Guest Blogger: Indie Comedy Rocks, But What’s the ‘Alternative?’

Eugene Mirman at the Paradise
in March

A sidebar to Part I of Lucas Lewis's series on local comedy. Lewis will be recording a set Friday at The Gas at Great Scott. - Nick

By Lucas Lewis

JAMAICA PLAIN — On a warm night in late April, a crowd assembles in the living room of the Whitehaus, a three-story Victorian in Jamaica Plain that has been putting on rock shows in its basement, and in this particular parlor, for the last few years.

Only on this occasion, music is merely the sideshow: The main act is the Union Square Round Table (unionsquareroundtable.com), a comedic variety show that started in Somerville and is normally held at PA’s Lounge in the show’s eponymous square the last Friday of each month.

PA’s accidentally double-booked this month, so the show moved to Somerville’s progressive counterpart on the other side of the river, JP. It turns out to be a fortuitous move. The room is packed with first-timers, and it’s a younger crowd than the USRT typically attracts. Rockers. Hipsters. Bohemians. Other JP stereotypes seemingly come to life.

Keira Horowitz, who has been involved with the show for most of its five years, is encouraged by the turnout. Before she goes onstage to talk about her personal history of Jamaica Plain, she says the group will probably try other locales, too.

Eugene Mirman, a successful comedian (see “The Studio” and “Onward”), former Somervillian and friend of a few of the group’s founding members, used to perform at the show with some regularity, and Horowitz confesses that until recently, she assumed he was their primary draw. Tonight’s show is evidence to the contrary.

In some ways, the USRT is the kind of cerebral, multimedia variety show you might expect from an educated collective of 20- and 30-somethings: smart (if obscure) impressions, oddball videos, faux professorial lectures aided by PowerPoint and an overhead projector.

But then there are unexpected wrinkles, too, like the married musical duo Cotton Candy performing flawless renditions of actual commercial jingles from years past, or the chocolate pudding cooked in the kitchen over the course of the show and served at the end by the mustachioed Round Table knight TD Sidell.

Unlike many of the comedy shows around town, none of the featured players seemed to be trying to “make it” in comedy.

“The Union Square Round Table is seven-or-so people who are mostly embarrassed by comedy but try to do it anyway,” USRT member Chris Braiotta writes in an email. “We try to avoid a lot of things, but we especially try to avoid being too much like dudes. We are all millionaires, which takes a lot of pressure off.”

House shows (sometimes called “basement shows,” for obvious reasons) have been a staple of the underground music scene for years, and the Whitehaus is one of the best known and longest-running establishments in the city in this regard. Its proprietors try not to publicize the exact location lest they draw the ire of the police — “ask a punk” is the classic, though now somewhat ironically invoked, phrase affixed to flyers where an address might otherwise be printed.

There seems little chance of the cops coming tonight; people are sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Basement comedy shows are less common, though this hardly an isolated incident. For a time, the comedian Jenny Zigrino and her housemates held the King Cobra Comedy Night not far from here on Greenough Street — in their living room.

Like “indie rock,” “indie” or “alternative comedy” are rather amorphous terms that encapsulate a broad range of styles. Alternative comedy is the more dated of the two, beginning with comedians like Janeane Garofalo and now synonymous with comics like Patton Oswalt.

“Alternative comedy wasn’t really a specific style, there was just a sincerity and an energy to what people were doing, and it wasn’t trying to find the lowest common denominator to get on TV,” says Rick Jenkins of its origins, which mirrored the growth of his club, The Comedy Studio. “Ironically, all those people ended up on TV because they were so good and unique and different.”

It might not have a clear definition, but it can still be useful shorthand, especially when it comes to describing the types of comedy that are on the rise in Boston. According to comedy writer Nick Zaino III, Oswalt has described alternative comedy as merely what happens when neither the performer nor audience have a preconceived notion of what standup comedy should be.

Sometimes it means a comedian whose material is unorthodox or pushes the envelope. Sometimes it's as simple as doing a standup show in a rock club.

“I think at one point it, like music, it started as a term that meant as an alternative to mainstream,” says Mirman. “But the truth is comedy clubs are a creation of the 70's or 80's. Most of the places I do stuff (now) have music or trivia.”

And sometimes they're just a living room.

Gallery and Review: Eugene Mirman's Pretty Good Friends At the Paradise

Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani, Tom Allen, and
Eugene Mirman at the Pretty Good Friends show
Tuesday at the Paradise

There is an amazing consistency to Eugene Mirman’s shows. Mirman kicked off his Pretty Good Friends tour at the Paradise in Boston last night, but it could have been a show at The Comedy Studio or the Green Street Grill, both places he used to host when he was here. That is to say, it was a night of comics who shared an obvious familiarity and comfort with each other, and a crowd that was up for whatever they presented.

Mirman hosts a version of Pretty Good Friends regularly in New York, and this is a brief, one-week tour before Mirman heads out to the SXSW festival in Austin. His guests are Reggie Watts, whom Mirman called a “vocal trapeze artist,” Kumail Nanjiani, and Tom Allen. The group started the show with a kind of informal, onstage conversation, during which Nanjiani noted that there isn’t really any reason the four of them should even know each other. Nanjiani is of Pakistani descent, Watts is black, and Allen is English and gay (double minority!). Mirman noted they almost called it the “Accidentally Diverse Tour.”

All four were different personalities, but there was a sort of shared sensibility of being something other, or outside. They apparently had a fun time walking around Harvard Square together yesterday afternoon, drawing some strange looks. Didn’t help that Watts had decided to lumber around hunched over, his knuckles close to dragging on the ground, and surprise people by hiding in bushes.

