Chris Fleming explains his comedy's chaos and "brutal reality" | PBS

0:00 Do you have like a hard out?

0:01 6:00 AM, man.

0:03 Okay.

0:03 I have to go to a pediatrician on deployment

0:05 at four so-- You still see a pediatrician.

0:07 (laughs) That's good.

0:08 I remember not wanting to leave my pediatrician.

0:12 She loved Ron White, the comedian.

0:14 You know, Ron White?

0:15 Yeah.

0:15 It's, like, "Damn." When you find out your doctor's taste in comedy,

0:20 you kind of start questioning your doctor.

0:22 [Joe] You're ready to find another GP.

0:23 Like, your doctor better like Mort Sahl or something.

0:26 It better be like really heady.

0:29 Yeah, she was great.

0:30 So you got a pediatrician of four.

0:31 Okay, we'll get you outta here by then.

0:32 Yeah.

0:33 Okay, right.

0:33 (Chris laughs) (upbeat music)- This is "American Masters: Creative Spark".

0:44 I'm your host, Joe Skinner.

0:45 Our guest today is Chris Fleming, a wordsmith, a fashion icon,

0:49 and a wildly physical performer who pushes

0:51 observational comedy to its absurd and manic limits.

0:54 We're talking about his special, "Live at the Palace" and how he got here.

0:57 Starting in Stow, Massachusetts, population, 7,000.

1:03 It's so depressing to be the lesser known Stow.

1:07 (Joe laughs) 'Cause everyone knows Stowe,

1:10 Vermont 'cause it's like the cider capital of the world and everyone's, like...

1:13 I think the X Games are there and stuff.

1:16 But Stow without the E is just-- Yeah, so paint a picture of Stow without the E.

1:22 Okay.

1:23 No streetlights.

1:24 A lot of...

1:26 There was something called...

1:29 (laughs) There's a farm there and the big event for our family

1:32 would be going to see when the lambs are sheared.

1:37 And when we were young, we called it Lambie Day.

1:41 And we thought this was kind of a what it was called,

1:44 and my sister found out the rough way.

1:47 (chuckles) I think maybe even high school being,

1:50 like, "Hey, y'all, gonna Lambie Day?" We were, like,

1:52 "What Lambie day." But that was one of the big

1:55 things was going to see the lambs freshly shorn.

2:00 Yeah.

2:00 Yeah.

2:01 Whenever I take an Uber from Logan,

2:03 when I go visit my family and I take the Uber from Boston to Stow,

2:08 the drivers are always, like,

2:09 "I'm never coming back here again." Like, at night.

2:11 (both laughing) People get lost a lot.

2:14 It's very labyrinthian.

2:16 Right?

2:16 Hilly.

2:19 Just very deciduous.

2:20 A lot of...

2:21 (laughs) The canopy, it's...

2:24 I mean, the "Vich" is the best representation of Stow that I've ever seen.

2:30 [Joe] Mm, that takes place there?

2:32 It doesn't, but it it does to me.

2:35 Just the way they do the slow zooms

2:37 on the woods that just looks like a (vocalizing).

2:41 That is stow to me Stow.

2:43 Stow, (exhales) I love it.

2:45 I love it.

2:47 What was the creative spark that got you going at that age?

2:52 Hmm, seeing my dad laugh as a child

2:55 at Robin Williams made me be, like, "Okay, well,

2:59 that's what I wanna do." Even though I was really shy,

3:02 but it was this piece of being,

3:04 like, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be a comedian." And even in kindergarten,

3:07 I would sign my name, Chris, the comedian even though I was, like, silent,

3:12 but it was, like, "That's what I'm gonna do.

3:21 I think the lack of things happening was really good for me and my friends.

3:27 We were constantly sketching.

3:29 We were putting on shows, we were making movies, game court.

3:32 Like, we were needing to entertain ourselves and create.

3:36 We were very creative as youth, I think.

3:41 It was, like, a very small world and in a way,

3:44 I was, like, "I want fill this world." It wasn't,

3:47 like, "Get me outta here." It was, like,

3:50 "This world rocks." (laughs) I wanna make things.

3:55 Like, my first bit in standup was like,

3:57 it was a bit about how people love to tell you about when they see deer,

4:01 which just shows how rural I grew up.

