Jimmy Dore Interview

In the early portion of the Comedy and Everything Else run, co-host and comedian Jimmy Dore received an e-mail from a fan telling him to, basically, chill out and not worry so much about the world. It’s a peculiar thing to say because such a big part of humor is exposing the disconnect between what you expect, want, or deserve and what you get. For one to be always content would remove the significance of that disconnect and any humor that might be there. To ask a comedian, then, “Why can’t you be content with how things are?” is sort of like asking, “Why are you a comedian?” It’s missing the point. Jimmy Dore, however, sees the point very clearly, articulating the hypocrisy and absurdity of modern America with great clarity and conciseness, crafting jokes that are a perfect fit for a nation in need of truth-tellers.

Ben Kharakh: What is, in your opinion, the key to discussing a subject, such as politics, and coming off funny rather than angry onstage?

Jimmy Dore: I would say pot helps me. [Laughs] It seems like most comics that want to talk about anything that has any substance to it tend to go the anger route. I go the other way. The way I describe my comedy is kind of like Jerry Lewis doing Lenny Bruce. I talk about interesting things that have relevance socially, but in a really silly way. I always play the stooge. I always play stupid, and it seems to help the comedy that way. Otherwise, you can get too angry or you can get to a point where you’re bumming people out.

BK: Do you think it’s possible to find humor in everything?

JD: Yes. That’s my short answer.

BK: Is there a long answer?

JD: [Laughs] I think everything can be made fun of, but publically is another situation. After 9/11, I saw Louis CK do a joke where he says, “You can tell how decent of a person you are by how long you waited to masturbate after 9/11, and for me it was between tower 1 and tower 2.” That kind of joke right there — it’s hilarious and it’s inappropriate, and sometimes jokes are funny because they’re inappropriate because they’re too soon. Plus, inside the joke, he’s masturbating during 9/11, which couldn’t be more inappropriate. Comedy is one of those things. It’s like John McCain said, “Trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.” It’s hard. Once you think you’ve got it, it moves. And once you think you know what it is, it’s the opposite of that. I always feel that the funniest thing is the most inappropriate thing to say or do at that moment. A lot of times, that’s what the funniest thing is, and that’s always shifting with the glories of the culture and the time.

BK: What were some things that are appropriate now that you remember being inappropriate a few years ago?

JD: I thought it was interesting that the Vice President was quoted as telling another Senator to “Go fuck himself,” and when he was asked about it later, everyone seemed to chuckle about it. I was watching Fox News and Dick Cheney was asked if he told Senator Lahey to go fuck himself, and he said, “Yes, I said it.” They asked, “Why did you say it?” and he said, “I felt he warranted it at the time,” and everybody had a good chuckle about it, and even the host at Fox said, “I’m going to use that the next time somebody asks me why I said it. ‘Well, I thought he warranted it at the time.’ Good enough for the Vice President, it’s good enough for me.” So apparently now you can say “Go fuck yourself” with impunity, so that will be a change with the mores of the culture. Oh, and I guess we’re torturing again. You can do that; torture is cool. So torture is considered cool, and saying “Go fuck yourself” to people you disagree with is okay.

BK: What do you think is more absurd or silly — is it the world or comedy?

JD: World. Comedy can only reflect back a little bit of absurdity. The world is way more absurd than the comedy right now, that’s for sure. I’ve been feeling very frustrated lately that the world is so absurd and my act isn’t. It’s hard to talk about all the craziness at once because it seems to be happening everywhere. Corruption seems to be at an amazing level, and yet the prosecution of those who are corrupt seems to be non-existent. If you commit a crime in plain site and no one can prosecute you, is it illegal? I guess not.  The whole financial meltdown and all the corruption isn’t even being investigated. There are no hearings; there’s nobody on the case. No one has ever seen money like this thrown around before, and there’s not even a hearing about where it’s going. We have the former President and Vice President of our country going on television admitting to war crimes in plain sight, and no one even calls them on it. Brian Williams or Katie Couric or, god forbid, Charlie Gibson — did they say anything? No. They said not a fucking word. [Laughs] So the world is way more absurd than comedy, and comedy, by the way, is never going to catch up.

BK: When you see something like this happening on television or read about it, how do you feel?