Allen talked about bringing a monogrammed briefcase to school as a child, which only added to his sense of being different from his schoolmates. One kid said he would knock him to the ground. Allen’s solution? Just lay down before he had to take a punch, and no one can knock you down. Kumail spoke of being called “Kumar” as a slur, which is unfortunately close to his real name. He wants to become famous enough that his name becomes the thing the racists use to yell at other people, then he can be happy when they recognize him. Mirman said he always wanted to be the kind of comic who could toss out one-liners while playing guitar or piano, but has no musical ability. His solution? Read some Tweets while playing theremin.

Watts is the most obviously strange of the bunch. His comedy was less about the meaning of his words and more about keeping the audience off balance using mainly the sound of his voice. He took on the voice of a professor giving a conference lecture, launching into convincing sounding scientific gibberish. Then, just when the audience was comfortable with that cadence, Watts changed into some harder-sounding accent (New York? New Jersey?), changing back and forth seamlessly. That was before he went to his music rig, a couple of boxes on a stool that allowed him to record loops of his own voice and play them back on the fly. With those, he was able to build a strikingly accurate parody of a Radiohead song. It’s more about the breath than the voice, he explained.

As odd as any comedian might have gotten, it never felt like the audience was being held at a distance. Mirman had a volunteer up onstage for a bit where he pretended to be an alien and made her explain speed dating. He gave fake mustaches to everyone in the crowd so he could take a photo of it from the stage. Whenever anyone shouted, it was acknowledged by the comic and the set moved on. Other than one woman who seemed a bit confused about why she had yelled in the first place, no one seemed interested in interrupting the kind of apartment party atmosphere. Which is a nice feat to pull off in a club that holds several hundred people.

A few images from the evening:

Nanjiani, Allen, and Mirman discuss their day walking
around Harvard Square.

Tom Allen describes his experience with
playground bullies.

Tom Allen, star of The Cut and The Correspondent,
whom Mirman introduced with his U.K. credits.

Nanjiani, puzzled by Freddy Kruger's racism.

Nanjiani thinks Harry Potter is the best case scenario
for a transfer student.

Mirman Tweets and theremins.

The crowd wearing their new mustaches.

Reggie Watts grooves.

Watts improvises Radiohead.

Watts and his effects rig.

Watts riffs from behind the curtain
for no apparent reason.

Local Comedy Around the Web

Just a few links to keep you updated on comedy stories around the Web with local ties:

1. Dave Russo in Wicked Local Tewksbury: A straight profile of Russo.

2. Tommy Savitt on Tahoe.com: Savitt won the Boston Comedy Festival competition a couple of years ago (the Festival is back August 29th). Here, Howie Nave tells the story of how Savitt almost didn't make it to Boston to begin with.

3. The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival at The Brooklyn Vegan: The line-up for Mirman's festival, which takes place in Brooklyn September 17-20, with videos, and a bit of new about the new Mirman album on Sub Pop.

4. Paul Mecurio in Punchline Magazine: Punchline talks to Mecurio about his new Web series, Got No Game with Paul Mecurio, the REd Sox, and Boston's self-esteem problem.

5. Dane Cook announced a show at Madison Square Garden on his own Web site. The show will be part of the New York Comedy Festival, and happens November 5. It's called Dane Cook and Friends, but his site doesn't identify the "friends."

6. Jay Leno in the Boston Globe and theBoston Herald: Leno stopped by Emerson last week for a free show (not open to the public) and talked about his new NBC show, which premieres this fall.

Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal plan for Boston

Eugene Mirman and hats? Kristen Schaal and ice cream? Hands touching hands? All of these non questions are non answered in this mutual video interview between Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal about their show at the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre Saturday.

The Bostonist at AltCom: videos and reviews

This past weekend's AltCom seemed to me a great success. I attended almost every show, and there were a couple of packed houses, most notably for the Steamy Bohemians and Jerkus Circus at the Burren and at the Somerville Theatre for the early show headlined by Janeane Garofalo.

The Bostonist was there, too, and got some video of the performances. If you didn't go, here's a bit of what you missed:

Jamie Kilstein at the Somerville Theatre.

Leo Allen at the Somerville Theatre.

Rob Riggle at the Somerville Theatre, plus interview.

Eugene Mirman defines alternative comedy, plus interview.

And here's the Bostonist's review of Garofalo show.

Rob Riggle on comedy, the Marines, and AltCom

It’s a unique resume – Rob Riggle: comedian, actor, Marine. But somehow, Riggle manages to juggle all three, with a family to boot. Riggle left The Daily Show in December, and he’s still busy booking film work and touring as a stand-up comedian. That’s in addition to the announcement that he will soon earn the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves.

I spoke with Riggle by phone last week as he was arriving in Atlanta for a film shoot, for a piece that appeared in the Sunday Boston Globe. But I wound up with a lot of interesting interview material that didn’t fit, so I give it to you here. Riggle is on tonight’s 10PN show at the Somerville Theatre with the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Ian Moore, and Eugene Mirman.

Are you fairly busy with film work now that you’ve left The Daily Show?

I’m kind of doing a lot of things, actually. I’m doing some film work, which I’m very happy to get. I’ve been out doing stand-up around the country a lot. Still do improv, whenever I get a chance. At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles or New York, I always pop in and go back to my roots and do improv. It always feels good to do that. I shot a couple of episodes of Gary Unmarried for CBS which will be airing in May, May 6th and the 13th.