4:03 I was just riffing on-- (laughs) Very deer-centric comedy.

4:08 I had like eight minutes on (laughs) people

4:10 competing about the number of deer they saw.

4:12 Like, adults competing about the deer they saw

4:15 that week and how that was a point of pride,

4:17 and that's what I was doing as a teen.

4:19 And if anything, I was a little bit resentful

4:23 of having to leave the nest and be, like, "Ah, (beep) there's more?" Like, "Ah,

4:26 the world."- You have to expand your palate, it's bigger than just deer.

4:30 So what else is on the Stow?

4:31 Like, 10 minutes on Stow?

4:33 Oh, I mean, the 10 minutes on Stow became hours on Stow in my...

4:36 I did a character called Gayle.

4:38 She was in my standup, which was a woman from that town.

4:45 Mike Labradoodle just got accepted to Carnegie Mellon, early acceptance.

4:49 Still waiting to hear back from Yale and Pomona.

4:52 Fingers crossed.

4:54 I think about where I started in standup and I started in kind

5:01 of a funky collective in Cambridge where people were stranger than me.

5:07 I had an inferiority complex.

5:10 It was a place called The Comedy Studio.

5:12 And there were people that were so eccentric, older people.

5:15 Gen X, I was really inspired by Gen X, I think,

5:19 'cause they were the generation above me and that was so

5:22 cool to me how free they were on stage and I felt...

5:28 The way that we were taught standup too,

5:29 Rick Jenkins at the studio was always to teaching

5:32 us to go deeper and deeper into our authentic self.

5:36 And same thing with my acting teacher in college.

5:38 I think of that as a formative thing, Kate Kelly was my acting teacher.

5:41 The way that she told me to throw that all away.

5:43 It's, like, you can't go into a performance

5:46 with an idea of how you're gonna do it.

5:48 Like you have to...

5:49 You're there right now and what's interesting is the release.

5:53 And so that means you're gonna...

5:54 Like, you have to get comfortable, (beep) up.

5:59 Throwing away the idea of perfection because Stow, everything like....

6:05 My family, I come from perfectionists and I'm far from a perfectionist.

6:10 Like, I don't think I could be and release the amount

6:14 of work that I do because yeah, you just can't.

6:19 (laughs) In this special, I think we did a really good job of that, of, like,

6:24 we didn't want like a really polished thing.

6:27 We wanted a real thing in a beautiful space.

6:30 Like, the space is beautiful and stuff, but we wanted to keep the...

6:36 Like, there is an entropy to my show.

6:37 There is like...

6:39 (Joe laughs) Things fall apart.

6:42 I get really emotional.

6:43 I get upset with the audience.

6:45 And I was also responding to...

6:48 At that time when I was starting on comedy,

6:51 I was responding to what was happening in America in comedy,

6:54 which was every standup was wearing like a button up shirt and a hoodie.

6:59 Everyone looked the same.

7:01 Or plaid shirts.

7:02 And even the best, you know.

7:03 And I was more into like Noel Fielding and British comics who were

7:10 wearing the crazy (beep) and not even talking about it and I found that...

7:16 When I discovered that, that clicked for me

7:18 too because I was always trying to blend...

7:22 (exhales) I dunno if glam is the right word, but, like,

7:26 something bigger than just like a guy on stage with the mic.

7:30 What drove that impulse?

7:31 Like, why?

7:32 Why did you want it to be bigger?

7:34 That is a good question.

7:37 I always loved costume as a child.

7:40 I grew up with girls and so I was always,

7:43 like, "They get to wear (beep)." In a clothing store,

7:48 I remember being, like, "Are you (beep) kidding me?" It's like Oz versus Kansas.

7:53 Like, it's like women's section.

7:54 Yeah.

7:55 Come on.

7:56 It's like boom, boom.

7:58 Like these cool shoes.

7:59 And then the men's just like this Willy Loman tragic stuff.

8:05 It's like grays (laughs) and beige.

8:08 Occasional like taupe, at best.

8:09 And I just was, like,

8:11 "Are you kidding me?" So I think it was a desire to assimilate as well,

8:16 because I would spend summers mostly with my mom, her sister,

8:21 and my sister, and then my two girl cousins, Caitlin and Molly.

