by David Cross
“I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today” by Dusty Springfield
“Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.
“C’est Le Vent, Betty” from the Bettie Blue soundtrack
“Bastards of Young” by the Replacements
“Colors and the Kids” by Cat Power
Once home you will eventually find yourself dancing around naked to the entire album Quadrophenia. You pass out (still naked) in a chair in front of your computer. You will spend the next two days indoors with your phone unplugged. And there you have your perfect day. In fact, you should listen to the song “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed and really think about what he’s saying. Then cut yourself.
This is reprinted from the Guardian newspaper in London. It was something they thought of to promote a stand-up show I was doing at the Soho Theater at the time (about three years ago at this point). They thought having Dave interview me as opposed to some stuck-up Brit would be better for everyone involved. It’s pretty funny, and Dave Eggers will receive ten cents every time this is read aloud on public transportation, so it’s for a worthwhile cause as well.
Correspondence with Dave Eggers
From: Dave Eggers
To: David Cross
Subject: RE: FW: You v. David Cross, maybe
Hello David,
It’s me Dave Eggers (of the San Francisco Eggers), I came to your show in San Francisco and pestered you about your pants. Do you remember me? I was there with my wife Caitlyn (to whom you were very attentive) and our nephew Utley who is a big, big fan of yours. Anyhoo, I understand you are going to be in London for the month of August doing stand-up at the Soho theater. I know this because I have been contacted by the Guardian UK (a left-wing rag) about doing an interview with you. Does this “float your boat”? Get back to me and I’ll fill you in.
Thanks,
Dave
From: David Cross
To: Dave Eggers
Subject: RE: FW: You v. David Cross, maybe
Hey Dave,
Do I remember you? The owner of the club was freaking out and practically hyperventilating over you. He made everybody wait while he had his girlfriend go home and get his copy of “The Staggering Heart” for you to sign. How could I forget? Anyway, I’m up for whatever you want to do with this interview thing. How should we go about it? Do you just want to send me some questions through e-mail and I’ll answer them accordingly? Should they be serious (stuff about John Majors involvement with the Carlyle Group, or MI6’s “supposed” snuff film studio), or light (questions about my days in the Kibbutz, or what my favorite British Comedies are)? Let me know,
David Cross
From: Dave Eggers
To: David Cross
Subject: RE: FW: You v. David Cross, maybe
Hi David,
I’ve been in Surinam (sp?) doing an article about the black market banana leaf trade. Fascinating and dangerous stuff to be sure. I spoke to Nona about your idea for an interview to be put through the babble-fish engine and she has advised me against it. They would rather have a straight interview.
Here’s a few starter questions:
–As a two-time Mr. Olympia, are you worried about staying fit in London? I’m not sure if they have gyms or weights or anything like that there. They do have tanning beds, though.
–I think I first became aware of your comedy when you did that national Fiends of Funny tour with Gallagher and Jimmie Walker. You did some great impressions, just dead-on, of E.T. and of Dana Carvey doing the Church Lady. That last one was my favorite, because I think impressions are so funny. I sit there and marvel at how much you, David Cross, can sound like someone else! (I’m laughing, or sort of quietly chuckling, just thinking about it.) To me, that is comedy. Will you still be doing zany impressions? And what about the bit where you dress up as a piece of feces with Nazi sympathies?
I’m off to Melbourne to judge a shark carving contest (this is for real—I’ll explain later). E-mail me with some answers.
Looking forward to your reply,
Deggers
From: David Cross
To: Dave Eggers
Dave,
Well, it seems as if we have started. In answer to your rather impertinent question of “staying fit” (your words—not mine!) in London… one does not get to be literally crowned Mr. Olympia once let alone twice (in three years) without rigid self-discipline and a steely reserve. Fish and Chips at three in the morning after nine pints of warmish ale and three shots of tequila? Perhaps once or twice just to indulge in the local culture, but certainly no more than three or four times or five times. I’m not one to snub my nose at my hosts so, to be polite, I would submit to this kind of activity if necessary to maintain good relations. Other then that it would be my usual routine of up every morning at 5:15, vomit, drink three raw quail eggs, run around in a circle with weights taped to my chest for half an hour, and then back to bed until noon. If there are no weights in London then I will use appliances that are approximate in weight. Surely they have toasters there. Isn’t “toast” an Old English word?
