LOL WITH IT: Eddie Pepitone @ Connie's Ric Rac tonight

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LOL WITH IT: Eddie Pepitone @ Connie's Ric Rac tonight

POSTED: Friday, March 25, 2011, 10:00 AM

Filed Under: Comedy | LOL With It Stand-up

You’re kind of connected to this divine silliness.

I called up comedian Eddie Pepitone to chat, and he just rolled stream-of-consciousness style through an entire interview’s worth of info. I never even asked any questions. Here it is (almost) in its entirety, mostly unedited.

Eddie Pepitone: Hi Ryan. I’m staying in New York. Do you mind if we just start talking? I’m from New York. I’ve been living in LA for the last 8 years, and it’s taken me, for some reason, over a year and a half to get back to New York this time. So right now I’m sitting on my friend’s back porch, it makes me feel like an old guy, like I wanna feed the squirrels or something…

Doing comedy is like going to war, on stage. I was just thinking about it just now as I was drinking my coffee, I go back and forth between having this incredible confidence in what I do on stage and this incredible doubt about what I do. When I’m feeling really good I feel like I could do anything on stage. Like, I had two shows last night in New York. I started out addressing the audience, “Hello corporate whores!” Whenever I say stuff like that I’m always half-kidding and-half serious.

Well, the audience didn’t take it well...

But I feel like I’m at the point where I can rescue any set, but I had to work hard. And when comedy becomes work, you might as well sell shoes… Comedians get into it in order to have this ecstatic, funny… televangelist...

When you’re doing well it’s like you’re preaching. Not in any kind of negative way. You’re kind of connected to this divine silliness. And last night, the first show I did, it was such a contrast, I kinda love performing in New York because I can bop around from club to club, and it’s always interesting to see the differences between shows and crowds…. and me… If I have a better set later that night, it’s like, “okay, don’t call them corporate whores.”

I get cocky when I have really good sets for a long time, and then I get slapped in the face by an audience and it’s like, “who the fuck do I think I am?” Sometimes you never get out of it. An audience either loves you or hates you. If you ever here someone talk about a comics like, ‘meh’ they really don’t like them.

I like to do stuff with a political edge, because I feel like the corporations, the right wing, but the corporations in general have really fucked regular people. It’s a tricky thing for a comic because you have to have a strong point of view in order to be effective on stage and funny. I have really, really been angry, and now in Wisconsin, the Republicans wanna take away collective bargaining. I try to talk about this stuff in my set, because so many comics talk about their dick and minutia. And I think that’s fine, but I’m getting older. I’m 52, my dick barely works anymore.

For me and the audience, it’s good if you can really get into some things that affect people’s lives. And then you run into hard-asses, where people wrap themselves up in the flag, and military… I try to stay away from that. My first job is to be funny, and my first thing is to make fun of myself and my pathetic-ness… That’s why so many comics kill with relationship stuff. My girlfriend and I have run out of things to say to each other. We’ll have a long ride with an hour silence and then she’ll say out of nowhere, “Did you know the grey parrot lives to 200?” I’ll say, “You wanna fuck with me? I’ll tell you some shit about Sacco and Vanzetti...”

I go through these jealousy things… I’m 52, I have a big ego, I’m waiting for my big break. I did an audition for Larry David, and it was so great to do a scene with him. We did a funny scenario, where we were at a diner, and I had a computer. I asked Larry to watch my computer while I went to the bathroom, and Larry left and let a black guy watch it, and then the black guy walked off with the computer. In the scene we’re both arguing about it trying not to sound racist.

At this point I said something about Woody Allen movies, which sparked Eddie’s interest in another direction.

Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. Everybody is looking for ways to stop fucking our own lives up. That’s the thing with being a standup… there’s the craftsman and then the inspirational standup. I get loud and I like to hook in emotionally, but the writing thing is a struggle, to shape it out.

I do a podcast with two other guys called the Long Shot Podcast. I’m on WTF with Marc Maron pretty often. I tweet. I have a live action single panel video comic strip that comes out every day.

I’ll see ya in Philly.

Eddie Pepitone plays tonight, Friday, March 25, 8 p.m., $18, Connie's Ric Rac, 1132 S. Ninth St., 215-279-7587, brownpapertickets.com.

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