Eugene Mirman

Chief Magazine: You're from Russia, right?
 
Eugene Mirman: I grew up outside Boston in Lexington, Mass., where the revolution began. The American – not just intellectual or industrial. But I was born in Russia and came to America when I was four-and-a-half.
 
What did your parents do that they were able to split?
 
We were Jewish – not that we’re that actively Jewish, but in terms of when people hate Jews, they’re not like, “How Jewish are you? Oh, you’re not that Jewish, so we won’t bother hating you.”
 
“We’ll leave you be.”
 
And there were American organizations that helped us emigrate. Communism was pretty bad. What’s funny is that my parents literally brought my brother and I here to have a better life, as many people who leave whatever country they’re in that’s crappy. It’s just funny that it’s a thing that’s almost joked about, but it is also a real, legitimate thing. We’re sitting in a café, and I can swear if I want, and it’ll be printed, and the government isn’t going to destroy me just yet. Pretty good.
 
We’re getting there. What kind of kid were you? What kind of stuff were you into? Were you a quiet kid?
 
Yeah.... I was a nerdy kid – I was sort of hated. I had a friend who was just visiting – who I’m still good friends with – but there was a point in elementary school where it became so hard for her to be my friend because people hated me so much that she had to pretend to be mad at me, so that we could not be friends until high school, when then it was okay again.
 
That’s rough.
 
But otherwise I was into comic books and role playing games, but the funny thing is, I would get role playing games, but I’d never play them. I’d just make characters. And I had a train set, so that was fun.
 
Well, sure.
 
[Laughs.] That’s like, “What was your childhood like?” “People hated me, but I had a train.” It’s not horrible.
 
It’s like, “I found solace in my train. It was good.” At what point did you kind of decide you wanted to go to comedy?
 
I also – it’s funny that I left this out - listened to a great deal of stand-up, literally as far back as elementary school. I remember listening to Bill Cosby tapes, and I had a bunch of his stand-up, and then in junior high, listening to Emo Philips and Bob Goldthwait and just tons of different stuff and watching it all the time on HBO and A&E. I mean, I probably listened to the same comedy albums every day or every other day.
 
Were there any that were the big. . . .
 
Emo Philips definitely was one of the biggest, but also I listened to Howie Mandel and Robin Williams and also to Steve Martin – just all kinds of stuff. And it’s funny now going back and listening to some of it because I listen to it, I’m like, “That really is great,” and some of it, I’m like, “Oh, that’s just a trick.” But at the time when you’re thirteen, I remember being, “How in the world is Howie Mandel making up this stuff about people in the audience so quickly?” And then, of course, you grow up, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a thing that anybody can do,” and though it’s fine, but as a kid. . . you’re so impressed.
 
Well, that makes sense, just to surround yourself with it when it’s what you’re interested in.
 
Yes, so I listened to it all the time. It was very popular – it was the ‘80s, and stand-up was huge.

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Oh, that’s true.
 
It was very huge.
 
When did it…
 
Die?
 
Yeah.
 
1991 or ’92… 3.
 
Why?
 
Several reasons.
 
Was it just too big? The bubble?
 
It got saturated. The demand for it reached such a place that people were putting up horrible – not horrible, mediocre - comics. It takes a while to become a good comedian, and even then, some people are competent, but not really unique or interesting. In the Boston area, there were probably 50, 100 more places than now where you could do comedy. If you were a headliner, you could do incredibly well doing several shows a night, making tons of money. But if you were even a mediocre comic, you could also do that, but then eventually the demand got such that they’d put mic stands in every Chinese restaurant, and a microphone – not just the stand; that would be ludicrous.
 
Functional, too.
 
Yeah, and also it was available on TV more and more. But that doesn’t necessarily stop it now – but it did create a huge stereotype of cheesiness. Comedy is now sort of, I think, going through a renaissance, and part of it is the attitude that comedy is necessarily hokey or fake is being slowly changed.
 
