Comedian Jeff Perla joins Jemele to discuss his new show on HBO, Curb Your Enthusiasm, working with Brian Callen, and his new song, Who Sang That Song? on the album. Jeff also talks about his stand-up career and how he got to where he is today, and why he loves going on the road so much. Plus, he talks about why he doesn t do standup anymore and why it s a good thing. And, of course, there s a song he s written and sings about the making of that song. You won t want to miss this one. Thanks to Jeffrey Perla for coming on the pod and for being the first guest on the show. We hope you enjoy this one, and we ll see you again next week. Thank you so much for being here, Jeff! -Jon Sorrentino Hosted by Jonny LoQuasto and Alex Blumberg Produced and Edited by Matt Knost Executive produced by David Axelrod Artwork by Jeff Perlan Music by Bobby Lord and Jeff Perlman Copyright 2019 Jeff Perlas (c) 2019 & Matt Knapp is a writer, editor, producer, and editor, and is a producer, director, and producer, in Los Angeles, California, and New York City, New York, NY, and London, NY All Rights Reserved, and other places in London, London, England, and Toronto, Canada, and Vancouver, Canada , New York London, USA New York & London, Canada & New York , London, Australia Paris, Chicago, USA, London Toronto, , and Los Angeles etc., London, Europe, and Boston, Canada , Chicago , and New Amsterdam, etc. , Paris, Canada and Berlin, Boston, & Los Angeles , & Paris, USA , , Canada, ) Boston . Berlin, Canada - Montreal, Paris , Chicago, Toronto , Milan, NY , Berlin, France, (London, Milan , Milan, Paris, NY , Chicago , Toronto , Toronto, Milan, Canada . , London , Montreal, Toronto, and Milan, Ireland,
00:01:41.000Going out of the house for 15, 20 minutes, not worth my time.
00:01:46.000When you do like an hour set, do you plan your sets out or do you have like some material that you'd like to be working on and is that why you like the freedom of having an hour so you can just kind of fuck around?
00:01:56.000I have no preparation whatsoever except I may think, oh I'll talk about that tonight.
00:02:03.000I may bring up a story I've told before, but I have no idea.
00:02:07.000Literally when I step on stage, I have no idea what I'm going to talk about.
00:02:11.000What does help me, what I've done for quite a while now, is I come up to a different song every time I come up.
00:02:19.000And then I just talk about that song, the story of the making of that song, who sang that song, what that song means to me, and that will usually lead me to something.
00:05:13.000Because everyone always focuses on waking up the same time every day.
00:05:18.000He said, focus on going to bed at the same time every night, and that'll be more productive for you.
00:05:25.000And I do that with a sort of a half-hour bump to fall asleep, to maybe read for a minute, whatever.
00:05:31.000But I'm in bed usually by 10. I've never gone to a psychiatrist, but one of the shows that I was on, I was like the only person on the set that didn't go to a psychiatrist.
00:08:00.000I feel like what it is is like they're letting you know that this is me when I'm out, but when I'm at home and I'm feeling sexy, I just undo that.
00:09:11.000I think a group of men, like I thought David Bowie's band Tin Machine, I didn't really dig their music, but I love the look of all them wearing the suits with the close-cropped hair.
00:09:21.000Well, Bowie's so odd and so undeniably creative that he's allowed to get away with anything he wants.
00:09:27.000Well, he's allowed to do anything he wants, but truthfully, if you have any sort of confidence, you can, except the man bun.
00:12:07.000He was on Bourdain's show, and Bourdain interviewed him in this small town where he lives, and it's like, wow, look at this guy, just kind of Hanging out, being normal.
00:12:16.000No girlfriend, no wife, just being himself now.
00:12:19.000But you don't know that he doesn't have a girlfriend?
00:12:34.000As a matter of fact, at the end of my shows, I always thank the audience for actually leaving their homes to come see me because I know what an effort that is.
00:19:33.000Yeah, tomorrow morning I'll be playing with my tennis teacher.
00:19:36.000I play golf, which is not that physical.
00:19:38.000However, I was at the store buying stuff the other day, you know, at the golf store, and the guy was a very nice guy helping me.
00:19:45.000He wanted to sell me something that I don't have to bend over to get the ball.
00:19:49.000I go, I think that bending over and, as a matter of fact, stretching my hamstrings Really, I don't know the benefit I'd get from golf if I didn't at least bend.
00:20:31.000The thing about tennis, though, is it's a lot of going left and right and left and right and putting weird strains and pressures on your knees.
00:25:28.000If you're smoking indica, listening to great music, and having fantastic sex after a great meal, and then someone says, no, no, no, you're just supposed to meditate and just sit in a room and be mindful.
