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JANEANE GAROFALO - September 8, 2006
GUY MACPHERSON: Has your relationship with the press
changed since you came over to the dark side and
became a radio host on Air America?
JANEANE GAROFALO: No, no. My relationship is still the
same. My relationship with everything has changed as I
get older. You know, I'm going to be 42, so certainly
my relationship with everything, including the press,
is different than when I started doing standup when I
was 19.
GM: How so?
JG: At first, with everything I was being sarcastic
and it took me a few years to realize it doesn't
translate when you're being sarcastic or ironic. Or
self-deprecating for humour. It doesn't come out
right. And then I realized, when I got to be
middle-aged and I got more involved in political
activism, I realized that the press is woefully,
woefully inadequate when it comes to giving the
readers context or history or true balance. They give
what they call balance or objectivity to truth and a
lie. As for balance as it pertains to the truth and
then the investigative journalist's findings, which
either supports the truth that the interviewer is
telling them, or - and I'm not articulating that
correctly - or points out that what the interviewee is
saying is propagandistic.
GM: Are you talking about only political journalists
or all across the board?
JG: Political.
GM: You must see it in entertainment journalism, as
well.
JG: Entertainment journalism I don't know because I
don't know the people they're interviewing.
GM: Really?!
JG: I don't know that what the entertainment
journalist is saying is propagandistic or true about
Tom Cruise. I don't know him. I do know that they like
to go for sensationalistic stuff and I do know that
they sometimes miss sarcasm and irony as well. But the
entertainment journalist tends to be more friendly to
the interviewee, where the political journalist starts
from the point of origin of antagonism.
GM: How did you work around it when you were
interviewing people on the radio?
JG: Well, when I interviewed people on the radio, the
difference was you're sitting there facing them. It's
much easier and nicer. You could get more in-depth
sitting face to face on the radio. And the listener's
hearing things as they happen instead of people's
words being twisted.
GM: So there's no editing going on.
JG: Right.
GM: You're a political activist. Is it difficult to
separate that from your comedy?
JG: No, no. It's interesting that some people
compartmentalize their politics because politics to me
is just life. It's decisions you make about the
environment, about your children's public schools,
about the street cleaning, you know what I mean, from
civic to national. I don't know how to
compartmentalize. And also, a large part of my comedy
as I've gotten older has been social critique about
politics, media, entertainment. To me it's all the
same thing.
GM: So you're a political comedian--
JG: I don't know if I'm a political comedian. I'm just
saying I don't separate.
GM: I spoke to Tommy Smothers and he was saying that
after his series was cancelled, he stopped being funny
for three years and he realized that it was because he
was taking his politics too seriously. He had to step
back a bit to get his sense of humour back.
JG: Well, I actually have to take it seriously because
it's serious stuff. There are funny aspects of
politics, of course. I was listening to Martin Short
this morning on NPR and he was saying there's nothing
funnier than Dick Cheney defending his lies. And Karl
Rove lying to your face. He said that's where Nathan
Thurm is based on. The character of Nathan Thurm is
based on Nixon, but now his Nathan Thurm has
progressed over the years, and it's based on, like,
Rove and Cheney. That's funny. But what they do is not
funny. It's not funny, you know, civil liberties being
eroded, torture, dissension, illegal invasion and
occupation. It is serious. There are offsets of
politics that are hilarious because it's just absurd.
But the policies, the Bush policies of torture and the
right wing fundamentalist Republican policies of
racism and misogyny and dishonesty are not funny.
GM: And your job when you're on stage is to find the
funny within the not funny.
JG: Right, right. Yes, absolutely. There's the funny
parts, but then also, you know, every comedian's style
is different and it's an offshoot of their
personality. Many comedians, myself included, take
some time to talk, also. Like, if I go on a tangent,
I'll even ask the audience, "Does that bother you?" if
something's more serious, but then it finds its way
back, hopefully. But you cannot separate yourself - or
I cannot - from, you know, when you find out on the
news this morning again - if we're dealing with today
- more investigations have uncovered that the Bush
administration pretends terrorist threats when George
Bush's popularity needs a boost. So they push the
envelope and they'll raise the terror alert. Based on
nothing. And that's ridiculous. And the funny part is
the people who respond to it. Like, when his
popularity spikes at a terror alert, that person is
funny to me. But what Bush is doing is not funny to
me.
GM: Isn't it kind of like shooting fish in a barrel,
though, because these guys are so crazy?
