It's really surreal when I play shows, I'll have three or four people who are in the front row who are singing every word to my songs. The first time I experienced that I was like,"Are they mocking me? Is this a joke?" But it's not a joke. They actually identify with my music and that is something that I'm getting used to.
When I was governor, if I told a joke in front of the press - I learned. I would go, "That was a joke, joke, joke," and I'd say it three times.
The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
As far as outlining is concerned, I don't outline humor. I might right down a word or two to remind myself of a punch line I thought of, but the actual structure of a piece I really don't. I don't think it would really help me because for me the process is joke, joke, joke, joke.
When I'm writing columns, it's - all I'm thinking about is jokes, joke, joke, joke, setup, punch line, joke, joke, joke. And I really don't care where it goes.
Unlike singers, who can earn for years by singing one song, we artistes have to be on our toes all the time. If I write something funny or create a joke in the morning, there will be someone narrating my own joke to me the same evening.
I can do four shows in a row singing no problem. Four shows in a row stand up, my voice is destroyed. I'm a storyteller so I act out a lot of characters and I act out a lot of situations and I'm distorting my voice and imitating characters I run into. I'm actually more exhausted doing that than I am with the rock shows, believe it or not.
Twitter is a good medium to lean how to write jokes. It pushes you to write a better joke in that, on Twitter, the first joke about something has already happened. You need to think of the second joke and the third joke.
I have been recording every single one of my shows since 1994. Every single joke I've ever done is on a hard drive. I can tell you when I wrote every joke I wrote. I can tell you the first time I said it, when I made it different, when I made it better.
Every bad joke, every endorsement deal, all of the things that a typical host would normally get creamed for, people don't mind, because they know I don't cheat when it comes to the work I actually try. I'm a lab rat. I'm a perpetual apprentice. The joke is on me if there is one.
When I first started making music, it was learning other people's songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.
Wonder Showzen was one of the first shows that realized each sketch, each segment is essentially one joke, and, once you know what the joke is, it's time to move on.
I've worked with a lot of people and I like to play with people when it's fun, and people that I have fun with independent of music, do you know what I mean? Where you can just joke and kid around, because you can joke and kid around with somebody and when you get in the pressure cooker of the studio then you can it's just something.
I keep on repeating something told to me by an American psychologist: "When you are making a joke about someone and you are the only one to laugh, it is not a joke. It is a joke only for yourself." If people are making a joke they have the right to laugh at me but I will ignore them. Ignoring doesn't mean that you don't understand. You understand it so much that you don't want to react.
My music is special to people and I'm going to keep on making this kind of music because a lot of people had a struggle like me. You got to feel my music. If you listen to it, if you give me a second, you play three, four songs, you will become a fan.
I had an awful joke about Auschwitz I drove everybody crazy with that joke. But that joke makes me feel good. You know what "cuit" means? When something is cooked. It's a joke like that: "What are the birds doing when they fly over Auschwitz? 'Cuit! Cuit!'" It's awful, but it's desacralizing. For me, it's good.
When I started playing music at East Tennessee State University I would sit on a stool with a tip jar in front of me and play four hours a night at a college bar called Quarterback's Barbecue. I wasn't thinking about doing it for a living. I was just making enough money to go to Taco Bell every day. People were eating chips, drinking beer and not listening to me. I'd had three or four years of people ignoring me, and I'd kind of gotten used to it.