Interview: Eugene Mirman, Stand-Up Comedian

Filed Under Interview, Stand-Up Comedy

Eugene Mirman’s recently released second album En Garde, Society! was accompanied by self-generated protests against himself. We talked about Emo Philips (an early comedy hero of Eugene’s), what his act would be like if he had stayed in Russia and including a little failure on each CD.

Eugene Mirman, Stand-Up ComedianWhen I talked to Mike Birbiglia, he described you as the Andy Warhol of Comedy, do you feel like that’s an accurate description?

He said, “Oh, I brought everybody leaves…” That’s very funny. I know exactly what he means. He’s also the Jimmy Carter of Comedy. I’m either the Andy Warhol or the Velvet Underground of Comedy. (Laughs) And I’m talking about Loaded, I mean, their really commercial album. Where they finally got their sound down and broke up.

Also when I was talking to Mike, I told him that his material is equally at home at some place like “Invite Them Up” and at a comedy club. Do you feel the same way about your own material?

What I feel in terms of comedy clubs is that some are great and some are not, but I’d rather just draw my own audience that wants to see me. If I’m in a comedy club, it’s good in a sense that you do get other random people. But if you do it a rock club or a theater, the people who are coming to see it want to see you or someone you’re with or someone with a certain sensibility. Not to see comedy in general.

And the truth is I just want people to enjoy what I’m doing. I was supposed to do some shows in Vegas. And I was supposed to do eight and I only did two of them. And it was because it was a terrible mismatch. It was a weird bad room where there were people who were in respirators. But the point is they wanted to see entertainment and I would have gladly entertained them. It’s just that I didn’t have anything that they would really enjoy. So I’m just really just trying to find a way to do what I’d like to do.

But I’ve done sets with Patton (Oswalt) at Caroline’s and other stuff, but I’d just rather start my own night and have it always full and do things that I want to do, as opposed to figuring out how to break into some random place.

You majored in comedy in Hampshire college. How do you think approaching comedy from multiple academic sides – I know it a liberal hippie place, but still in historical or sociological senses – has affected your work? If at all?

I came from a place where people just went to college, like I’m sure a lot of people did. So part of it was that I was interested in comedy, so I figured why not study what I’m interested in as opposed to whatever.

I enjoyed learning about comedy. I enjoyed talking about comedy. So how does it affect my work? I don’t know if it does in the sense that when I tell a joke I’m, “I know the sociology of that and you don’t.” It just that I enjoy learning about comedy.

I think what affected my comedy more was that I ran a show in college in the basement of my dorm. And there were really any stand-ups around, or there were small numbers, but I would just ask people who I thought were funny to do something and I would put on these makeshift shows. And the same thing happened in Boston. So I think what shaped my comedy was growing up in a comedy community where as long as it was funny, that was all that sort of mattered. It didn’t have to fit into any one thing. You could do whatever you thought of as long as it was funny. If I want to make fun of branding by creating weird objects that I give out, as long as it’s funny, it’s fine.

So it’s not like you were put into any sort of analytical mindset?

Right, I studied Lenny Bruce but it’s not like, “Today, I’m going to change culture!” (laughs) I don’t have a graph of rules that have been broken and rules that have not and I’m like, “hmmm, how can I push things.” It’s like anything. You see something that annoys you or something happen to you that seems ridiculous and you try to articulate it to make fun of it.

Something just occurred to me in relation to you majoring in comedy. People who know what they want to do, to pursue it that early is a very driven act. You’d think of them as people who take a look at the rules of the game and say, “OK, I’m going to play by the rules of this game.” You know what I mean?

Yeah, although I’ve never done anything like written a spec script. There’s other places where people study the industry. Like if you go to Emerson I bet you learn how to write spec scripts or whatever. But I don’t really care. I just wanted to do comedy.

Basically I love comedy and I love lots of aspects of it, so I thought, “Well, if I going to go to college…” And after college I worked at a web company or temped, I did the same things that anybody who majored in something else will do. I personally wanted to do comedy and then majored in it, and I do comedy. And I guess there’s must be people who major in history and do something related to history. But aside from majoring in comedy, one of the thing people probably now find odd about it is that I now do comedy. I don’t think that’s weird. I think you should go to college to do something you like.

This is just more of a curiosity question here, when was the last time you performed in a comedy club?

I think in January, I did a Conan audition. When they do auditions like for Aspen or Conan, where they look at stand-up, I totally do those.

