AVC: Isn't rejection part of the process of being a comedian?
JG: Yeah, well, the thing about stand-up is, it's this amazing combination of control and no control. You've got the microphone and you've got material that's got consistency, but you never know. You never know if someone's really, really shit-faced in the audience and their only reference point for performance is to yell things out. There's an improvisational quality to stand-up that keeps it really organic. It's why I have this inner voice that I do, which is this running interpretation of how the audience might be reacting, or how one hypothetical person might be reacting to certain material.
AVC: How long have you been doing that inner-voice bit?
JG: I would say at least five years, maybe seven years.
AVC: It wasn't part of your comedy in the beginning.
JG: I did my last Comedy Central special in 2000, and I remember not doing the voice because it was something that I really enjoyed, but there wasn't a level of consistency. I didn't know how to manage the voice. People would be ask me, "So what is that voice?" And I'd go, "It's just one of the voices in our heads," and people would be like, "I don't have those voices!" I feel like I'm getting weirder and weirder as I do stand-up, but that's good. You want to evolve.
AVC: You started as a sort of conventional observational comic, and you're adding wrinkles as you go along.
JG: Yeah, I think for most comics, it's about finding your voice and adjusting what turns you on. Not to sound like a dick. It's not that I started stand-up saying, "I wanna be the guy that does the voice of the audience and doesn't curse!" Over the past three years, I just literally got rid of all the curse words in my act. Any comic would tell you, you throw an F-bomb in a joke, it helps it a lot. But it is a little bit of a crutch. It's kind of like some hot girl wearing a tube top. She's already hot. With the tube top, she's gonna get a lot more attention.
AVC: On the Beyond The Pale DVD, you included your first stand-up performance, and there's some profanity on that, but it's bleeped out.
JG: I felt like it wasn't even necessary. I remember that coming up, where somebody said, "Can we bleep out that 'fuck' you said?" And I go, "What for?" And they're like, "'Cause if there's some store that doesn't want curse words…" And I'm like, "Well, it's not like it's that important." It's not like I'm the social satirist of the day where I'm explaining the improprieties of the Bush administration. I just didn't feel like it's a censorship issue.
AVC: It's an interesting performance to watch, because you showed a lot more confidence than a lot of beginning stand-up comedians would, yet the material isn't especially advanced.
JG: I see utter fear. I dealt with pretty severe stage fright up until I was doing stand-up seven years. There's a lot of comics who feel comfortable up there immediately. I feel comfortable now, but seeing that performance brings back memories of utter terror. And that was a pretty safe environment. Some people have been like, "Well, that wasn't that bad of a first performance," but it was a showcase show where everyone invited 15 people. There were probably two years after that where it was pretty ugly. I was some blonde guy in a suit trying to make people laugh in Brooklyn, and they were like, "Who the fuck is this guy? This guy looks like my boss."
I've had plenty of friends tell me that their first time doing stand-up, they do well, and then they tank for a while after that. Kind of like the first time you do a drug, you're like, "Huh! This is pretty darn good," and then you spend all your money trying to get the same high. [Inner voice.] "Ooh, the drug parallel. Ooh, fascinating, so intellectual."
AVC: When you launch into your Hot Pockets routine, the audience applauds, because they know what's coming. Does that surprise you, that you have a bit so well known that fans hand you Hot Pockets boxes to sign?
JG: It's weird. Mostly it's flattering, and it also kind of throws you a little. You're like, "Okay, I, uh… thank you?" I'm much more interested in making people laugh than getting applause breaks. Some comics'll go, "I did Letterman, and I got eight applause breaks." And I'm like, "Really? What are you, running for senator? Cause I thought we were supposed to make people laugh! What are you, Joe Biden?" The applause thing is very nice at the beginning or at the end. People recognizing the Hot Pockets joke… I mean… It's a pretty small minority of people who even know who I am. But you never know. I remember coming up with the Hot Pockets joke. I looked at those commercials and thought it was hysterical how awkward and weird the whole product is. But that might just be my point of view. Sometimes you just tap into something that's kind of universal that hasn't been done.
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