Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy (10 page)

Chris:
He was funny, even then. That’s the crazy thing.

Judd:
He was doing a bit about a girl walking up to him in his car—he’s flirting with some pretty girl and he’s pissing himself because he’s sick and he can’t control himself. He’s trying to act cool as he pisses his pants.

Chris:
Wow.

Judd:
It was amazing. But even the great stuff he was doing around 1976—about, you know, the Bicentennial and Patty Hearst—it all sounds like he’s playing for a hundred people, in tiny clubs.

Chris:
That was the genius of the guy. The guy believed in working it out. He was like, “Okay, so I’m going to have a bad set tonight, big deal. But when you pay to see me, it’s going to be right.” Most comedians just don’t have the guts—especially famous comedians—to get up there and not be funny, to just feel your way around this thing.

Judd:
How tragic is it that Eddie Murphy won’t do stand-up anymore?

Chris:
Tragic. Because he can do it, you know what I mean? It’s like, what if Mike Tyson could still knock people out and didn’t fight? That would be sad, right? Eddie Murphy, right now, would be top three in the world. Probably number one if he worked at it. But he doesn’t want to. Only financial ruin will get that guy back onstage.

Judd:
I do understand how it happens, though. You feel like,
I’ve made a lot of stuff and I don’t feel the need to get up there and go through that again.
But as somebody who hadn’t done stand-up in twenty-two years and then just started doing it again, I see instantly why it’s necessary for people like him, if they want to do interesting work in whatever medium they’re doing. You have to force yourself to experience it again, and to connect with the crowd.

Chris:
You should go to Eddie Murphy’s house on the next fight night. You’ll be entertained by the funniest man on earth. He has amazing fight parties. There’s lots of people there, every black comedian imaginable—and he’s funnier than everybody there. But I’ve given up asking him. I don’t even bring it up anymore.

Judd:
As you’re preparing your new act, do you begin by thinking about what’s important, what really needs to be said right now?

Chris:
A little bit, yeah. Some of it’s for the crowd, and some of it’s for you. There’s definitely a part of you that goes like,
Okay, there’s a lot of this police brutality going on. I got to look over this and figure out what my take is because people want to hear about it. I’m going to have to find a real, original take on it—not just, you know, “Hey, stay away from football players!”
I’m going to have to dig deep, regardless of what else I want to talk about.
You have no choice. You’ve got an obligation because people are paying to hear that. But again, it also depends on what kind of comedian you are. If you’re Demetri Martin, you probably don’t have to do that. Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t have that pressure, either.

Judd:
Jerry doesn’t have any pressure, apparently.

Chris:
Jerry’s got no fucking pressure. God bless him. Jerry Seinfeld, one of the greatest comedians of all time and one of the cockiest bastards to ever live.

Judd:
How did he get that cocky? If you’re neurotic in any way—like, in a normal way—he looks at you like you’re insane for not getting it.

Chris:
To his credit, he writes some of the best jokes ever. He really does. I mean, they’re like Billy Joel songs, you know what I mean?

Judd:
Yeah.

Chris:
There’s a lot of hip guys in the world, but who can follow Billy Joel in America, you know what I mean? I don’t give a fuck who you are, I don’t give a fuck if you’re Sting or Bono—if you’re onstage in America, there’s a part of you that just hopes Billy Joel doesn’t walk in. I remember going to see Billy and Elton John in concert. I kind of wanted to see Elton a little more, and I came out of it thinking, Billy Joel is actually more American than Bruce Springsteen, you know what I mean? Bruce Springsteen’s a fucking Russian soldier compared to fucking Billy Joel, man. That shit’s American. Everybody likes those records. And Jerry Seinfeld writes jokes like that.
Everybody
gets those fucking jokes. I’ve seen that guy work fucking Mexican crowds, black crowds, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He’s fucking cocky and kills every night.

Judd:
I sometimes think it seems everyone in our circle had their kids at the same time. You, me, Seinfeld, Sandler—it’s a real shared experience.