8:25 And I remember being, like, "(laughs) Like, why do I have to be this?

8:30 (laughs) Why do I have to be the dope in a shirt and tie?"- Right?

8:36 I think it was...

8:37 So I loved pageantry.

8:39 I loved like when we could wear costumes,

8:45 induce skits, for lack of a better word.

8:49 I felt such liberation in that.

8:52 And I was always prone to cross dressing (laughs) as a child.

8:56 All right, cut it up.

9:00 (laughs) Clip it.

9:02 (both laughing) I don't know, I felt...

9:07 There are times where I feel...

9:11 I mean, I talk about it in my special,

9:12 there are times where I feel remarkable in the right men's attire.

9:18 And then there are times where it's, like, "No,

9:21 I'm more inclined to wear this kind of a thing." Also in, okay, Boston.

9:26 Boston pretends to be liberal, it's not.

9:29 That place is terrifying.

9:32 (Joe laughs) Of all the places in the world,

9:34 it's one of the scariest places I've ever been.

9:35 Like, it is the most judgmental, (laughs) bigoted place, right?

9:43 And so wearing crazy clothes there was radical back then.

9:49 It was, "(beep) you." It was that.

9:51 So I would wear stuff that I didn't actually even fully...

9:56 My full evolution happened in California

9:58 because I would've been killed in Massachusetts.

10:03 Elizabeth Warren would've put a musket to the back of my head

10:07 (laughs) if I had gone as fully to where I am now there.

10:13 But a lot of it was, "(beep) you guys." It was, "You want to go to a real party?

10:22 Alright.

10:23 Okay."- You know, I've always loved, like,

10:25 punk music and sort of, like, noise music.

10:27 Things that are sort of, like,

10:28 saying F you to convention in different ways and filmmakers too like

10:32 that, but then I know that you've

10:34 described yourself as an empath in social settings.

10:36 And I have middle child syndrome, so I also sort of-- Oh.

10:39 So you just got two AirPods in all day.

10:41 Talking to, "One second, one second, one second." "Yeah, wait,

10:43 she's got a point, you know." "Oh, scare 'em out.

10:46 No, no.

10:46 Okay, guys, no, no.

10:48 Well, I hear you.

10:49 Yeah."- Those two things, those two sentiments seem at odds with each other.

10:53 They are, they are.

10:54 What drove you as a performer to wanna say,

10:57 "F you", but then you're also an empath.

11:02 (exhales) I mean, a lot of it is, like,

11:05 you know in the mob when they break your hand,

11:07 but then they give you the money to pay for it, you know.

11:09 It's the aftercare.

11:11 That's a lot of my career, you know.

11:13 It's letting air out the tires, you know,

11:15 it's not like, it's not (beep) you to death.

11:19 (laughs) It's a (beep) you a little bit.

11:21 (laughs) It's not like a destructive desire.

11:24 And again, with fashion, I don't wanna freak people out.

11:29 I do think that my mom was...

11:34 She hates the show off more than anything especially...

11:39 And she despises male grooming in particular.

11:43 She thinks that there was something, like, that...

11:47 (laughs) It's almost like men have had enough.

11:49 It's like, you know, men have...

11:52 They have it good enough.

11:53 They don't need to also...

11:54 Like, anytime a man like cares about the way he looks, it's sinful.

11:59 So her opposition to showing off makes me at odds with myself.

12:08 Like, I do try to contain it to the...

12:11 But it was always okay on stage.

12:15 So it's like putting so much on stage

12:18 as a safe thing and then moving differently in the world.

12:23 You know, like...

12:25 I don't feel the need to dress that flashy in reality.

12:34 It's more the statement on stage, I think.

12:38 But the empath thing, that's very interesting because I also...

12:42 In Massachusetts also, like I will cool down my flamboyance because again,

12:49 I don't wanna say, "(beep) you" on the streets.

12:52 I wanna say "(beep) you" in the controlled space on stage,

12:55 in the short statement that I can make.

12:58 That makes a lot of sense to me.

13:00 So it's-- I'm a coward is basically what it comes down to.

13:03 Socials environments can be really stressful and high

13:05 anxiety and trying to keep that balance,

13:07 and then the stage is like an outlet, essentially.

13:10 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

13:12 I mean, it's part of why I really wanted fame

13:17 as a young person was that so people could, like...

