Judd: What is your relationship like with him?
Michaeclass="underline" I’m friendly with him in a strange way. I mean it’s obviously a boss relationship—we’re not getting coffee and talking about girls—but he’s been super-supportive. Anytime I’ve had an issue I could talk to him about it and I never felt disappointed walking out of his office afterwards. He could be Darth Vader if he wanted and we’d all be okay with it and thankful to have the job. But he’s not. He has helped me believe I can do this job. To get his blessing is a pretty cool feeling.
Judd: I’m considerably older than you, so I remember when SNL first came on. I was eight. I can’t imagine that I watched the first season, but I was definitely watching it in 1976 and 1977, when I was nine and ten years old, just trying so hard to stay up. I think the whole reason I got into comedy was because of Saturday Night Live.
Michaeclass="underline" It’s amazing that it’s still important to people. We still have fans who are fourteen and fifteen. It’s like Looney Tunes. My father grew up on Looney Tunes and I grew up on Looney Tunes. It’s a thing you can share.
Judd: I would always sneak over to the show when Sandler was there. It’s just fun being around it. All the musicians hanging around, the incredible collection of people. Do you enjoy that part of it?
Michaeclass="underline" Oh, yes. I’ve seen Eminem, I’ve seen Jay-Z, I’ve seen Justin. But I don’t think anyone has generated as much buzz since I’ve been there as Prince. It was crazy. Everyone wants to be next to Prince.
Judd: Did you get any alone time with him?
Michaeclass="underline" Hell no.
Judd: Who have you gotten to meet who is meaningful to you? Was there anyone who blew your mind?
Michaeclass="underline" Steve Martin. It was at an after party. I got to talk to Steve Martin about comedy and that was just like, what the fuck. This is the biggest comedian in the world. Like, he was the guy. This was a stadium comic, you know. And I’m saying that to him. And he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, but that was nothing. That was a long time ago.” He’s talking to me about comedy as if he’s never done it before. He’s like, “What do you do? Do you prepare? How do you prepare? Do you write it down first?” And I’m like, What the fuck? You’re Steve Martin, man.
Judd: How many years had you been doing stand-up at this point?
Michaeclass="underline" Four.
Judd: Wow, your rise has been so fast.
Michaeclass="underline" It has been insane. If you had told me five years ago that I’d get to do all these things in the next thirty years, I would have been like, “Sign me up.”
Judd: What do you think accounts for the fact that you haven’t lost your mind?
Michaeclass="underline" Probably because I love doing this more than anything. Comedy isn’t boring to me. That’s where my sanity is. It’s all the outside stuff that’s exhausting and stressful. The onstage stuff, the crowd, the performing—that never gets old.
Judd: How closely were you following comedy as a kid?
Michaeclass="underline" See, I came from a funny family. You know how some families are super-athletic or whatever? In a lot of families, sports are the most important thing—who’s the best football player or who’s the best ball player in the family? Well, comedy was the hierarchy in my family. We’d all get together and just snap on each other and make fun of each other. The level of respect that you got in my family came from being funny. I looked up to the funny people and I wanted to hold my own against the older kids and the adults. We always watched Raw and Delirious and Damon Wayans’s One Night Stand, Hollywood Shuffle, Sucka, The Jerk, Bill Cosby Himself. My brothers and sisters are a lot older than me, and they had these comedy tapes and I would just watch them all and recite them and perform them, but with the curses taken out. I would perform edited versions of Delirious and everyone would trip out because I was so young and I was doing it.
Judd: Your brothers and sisters were much older than you?
Michaeclass="underline" Much older. My closest brother is eight years older than me and my oldest brother is like fifteen years older than me. I’m the youngest of seven. And when you’re around kids that much older than you, you have to be quiet and find something to entertain yourself. A lot of times, I would be put in front of the TV.
Judd: What was the vibe in your family in terms of career? For me, I saw comedy as a way to escape. What was going on in your family?
Michaeclass="underline" We came from a poor family. Everybody had regular jobs. No one did anything that was super-successful in our family. It was more like, “Don’t be a bum. If you’ve got to be a carpet man or whatever, that’s fine; we don’t care what you do as long as you’re not a bum.” And I started comedy late. I started when I was twenty-six. As arrogant as this may sound, I knew I wasn’t going to be in some cubicle and wasn’t going to be a fireman. I knew I would do something creative. I was always the creative type. I worked as an artist for a while. I used to paint portraits and do graphic design and stuff. I would make a little bit of money and then lose a bunch of money, and by the time I was twenty-six, I was just really down on myself. I felt old. Twenty-six is a weird age because that’s when all your friends are starting to do well—you know, they’re out of college, they’ve gotten their careers started. And I felt like I was nowhere. I was twenty-six, but I felt like I was forty-six. That’s when I decided to try comedy. And once I did, it just clicked. It was like love at first sight.
Judd: Within the year, you were working the clubs in New York, getting real gigs.
Michaeclass="underline" It started to roll quickly. But that’s also the benefit of doing it in New York City, where you can get up five times a day if you hustle. You could go to five different open mics a night, and really get a handle on a joke. It was like I was charging a battery—every single day, just relentless. I would get certain jokes so good that they almost couldn’t not work.
Judd: Who did you want to be, as a comedian?
Michaeclass="underline" Eddie Murphy made me want to be funny. But the Chris Rock and George Carlin specials, when they were saying controversial things and had points—I was like, Man, I want to have points, too. That was the important thing to me. That was my direction.
Judd: Now you’re in a place where you can say those things and a lot of people will listen to it every week.
Michaeclass="underline" Nothing is more exciting than being able to say an opinion into camera and wait for a reaction. That’s the ultimate goal. That’s the high. You want to write something that people hear and go, “Oh fuck. How does he come up with that and he’s absolutely correct? I can’t believe they put that on TV.”
Judd: It feels like we’re in the middle of a great moment in comedy. It feels like Comedy Central and UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade] and the Internet have just turbocharged everything. And I think all this competition has made comedians better.
Michaeclass="underline" There’s such a need for comedy now. Everything has to be funny now. A car insurance commercial might be the funniest thing you see all day. Sports announcers are funny. Everybody’s funny. There’s a comedy writer for every single thing. You get comedy from everywhere now, and it’s breeding a society that wants to laugh. There’s so much competition, but there’s also so much room for more voices. It’s inspiring a lot of good comedy. A lot of different comedy.
Judd: Do you love working at a place like the Comedy Cellar?