It always astounds me that over the course of my career, and having lived in four comedy cities - New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles - there's very few people I haven't run into.

What appealed to me was the intimacy of the medium, the fact that I was doing it from my home, and the fact that I wanted to talk. I was not there to plug things. I don't do a hell of a lot of research. I go on a sort of kindred-spirit bonding that preexists the interview, and just see what unfolds.

Is there any indication we shouldn't be depressed - are you living on the same planet that I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we're going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step, or at least into taking some different course of action so we might survive? Do you ever think that maybe it's the happy people that are really screwed up in the head?

I think things evolve into jokes. I don't generally write them down as jokes. I talk them out.

I'm not fundamentally a writer. I know writers, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. It bothers me that no matter how well I do it, it's not really my format.

When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.

We need the children of Indonesia and the Philippines to manufacture our freedom of choice.