13:21 To, like, contextualize my most extreme and then

13:25 we can kind of chill the (beep) out.

13:27 Chris Fleming's new special, "Live at the Palace",

13:29 Lets you take a peek at that most extreme version of himself.

13:32 It's kaleidoscopic.

13:34 And you can feel the labor that went into it.

13:36 Carefully honing his craft over years of playing venues

13:39 across LA until he honed it into something chaotic, but deeply relatable.

13:44 It's kinda rare to run into a work of art

13:47 that speaks very specifically to a slice of a generation.

13:51 Which to me, I felt like the special speaks to a mid millennial.

13:57 The slur of the millennial is also funny right now.

13:59 Like, there is a derogatory and it came outta nowhere.

14:03 All of a sudden it was like-- Yeah, crept up honest, didn't it?

14:06 'Cause there was...

14:07 (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

14:08 And it's beautiful.

14:09 It means that we're aging and, you know, there was also that brief time.

14:13 Remember that brief time where we all everyone was, like,

14:15 "Gen Z's gonna save us." And then that kind of stopped

14:18 'cause that was before we learned that they take "SpongeBob" seriously.

14:22 You know, that they- (both laughing)- What is the slur of millennials?

14:28 Dude, I mean, okay, it's...

14:31 I think Zooey Deschanel did a lot of damage.

14:33 I think, you know, like there's the adorable stuff,

14:40 and again, it comes to what we were talking about.

14:42 It's like...

14:49 Making you yourself like a character.

14:54 Like, "Silly old me.

14:55 And then my little things that I..." That I think

14:58 is the thing that is most mocked in the millennial culture.

15:03 So what makes that such fertile ground for comedy in a way?

15:07 'Cause I feel like you're kind of riffing on that, but you're sort

15:09 of transcending it 'cause you are doing characters in a way in the special.

15:13 Oh, totally.

15:14 One of my mission statements is to never get cute with it.

15:19 I think there needs to be a brutal reality to it.

15:22 I think also the adversarial nature quality that I have with my audience,

15:27 I think, is important.

15:28 And sometimes you see this in comedy now, there are certain, like,

15:32 movements right now that have like a huge

15:37 following and it can become a megachurch really fast.

15:42 Like, I've gone to live shows, it's 3,000 people and they're,

15:46 like, cheering at, you know, short form improv.

15:49 And you need to occasionally be, like, "Stop it.

15:54 Enough.

15:57 Hey, no, you can't be clapping

16:00 at everything." Because otherwise you're creating a bubble.

16:02 Like, it's gonna burst.

16:04 Like, it can't be...

16:09 You are also like a bit of a...

16:12 You have to reprimand.

16:14 It's like a...

16:15 (laughs) I don't wanna say it's like dog owning,

16:17 but it's like there's a little bit where you have to be,

16:20 like, "Hey, hey, hey, stop." Like,

16:21 "Don't love me that much."- So then are you kind

16:24 trying to just evolve as a comedian all the time

16:26 to kind of stay ahead of that curve

16:29 in a way."- That's the way to do it, I think.

16:33 When something works, you've gotta throw away that formula,

16:35 and it's really hard as a writer.

16:37 I find myself even right now,

16:39 starting from scratch, it's a really vulnerable thing.

16:41 You know, like, people see this piece of work that you've polished, you know,

16:44 that you were touring all summer and is really

16:48 the best representation of where you are at that time.

16:51 And then you start from scratch and you're inclined to, like,

16:54 revisit tricks and everything, but you can't.

16:57 And I think, yeah, two of all as an artist is brutal and that's

17:02 why you see a lot of people stop standup when they become huge.

17:05 And they just be a personality or do podcasts

17:10 or act or whatever because it's like you really...

17:13 You're starting not from zero,

17:15 you're starting at like -1,000 because the crowd has seen you...

17:20 Especially getting new fans from the special, they've seen this like,

17:24 you know, a lot of people made that really great, HBO.

17:27 There was a lot of stuff that went into that.

17:28 Yeah.

17:29 It's beautiful and then-- JB SMOOVE is in the special thanks.

17:31 (laughs) Yeah, I mean, JB SMOOVE, he's in the special thanks.

17:35 (laughs) Good eye.

