Dane Cook Interview

STEVE C: Which, if any, jokes in your act go over really well in Boston or New York, but would get you lynched with a Midwestern crowd?

DANE COOK: The Midwest? Why would I go there? LOLOLOLOLOL! Why would I want to hang out in “third grade” as we call it in Boston and New York? Yea, maybe if I want to play “Whose in My Mouth” in a dark room with my relatives I’d go to the Mid. I would rather play a cruise ship full of crank addicted homeless lesbian rapists murderers with Eurotophobia than do a gig in the Midwest. Although, sometimes I do long to be a land where clothes from 1987 are still the hot trend in fashion. And what's more exciting than walking outside your house and looking out across the yard and more yard? Pondering whether I want to watch old home videos of my prom or stare at my shotgun for 47 minutes. I’d rather play Canada. Northern Canada! I’d rather book a half hour special on Preview Guide than go back to third grade. Naw, just fuckin' around, their cool.

SC: Describe if you would, the physical appearance of a Dane Cook groupie...

DC: Two kinds of DC groupie. Really fuckin’ hot brunette that has one of those diamond piercing through her nose. She approaches after the show and is kinda quiet and shy, which means she wants to do some Ecstasy and ride my pole while shooting me in the face with a paintball gun. Other groupie. Hacker / geek / outcast type that knows I know every secret code for the game Star Wars Galaxies and wants to talk about how Greedo, a trained bounty hunter, misses blasting Solo by three feet while he’s sitting right in fucking front of him at the Cantina. Which, by the way, is horseshit. Fucking Lucas.

SC: Everyone has at least one regrettable sexual experience in their past... If you could take back any one sexual indiscretion from your past, which one would you choose?

DC: When you find yourself doing it with a chick and she says she can’t come because of “Prime Directive Number 9” that’s not so good.

SC: You've mentioned that you're great friends with Patrice O'Neal. Have you ever accompanied him to one of his prostitute-procuring expeditions to Rio? If so, how was it? If not, then why not?

DC: No, I’ve not gone to hell’s door with PO yet. I was supposed to go before but I had some business crap to take care of. Truth be told I don’t know if I want to go. Every time those guys come back they all look more and more like gargoyles. Plus it become like heroin. I’m like, “Patrice wanna go get some lunch?” He’s like, “Yea, wanna grab something down in Rio?”

(at this time, Sexbagel steps in to ask a few questions. What's interesting here is that 'bagel really knew Dane's material intimately. Better than anyone else on staff. WHY he takes the beating he takes here is still a mystery to all of us)

SEXBAGEL: In your act, you mention you have a severe hatred for the Monopoly Game. You go nuts and lose it. Say you happen to be going through the drive-thru at a popular fast food restaurant. As you drive off, having received your meal, you look in to the bag to discover that your burger, fries, and drink are covered in Monopoly pieces from their seasonal tie-in promotion. What is your reaction?

DC: I come to your house and cram the food up your asshole for asking the dumbest question I’ve ever been asked. Bleck. This question is about as inspired as your next question. Let’s go look at that one and let me figure out a way to verbally slice open your chest and pour hot acid inside you.

SB: You do not like the movie 'Dune' in your chocolaty drink. What movies DO you prefer in your chocolately drink?

DC: I prefer the movie “The World Should Hate Sexbagel.” You know when you jerk off and the second you blow your load you think of something that seems so brilliant and pure it’s almost as if an angel whispered it to you? But right after your hog dies and you have to wipe off your remnants you think about that same epiphany and realize that it was the most idiotic mess of thoughts you’ve ever compiled. That is how you came up with that question you human disaster.

SB: You're in indie films, yet they don’t show anywhere people can easily go see them. How does one get to view these masterpieces?

DC: Chewing my gum. Chewing my gum. Chewing my gum. I love my delicious gum. Okay man you’ve got one more chance to sound informed.

SB: Since a comic and his own sitcom usually go hand and hand, and since they seem to just give ANY comic a show. What would you do different that would list you among the ranks of: Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano, Tim Allen, Kevin James and prevent yourself from the short lived nightmares that haunt fellow comics like: Mike O'Malley, Richard Jeni, Greg Giraldo, Andrew 'Dice' Clay, Jeff Foxworthy, Dana Carvey, Christopher Titus, the list can goes on.

DC: Make it funny. People seem to like that. Tee-hee. Did you cut and paste all those names or type them? I'm just curious.

FOUNDRYMUSICHAMMER: Is Dane Cook really your name?

DC: No. My real name is Dravon Reed. My mom named me Dravon after the character Eric Dravon in the movie The Crow and my father is Rex Reed.

FMH: In the last week or so we have tried to do this interview you have been really sick, doing shows and can you fill us in on any exciting news? Are you going to have a TV show, any new comedy specials in the works?

