Americans don't understand irony? I am an intelligent person living in the United States. My entire existence is ironic.

I'm interested in the fact that comics are people who are oddly courageous in their desire and their commitment to sacrificing any sense of normalcy in their lives, any sense of security, and most of them are oddly unique individuals. Let's have a broader conversation with people that have spent their last however-many-years thinking about their lives. I mean, they're philosophers. They're poets. They're people who are on the outside looking in at the world through a different set of values.

Art is supposed to punch you in the brain, and it's supposed to stay punched.

The medium of podcasting and the personal nature of it, the relationship you build with your listeners and the relationship they have with you - they could be just sitting there, chuckling and listening... there's nothing like that.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

I remember seeing Richard Pryor's first movie; it was a midnight movie when I was in high school. I must have been about fifteen. It was one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. I'd never laughed that much.

What comics sacrifice and what lives they live - I know that most of their lives, their adult lives, they're sitting around or walking around with notebooks, writing things down. Usually they're fairly sensitive. Usually they're very bright. And that makes them poets.