17:36 JB SMOOVE, I opened for him when I was

17:39 in college and he blew my mind, he blew my mind.

17:41 So that's why he's in the special thanks.

17:43 Talk about a guy who is leading an audience.

17:47 He will do a setup for a bit.

17:48 There's a clip of him at the "Apollo"

17:50 where for the first minute, everyone's, like,

17:52 "What the hell is he doing?" And then the way he gets them,

17:56 because he's gonna do what he's gonna

17:58 do and he's leading them without pandering.

18:02 It's so easy to pander now.

18:04 It's so easy to signal and to pander on both sides.

18:10 And you have to forget all that, I think.

18:17 So you're at a critical moment right now

18:18 then because you are getting a lot of attention.

18:21 You are a standup, standup in a lot of people's minds,

18:24 but you are getting a lot of attention as like an identity, as like a persona.

18:27 So how are you balancing that?

18:31 Oh.

18:32 Or do you just not even think about it?

18:33 I don't.

18:33 No, no, for me it's, like-- Yeah.

18:37 I just have such conviction with what I think is funny and what I wanna do.

18:42 Writing is always the thing that saves me.

18:46 If I weren't writing, I could easily be, like, "Oh, yeah.

18:50 Oh yeah, these people are right.

18:52 Okay.

18:52 Oh, yeah.

18:54 (laughs) Oh, maybe I'm good." But it's, like,

18:57 if you're writing and you're trying out new (beep),

18:59 like you see how not great you are so fast and it's just...

19:05 That's why standup is so wonderful.

19:07 And yeah, writing constantly just keeps you realizing how pathetic you are.

19:15 (laughs) No, that's not helpful.

19:16 (both laughing)- When you stick to the process,

19:22 it sounds like it keeps you humble and keeps you in the craft of it.

19:26 Yes, when you make a special where I'm, like,

19:29 "That is..." We had a screening of that and I was,

19:33 like, (laughs) in the audience, like, laughing.

19:37 When you make something where you're, like,

19:40 you're firing at the height of your powers

19:44 and then the world thinks that's, "Oh,

19:48 that's Chris." It's like that's me with a lot

19:53 of people helping me out with putting a lot of work

19:59 into that, and that is an A plus paper

20:03 and now now that I've passed that in, I'm, like...

20:10 Just being okay, completely starting over is a way

20:17 that you will never get too egomaniacal, I think.

20:20 I mean, because you have to...

20:24 The work is just what I think saves it, I think, and you can't.

20:29 You know you're not a gladiator when you, like...

20:32 Or a successful gladiator when you start working again and writing again.

20:36 And that makes me want to ask about process a little bit

20:39 more because-- What's scary about process is when all eyes are on you,

20:44 that's when process becomes scary 'cause it's easy,

20:46 you know, to grow in the shadows as a fungus,

20:48 you know, when you don't have the buzz, it's easy to write bits.

20:52 But when everyone's, like, you know...

20:55 (cheering) And you're part of this media

20:57 machine where you're doing things every day,

20:59 you don't have as much time to kind of retreat and when all eyes are on you,

21:03 I think that can also be a destruction of process 'cause...

21:09 Also talking about process can be dangerous.

21:11 It's too much because it's so...

21:15 How do you do it?

21:16 It's supposed to be like a little magical.

21:18 It's like asking a magician to magical tell you- It's completely magical.

21:20 How the trick is done really in a lot of ways.

21:22 But if there's any joke or bit or segment from your special that you

21:27 are willing to sort of like pull back the curtain on a little bit,

21:29 I'd love to hear about sort of just the beginning to end arc

21:32 of how you arrived at that final polished piece that people are seeing.

21:36 Sure, so the Oreos bit comes to mind.

21:39 I do a bit about Oreos being disfigured and yogurt,

21:43 frozen yogurt places, and why that's okay.

21:46 And originally, so I was sitting eating Oreos in the woods.

21:54 (laughs) And I started thinking about, like,

21:58 I just had flash images of just these, like,

22:02 horrible, you know, crumbles of Oreos at places.

22:04 And it's like, how is that okay?

22:06 This is like really thriving.

22:08 I think I was thinking about, like, when a career is going well,

22:13 you don't need to, you know, diminish yourself like that.