Is that character Mitch going to be recurring?

Possibly. Yeah, possibly. I think there’s a strong possibility. We’re trying to figure that out, as well, because I also have a development deal with CBS and we’re in the process of developing a show for myself. So we’ll see what happens there.

Is that why you left The Daily Show?

Honestly, I could have stayed on The Daily Show for a long, long time. I could have stayed on there many more years. I loved it there. I love John Oliver, I love Jon Stewart, and all the correspondents and the writers. It was a really, really good place, and I still have a really wonderful relationship with everybody there. It’s just that I was living apart from my family for the two and a half years that I was on the show. I was commuting. And it just was too much. I needed to be home with my family.

You were balancing that and balancing a career in the Marine Corps Reserve. How does that fit into everything?

Well, that is a good question. It’s exhausting. I have to get in a certain amount of days every year for the Reserves every year. So I spend a lot of vacation doing Marine Corps drill.

What does that entail for you at this point?

It can be anything. It could be me going to train other Marines or I could, myself, go to training. I spent a year going to Command and Staff College, which most officers, you have to go to. It’s a requisite school. Or I could go work at a public affairs office in New York or in Los Angeles.

How much time is that?

I think it comes down to 38 days, I owe them.

Thirty-eight days each year?

Yeah. Thirty-eight days a year, minimum. I can give them more. I usually come in anywhere between 38 and 45 days.

Where did comedy come in – before or after the Marine Corps?

I was a theater and film major at the University of Kansas. And I was voted most humorous in my senior class in high school. I’ve always had a passion for comedy. I’ve always been a student of it. I love it. It’s always been there. But when you graduate as a theater and film major, you’re pretty much consigning yourself to being a waiter for ten years out of college. I also flew planes when I was an undergrad. I had my pilot’s license when I was at KU. So I got a guaranteed aviation contract with the Marine Corps. So I thought being Top Gun might be a little better than being a waiter. That’s how I ended up going down the Marines path.

What year was that?

That would have been ’92, when I graduated. I got down that road, and then I realized, if I didn’t try comedy, I would regret it the rest of my life. And I couldn’t live with that. So I just gave up flying for the Marines and asked to be reassigned to fill my ground contract instead of my aviation contract, and once that duty was up, I was going to go to Chicago and study at Second City. I was going to try comedy, come heck or highwater, whether I failed or succeeded. At least I’d know, you know.

Who did you have to tell in the Marines to day, I want to leave the Marines and try comedy? And what was that conversation like?

Well, I didn’t quite put it like that. I don’t think that would have been well received. I was a couple of months away from getting my wings and I realized had I gotten my wings, I would have been committed to a life of aviation, probably. And I couldn’t do it. So I requested to leave flight school and be reassigned on the ground side, and they did. Which, it shortened my commitment. I still had to do three more years, and I did. And while I did those three years, I went to night school and I got a graduate degree in public administration.

Where did you go for that?

Westchester University. Tried to make good use of my time, anyway. And then, that’s where I got interested in politics and city government and municipalities. But that’s a whole other story. Anyway. But then when I was getting out, after I’d done my ground tour, they said, what would it take for you to stay in? And I said, not much, because I’m going to go do comedy. Which they… couldn’t believe. I said, look, if you sent me to New York City or Los Angeles, I would extend on active duty. And the next morning, I had orders for New York City.

So I extended on active duty for another three years and I went to Manhattan, and I worked in an office in Manhattan, the Marine Corps Public Affairs Office, right there in Manhattan. It was basically an eight to five job, like everybody else. And then at night I would leave from the office and go straight down to do comedy anywhere in New York City that would let me. I found a home in the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. I learned improv and studied and watched them. I just loved what they were doing, and I spent the next seven years studying there before I caught the breaks.

So it was ’92 when you first left the Marines for the Reserves?

No, that’s when I took my commission, was ’92. I left flight school in ’95. then I did six more years, active duty, and left active duty in 2000. I went in the reserves in 2000, but then I was called back in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan. I was reactivated there. And then when I for back from there in 2002, in the fall of 2002, I picked up my comedy career and carried on.

When was it that you landed The Daily Show?

Well, I got Saturday Night Live first. I got that in 2004. After Saturday Night Live I went out to California because I had a deal with NBC, a development and holding deal. And then the year after that, in 2006, I got The Daily Show.

When were you in Liberia and Kosovo?

I was in Liberia in 1996. During the Atlanta Olympics, basically. I remember watching some of the Olympics from the embassy weight room there in Liberia. Then I was in Kosovo in 1999. I was pulled from my New York duties and sent over there.

Where was it you got the Combat Action Ribbon?

That would have been in Kosovo.

Was there a specific action that that was for?

There were a couple actually. A lot of people on the MEU, that Marine Expeditionary Unit, there were many different days when we were engaged, shot at. There were many different times. I don’t know if it was one specific or whatever, I just know that it was a couple different incidents.

Once you got back into the world of comedy where people are making fun of foreign policy decisions and talking about this sort of thing from a fairly removed point of view, how did you move in that world? What were your thoughts?

You know, it’s tricky. It was a little bit of push and pull. I thought I had a pretty good perspective on it, as far as understanding both sides. I could understand arguments made for both cases. I think that’s why it’s such a difficult issue for the country, because a reasonable person, I think, can see what happened, what led us to where we were, and why things we did were right or wrong. There’s arguments to be made on both sides.