It seems like a lot of the underground – I guess it depends on how you define the underground – but on the New York scene, a bunch of really, really sharp people are doing incredibly well now.
 
Yes - same with L.A., meaning there’s a similar scene.
 
Right. I mean, I guess that’s not necessarily different, and maybe that’s how it started then, too, when it was getting really popular in the ‘80s.
 
Except, I think probably, before 1978, I bet there were 5, 10 comedy clubs in the country, meaning there might have been one in New York or places that did it a lot. I think comedy clubs are mostly a thing of the ‘80s and late ‘70s. I’m sure there was one in the ‘60s, but literally, I bet, in the country, it was, like, the hungry i or something.
 
I think it might have been that the places that comedians would approach and be presented was much more like cabaret shows.
 
Yeah, exactly.
 
That whole deal.
 
Or a jazz club. Lenny Bruce started in a strip club. It’s sort of like what New York is like now. I do two shows – one at Rififi, which is in the East Village, and they have different sorts of stuff. When we started our comedy show there, there wasn’t another comedy show at that club.
 
Were you guys the first ones there?
 
At Rififi? Yeah.
 
Oh, no kidding. And that was still Invite Them Up?
 
Yes. That was five years ago, pretty much – Invite Them Up.
 
No shit. Wow, all right.
 
And it’s stuff like that. I think a lot of comedy places were like that.
 
Right. Kind of like functional bars that were just bars.
 
Right, and they had a room, and people maybe did singer-songwriter stuff or showed films or whatever it was, and comedy was one of those things. Because obviously there have been comedians – somehow, Steve Martin was performing somewhere and same with Woody Allen – but I think comedy clubs really blew up in the ‘80s and then eventually they were destroyed – or some – or it all fell in on itself.
 
Well, I think it just got too big and too over-populated, that it all just fell upon itself.
 
Yeah, part of the problem was probably the demand decreased, and also probably what was happening at those clubs wasn’t that great. You couldn’t have ten clubs putting on really good shows seven nights a week and sustaining themselves in cities – you can here in New York, but that’s even probably very questionable about how good the stuff is. But some of it, I’m sure, is actually very good.
 

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I’m with all of that. That all adds up. How does your family support what you’re doing?
 
Financially? No, no. [Laughs]
 
Good. Are they supportive of it?
 
Yeah, they are.
 
Because you’re able to make a living off of it.
 
I do, yes. And everything sort of rises exponentially. In the last handful of years, I’ve become more and more financially stable until now I finally buy myself health insurance, which is the pinnacle of success.
 
That’s about as responsible as you can be.
 
Exactly. So, yes, they’ve always been really supportive. On the other hand, I always also vaguely believe everything can fall apart at any moment. In a sense, there’s no reason to think that per se, but I’m always like, “I could get a call that’s like, ‘Everything you’re working on has failed. Start over.’ Aw, man. Okay.”
 
[Laughs.] At least you’ve got the “okay” at the end.
 
Yes. Well, I feel like I’m not good at anything else, and I love to do it, so if everything fell apart, I’d figure out a way to just start over. In the sense that vaguely is what I did up until. . . .
 
Relatively recently.
 
Yeah, exactly. The whole thing is sort of piecing things together where you’re getting some freelance work – I mean, I created lots and lots of debt and then settled with credit card companies and then started over. And then sometimes you make money, you pay it off – a little – but it takes a decade. That’s what’s vaguely tedious. And you totally have successes – I probably did Conan six years ago for the first time, so it’s not like, in the process of doing comedy, I didn’t have moments that things were working out and indicating that it’s okay, and you can keep going.
 
Shows like Conan and doing broadcast TV stand-up – is that just a huge boon for exposure, or is that a paycheck, too?
 
It is a paycheck – I mean, when you’re broke, it’s a paycheck – but it’s not a big paycheck. It’s a month’s rent or something – and in fact, in New York, it isn’t a month’s rent.
 
