TV INTERVIEW: RANDY CREDICO
An Interview Wrapped in a Mystery & Pushed into a Tropical Crematorium?
Who is Randy Credico? The up-and-coming stand-up comedian who appeared on The Tonight Show at age 27? The very public face and advocate for the softening of NYC’s drug laws (as featured alongside Russell Simmons in the Lockdown, USA documentary)? 2010 Candidate for the US Senate seat currently held by Democrat Chuck Schumer? Subject of a 2003 documentary entitled Sixty Spins Around The Sun (directed by Laura Kightlinger and produced by Jack Black)? The truth is most simply expressed as ‘all of the above’… The more you dig, the deeper the hole, as Ali MacLean quickly found out when she sat down with Randy in Hollywood, California at the tapings of the second season of Showtime’s The Green Room with Paul Provenza…
Randy Credico: You’re watching Buzzine here at The Vanguard! There was a place in New York City called The Village Vanguard that closed down – one of the finest nightclubs in the city. No, it’s still open, actually. The place around the corner from The Bitter End closed – everything’s closed down. The park’s closed down. Right, am I interviewing you?
Ali MacLean: You’re not interviewing me. I’m interviewing you.
NR: Let’s see who can interview who better.
AM: Okay.
RC: No, you can interview me. Go ahead. Go right ahead. I’m gonna ask you some very tough questions, though. I’ll do an interview.
AM: You are? Okay, you can try.
RC: Whatever you throw at me, I’ll throw it right back at you.
AM: OK then: What is comedy?
RC: It’s something that I used to do until I got bored with comedians, because they’re so egocentric and one-track-minded. So comedy is something of the past for me – at least stand-up comedy. Comedy is a boring subject because no one can define it. It’s the most boring subject amongst comics to try to define…
AM: So the show taping here today, The Green Room must be in big trouble then?
RC: Well, no… I like Paul Provenza. He’s one of the comics I do like. He and Tom Meigs I like. People I know from the old school. But what is comedy? Comedy is something that’s indefinable. There’s a book by Freud about the joke, and it’s about a 5,000-page book, and there’s nothing funny about it at all. So you read 500, 600, or 700 pages and you say, “What a boring f***ing topic: comedy.”
AM: I’m just trying to get to the bottom of the story. That’s what I do; that’s my job. I’m trying to get the news to the people.
RC: I see. What kind of news? What’s the bottom of the story?
AM: Like what kind of ice cream they like, and what color they wear on the red carpet, and who they’re dating, and stuff like that… (smiles)
RC: Those are important questions, certainly. You have to do whatever you can… Most comics don’t have a sense of humor unless they’re telling a joke, you see?
AM: Some of them don’t have a sense of humor when they are telling a joke.
RC: Right. There’s plenty of those. I’m one of them right now. I’m not very funny at this point.
AM: Is that why you gave up comedy?
RC: I don’t even know. You asked me a question about comedy, and I think it’s a great question. I can’t answer it because I don’t know how to define it… because it’s an indefinable…for me anyway.
AM: We still don’t have an answer, do we?
RC: I think it’s to make people laugh, so what is it that makes people laugh? Comedy is the vehicle that makes people laugh. Right? And tragedy is the vehicle that makes people cry… You define it. You define comedy. If you’ve asked all of these people, I think now you have this wealth of information that maybe you can boil it down to a couple of words.
AM: Yeah but like everyone else… nobody has ever actually given me a straight answer…
RC: Okay, I will answer questions, and I am sorry.
AM: I’m just trying to get to the truth.
RC: Red carpet: I think you should wear light blue on a red carpet.
AM: You’re wearing light blue right now.
RC: Yeah, light blue. And that’s a red tie, so this is the carpet and this is the color on top of the carpet.
AM: It’s a good choice, red carpet and the sky. It kind of brings it all together. It’s nice feng shui…
RC: Light blue/sky blue, yes on red carpet. What other classic questions could you ask?
AM: How about… If you could bring one thing with you on a desert island, what would it be?
RC: A crematorium.
AM: Really: Why?
RC: So I could kill myself quickly and bury myself. I want to go up in ashes, and I don’t just want to die on a desert island by myself and let the buzzards get me. I’d rather have a crematorium there. And just before I’m dead I go inside the crematorium.
AM: You wouldn’t bring a plane with you?
RC: I don’t know; if I was on a desert island, I probably would like to be by myself there. You know why? Because I’d like to spend a lot of time introspectively. And I like fasting. You ever fast?
AM: I think maybe you are still a comedian after all…
RC: I used to be, but I got out of it in 1998. I’m in and out, but I really don’t like comedy that much, or at least comedy clubs and most comics. I don’t dislike them; it’s like hanging out in a pool hall when you’re 17 and you kind of get out when you’re 18. I did it for a long period of time.
I do impressions, though. That’s what I did. I did all these guys. I did Nixon. I go way before your time. I was doing Nixon. Nixon was my very first one back when I was in junior high school. That’s when Hubert H. Humphrey was the Vice President. I did him. And then I did Nixon. I did Reagan for many years – all of these different voices. And I did guys like Jimmy Stewart. I like him in comedy. I like him in those like George Cooper comedies, like screwball comedies. Cary Grant and what do you call it? The name of that of that film – Philadelphia Story. Yes. And I’d be doing Fred McMurray back then from My Three Sons.
So that’s what I did. I did standup comedy all of these years, impressions, and I’m glad it’s over, but I don’t know, it’s a different life now. I got into politics. I ran for Senate last year in New York State, and that was a f***in’ joke because I ran dead last. I got in and I looked at the monitor, and the crawl: Schumer 58%, Townsend 25%, this person 7%, Credico 0%. It was 0% all night long. And that was the last time I had a drink. Seventy days ago today. It’s true. That was it. Every time I saw a 0% go by, I’d do a shot of tequila. That was it.
The next day, I was in Nicaragua on a desert island by myself, with a crematorium. Gonzales Crematorium in downtown Managua. Anyway, it’s been a pleasure interviewing you. I think you do a fabulous job. What would you do if you were on Venus by yourself? What would you take with you?
AM: Air.
RC: That’s right. There’s no oxygen up there. That’s a good point. All right, well thank you very much, and please come back. You’ve got the couch today. You see that? She got the couch. On Johnny Carson, if you did well, you got the couch. Thank you.
The second season of ‘The Green Room with Paul Provenza’ premieres new episodes on Showtime every Thursday night at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT beginning July 14, 2011.
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