Satiristas Read online

  But I really think there’s no political structure that can work. There’s always gonna be assholes to fuck it up. That’s why I love “last guy on Earth” movies, where a guy wakes up after an apocalypse and he’s the only guy left on the whole planet. It’s hard to fuck that movie up for me, ’cause I daydream about it so much.

  I don’t know, Provenz…You always seem to be in a good mood. What makes you happy?

  PAUL PROVENZA: Are you kidding? I’m constantly fighting my demons. I just try and live the way I want it to be, and just keep hoping it’ll become that. It’s a constant state of trying to be happy.

  DOUG STANHOPE: Well…You’re not buying it off a guy, like some of us do.

  ROSEANNE BARR

  WITH HER GROUNDBREAKING eponymous television series, Roseanne brought the voice of America’s working class to prime time, joining Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker among television’s great blue-collar heroes. With the Connors and a rocky relationship with fame and fortune behind her, her stand-up has become even more outspoken, while a questionable-award-winning blog and a new series on FreeSpeech.org provide more outlets for her rage against the machine. She discusses her success, and how average working moms just might be the real instruments of radical change.

  ROSEANNE BARR: I hate the word “happy.” It’s such horseshit. I’m fifty-six, and until I was about forty-eight I went through a period of all heavy-duty mental illness.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Did you feel like you didn’t know who you were then?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I knew exactly who I was—all twenty of me. Every one of them knew who they were, they just didn’t know each other. But they’re all on the same team now.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Are you as political in your live shows now as you are on your blog?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I put the literate stuff where you can read it in my blog and do the jokes on stage, but I do my point of view always. My whole life is a statement about the way I see things. I don’t know why, but I’ll get this piercing ache in my head, going, “I must say this.”

  When I said Oprah was a fucking closet Republican, which she is, it was all over the fucking news. Whenever that happens, I think, “Hmm…Musta hit a nerve there.”

  I always say the stuff that isn’t being said. It’s like a door that hasn’t been opened yet, and somebody has to open it before anybody else will talk about it. I’ll try to kick that door down for as long as I’m on the planet, because I can’t help it. To me, I was chosen for it. I heard it in my head when I was three. It said, “This is what you’re gonna do,” and I’ve done it ever since.

  PAUL PROVENZA: So as a kid you were already preparing for stand-up?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I was onstage long before I did stand-up. I was a preacher in the Mormon Church when I was six years old. I know, nobody knows about that; it’s in my books that nobody reads. At twelve years old, I was talking to groups of Mormon bishops about the Old Testament. It’s crazy, right? I can’t believe it myself.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Where do you stand on religion now?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I think religion is the enemy and soon as it’s gone, things will be better. My conclusion came after suffering the type of terrorism they shove down your throat from the time you’re born. I’ve suffered from it my whole life.

  I never said, “I don’t believe in anything,” I just redefined it for myself. Underneath every religion’s big ol’ books—the ones they use as an excuse to bomb each other—it just says to be nice to people. I like that; that’s a good message, but I’m passionate about religion’s brainwashing.

  I was raised in an apartment house with all these Holocaust survivors; Jews with tattoos. It was in Salt Lake City, but it was like being in Poland or something. We got all the real scary Jewish stuff. Just horrifying. They’d point to me when they talked about horrific things you don’t want nobody who’s three years old to hear. It was mental terrorism. I believe it takes a lot of abuse and terrorism to make a believer, and that’s what they do to kids. They do it so a kid’ll keep quiet when the priest molests him or something.

  But if you read my books that nobody reads, I’m totally into Jesus. I love the whole myth of it. It really is the greatest story ever told. I think we’re wired to believe something; some story, myth, whatever.

  And that’s what being a stand-up comic is to me: a whole mission from God. I know a lot of comics don’t feel that way, but a lot do and we wonder, “What is this thing that drives us to correct everything?” So I follow Jesus.

  Jesus would be a stand-up comic today, for sure. He probably wouldn’t go to comedy clubs, because he wouldn’t want to be around that filth and sin, but he’d probably do it in a park under a tree, for free. He might be homeless, too.