JG: Well, it is shooting fish in a barrel but what
isn't shooting fish in a barrel because a lot of the
audience doesn't understand how corrupt political
journalism can be. And the White House press corps,
how subservient they can be. I can tell stories about
when I did my time as a pundit on MSNBC, CNN, ABC,
NBC. The behind-the-scenes stories are funny about
what goes on behind the scenes at network news. So I
can tell stories like that people can either find
funny or interesting, hopefully.
GM: Do you think it's corruption by the media or
laziness?
JG: A combination. It's John and Jane Q. Public
workaday laziness. We all suffer from it. You know,
you want to leave at 5 for drinks rather than really
investigate that piece on something. I get that. But
their particular business is so important and when
they screw up or are lazy it has major ramifications
on the day-to-day life. It's the public airwaves, in
theory, and therefore their licenses should be revoked
because of the propaganda. Now, I realize that the
media has never functioned independently from the Big
Bang on, or the first printing press. They were
immediately used as instruments of propaganda. That's
human nature. From Hearst to [unintelligible] to
Rupert Murdoch to corporate people like the late Ken
Lay, who would have fake experts go on the news and
testify on behalf of his staff, and stuff like that.
GM: Your standup has changed over the years. What was
it like at the beginning? You've become more
political, obviously.
JG: In the beginning it was all the things that
concerned a 19-year-old junior in college.
GM: Which were?
JG: I don't even remember. At the time it was about
being a 19-year-old female who was overweight and
drank too much and had a casual attitude towards
academics or who had a healthy distaste and cynicism
for the fraternities structure on campuses. You know,
that kind of stuff. But I also had, definitely, even
from the beginning, problems with Ronald Reagan and
the religious right and Jerry Falwell. My father is a
conservative Christian Republican so I've always had
commentary on that.
GM: Does he like your work?
JG: He just likes me. He doesn't like my work but he
likes me (laughs).
GM: You must have some good discussions.
JG: We get along very, very well, actually. He used to
be on the radio show regularly as Carmine the
Conservative.
GM: Is it more difficult or less doing standup once
you've transcended the art form, as you have, to
general celebrityhood?
JG: I've never really been that famous or anything.
Celebrity, I feel like, is a word reserved for very
famous people. I'm not particularly well-known or
particularly recognizable.
GM: But you have certain comics, like a lot of those
coming to the festival, like Brian Posehn, for
example, who are really well-known within the comedy
community.
JG: Yeah.
GM: But you ask most people on the street and they're
going to know who you are.
JG: I don't know if that's true. I think you're giving
me too much credit. I don't know, honestly. Maybe in
the '90s that was true. I don't know if that's still
true. And I'm not saying that in a self-deprecating
way; I'm just being pragmatic with me. I don't know.
Definitely I have more name recognition than some
comedians and far less than others.
GM: True. But you don't find a difference performing
from when you were less known?
JG: No.
GM: All right. Did you write on Letterman?
JG: No, no.
GM: You didn't?
JG: No. It was the first job that I wanted. I wanted
to be a writer for David Letterman but I never got
that job.
GM: So there's misinformation on the internet. You're
shattering my world! Can you believe it?
JG: Oh, man, misinformation is the name of the game.
You can't believe what people ask me about myself that
they've read on-line.
GM: Oh, man, now I don't know what to think anymore.
JG: Almost everything is wrong that I've read about
myself, from where I was born to where I went to
school, I mean, everything that could be wrong.
GM: Well then correct me as we go along and maybe I
can be part of fixing this problem.
JG: Sure.
GM: I saw you at Bumbershoot a few years ago. You
worked from a big notebook. Do you still?
JG: Yes, I still do. Actually, sometimes a notebook
and sometimes just note paper, sometimes just
scribbled notes. I just like to have it there to know
what I want to get to and then also because I don't
like to do the exact same set. Not that I have new
material every five minutes, it's just that I don't
want to do it the same. Because sometimes when you're
on tour, sometimes you have two shows a night,
sometimes you have three, I don't want to do it
exactly the same. Just for my own peace of mind. It
just sounds fresher for the audience.
GM: You must guard this notebook with your life.
JG: Oh no, actually nobody can read my handwriting and
it doesn't make sense. It's just buzz words and
chicken scratch. It wouldn't make any sense if you
read it. It's not a long form narrative that's very
readable.
GM: So your show is not that prepared?
JG: I know what I want to get to. I do prepare my
notes. And I do prepare bullet points of 'I would like
to hit this, this, and this', but I would also leave
myself open to any sudden occurrence or if somebody in
the audience says something or if something happens or
if I hear something right before I go on stage.
GM: So every show's going to be different.
JG: And that's why I bomb as frequently as I do.
GM: (laughs) Do you still bomb?