That stings.
 
But yeah, it’s exposure. What it is, is validation. And it might be changing now even more as the Internet gets bigger because part of it is just exposure. If you have something that plays on YouTube two million times, I’m sure people think of you as famous in a similar way as if you’d appeared on Comedy Central or something, vaguely. I mean, if it’s like a phenomenon, where people are like, “This is the biggest thing. . . .”
 
“…of today! Right now.”
 
The other thing about Conan is that it’s validating. When people go, “Oh, you do comedy?” And then they’re like, “I don’t really believe you.” And then they’re like, “Have you been on TV?” and you’re like, “Yes, I have.” And then they’re like, “You must be insanely famous.”
 
It just flips the coin.
 
It flips it in the funniest way because it literally is the difference of a fact. I sometimes have people ask me if I’m famous, and I’m like, “I don’t know how to answer that because if you’re asking me, then in a sense, probably not.”                                                                 
 
“Not that famous.”
 
Yeah, but there’s lots of little breaks along the way, and that’s great.
 
It kind of keeps you moving.
 
Right. I guess that’s how you get more and more well-known.
 
Little breaks. So was Conan the first break?
 
I’d done the Aspen Comedy Festival before that – this is all when I lived in Boston still, so in a sense, it was very exciting because I wasn’t even part of any industry scene of any kind.
 

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When did you move to New York?

Six years ago.
 
That was a big year.
 
Yes. After I did that, I did a voice for a cartoon out of Boston – Home Movies.
 
Oh, Good.
 
So I did that and Conan, and then also got a manager in New York. At first, I was going to stay in Boston until I got a job of some kind in comedy in New York, and then I realized that was a silly way to go about it, so I moved here.
 
Did you know Bobby (Tisdale) when you were in Boston?
 
No, I think that basically what happened with Invite Them Up was, I had sort of hesitated about whether I wanted to start a show in New York or not, but I do really enjoy it, and it’s fun to have a place where you do different stuff every week. So basically, I went to lots and lots of different bars, and then somebody had told me about Rififi, and I went in and was like, “Hey, can I do a show if I promise people will eventually come,” and the guy was like, “Okay.” And then a few months after that, people would come perform and Bobby would hang out, and I knew Bobby, and they asked him if he wanted to do a show on a different night, and I was like, “Well, why don’t we just do the show together,” because it can be a pain to start shows, and so we started doing it. But that was pretty much a few months after – I think three months after – I had been there, so we’ve basically been doing it together for five years almost.
 
That’s awesome.
 
Every week – that’s a lot of shows.
 
That’s a lot of goddamn shows. I thought it was monthly at a point. It’s always been weekly?
 
It’s been weekly. Sometimes, if I’m touring or if he’s touring, one of us will miss it.
 
Do you have guest hosts?
 
It’s been very, very rare that both of us can’t be there. This happened probably once, maybe twice, in the last five years.
 
No shit.
 
We, this year, took a three-week break, but normally we’ve done it over the holidays.
 
Really?
 
Yeah. I mean, it’s also fun – that’s why. If I’m around during the holidays, and I think it’ll be fun to go out and do a show, we do it.
 
Right – it’s not a miserable job; it’s this thing that you love doing – it’s a big damn difference. Who was the guest host? Do you remember?
 
Recently, Todd Barry guest hosted, but it’s because I couldn’t make it until the second half of the show, so I was still there.
 
Was there a point where it clicked that this is the only thing you want to do?
 
That was sort of constant. I’ve had various jobs. I worked at a web company where I had a vague job that was a lot of fun in Boston, but it’s because I made videos and wrote jokes all day. My office mate and I turned our office into a bar. But there was a point at which I was temping at a law firm here in New York, and I got this thing to make some shorts for Showtime, and also I was cast in Third Watch – I was a suspected arsonist. It was really fun, actually. It was super ridiculous, but just fun to be on a set, and I fought a guy.
 