I’m not mad at comedy clubs. I don’t care. I think they’re fine. And I do fine at them and it’s not like some crazy eccentric. I don’t have a war with… I just believe you should just create the world that you want. I am the neo-con of comedy. I’m the Andy Warhol neo-con of comedy. (laughs) Where I will the reality I want to have. Except I just do comedy in a small room. It’s much easier to will it. I’m not trying to destroy a religion at once, I’m just trying to do comedy. So that probably where it’s easy for me to be the Andy Warhol Neo Con of comedy. (laughs)

The truth is a lot of the people who come to the shows that I’m doing a lot of them don’t come to comedy clubs. It just makes sense to bring comedy to the places are at. Meaning: kids go to rock clubs and why don’t I also go to rock clubs. Also it pays much more. I’ve been on television but not that much, (so) a comedy club wouldn’t give me nearly the money that a rock club would. So that’s part of it.

It’s really very pragmatic.

Yes it’s all very pragmatic and reasonable. And I’m also a brilliant eccentric. (laughs) I really combine the best elements of pragmatism and eccentricity.

In the most recent Comedians of Comedy tour, Patton Oswalt wrote about a stop in Champaign Illinois where a drunken woman ruined a bit of yours….

She didn’t really ruin the bit. Actually she only stepped on one joke. She was drunk and she was wobbly. It’s the driving thing that’s on my album, except it ends differently. There was only one of two things that would have gotten laughs but didn’t because she was wandering around doing things. The show was rowdy. It turned out the club sent out an email telling people to yell at us. I think that the club thought they were kidding, and thought “people won’t really think this.”

The room, and this is one thing I will say for clubs in general, if there’s a bar in the room it often makes it harder. Places like Rififi, there’s a back area, there’s no bar in that room. Or places like Luna and Pianos. Pianos has its own room for that. And if you watch them upstairs (where there’s a bar) it can be sorta harder. Slipper Room can be kind of hard because it’s got a long bar. This place (in Champaign) also had that. It had a very long bar. Up front it was fine. But I might have bombed in back or I might have killed in back.

I talked to Patton about the best conditions for comedy, because it can be sort of fragile. And it’s interesting how something like that can change things.

When I was looking around years ago for a place to do comedy. Someone had actually recommended Rififi. But I walked around and that was one of my only requirements.

What were the others?

Having a projector is something I really wanted. I happened to find a place with its own separate room and a projector and that would let me do a show.

Since it seems you’re doing exactly what you want to do, it’s a little strange to me when people ask you if you want to do a sitcom or direct a film. Is a strange to you that people seem to see stand-up as the stepping stone and not the goal?

Yes and no. It’s not strange to ask that. Lots of people do. Would I want to make a film? Maybe. I want to write a book. I like to make short films. I don’t really want a sitcom, but I also would gladly buy a nice home. (laughs) So if somebody said would you like to try it, I’d say sure. I’ll have a home and it’ll be done. I would want to a traditional sitcom, like I work in a dentist office. I’m interested in a lot of different thing, my only requirement is that I enjoy it or it changes the conditions of my life.

But it seems those two, at least initially in careers, are contradictory. The ones that change conditions then are really not fun.

Yeah, what I mean is I don’t think anybody would want me on their sitcom particularly unless they wanted me to be funny in my way. It’s not like I’m some sort of great character actor. It’s not like people say, “you’d be a perfect looney guy with a voice and wings.”

I’m just going to do what I do and if somebody can sort of use that to be funny, I would enjoy it. I’m rarely asked to do stuff where I don’t have the opportunity to do the kind of thing I do. People who ask me to be in thing ask me for me. I don’t think someone would make a traditional sitcom around me.

Would I enjoy doing a weekly TV show? Yeah. I like doing a weekly show. I like creating various bits. Would I like having more production? Sure. But I don’t really care. It’s not like my goal. I just would do it if it seemed fun.

There’s not bit you want to do where you say, “well I can’t do that because I don’t have access…

No. No. No. But of course, if I different means, I’d create different things possibly. I don’t go I wish I had a big camera. I wish I had like a small white room where I could put little props and do things and change the background. And probably a green screen. I would enjoy doing that. In a year, I’ll be able to do that.

It’s technically very easy now.

You totally can. I just don’t have the space for it in my New York apartment. I’ll probably get a bigger apartment soon and do that.

I’m interested in doing lots of things. I have a blog I do for the Village Voice. And part of that is I wanted to do a book. And from that blog I got a literary agent. And now have a book proposal and a sample chapter. It’s a book of advice. Nobody ever goes, “Do you want to write a book?” But I do.

