On Audiences and Email Attacks

And now, some questions about you as a comic.  I love the “Hate Mail” Section on your site.  I think it’s great.  Do you feel obligated to respond to all of your “hate mail” and do you take a bit of pleasure in doing it? Well, part of why I do it is because it turns what is a really shitty feeling into “ha-ha, I win.”  When someone is attacking you and you can turn the material, the attack no longer hurts.  Because you go, “oh, awesome, I’ve got a new joke.”  And so, that’s part of it.  And it’s also just to show people the pointlessness of this.  And there would be more hate mail there [on the site] if people were more original.  But once you get up to like 600 pieces, it’s so rare that I get anything that I haven’t seen yet.  And I haven’t put up there.  There are only so many times that someone can go “you suck.” Spelled wrong... Exactly.  87 “u”s.  And it’s amazing.... I just want to grab some of those people and say “who hurt you? Who was so awful to you that this is what you take pleasure in?  To try and ruin someone else’s day?”... If you don’t find someone funny, move on.  You know how many times my wife is watching a TV show that I don’t like?  I don’t write a letter to the actors and tell them how terrible they are.  I just don’t watch it. You’ve done a lot of work with college audiences versus sports.  Does each audience take a different type of comedian, or do you feel that you have to have different personalities for when you’re “on”? I think you have to bulletproof your material so it’s funny for everyone.  And there are some jokes that will get more laughs on a college circuit and some jokes that will get more laughs at a corporate gig, but the root of it has to be funny no matter what.  And I believe if a comic can only play to one type of audience, they’re not a comic.  They’re a representative of that audience.  There are plenty of comics who can do the New York coffee house circuit, and there are plenty of comics who can do the farmhouse in Iowa circuit.  You’re not a true comic unless you can do both.  You might not want to do both - or either, for that matter - but I believe your material has to be funny enough for anyone. [Photo via]
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