No shit.
 
I had to fight and yell. You can see it on YouTube.
 
We’ll link to that.
 
You don’t have to link to that.
 
I’d really like to link to that because that’s awesome.
 
You’re welcome to link to that if you need to, but I have stuff to sell.
 
[Laughs] Then we’ll link to those things as well.
 
Make sure you link to things where I can make money. And it’s funny because at the time I was temping at this place, so I got this work, and I was like, “You know, if I keep this job, and I can also be doing these things, then I can really do okay.” And then literally the day that I actually was going to work on the Showtime stuff, and I didn’t have to go into that miserable job, I called in at eight in the morning, and I was like, “I’m never coming in again.” And after I quit that law firm, it was like, I will hopefully never have a day job again that is not a fun, comedy-based day job. But now I don’t want a comedy-based day job either – meaning, I don’t want to write for some show.
 
Right. You just want to do your own stuff.
 
Yeah, that’s one of the most fortunate things of what I’ve gotten to do, which is, I’m getting to work on a lot of projects that are just either initiated by me or friends, and it’s just fun, and I get to enjoy it a lot.
 
That’s the dream.
 
Yes.
 
Right on. That kind of takes me to the next question – how many live shows are you involved with right now?
 
Weekly lively shows?
 
Yeah.
 
Two.
 
All right. So there’s Invite Them Up, and then what’s the other one?
 
Tearing The Veil Of Maya, which is the show that Michael Showalter and Julie Smith and I do at Union Hall, which is a block from here.
 
What’s that one about?
 
It’s in my neighborhood, which makes it really fun for me, and it’s me and Michael pretty much every week – sometimes one of us is away, but it’s pretty much us every week – and then two other guests, so it’s very short. It’s like an hour long, but it’s really fun.

The only difference is it’s in Brooklyn, where there isn’t really a comedy show like this in Brooklyn.
 
God, that’s true.
 
There isn’t a weekly show where we get good people to come out the way that there’s lots of these sorts of shows in Manhattan.
 
Right, in the Lower East Side.
 
Yeah, exactly. But there’s nothing really like this in Brooklyn. And certainly nothing in Park Slope.
 
Wow, I didn’t even think about that.
 
The reason for it is I live here, Michael lives here, Julie – who’s the booker and producer of the show – lives here a few blocks away, and so for us it’s like we’re doing a neighborhood thing that we’re all excited about.
 
How did the title of the show come about?
 
I said it half as a joke – and half not – to Michael and Julie, and they were like, “Yeah, it’s ridiculous, let’s do that – let’s call it that.” It’s vaguely based on a thing that I read or that someone told me involving Schopenhauer that I thought was really funny, but half of it is a joke about it being pretentious.
 
Oh, well sure. Of course.
 
[Laughs.] Meaning that, the title is based on an idea of Schopenhauer’s about art. When he wrote about art and reality or something, it involved that the only people who could see true reality through the world of illusion were artists, and that artists could somehow portray the actual truth, because they could see through the world of illusion, or the veil of Maya, I think. And he had had different tiers of art, so sculpture, poetry, and playwriting were one tier, and then music, because it was the itself and pure and not a representation of something, was its own tier, and then in my head I thought what would be hysterical is if Schopenhauer just never conceived of stand-up comedy, which would be on an even higher tier than music. So that our stand-up is stand-up that tears through the world of illusion, and shows people what the world is really like, but it’s also really just a joke. I don’t expect anyone to understand or think that – I just think’s it’s a ludicrous thing to name it that, and I think we all did and decided to do it. But the fact that anyone’s like, “Every week, they teach Indian culture a lesson”…
 
So you’re doing those two, and then you’re doing a lot of digital stuff.
 
I do, yeah. Online?
 
Yeah.
 
Yeah, there’s a new website called superdeluxe.com, and I’m making a sci-fi talk show for them, as well as a bunch of other stuff.
 
