Judd: For a long time, people thought all my emails were angry. Because they would be very simple.
Jeff: Informational.
Judd: Yeah.
Jeff: I’m totally good with that.
Judd: But you know what helps? Exclamation marks. Now I’ve adopted an email personality that is not anything like me. I’m like a fourteen-year-old girl who puts exclamation marks after everything. Because people kept thinking I was mad at them. Well, I don’t think answering emails correlates to any positive qualities that I, or anyone, has.
Jeff: No, what I want to know is—
Judd: What’s probably happening is, like, one of my kids is choking on a bone and I’m not helping them because I’m so obsessed with answering your email. So maybe I’m a prick who cares more about your email than my children.
Jeff: I really want you to answer this.
Judd: I’m being honest.
Jeff: Really?
Judd: I’m saying, why the fuck am I answering your email? Honestly, I have a lot to do.
Jeff: That’s my point.
Judd: I’m busy. I have children. They need help with their homework and why am I checking the fucking email?
Jeff: Oh, stop it. I’m saying as a person here. The point is, you’re thoughtful. You always take time to be present. I don’t know how you do that.
Judd: I know, but you’re wrong. It’s an addiction. It’s a modern addiction. The email and the Twitter. It’s distraction. There’s better things I should be doing with my time and I’m not present at all. I’m staring at your mouth.
Jeff: You don’t want to take credit.
Judd: I think I’m a nice enough person. But unlike you, I don’t brag about it.
Jeff: I was a virgin until I was twenty.
Judd: You were? How did that work out?
Jeff: I actually lost my virginity to a heckler.
Judd: You did?
Jeff: I swear to God. I did. It was on the beach, South Beach. There was a comedy club. I was hosting a show. This woman heckled me unmercifully and later on that night some guy goes, “My friend wants to buy you a drink.” We were on the beach, you know, at this place called the Carlyle. And she called me outside. She said come outside, and then she kissed me. I didn’t stop her. I was twenty. She was thirty and a lawyer, and she ran on the beach ripping off her clothes yelling, “Follow me!” So I did. And then, in a lifeguard stand, she was naked and as soon as my penis went in it could have ended because I was like, I’m not a virgin! I didn’t enjoy. It was like, I wasn’t even thinking about it at all. It was like in, done. And then my clothes had fallen from the lifeguard stand into the sand and there was a bum walking up the beach to take my clothes, and so I jumped up naked with a boner, and ran down and fought off the bum for my clothes and then I went up and she was, like, angry at me. I was like, I’m not going to lose my wallet to a homeless man. And we continued. She was really nice. It didn’t last long.
Judd: The first time I had sex, it was a ski trip senior year.
Jeff: High school? See, you’re way more advanced than me.
Judd: Yeah. It was, you know, brief. And then afterwards, as a joke, I said, “Was it good for you, too?” And she said, “Well, I guess it’ll get better.”
Jeff: She was a girl you were dating.
Judd: Yes.
Jeff: Did she hang around to see if it got better or was that it?
Judd: She found out that it was not going to get better for about six months or so. She tested it out.
Jeff: I loved the way you said six months or so. You were a slow learner.
Judd: Well, because that’s, like, a first love, someone you’ve done everything for the first time with. The two of you had this experience that this is what sex is, the way we do it, and then I think she just went off to college and went, Oh, we’ve done it all wrong the whole time.
Jeff: My high school years were filled with unrequited love. One after the other. I was the guy the girls talked to about the guy that they’re fucking who is an asshole. I was the guy they talked to about that.
Judd: I mainly had that, too. Most of the time that was the situation. I don’t have many road sex stories, either, because I was very uncomfortable with that. But I remember being out on the road—my first road sex story—in San Luis Obispo at some comedy club opening up for Rick Wright.
Jeff: I remember him.
Judd: And this nurse hit on me.
Jeff: Was she wearing her nurse outfit?
Judd: No, but she was very nursy.
Jeff: She showed nursing qualities?
Judd: Yeah, and I’m at the club in the hotel. It’s like the perfect setup. And I thought, Well, I should do this. So we went back to my room.
Jeff: What were you? Like, nineteen? Twenty?
Judd: I was twenty years old, and I’ll tell you how long the sex was. Okay, ready, and…we’re done. And I think, Well, I’m young. We’ll just have sex again and the second time will be better. And…we’re done. And I remember the look in her eyes, the shame. Like, Why am I fucking this boy? Who can’t even fuck me correctly? I’m very embarrassed and I remember sitting in bed and watching, on television, while I was praying for a third shot—Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling was on cable with Richard Pryor. And it was terrible.
Jeff: You didn’t like it?
Judd: It was terrible. It’s the kind of thing that puts you on your heels.
Jeff: You didn’t like the movie, you mean?
Judd: No, the sex.
Jeff: Oh, okay, because I got the indication that you didn’t like Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.
Judd: Well, there is—
Jeff: It’s not great. But there’s good stuff in it. And it’s Pryor playing himself, which is awesome.
Judd: I need to watch it again. But did you ever become the guy trying to get laid after the show?
Jeff: You know the answer to this one. We were on the road together a lot as young comics. No fucking way did that ever happen to me.
Judd: How many times did you get laid on the road?
Jeff: I have someone who keeps track of that for me. Unfortunately they’re not here tonight. Otherwise I could—I’m guessing, I mean, I can think of two. In twenty-nine years.
Judd: It takes a lot to be a road comic and not get laid.
Jeff: Yeah, it does. Because you’re surrounded by it. You’re surrounded by girls who would fuck you under normal—if you knew what you were doing. Anyway. You have two children, and you don’t want another kid, do you? I’m too tired.
Judd: I have two girls and I think it feels like the right amount with the potential of a very dangerous foster child in my future.
Jeff: Your daughters, by the way, are so adorable, and talented. When you sit down to write a movie, are you thinking, I’ve got to have them in it, or do you start writing and they pop up?
Judd: I just don’t like other people’s kids and I don’t want to be around other people’s kids.
Jeff: Let’s take a step back for a second.
Judd: Yeah.
Jeff: Okay. Young actors—kid actors—are, for the most part, so frightening. A couple things happen: Number one, the parents come with them. And they’re always scary. It’s all about them, really. It’s like parents of Little League kids—you know how they overcompensate and all that. That’s how it is with stage moms. I’ve had times when a seven-year-old goes, “Oh, I saw your show last night.” “Curb Your Enthusiasm?” “Yeah.” And then the mother goes, “He loves it.” Wow. My younger one is eleven and still has never seen it. He won’t see it for a while, either.