DC: Currently I am in the process of working on a pilot with Sony right now. It’s a one camera show based on my fucked up act. Lot of improv stuff in it too. And I am planning a concert film for the fall. I am also working on an invention that will bring people together via an “electronic highway.” It will also be a wonderful way of doing research and bonding with your children. I hope to call it the Interconnection©! I will also have strict guidelines on who is allowed to “ski” this vast community. Like if you are a pedophile you’re NOT allowed on. Cut and dry. If we find out your into that creepy junk you will be asked to leave pronto. I can’t talk more about it because I don’t want someone snatching up my vision.

FMH: Can you tell us more about 8 Guys? Any more of that to come? Movies; have you been in or will be in?

DC: 8 Guys was short film inspired by a bunch of my idiot friends living together in a tiny apartment and no one wanted to leave. So I wrote this thing where me and seven other guys (all comedian friends of mine) are in the same situation. Since no one will leave we decide the first seven phone calls will pick who gets ousted. Every time the machine picks up we are like gunslingers standing around it hoping like heck our name isn’t spoken. It will make you laugh for at least six minutes before you have something better to do.

FMH: How does it feel to be the top comedian of the year voted by Stuff magazine? You got that for doing one interview with them or was it a pole?

DC: The editors watched my stuff and then we met and talked. They told me they wanted to name me Coolest Comic of the Year. I refused saying that I am not really cool but I would compromise and let them crown me The Coolest Dork Ever. That’s how I’ve always seen myself I am the king of the geeks. I was never the popular guy or got the chicks until I started getting good at comedy. But back in the day I could get head off the freaky drama girl because I was fantastic in the musical Anything Goes!

FMH: I also asked Jim Breuer this question. You also touch on it in your act. Do you feel like being a touring comedian it is like being a rock star?

DC: Not at all. It’s all a fucking show. If you play into the rock star thing you’re retarded. You’re a comic. When I did the rock set thing on my half hour special it was tongue and cheek. HEY, I’M ON THE DRUM! Yea, there are groupies but there are groupies at comic book conventions too. It’s nothing special. I’d rather sit at a Bennigan’s after a show with comedians and talk shop. No better way to end the night than kicking it with other comics and talking trash and about comedy. Pussy always comes in 2nd for me. Unless she is uber hot. Then I will meetcha at the Bennigan’s in 47 minutes so order me a Bennigan’s Sampler with NO hot sauce on the wings. I like that shit on the side.

FMH: How long have you been blazing the comedy trail?

DC: 14 years this month. For the longest time I would not even take a day off. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, stand-up. That was my day. I broke up with more girls that finally snapped and were like “Do you have to go to the club every night?” I was like; this chick is now officially the past. Stand-up comedy is the bottom of the totem pole in entertainment. It is the least respected. But when it’s done right you get lost watching someone up there. I still do. I like watching comics. Even if I don’t like you as a person I can sit and watch your act and find your rhythm and see you pulling the strings. I love watching a comic lose the people and then get them back. I like figuring that shit out. One thing that I will say I learned and it's one of my favorite things I've read concerning comedy. Red Foxx said "If you are likable onstage the crowd will go where ever you want to take them." I take that not like you have to smile and shake hands but you have a glint in your eye. You have a charisma that the crowd latches onto. Bill Hicks is one of the best ever. And even at his most intense and distant you love him. You can't not fucking love that guy. On stage I am the actor, director and the bouncer all at the same time. Fear does not exist in this dojo does it? NO SENSI! Sorry when I get excited I have to toss in some Karate Kid quotes.

FMH: Did you try out for Last Comic Standing?

DC: Nope and I would never have. Not because of the competition angle. Comics compete every night. Every comic goes on stage and wants to be the funniest. No comic goes up there and thinks they want to be the kinda funny guy on the show. The reason I wouldn’t do it is because I believe that comics should remain somewhat mysterious. If I see a comic crying on television or talking about what TRULY hurts him or start hearing his real opinions on the world that leaves an impression of who that comic really is. You go on stage and people know your real self they don’t connect the same way because they see “the act.” That is the end of the ride. Even this interview. Half of it is bullshit and the other half is more bullshit. I’m just here to sling some ha-ha.

FMH: How did you score a live CD and to top it a DVD with Comedy Central? How is it selling?

DC: Upwards of 100,000. I recorded it in Houston at the Laff Stop on my own and Comedy Central Records heard it and picked it up. We threw in a DVD of unedited shit from my appearances on Com Cent and slapped it in stores. The best part was we sent a bunch over seas to the troops and they started burning it and passing it around. I get emails from our military all over the world telling me that it boosts their sprits when they’re thinking of home. They also tell me that the war is “not real and they are actually battling huge insect like creatures.” I laugh these emails off. All 30,472 of them. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

FMH: Would you say that you tell stories that happen to be funny rather than it being just a joke?