Did they contact you initially?
 
Yes, they contacted me. They didn’t exist. At the time that I signed with them, they didn’t have a name – there were only a few people working there I think.
 
What’s their deal? What are they?
 
Their deal is that they are, I think, trying to combine something like myspace, YouTube, and Comedy Central into an online thing – they’re basically trying to make interactive comedy TV for the web. They’re budgets, unlike a sharing site like YouTube or even some other broadband site – there are so many. It’s so funny – literally every few days now I get an email from some weird mobile phone video distributor or online video portal start-up – asking me if I want my dirty movies on our phone network. Everybody’s starting a portal – it’s hysterical. Hopefully, superdeluxe.com will have slightly been ahead of the curve. As opposed to other things that are just trying to just put random stuff that kids make online and hope some of it is popular, they’re legitimately funding people to make new stuff that approaches TV quality.
 
It’s great that they’re giving you guys the money to work with it.
 
Yes.
 
That’s really it. And the people they’re picking…
 
Yes. There are some really good people.
 
You, Dave Foley, Brad Neely.
 
So they have good people, and I guess we’ll see. Their thing is that they’re sort of a high-end web video thing – they’re like a comedy channel on the web. It’s interactive comedy.
 
That you can actually contact the people that are putting stuff up. It seems really cool. I read something on there – it seemed kind of vague, and I didn’t know if they were talking about previous jobs they had – but does Turner own them?
 
Yes.
 
Okay. So they’re well-backed.
 
Yeah, I think they’re not backed in a way where it’s…
 
Where Turner’s defining what they do.
 
Or where they can, like… “Let’s blow up a horse!” They don’t have crazy money where they can do whatever.
 
[Laughs.] That’s good money.
 
That is – when you can just blow up a horse, and then hide the evidence?
 
Yeah.
 
That’s a lot of money, I would imagine.
 
That’s some fair money.
 
Yes, they’re well-funded. I think they’re a very well thought-out start-up that is being led by people with a great deal of web experience and content experience.
 
That’s awesome. How often are you putting stuff up?
 
I’ve made six shorts for them, and I’m making some more right now. I hand stuff in and then they put it up.
 
Just according to a pre-determined schedule?
 
It’s up to them, and right now it’s just a soft launch, and I think in February, towards the end of this month, it’ll be more of a real push. I think they’re working out kinks or whatever you do when you launch an internet portal comedy thing – I don’t know what you do. Probably weekly or so, plus or minus every few weeks.
 
What are the shows that you’ve got on it?
 
I’ve put up a lot of my shorts in general, but right now I just have the space talk thing. I’m going to make something else that will be The Diary of a Lonely DJ. It will be lots of shots of me, very lonely, walking around with a turntable, maybe crying occasionally and reading from my diary. Hopefully, it will be funny. It sounds pretty good to me right now.
 
I’m into it. Who’s under the radar that’s really good right now in the New York City comedy deal?
 
Who are some really great comedians here?
 
Yeah.
 
There are a lot.
 
People that aren’t getting press.
 
Yes, that would be funny if I was like, “Have you…? [Laughs]
 
“Tell me about this Todd Barry.”
 
Todd Barry, pretty good guy. Heather Lawless, Jacqueline Novak, Kristen Schaal are really funny. There are a bunch of people. There was a guy who I just saw – I think his name was Joe – who was really good. John Melaney is really funny. The Shac, do you know of it? It’s Chelsea Peretti, Andrea Rosen, Shonali Bhowmik, and Heather Lawless who are great. They do a monthly show at Galapagos. There’s a comedy team in Boston that I think are great called The Walsh Brothers. They’re fantastic. They just did a show here, but I think they’re moving to LA.
 
Has anybody done anything that’s just so absurd that it kind of blew your mind lately?
 
I think that my general answer for that is Jon Benjamin and Jon Glaser periodically do things that do that. There are people who do really funny things, but in terms of stuff where I see something and I’ll like, “That is...”
 