Did you feel trapped in the middle? The assumption is that The Daily Show is a very liberal place, I don’t know if you would agree with that to begin with. And the assumption is that the Marines, everyone is very conservative. Neither of those assumptions might be correct.

I think what you just said is very accurate. I think neither one of those assumptions would be one hundred percent correct. I think that’s probably a fair assumption. I think anyone who thinks the Marines are hardcore conservative, I think that would be inaccurate. And I think anyone who thinks The Daily Show is hardcore leftwing or something, I think that would be inaccurate as well.

Did one side ask about the other? Did you get a lot of curiosity from The Daily Show folks about the Marines and from friends in the Marines about The Daily Show?

Yeah, there’s always a healthy curiosity, but there was never any challenge, I never felt like anybody was angry. I never felt like I was under threat or anything like that.

That’s not necessarily what I was asking. I was just wondering if there was a level of curiosity on both sides.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Definitely. And it led to a lot of very interesting conversations.

I think you could see that in – well, saying “your character” on The Daily Show, I’m not sure if that would be a characterization…

Yeah. It would be. [laughs] I don’t’ go steamrolling through life like I did on The Daily Show.

In comedy, it’s so tough to make assumptions, because some people’s character, every once in a while I’ll ask somebody about a stand-up routine and say, what was the real story there, and they’ll say, what do you mean? I told the story, that was the story.

I think it’s different, too, because when I do my stand-up, my stories are, I’d say, 95 percent true. I may embellish a little for comedic purposes, but the stories themselves actually happened. But when I’m doing a character and I’m on the Daily Show and I’m being bombastic or whatever, that’s not generally how Rob Riggle would go through life or how he would talk to somebody.

Do you feel that carries a bit more weight, because you’ve actually been to these places and had a bit more intimate an experience?

Perhaps. I couldn’t say, because I’d have to leave that to other people’s interpretation of them. But perhaps. I know when I went over to Iraq for The Daily Show, it definitely helped me having served overseas. It really helped me understand what was going on better. I just had the feeling, I felt like I had my finger on the pulse maybe a little bit better than some other folks that might have gone over there, they might have just let things blow by.

Did you get that assignment because of that previous experience?

I got the assignment because I requested it. I asked for it. I went in, sat down, and talked to Jon and said I want to do this, and Jon said, absolutely. And I said okay. That was it.

Did it exist before, or did you say, I want to go to Iraq?

That’s how it started. I found a field producer who was willing to go, and I pitched it to him and he said yes, and we both went in and sat down with Jon and said this is what we want to do. And he said, are you really, really sure? We said yeah, and he said all right.

By the way, congratulations on the promotion. I saw that at the end of The Daily Show.

That was very nice of them. I had no idea that they were going to do that. It was very unexpected and very nice.

When did that actually happen?

I was selected for promotion. I am a Lieutenant Colonel selectee, which means they come out with the list of everybody who’s going to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserves. And now, they go by number, your ranking, whatever your number is, and you get promoted, each month, they promote x amount of people, throughout the year. I have a very low number, which means I probably should be promoted in either May or June.

I’ll try to find a way to say that in ten words or less when I write this up.

He’s a Lieutenant Colonel Select who will probably pin on the rank in May or June.

Okay. That’s much more concise than the words that were flowing through my head to try to describe it. SO when you come to Boston, are you going to be doing mostly sketch or stand-up?

I’m under the impression that I will be coming there to do stand-up. That’s what I’ll be there to do. However, the Upright Citizens Brigade will be there, and I’m really good friends with all those guys. I’ve spent the last ten years playing with those guys and hanging out with them, so if I get the chance, I would love to do improv with them. We’ll see what they’re doing.

Yes, it’s actually the same show that you’re on at the Somerville Theatre with Eugene Mirman and Ian Moore.

Eugene is so funny. I’m looking forward to just watching his show.

He had a show come through here, Wes and Eugene’s Cabinet of Wonders with John Wesley Harding a little while ago which was a pretty fantastic show.

I could imagine. I could imagine. Eugene is just uber-talented.

The thing people don’t see of him, he used to work with Tony V all the time up here, and it was off the cuff all the time, and I don’t think fans are used to seeing him just going up onstage with absolutely nothing and just seeing what comes out of his head. It’s a pretty special moment.

That’s an awesome skill to have.

I wonder if there are skills you could apply to both the Marines and improv, or if that’s stretching thing.

I don’t know. The ability to think on your feet may be the only crossover. Other than that, they might be pretty much mutually exclusively.

The situations in which you would have to think on your feet, probably much different.

Yes, absolutely.

Remembering where somebody has designated a table, versus what to do if a grenade rolls anywhere near you. Different skills.

A little bit higher stakes, maybe.

Depending on your fear of public humiliation.

Right.

Review: Wes & Eugene's Cabinet of Wonders at the Brattle 3/26

John Wesley Harding and Eugene Mirman seem like an odd pair – one is an English-born folk/rock singer and writer heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, the other is a Russian-born comedian who took his early cues from Emo Philips. But they meshed beautifully together, with the help of a few noteworthy friends, Thursday night at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge presenting their traveling variety show, Wes & Eugene’s Cabinet of Wonders.

The show was both heady and silly, featuring writers Tom Perrotta, Rick Moody, and David Gates, musicians Tanya Donelly, and P.T. Walkley, poet David Daniel, and comedian Larry Murphy. Harding assembled the whole group onstage to start out, introducing each guest in a poem and setting a sort of impish tone. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves right from the start, ambling onto the stage looking game for whatever the show turned out to be.