As for the Fiends of Funny tour (originally titled “The Friends of Funny” tour until a typo went undiscovered and the press had already gone out), that’s pretty much where I cut my teeth. I was a young, brash upstart and learned some invaluable lessons at the feet of the masters. Jimmie Walker taught me the importance of delusion, and when I needed it most, Gallagher lent me his portable generator for my “What if God Was a Chinese Woman” bit. I won’t be reprising too much of the old material, although let’s face it, people love to hear other people sound like even other people, so I may dip in to some classic impressions (Woody Allen as Pinochet in heaven!) because today’s audiences demand it.
I have been asked by The Independent if I will be doing my world famous “What if Eddie Izzard Wore a Suit” bit that I performed for the Queen shortly before one of her many liposuction surgeries. The answer is “maybe.” I am going to ignore your transparent attempt at baiting me with the question about the “Krystalnacht Poo” sketch that you know very well was co-written by me, yes, but performed solo by Ray Romano.
Anything else, or can I go now?
David
From: Dave Eggers
To: David Cross
Just a few more questions:
I think the readers of the Guardian—a well-informed bunch, left-leaning, and perhaps outright Marxist—would want to know why an openly right-wing comedian like yourself would inflict himself on SoHo. That bit you do when you sing, via satellite, a duet with John Ashcroft—isn’t that song just an Americanized version of the German national anthem?—I’m not sure how that’s gonna play in London. Also, do you still wear eyeliner?
From: Dave Cross
To: Dave Eggers
Hmm, while “preaching to the choir” can be satisfying for the ego, at the end of the day it feels empty and useless. I will always be able to whip up a quick show for the quarterly fundraisers of “The Sharp and Merciless Sword of Christ” and other groups I support, but where’s the challenge? My three-week run at the Allen Ginsberg Theater in Berkeley, CA, is a good example of that. I was booed incessantly from start to finish by an audience of radical, drug-addled hippies. No one listened to a word I said, and the theater refused to pay me. Success! As for the eyeliner bit, I’ve always found gimmicks helpful to distract from lame comedy bits about Star Trek and the like. But apparently there is a fella in England who not only wears eyeliner but a whole ladies getup! Oh well, whatever helps sell that stuff, I guess. I am going to continue to dress like a heterosexual man and rely on my material to create an impression.
From: Dave Eggers
To: David Cross
You’ve been on a few TV shows in the U.S., “Mr. Show with Bob and David” and “Arrested Development,” but both of them seem weighed down by your presence. Have you ever thought about quitting them so the shows could be better?
From: David Cross
To: Dave Eggers
After
I auditioned for the part of “David” in Mr. Show with Bob and David, I remember thinking that I had really blown it. They were looking for an edgy nerd and I had just come from the American Douchebag Awards on MTV so I was wearing my Prada suit and sunglasses. But they were able to see through the real me and see that I could in fact play a socially awkward nerd, and they gave me the part. But in answer to your question, I struggled with that very dilemma often. I sought guidance from Jim Belushi, who told me that it didn’t matter at all if I was talented or right for the part or not, that the best thing to do was not only ignore my obvious lack of any discernible talent or charm but to embrace my loutishness. I will forever be in his debt.
From: Dave Eggers
To: David Cross
Or a more serious one:
You’ve ranted about how goofy American protesters can be. When the war in Iraq was being pre-protested, you were on some of the talk shows, and you were berating the left for bringing bongo drums and dressing as clowns and generally treating an anti-war protest as a sort of hippie-love-in-party. And you’re one of the leading liberal voices that’s critical of how silly the left sometimes looks. There were more protesters of that war than at any time since the civil rights era. Were they ignored—by the media, too—because they looked like hippie freaks?
