San Francisco Comedy Blog

by Joey Devine

Paul F. Tompkins is a staple in the alternative comedy scene. He has appeared on Mr. Show with Bob and David, VH1’s The Best Week Ever, has two Comedy Central Presents, and hosts his own monthly show at Largo in Los Angeles. He will be appearing at Cobb’s Comedy Club on June 26th.

Paul F. Tompkins @ Cobb’s Comedy Club
915 Columbus Ave, SF
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
$20.50, 18+, 8pm (doors at 6:45)

You started doing stand up in Philadelphia in 1986. How was that as a scene at the time?

PFT: It was great, because there was a lot of work around there at the time, and there were a lot of people to see and learn from. The crowds could be tough, which was a good thing, because you really had to be on your game. So it was a great place to start out.

You have a very distinct voice- I mean not just vocally, but, you know, your comedy voice. Was that always there or is that something you really had to work on?

PFT: No, I think it’s something that you really have to work on, and I think that’s true for anybody early on. I mean the extreme example is somebody like Emo Philips or Steven Wright, you know, guys that are doing more of a character-y sort of delivery. I think that’s something that you are pretty close to early on because maybe that’s how you’re the most comfortable expressing yourself. Like, if you saw an early version of a guy like that who is doing sort of a character thing, then it probably wouldn’t be that much different than when they were fully developed, because that’s the direction they were headed in. But for me, I feel like I’m still in it. It’s a long process to find one’s voice.

I kind of wanted to talk about your writing process a little bit. You’re interesting because you’ve written both as a solo stand up, and as a duo with Jay Johnston. What are the pros and cons of those?

PFT: Oh, pros and cons. The pro of writing with someone else is that you have instant feedback and instant assistance. You have someone there that’s saying either yes or no, and hopefully; yes and; then we can do this; and if it’s no, then how about this. So you’re building something with someone else which gets it there faster. The problem is that you still have to take into account someone else’s vision. You’re two people trying to make something happen. When it’s yourself, it’s completely your sensibility, it’s completely up to you where it goes. But the downside is that you have to do all the work.

When you write are you really strict with your writing, like do you write for an hour everyday, or do you just wait for inspiration?

PFT: You know, I’ve never understood people that say, “I’m going to sit there and write comedy for an hour.” I just don’t understand how that’s going to happen, because for me, I’ve just been someone that when I’m inspired, that’s when I write. You know, when something occurs to me I write it down. I can’t imagine. I just don’t work very well under those sorts of conditions. Because then it becomes a job, it becomes a punishment in my mind. You know, I understand that other people don’t work that way, but to me it’s like I HAVE to write for an hour. That would make me not want to write and consequently I will not get anything done. Then I’ll just feel pressured.

Now that’s for writing stand up. If you’re writing a script or something, a friend of mine gave me a very helpful tactic which is: if you have an idea for a script you want to write, write for a half hour a day. Get an egg timer, and then really devote yourself to that story for a half hour, because you’re starting from someplace. You have a story you want to tell, so that’s where I think it really applies.

As far as writing jokes, I have never been able to do that.

You just actually made me feel a lot better, because I can’t actually do that either.

PFT: Here’s the thing, which I think a lot of people for whatever reason don’t want to admit, is that it’s whatever works best for you. Not everybody is going to have the same exact disciplines, because not everybody is doing the same comedy. I think the valid part of that is that you should always be thinking about it, keep your mind open, and that’s something that anybody can do. If you’re doing stand up you’re a creative person. Keep your mind open to creativity, so in a sense you’re writing all day long. Rather than, I’m going to sit here and I’m going to write. I think there is something to: if you do have ideas then sit there and develop them, but just starting with a blank screen or a blank notebook page, for me personally, is not the way I write. And I’m never going to be able to do that.

I wanted to ask you about your one man show: Driven to Drink. Did you write that as a one man show, or did you just compile that together?

PFT: I made a conscious effort to write an original half hour. I did not want it to seem like a bunch of stand up that got turned into a play. I wanted it to seem as much like a play as possible. And you know, because it was on TV, these idiots that were putting up the money were like, “You’ve got to put the alternative pets bit in there.” Which to this day, I don’t understand why they put in some bit from my act into the thing. So that’s the only bit in there that was not written expressly for that show.

Has being on The Best Week Ever changed your writing process at all, because you have to always be thinking about more pop culture based jokes, and the jokes in your act are longer then the typical talking head 30 second Best Week Ever joke?

PFT: Well, it’s completely compartmentalized. The writing I do for the Best Week Ever is just riffing. Just jokes off the top of my head, as opposed to the jokes I do in my stand up act which is much more personal and much more about my personal experience. Doing Best Week Ever has not caused jokes about pop culture to creep into my stand up act. If anything it’s a struggle to put my personality into Best Week Ever, because I do tend to talk longer than a sound byte. So I’m always pleased when a longer gag makes it’s way onto Best Week Ever. It’s more of a struggle to write comedy for Best Week Ever than it is to keep the Best Week Ever style out of my stand up.

Last year you released your first album, Impersonal. Why did it take you 20+ years to record an album?

