Here we are again with another volume in my continuing tradition of interviews with . . . wait for it . . . THE SUPERSTARS OF COMEDY! Probably the best news you’ve heard all day, eh?

Once again, this is not a complete transcript, but rather the finished, edited, and printed project (in this case, Punchline #61, October 7, 1999). I’m not doing a very good job of locating many of the original tapes for the interviews, despite always thinking immediately afterwards, "Oh yeah, I’m DEFINITLY holding on to THIS." I guess moving over the summer never helps matters, either.

Steven Wright, to my mind, is a legitimate comedy legend who needs no introduction. Even if you’re not particularly a fan of his comedy - absurd, cerebral, hilarious - you’d be hard pressed to deny his originality. I’ll remain impressed until the day I die with comedians who have a truly unique and individual style and manage to be successful with that style, suffering the slings and arrows that are part of any attempted comedy career and coming out on top. It’s an amazing feat when you think about it. At any rate, Mr. Wright is a million-billion star comedian any way you look at it, continuing to sell out performances in theaters across the country and always - always - having something new to say. My biggest regret regarding this interview (besides not being able to find the tape, natch) was not knowing at the time that Mr. Wright had once actually spent a few weeks at the residence of one Kurt Vonnegut, throwing ideas back and forth for a project (written or filmed) that never came to fruition. Even more impressive: it was Mr. Vonnegut who initiated contact. Christ. As Mr. Vonnegut is my favorite author of all time, surely there were some interesting stories there that I missed out on.

Oh, and by the way (Part I): Mr. Wright’s slow, deep delivery is not schtick. He really sounds like that.

Oh, and by the way (Part II): I’ve linked Punchline’s website at the bottom of this. If you’re in or around Richmond, it’s free every Thursday at every bar and record store and deli and whatnot in town. So for free, there should be no complaints. Unless you’re Confederate Mack. But that’s OK, too.

Listing to The Hives over and over and over and over . . .
I remain,

(Mul)Doomstone

DS: Tell me a little more about "One Soldier," the short film you’ve completed.

SW: It’s a thing I worked on last year about a guy who’s obsessed with why we’re on the Earth and all of those questions that can’t be answered. He’s with a women who lives in the moment and doesn’t think about such things. It’s funny, but serious. It takes place right after the Civil War. It’s something I always wanted to do, so I did it, just to do it.

DS: Are you in it?

SW: Yeah, and I wrote it and directed it. It’s about thirty-two minutes long.

DS: When did you start doing stand-up?

SW: In the summer of ’79.

DS: What compelled you to start?

SW: I started watching The Tonight Show when I was about thirteen or fourteen. I just loved Johnny Carson and I loved all of the comedians. Guys like [George] Carlin and [Robert] Klein and David Brenner and Richard Pryor, and all of the other guys that he would have on and you would never see again. I just loved the whole thing.

DS: When you first started, was your style similar to what we know now as the Steven Wright-style?

SW: Well, I was really nervous. The jokes were the same weird, abstract jokes. But I was nervous so I was talking a lot faster. It took many, many months to speak at my normal pace, which is what I do on stage, which is what how I am speaking right now.

DS: So you weren’t conciously doing something different? It’s just you being you?

SW: Yeah. The only question towards what I would do was, "Is this funny? Is this concept funny?" There was no decision on style or anything. That just happened by accident.

DS: Was it difficult for people to catch on to your style at the beginning?

SW: No, it’s interesting. I only did three minutes when I first went on. Three minutes of just one line jokes, and some of them they laughed at and some of them they didn’t. It was like a minor example of my next twenty years in comedy (laughs). They didn’t care if I was different or how it was delivered, as long as they thought it was funny.

DS: I would imagine you rarely deal with it now, but how did you used to deal with hecklers?

SW: I would ignore them a bit. I didn’t really have any fancy answers. I would just, like, say, "Fuck You." I could never think of something clever to say back. The more and more I performed, I learned the best thing to do was to just have no response, which is really hard. It’s like not flinching if somewhere puts their hand up to your face.

DS: Do you have a pretty good idea when your new stuff is funny or not?

SW: I never know what’s gonna work. I can’t predict. Stuff I think is hilarious, they don’t laugh at, and stuff I think is just OK, they think is hilarious.

DS: So then how do you judge what’s funny, what stays in?

SW: If they don’t laugh, I think they don’t agree with funny. I still think it’s funny. But I won’t do the joke anymore because they’re in charge.

DS: How many jokes do you estimate you have at this point?

SW: I have no idea. I don’t catalogue them. I tell about five or six jokes a minute for about an hour and a half. But then there are jokes that I don’t do anymore. But I never added them up.

DS: Do you find clinically depressed people gravitate towards you?

SW: (laughter) Yes, yes.

DS: Does that scare you?

SW: (laughter) No, I don’t know (laughter). How can you tell who’s clinically depressed? I don’t know the real answer to that (laughter). But I assume the answer may be "yes." Even though it may not be the right answer (laughter). That’s the most hilarious question I have heard in my life.

DS: Who makes you laugh?

SW: I think "The Simpsons" is funny, definitely. I like Gary Shandling, I think he’s amazing. Richard Lewis. Kevin Meaney. Gilbert Gottfried is unbelievable. He’s just so bizarre, he makes me feel normal. And Robert Schimmel, I love how filthy he is.

DS: You were in "Natural Born Killers" and were the DJ’s voice in "Reservoir Dogs." Does it ever occur to you how weird it is to have been in two of the most influential and violent films of the last decade?

SW: (laughter) I think that as far as being in them, it amuses me, because I’m a comedian. For me to be in those two movies, it’s bizarre, I think. The same year I did "Natural Born Killers" I was the voice in a children’s movie, "The Swan Princess," with Jack Palance and John Cleese. So, I mean, the contrast is what gets me. But to have been in those two movies, it’s just, uhhhh . . . amusing. What was your question again?