There is also a kind of mean-spiritedness with LA comics.

Most people who have kids are, "Hey, I want another me. I like me. I'm pretty cool, and I've got really great ideas, and the way I think is the right way to think. Let's put another one of me out there.

The South has more of a disproportionate amount of irony on T-shirts than any other region in the country.

James Lipton: The most pompous arrogant failure in history.

It's a lot of anti-gay, racist humor—which people like in America—all couched in 'I'm telling it like it is.' He's in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring-tones act. That's where we are as a nation now. We're in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride.

I've never thought of myself as a hoity-toity cultural critic.

You have to have some level of attachment, you can still have passion and believe but it has to be softened somewhat.