22:16 Like, why is that okay?

22:18 And so I started writing about...

22:22 Originally, it was what happened to you old

22:24 friend was the premise of that was like the...

22:27 And I tried to liken it to the scene in the "Deer Hunter" where De Niro...

22:30 Have you seen the "Deer Hunter"?

22:32 Where De Niro and Christopher Walken, they're friends,

22:35 and then Christopher Walken is taken prisoner in Vietnam and he

22:39 finds him and he's playing Russian roulette with the locals for money,

22:43 and he is, like, nonverbal.

22:45 And I originally tried to make...

22:48 I tried to liken that scene to seeing

22:51 like Oreos being completely like crumbled and mashed in.

22:55 And the crowd was like, "No." (both laughing) Yeah,

23:01 like, "What are you talking about?" So I was,

23:03 like, "Okay." Then I tried another world where it

23:06 was (laughs) something about the way insurance companies will,

23:11 like, occasionally use Snoopy and the Peanuts Gang as, like,

23:15 they're logo and it's, like, how are they getting away with this?

23:17 Like, that bash and that wasn't quite right.

23:20 And so I developed it over time and then eventually it became this sadistic,

23:31 almost like James Bond type villain or maybe even Inspector Gadget who's,

23:35 like, head you never see, and I loved that.

23:39 Like, I loved removing that tool 'cause like in standup,

23:43 you have X amount of tools and you wanna

23:45 use all your tools at once to, you know,

23:48 you throw everything in the canon to get the job done.

23:51 But that was the first time I subtracted something to achieve something,

23:56 and that seemed really funny to me.

23:59 [Mr.

23:59 Nabisco] Degrade and humiliate them.

24:00 (people laughing) Chop them up.

24:04 (people laughing)- Okay, yeah.

24:12 (people laughing) Okay, yeah, yeah, we can totally chop them up,

24:16 but we promise to do so equally and uniformly.

24:21 [Mr.

24:21 Nabisco] Do it differently every time.

24:22 (people laughing)- Mr.

24:24 Nabisco, so to speak, is turning and facing away from the audience Depriving

24:29 them of seeing your facial expressions and so on.

24:32 Yes, yes.

24:32 This sadistic, twisted character and you don't

24:36 know why he's doing what he's doing.

24:38 And yeah, that was really gratifying,

24:42 making that discovery and doing that on the road.

24:44 Oh, I love doing that bit on the road.

24:46 It's so fun.

24:48 It absolutely killed me when I first watched the Oreo bit.

24:51 Thanks, man.

24:52 (laughs) (Joe laughs) But see, that is an example of, like,

24:58 not to sound like the American beauty quote,

25:00 but, like, there's so much in the world.

25:04 I need to remind myself all the time,

25:09 it's just observing and not, like, getting in your head too much.

25:12 It's, like, it's all there.

25:15 The world is so vast to talk about.

25:18 Like, it's overwhelming how you could spin anything

25:22 that we've seen into something beautiful and funny.

25:25 So it's, like, you have to remember that.

25:29 I have to remember that.

25:31 (gentle music)- So you mentioned entropy earlier, what is it about entropy,

25:43 showing the entropy that makes it so powerful?

25:45 Okay, I think it's how long my road was.

25:48 I got attention early on.

25:49 I did it in aspen new faces thing when I

25:52 was like two years in and I was too early.

25:56 It was, like, Mulaney, Eric Andre,

25:58 all these guys and gals that were just incredible.

26:01 And I was really young.

26:03 I was, like, 20 and it was too soon.

26:07 And then there was a long period where there wasn't where I was...

26:14 I think that then my real development started.

26:16 It was realizing, like, "Wow, these people are so good.

26:19 I need to get that in myself." And so when you're a comedian,

26:25 the levels of disgrace at live shows that you experience are just...

26:30 You wouldn't believe it.

26:31 Like, even to this day, I have nightmares about performing standup that are

26:36 not nearly as dark as what I've experienced.

26:39 I even did like a gig a couple weeks ago that was so bad.

26:43 It was beyond my wildest nightmare.

26:44 It's just, like, tech issue.

26:46 Everything goes wrong, things fall apart.

26:48 And so when you get used to that arena, that becomes comfort for you.

26:58 That becomes home in a way.