  And I say he’s a girl this time.

  PAUL PROVENZA: You say you do it for Jesus, but people who claim to devote their lives to Jesus take offense at you.

  ROSEANNE BARR: Because they have that other Jesus, not the one I got. They want to force theirs on me, but I won’t force mine on them.

  Comedy is a spiritual act, really. You give the audience something, they take it, and they leave something behind for you. It’s a perfect exchange.

  And here’s another thing I love about comedy: as a woman, I don’t have any place to force my will on people, so I do it onstage. I’ve had from nine to fifteen thousand people or more, and to be one lone being controlling that room with nothing but your own body, mind, and a mic is high, spiritual shit. It feels so good!

  I talked for a while in my show about how Bush tried to make the world safe for democracy so other countries can have Walmarts and sell Chinese goods for discount prices, because that’s what freedom is all about. That, and shooting abortion doctors. When young people at colleges heard it, it was like being a rock star. They just loved it. They’d say, “This is what you’re saying? You’re our TV mom! We grew up with you! You raised us!” I’d say, “That’s why you are how you are. You were my TV children, and I raised you to be citizens of an enlightened future.” And that’s what I meant to do: teach them something.

  PAUL PROVENZA: You’ve gotten a lot of flak for your views on Zionism and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and you’re still putting it out there on your blog. So many people try to tackle those questions but can’t get a word out without being labeled anti-Semitic.

  ROSEANNE BARR: My ancestors go way back before the Jews to something that crawled out of the ocean.

  Some people believe “Zionism” stands for “justice and peace,” as opposed to “apartheid and war,” but every piece of earth on this planet is holy, not just one. I believe in no separatism, no mental terrorism against children, and a lot of Jewish people think like that, too. It’s up to Jewish people who think that way to challenge the Jewish people who don’t.

  My father always said, “I am a Jew, I am not a Zionist.” And I, Roseanne Barr, am a Jew and not a Zionist. Most Jewish Americans are like me. In fact, most Jews in Israel think exactly like me, but the top tier—the first and second estates, politicians—all block that message, because they’re making too much money off things as they are.

  My father also said, “Israel’s just another walled ghetto.” I don’t support walled-in ghettos where Jews live, I don’t care who builds the wall. It ain’t right and I don’t like it.

  This is a big example of knowing I have to say things no one else is saying. They’ve got all the Jews scared shitless. All the famous Jews are right on board; none of them are going to say anything. I thought, “This has to be said by a Jew.” It can’t just be said by Arabs anymore.

  I’m well aware of the risks I take, too, but what the fuck? I’m living my beliefs. If I don’t say it, if I live only for myself, as it says in our Talmud, then what am I?

  PAUL PROVENZA: I’m guessing Lenny Bruce influenced you a lot as a comedian.

  ROSEANNE BARR: I have the world’s second largest collection of Lenny Bruce; everything he ever recorded. My dad bought all his records, and we’d listen t
o them together. It was the only thing we had together. He’d say, “This guy is a prophet.” I liked a lot of comics, but the ones I kept listening to were Lenny Bruce and Johnny Carson.

  Me and Bill Maher are, like, the only ones that think this way, but I always say if Johnny Carson was still on the air, we never would’ve gone to Iraq. He was the conscience of the whole TV community.

  PAUL PROVENZA: You think Johnny would’ve taken a political stance?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I thought he was extremely political.

  PAUL PROVENZA: But he always made sure he was balanced, never really stating any position.

  ROSEANNE BARR: That’s what was so great! He was down the middle. The middle is the biggest, most powerful way to go. You gotta bring things to the middle to manifest. My stand-up was bringing the Left to middle. That’s what Roseanne was always about. It’s what my position on Zionism is: it is the middle, it needs to go middle and I’m bringing it middle.

  To get into the middle is extremely powerful. It’s “the path of the mother.” The middle is the filament for the negative and positive to come together. To take what someone else might make look radical and make it middle takes a lot of thought.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Do you get credit for being as fearless as you are? Do you feel respected for that?