John Wesley Harding and Eugene Mirman Plan Their Cabinet of Wonders



What it turned out to be was a true variety show. Mirman did a couple of sets of comedy, Harding did a couple of sets of music, drawing heavily from his new rock album, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Perrotta and Moody both read pieces about food – Perrotta regarding his less than adventurous palette and Moody about how cheese equals death and is therefore eternal and indispensible. Murphy did his newbie comic character (something he’s been perfecting for years – I won’t spoil the surprise if you can see him do it).

Mirman showed a few videos and told the story of his epic battle with Delta Airlines over his lost luggage (he was eventually compensated, and used the money to buy post cards pre-addressed to Delta Airlines demanding a televised apology), and a couple of bits from his recent book tour for The Will to Whatevs. For local fans, he also brought back his spoof of the Boston.com television campaign from a couple of years ago.

But there was also a bit of mixing and matching, with Harding at the center. Moody and Gates sang harmonies with him, Walkley backed him up for a couple of tunes, and Harding even got Mirman to sing “Mrs. Robinson” with him. He accompanied Tanya Donelly, who started with a shimmering “Moon Over Boston,” a song she sang at Harding’s request (he said he had seen her do it at the Middle East years ago and loved it).

Tanya Donelly and John Wesley Harding "Moon Over Boston"



The night ended with everyone back onstage again, singing “We Are the World style,” as Harding put it, a song Harding wrote that was inspired by Eugene. I got video of this, but so as not to spoil it for those who might be catching the tour at a later date, I won’t be posting it yet.

Here are the rest of the tour dates:

Wed, Apr 1 -- The Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
Thu, Apr 2 -- Missisiippi Studios, Portland, OR
Sat, Apr 4 -- Largo, Los Angeles, CA
Sun, Apr 5 -- The Independent, San Francisco, CA
Thu, Apr 9 -- Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN
Fri, Apr 10-- Shuba's, Chicago, IL
Sat, Apr 11-- High Noon Saloon, Madison, WI
Wed, Apr 15-- Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY

Wes & Eugene's Cabinet of Wonders, Tonight at the Brattle

If you haven't already gotten your tickets to tonight's Cabinet of Wonders show at the Brattle, don't wait to try to get them at the door. Eugene Mirman packed the Brookline Booksmith at last month's reading of The Will to Whatevs, and with all of the talent on the bill for Wonders, it's sure to sell out.

I spoke with Mirman about the show, and his book, in February. You can read the interview here.

This is the line-up, from the Brattle site.

John Wesley Harding (musician)
Eugene Mirman (comedian)
Tanya Donelly (musician)
Rick Moody (writer/musician)
P.T. Walkley (musician)
Tom Perotta (writer)
David Daniel (poet)
Larry Murphy (comedian)

That's a lot of talent, with a decidedly local bent. I'm especially happy to see Larry Murphy doing a set. He's the voice behind Assy McGee, a guilty pleasure of mine since I interviewed him about it for the Globe when it started in 2006.

Here's a bit of Murphy at work:

Alt.Com Releases Line-up for May Festival

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Eugene Mirman Reads Things He Wrote Tomorrow In Boston

Since starting out at the Comedy Studio in the late 90s, Eugene Mirman has covered a lot of ground. He’s gotten attention for strange bits like the “Marvelous Crooning Child” on his Web site – a picture of Mirman as a child that sings classic rock songs. He’s written and directed short films, played supporting roles in TV shows like Flight of the Conchords and the new Adult Swim show Delocated, and toured with the Comedians of Comedy. So it’s no surprise that he’d have a lot of general life advice to offer. That’s what he does in his new book, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, in which he teaches you to survive dating, politics, stardom, and whatever you feel is an impediment to achieving the perfect life.

He’ll read from the book tomorrow at 7PM at Brookline Booksmith, and come back to Boston March 26 with Wes and Eugene’s Cabinet of Wonders, a variety show starring Mirman and John Wesley Harding, with author Rick Moody, former Boston comic Larry Murphy, and a few other surprises. He’s also working on his third album, the follow-up to The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman and En Garde, Society!, which he recorded in Chicago in November. It’s expected to arrive later this summer from Sub Pop. I caught up with him by phone from New York this week.

So what possessed you to write a self-help book?

It seemed like a good idea. Well, it came out of the fact that I did an advice column on my site and then I made little books that I’d sell on tour from the advice column. And then from that little book, it led to writing sort of a fake self-help book.

How much of the book came from those, or did you write something completely different?

Totally different. But the idea of it, originally I pitched just sort of me answering a Dear Abby book, all ridiculous. And then it sort of morphed into this bigger project that was this fake guide to life.

You cover a lot of ground in it. Was there a temptation to take one particular topic and parody it?

No. The book has lots of elements of various self-help books or inspirational books, but it’s not a parody of any one thing. No, it wasn’t like I really wanted to only do politics or love or something. I kind of like that I would write about how to start a business and how to be in a band, how to get married, all this different stuff. I especially enjoyed writing the stuff I knew the least about, like raising a family.

I was going to say, at the risk of sounding somewhat ignorant, did you do any research for this?

In a sense I did a great deal of research because I wanted to get certain things a little bit wrong. So to do that, I had to find out the actual thing, like what happened to Bernard Goetz or random things, like the details for the Beatles. But I’ll just make some joke about something that happened in 1962.

It seems like, especially in the timelines, there was some research put into when things actually happened, which may have been completely and utterly ignored by the time you wrote it.