Chris:
It’s weird. Our kids are all the same age. And we’re all kind of married to the same woman.

Judd:
We all have the same issues in our lives. Several decades in, everybody’s kind of in the same place, trying to figure out the next phase. When
people have had success and they’ve made money and they have families—and they’re not dying to be accepted anymore, with a long career ahead of them—they’re
still
trying to figure it out.

Chris:
We’re going to be old for a long fucking time, dude.

Judd:
Then you see certain people, like Martin Scorsese, who just go on a tear, a late game tear. And that makes you wonder,
Who am I going to be when I’m not a young punk?

Chris:
You’ve got to make yourself scared. When I did that play not too long ago, it was like,
Oh, this shit is scary. I’m out of my comfort zone. I’m the low man on the totem pole. I could really suck at this.
But it’s in moments like that that you are going to learn the most. Directing, too:
What the fuck was I ever doing directing anything
, you know what I mean? It scared me and I did some things that sucked. But you learn more from fucking up than you do from success, unfortunately. And failure, if you don’t let it defeat you, is what fuels your future success.

Judd:
What made you realize it was time to make
Top Five
, which is such a personal film?

Chris:
Doing that play, a few years ago, inspired me. It showed me what work is again. The thing about the play was, it wasn’t a revival. It was an original play. If you’re doing a revival, you can rehearse it at your house—the lines aren’t going to change or whatever. But when you do an original play, when you’re in previews, you get new pages, new lines, every day. “I’m going to get rid of that scene and we’re going to do this scene instead.” What? But being around actors really helped me. Being around creative people that had talents I didn’t helped me. It opened my eyes. I don’t know, I mean, I had directed two other movies in my life, but I haven’t had a hit in a long time. There was a part of me that was like,
Okay, if this one doesn’t work, I’m kind of done.
There was a part of me that was pushed against the wall, but there was also a part of me—there’s a part of
Top Five
that’s really personal, and it works. It plays like my stand-up. I did stand-up for fifteen years before I broke, you know.

Judd:
So then you make this more personal movie. You show it in Toronto and the place goes crazy and you sell it to a big studio. That’s the weird
thing about creativity, right? When you get real, you have your biggest success.

Chris:
It’s the smallest movie I’ve ever written. Actually, it’s the first time I wrote a movie. It’s the first time I’ve written by myself.

Judd:
I just finished a movie with Amy Schumer. At first, she wanted to write it with someone else, but I said to her, “I think, in ways that are hard to describe, your point of view will shift because you’re going to make all sorts of concessions that are destructive to—”

Chris:
You’re going to have a consensus. You’re not going to have a vision. That’s what happens. So I wrote this movie by myself. Every other movie I’ve done—
Head of State
or whatever—was like, I wasn’t even writing a movie. I was writing a poster. I was thinking about the pitch meeting before I was done with the movie.

Judd:
I feel like, for a lot of people, there’s that moment when you go personal with your work and everything changes. Look at Louis C.K. When he revealed himself, the whole world connected with him. I felt that way with
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
and
Knocked Up
and
Freaks and Geeks
—that’s when I realized that if I just come clean, people connect in a completely different way.

Chris:
I mean, there was an episode of Louis—the one where Melissa Leo gives him a blowjob in the car. And then she says, you know, “Now you’re going to eat my pussy.” And that blew my mind. I watched that episode, and it was like the first time I heard NWA. It was like,
Oh shit, you can
do
this
?

Judd:
Yeah.

Chris:
And I thought,
So why am I so scared? Why do I give a fuck about testing?
All the nonsense I spent so long giving a shit about. And then there was the fact Louis C.K. is a guy who literally used to—you know, I hired him on my writing staff and here he is, doing
this.
It was like,
Oh shit. Okay, whatever I do next has to be this honest.