  ROSEANNE BARR: No, I get nothing at all except my points in heaven. I don’t give a shit if anybody likes it or not, I gotta live for myself and that’s that. And that is being a comic.

  At the Comedy Store, we’d say, “Where’s the most important place on the planet Earth? It’s the Comedy Store. Because that’s where the comics are, and comics tell the truth.”

  As you and many other comics know, it’s a lonely road to take to voice the outsider opinion. Or else you’re a phony fucking asshole. I want to be who I say I am. I want to do the right thing with my beliefs. I want to encourage the youth to be fighters—and that’s pretty cool, because old people don’t usually do that, they tell ’em to shut up. But I’m gonna be that other type of grandma, going, “Let’s tear this thing down!”

  I haven’t been excited since I did that whole Roseanne show/class thing, but I’m excited now. Talking to kids who are cheering like sons of bitches. I’m, like, “Jesus! This is what my fame can do? Encourage warriors and thinkers?” What a great reward to encourage people who think and want the world to be better. It’s freaking awesome.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I want to mention the dubious distinction your blog has gotten: voted Worst Blog Ever.

  ROSEANNE BARR: AOL voted it the “worst, most incoherent thing on the Internet,” ever! I love my blog so much ’cause I don’t have any ads on it so I can say whatever I want. I pay for it out of my own pocket—because money can buy freedom—so I’m ad-free, and fuck ’em all.

  And I just know it was some gay guy or fat woman working at AOL saying, “I’m gonna do Roseanne a back-handed favor here because I read it, and she is fucking crazy but it deserves attention.”

  It was a favor! I had millions of hits from it. It crashed my site. And a lot of extremely coherent people found it, and now they’re writing on it, too.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Did you consider Roseanne political?

  ROSEANNE BARR: Of course. I wanted to show blue-collar people as intelligent and hardworking, because they always have been. That I even mentioned the word “class” in America is a political triumph. Stanley Kubrick even gave me props for that!

  I always thought The Honeymooners was extremely political; it was one of my favorites. Back then everyone watched one of only three channels, so Gleason’s populist, middle-of-the-road message wasn’t that foreign, but by the time I got on TV, things were different. And I had the great reference of All in the Family, another groundbreaking show about class, but my show was as groundbreaking for its time as those were for theirs.

  Cab drivers would ask me, “How did you get away with doing that show?” And I’d go, “Well, you got two years before they figure out what you’re doing, and I managed to stay two years ahead for a decade.”

  PAUL PROVENZA: You came from the working class, but now you’re very wealthy. How has that affected your perception of or relationship to class?

  ROSEANNE BARR: I went through this phase of, “I’m one of them now. What does that mean that I’m one of them?” So I went out and got face-lifts by the fucking fistful and bought two of everything. There was about ten or twenty years of that, and then I had a moment of reckoning, and it all crashed down. It has to.

  It went full circle. I was, like, “Now I got this fame, which to me is on the negative end, I have no enmity, which is really freaky for someone like me, and I have lots of money. What the hell does that make me, and what am I gonna do with it?” So I gave a lot of my money away. It was fucking awesome. I gave millions of dollars away in the street. Anybody that asked me for it, I gave them money. I gave millions and millions of dollars away, just to give it away. And it really was a great, great thing.

  I wanted to see what it felt like if I actually practiced what I preached. I started thinking, “How cool would it feel to be that fucking honest, to actually live your beliefs?” And it was really fucking cool. To let go of money was cool. So awesome. More rich people ought to do it.

  PAUL PROVENZA: Is this a well-known thing about you? You didn’t take a camera crew to Africa and do a prime-time special I missed, did you?

  ROSEANNE BARR: Nah, I just did it when I felt like doing it and I’d go, “Don’t make a big fucking deal out of it, okay? Don’t let me read it anywhere, ever.”