Yes. Basically a lot of that stuff, the formations of countries and things, I found out exactly when a language or various things happened only to make a joke about it. But in a sense, as a result, I read a lot about Dr. Spock and raising children and the Tammany Hall Machine. Just lots of random stuff. And all to goof around.

How did you pick out specific things? I mean, you must have been aware of Dr. Spock and Tammany Hall.

Yeah, I would just research the history of education or when people first started suggesting how to raise children other than the Bible. Certain things became prominent and certain ideas became prominent. Some things I had vague ideas on, and sometimes I’d be right or wrong. But then I would read about them.

There’s a hint of autobiography in certain stories and a lot of places in Massachusetts come up. Are most of those bits true?

Anything that sounds like it’s true probably is. Everything that involved a thing that happened to me in high school or on a date is true. Everything that involves me advising John F. Kennedy is probably false.

Probably.

Yes. If it involves a rock star from the 70s, I most probably made it up. And if it involves a girl from 1987, it’s probably true.

There’s a sort of wonderfully disorienting effect of that, when you read four or five sentences about something from your childhood, and then something comes completely out of left field.

Yes. I kind of wanted it to be a mix of truth and made up things and to not have any distinction between the two. So yeah, everything is half lies. But half truth. Seamlessly.

Are there any self-help books you think are worthwhile?

You know, actually, supposedly a lot of them are. I have a friend who teaches psychology and philosophy and he was saying that actually self-help books help people about as much as therapy. I got a bunch of self-help books when I started doing this, looking at them, and it is funny, because a lot of them will say the obvious thing, which is the thing you should do. Everything comes down to having a good self-image and not being addicted to drugs. And not getting into abusive relationships, whether they are emotional or physical. Obviously, you shouldn’t get into a physically abusive relationship. But it’s funny because a lot of books will just go, like, “Hey, tell your parents to stop being mean to you. And tell them that it hurts your feelings and it makes you eat a lot.” It’s funny, because a lot of it is very obvious, but it’s still very helpful to read it for people.

There were some books that had a tone that I probably made fun of at times. It’s sort of smart alecky and self-aware. Just kind of casual in a very silly way. Like, “Whatevs,” that sort of tone, a lot of things will use to show you that they’re down to earth. When they tell you about leaving your abusive relationship.

I love the use of jargon, “mind-thinkers,” and all those phrases that sound like they could be ripped right from those books.

Yes, a lot of those books had, they’d all make up things, they all treated it seriously. They’d create their own jargon. And a lot of them had lots of quotes. Many of them had two quotes – they’d quote Shakespeare and then they’d quote Jay-Z, and it was to show you just their true depth of world information. I thought that was really funny, very silly. Trying to prove, “Hey, I know about books and about music.”

Did you take anything directly from those?

No, but reading all those quotes is what led to me making up my own quotes from my own books and things, some of which have a casual tone and some of which have a fake Confucius tone.

I thought that was pretty brilliant, as well.

There’s also something to that that pokes fun at the arrogance of some of these books, where the tone is one of such grand knowledge. And some of which is very true, it’s just still funny. This real truth-talking tone of some of the books is funny to me.

I thought you also managed to capture your onstage comic voice very well, which is not something that seems easy for a lot of comedians who write a book to do.

I’d been writing various things, I did a column for the Voice online for a while, and I would articles and stuff. So I’d become somewhat used to trying to write in my voice translated into print. I think what made me pitch the book in the first place was I thought that I could do that. I thought that it would work out.

It’s not, as one might think, as easy as talking into a tape recorder and writing down what you would say. There’s an interpretation there, which is a leap that a lot of comedians don’t make when they write a book.

Right. I think that’s why I have so many parenthesis and dashes, bullet points, that sort of thing. I think that that kind of structure, along with the visual things, help model the book in a way that my voice would translate to.

When you go to readings like the one at the Brookline Booksmith, do you read from the book or do you –

I do. I don’t read a ton. Short is often better. But I will read a little bit from my book. And it’s funny, because if you read it, it works very much, but when I try to come up with things that are written so quickly, to actually say them is a little bit hard. I think it’s a little clumsy because it’s so much at once. But if you read it, you can just read along and read it in the right tone. But if I mess up a word or pause wrong, then it messes the joke up. But I pick parts that I read specifically to blow people away. No longer an issue. But I was a little nervous to read something that had, like, 15 asides.

Do you do any stand-up in between?

What I do is I do a PowerPoint presentation with a video and then I read from the book and then I do a Q&A. And then I sign books for people.

I’m not sure how you’d feel about this as a compliment, but it reminded me of when I was in high school reading Dave Barry’s books, and I used to laugh out loud and want to read them to my neighbors and other people, who would then get angry and tell me to quit reading my book to them.

Other than the part where you use my book to annoy people, I really like what you said.

It does seem really quotable.

I did want to write a book where, I mean, it’s almost funny, because I don’t know if I really ever intended for anyone to sit down and read the whole thing. Just like I doubt Mark Twain wanted that. I kind of thought of it as something you could read from the beginning or you could just open it and start reading from the middle, or you’d read little parts of it periodically throughout your life as you needed to laugh and forget about the failure of government.

Is it something you think you’d do again?

I would maybe. I think that as I did it, I learned a lot from doing it. I think that I would ask someone to give me a huge bag full of money first. It should be a box, I guess, but a bag is easier.

But yeah, I think that I would do it. The thing about it is that it took years. It was very rewarding, it was very fun. But also it was this crazy large project.

