Due to scheduling conflicts – Drew Carey was unable to be photographed and therefore unfortunately did not make it into the book. Here is his interview:

Drew Carey

on a kinder stand-up comedy

Most of America knows Drew Carey as the amiable, blue-collar star of The Drew Carey Show, or as the genial host of Whose Line Is It Anyway? or, most recently, The Price is Right. But in his stand-up, Carey has always paired his everyguy persona with biting, insightful social criticism. It’s a side of his personality you wont’ see during the “Showcase Showdown,” you can see it in his new online documentary series, The Drew Carey Project on Reason.tv, which tackles big issues like medical marijuana and the privatization of public goods and services. Success has also brought out Carey’s softer side. He doesn’t want to be mean to people anymore, especially, for some reason, Rita Rudner. Here he discusses his newfound desire to spread goodness and positive feelings with his comedy, which begs the almost zen-like question, “How do you satirize something without tearing it down?”

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DREW CAREY: I don’t know what people want out of the papers that they’re not getting, do you? People feel like the news media is controlled and they’re not getting the real truth, but I don’t know what they’re expecting. There’s no way to get anything completely honest and open about what happens at every meeting in the White House unless you’re there. You don’t know exactly what everybody said, or what’s in their hearts or what they’re feeling, you can only know the outcome. Did people want to look into Donald Rumsfeld’s heart and mind when he decided torture was okay at Abu Ghraib? And that if you don’t get that, it’s not open reporting? I don’t know what peoples’ complaint is. It came out, you know? The fact that we were able to find that stuff out is pretty good.

PAUL PROVENZA: But don’t you see important things that should be looked at more closely but just sort of come and go, yet there’s another ten minutes on Britney Spears?

DREW CAREY:  Well, I don’t watch that stuff. I shut it off.  That’s your problem if you’re going to watch that ten minutes; I change the channel when it goes to Dumb Ass News and I don’t feel I’m being informed or learning something. Even CNN, some of the commentary is so stupid. They have to fill up hours, so it’s mostly people supposing and saying, “Maybe he might be thinking…” There’s no facts there. Honestly, I have a better conversation with somebody at the coffee shop.

PAUL PROVENZA: Doesn’t mainstream media have any responsibility to keep it substantive?

DREW CAREY: What does “mainstream” media mean anyway? People throw out these words like everybody knows what “mainstream” means, but mainstream to some people might mean Fox and CNN, but not CNBC. Someone could think CNBC is too far “out there.” It’s all self-defined.

When people talk about things that are “mainstream” or a “hit,” the way I think of it comes from being a comic working the road: You know how whatever city you played you always had to do those Friday morning radio shows? And the morning DJ could be kind of a dick, but the people from the club would tell you, “He gets an 8 share here, he’s pretty big stuff. We’re lucky to be on his show.” I’d always think, that means 8% of people listening to the radio in the morning in this town listen to this guy, which means that 92% of the people don’t. And that’s of the people listening to the radio. So way over 92% of the people in this entire city would rather not listen to this guy at all. So is he really any big deal?

A big hit like American Idol—what does it get, like a 25-share?  That’s huge, right?  But it means that 75% of everyone watching TV right then doesn’t give a fuck about American Idol.  They don’t give a shit who wins, they don’t want to hear the songs, they’re watching something else. Then there’s all the people out bowling, playing video games, at the movies or a ball game and not watching any TV at all.

So you can’t ever come across to me, “Everybody’s watchin’ this show!”  Bullshit.  Not everybody’s watching it; in fact most people aren’t. Everybody is a niche, choosing their own little thing all the time, and that includes these supposedly big shows that America supposedly can’t live without.

Did you ever see that documentary, King of Kong: Fist Full of Quarters about this guy going for the world record score in Donkey Kong?  Some other guy’s held the record since ‘82 and he’s kind of the villain of the story, and these people in the movie—some of the, like, twenty people in the world who could give a shit about this—are really bitchy and cruel and manipulative and political about the scoring. Is it legitimate or not? Who’s gonna decide? All these “issues” around the whole thing. To me, that movie’s a microcosm of our whole country.  Somebody appoints himself the judge, appoints themselves the gatekeepers, decides, “I’m going to be the one who tells you what’s important and what’s not.”

But it’s really all up to you. You don’t have to listen just ‘cause some newspaper or TV show says something.  Who gives a shit?  It’s what’s important to you and how you live your life.

We’re all on our own different thing. If all you do is go to work and come home and get through your day, as long as your favorite TV shows are on and that makes your life happy, what do you care who’s elected or not or what goes on in government?  It doesn’t really affect you day to day, so it gets down to whether your favorite TV show is cancelled or not. Right now, whether or not you’ll have a fuckin’ job tomorrow is way more important than anything else happening anywhere.

