows.
Corey: How often do you change your material as you have done in these two shows?
Dane: I never have a set list. I never think about what I’m gonna do. And I captured a show. I took that show, and I put it on a disc. I’m the first to admit that because of spontaneity and kind of the way I do it, I’m not the type of comic that writes a bit and says, that’s done. I don’t feel like material is ever done. I’ll do a bit five nights in a row, and it will have a different ending. It will have a different beginning. I might be selling the bit angry one night and silly the next. When ‘Harmful (if Swallowed)’ was put down, I had to go back and listen to it before I toured it, because people embraced it so much they wanted to hear certain bits. I had to sort of remember how I did them because they wouldn’t be the same now.
With ‘Retaliation,’ again this is something that happened on that weekend. When you come out and you see some of the material, you’re gonna go, ‘The ending’s different. The ending on the disc, dude, it ended like this, and now you ended it like this.’ That’s because I’m different—in the way I feel about the bit is different. You’re kind of capturing a moment, and you feel that energy when you listen to the discs. This happened right then. It doesn’t feel formula. I hate formula. That’s kind of my comedy, always keeping it fresh and always morphing it into something else.
Corey: That’s something I think your fans appreciate. One thing I find frustrating when going to see a comedian who’s well-known is when people call out bits or finish the joke. You talk a lot about experiences that happen to us all every day. How do you decide which of life’s little experiences you are going to expand upon, like cutting in front of the guy at the convenience store?
Dane: When I got into a fight with a guy in the supermarket, that happened and I go, ‘OK, I gotta talk about this tonight onstage.’ It was like a no-brainer; I want that to be on the disc. There are certain bits that going into the weekend of the shows, I have them floating around in my head. I gotta do the hit by a car. I gotta do the guy in the store. I gotta do the love stuff—which is a little hard for me because I like to keep it free flowing. I kind of take a mental picture of what I’ve done over the last six months. I just do everything. I could probably put out eight different discs, because I’m putting anything and everything out there. Again, it doesn’t have to be completely polished, because it’s never quite done. I would work on it forever before I would put it out on a disc.
I just throw every mud ball against the wall. If it becomes a killer performance that night, I go, ‘OK, that should be the disc.’ I just go up there to play. I’m always just playing. Not every bit gets the same reaction every night because of how I present it. When I put the discs together, I want to paint a verbal picture.
Corey: If somebody were in the same place you were—the supermarket for example—how close to what happened is what the audience is hearing?
Dane: The observational part is I’m in the supermarket about a year and a half ago and there’s a couple fighting, and I remember hearing the guy say to the girl, kind of aggressively, ‘I don’t give a fuck if there’s jelly or fucking not. If I fucking tell you…’ Oh, I can hear it in my head. And she was egging him on, ‘I don’t even like jelly. You’re miserable. Why are you even questioning …’ They’re having this major argument in the supermarket about jelly. It spawned this whole idea of love and if you’re with the wrong person, you’ll fight about anything because you’re too afraid to break up, so you’ll try to
Dane: They were both performed about six months ago back in Boston, same weekend. There were eight shows, and these were two of what I thought were the highlight shows.
Corey: How often do you change your material as you have done in these two shows?
Dane: I never have a set list. I never think about what I’m gonna do. And I captured a show. I took that show, and I put it on a disc. I’m the first to admit that because of spontaneity and kind of the way I do it, I’m not the type of comic that writes a bit and says, that’s done. I don’t feel like material is ever done. I’ll do a bit five nights in a row, and it will have a different ending. It will have a different beginning. I might be selling the bit angry one night and silly the next. When ‘Harmful (if Swallowed)’ was put down, I had to go back and listen to it before I toured it, because people embraced it so much they wanted to hear certain bits. I had to sort of remember how I did them because they wouldn’t be the same now.
With ‘Retaliation,’ again this is something that happened on that weekend. When you come out and you see some of the material, you’re gonna go, ‘The ending’s different. The ending on the disc, dude, it ended like this, and now you ended it like this.’ That’s because I’m different—in the way I feel about the bit is different. You’re kind of capturing a moment, and you feel that energy when you listen to the discs. This happened right then. It doesn’t feel formula. I hate formula. That’s kind of my comedy, always keeping it fresh and always morphing it into something else.
Corey: That’s something I think your fans appreciate. One thing I find frustrating when going to see a comedian who’s well-known is when people call out bits or finish the joke. You talk a lot about experiences that happen to us all every day. How do you decide which of life’s little experiences you are going to expand upon, like cutting in front of the guy at the convenience store?
Dane: When I got into a fight with a guy in the supermarket, that happened and I go, ‘OK, I gotta talk about this tonight onstage.’ It was like a no-brainer; I want that to be on the disc. There are certain bits that going into the weekend of the shows, I have them floating around in my head. I gotta do the hit by a car. I gotta do the guy in the store. I gotta do the love stuff—which is a little hard for me because I like to keep it free flowing. I kind of take a mental picture of what I’ve done over the last six months. I just do everything. I could probably put out eight different discs, because I’m putting anything and everything out there. Again, it doesn’t have to be completely polished, because it’s never quite done. I would work on it forever before I would put it out on a disc.
I just throw every mud ball against the wall. If it becomes a killer performance that night, I go, ‘OK, that should be the disc.’ I just go up there to play. I’m always just playing. Not every bit gets the same reaction every night because of how I present it. When I put the discs together, I want to paint a verbal picture.
Corey: If somebody were in the same place you were—the supermarket for example—how close to what happened is what the audience is hearing?
Dane: The observational part is I’m in the supermarket about a year and a half ago and there’s a couple fighting, and I remember hearing the guy say to the girl, kind of aggressively, ‘I don’t give a fuck if there’s jelly or fucking not. If I fucking tell you…’ Oh, I can hear it in my head. And she was egging him on, ‘I don’t even like jelly. You’re miserable. Why are you even questioning …’ They’re having this major argument in the supermarket about jelly. It spawned this whole idea of love and if you’re with the wrong person, you’ll fight about anything because you’re too afraid to break up, so you’ll try to
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