JD: I feel frustrated and excited at the same time. Frustrated because, even though people seemed interested in Obama and the whole process during the election, it seems like now that he’s elected, it’s like they think it’s all over. People are getting uninterested again. [Laughs] It’s like, he’ll fix everything, even though horrible things are happening all the time. So it makes me feel frustrated that it seems like people are willing to take it still from their leaders, and I’m excited because I’m going to have to find a way to talk about that in a short, concise, hilarious way. And that’s really difficult, especially when the problem is very… It’s like Bill Clinton. It was very easy to make those jokes because it wasn’t complicated; it’s the oldest story in the book. Guy cheats on his wife and then lies about it. But these are very complicated issues, but, in a way, they’re not. It’s the same old story: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and meet the new boss, same as the old boss, right? We had a thing called the Gilded Age in the 1800s, and now people are calling this the New Gilded Age. People would go, “Oh, it’s the new Gilded Age.” Yeah, that Gilded Age was bad. That was a negative… [Laughs] If you look up the definition of Gilded Age, it’s that everything seems fine on the surface and everything’s fucked underneath, but people didn’t have any sense of that. So to me, a part of it that is exciting is that I have to find out a way to talk about that, that people can understand, that’s short and concise and hilarious, and I know I’ll do it.

BK: Sometimes people say a joke is too soon for the audience, that they’re not quite ready to joke about that, but how about when it’s too soon for you? How long does it take for you to feel comfortable about making a joke about something?

JD: As soon as I can think of something funny to say about it. It’s only too soon if what you’re saying isn’t funny, or if you’re saying it in an indelicate way. There’s a way to say everything. You don’t want to lean over to Mrs. Lincoln in the balcony and go, “You’re never going to get that stain out.” That may be a little too soon [laughs], but you could maybe turn to the guy next to you and say that. [Laughs] Too soon depends on who you’re telling the joke too. But onstage, if you see a comedian do a joke and you think it’s too soon, I think it’s because the comedian didn’t handle it well. He didn’t have enough talent to pull it off. You don’t like this comedian enough to laugh at that joke, or he’s not funny. It depends on the ability of the comic.

BK: Do you think bad comedians know they’re bad?

JD: It seems like my experience has been that the truly good comedians, the people who are really funny, are always doubting themselves, and it seems like the people who have very little talent are the ones who never doubt themselves…like George Bush. Same thing in politics. He doesn’t seem to be worried, doesn’t have a second thought about anything. So, if you’re a comic and you’re not worried that you’re funny, you’re not funny. [Laughs]

BK: Comedy is such a subjective thing. What, for you, makes good comedy good comedy?

JD: My mom was just watching my DVD and she saw the television special, but she didn’t see the extras where I did a little encore and it was filthy. She was getting on me about it, saying “Oh my God, that was so dirty! Who was supposed to watch that?” and I said, “Well, not 77-year-old women who go to church every week, that’s for sure.” Comedy is subjective, but I can still watch something that doesn’t make me laugh and I can still say, “Hey that’s still kind of funny.” Even though I can say, “That’s not my cup of tea,”  I can see how someone would like it.  I’ve had people not like my comedy and they’ll tell me, “You’re not funny.” Not “I don’t think you’re funny.” That’s interesting to me. It’s like, “No, it’s funny — it’s just not funny to you, which is okay.” I understand the differences between something being funny to me, something not being funny, and something that is just not funny to me, but apparently not everyone else does. But I’m constantly surprised. I’m constantly shocked. Blagojevich’s public bravado, for example, is just what lots of politicians have privately. They realize there are no rules, and they realize that most of their heroes didn’t play by them. You don’t normally see a guy like that — a governor publicly just brazenly throw it in your face. I had an acting teacher who spoke of her father being a jerk, and she said, “I’m constantly surprised that he is exactly the same.” So I guess you could say I’m constantly surprised that things are happening this way. [Laughs] I’m amazed everyday.

BK: When is it that you started questioning authority?

JD: I grew up Catholic, so it started early for me. I remember the day that nailed it in the coffin for authority. It was the day I was getting confirmed. My dad was the speaker. It’s a big ceremony, so the Bishop comes to your Church, and my dad brought me backstage, as I like to call it, but they call it the rectory or whatever. I call it backstage at the Catholic show. [Laughs] My dad wanted me to meet the Bishop, so he was going to get me to meet the guy, and I thought, “Wow, that will be fun.” So he comes in and he’s just dressed like every picture of every Pharisee I’ve ever seen depicted in my textbooks growing up, and I’m thinking, “Wow, he looks just like one of those people Jesus hated.” And then my dad knelt down in front of him and kissed his ring and I knew that that was fucked up. And that was the day it was over, because my dad, to me, was like this giant — he was this Superman. He was a cop and he was the boss wherever he went, and then all of the sudden he kneels in front of this Bishop, and I knew he was just a human being then. I looked to him as a Pharisee instead of a Bishop, and that’s when I knew it was all over for me.