What were they, the Red Wine Brothers?
 
No, that’s Todd and Jon, but yeah – they did the Red Wine Boys. But Jon Benjamin and Jon Glaser did the Fuggedabuddies.
 
Oh God, right...
 
They just do tons of things like that. So funny – I mean, in terms of sort of conceptual stuff that is amazing. Kristen Schaal also. She does a lot of really funny stuff. In terms of stand-up, many of the people that you know are fantastic stand-ups.
 
I totally mean what you’re talking about with tiny hands.

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Exactly. Well, there you go – so, Glazer and Benjamin are definitely... Kristen Schaal. Also, Andy Blitz used to do a character who was a comedian named Peanut Butter. Plus he’s sent people dressed as him and his girlfriend to the Emmy’s in his place. That’s pretty great.
 
Cool. You toured with Yo La Tengo, right?  How'd that come about?
 
They’re big fans of comedy.
 
Really.
 
Yeah, so did Benjamin and Todd and Glaser. When they did a swing state tour, different comics joined them on different legs, so I toured with them for a few weeks in the Midwest.     

So what do you have planned for 2007? Anything big you’re working on?
 
I’m writing a book.
 
No shit.
 
Yes, it’s true. It’s an advice slash self-help parody book. And then I’m doing a voice for a cartoon.
 
What cartoon?
 
Maybe it’s called Lucy, Daughter of the Devil. It definitely involves Lucy…
 
I’m maybe not in the pilot. But I’m in maybe the second episode, and then all of them. I play a nun. There’s going to be ten more episodes or something.
 
Oh, that’s fantastic.

And then I’m going to be in the Flight of the Concords’ series. Do you know who the Flight of the Concords are?
 
What’s that?
 
They’re a New Zealand comedy-folk duo, and they have a new musical sitcom on HBO. I get to play Eugene, their landlord.
 
Right on.
 
I could keep going, but then I will become an asshole. [Laughs.]
 
It’s all right. Two shows are fine for right now.
 
Is it fine – two shows?

But also I’m pretty excited to make my weird superdeluxe stuff.
 
It’s cool because that seems a little bit smaller and kind of contained, where it’s just you doing your thing.
 
Exactly.
 
And the other things – I don’t know how big those get, but an HBO series is certainly bigger, involving a lot more people.
 
Probably, yes – though I’m very excited to do both. It’s funny to be on a sitcom because – though I think it will actually be really fun and it’s for HBO, and Flight of the Concords are really funny – but I never particularly had the goal of being on a sitcom.
 
What do you think broke open the door for real cable channels to start having real sharp. . . . I mean, they’ve got Lucky Louie now.

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Well, that’s cancelled – don’t worry.
 
Fuck me. Really?
 
Yes.
 
Ahhhh... Fuck.
 
But go on.
 
That’s all I have now.
 
Okay.
 
Doesn’t Silverman have something coming out?
 
She has a new show. Maybe it airs today, or within the next day or two, on Comedy Central.
 
All right, I didn’t know it was Comedy Central. I thought it was…
 
HBO?
 
HBO or Showtime.
 
It’s Comedy Central.
 
Well, then I’ve got nothing. I thought real cable channels – proper pay channels – were now giving…
 
HBO certainly does have lots of…
 
They’ve got the stand-up – they’ve got a lot of that – but they haven’t been picking up sitcoms that are done by real comedians that stay sharp.
 
Lucky Louie is maybe the first sitcom in a studio, but they have good comedy.
 
Nothing against the stand-up and the comedy they’ve got – I thought there were going to be sitcoms with comedians that were done right, where it didn’t just immediately take a sharp comedian and make him do the most mundane shit. And I thought that was happening.
 
It still might be.
 
Well, then I’ll dream.
 