00:26:36.000I saw James Brown when he first got out of prison, and I found that performance that he gave was the most enlightened performance I'd ever seen.
00:26:47.000Was this when he was in the car chase?
00:27:07.000There's a big difference between someone using his toilet.
00:27:09.000But the point thing is that he had gotten out of prison, and just the idea that James Brown was in prison.
00:27:14.000I think, maybe I'm remembering this incorrectly, but I think someone used his toilet, and then he got mad at that person and shot at something, like either shot at the wall or something.
00:27:26.000I don't remember that story, but I assume that you're looking it up right now.
00:29:10.000Carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering in an attempt to flee Paris, driving under the influence of drugs.
00:29:16.000Okay, he reportedly stormed into the insurance company next to his office, waving a shotgun and complaining that strangers were using his bathroom.
00:33:46.000Well, there's exceptions to all stuff, like all things.
00:33:49.000But in this sort of way, I'm talking about when someone just stands there and talks, and then they're doing some sort of movement, it's not good.
00:34:03.000I'm talking about people that just oversell shit by physicalizing what should be just funny the way you say it, not even what you're saying, the way you say it.
00:35:57.000Yeah, they're there to see their friends or they're tired or whatever.
00:36:00.000Or they've been beaten down by totally unfunny shit.
00:36:03.000Totally unfunny shit over and over and over again.
00:36:06.000So yes, up until about four or five years ago, I used to go to open my...
00:36:11.000What's fascinating about open mic nights is you're watching people try to figure out how to be funny.
00:36:16.000Like, you're watching people, like, if you go to the store, like, tonight, and you go there, it's gonna be a packed house, it's all Chris D'Elia, and fuckin' Andrew Santino, and Ali Wong, it's all killers.
00:36:31.000And you're seeing high-level comedy over and over again.
00:36:34.000And so you get into that vibe and you're like, oh, this is a great place to be.
00:36:38.000But if you go to an open mic night, you're seeing this primordial ooze.
00:37:09.000That's one of the reasons why I really admired Charlie Murphy.
00:37:13.000Because Charlie Murphy was essentially a famous open-miker when he started.
00:37:19.000I mean, when he started, he had never done stand-up comedy ever, and then he was just a really funny actor who was the brother of one of the greatest comics of all time, who got on the Chappelle Show and then started doing stand-up.
00:38:42.000But there's no following that with what I do, which is totally different, and having the audience go, oh, this takes it to a whole new place.
00:39:23.000No, no, it might have been then because I was thinking about me living here now, but it came out the first time I lived here.
00:39:33.000Well, I was living in Boston, and I was just starting out, and there was a great comedian named Mike Donovan, who to this day is one of the funniest guys I've ever seen in my life.
00:39:42.000And Mike Donovan was laughing to the point where he couldn't breathe at Dice doing this set while he was doing fucking stadiums.
00:40:03.000He was the biggest comedian of all time.
00:40:04.000And he just decides to show up at Dangerfields in New York City randomly, like on Monday and a Tuesday night, doesn't tell anybody he's gonna be there.
00:40:12.000I mean, there's 13, 20 people in the crowd.
00:40:14.000He records two different sets, and he has no material.
00:40:20.000He's making things up as he goes along.
00:40:23.000And people are getting angry at him, and they're walking out, and he did a bit about Richard Nixon, about how he eats ass, and when he eats ass, he does it like Richard Nixon.
00:40:33.000He was like, oh, I love this fat fucking ass!
00:40:37.000He was doing this Richard Nixon impression of eating ass.
00:40:40.000And for whatever reason, Mike Dunvin thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen in his life.
00:40:43.000He was wheezing, like couldn't breathe, talking about Dice doing this impression.
00:50:48.000By the way, I dig a lot of people there.
00:50:50.000But the people who I dig know I dig them.
00:50:53.000And the other ones who I don't dig don't know anything.
00:50:56.000It's not like I spend time being negative.
00:50:58.000But there's lots of guys and gals that are great, but also plenty of them that, like, please step away.
00:51:06.000I was having a conversation about this with a friend of mine recently who was living for a while in a place that he hated, and he was saying that if you're in a place where everyone's negative, you really kind of forget that people can be positive.
00:52:17.000That is brutal when you're having a good conversation and...
00:52:20.000If your groove is not about making people laugh, like I don't care whether you're political, social, how you do your comedy, but if your ultimate goal isn't to bring joy into people's lives, what's the purpose?
00:52:37.000If it's not about the laughs and joy, and so I find, here's the thing I don't dig, a lot of ego running around the store when I'm there.
00:52:47.000And most of the people I don't like have the biggest egos.