I am aware that Eddie Vedder is not a comedian or a comic actor. Yes, he was hilarious in
Walk Hard
, but I think most people still see him as a musician, not a funny person. I was thrilled to be asked to interview Eddie Vedder—and all of the members of Pearl Jam—to help them promote their last record,
Lightning Bolt.
Even though Eddie is way nicer and cooler than I am, and has the kind of artistic accomplishments I can only dream about, I have always felt like we are on a similar journey. We are about the same age. We have used our lives and experiences, our joy and pain, to create personal work that we can stand behind. We have tried, above all, to keep our careers going with our integrity and humanity intact. Plus, I am fanatical about his music.

Judd Apatow:
Did you ever see the
Quadrophenia
documentary?

Eddie Vedder:
I saw, like, an hour version. There’s got to be a version that’s longer and more detailed, but—

Judd:
Yeah, you want the early cut, from before they tightened it up. For me, that was the big record. I’ve heard that was a mind blower for you, too.

Eddie:
Yeah. And a lifesaver. A life ring to hang on to because, for some reason, I just didn’t feel like there was anybody I could relate to on the whole planet. Nobody at school and certainly no one in the household. And then, all of a sudden, it was like here’s some guy from London named Pete, and he knew everything that was going on.

Judd:
How old were you?

Eddie:
Probably about thirteen, fourteen. And all kinds of stuff was happening in my life. It was really like, just, you know, it was like a bridge with the planks covering a big, deep chasm—and the planks were just falling. That whole period, I was just hanging on.

Judd:
I feel like I had the same exact experience. My parents broke up in between eighth and ninth grade and had a crazy divorce. They didn’t actually even get fully divorced until I was in college. They fought. For some reason,
Quadrophenia
—even now I try to think, what was it about
Quadrophenia
that made me feel a little better, and part of it was that song “I’m One.” Which we later used in
Freaks and Geeks
because it captured exactly how I felt. Like,
How am I gonna get noticed? Why am I getting treated so badly? Why am I invisible at school?
But I was unconscious to it for decades, what it meant to me. Was that your experience?

Eddie:
Absolutely. I mean, it was a number of things—I was finding messages in, like, Split Enz and Talking Heads. But as a whole,
Quadrophenia
was the one that…thank God the record store prescribed that drug, because that’s what got me through. Even though it didn’t offer any answers, in the end it was just knowing that you weren’t the only one going through these things.

Judd:
When I was a kid, no one was into comedy. I felt so alone with this weird interest and it was only when I moved to Los Angeles and went to college and met the comedians at the Comedy Store and the Improv that I thought,
Ohh, so there’s hundreds of people who like everything that I like and who want to talk about it all night long.
Did you have that experience getting into the music scene?

Eddie:
I remember—I still remember distinctly that somebody ended up obtaining a small bag of mushrooms and we were all gonna have a surf, and it ended up being a great experience. But while we were waiting for things to happen, we were playing a Kinks record and I said to my friend, “Yeah, see the guitar tone, the distortion, the space in between,” and he was like, “You know, some people don’t listen to music like you. Some people just listen to it to enjoy it.” He was basically telling me to shut the fuck up.

Judd:
(
Laughs
)

Eddie:
He was just trying to listen to the song. And he had a valid point. But it was just always that way. With me—and I think eventually you—you find that. And then certainly with the group of guys in the band, you know, after a show, if we have a night and we have to travel or we’re still up and awake and sitting in a confined space talking, we can talk all night about music. We’ll talk until we get to the next place, laughing hysterically, remembering this thing, or “Oh yeah, so-and-so produced this one.” You realize how fortunate you are and how involved everybody is to this day. The passion for music is as strong as it was when we were naïve little kids and it seemed like the most exciting thing in the world.

Judd:
With a lot of comedy people, I feel like there’s like a moment where you realize that certain friends have figured out their mental state, calmed down and evolved, and others kinda spin out. In the beginning, you do it because you’re crazy. You’re angry, you’re trying to show somebody, you have low self-esteem—as a comedian, you go onstage because you so desperately want approval, you’re willing to risk rejection by hundreds of people at a comedy club to get it. But at some point that kind of goes away and then you start creating for a different reason.

