Roseanne Barr: Don't Destroy Yourself for Comedy.

Nothing can ever stop me because I'm a comic, right? Right. Nothing can stop us. Nothing. Because we have some fucking weird DNA bend that we just have to get the fucking last laugh, right? We have to get the laugh. And so I have to. I'm just glad you're back to stand up too. I'm really, really excited about that. I don't know about that. It wasn't sparking joy as that woman says. She says if you're doing anything in your life that is not sparking joy, then fuck it. Who said that? That lady that tells you to throw out your clothes that don't spark joy. Oh, she's like a minimalist lady? I don't know. She's on the internet. Oh, okay. She's really helped me because I'm a hoarder. Yeah, me too a little bit. Are you? You can see it all by this desk. I got a lot of knickknacks and stuff to save. Yeah. Were you saying that stand up wasn't sparking joy? Yeah. When was this? It wasn't sparking joy. In the past. Yeah. In the last few, you know, in a while. Because I'm so nervous. It's like, oh my God. I get so nervous because I don't really know. I don't really know anymore, you know? I don't really, the funny moved. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does. I'm just saying I need a line, one killer line, one killer opening line that encapsulates the entire year I've just lived through. Right. Right. I need that kind of a line or it's not going to work for me, you know? Because everybody knows something happened. Sure. Yeah. And I just don't talk about it that much because I call everybody a bitch. Do you ever work with writers? Me? Stand up writers? Yeah. No, I want to, but all my friends are dead. Oh, co-writing comic friends are dead. I'm sure we can connect you somewhere. Or they moved to Israel and became Khabod. You know who would be great? Who? Tony Hinchcliffe. Who's that? Is that? He's hilarious. How old? He's a great comic. He's 36. Oh, that's a good age. Yeah, 35, 36. That's a good age. Oh, he's really funny. Really? He sees things weird. Fantastic joke writer and he writes for roasts all the time. Oh, roasts are the best jokes. I love roasts jokes. Oh, I love roasts jokes. Yeah, I would love to connect you with them. I would love that if you would. And help you coalesce your thoughts. You know, the comics are the comics that like me, you know? Push this mic up to you. A little closer to you. There we go. The comics that like me. Everybody likes you. Well, I know that. Comics too. Yeah, the comics. Well, some don't like me. Well, they're silly. Yeah, well, some's bitches and they're looking for a fucking smackdown. I say this every podcast. And believe me when the day comes, they will get their fucking smackdown from me, Joe. I believe that. And it will not be like no smackdown they've ever had before in their privileged fucking little lives. I believe you. This will be your, you're going to raise your kids on welfare when I'm done with your ass. Whoa. Kind of thing. Because I was raised on welfare. I was as well. Were you? Yeah, well, until we were like 13, 14. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Did you get the government cheese? We did. We didn't get the government cheese. My dad used to take that whole five pound brick of cheese and my dad was the greatest comic. Really? Yeah. But crazy, like never knowing when to stop because it stops me. I'm funny at a certain point. Right. But keep pushing it and pushing it till somebody slaps you down. Yeah. It's that DNA thing that comics have. It's bad. It is bad. Like my friend, Sue Menger. Remember her, Joe? Sue Menger. I do know the name. Yeah. Well, she was of kinder, whatever it was, where they moved these Jewish children from Germany to England. Kinder Sport or something. Mm-hmm. And to save them. And she was one of those. And her dad was a comic in Germany. And it's just so weird how things go around and around and we'll get to what we're going to talk about today. But her dad was a comic in Germany. You know, real funny, real popular. And Hitler came and took over and he kept on telling the jokes. You know, he was telling the jokes wherever he went. Every little club doing the jokes. And he was warned, don't, you know, switch up your joke, man. If you want to keep working, switch that joke up to be, you know, not what you're saying. You know. And he wouldn't do it. And she said he even got louder and he was arrested. And of course, murdered in Auschwitz. But she lived. And she said, I said, what would you say to your dad now? She said, you know, at a certain point it fucking stops being funny. Do something different, you know. Don't write it to the destructo. Don't go all the fucking else way over, you know. Try to stay in the middle. Don't destruct yourself for comedy. Isn't that the problem with some comics, though? We don't really know where the line is until you cross it. And then you go, oh, I fucked up across the line. But you're just trying to be funny. And that's something that I think that non-comics don't really understand. When a comic fucks up, makes a mistake, they're just trying to be funny. They're not trying to be mean. And they just missed. They missed. And it happens all the time because you're creating, you know. You're ad-libbing. You're basically improvising. And that's a lot of what comedy is, is improvising a line and trying to say something. And in the moment, you might think it's funny. But if you had more time to think about it, you might have said, oh, I shouldn't say it that way. People are going to get it wrong. Or maybe I should recorrect myself. But people- But that's when you start being not funny because self-censorship, that's how they want us to be. They want us to like always be like, should I say this or shouldn't I say this? Yes. And you know, just like her dad there in Germany, you know, should I say this or should I say that? And instead of, I guess, the more intelligent of us go, how can I say this and reach people? Yeah. Because you know, the people are thinking just like you because they're people too.