From: David Cross
To: Dave Eggers
I’m not so sure that they were ignored rather than dismissed. They (at least 15 million worldwide) seemed to be regarded with a sense of tolerated obligation, that this is what you get when you live in a free society, sorry folks. A protest would be shown on the news and treated like it was a minor annoyance, like a bad storm or an outbreak of flu. And while there were plenty of “regular” folks from all over the world who trekked to wherever because they felt it was important for their voices to be heard, it was usually only the radical stereotypes who got shown on TV because of, not in spite of, their inane, childish hippie outfits. Dressing up (inexplicably) like a robot wearing a multicolored afro wig, standing on stilts, and yelling that Bush is a Nazi at scared and disgusted middle-aged tourists only causes to make the already severe polarization (not to mention the fierce anti-intellectualism) in this country even more irreversible. Way to go, you dumb fucks.
Involuntary Random Thoughts I’ve Had Not Always When I Was Pooing but Certainly Sometimes When I Was Pooing
MAN, IT MUST BE SO FRUSTRATING TO BE THE SMARTEST COW IN the slaughterhouse field, or be the smartest cow in history, for that matter. I’m assuming that cows, like people and dogs, have varying degrees of intelligence. So at some point there was a cow of superior advanced intelligence running around a slaughterhouse somewhere that had figured out what was going on. That death was imminent, and all their masters were not benevolent nurturers but rather evil murderers luring them to their deaths. But he couldn’t communicate this to the other cows because all the other cows were of average cow intelligence—i.e., stupid. Maybe even the cow was smart enough to know that he was just a cow and would never be able to impart the sense of urgency needed to escape because cows are stupid. Must’ve been maddening. Also, I wonder if we’d be less prone to eating beef if the noise a cow makes sounded less like “moo” and more like “help.” Probably not. They’re delicious.
I wonder if God cries. Or gets sad, even. Or happy. Or elated. Does he ever have a good belly laugh? Does he sense contentment? Does he feel pride or remorse? Is he stoic? We know from the Old Testament that he experiences bloodthirsty, murderous rage and fierce pride. He imbued mankind with all of these emotions, but it’s hard to imagine him feeling any of these. It’s almost a little embarrassing to think of him feeling jealousy. Of course he’s WAY more advanced and evolved than we are. So I guess the ultimate stage of humanity is when we don’t laugh or cry or experience emotion at all. God gave us laughter as a constant reminder of what lesser-evolved beings humans are. Stupid humans!
Whoever owns clean air is going to be fucking crazy rich soon!
Déjà vu is just the lazy man’s version of telling the future.
I don’t understand pedophilia. I think that one of the most unromantic situations that I can possibly imagine is making love, or rather, trying to make love, to a four-year-old. You’d be all, like, “Your eyes shine with the light of a thousand sunsets.” And they’d be all, like, “What?” There is nothing romantic about it! How could you possibly make that “romantic”? With a four-year-old? That’s just sex!
There’s much you can tell about a man by sifting through his poo. Such as whether he’s the kind of man who lets people sift through his poo.
I’ve been thinking lately about having kids. Not because I think they’re wonderful, or I’m so desperate to have at least one person on my side who loves me that I’m willing to try to create one. Nah, fuck that. I’m thinking about having a kid so that I can justify my embarrassing amount of video-game playing.
You know what kind of person must have it pretty rough? A lesbian rapist. It’s physically pretty hard to do. I bet that doesn’t happen too often.
Life can be so unfair—like, do you have any idea what’s going on in Darfur? I saw something on YouTube about it and I decided to write a check to the Red Cross, and as I’m tearing the check out of the checkbook, I got this nasty paper cut. It stung like a motherfucker! And I’m serious here, but… why me? I’m trying to make a donation… to help out these starving orphans whose mothers were raped and slaughtered in front of them! What the F? And to make things even crueler, the paper cut was on my video-game finger. I couldn’t play Gears of War for like three days, either.