PFT: I think for a lot of reasons I was intimidated by the idea of putting something down for posterity like that, and I eventually just got past the intimidation. Especially when I realized, the technology is there that it is so easy to do. I finally got to a point where I realized, yeah I should just go ahead and do it. I’d built up this back log of material I’m not even doing anymore, so why not put that on disc while I continue to write other stuff. So the next one I do, I have another CD’s worth of stuff I can put out there before I even get to the stuff that I’m doing now.

I read online that when Impersonal came out, you felt really embarrassed to sell it after your shows. Is that still the case?

PFT: I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s still a weird thing. I think it’s just the way I was raised, I guess. I can’t get past the presumptuousness of it. It’s one thing to sell it online. It’s another thing to suddenly physically be there, and there’s always a sense of shame of assuming that people want to buy it.

Well, you know, you could probably get a guy to do it for you…

PFT: That to me is even worse. That’s just so… That’s like, well, so many people are going to buy it I have to get someone else to sell them for me. That is the height of hubris to me.

Being a road comic, do you feel that sometimes you have to tailor your act more to where you are?

PFT: No I don’t. I know what you’re talking about, and I think there was a time where that was true, or maybe I thought that way. I think now the goal is: This is funny to me, and how do I make it so that everybody can understand this, while still retaining what is funny about it to me. Rather than saying, well I can’t do this stuff, because they’re not going to get it there. I don’t even want to bother doing material like that, because I don’t want to do anything in Los Angeles that I can’t do in Memphis. There’s no point in that to me. That’s a waste of time. That’s like a joke I can make off stage to friends of mine. That to me is what it comes down to. If this is worth saying on stage, this is worth saying more than just tonight. Otherwise, there is no point in doing it.

Do you try and go out of your way when you’re on the road to make, like a local joke?

PFT: I don’t go out of my way. I don’t think that gets you anything. There’s something that’s a little cynical and false about that. There’s something that’s very calculated about that. That’s advice I would have gotten when I was first starting out. Like, “Yeah, always ask what’s the town that everyone makes fun of?” Which is, I understand getting people on your side, but there’s something that feels sort of dishonest about that to me. It feels like you’re not in the moment. You’re not treating it as sort of a special occasion. Which for me takes the fun out of it. It takes the fun out of it for me if you’re saying, “I’m just going to do my thing about the town everybody makes fun of, and I can just plug it in anywhere I go.” That’s something that you’re not fully being in the moment. But if I go to a place and I observe something about it then I will use it.

What are your favorite venues to play?

PFT: My two favorite places are both in L.A., and they are the UCB and Largo. And Largo is about to move to a bigger space. They’re opening up in a theater at the beginning of June, and I’m very excited to have a little bit more room to play around with. Just having less competition with waitresses and stuff like that. That’s the problem I have with comedy clubs and why I’m getting away from them, is that when you perform at a comedy club you are competing with the selling of things. There’s too much competition there, and I’d prefer that people know when they walk into a place, they go to a theater, they know that they’re not going to be hassled to buy anything. And I’m not saying that the staff at any comedy clubs I’ve played is… it’s not the staff’s fault. It’s just the nature of the beast. I think a lot of people do see it as a hassle that they’re trying to watch a show and they don’t want to have to purchase a minimum amount of things. You know what’s cool about a theater is once you enter the theater you have stopped paying for things. Now it’s just about the show and that to me is the ideal situation. It’s just about the show. I played this place the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago with Kristen Schaal, and it was great. It was the experience I’ve always been looking for where it’s grown ups going to a theater, all the seats are pointed at the stage, and they’re just watching the show. It was one of my favorite performing experiences I’ve ever had.

Well, that to me at least makes sense, because the performance is the most important part of your act.

PFT: All I ever wanted from when I got into this was for the audiences just to listen long enough to discover that maybe I had something worthwhile to say. I never liked the tyranny of the drunk audience. That you have to hit them hard and fast, and make sure they’re paying attention to you. That’s not fun for me. That’s not fun for me at all, so I like to go where, yeah, the deck is stacked to a certain degree. Where it’s like, I did that enough- I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I did that enough. The comedy club I’ve done. I’ve earned my stripes in the comedy club, and I feel like I’m done with that. The kind of comedy that I do now, is not a party. There’s guys that say, “Yeah, when I do my show it’s like a party.” Well my show is a comedy show. It’s not a fucking party. If you want to go to a party, go to a party. This is not about me doing shots on stage. This is not about me trying to become fake friends with the audience. I’m here to bond with you in a different way. I’m here to bond with you emotionally. I’m going to tell some stories, and hopefully we have all had the same experiences, and that’s where the enjoyment comes out of, you know, that I provide you with something you could not get someplace else.

Do you like performing in San Francisco?

PFT: Yeah I do. I got to perform there so much last year, it was great. For whatever reason I ended up being in San Francisco a lot. Through Sketchfest, doing a week at the Punchline, a tour with Aimee Mann, Cobb’s 25th Anniversary. There was just a bunch of different shows that brought me up there, so by the end of 2007, I really came to know this city pretty well. Which is a nice feeling, because so often you’re on the road, it’s unfamiliar. Even a place you’ve been a lot, you end up just going to the same few places, back and forth from the hotel to the club. So it was nice to feel like I had a little home away from home kind of feeling.

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