Are you glad to have it out there in the world, and –

I’m very glad that I did it and I’m very glad that it’s out there. Similarly to making albums and stuff, I like the idea of making things that are out in the world and having these products, these artistic, like, completed creations. And I like that I have things in lots of different mediums. I like doing different sort of things.

I wanted to ask you about the term absurdist –

Did you say “absurdist” or “observant?”

“Absurdist,” which you apply to your own comedy on your album and I’ve heard a lot of people apply to you.

You’ll notice, by the way, that you heard them apply it to me after I put it in the title of an album. Which, as a note to people, is a very convenient way of pigeonholing yourself. So if you ever want to be known as brilliant, your album should just be called “Brilliant.” Because people will be like, “That guy is brilliant.”

“The Brilliant Comedy of…”

Yeah, exactly. “The Brilliant Comedy of Eugene Mirman.” And people will be like, “You’re comedy is brilliant, right?” “Yup, yup. That’s exactly what it is.” I don’t know what gave you the idea, but thank you.

I think I’ll put that in the title of every piece I send in now. “Nick’s Brilliant Piece on Eugene Mirman.”

Yeah. It’ll happen. What was the question about absurd?

You kind of answered it. I was going to ask if it was something you embrace, or is it--- I had actually thought you were poking fun of how people describe you when you named the album.

I think it’s all of it. It’s the same thing as the book. The book is half true, half false. The book is occasionally real advice and occasionally not at all, or fairly dangerous. It makes sense. I think that it’s completely reasonable to say that I’m absurd and my comedy is absurd, and at the same time, probably making fun of it. I sort of like when something is both, when it’s not obviously the thing itself or making fun of it, that it’s sort of this weird combination.

And also the term seems to be thrown around a lot. I notice myself describing things that way, but trying figure out how to get beyond that, to say what in particular. But the nature of absurdist comedy kind of defeats that. You could call Tim and Eric absurdist…

You could do that. You could call us both absurdist and you’d be fairly accurate. But there’s other elements to it. I don’t know that somebody would necessarily know what the comedy was like by hearing that word. You’d need a second word. Or a third.

I also wanted to ask you about the show you’re doing with John Wesley Harding.

He was just at my home and we were working on it.

Are you doing things together, it’s not like a one, two thing where you do what you do then he does what he does?

It is all of it. It is me doing what I do, him doing what he does, us having friends do stuff, and then us doing a few bits together.

How did you come to know him? Is he a New York guy?

Yes. We grew up on the Isle of Wight together. I met him several years ago when him and Scott McCaughey played Tinkle, which was a show a show that David Cross, Todd Barry, and Jon Benjamin used to do together in New York. He lived not far from me, and I think that I would ask him sometimes to do shows of mine, and we would meet up sometimes. And he recently, maybe this fall, he recorded this live CD and had different musicians and things do stuff, and he asked me if I would introduce it and do a little comedy bit. And it was at Union Hall where I do this show every week.

And then after I did it, it was really fun, I said that we should consider doing a tour, a tour of stuff, together. And he put together this variety show in New York that I did something on and Jonathan Ames read, and Rick Moody, and guest musicians. And it was sort of this variety show called the Cabinet of Wonders. He sang some songs and did some songs with some of his guest musicians and then people read, and I did some comedy, there was a ventriloquist. And then out of that, we decided to take that out on the road and have different guests in different cities. ‘

I know I’m probably missing a million things that you’re up to.

That’s okay. Who can keep track?

How do keep track of it yourself? I know you’re doing a guest spot on a live action show on Adult Swim…

I finished shooting Conchords and that and I’m now about to mostly on tour. I recorded a third album, which I have to edit together and figure out what will be included from the recordings. That the next big thing that I have to sit and listen and do. But otherwise I’m mostly touring and doing interviews.

Out Today: Eugene Mirman's The Will To Whatevs

Eugene Mirman’s new advice book, The Will To Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, is so helpful, he needs two prefaces and three introductions to prepare you for all of the help. And even that won’t fully prepare you, which is why you need to read the rest of it.

Mirman covers everything you might want to do in life. Want to own the night? Find love? Find a rhythm guitarist? Make millions of dollars off of the ideas of foreigners? Or just get through high school without embarrassing yourself? Mirman packs it all into just over two hundred pages.

According to Mirman, Mirman is in a special class of people like coaches, priests, and psychologists that he calls “Mind Thinkers.” That’s what qualifies him to help you Over-Actualize yourself, and make up words like Defendtastic, that don’t actually mean anything, but help enhance the perception of Mirman’s authority. Each chapter covers a different life question, bolstered by timelines and graphs and quotes from Mirman’s other books (“If no one figures out you are pretending to be retarded, your life will be greeted with treasure.” – Eugene Miman, from his book Inspirational Proverbs for No One in Particular.).

It’s easy to hear Mirman’s comic voice while you’re reading Will to Whatevs. His brand of absurdist misdirection works wonderfully with the concept of a fake (?) advice book. His thoughts on making an impression in high school – “Buy the most expensive jeans in a two-hundred mile radius of your town and wear them on your first day. If anyone asks how you could afford them, say that your father is president of Ashton Kutcher.”

Those who are familiar with Mirman as a stand-up could hear him delivering that line onstage. And since his delivery is so important to the joke, give Mirman a tremendous amount of credit for making that translate in print. That transition is not always easy for a comedian, which is why books just based on a comedian’s act are often lacking punch. Whatevs, though, is the type of book you’ll want to look up from and quote to whoever is around you. Try to resist doing that, though, since, if you’re me, it tends to irritate people.

