Greg Giraldo Interview

Giraldo’s world
Interview
by Scott Bolohan
Staff Writer

Greg Giraldo’s path to comedy is one filled with unexpected twists and turns, and law degrees. After attending Columbia University for his undergraduate degree, he went to Harvard to get his law degree. After a brief stint as a lawyer, Giraldo has become a socially provocative comic, appearing regularly on "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" and on Comedy Central Roasts. He can also be seen on the annual year end "Last Laugh" specials. This summer, he provided the vocals for the spoken word track "Underwear Inside the Pants," which reached number four in Australia and topped the iTunes download chart. He released his first CD, "Good Day to Cross a River" in the fall, and will bring his act to the Chicago Improv from Feb. 14 to the 18. Giraldo spoke to The DePaulia in his usual sarcastic and self-depreciating manner on topics covering love, not being a superhero and his international rock star status.

The DePaulia (TD): Are you taking any different approaches to performing on Valentine’s Day?
Greg Giraldo (GG): (Laughs) Yeah, I’m going to bring the love. I see my role as a Valentine’s Day performer as an opportunity to bring people closer together.
TD: Do you have any love advice?
GG: You’re talking to a guy who’s married with three kids, so clearly I’m not the one to give advice on how to live a happy, fulfilled life.
TD: What were you like in college?
GG: I had long hair, I was in a band, I was drunk a lot. I was an English major, so I did a lot of writing and I did okay. I was at Columbia, so it’s not like there were any hot chicks to chase. Pretty much get drunk and study.
TD: Why do you think a lot of comedians go to some really good schools?
GG: I don’t really know. I think there’s a lot of comedians going to a lot of shitty schools too. But I think you hear that comedians are generally above average intelligence. That’s not true though. But you hear it.
TD: At what point did you decide that you should try comedy?
GG: I didn’t do stand up really, but I did little sketches. I was always kind of screwing around with comedy type of performances. I don’t really remember that final decision. I was just writing down a lot of stuff, keeping notes and starting to think about what I would do with it, kind of write some kind of show. Then I decided to just do an open mic. I just went onstage and did the open mic and that was it. Once I did that first open mic, my career skyrocketed. Overnight.
TD: How do you like playing college audiences?
GG: I like it. I mean sometimes in the past, I’ve said I didn’t love them as much. It depends on the college and your level of success. There were times when I didn’t love doing colleges because there were a lot of things about doing colleges because of the student activity fee payment, you can’t really tell if the show is going to be good or not based on what you’re getting paid. Sometimes you’re getting a decent check and you think its going to be a great show and you show up and it turns out it’s in the cafeteria and there’s six kids there, foreign exchange students that don’t speak English. So that kind of thing would happen early in my career, but now with more and more people coming out that know me, it’s usually really great. Obviously you’re dealing with a homogenous group of people, everyone is the same age, everyone is going through the exact same experiences, and as I get old, it starts to get more pathetic trying to remember my college days to relate on some level.
TD: In the last episode of "Tough Crowd," Colin Quinn went on an angry rant about the shows cancellation. How did you feel about it?
GG: Well, I mean it sucked. With TV they do all kinds of horse***t all the time. It was frustrating, it was very annoying and it was the first really great thing that I’d been a part of that I really loved doing. So it was enormously frustrating. The show had been floating around on the brink for a long time. Nobody does you any favors on TV. It’s a miracle anything stays on at all, so anytime you’re on it, you feel like a big deal. It was frustrating because it felt like that show could have really worked, and the fact that it didn’t become a smash was annoying. But what are you going to do?
TD: What was your relationship like with the other regulars on the show?
GG: Hostile and fraught with sexual tension. (Laughs) That was pretty much it, depending on what guests were on. We were all pretty friendly. Basically you saw the dynamic that was our everyday existence.
TD: What about the whole Dennis Leary incident, when you called him out on the show for not being funny?
GG: Try to put yourself in my shoes and imagine answering this question, two years after the fact when Dennis Leary is the star and creator of one of the best TV shows ever on TV. It’s a little pathetic for me to be dwelling on the glory days of my big f**king clever rhetoric, one time two years ago. It was one of those moments. I don’t really feel like f**king dwelling on it. (Laughs)
TD: When you do roasts, are you ever afraid about going too far?
GG: Yeah, I mean you always write a bunch of jokes for your own amusement that are way extreme and ridiculously over the top and then you think, "Well are they? Maybe I could do this one." It’s a very fine line. I don’t worry about going too far if it’s funny, you worry about what exactly is going to kill. You’re trying to kill, you’re trying to be as funny as possible. Not to hurt anybody’s feelings, but the roasts are mean by definition. So if it’s too far, and by too far, I only mean too far in the sense that it wouldn’t get laughs, or they would get bad groans as opposed to good groans. Sometimes you just go for groans, not horrified groans, just kind of amused groans. It’s pretty easy to see in any given situation what too far would be.
TD: Do you feel like anything is really off limits anymore in comedy?
GG: There’s never been anything that’s been off limits specifically. Everything depends on context, how you’re doing it, why you’re doing it. But there are plenty of things you could say that would get you in trouble depending on the context. But then when you’re saying anything off limits, there are plenty of things that can be discussed. There’s nothing that you can’t, no area or topic that you can’t in some way make funny. But then again, you have to make it funny. Michael Richards found out there are certain things off limits.
TD: After being a panelist on "Tough Crowd," how do you like switching the roles and hosting "Stand Up Nation?"
GG: When I first started doing it, it was a very different thing. It was kind of a bulls**t, throw away thing I was doing for a little while until I could figure out what else I wanted to do with Comedy Central. Basically, it was supposed to be me hosting the whole night, which already existed in its current state and they tried to do some kind of wraparound show. Actually, shooting the show was fun and the segments we actually got to do were really funny given the budget and the time we had to do it all. It was never going to be like, "Here’s my show." It was frustrating in that sense.
TD: "Underwear Inside the Pants" went to number four in Australia, do you feel like you’re a rock star?
GG: (Laughs) Yeah. Whoo! I feel like a rock star! (Laughs)
TD: Do you have a lot of Australian groupies?
GG: I’m told I should go to Australia and capitalize on my big rock star status out there, but I think the nation still needs time to grieve Steve Irwin. Maybe when that whole thing has passed, I might go over there. I heard I could be the new Paul Hogan. I could be the new Yahoo Serious.
TD: What were the interactions with the other comedians like on the bus on the Insomniac Tour?
GG: (laughs) Man, it was wild! (laughs) I actually didn’t go on the bus, I drove around, I rented a Harley out on the West Coast with a friend of mine who has a bike and we just rode motorcycles.
TD: Is there anything else you’d like to say to the students of DePaul University?
GG: Drop out, man. College degrees are overrated. Take that loan money and invest it. In 20 years at 7 percent, get one of the young Asian kids to help you do the math on that one.