I just watched two documentaries about Abu Ghraib, so it’s been on my mind a lot, but what does that have to do with me having breakfast and going to host The Price Is Right? I’m not gonna be upset and have my fuckin’ day ruined by something I don’t have any control over.  That’s the government’s thing, the people calling the shots and the people who work at Abu Ghraib; that’s their problem. I can’t do anything about any of it.

I always say the best thing you can do to make the world better, the only thing that really matters, is your interaction with people you come in contact with everyday and how you treat them.  You want to make the world a better place? Don’t write a letter to the editor. Don’t sit there and fume about the government and what they did or didn’t do. Instead, the next time you get waited on by a clerk, show some love. When you’re pissed off in traffic, love somebody.  Spend some extra time, take a little moment and spread love and joy around. Quit spreading fear; let go of your own and forgive people theirs.  Practice love and forgiveness and the world will become a better place for you.  You’re not going to make the world a better place by hating, by not forgiving, by going, “This politician’s bad. That corporation’s bad.”  That doesn’t solve anything, ’cause that’s all their own problems. Yeah, they may be doing something wrong or bad, but what are you going to do about it?  All you can do is practice love and forgiveness in your own life and the more people that do that the better the world will be.

PAUL PROVENZA: You sound like Sears, here. The ‘softer side of Drew Carey.’

DREW CAREY: Yeah, and you know what? It hurts stand-up.

PAUL PROVENZA: Ah… Discuss.

DREW CAREY: Like, I watched that Donkey Kong documentary with some friends and makin’ everybody laugh ’cause every time the villain guy showed up I’d go, “What a douchebag!” Or make fun of his bad hair or clothes. He’s wearing a Members Only jacket in 2005, you know? We’re all laughing, but at the end of the movie I felt bad for him. “Wow, that guy’s got to be in a lot of pain. He won’t let go of his past.” I was empathizing and feeling compassion for him—and it wasn’t funny at all, but it felt true and it was more true to myself, you know? It’s easy to go, “Look at this douche with his stupid tie,” and that gets laughs, but it’s not a good way to treat people. Laughing is a way to get rid of aggression and deal with depression and fear and pain, but, you know, I’m trying to figure out a way to still be funny but not have that in my life.

PAUL PROVENZA: I want to do comedy that’s confrontational and means something to me, but also to be loving, compassionate and generous of spirit, but when you have compassion for all sides of any issue, it’s really hard to criticize one or take any stand at all. As a comedian, it’s tough to be funny when you respect everyone.

DREW CAREY:  It’s very difficult to criticize when you see all the sides. I still feel bad about making fun of Paris Hilton, believe it or not.  I had a bit in my act for a long time about her—a good, solid five or ten minutes depending on what kinda roll I was on. But eventually I felt bad that I singled her out, because I think everybody’s going through their own journey and has their own things to teach and to learn. You don’t have to get on TV or give a speech to teach something; you’re teaching something by walking down the street and living your life.  Somebody’s learning something from you. Everybody’s learning and everybody’s teaching; you can’t help but do both.

So Paris Hilton is here teaching people things and learning her own lessons, and I just felt bad getting attention by making fun of her. I thought, “I’m no any better than anybody else, including her.” So then I started saying that, and people would go, “Oh, she deserves it.”  And I think nobody deserves it.

But I think the way to get around that and the way to work it is to point out injustices and systems and conventions that are painful and stupid or don’t make sense instead of individuals. You know, you can make fun of the “War on Drugs” and how stupid that is without singling people out that are caught up in it.

PAUL PROVENZA: But Paris Hilton is also participating, perpetuating, and profiting from an aspect of culture that’s worthy of examination and perhaps ridicule.  She’s as much part of that problem as she is victimized by it. Who she is—her values, her behavior, how she presents herself—are as worthy of ridicule as those who buy into her shit just ’cause she’s rich and famous. She’s performing all the time, her life is just one big show, isn’t she deserving of judgment for the show she puts on?

DREW CAREY: You think she profits from it? She makes money, but do you honestly think her life is better? Money’s a made up value, so take money right out of the equation; it’s an illusion. I don’t know where the profit is in holding yourself up to ridicule. That’s what these people do. They say, “Go ahead and judge me. As long as you write about me and spell my name right, I’ll make money from it.”  Their priorities are all ass backwards, so I don’t know where the profit is for them. They’re suffering from it even though they seek what they’ve got. I think she’s in a lot of pain, has been in a lot of pain and doesn’t know how to deal with it.