I have an idea about how to fix the Jew problem. By that, I don’t mean that Jews are really a problem. I mean that there are soooo many people on the planet that have a problem with them. Except for the Chinese, as far as I know. They don’t seem to have a history of caring about them one way or the other. Anyway, here’s what I propose: let’s take all the Jews not in North America and put them on an island somewhere—wait, hear me out. A beautiful, tropical island. It wouldn’t be too hard; there aren’t that many Jews in the world. There’s only like 13 million of them. And over 6 million of those live in North America, so roughly 7 million. I know, it seems like there’s more of them, but there isn’t. We can give the Jews a chain of islands to live on. Something in the South Pacific or the Galapagos Islands or somewhere like that. An island where they would like to be. A place that would make them say, “You know, I must say, this isn’t so bad, with the crystal-clear blue water, and the fruits plucked straight from the trees and whatnot. It could be a little more shaded, yes. But all in all, it’s quite nice.” Now, here’s the stipulation. They only get to live there for two years. In that time, if the lives and economies of every Arab and Eastern European country haven’t changed significantly for the better, then they get to go back to where they came from and never be bothered again for the rest of history. You can make fun of their hats, but that’s it!
What’s the deal with them, anyway? They seem so exotic to everyone. I wish there was somewhere to turn to for answers about these strange and mysterious creatures.
Ask a Rabbi!
I HAVE BEEN CALLED, ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION, IN FACT MORE than sixty-seven, a “self-loathing Jew.” This is as irritating as it is lazy. I don’t loathe myself, nor do I “loathe” Jews. I just find both to be equally annoying. Jews are the only culture accused of this, of being a self-loathing “something.” You never hear the term “self-loathing Lutheran” or “self-loathing Calvinist” or “self-loathing Seventh Day Adventist.” It’s a perfect example of how Jewish guilt works, too. As opposed to Catholic guilt, which is all about disappointing God and his overly sensitive crybaby son, Jewish guilt is about turning your back on, or denigrating, your tribe. “How dare you! After all we’ve been through! Your uncle died in Dachau, and you have the nerve to disrespect your family and friends by questioning God’s desire for you to never eat shellfish!?!” And usually the invective is thrown around when one apol
ogizes for observed illogical behavior or they simply choose to leave the fold. I don’t appreciate the accusation that I hate myself, because it’s simply not true. And, in my own experience, I’ve fallen into that great Möbius strip of logic arguing my point, much like when a person decides that you are an alcoholic and then uses your startled, bemused, and fervent denial of this as proof positive that you are in fact an alcoholic because alcoholics are in denial of the reality of their alcoholism, etc. etc.
And if I’m not being accused of being self-loathing, then “condescending” is usually hiding just around the corner. I have heard and read this accusation dozens of times. And to a degree I suppose I have to admit it. But really, how can I not come off as condescending? Simply put, I believe that what you believe in (if you believe in God/the Koran/the Bible/the Torah/that you’re supposed to handle snakes and speak in tongues/that you need to be “audited” to become “clear”/that Joseph Smith was a prophet/that God will be very upset with you if you mix dairy and meat/eat meat on a Friday/it’s okay to murder your sister or wife or mother if she “dishonors” the family by being raped, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.) is utter nonsense and you are being seriously suckered. You are living a lie that you will never be able to rewind. I’d say that’s pretty condescending, although not deliberately, sure, agreed. I will argue, however, that it’s not nearly as condescending as thinking that anyone who disagrees with you is not just wrong but evil, dirty, impure, a lesser human, and resigned to a life in hell tickling the Devil’s balls while he ass-rapes you in a lake of fire for all eternity. I’m gonna put it out there that that’s WAY more condescending than my outlook. Of the very many scientific “theories” that get Christians, Jews, and Muslims frothing with anger, one of my favorites is the one that posits that humans evolved from monkeys. The reason it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl in a 1930s film is not that they think the theory is utter shit but that they are actually insulted by the idea. Insulted?! Where’s the insult? What does that mean to you? Does it make the current you less of a person? This long, slow process started hundreds of thousands of years ago. It’s not like they are implying that your Grandma was a monkey fucked by a drunken atheist who broke into a zoo and had a little, harmless monkey-fucking fun and then you were born to a filthy human/ape hybrid. I mean, just exactly where is the insult? They are the smartest animal on the planet and, like humans, one of the few that will indiscriminately kill its own kind for no practical reason (e.g., for food or procreation), so why is this so hard to fathom?
