AVC: Another is probably, "Are you sick of the road?"
LB: Hmm, no, that isn't asked a lot. "What's upsetting you most now?" "What's Jon Stewart like?" That kind of stuff.
AVC: That's so vague. When they ask you "What's Jon Stewart like?" do you just say, "Nice. He's nice."?
LB: Yeah, I say, "He's nice. He's gay, but he's nice." [Laughs.]
AVC: You live in New York. What do you think of the stand-up community there?
LB: I think it's pretty good; it's pretty solid. I think it's solid now just by default, because other cities don't have the amount of spaces to work at. We're really the strongest and largest in many ways.
AVC: How would you compare it to L.A.?
LB: I think it's stronger. I think comics in New York are interested in being comics. And there're comics in L.A. who are touring comics, who are certainly more interested in stand-up, but a lot of L.A. stand-ups are really looking to do something else.
AVC: Like getting a sitcom?
LB: Yeah. If you're in New York, you're looking to do stand-up.
AVC: Would you want to have a sitcom?
LB: I did another pilot for FX, which we're waiting around for. We wrote this thing, and now we're waiting. I play kind of a pundit who ends up screwing… He goes to Washington and gets a big job, screws himself over, and has to come back to his life in New York and start back at square one, and he's always living on the edge.
AVC: Do you write every day?
LB: No. I mean, I do think about it every day. I never write anything down. I write onstage.
AVC: What's your process like?
LB: I get an idea about something. I just start thinking about it, and then I get onstage and I talk about it, and then I think about it some more and talk about it some more, and think about it some more and talk about it some more, until it starts to take a shape.
AVC: You went to Yale.
LB: Drama school. Big difference. It's not Yale. It's drama, okay? Get a grip. It's theater, all right? You know, memorizing lines or writing plays or "Let's put the show on here." It's not, "We need a 35-page paper by Friday."
AVC: Do you think attending a school like that is valuable?
LB: I think it's valuable in certain ways. There are some really great art schools. But most art schools have a problem, because a number of people who teach in art schools carry… Shit, how do I explain it? Not a grudge, but a certain kind of anger because they're not doing it.
AVC: Because they're failed artists?
LB: They're not failed artists, in any way, but they see themselves… I think they bring something to the table, you know. There's a kind of cruelty in many art schools that is really not worth anybody's time or energy. You know, there's no reason to bash the shit out of a student in art school. They picked a profession which is fucking impossible. If you get into a school like Yale, as much as they… I've taught for a long time, and there's a way to teach somebody without necessarily breaking them down. You can teach them something and maintain their confidence. I think that many things that go on in an art school have a tendency to undermine confidence, and that shouldn't be part of the ballgame, ever.
AVC: What's your approach to teaching?
LB: I give people shit, but I do it in a loving way, that's what you do. Then you make sure that you constantly reinforce the fact that they know what they're doing.
AVC: Are you planning on doing another book?
LB: Uh, yeah, but the way things are going, I don't know when. I have no concept of when unless they give me a really long deadline.
I'd like to do one on religion. My version of the Bible.
AVC: Did you enjoy writing Nothing's Sacred?
LB: No. Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible, it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun. It's momentum, and once you get the momentum going, that's great, but it's a brutal experience in many, many ways. And when you're done, people tell you "Well, gee, I'm not interested." "Great, I'm glad I sat down and wrote this!"
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