I started by doing a little funny story, and then I started going to open mics. I realized I had a lot of work to do - you have to get over the stage fright and get your stage presence up. It took me some time, but I finally feel that I'm at a point where I feel comfortable on stage and giving my point of view.
We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.
People always tell me, 'You should do drama. You should do drama.' Even when I first got an agent, they were like, 'We want to send you out to be dramatic.' And I'm like, 'No. I'm a comedian. I'm funny. I want to do funny stuff.'
We've seen some insane signs: 'Is that a loaf of bread in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?' Funny stuff along those lines. Very original. One just said, 'I will do unspeakable things.' I thought that was very interesting - and mildly terrifying!
To go from working with a group of people in a sketch-comedy show on a small network, where it was all about just creating funny stuff, to being on a network show, and the pressures of that, and getting to know the new people who were involved in it. There was a learning curve for me. But it was an education.
Right now my favorite TV show - because it's too close to home - is 'My Name Is Earl.' That show kills me. There's some funny stuff in there.
The funny thing is people won't let me pay for things. I'll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, 'Oh no, it's on the house.'
It's a funny thing: You want so badly for people to see what you do - you're proud of it - and I like the effect that movies have on people. But the attention can also make me uncomfortable.
I don't write material. Funny things happen to me in the course of a day, and I just make notes.
Funny things tend not to happen to me. I am not a natural comic. I need to think about things a lot before I can be even remotely amusing.
What I do onstage, there's maybe .0001 percent of the population that acts like that. I talk like that because it makes me laugh, and because I know a couple of people that talk like that. They're really that Southern. And they do funny things. I love 'em; they're awesome. They're good people.
I've dated some women who have turned me on to some funny things that are strange for men to actually do, but these things have become part of my process. I think the things I do for my appearance help make me look better. I even colour my hair because I like how it makes me look.
Plus, I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.
In a funny way, the illness spurred me on. I thought to myself, 'I've got to get through this operation to make a blues album.'
It was important for me to duck out of the fast and furious life I'd been living as a pop star. I was in a different mood.
My parents were brutal to each other, so I slept in the basement by an old coal-fired furnace. I became a street kid. Occasionally, I'd live with aunts or uncles, then I'd run away to live in the woods, trapping and hunting game to survive. The wilderness pulled at me; still does.
I should be pleased to see all the nations on the earth prosperous and happy and rich, for it would furnish to me the best evidence of the prosperity of my native land.
The men who have furnished me with my greatest inspiration have not been men of wealth, but men of deeds.
A residence of many years in Yorkshire, and an inveterate habit of collecting all kinds of odd and out-of-the-way information concerning men and matters, furnished me, when I left Yorkshire in 1872, with a large amount of material, collected in that county, relating to its eccentric children.
I would wear entirely one color: tutus, furry pants. It was totally outrageous. My family was deeply embarrassed to be seen with me.