Eddie:
I just try to always remember where that initial spark came from. It’s like a pilot light, and you try to make sure it doesn’t go out.

Judd:
Sometimes I forget my pain. I try to remember what I was so neurotic about. It’s still there, almost as a vibration, but I forget the specifics.

Eddie:
An interesting moment for me was the movie
Into the Wild
, when Sean Penn asked me to contribute a song. I thought,
Yeah, I can relate to this kid, this character
—and I was a little surprised at how quickly it all just came back. I thought I’d processed all that. But it was crazy. It was just like a rash that had been slightly just under the skin the whole time. It was upsetting, you know. But you’re just kind of putting it out and turning it into something hopefully worthwhile that other people can kind of experience, too. They can share in that and not feel like they were the only ones.

Judd:
Who’s been most helpful to you in your career? I’ve always had mentors who have shown me the way, who showed me, This is how you
can do this work and not go crazy. Garry Shandling talked a lot about honesty and the importance of telling the truth in your work and honesty, and as a kid, I’d never heard about any of that. At each stage of my career, I find myself thinking,
Wow, I can have lunch with Mike Nichols or Marshall Brickman
—people who have done this work so well, for so many decades. Like, how do you stay engaged for that long? Who have you learned from?

Eddie:
Oh, I feel like I’ve been learning from everybody. The other night, I got to sit with Tom Petty for a little bit and then, you know, there’s Bruce and Neil and Pete and Kim and John Doe and Ian MacKaye and Thurston and it’s all—in a way, you’re so fortunate because you’re working in something where it’s a bit of a craft or whatever. It’s an endless learning cycle.

Judd:
I can never believe that I can sit and talk to any of these people. Does that ever go away for you?

Eddie:
I think, at some point, you have to get out of that state. And I think it’s more comfortable to them, too, to know that you feel like you’ve earned the right. That’s only happened recently. That I feel like I’ve at least earned their respect enough to be sitting across the table from them. It probably makes them less nervous.

Judd:
Exactly. (
Laughs
) What is your spirituality? Are you religious? Or are you still trying to figure that out?

Eddie:
It’s a curiosity, for sure, and an unanswered question. I think we can all agree that there’s no evidence to say that it’s just this one thing. But I think about the people who have stopped asking the questions, who have stopped searching and stopped looking for answers. I think that when you’re committed to one religion—let alone into the level of being fundamentalist—you close yourself off to things that might be out there. There becomes a closed-mindedness where you don’t allow anything more in, and I think you’re missing out on half the plot, or half the experience of life on this planet.

Judd:
You have two daughters, right?

Eddie:
Yeah.

Judd:
What’s your theory, going forward, regarding the war with kids to be a part of the digital generation? What will your boundaries be?

Eddie:
Well, raising them Amish is maybe the answer. We’ve been doing a lot of calligraphy.

Judd:
Farming?

Eddie:
Yeah, farming.

Judd:
But it’s a war with kids, isn’t it? They want to be a part of it so badly. My daughter always says, “That’s how we communicate, Dad, you can’t stop it.” But you can tell it’s hurting them. They are not comfortable in silence and you hate to be that groovy person who’s like, “It’s hurting their imaginations!” But you can tell that they don’t allow anything to come forward because they’re just constantly filling all the mental space.

Eddie:
When we were kids, back in the day, it was like, “Don’t sit too close to the TV.” That was our only electronic boundary.

Judd:
(
Laughs
)

Eddie:
Ten feet back, at all times! But now I’m worried about myself and certainly worried for them. I’m not really sure how it’s gonna—I think it’s just giving them enough they can at least balance it out. Our freedoms are going up in smoke, but if you still like take a walk, or take a hike or have a surf—if you’re lucky enough to be in a situation where you do these things or go to the park or whatever, at least that can still feel free for a while.