Of all mass media, it’s the one where if you’re getting notes from the publisher, they’re more suggestive. They’re not absolute.

I don’t mind feedback that makes lots of sense. Where you get it. But I don’t want to have to shape a thing to a demographic. Which a lot of people do. And that’s totally reasonable. They’re welcome to do that. It’s just not something I’m interested in.

Have you met Emo Phillips? What was that like? I think some people can’t see past the character with him.

Emo’s great. He’s an incredible joke writer. And he was also, when I watched stand-up in the 80s, one of the most the unique voices. There was nobody doing quite what he was doing.

When I was in college, I came to New York to see him at Carolines. And I gave a letter and a videotape of myself doing stand-up to the bouncer. And I was, “Oh you know, whatever.” And then a month later, I received a five-page typed letter with comments and suggestions. It was just like the sweetest thing that somebody had ever done, especially somebody who I so greatly admired growing up.

I think that his character, and this is according to him, is his actual mannerisms taken to extremes. Emo has an odd cadence to his voice that this is an accentuation of.

I think that why in some ways he’s not remembered as much now. Stand-up currently seems to be about being as real as possible on stage. I don’t think there anybody who’s really doing a character today.

Larry the Cable Guy, probably. Although I don’t know what he’s like in person. Probably nothing like that.

That’s a good point. Part of 80’s stand-up seemed so defined by being a character and I think Emo get lumped in that age.

But he had jokes… at a time when I would turn on A&E or HBO and I would see people who would do a lot of jokes about dating but very simple. But he had these weird jokes about art and plastic surgery and Thomas Aquinas. All these things that were weird and very interesting. And also they were very well crafted. I think when GQ did the best 75 jokes ever, he had three of them. (It’s only two, but they’re good. See all 75 here.)

On a totally different direction here, your family immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union when you were a child. Can you imagine how your talents would have turned out if your parents had stayed in Russia?

I think that I would eventually be in prison. It’s funny because people say that Bush is a terrible leader, but they’ll say, “he’s like Hitler.” He actually isn’t. (laughs) In Russia, our phones were taped and the KGB thought my dad had books that he wasn’t supposed to have. Those are very real things.

Obviously the government is spying on us here and that’s terrible and illegal, but here it’s considered terrible and there it’s considered commonplace. What we’re dealing with here is very small edges of communism, fascism or religion where you have somebody trying to tell you to do something for your own benefit but it’s creepy. But there’s that’s like the government.

So I think that if I were to make fun of things the way I do here, now I may be able to get away with it. But I don’t even know.

But you’re not overtly political.

I’m not overtly political at all. But I make fun of things that annoy me. Here it might be advertising or some weird thing on the street, there it would be the deafening sound of censorship. (laughs) See if my phones were tapped, I would possibly talk about that. And I would possibly be recording them.

When your dealing with a repressive society and you’re a comic, you’d want to make fun of that.

One thing I liked about your new CD was that you didn’t really try and make it clean. You put a joke or two in there that didn’t entirely work.

There’s two things I’d say about that. One is I did a line after something bombed, where I comment on it and it worked very well. So the only way to include it was to leave on something that didn’t work.

In terms of other stuff, there some things that I just really love it and even though they don’t totally work (I’ll leave it on). Some stuff I think is funny but doesn’t completely work but has a lot I really like. I think it keeps a certain genuineness about it.

There’s a joke on my first album (The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman) that I love and a lot of comics I know like, but it almost never works. It’s a joke where I talk about imagining a million by starting with a thousand spoons and I say “double it, double it.” And I do the math until I reach 1,024,000 spoons and then I say subtract 24,000. “Now you have an idea.” (laughs)

And it’s something that bombs on the album. I don’t if anybody listens to it and goes “that’s terrible.” But I love the joke and I know a lot of people who do. So there’s a handful of things where there’s a moment that I love and it has to come with some failure.

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Comments

Posted by Steve on 05/20  at  09:27 PM

Man, this guy sounds pitiful. A comedian who can’t make it in comedy clubs. He sounds like the class clown who graduated college and misses the attention.

Todd Jackson
Posted by Todd Jackson on 05/21  at  09:04 AM

Well, Steve, he’s actually very talented. Eugene could easily make it into comedy clubs, he just chooses to go where he knows an underserved audience is.

There’s lot of people out there who wouldn’t dream of going to a comedy club, be it because they can’t afford the cover and two-drink minimum or they just can’t bring themselves to patronize a place called the “Tee Hee Teepee.” Eugene appeals to a lot of these people. Comedy clubs don’t validate a comedian’s talent, a connection with an audience does.