JG: Oh shit yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GM: And how do you take that?
JG: It depends on the night. Sometimes I take it very
hard and sometimes it means nothing.
GM: And what are the factors involved?
JG: If I like the audience and they seem to have good
taste. Like, if the comedians on before me are very
good and went over very well, and then I bomb, I take
it hard. Because I know that the audience was good and
I wasn't. If the audience sucks and they were laughing
at a hack, like if there was a really shitty comic on
before me and they were laughing at him or her, and
then I don't do well, that's fine.
GM: This festival includes a lot of friends of yours.
I mentioned Posehn, but there's also David Cross, Marc
Maron, Jon Benjamin... Is the lineup something you
look at when you decide where you're going to play?
JG: Oh yeah, definitely. I reeeally wanted to be there
this year because of the comedians that were involved.
Absolutely. I love to see them and work with them.
It's definitely a deciding factor. Like, if you told
me there's a show, do you want to do it, and it's the
Blue Collar Comedy Tour--
GM: Or Carrot Top.
JG: Carrot Top's actually a very nice guy and I have
never seen his act so I don't know why he's the
go-to.... So I can't sign off on that. And it's not
that the gentlemen in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour are
not decent people. I don't know. But it's just not my
taste and I know the audience isn't going to dig me.
GM: How often do you get to see these guys you like to
work with who are going to be here?
JG: Well, David I see all the time. We do a cartoon
together called Freak Show that he and Jon Benjamin
wrote. Jon Benjamin and David live very close to my
apartment so I see them all the time. Marc Maron I
used to see a lot at Air America. And Brian Posehn I
see intermittently. Patton I see. Zach Galifianakis I
talk to on the phone a lot.
GM: So it'll be like old home week for you.
JG: Yeah.
GM: Just a big hang.
JG: Yes, hopefully.
GM: You're described as an alternative comic. Would
you go along with that?
JG: No. I have no idea... That's a construct that does
nothing but irritate people. I think 'alternative
comedian' came out in the '90s when alternative music
became something to call non-mainstream music. I guess
the most famous example would be Nirvana, Soundgarden,
Hole, Liz Phair. At the time it was called
alternative. It used to be called college or indie
back in the day. It was called college rock. When REM
was considered college rock. And U2, for that matter,
back then. Then alternative became the moniker. And
then, for whatever reason - I think the timing - there
were a lot of articles down in Los Angeles about
comedians, myself included, that were doing shows in
alternative venues to comedy clubs. We'd do shows in
rock clubs, coffee houses, book stores, bars. And it
just stuck, the name 'alternative'. And then over the
years it served to be an object of derision and
mockery by certain other comedians. I don't know why,
but they say 'alternative' with derision.
GM: 'Alternative to funny.'
JG: Yeah, they'd say, "What it means is they can't
write a joke." And it was nothing that the comedians
themselves ever called themselves.
GM: Do you assign different names to different styles
of comedy?
JG: Yes, I do in that there are some people that are
more monologists, some people that are more absurdist,
some people that are old-school, some people that are
straight-up hacks to me, some people that work blue.
Do you know what I mean? There are labels but they're
just labels in my mind. But I'm not derisive about it,
it's just that there are different styles of comedy.
Sometimes if people ask me, "Oh, I want to go see
comedy. What's this guy or girl like?" And I'll say,
"Well, he or she is more of a monologist, or he or she
is more of a prop comic, or more musical." Stuff like
that.
GM: What would you assign yourself?
JG: I would say a cross of spoken word... See, that's
another thing that's just an object of derision when
people say 'spoken word'. But what I consider spoken
word is sort of long-form storytelling. I have some
long-form storytelling mixed in with jokes. So I don't
know what you'd call it but I do know that for many
people it's not funny.
GM: Well, you could say that about any comedian.
JG: Right. That's true.
GM: And to many people it is funny.
JG: Hopefully, yes.
GM: You often hear that most people get conservative
as they get older. Are you fighting this?
JG: No, no, no, no. People don't know what
'conservative' means anymore because the right wing
machine has bastardized what it means. What
conservative traditionally meant in the truest sense,
both politically and personally, was a person who was
probably more cautious or traditional, who believed in
a strong separation, politically, of church and state,
had strong issues on environmentalism, and believed
that, again, God did not belong in the boardroom or
the bedroom. Now, of course, as we know politically,
that has no sway with today's contemporary
conservatives. None at all. A conservative person,
personally in their social life as they get older,
would be a person who is less likely to stay up all
night drinking and having sex with multiple partners
and dancing on table tops and taking business risks
and going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel at the
drop of a hat. Personally for me, I've changed a great
deal as I've gotten older, as hopefully everyone has,
but that's mostly because I quit drinking.