We’ll see what comes out this coming season, and then we’ll know. The truth is cable – and also the Internet – are providing a great deal of opportunities for people. It’s becoming much less necessary to settle or do not exactly what you want. You now have the choice of finding networks or online places that will give you a fair amount of creative control, and it might not be the same thing as a network sitcom, but on the other hand, it’s probably something you really enjoy.
 
Right – it doesn’t make you super rich immediately, but…
 
And there are probably some great network things that… I’m sure you’re probably given a great deal of freedom – I’m sure that Seinfeld got to do essentially what he wanted on Seinfeld. But in general there are so many opportunities to do things that are your own that I think that a lot of people, instead of being tempted by money, are being tempted by freedom because they’re getting money for it. Because it might not be a million dollars, but it’s certainly enough to buy and throw away a Porsche.
 
That’s nice.
 
[Laughs] No, a used… a toy Porsche.
 
A tiny Porsche.
 
A tiny Porsche, yes.
 
How do you like working on cartoons? Because you’re on a couple voices now.
 
I enjoy it. I like doing voices. I like working on lots of different little projects and stuff. That’s why I like running shows – in a sense. I don’t like booking shows because I don’t like talking to comedians who I don’t know well, though I don’t mind helping people. [Laughs.] The hardest thing about running a show, though you didn’t really ask, is telling really nice but not insanely funny people to quit.
 
Oh, good.
 
Just kidding. [Laughs] I would never do that.
 
[Laughs.] Just tell someone to just give up.
 
I’m very glad that there’s people who book the shows, as opposed to me, because it is really tiring.
 
That’s a full time job.
 
And you also have so many people calling and you only have… I mean, on our Sunday show, we only have two spots a week, so there’s nothing you could really do.
 
That’s got to be a little bit easier. How many performers usually come to Invite Them Up?
 
We try to have three or four other people – sometimes it’s more. Yesterday, there were six. Personally, I like a shorter show. The reason that Michael and I – and Julie – that we only have two other people is because I feel like you want to put on a show and then let people, before they’re tired, leave.
 
Gotcha.
 
And then everyone’s excited to see a little more. I don’t know – I don’t think people ever see a really long show and are like, “I wish it was just longer. What I really wanted to do was keep sitting.” I just prefer shows that are under an hour-and-a-half. We have an intermission at Invite Them Up. That show is sometimes a little longer than I’d intend, but it’s fine. It’s not a big deal.
 
I think I’ve always felt like an hour-and-a-half to two hours – mind you, I’m drinking the whole time…
 
Yes.
 
I think that actually ends up feeling like, “Man, that was a real way to spend a night.” I’m spent, mind you, but you really feel like that was something.
 
You’d be impressed, though, at how long an hour-ten also seems.
 
That’s true. I guess, without intermission, you know…
 
I mean, both are fine. There were a lot people yesterday that I would have, in a sense, really wanted to put on, but it would have just made it so long.
 
It frees you of that with having it weekly, right?
 
Yeah.
 
Where if you don’t get to do it this week, you can kind of push someone on the following week – reschedule them.
 
Yes – we try not to push people too much, but yes.
 
When does the Lucy thing happen?
 
I don’t know when it starts airing, actually. I’m imagining the spring or summer, and I don’t really know.
 
I’m really happy that got picked up because it looks really slick. The animation is good, and it’s fun.
 
I’ve heard the dialogue but I haven’t. . . .
 
Have you seen the pilot?
 
No. I’ve heard the episode that I did, and then I’ve recorded more since. How many more? I’ve either done three or six.
 
So you’re the nun?
 
I’m the nun, yeah...
 
Nun.  Okay.  How about a crazy story, sometime when you thought this might be it – this is the end?
 
I’ve been hung over and felt weak.
 
Oh, good. If that’s the worst you got. . . .
 