00:52:50.000Do you think that they're threatened by you because you're a very accomplished guy, so maybe that's why you're getting that weird vibe from people?
00:52:57.000I've been told that before, but if I thought that, that would be weird.
00:53:22.000Yeah, I think sometimes people will look at you and go, well, here's a guy who's been on some of the all-time greatest television shows ever.
00:54:11.000But when you and I had met, you've always been very friendly, easy to talk to.
00:54:16.000I like to be a warm, thoughtful person who most of the time prefers to stay at home.
00:54:21.000But if I'm going to go out, if I'm going to go to the farmer's market, if I'm going to go to the comedy store, I'm prepared to talk to people, take pictures of people, be warm to people, engage with people.
00:54:33.000Because if I don't want that, I stay home.
00:59:48.000I was just in Thailand, and when you go to the bathroom, right by the toilet, they literally have one of those garden hoses that you would wash a car with.
00:59:59.000Because with those peppers, when you're eating that Thai food, like this kind of splatter that you're creating, they're like, let's just be honest.
01:00:52.000Another thing I read that's very honest that I read that I agree with, some guy said because of smartphones, I pee sitting down much more than I would like to admit.
01:01:46.000Well, one of the things I did before my last Netflix special that I filmed in April was I went on tour for three months where you had to use those cell phone bags.
01:02:59.000One of the reasons why I did that, because Chappelle was telling me how much he enjoys it, and Hannibal Burris was telling me how much he enjoys using those bags, too.
01:03:08.000But another reason was, this woman complained that when she went to my New Year's show, that some girl behind her made two separate phone calls and was saying Happy New Year to people during the show.
01:03:33.000You're at a performance, a live performance, and you're calling people and talking to them or even answering the phone and talking on the phone.
01:03:39.000But I think if you have signs with a stern language saying you'll be...
01:06:40.000When you take a dump in public, there's no winning.
01:06:43.000Well, there's also the issue of becoming some OCD person who's fucking completely crazy, squirts Perel all over their body everywhere they go because they're afraid of everything they touch.
01:06:53.000And then they don't build up immunity.
01:10:21.000I want to say, like, it was before my time, and I started there in 94. So someone said something stupid to him somewhere back in the day, and Tony Danza was a professional boxer.
01:12:24.000I don't remember if it was behind the rope, you know, by the cars or in the bar, you know, something to get away, and he still tried, you know.
01:16:13.000Doing comedy is like the dominoes, and if you take one of those and just move it a little to the left or the right, you're screwing up the whole thing.
01:20:00.000And by the way, one thing Larry and I are very proud about with Curb Your Enthusiasm, if one of us says something funny to the other one because we improvise, we laugh.
01:20:08.000So these shows you see, people say these lines written by writers, and then the audience laughs if it's on stage, but yet the actors don't laugh at one another?
01:20:20.000So on a lot of levels, it's just not right.
01:20:23.000And then there are shows now that I've watched for maybe five minutes where I cannot believe how terrible they are, and yet they're successful.
01:21:59.000The Goldbergs, we don't even do a lot of rehearsing, but I have to stick to the script.
01:22:04.000If I want to improvise on the Goldbergs, I have to let the producers know, not to get permission, to let them know this take, I'm going to do something different, and I have to let my fellow actors know.
01:23:59.000You know, Roger Do- Roger Do- Adultery always said, be lucky.
01:24:05.000Because that means no matter how great you are, no matter how much you have to do with this or that, if you look at it that you're lucky – by the way, being humble is a big bullet.
01:24:15.000The combination of being confident and being humble, you can't beat that.
01:24:20.000Well, being aware that you could be born in Ethiopia.
01:24:22.000You could have been born in the middle of nowhere.
01:24:53.000Well, one of the main reasons why I exercise so much is to try to keep my body in balance, not in terms of the way it looks, but so it doesn't get in the way.
01:25:02.000By the way, if your body's in balance, then that helps your mind.
01:26:37.000Like, when someone's having a kid, they're about to have a kid, whether it's a woman or a man, I don't say to them, oh, you know, because you can't explain it.
01:26:44.000It's truly a thing that you can't explain, and you only sound like an idiot when you try going, well, here's what it is.
01:27:04.000There's an actual switch that seems to go off and a change of course.
01:27:09.000By the way, let me just say something.
01:27:11.000Because you know people and I know people where for whatever reason that switch doesn't go off and they still stay the most important person in their own lives.
01:27:56.000I used to do a joke about it, that the problem with actors is that they have this big hole in their soul that they need to fill up with other people's attention.
01:28:07.000And I would say, not me, I'm different.
01:28:08.000That's why I'm up here with a microphone.