BK: How did that epiphany effect you?

JD: I started to see it everywhere. A couple years later, I started to read Time magazine, and I liked the news because I always thought the news were the guys who were sticking it to the people in power — television news. Then I started to realize that they were pretty corrupt too — the news people are just as full of shit as anybody. I thought Reagan was a good guy, and then all you have to do is pick up this magazine that is everywhere and it tells you that he’s not. So I guess it just changed me that way. Nothing is as it seems. Everyone is corrupt a little bit, and some people are corrupt a lot.

BK: What is your first memory of being exposed to things that made you laugh?

JD: I just remember, as a kid, that my dad worked nights as a cop a lot, so I would end up laying in bed watching, in my mother’s room, The Tonight Show, and that is when the comedians would come on.  I would just be amazed. “Please, just get to the end of the show already so I can watch the guy who’s really got a gift.” The comedian would come out and I would watch them in the way most people watch magicians. “How did he do that?” Really, to me, comedy is the real magic. People watch magicians and are amazed, and I just want to jump up and exclaim, “You know it’s a trick! You know it’s in his pocket!” [Laughs] But  that’s not the way it is with comedy. There’s no trick — he’s just showing it to you. It’s just words, so it’s like a trick but for real. It was like, I’m going to throw an idea at you and it’s going to hit you, and you can’t deny it because you’re laughing. That’s one reason I love comedy. You’ll watch Alberto Gonzales and he can deny everything, and no one laughs. So if you were dropped in from outer space, you wouldn’t know that he is completely full of shit. But when people laugh, you can’t deny that everyone is laughing. So that is the beauty of comedy. You cannot deny laughter. And if you do, it just makes us laugh harder.

BK: Have you ever considered becoming a politician?

JD: I could never be a politician myself. Even though Al Franken has become a politician, he used to always say, “I’m a comedian, and part of my job as a comedian is being a truth-teller,” and it seems like now he’s in a job where that will really get you in trouble, if you start telling the truth. It would be an easy switch for me to start trying to parse my words, and half the beauty of comedy is you cut through all that bullshit.

BK: There’s a philosopher named Harry Frankfurt who was on The Daily Show a while ago because he had written a book called On Bullshit. He wrote a follow-up called On Truth where, among other things, he talked about how the truth brings people together while lies isolate people in their webs of deception, if you will.

JD: Yes, but I’ve seen the truth divide people too, though. I guess I should read that book. [Laughs] When I used to make fun of George Bush after 9/11, there were lots of people who didn’t want to hear it, which kind of annoyed me. But in the last couple of years, every asshole has been making George Bush jokes. I liked it back when it was just me. [Laughs] It doesn’t take any courage now. But I felt Bill Hicks split a room, and I have had that experience. A lot of times, just straight truth is funny. You don’t have to make a joke out of it or anything, but lots of people don’t want to hear the truth. They can’t handle the truth. The truth makes them uncomfortable. They live in a world where they don’t get presented with truth very often. Everything is full of shit from the language, down to our advertising, down to the media that surrounds you. The biggest joke is reality shows — that couldn’t be less reality. It’s just watching train wrecks. I think truth presented in the right way, like Barack Obama when he talks about race, that brought people together. That was a truth that he presented, but I think, again, it’s just like comedy: it depends on how you present it.

BK: For some people, the truth doesn’t bring them together because they reject the truth — they don’t want that to be the truth…

