If I say 'political comedian,' then people think you're talking about you, the Senate and Congress, and what's going on in Washington D.C. If I say 'comedian,' people automatically assume that you're a comedian who talks about how his wife won't listen to him and that dummy down at the mechanic who wouldn't fix his car.
I think maybe one reason why ventriloquists are looked down on is because it's very difficult to be funny. I think what happens is that people get a dummy, they learn the technique of ventriloquism, they memorize the script, they think they're in show business.
When you are giving people the gospel, you are giving them something to believe, and you have to set the stage for that. You don't just drive up and dump the truck and drive off.
I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
Everyone gets dumped and everyone gets hurt and there's karma to love in regards to what you've done to other people.
If you're going to do a show about somebody who dumped you, it's much richer if you have three characters dealing with different aspects of that theme. There is more space for people to identify with it.
I've always said I can't tell sometimes that people even have an album out until I see them nominated for a Grammy. I think country gets dumped on across the board by the Grammys.
Some people think they're depressed and they go to the doctor and want pills. And you just think: 'You hate where you live, you've lost your job, your boyfriend has dumped you, could all this be why you're depressed?'
Instead of dumping all my money on an independent film that nobody would watch and most people would make fun of behind my back, I decided, 'I'm just going to buy a house.'
We want to believe that we're invulnerable, and that people who get tricked deserve it. Well, they don't. And someday the arrogant types who mock the gullible are likely to get their turn to wear the dunce cap.
The rules - I think that's one big thing that people seem to get caught up in is that I have to know all the rules... But, one thing you have to consider as a new Dungeon Master is you do not have to know the rules like the back of your hand.
I suspect millions of people from my generation probably have comparable stories to tell: if not of sports simulations then of Dungeons & Dragons, or the geopolitical strategy of games like Diplomacy, a kind of chess superimposed onto actual history.
I fell in love with Dungeons & Dragons, and the storytelling of it, and the weird dice, and the fact that it didn't use a traditional board. It felt like I was a part of something special and almost kind of like a secret club because a lot of people didn't know what it was and didn't understand it.
I would play my Dungeons and Dragons songs and watch people's eyes glaze over, and then I would start joking around between songs, and all of a sudden people were lighting up and engaging.
It's been a challenge for me my whole life in that my insides don't necessarily match my outsides... People try to strike up a conversation with me about Dungeons & Dragons or comic books, and I'm like, 'I can't. I'm sorry.'
If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.
I have big hands - I wear either a XXXL or XXL glove. I have a 6-8 wingspan on a 5-11 body - I can dunk. My wingspan allows me to do a lot of things that other people at my height might not be able to do.
My parents wanted to name me Karim Hill. My aunt always liked the name Dule, from this actor Keir Dullea, who was in '2001: Space Odyssey.' That's how I got the name Karim Dule Hill. Growing up, I never liked the name Karim because people would ask me, 'Could you dunk like Kareem Abdul Jabbar?'
You do get into a groove, which is great, when you get to act with the same people a lot. Like with Caroline Catz - it's like a duet: you're like a duo jamming together.
Many self-help books give you these neat, tidy formulas that are really illusions. They dupe people into thinking, 'Well if I can just do that, then everything's going to be okay.' My work differs in that I don't offer quick solutions and simple explanations.