01:28:10.000By the way, comedians are completely different for the most part than actors.
01:28:14.000You also know that to be a great actor you can be dumb as a rock.
01:28:22.000Excuse me, I had a little hiccup something.
01:28:24.000It's the only art form And I know plenty of really intelligent actors, but I know some that are so talented, and if I could never have a conversation with them, I'd be thrilled.
01:28:38.000Yeah, but when the time comes, and they said they can become that person, they can fall into that role, and there's something wrong with them.
01:29:39.000Because, you know, he doesn't have notoriety, he's not worried about running into these people that he talks shit about on stage, so he can be free.
01:29:46.000And he was like, it's not normal to be able to cry on cue.
01:30:47.000If you're really a comedian, it is so part of your DNA. It is so part of who, you know, people are like, it's not who I am.
01:30:55.000No, comedians, it's part of who we are on a deep, deep level.
01:31:01.000The passion and caring that comedians truly have for comedy, and that's why I look at other comedians as my brothers and sisters.
01:31:11.000So if you're dealing with ego, if you're dealing with you're an actor, you're trying to get famous, if you're dealing with the competition, I got no part of you.
01:31:20.000When you look at me and you go, Jeff Garland has no choice but to be a comedian, then you're thinking on the same wavelength as me, because I have no choice.
01:34:09.000Specifically TMZ. Yeah, Bourdain got a shitload of death threats when he was at the airport and they said, if you were going to cook dinner for Trump and Kim Jong-un, what would you serve?
01:34:50.000You know, you can ask me comments about things that go on in the world, and I know I'll have an answer that will not get me in trouble.
01:34:57.000That's the case today with comedy, right?
01:34:59.000It's like you're opening yourself up to the world.
01:35:01.000You're not just opening yourself up to the people that— But I never, when I went on stage, was ever in fear of going down a path where I would say something that was wildly inappropriate.
01:35:14.000Not inappropriate from the standpoint of taking a risk, but just because my sense of humor doesn't go the way to use certain words.
01:35:37.000By the way, you know when he walked off stage, and I think it might have been Tom Papa who was standing in the corner, he went up to him and went, ah, weird crowd.
01:35:45.000Having no idea that his life was over as he knew it.
01:35:50.000Because, by the way, I remember being furious because certain people that came down to them on the news like the next day or two were people who I had heard say worse things in their stand-up.
01:36:35.000When Harvey Weinstein or any of these fuckers come out, I don't have a Twitter account because I also know, just like TMZ, how long till I say something that pisses somebody off.
01:36:45.000But there are people, and I'm not saying their names, I don't want to get into a thing, who will come out and go, gentlemen, that's not the way to behave.
01:37:23.000I want people to assume that I'm making the right choice.
01:37:27.000I want people to assume, because they're not going to hear what my choice is.
01:37:30.000There was a guy who was a journalist who was angry, and he was saying that the lack of blowback from other comedians about Louis C.K., that they weren't screaming at how horrible this is, speaks volumes.
01:37:43.000What speaks volumes, you don't know what you're talking about.
01:37:46.000That's what speaks volumes about this dude.
01:37:48.000He doesn't know what he's talking about.
01:37:50.000By the way, should anyone disrespect a woman?
01:40:25.000Unforgiven, but it's just the way we deal with grief in those situations.
01:40:28.000Well, it's also the inappropriate thing at that time is very funny to someone like you or I. Very, very funny.
01:40:34.000I was sitting right next to Dave Foley, and we went to the Emmys, and Phil Hartman had just been murdered, and he was nominated for an Emmy, and he lost to this guy from Frasier.
01:40:44.000And Dave looks over at me and goes, what the fuck does a guy have to do to win?
01:41:40.000The biggest fights with my wife, I look back over the years, are when we either went to the principal, we went to have the meeting, we went to the open house, something I said.
01:45:32.000But they were deporting him and then he was going to get sent back to Afghanistan where he was going to be killed.
01:45:39.000We live in a weird time when it comes to this.
01:45:41.000There was a story I was reading about some woman who was devastated because her daughter-in-law was being deported and she was a Trump supporter.
01:45:52.000And her daughter-in-law has been in the United States her whole life and being deported and just couldn't believe it.
01:46:01.000Came over here as an infant, that kind of thing.
01:46:04.000When you're an illegal alien, no one gives a fuck if you've been here for 30 years, you've only been alive for 32. They don't get it.
01:48:28.000It's too long in coming, and I'm thrilled to have been here.
01:48:33.000People ask me, I'm like, you know, I don't really know Joe.
01:48:36.000I go, but the first chance I get, which was the other night when I saw you, where it was like, oh, hey, can I do the thing I really want to?