A lot of nerds aren't aware they're nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, 'I speak Klingon - who am I fooling? You win! I'm just gonna openly like what I like.' Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves.

As you get older, as a comedian, and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

With acting, you see some of the kids are literally just off the street, untrained, and they are great. And others are off the street, untrained, and kind of horrible.

You just do as many shows as you can to hone what it is you're working on.

It wasn't until I went to college and met different people from different areas of life - and then went to San Francisco and met people who really knew who the hell they were - that I kind of caught up in a hurry.

Nowadays - and I don't want to make some dopey cultural statement here - everyone can be, just by existing in society, because we all have a ship that we follow. Even if it's other people, like on MySpace pages, we're just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we're in.