GM: So you are more conservative!
JG: So my life is quieter just because I'm not drunk
all the time. But I'm not more conservative as a
person. In fact, I'm probably much more radical than I
ever was in college.
GM: Because you're more aware.
JG: Much more aware. My consciousness is much higher.
I'm much more open-minded than I was in college.
GM: You're still a vocal feminist, right?
JG: Right. But feminism just means you believe in
gender equality and social justice. And why people say
they're not a feminist, I have no idea unless they
don't know what it means. I would assume a great many
of us believe in gender equality and social justice.
That's what feminism is. So yes, if that makes me a
feminist, absolutely, 100 percent liberal feminist.
GM: It's a semantics thing. Everyone has to agree on
what the term means first.
JG: What the term does mean is gender equality and
social justice for all. That's the meaning. And I
don't know why anyone would say, "I am not a feminist"
unless you are ardently against gender equality and
social justice.
GM: That's right. "We don't want to be paid as much."
JG: Yeah, exactly! Yeah, I don't know. I don't know
what that means. Like I said, the right wing machine
over the last 30 to 40 years in America has been quite
successful at conning people into thinking against
their own better interest. They have conned people
into thinking feminism and liberalism are nasty
things. Feminism and liberalism are the reason we have
a progressive contemporary society. Without those two
things, we'd still be living in a sort of
Upstairs/Downstairs under a monarchy.
GM: It's funny how they've swayed the mainstream media
in the States. Up here, I don't think 'liberal' is a
bad word.
JG: It's a very good thing to be. It should be. The
mainstream media... You know what? Bullying is
bullying. And very few of us can transcend our high
school mentality about bullying. Lots of us give into
the bully. Including adults in the media. And over 30
years a lot of time, energy and money has been spent
bullying the media that they're moving to the right.
GM: How do you feel about the way women are treated in
comedy?
JG: Oh fine. Yeah. When I first started it was more
annoying. Back in 1985 there was a myth that you
couldn't have two women back-to-back because they'd
lose the audience and if you booked a woman headliner
in a club one week you had to wait a month. I don't
think that still exists. I mean, it's the year 2006,
for Christ sake, I would hope not. So as far as I know
it's fine. I don't know, I guess you'd have to ask
somebody who's just starting now.
GM: You still hear from some people, male and female,
either "She's funny for a woman" or "women just aren't
funny".
JG: Right. Well, that would just be their particular
problem. Those people that say that are labouring
under a falsehood. But I'm sure they, you know, labour
under many other falsehoods besides that one.
GM: Still, standup today is still largely a male game.
Is that just because women aren't interested in
pursuing it as much?
JG: I don't know. I really don't know because here in
New York, or when I'm in San Francisco, I see tons of
women doing it. I see basically as many women here in
New York on the scene as men, so I don't know.
GM: I watched Dick Cavett last night interviewing Mel
Brooks and I was wondering if you have an appreciation
of the old-school comic as well?
JG: Oh sure. My God, I love Albert Brooks, although
I'm not sure if you'd call that old school. I love
Albert Brooks, Mel Brooks, Ernie Kovacs. I love Danny
Kaye, Red Buttons. I love old comedy movies like The
Awful Truth and His Girl Friday. And I love George
Carlin - again I don't know if that's considered old
school. I love the Compass Players, I love Nichols &
May, I love Cheech & Chong. I mean, all this stuff
from the '50s and '60s and '70s I love. I don't know
how old school you mean.
GM: Yeah, all that. As opposed to just the
contemporaries, the hipsters on the scene. Were there
any one or two comics who inspired you to be a
comedian?
JG: George Carlin. My brother had all his albums in
the '70s. Occupation Fool and all that. Cheech &
Chong's early comedy albums I loved. Nichols & May. My
dad had Nichols & May albums. Then, as I got older,
got into Albert Brooks's comedy albums. And Steve
Martin's.
GM: Comedy Minus One! Did you perform it?
JG: In the mirror, yes! "Georgie Jessel!" Yes, I did.
I had A Star is Bought on tape. It's just great. So
stuff like that. But I would say Nichols & May as much
as anything.
GM: They were largely improv.
JG: Yes.
GM: Did you ever do any improv?
JG: Yes. I'm not as good as they are at improv. I have
done it before; I'm not very comfortable doing it. But
I like to improvise when I'm acting. But I don't feel
comfortable in the setting, like, at the Groundlings
or Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater doing improv
sketches.
GM: It's a completely different thing from standup.
JG: Right. I just don't have the chops for it.