On Comedy Central’s Insomniac, Dave Attell traveled from state to state, lingering in bars and all-night diners, poking at the pale and fetid after-hours underbelly of America. Those travels only seemed to reinforce the perverse and often disturbing sense of humor on display in his shockingly funny stand-up routines. Attell is a man who says things that should never be said, and here he holds forth on the importance of saying them as he builds an ever-increasing audience rabid to hear a voice that doesn’t care what you think, it’s saying it anyway ‘cause it’s funny.

Dave Attell’s conversation with Paul Provenza is in the book.