Judd:
Do you ever think about what, emotionally, you’re giving away in your music? When I make a movie I think,
Oh, that person knows that I’m talking about them.
Like if I made a record and there were three songs about being married and two of them were like, this is really hard or a drag, I’d get in trouble immediately for it—

Eddie:
Well, no. If the emotion is real and the idea—I guess one thing you do is try to mask it slightly.

Judd:
(
Laughs
)

Eddie:
But if it’s the real thing, then you just do it and deal with the circumstances.

Judd:
Are you happy, family-wise?

Eddie:
My type of personality is that even when things are going really good, then I feel like something bad could happen at any minute. I think a lot about the fragility of life. From knowing people like Tomas Young, who’s a soldier who lost the use of most of his body due to a couple of gunshot wounds in Iraq, and the challenges he faces, or just having friends who are dealing with diseases—knowing these people has given me a great appreciation for life and the moment. I just see that fragility at all times.

Judd:
When you start a record, do you have an idea of what it’s going to be, or is it something that evolves once you guys start working?

Eddie:
Whatever the music is dictates what the record is, especially if I’m writing lyrics to someone else’s piece. What you’re listening for is, like,
What does this mean? What is this? What are these sounds or what is this rhythm or momentum of it?
I think the faster songs are easier, because it seems like there’s plenty of aggressive stuff to write about these days. But maybe the more atmospheric stuff comes, you know—those become a little more of a puzzle, trying to line everything up and then have it create a meaning for you, or a story or something that relates to the sound of the song.

Judd:
Are you writing actively or is the music the beginning of your process in writing lyrics?

Eddie:
It’s pretty much the beginning. I should do that more, you know, but usually it’s just something that connects all at once. Something lands on my shoulder and then it’s just a matter of waiting and getting it down. And then there’s this great writing tool—I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. It’s called a vaporizer.

Judd:
(
Laughs
)

Eddie:
And so, you put your tools out on your desk and then you just start, you know, bricklaying and then you see what happens the next morning.

Judd:
I think my whole process is wrong. I’m just stressed all day long trying to think of things. I’m sitting there thinking,
Why aren’t you thinking of anything? You’re behind. You need to get going.
I’m going to try this “vaporizer” you’re talking about.

Eddie:
I think we have a signature model coming out soon.

Judd:
You should just be a sponsor of that. You could have your own brand, like the George Foreman Grill.

Eddie:
Well, certainly in a few states, we could air those commercials.

Judd:
But what will you tell your kids about the rock star life, and what your journey has been like? They can start googling you pretty soon. My daughter said to me recently, “You took mushrooms at a Frank Sinatra concert.”

Eddie:
I think I need to get home and check on the kids.

Judd:
(
Laughs
) No, no, but I never thought,
Oh yeah, I did an interview five years ago where I told this story.
I wasn’t prepared for my reaction and explanation—which was that someone force-fed them to me. It was a terrible, terrible incident. I was dosed. I guess it happens at some point that they have to understand everything you’ve been through.

Eddie:
Right. Well, umm…

Judd:
I just blew your mind. (
Laughs
)

Eddie:
I’m a little paranoid about the computer….

Judd:
Yeah.

Eddie:
A crazy thing happened the other night. My daughter likes to listen to this ukulele record that I did—she goes to bed to it, and especially if I’m not around, at least I’m there playing her to sleep. There’s a sad song about sleeping by myself or something and it was pretty intense. She started by asking me, you know, “What’s that song
about
? Why are you singing that?” And I said, “Oh, that was before I met Mom,” and the
whole thing. And then she started bawling. She said, “It’s so sad, it’s so sad.” I had to comfort her, but she really kind of lost it, it was pretty intense, so we skip that song now. It was interesting to see the empathy that she had for her dad. I don’t know if I ever had that, or an opening to have that. I was raised differently.