Posted by Steve on 05/21  at  10:28 AM

Well, I’ve decided to give the guy a shot and listen to his first album. It’s not for me. It seems more random than “absurd”. One thing that was very odd about it was that the audience reaction seemed very sparse, so I don’t think it captured the connection you mention. To each his own.

Posted by Jack on 05/22  at  01:21 AM

The problem with modern comedy nowadays is two-fold.  On the one hand, there are very few comedy venues out there, and they all cater to middle-of-the-road tastes.  Back in the ‘salad days’ of 80s/90s stand up there was actually a better variety of venues in NYC and small clubs could survive catering to a niche market and not having to worry about paying rent or turning a profit as they do nowadays.

On the other hand, more and more people are simply—for lack of a better word—technological agoraphobics. More people are content waiting at home for NetFlix and Fresh Direct than having to make the effort to go outside and see some comedy in person.  So the audience for live performances is even smaller.  Heck, Dane Cook rose to stardom because of his MySpace presence alone; which is inspiring and distiurbing at the same time.

So there you have it.  The main reason that creative comedians like Eugene Mirman can’t really do their thing in comedy clubs.  I think he does a pretty good job cutting it the way he does, but I reallly wish more local venues had comedy nights instead of local folksinger/songstress/bartender’s girlfriend performing acoustic melodies night.  Lord knows we don’t need another acoustic night.

Hey! Maybe the MTA can book comedians to perform underground.  Hook them up with a drummer who can do a rimshot and that’s a recipe for subterranean entertainment!

Posted by drew on 05/22  at  10:29 PM

I find it amazing that there are people who don’t find Eugene funny. He’s a brilliant writer and has one of the most easy going, pleasant deliveries this side of Drew Carrey. Also, Todd, you desperately need a proof-reader. I loved reading this interview, but was hung up by all the typos! I mean I guess I can figure out what you’re getting at when you say, “I talked Patton and it interesting” but it really detracts from the piece.

Posted by Sami Shah on 05/23  at  06:24 AM

I really like Eugene’s material. Haven’t heard his CD but heard a set he did at Caroline’s (downloaded it). I loved it. My other comedian friend loved it. And my non-comic friends were indifferent.

I actually really respect someone who isn’t interested in performing in a comfortable/safe venue like a comedy club and is willing to try reaching different audiences. In Pakistan we have no comedy clubs and so we basically perform wherever we can get an audience. Usually ANY audience will do. To see someone take that kind of risk despite having the option of the safe route is interesting.

Posted by Carol on 05/24  at  09:19 PM

Eugene is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of my favorite comedians.  Mike Birbiglia truly described him best.  I’ve seen Eugene live three times (I don’t live in NY otherwise those numbers would be much, much higher) and each time he really did connect with the audience in special way.  He’s right about the difference between people coming to see a specific comedian rather than comedy in general.  It makes the whole show really warm and wonderful. 
On an unrelated note, Todd, if you need someone to proof-read your interviews before posting, I’d be happy to lend a hand.

Todd Jackson
Posted by Todd Jackson on 06/13  at  02:36 PM

Sorry took so long to respond the comments here. All of them, great.

Jack - You’re pretty on point about performance venues… if you’re paying so much to get in, you can’t really do risky material. You have to make sure as many people as possible are coming along. I occasionally also fit that technological agoraphobe you speak of… the Internet is going to make a lot more comics than Dane Cook (and it’s kinda of a good thing, since many people don’t have access to very diverse comedy where they live).

Drew - You’re absolutely right. I do need a proof-reader. Transcribing these interviews takes time and when I’m finished, I don’t particularly want to reread at that moment. I’m enlisting my wife to catch a few of my mistakes but I’m thinking I may well take Carol up on her offer here. (see below)

Sami - What you are doing is inspiring. It’s impressive that you’re carving out a spot for humor in a place that doesn’t even have comedy clubs. The do-it-yourself aestetic is what let to comedy clubs in the first place. And just think, in 20 years hopefully, there’ll be people trying to make alternative venues to the places you’re founding…

Carol - I absolutely appreciate the offer and you’ll be seeing an email shortly about it.

Thanks for the comments all. And keep them coming. I’m going to me more on top of them for now on.

Posted by Cole on 07/24  at  03:30 AM

I was at that show in Champaign, IL that Patton mentioned.  The drunk girl nearly ruined Eugene’s set.  She was shivved in the neck after the show.

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