I guess you do sacrifice some control when you go up to the next level.

Absolutely. That's why I feel real fortunate, 'cause I'm in a position with this show, at least at this point, that I'm allowed to be opinionated, not even be opinionated, but so much as do opinionated comedy.

And it seems to me that opinionated comedy, the more I look at it, there are these schticky comedians, and then there are comedians like Marc Maron, who only come from opinion, with a definite point of view. And that to me is the best comedy, when you know they're not bullshitting you.

Yeah, there's guys like you say, you can name them on a hand or on a hand and a half, but I think nowadays, given all the things that we're going through, people are not taking notice anymore. I can't watch a fucking ice skating match without seeing some form of corruption in action. So it's really refreshing, even if you don't agree with the person, just to watch somebody say what's on their mind. I watch Janeane Garofalo sometimes, and I'm really impressed by, whether you agree with her or not, at least she's saying something.

Yeah, and it's evident that it's coming from the heart.

That's genuine, yeah. I watched the Paul Mooney concert last night at Caroline's and there are lots of people out there doing their music and their comedy, but they're not going to get any mainstream support, you know what I mean? But I think even without the mainstream support, people are finding things. We may not be on the biggest network, but people are finding the show.

You two have set such a high bar for yourselves, I'm curious to see what you're going to do next. I think you two have written yourselves into a corner, where can you go?

Well, that Bigsby sketch is one of those Haley's Comet sketches, people will remember that for a long time. Shit like this is funny, man. You can't expect everything to be a Bigsby, but I do believe the show just gets progressively better. But that was the first episode we made, that was our greenest episode.

You've worked with Mel Brooks, opened for Richard Pryor, what did you learn from those guys?

I think from all of these people, without exception, I've learned at least one thing that I'll take with me for the rest of my career. And I quote these guys all the time. Eddie Murphy was the guy that told me 'You should write, you see in pictures. The way you tell jokes, they're like pictures, you should write, you've got that kind of mind.' And that's something that I'm grateful to him for.

Mel Brooks told me how many big laughs a movie should have for it to be a hit, the ways he likes to please an audience. Richard Pryor, I think I learned more by example than anything he ever said to me directly, just by the way he went about doing his comedy. I think everyone that went after him was influenced by him.

What about Charlie Barnett?

Oh man, I wouldn't know where to start with Charlie, that guy taught me so much about just the mechanics of stand-up, but the main thing Charlie taught me was just the attitude, 'fuck it.'

It's just stand up comedy, go for it.

Just fuck it, go for it. What would you be afraid of?

The End