There are a few treats for Mirman’s Boston fanbase. He talks about growing up and going to school here, and in his list of suggested Halloween costumes, number ten is “Rick Jenkins, founder of the Comedy Studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” I’m not sure what that will mean to the rest of the country, but it should make Boston comedy fans smile.

A few favorite quotes:

On money:
At any given moment you stand at the threshold of opportunity, just a million dollars and a new idea away from having fifty million dollars and the kind of car a Poison groupie would let you punch her in the face to ride in. I will help you cross over that threshold and punch that groupie.

On Condoleezza Rice’s death from a power overdose:
I know she isn’t dead right now, but I am hoping that this book becomes a classic, and when people read it a hundred years from now, they’ll figure that Condoleezza Rice, whoever she was, died from smoking power.

On protesting:
Nothing tells the government to keep doing what they’re doing like a small number of seemingly confused protesters defeated on a street corner. Do not hold a tiny protest, please. Hold only big ones.

On business models:
Either way, don’t forget to “like wear a rubber in the shower,” if you know what I mean, which you don’t, because it’s too complex. So to really understand this, buy my other book, Eugene’s Confusing Analogies, Explained!

On formerly held jobs:
Both law and investment firms are feudal in nature and seem to lack the instinct to treat all employees like people rather than fourteen-dollar-an-hour hookers with no future or teeth.

Random Notes

Mortified is back in Boston tonight, this time at Mottley’s Comedy Club. The show features people (sometimes comedians, sometimes civilians) telling embarrassing stories from their childhood. Show starts at 8PM… News from Eugene Mirman. Mirman looks to have a busy February. He’ll be touring in support of his new book, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, which comes out February 10. He’ll be reading from the book, which Zach Galifianakis likens to “having a tiny Eugene riding on your shoulder and whispering his advice in your ear,” February 25 at Brookline Booksmith. Mirman is also back on Flight of the Conchords, which kicks of Season Two on HBO January 18th, and on a new live action series on Adult Swim called Delocated, in which he plays a Russian hitman and stand-up comedian. That premieres sometime in February… Erin Judge and Ailin Conant will bring their show, The Meaning of Wife, to the Comedy Studio February 2. The show is an exploration of marriage in both a modern and historical context (and, for Judge and Conant, in a personal contect). Proceeds from the Studio performance will benefit arts programs for children in Rwanda ... and Dan Crohn will bring Doug Stanhope to the Hard Rock Café May 15. Sean Sullivan will host, and Crohn and Dave McDonough will also perform.

Stella tapes new DVD at the Wilbur

David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black first started working together as part of the State in the late 80s in New York City. They debuted as Stella at Fez in New York City in 1997. All three live and work in New York. So that would make the obvious place to tape the new Stella live DVD… The Wilbur Theatre in Boston.

The individual members of the group had only a small window to pull something together before they got back to their regular schedules, and booked a short two-week tour schedule, which give them few options. So producer Jon Stern came out to Boston to scope things out, and the plan came together. They will tape the special at Thursday's show.

“We wanted to do it toward the end of the tour and we wanted to do it somewhere cool,” says Wain. “We thought Boston is a great place. We didn’t want to do it in New York where we all live. It just seemed less exciting.”

Stella has had a deal in place with Shout Factory for a while, according to Wain, and wanted to get their live show on tape. “We have DVDs of our shorts and of our series, but we never had one of our touring show,” he says.

Black, Showalter, and Wain have all been working on other projects for the past year and a half. Black has a new book, My Custom Van, and has a new children’s book coming out in January. Both Showalter and Black have worked on pilots for Comedy Central (they have a new one, Michael and Michael Have Issues, on tap for the network). And Wain has been promoting Role Models, which he directed.

For Wain, performing with Stella onstage is a welcome change from the grind of working on a feature film, where a joke might take four years to get from a script to an audience. “The changing of gear is life-saving for me in my creative mind,” says Wain. “I was so emotionally and mentally exhausted after doing the movie, so this is a complete shifting of gears. Better would be a vacation, but that didn’t happen.”

Wain won’t direct the new show – he’ll be too busy onstage, and directing a live performance DVD is a different skill set than directing a feature film. Stella is also a very improvisational act, which makes Wain curious about how it might come out, especially since they essentially have one shot at it.

“If we had the budget I suppose we’d do what U2 would do and shoot like ten shows and then edit them together as if they were one,” he says. “But the DVD viewers will see an authentic record of this one show.”

Wain says Stella has been doing almost all new material on the tour, with some musical and multi-media elements. Since they are taping here, the Wilbur show will be a bit different. “At the Boston show, we’ll be doing a slightly longer show, including some quote-unquote classic material because of the fact that we’re doing it for the DVD,” he says.

The troupe will also bring back Eugene Mirman, who started out in Boston and has been opening for Stella since their first tours in 2003. “Quite simply, we just think he’s funny,” says Wain. “He’s a little offbeat like we are. So the people who like Eugene will like us, and vice versa, in theory. It seems to have worked well.”

The live DVD is expected to come out sometime in the first half of 2009. State fans should also look for a reunion show next month in San Francisco, and there are rumblings about a new State TV special.

Wain is also at the beginning stages of a couple of new film project, which, in all likelihood, will involve his Stella or State-mates. “Pretty much everything I’ve done has been an organic like configuration of friends, usually with some group of people from the State,” he says. “One day I might work with people outside the State, who knows?”