This one, it wasn't a big debate about it. It's not just random that we present things the way we present them. What made you decide to shoot this pretty straightforwardly, as opposed to having things like audible gulps, and quick cuts-Įverything that I do, the form that it exists in is very important to be accurate. They're talking about something that's so free and artistic and meant to be fun, treating it like a code you can crack. I've just watched clips of this stuff, but the language of it and the compulsiveness of, 'I gotta work on my chunk,' and the process of it, it feels like guys talking about cars or sports. There's also this compulsiveness about it. It feels like the meta-conversation has drowned out the jokes themselves. The seriousness about it is antithetical to the silliness of what comedy is about, to me. It's very testosterone-y and prideful of what they do, and the sacredness of what they do, and that they've tapped into something very special. But it does feel in the past few years, certainly the Comedy Store and a lot of the defensiveness from that Comedy Store scene and the friends of Joe Rogan clique. I hate calling people out, it's not very nice. I don't watch a lot of comedy in general that's out there right now. I honestly stay away from watching those, because they just bum me out. Was there a moment where you realized this theme of calling out the "PC police" in standup comedy? If you watch comedy specials now, it's almost like Terms of Service, where every comic references it in some way. Obviously, Andy Kaufman and Albert Brooks used to play around in that same territory. There's a long tradition of that, early Steve Martin, that was kind of his shtick. The genesis of that is that it's a shitty joke, and it's bad. It's weird how it full-circles, where the bad material becomes something people call out for. As you hear in the special, people are laughing, that's not canned laughter. But after those videos spread around the internet, my audience was in on the joke. Playing this type of comic, did it get harder over time?Ī shift happened because I would do it for a while and it got zero laughs in an uncomfortable way: coughing, and a little heckling, which is totally understandable. And this was a space for learning and growing, but I was like, Oh, I should try to parody that, and go up there and do your classic brick wall comedian with confidence those people seem to have, but without anything enlightening to say.Ĭomics say once you reach a level of success, it can be difficult to work out material, because people are just happy to see them. But I would notice people would come up, and they had the cadence of comedy, the rhythms of it from observing other comedians, but they just never had any material. He used to do a friends open mic-y show in Glendale, and I used to go and try different things. He's also just a lover of jokes, he has a funny standup routine. My friend Doug who does Office Hours with me, and is one of my closest friends and great collaborator and editor. It's funny because my record is Fear of Death and this is "Fear of Dying Onstage," which he does pretty consistently throughout the hour. To connect the two, your music album was about the fear of death, and this standup character is the kind of guy who thinks it's funnier to make fun of a new gender pronoun than confront that we're all going to die and nothing matters. Hopefully it the perception that I have a diverse output. It appears I'm extremely prolific and busy with all these different things, but they all were done at different periods of time. Tim Heidecker: It's a bit-what's the word for it, when you twist your head too far-it's disorienting. VICE: How does it feel dropping a project like this, when your last work-a folk-rock album titled Fear of Death-was surprisingly earnest? VICE spoke to Tim Heidecker over Zoom to talk about An Evening With Tim Heidecker, his recent folk-rock album, and his thoughts on standup comedy as an artform.
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