  After that, I was, like, “Man, I gotta make it my dream now to only make fifteen dollars a night.” I mean, that’s been my goal for a long time. I want to work someplace where you get paid, like, fifteen dollars. Or even doing it for free. Because that’s when you’re back on track.

  UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE

  FROM THE EARLY tutelage of Chicago improv legend Del Close, Upright Citizens Brigade has become a significant force in alternative comedy. Their cultish, innovative Comedy Central series may have been short-lived, but they’ve had immeasurable impact through Upright Citizens Brigade Theaters in New York and Los Angeles—performance spaces where comedy talent can gestate and find creative voice, unfettered by the usual commercial restraints and supported by a nurturing, collective-like atmosphere disdainful of the predictable and encouraging the new and adventurous. Like Second City and ImprovOlympic before it, the UCB Theater has become a launching pad for a career in artful comedy and an incubator for ambitious new forms. The founders of the UCB Theater and actual Upright Citizens Brigade themselves—Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh—sound off on the need for confrontational comedy that challenges the way people think.

  IAN ROBERTS: The way we run the UCB Theater business is that nobody gets paid for performing there, and conversely no one is charged for using our space. So you’re not gonna make any money or spend any money, and I think that has an effect on things artistically. People can give something a shot that they might be nervous about giving a shot somewhere else if they have to pay to rent a space or answer to a venue owner or booker who’s paying them.

  Some shows start slow, but if they’re really good, word of mouth builds them up. We can afford to let that happen here. We’ve never looked at the theater as a place to make money. It just about breaks even and pays the rent, and then on classes we make a little money.

  PAUL PROVENZA: I was particularly impressed with the God Sux shows you do every now and then. You dedicate whole shows to atheist comedy and antireligious material and provide a platform for some smart, provocative performers and material that comedy clubs aren’t generally enthusiastic about.

  MATT BESSER: Most stand-up clubs are really conservative. They figure, why take that risk? They’re in the business of selling drinks. We can do it.

  PAUL PROVENZA: What you guys have is really like an incubator, with an audience that feels the same way you do about supporting and encouraging artists and differ
ent kinds of work.

  MATT WALSH: Truthfully, it’s like a clubhouse. Say Matt has an idea for a show, some musical where it gets all bloody or whatever he wants to do, he can just do the show. He can treat it like his clubhouse, and that’s a benefit for us on a real simple level.

  AMY POEHLER: It’s also nice because we all have to keep one foot in commercial stuff, but we’ve made a place where we can have those kind of shows, too. During the writers’ strike, we performed Saturday Night Live live onstage at the New York UCB Theater. Then 30 Rock and The Colbert Report did episodes of their shows live, too. It was super-inspiring to see all these performers doing live in the theater what they do on television, because, at the end of the day, it’s encouraging to know you can always get up onstage if it all goes to shit, you know?

  IAN ROBERTS: I keep both my arms and both my feet in commercial stuff. Then I try to dip my hips in, like I’m having sex with commercial stuff.

  AMY POEHLER: You love to fuck commercial stuff. As you can see, it’s a nice way for us to extend our adolescence well into our forties.

  PAUL PROVENZA: When the Upright Citizens Brigade themselves do shows, it’s almost always pretty dark and edgy stuff. Even in your improv, it’s consistently crossing lines. Is that conscious, or just who you guys are?

  MATT BESSER: When we started out onstage in Chicago, we enjoyed making a certain percentage of the audience angry. As much as we enjoyed people getting what we were doing, it was just as funny to us when people didn’t get it. So our shows were always very agro and confrontational with the audience.

  IAN ROBERTS: And uncomfortable, too. We liked people not knowing whether something was real or fake.

  MATT BESSER: In retrospect, we sometimes did stupid stuff, but it was fun. We did a fake “interrogation” once, where we just grabbed an audience member—who didn’t volunteer—and stuck a hood over their head and blew cigarette smoke into their face pretending it was weed smoke, but, even worse, it was cigarette smoke. And it was supposed to be making fun of interrogations and CIA stuff or whatever, but in truth we were really just grabbing someone and blowing smoke into their face.