PAUL PROVENZA: So if you give Paris the compassion but not the responsibility, does the responsibility fall on the public for enabling her, like an addict? Is it the audience that deserves ridicule for perpetuating this stuff? There’s clearly, to me, something going on there that is in need of some serious ridicule.

DREW CAREY:  Yeah, but then I’m saying to the audience, “You’re stupid for your own yearnings.” And what would that say about me?

You can tell so much about a person by what they complain about, you know?  You can see all their fears and anxieties. And again, this theory comes from doing comedy, when you’d work a whole week at some comedy club with another standup you never met before, but you’d get to know that guy that week. I learned that you could know everything you need to about that guy just from what he talked about in his act. Like some guy’s act would be all about pussy or shit jokes, or be really vapid with not a whole lot there, and sure enough over that week you’d find that the guy really didn’t have much there, was really vapid, and didn’t care much about anything beyond basic functions:  shitting, fucking, eating.

Other people would have issues with their family, or intimacy issues or something, and you could tell all of that from their act.  You can tell everything about a comic from his act.

PAUL PROVENZA: What do you think your act says about you?

DREW CAREY: I do mostly improv when I’m performing now, ‘cause I don’t have to memorize anything or say the same things over and over.  That says somethin’ about me, I think, that I’d rather do that. I don’t know. I’d have to push that question off because it’s changed a lot.

I had one kind of stupid joke I’d been doing that was funny, which was that people think ‘cause you’re a man that you don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. But I’ve been out on dates where I’ve thought, “Fuck. I shaved my balls for this?”

PAUL PROVENZA: Shaving balls. That’s comedy gold.

DREW CAREY: And it’s harder to shave balls than legs, you know? It gets a good laugh, ‘cause men do have to groom themselves now in ways that were unheard of when I was in college, but who even talks about shaving balls? Or shaving their backs—they have Neet for Men and shit like that now!

So I don’t know what that joke says about me, exactly, but it’s about a frustration like, “Quit thinkin’ you’re the only one who has to go through a thing when you go out, ladies.”

There’s a big part of me that’s all about, “Oh, you think you’re better than me? Well we’re all the same.” I like to put everybody on the same level by pointing that out. Just like with that Disc Jockey getting the 8% but 92% don’t give a shit about him.  “Don’t think you’re so hot, ‘cause you’re not” is a big thing for me.  I think that about myself and about everybody else, too. That’s a big part of my stuff.

There used to be a lot of anger in my stand-up, you know?  A lot of ‘fuck you’ in my stand-up.

PAUL PROVENZA: How do you do comedy that still surprises people and gets them to laugh at something that’s not lashing out or victimizing in some way? It’s really an existential question.

DREW CAREY: Yeah, that’s makin’ it tough to do stand-up. The way I used to do it, for sure.  I don’t know. I have to get in touch with my inner Rita Rudner.

PAUL PROVENZA: Ha!

DREW CAREY: 
You see?? You see that laugh you just gave me, how hard and loud that was? I just did something evil, and I couldn’t help it because I wanted to get that laugh out of you!  And now I feel like, “I made fun of Rita Rudner! I got you to laugh!” And I don’t even know her. I don’t think I’ve ever even met Rita Rudner, but I’m being cruel because I knew you would laugh as hard as you just did.

See, that’s the fear: I don’t want to be so gentle that nobody laughs, you know? You have to have something that you can get angry about and be unkind about.  But, you know, I’m workin’ on it.

PAUL PROVENZA: It’s a challenge.  Just like drama, comedy needs conflict.

DREW CAREY: Well, it’s all about intent, really; I think that’s what makes the difference. As the Buddhists say, “Intention is everything.”  You could bake a cake for someone and be nice to them, but if you’re intent is to hurt them ultimately, that’s what really matters not how nice you are to bake them a cake before you do. My intent with using Rita Rudner’s name was not to hurt Rita Rudner, it was just to make you laugh.

PAUL PROVENZA: So what if Rita Rudner was in the room?

DREW CAREY: If she was offended, I would feel bad and apologize for it.  But when you’re sitting around a poker table with friends, you make fun of each other all night long. Like a roast, you know? Everyone knows the intent is to show affection and friendship, not to hurt anyone’s feelings. I would hope Rita Rudner knew that, but, if not, I’d feel bad about it because that’s not my intent. My intent was just to get you to laugh, and I knew that would make you laugh—hard. And man, that was a great laugh I got outta you.

PAUL PROVENZA: Yeah, well, I do know Rita and I like her, too, so now I’m gonna lose sleep over how guilty I feel for laughing at it.  So somehow, I end up being the victim in that joke, you prick.

DREW CAREY: Yeah, but that laugh was so worth it.