When I was eight years old, I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror, practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going; there was no reason to quit.

I've skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech.

We just got a tour bus. I didn't know tour buses could be this nice. It's just me, Brian Haner the guitar guy, the tour manager and a writer. We laugh ourselves silly. Apparently we're going to have a road dog, a miniature pincher. It's the smallest they've ever seen. How masculine am I going to look, working with dolls and a miniature dog?

I hate the beach - I'm a mountain guy. I'd much rather face a bear than a shark.

I've tried the female thing. I was in a movie called Dinner for Schmucks a couple of years ago with Steve Carell and I created a female character for that movie. And after a few months of trying her out on the road it just didn't work. I mean, I can think like a terrorist, I can think like a white trash guy, I can even try and think like an African American, but I can't figure out how a woman.

I don't think I am very easy to work for because everything has to be just right or we don't put it out. But at the same time, all the people that work for me have a "no asshole" rule, if you're a jerk you're fired, so it's a great team and a lot of skillful people at the top of the game, anybody from management to the agents to the publicists to the day-to-day website stuff and it's just a great team.

I was not one of the popular kids, I was not great at sports, girls didn't pay attention to me.I was just pretty much an average kid, no stand-out abilities, nothing note-worthy.