Dale Cooper: I don’t have a smart phone. I can’t {tweet back at my fans}.
Me: How do you run Grindr? I met you on Grindr.
Dale Cooper: I have an iPod touch. I don’t know my way around New York, but if I can find WiFi – I can route my way around. If I need to get fucked I can jump on Grindr. But I don’t have that constant… internet pressure… notification this and txt here and whatnot.
Kevin: Yeah. It changes your life.
Dale: It does and I’ve seen that. Going back to porn – I’ve been at a table full of performers and producers and we’ll be at a long table and there will be nine of us and everyone is on their smart phones…
Kevin: Yeah…
Dale: And they’re not txting each other they’re communicating with other people. I don’t know if they’re ‘checking in’ at the location or what…
Me: I had to start doing that with my improv students. I had to start saying, there’s no iPhone use. I’ll pick up my iPhone but just to check what time it is so we can go on break. I had to be very stern with a certain class I’m teaching right now because there’s a couple of ADHD students – they’re very talented, I like them a lot, but if I don’t – I have to be like an old school teacher with them. “No grooming yourself! Stop combing your hair! Don’t talk when I’m talking! Now these are my notes…”
Dale: Ruler smacking… That teacher-student kink thing?
(laughter)
Dale: Put on the dunce cap!
(laughter)
Me: “Now clean the classroom! NO ONE’S BLOWING ME!!!”
(laughter)
Kevin: “I couldn’t help but notice no one’s BLOWING ME!!”
(laughter)
Dale: It’s gotten to the point with smart phones where I want to get a watch, just so I can check the time without giving the appearance that I’m on my phone. That’s kind of silly. Who gives a fuck? I mean, we’re all social creatures, so I guess we all give a fuck in some way or another.
Me: I suppose so! Kevin, I want to talk about storytelling. You kind of self-actualized a couple of years ago and you took yourself from a point of… you were almost ready to give up comedy altogether.
Kevin: I actually DID. I did give up comedy – after The State broke up I had always been the black sheep, you know the middle child that was off in his own universe?
You know they say that when Mel Brooks was writing on Your Show of Shows with Woody Alan, and Neil Simon and Sid Ceasar – they would always laugh like hell at his sketches in the writer’s room and say, alright, well, we can’t use that! I was that guy in The State. Everyone loved my stuff – we could never put it on TV.
Me: Larry David had the same problem on SNL.
Kevin: Oh. Yeah! So when the group broke up, I was like, what do I do with myself now? There’s a part of me that’s super polite and submissive and Midwestern and – a Catholic boy from Ohio. And a part of me that’s raunchy and kinky and a madman and likes experimenting with drugs and all that… So finally after 12 years of starving trying to do [character based] comedy, I did give up. I went into publishing.
(pause)
Then I slowly realized, no. I have got to express myself somehow.
(pause)
There’s a part of me that needs to express myself not solely in terms of comedy… under no restrictions. I don’t have to be making people laugh every 8 seconds.
Me: No!
Kevin: So when I first got up onstage and told a true story Michael Black said, you’ve got to drop the act and start speaking from the heart as yourself. I said, it’s too risky. And he said, exactly. Risk is where the good stuff comes from.
Me: Right.
Kevin: So I tried a story onstage the next week, and it was all about how I tried to prostitute myself (when I was 20), and it didn’t go very well. But the story went GREAT!!
PIEFOLK 