DC: I just talk about the stuff that lands in my brain. Stories, jokes whatever you call them I don’t label any of them. I just come from my lungs with my ideas. I like to take things I see and add the component of what I WANTED to see. I saw a guy get him by a car. Classic. Loved being there. I wish his fucking pants got ripped off cause I heard that sometimes happens. Your shoes and pants get sucked off from the impact. But I also wish that he landed on top of a mailbox because the sound of a body landing hard on a mailbox would be a great sound. The thud of a limp body mixed with the empty pit echo of a mailbox getting struck. Shit, I really wish he landed on a mailbox.

FMH: Do you have to go in to a different mental state before you go onstage?

DC: No. I never think of the show before if I don’t have to. The best shows for me are when I run in late and the owner is yelling that I am going on a less than a minute. I also perform well right after I have taken a human life.

FMH: When you use all the body language and more physical stuff on stage one wants to call you the anaconda of comedy? You know?

DC: Not gonna lie. I don’t know. Anaconda. Funny word though.

FMH: Do think that the muscle shirts, tank top and the fly pant you wear turn on the female population of your crowd not to mention the more fruity guys?

DC: I don’t get a lot of fruity emails but I get some. I start reading it and get all excited thinking maybe this chick attached a photo and then I get to the bottom and its some dude named Steven with a picture of himself as Frankenfurter from a Rocky Horror Picture Show production he was in. That hurts my cock.

FMH: Did you ever have any crazy fans follow you around and stalk you? That message board on the site is pretty wild.

DC: The board is wild but I think it is only a glimpse of the fans I have made. It tends to skew younger and that is great but my fan base is actually pretty broad. You know the kids love that online shit. I am huge in Portugal. No clue what that means.

FMH: Have you ever been to a different country performing comedy? If so, does it compare to America?

DC: This year I am going to Europe and Australia. I am also putting together a huge show for the USO that I hope to headline. Other than the Dakotas are mine.

FMH: Any wild and fucked up things you can tell us that you encountered on tour?

DC: I was at a really old lodge doing a show years ago and I went to use the bathroom. On the wall in one of the hallways was an actual photo of Confederate soldiers. Suddenly I was drawn in toward the photograph. I stepped closer to the picture and looked into the eyes of one of the men. I felt at that very moment I was that soldier I was looking at and once that sank in I was transported through time and relived my entire life as Douglas Spears. I had two children Phyllis and George. My wife Emma got malaria after falling in a well. I lived to be 87 and died in a bear attack while protecting my grandchildren on my farm. As soon as I died in that life I was jerked back into consciences in the lodge, composed myself, dismissed it as some kind of fluke and continued into the bathroom where I took a giant shit. One of those craps that feels like your shitting out a box of triangles. When I stood up and looked down carved on the side of my shit were the words IT WAS NOT A DREAM DOUGLAS! Doesn’t get any wilder and more fucked up than that kid.

FMH: Do you think that Comedy Central is getting with the times and kicking the door back open for comedians releasing more CD’s, DVD’s, original shows…

DC: Yes.

FMH: Why the title “Harmful If Swallowed”?

DC: I liked it because it kind of captures a few things that the CD/DVD holds. It’s edgy and adult but silly and juvenile. That is me. A bit of both on stage. Relatable and fantastical. Observational and absurd. So if you look at what the title could mean I think you see that. It means careful kids this is dangerous so go ask your mommy first or hey when you swallow my liquid Dane you may choke on it lady.

FMH: What kind of music does Dane Cook like? (Sorry for the Tiger Beat question!)

DC: Six CD’s in my player right now. WEEZER’s "Blue Album" or it may be the DJ Dangermouse remix of JAY Z’s "Black Album" and BEATLES "White Album" called "The Grey Album." I am not sure but it is one or the other. What else? SYSTEM OF A DOWN's "Toxicity", SKID ROW's Greatest Hits, new INCUBUS, "A Crow Left of the Murder", a best of the 70’s CD I burnt with a bunch of STEVE MILLER and BOSTON on it and an interview with Johnny Carson from March 18th 1968 talking about stand-up comedy. He nails it exactly when describing the in’s and out’s of being a stand-up. Never heard anyone be more articulate in their examples of the life of a comedian. Genius.

FMH: Did you ever hit the stage for a long set and realize that you didn’t take the sacred piss before you went on? What do you do?

DC: Nope. Not gonna lie and waste your time and mine. Never happened. But I did almost faint on Letterman the second time I did it. If you had asked me about fainting I would tell you the story but instead I will tease you. Too bad it was a cool story. Fuck. I want to tell it but it’s doesn’t feel right. Naw, let’s just move on.

FMH: The other side of that question is: Did you ever get sick while you were onstage? As in cottage cheese in the underwear kind-of sick.

DC: Is fainting part of being sick? Is fainting just its own thing? Crap, I don’t know where to go from here bra.

FMH: If someone were to say to you could be the next Drew Carey; sorry, Jim Carrey. How would you take that?

DC: I’d be flattered. Slice me off some of that gadget money. I’d buy a huge house and set it on fire just for the fun of it. What a nut bag question. That would be like me asking you: If someone were to say your site could be the next wait sorry, RollingStone.com; how would you respond?