When I was a kid I was mugged – I wasn’t really even mugged. My friend was mugged, but he was right next to me. We were in eighth grade, and somebody punched him in the face and tried to take his wallet and pretended to be him, but I didn’t think I was going to die. Not pretended to be him, but when he was stopped, my friend was like, “He’s trying to take my wallet. My ID’s in there. My name is David Clark,” and then the kid who was trying to steal it was like, “No, my name is David Clark.”
 
No!
 
And then somebody heard a siren and the kid ran away. But I’m trying to think. [Pause.] Or what was the other option? So no one’s really tried to kill me.
 
Right, another one is: is there anything you kind of got away with?
 
I majored in comedy, and now I’m a comedian. Does that count? No?
 
No. Where do you major in comedy?
 
Hampshire College.
 
Of course, Hampshire College. Fantasy Camp.
 
Design-your-own major – not really getting away with something. God, there might be. Would it count to have stolen a plastic lobster from a Marriott? Right from under their noses?
 
Living crazy lives.
 
That’s a decade ago, so I don’t know if there’s a statute of limitations.
 
They’ll hunt you down.
 
Oh, wait – gotten away with. I think probably just slapping lots of people. I think that might count.
 
I think that’s fantastic.
 
That’s pretty good – in a funny way. Maybe licking a lot of people’s foreheads. Does that count?
 
I think.
 
Then I haven’t maybe done it in probably years.
 
I don’t know what the worst-case scenario of that is, though.
 
The worst case of licking someone’s forehead? You’re punched out.
 
Oh, all right. 
 
That would be the worst.
 
Unsuspecting people?
 
Yeah.
 
All right – then, yeah.
 
I mean, friendly.
 
Sure.
 
I guess “Vogue”-ing strange jocks. I think what I mean to say is: what I’ve gotten away with is countless little things – each one of which, if combined altogether, it’s amazing. Sometimes, I’ve done things that you would think would maybe antagonize a much bigger person, and I think that ultimately if they think you’re maybe crazy, they’re just more startled and leave you alone – so that’s something. So my advice is, if you do something, make sure people think you’re crazy.
 
Right – just stick with insanity.
 
Because then they’ll be like, “Ah, it’s just not worth it, he might bite our neck. It’s not worth fighting a man who might have a pencil that he’ll put in your throat, even though I don’t want him to “Vogue” with me any longer, and I’m twice his size.”
 
What’s “’Vogue’ with you”?
 
As in the dance where Madonna would do something with her hands in your face – I don’t know. Dance. That’s “Vogue”-ing. Slapping is just slapping.
 
Right – little slaps.
 
Yeah, little slaps.
 
[Laughs.]
 
I like that, at first, I was like, “Oh, nothing,” and then I was like, “Oh, yeah – small numbers of slaps.” But it’s also not like I go through New York finding huge people to dance with and then laugh and run away. That’s a very inaccurate representation. But you’re asking me to think of what I’ve done throughout my life, and my answer is: countless weird, little things.
 
Okay. And then no real repercussions?
 
I mean, amounts of embarrassment.
 
You can drink that away. That’s fine.
 
Yes, small amounts of regret or embarrassment – or neither, depending on how funny it was. All of it is with the intent for it to be funny. And often it is, so it’s okay. I’m sure there’s something else. There was a time where I was driving in a blizzard, and my car did a 180 on a highway – or a 360. It spun in circles on a highway, but I wasn’t going that fast, and there weren’t a lot of cars, so in a sense, it’s vaguely terrifying to be spinning on a highway in a snowstorm. And I think the car stopped but it wasn’t facing the right. . . . I had to then turn to face the right direction.

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But if you’re by yourself, it’s kind of fun.

Exactly. If I was loaded, then that would be bad. The risks I take are teasing somebody or whatever, but they’re reasonable.

It’s nice that you keep that in check.

I think so. I feel like I’m forgetting a time that somebody stabbed me. Like, “Oh yeah, I did get into a knife fight.”

Website

www.superdeluxe.com/sd/artist/eugene_mirman

Photos

Nick Chatfield-Taylor