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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2014)
Street roots 5 Aug. 15, 2014 KA SH IA N , fro m page 4 J.K.: Go Buckeyes. I’m a Minneapolis comic, but I’m from a little factory town outside of Milwaukee. I went to Madison and that’s where I started standup. I moved to Minneapolis in 1990 to do stand up full time - or as full time as a day job would allow — because everyone I started doing stand up with moved to Chicago. S.Z.: I was watching “This Would Make an Excellent Horcrux” J.K.: Great! That’s my hour special that I just released. S.Z.: There were a number of times that you had me rolling. I perked up when you made a joke about Paul Ryan. Tell me about your politics. J.K.: I don’t do a lot of political material. I have a B.A. in poly sci, so I always have an opinion, but I don’t always have all of the information. I don’t want to be that person - the person who is just angry. There are not à lot of people who are looking for my opinion politically soTtend to do my jokes more from a socio-political (angle). I talk about family and I talk about my husband and my friends. I talk about my hobbies and toys. But it’s not like Lizz Winstead (co-creator of “The Daily Show”). It’s not like Will Durst or Kate Clinton or some of these people who are super political. And if somebody gets up in their face and wants to argue, they have a lot of facts at their fingertips, Whenever Somebody does want to talk politics with me and they make some broad sweeping statement, I always say, “I’m going to need a source on that sta tem en t.” You can’t just tell nie some talked to Sean Patton about New Orleans. Last week it was Doug Mallard about Magnum P.I. and two weeks ago it was Rhea Butcher about “Back to the Future.” S.Z.: I imagineyou have met a wide spectrum of people from all walks of life. Everybody dorks out on something, right? J.K.: I’ve talked to Diva Zappa about knitting, and I’ve talked to Maria Bamford about Suze Orman. So ... it can be about anything. Sometimes it’s comics, just because I do comedy and they’re most of the people I know, right? But sometimes they are regular people just walking around in life. S.Z.: Whatever your passion is you can be a dork about it in The Dork Forest. What is the difference between a dork and a nerd? Any? J.K.: As far as I’m concerned, they are exactly the same. All I know is that on “The Big Bang Theory,” those people are neither geeks, nerds or dorks. They seem to be bros. The show has a weird sensibility. Everybody gives nerds and dorks a bad name. Oh you live in your mom’s basement and you don’t have a girlfriend. And they are always guys. That , is out-of-date. ; Marvel makes $17 billion on its comic book movies and everybody is wearing a Captain America t-shirt. - There are a lot of women who are nerds and dorks that don’t get enough cred. It’s super fun to have more women on the show. I had Aisha Tyler on and she is a giant nerd. She can dork out the best. She plays massive, multi-player video games. S.Z.: You married a nerd. A male nerd, its 'you are keen to p o in t out. weird statement and then back it up with a random website or right-wing blog. That doesn’t count I would need a second source if it was Wikipedia. So, I’m gonna need a source. It’s gbt to be real. And I’m probably going to believe the worst of thé Koch Brothers anyway. J.K.: He came'up to me a month ago and he was like, “I don’t want to make video games anymore. I want to make board games.” And then we stared deeply into each other’s eyes for a moment and he says, “Yes. The lucrative world of board games/’ He’s still making video games. He makes iphone games antifacebook games. He’s done it all. S.Z.: You have been pumping out “The Dork Forest,” your podcast for eight years. For our readers who may not have tuned in yet, can you tell us a bit about the show? S.Z.: You made that “marry a nerd joke” on “Conan” andyou got some bldwback . from that. What’s the difference between delivery of and the interpretation of a joke? J.K.: I interview péople about what they really enjoy in life, whether it’s a hobby or just any sort of obsession. This week I J.K.: I didn’t mean that he didn’t have a life. I meant that we both don’t have a life. The thing about some jokes — especially people who do a lot of edgy stuff — all of a sudden you have Madison Square Garden full of people and they’re like, “That’s right! Give it to the Muslims.” And you think, “No, no! That was ironic. Ironic racism ... what’s happening?” And so you can have your joke sometimes co-opted by bad guys. That wasn’t the heart of the joke. The heart of the joke was to celebrate women’s sexuality or some obscure thing about race or religion or something. You talk about the things you experience, but you can’t always control what people are going to do with the material. I do that joke about animals. New cat, new dog — it’s about people spending thousands of dollars on their pets. It’s On my website. It’s been animated. It’s from my last album. It’s got like 75,000 hits? And it’s essentially that people are out of their minds — $3,000 for diabetic medication for their cat That’s 3,000 new cats, Because cats are free! People come up to me and say, “my dog gets chemo. 80 bucks a week.” And I’m kind of like, “You know there’s a guy who lives in front of my 7-Eleven. You might want to give him 80 bucks a week, you know? Together We Stand, Divided We Fall by Shima Haydarzadeh Why Am i Not Appreciated? Am i Not Human, i Am, Sorry i Am Not Perfect Enough? Am i Just Another Sideline Female That Gets Treated Like Trash? i Am Way Better Than That, Having An Innocent Soul, Getting Played Like Crazy, Good Girl Gone Bad, Surrounding Myself Into Darkness, When i Should Be Taken Heavens Light For Giving Me My Gift In Life, Y’all Just Don’t Understand This It» Keeping My Head Up, Thru My Tears i Cry .Deep Inside My Damaged Soul, i Been Thru So Much But i Am Not Paranoid With It Get It Right, Fuckin Like Animals Then Disappearing Like i am nothing, Really Hurts My Feelings, My Mind, My Soul, Feeling Damaged Like Life Is Over For Me Honey, Feeling Like i Lost My Mind, Feeling Lost, Lonely, No Body To Trust On The Streets Anymore, But Focused On The Prize While Being Strong, Things Change, People Pass On Walking On Into Their Own Lil LaLa Land, While Others Is Really Struggling Needing Help, S.Z.: Is anything funny? Is it okay to laugh at lewd jokes about war or death or racism or whatever...?' J.K.: Yeah. As long as it’s funny. That’s the only rule. Thére are people who do incredibly dark, incredibly misogynistic (standup). I just saw Sarah Silverman do this thing about 9/11. It was hilarious, the heart behind it. And what I was talking about with the co-opting of your material. Som ebody can take it and run w ith it and turn it in to som eth in g you didn’t m ean it , B ut N o Im provem ent For Som e, to be. We are all exposed to a world that can be pretty depressing. That’s the premise of the joke — and then (a comic) tells what is commonly referred to as the punchline. Some comics focus bn the horrible thought and then they don’t have a punch line. If you are going to write edgy material, you need a punch line. There are a lot of young comics wfro think, “Well Sarah Silverman talks about rape and all these other things that are super sad. I’m going to do it too ” Comedy is a delicate , craft. My advice to young comics: try not to make a video and then post it oii Youtube because it takes a minute to learn how to ride that fine line. i Am Never Going To Understand This Society. T o g e th e r W e Stand; D iv id e d W e Fall, 'BRIAN LINDSTROM ALIEN BOY PACKS A HORRIFYING PUNCH: INTIMATE, TERRIBLE, & TRUE." -SHAWN LEVY, THE OREGONIAN “A H N BOY IS A TRIUMPH - AND AN EMOTIONAL BULLDOZER.” - JOHN CHANDLER, PORTLAND MONTHLY http://www.alienboy.org/ K f H 1 | * g i
