Part 17 (2/2)

Judd: Because it's immediate. I mean, I'm sure you had this experience making Bee Movie-you spend your whole life in meetings and editing rooms, isolated and alone, arguing about budgets and time frames. And there's that moment you share with an audience, where they relate and a joke works, and it brings you so much more joy. But you don't always get that from a movie. If it's the first time you show a movie and the place goes nuts, that feels great, but still: not as great as a good stand-up set. Also, it only happens once or twice per movie and each movie might take four years. So you're getting two hits off of four years' work.

Jerry: Bee Movie was a very unhappy experience, from start to finish. I remember standing in the back of the theater and it wasn't great, but it was decent and, and I remember listening to the laughs and thinking, These laughs are s.h.i.+t. That was not worth it.

Judd: I completely relate to that.

Jerry: And does the audience react when you are introduced? Do they know you?

Judd: I thought a lot about how you always say that buys you about ninety seconds.

Jerry: Yeah.

Judd: It buys me like thirty seconds. But I think they feel like they know me a little bit from the movies, so it's as if they have a head start understanding my point of view. But I couldn't enjoy it more. I'm fully addicted to performing again. I put as much time into my stand-up as my movies.

Jerry: Good.

Judd: I always remember you and Larry Miller saying that to be a comedian, you have to sit down and write. That's the job. How much time do you spend at a desk?

Jerry: I just finished wrestling with a bit, actually. I couldn't stop. I do it compulsively. I write with a pad and a pen. I like a big, yellow legal pad. And once I get that pad open, I can't stop. It's kind of like free-diving, you know. You have a certain amount of air and then you just have to come up. I'm good for an hour or two and then I collapse on the couch and sleep.

Judd: Do you have a legal pad organizational system?

Jerry: Oh, it's very complicated. I have the legal pad and then I have one of those accordion folders with a different slot for each letter. Once I'm done with the bit, it either goes in the garbage or the accordion folder. Those are the only two destinations. And then it's in the air. It has to survive on its own. Bits are like turtles right after they hatch, running to the beach.

Judd: Have you ever had a period where you were sick of it?

Jerry: No. No. No. Never.

Judd: Not even for a second?

Jerry: If this is something you have a gift for, it's going to suck you along into it. All you have to do is transition from looking at your phone to putting the phone down and opening up the pad where there's nothing going on. There's no light hitting your retina. So, no, I've always found it to be-I just see something and I write it down and I go, Gee, that almost worked. That kinda worked. Maybe that's the good part. Let me get rid of the bad part and write a different intro to the idea. And the next thing I know, the day is gone.

Judd: Do you feel like your act has changed in a substantial way? Has your work become more personal, now that you have kids?

Jerry: No, it's just-you know, I'm still mud wrestling with a pig.

Judd: Is there a line for how personal you will go in your work?

Jerry: I'm doing a thing now about dadness-you know, when you reach dadness fully, no one in your family can hurt your feelings anymore, because you don't have feelings anymore. Feelings are too much of a problem to have, so I just got rid of them. That's true, you know. That's a true thing about becoming a dad. But you get to a point where-if my wife or children insult me in any way, I'm just like, ”I don't care. I don't care if you like me. I don't care what you think of me.” When you start out in this family thing, you're a human, and then, as you go along, you realize that you're an android. I'm doing this bit now, I have this thing in an episode of Comedians in Cars, where I'm driving a Ferrari and I describe it as a machine that stirs, you know, that stirs deep, human emotions, and that I really need that because I don't have any. I guess that's personal, but I don't feel like I'm revealing anything. I'm a person that denies emotions very strongly. I'm only interested in what gets a laugh. I often get the ”Why don't you talk about politics or talk about this or that?” stuff. I'll talk about anything that I think is funny or will get a laugh. If I could get a laugh with politics, I'd be doing politics.

Judd: I find that everything about a family is drama and emotions and tears and yelling. How is that for you as somebody who doesn't live his life that way? How do you deal, in the middle of the madness of kids, when someone wants something so badly they will scream and push you emotionally until you crack to get it?

Jerry: My kids never get me to crack. It's because of my stand-up training. Like, ”You're nothing compared to the Comedy Cellar.”

Judd: That's so funny.

Jerry: ”You think you're tough?” My kids said something to me last night, and I said, ”That line is so weak, give me my last name back. You don't deserve it.”

Judd: I have the opposite thing with my daughter. She said to me the other day, ”Dad, all those things you say that you think are jokes are not funny.”

Jerry: Oh, my son had one even worse than that. We were making up words as a game at dinner one night and I said, ”You know, I've made up a lot of words that people actually use as words.” And my son said, ”Uh, really, like what? Unfunny?”

Judd: That's brutal. I do feel like there's no larger pride than in seeing your kid get funny.

Jerry: No larger pride. Do you think they pick it up around the house or do you think it's genetic?

Judd: It has to be genetic but I think that as they watch us reacting to things, over and over again, and see how we look at things, they also just pick it up. But Leslie and I, you know, from day one, the second our kids started terrorizing us with their emotions, we would crack immediately. Like when they cried because they wanted to sleep with us, we would always wind up sleeping with them.

Jerry: We were the same. I just meant, my kids will never get me to yell. I will not yell.

Judd: You'll give in, though?

Jerry: I'll give in, but I will not yell. Nor will I show any emotion.

Judd: How old is your oldest child?

Jerry: They're fourteen, eleven, and nine.

Judd: So you're in full p.u.b.erty mode.

Jerry: Not quite. I'm an inch away.

Judd: Because I'm in the mode where suddenly boys are calling and boys are around and when they're in the house, I have this very primal hatred of all of them. They're all scared of me. I think I'm being nice, but I'm not.

Jerry: I am going to try my darnedest to avoid all those cliches. I'm going to be fine with the boys, fine with the mischief. It's just too cliche to be, ”So you're interested in my daughter, huh, young man?” I don't want to be that.

Judd: Well, it's also that all the boys are so unamusing, it bugs you. If they were funnier, you might like them. They just have so little to offer.

Jerry: But don't you think there's just going to be just a natural, powerful editing process that goes on? Your daughter is not going to be able to hang out with unfunny guys forever, right?

Judd: That's an interesting thing I've noticed. Because of my job, my daughters have gotten to hang out with some of the most interesting, funny people around-and it makes them think less of their friends.

Jerry: That's good.

Judd: They think they're so uninteresting and so not funny.

Jerry: They're right.

Judd: They actually have a problem with it sometimes. They don't like what their friends talk about, or what interests them.

Jerry: That's a great contribution you've made.

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