JD: Yes. Look at the Sarah Palin rallies from a year and a half back. Do you think those are people who are being brought together by truth? What’s bringing them together is fear, and truth is all around out there and they reject it. That’s what happened with almost half the country. They reject the truth and they embrace the lie. I really think it is genetic. I really think the conservative/liberal split — those parties are too big to encompass all people, but that does seem to be the general divide. There’s a left/right in most countries, and I don’t know what it is. It’s like a gene. It’s like we haven’t evolved yet. The people who think that way — that go along with informants, that don’t want to question — they would have been weeded out in a Pre-Darwinism era because they would eventually be killed by their leaders. George Bush is like Jim Jones. He would’ve eventually killed everyone if he weren’t taken out of office in two years. That’s what I think. I think that, obviously, when you go liberal/conservative, you could also go progressive/conservative, and every idea conservatives have ever had, they have now rejected. Try to name one conservative idea that they have ever adhered to. Segregation: they have turned around on that. They have turned around on woman’s vote rights, and now the new thing is gay rights. They are going to turn around on that, and they’ve turned around on small government. There’s no more small government conservatives anymore. That is my idea of what makes people think that way. I think it’s genetic; I think there’s a thing in your brain that makes you think that way. They’ve discovered that it is like the religion part of your brain; that there is a thing in your brain that lights up and it needs religion. I think that, as we evolve, we evolve those things out of our brains. We’re progressive, we are all going forward, and so there will always be conservatism in a sense of meaning people behind the curve on evolving their ideas, but the majority now seems to be more progressive than not, and it seems like those people are shrinking. It’s funny how Laura Bush can see how crazy religious conservatism is in Afghanistan but how she wholeheartedly embraces it in her own country. She doesn’t see any of its shortcomings here; she only sees the shortcomings over there.

BK: Genetics can be used as a metaphor for it in the sense that usually, when these sort of beliefs are passed down or someone is indoctrinated into them, it’s because of the family or community you’re born into. You’re surrounded by these people that believe these things, and you say, “Oh okay, well, that’s how it is.” It gets passed on like that.  I think it was in your half-hour special where you joked about how there are a lot of scary things people confront, like death, and they don’t have an answer for that really, so that’s where the religion comes in for them — it is useful in that way.

JD: Right. That is pretty much it. I mean, if we didn’t die, there wouldn’t be religion. No one is going to be 900 years old and still going to church. “Oh, I’m going to take a couple hundred years off and then I’ll start going to church again.” No one would go; no one would give a fuck, if you didn’t die. I have a lot of conservatives in my family. I would say 85% of my brothers and sisters are really conservative, like really conservative, and we were all brought up the same way. We all went to Catholic school, we all had the same parents, and two of my brothers think completely opposite. It’s weird. Some of my sisters think differently, and that’s why I think it’s nature over nurture, because lots of people are raised the same way and they come out completely opposite. My parents tried to brainwash me with religion. I didn’t fall for it.

BK: I think we nurture our nature — that the two are inseparable. And on the issue of religion, I find it interesting how many people are so confidently religious, without any doubt, as though they never mull over how God can allow evil, for example.

JD: I would have less of a problem with religious people when they tell me, “Of course it doesn’t make sense. That is why it’s called faith.” Okay, then I’ll let you think illogically and crazy and irrationally and believe in an invisible man, if you give the same right to other people. Don’t mock me for believing in UFOs, and if you do, then don’t be offended when I mock you for believing in an invisible man in the sky. But they do — they get offended. That is the funniest thing in the world to me, that religious people love to be offended. It’s like, “No, if you’re right, I’m wrong, and I’m going to Hell and you’re going to Heaven. Case closed, no room for offense.” The offense is I’m going to burn in a lake of fire. Your offense is because you secretly know what you believe in is bullshit or else you wouldn’t be fucking offended. You’re offended because you know the truth? You’re offended you’re going to Heaven? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like calling Cindy Crawford ugly. She’s not going to be offended. She’d say, “What’s wrong with you? You have to get glasses or there is something wrong with you,” and that is how you would feel if I told you your religion was bullshit. You would be like, “Well, you need to study more.” You wouldn’t be like, “I’m offended as a Christian.” It’s just that you’re full of shit, and it’s obvious that you’re full of shit, and that’s why I like to make jokes about it, because people even like to not see things that are in plain sight, and once you make a joke about it, we’re all laughing. See, it’s the Emperor With No Clothes, but no one will say it…except the comedian. Charlie Gibson is not going to come on TV and tell you your God is not real. [Laughs]

BK: It’s up to people like you then.

JD: Yes, it is certainly up to comedians, that is for sure. Comedians and artists. Politicians aren’t going to tell you. A news person isn’t going to tell you.

BK: That’s why I think comedians are the modern-day Socrates. Socrates was the wisest man in town because he knew how unwise he was, and comedians recognize how absurd the world is and then they end up being the funniest people in the group.

