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