JD: The Socrates of our age is Jon Stewart! Where fucking would we have been the last eight years without fucking Jon Stewart? I’m not even kidding. Where else would you have turned to get the truth about what was happening? Who else is keeping them honest? It’s certainly not fucking Anderson Cooper. [Laughs] He’s still not doing it. After Bush left office, they still let him give a press conference and spout fantasies the whole time. Not one person stood up to him and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but what you just said is completely wrong.” No one will say that at any point. Jon Stewart did, and he became the Socrates of our time. Jon Stewart is revered, and I love the fact that they tried to do a conservative counterpoint to it on Fox News. That show went away very quickly. And why is it gone? Conservatives didn’t want to see conservative comedy? No, because there is no such thing. There is no such thing as conservative comedy. That’s called fascism. [Laughs] I don’t understand how you can be like Dennis Miller. He’s not funny. He is technically not funny. You can’t be a comedian in 1940s Germany and defend Hitler. There is nothing funny about it. You can’t go, “Hey, how about those Jews? They got it coming!” There is nothing funny, and that is what Dennis Miller is doing today and that is why he has been relegated to going on Bill O’Reilly’s show, because it is not funny — it is the opposite of comedy. It is oppression, and he’s picking on the weak.  But the great thing about comedy is that it isn’t partisan. There aren’t two sides to the truth. There is the truth and then there is that other bullshit that people are trying to peddle. To me, that’s beautiful.

BK: I am curious: since you were raised Catholic, were you a believer at a young age?

JD: I was a believer at a very young age, up until about sixth grade or so, and then I went through a phase where I wanted to believe. That was when I was a freshman in high school. Then, oddly enough, my sophomore theology class got me off religion forever. The teacher was not a “Christian Brother” but a lay teacher named Mr. Quinn (now Dr. Quinn). He was a pretty brilliant guy, and he showed us how the Bible contradicted itself all over the fucking place, and how you can’t take it literally because of that fact. How can the two gospels describe the same supposed incidents in Jesus’ life differently and still be literally true? Answer: Impossible. So he showed us, in a very rational way, why the Bible cannot be taken literally. And if you took it literally, you miss the whole fucking point of the thing anyway. That was very enlightening to me. I loved it. He showed us that Jesus died for our sins metaphorically; that the way he saved us was by showing us how to love; that a true miracle was an act of unselfish love; that the miraculous was all around you; and that you can get in touch with love (god) anytime you want. It was some pretty heavy shit to lay on a bunch of 10th graders. I don’t think a lot of them got it, or even gave a shit, to tell you the truth. I am surprised I did. So after that class, it was all over for me with religion. I smelled a rat several times as a kid. When I saw my dad kneel down in front of the bishop and kiss his ring, I knew that was fucked. Way fucked. I hated it. It made me so uncomfortable inside.  I wanted to scream, “Get the fuck up for Christ’s sakes! He’s just a fucking dude! He’s just some out-of-touch jag-off who doesn’t get it that he has become what Jesus rebelled against in the first fucking place!” And then another time earlier, they changed the rules for some of the mortal sins (no kidding) and they changed a lot of the holy-days-of-obligation. I was taught that if you missed church on a holy-day-of-obligation that it was a mortal sin, and if you died with a mortal sin on your soul, you would go to hell. No shit. So one day, they changed the rules about them. They cut down the number of holy-days-of-obligation for the year from like eight to five, or something like that. That was when I was in 4th grade. I smelled it then, and I brought it up too. All the adults I asked gave bullshit answers to my questions — the kind of answer that makes you lose respect for someone. I was so young, I didn’t even know that was what I was feeling, but that is what it was — a loss of respect for my elders.

BK: How did all that change your perception of the world?

JD: My perception of the world changed because I saw it for what it was: an interconnected world where nothing is separate and we are literally part of a greater whole and we are all part of the same energy. Literally. And as soon as you see that, everything changes. I am one of those people that subscribe to the theory of the Earth as one living organism, because it really is. The fact that energy cannot be created nor destroyed and that it only changes forms means that the energy that is in us all — in me right now — that the energy that anyone uses to read these words has always existed. It has always been here. It is in me right now, but where was it before? I don’t know. But I do know that it has always been here, and when I die, I do not really die, do I? The energy in me is only changing forms, and my consciousness also changes forms. To what is the eternal mystery. Exactly what consciousness is another. So we people literally all came out of the Earth. It sounds magical, but it is the fact of the situation. Separation is an illusion.  As Mr. Hicks said: All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively; there is no such thing as death; life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.