27:00 And seeing specials where the comic, everything's like...

27:06 (exhales) It's like...

27:07 (exhales) Like, every joke crushes.

27:09 It's, like, that has not been my experience and so I want to show my experience.

27:17 And trust me, I wanna crush.

27:20 I do wanna crush and I get mad when I don't.

27:25 Truly, I think it's a, it's a product of my training

27:28 and the way that I was taught how for acting and for dance.

27:33 And dance, I loved modern dance in college, and a lot of it was contact improv,

27:40 which is throwing your body weight around your partner and learning to fall.

27:46 Learning what the drop is.

27:48 And I do that with, you know,

27:49 literally with my body all the time on stage and everything, but, like...

27:54 That's also (beep) you to the perfectionism

27:57 of Massachusetts and the family with love.

28:02 It's, like, you know, "You know what?

28:05 I'm going to transcend this clinging on to perfectionism because it's a lie."

28:12 And (beep) you for trying to make people live up to unrealistic expectations.

28:23 And I think that interesting stuff happens in there.

28:28 And also just my own resentment of things that are too precious.

28:31 Also, I don't think I have...

28:35 Everything is a rolling piece where I have never figured every...

28:39 It's like, "Is that good?" Like, with the crowd is, like, wait...

28:44 'Cause you're collaborating with the crowd in a way where it's,

28:48 like, "Hopefully, this works.

28:50 Yeah, okay."- Yeah.

28:51 I mean, it does feel like you're constantly in communication

28:53 with the crowd in a way that's not at all crowd work.

28:55 No, no.

28:56 It's not, like, interaction literally,

28:58 but you are very much playing off their energy.

29:01 People are always gonna be chatting with you.

29:03 And I see it as less...

29:06 My problem with crowd work, the way people do it,

29:08 it's, like, you're holding the (beep) mic.

29:10 Like, mic them if you're gonna do that, give them the (beep) mic, you cowards.

29:16 Like, of course, you could dominate these people,

29:19 but put a lav mic on, they're gonna

29:21 be a lot of funnier than whatever you're saying, and that's also funny.

29:26 And that's what you learn during crowd work.

29:27 A lot of times they're saying funnier stuff.

29:30 That's why.

29:30 Yeah.

29:31 Right, it's kind of like a form of punching down in a way.

29:34 Totally.

29:34 Totally.

29:35 And you've prepared, you're amplified, (laughs) but yeah.

29:40 It never feels like your jokes are punching down.

29:42 I try, no, I definitely try not to.

29:45 I thrash, I definitely...

29:48 (laughs)- Punching everywhere sideways.

29:51 Skanking.

29:51 But skanking.

29:52 Whatever the ska dance.

29:53 Yeah.

29:53 But no, no, no.

29:55 Absolutely hope to not be punching down, yeah.

29:58 So not punching down, not punching up.

29:59 Skanking really.

30:01 (Chris laughs)- Skanking and thrashing.

30:05 Great.

30:05 Yeah.

30:06 Okay.

30:06 Yeah.

30:07 And throwing grenades and holding the ears.

30:10 Since we're talking about punching down, punching up,

30:12 skanking, are you trying to do anything?

30:16 Are you trying to say something-- No.

30:18 At all?

30:19 Or do you think about that when you're writing?

30:22 To me, it's like a lantern that's right in front of you and you're just

30:27 following in the dark and everything's dark until

30:30 you illuminate it right in front of you.

30:33 And then that's the way I look at it.

30:36 And when you go-- That is nothing.

30:37 So then when you go back and like watch one of your bits,

30:40 or you're touring a bit that you've really brought to its culmination,

30:44 then are you able to kind of realize, like,

30:45 "Oh, it's kind of saying this in a way."- No.

30:48 Or do you not really even think about it?

30:50 No, I'm really bad at noticing.

30:52 Sometimes accidentally.

30:54 So I'll have a thing where it's, like, you know, my friend Patty Watty,

30:57 I did a show in DC and he was, like, "Yeah, man, that was great.

30:59 But you talked about rotisserie.

31:01 You had a rotisserie chicken punchline like six times." And sometimes, like,

31:04 I'll get stuck in a loop and I'll notice these (laughs)

31:08 repetitions I go on, so I try to avoid that.

31:11 And even in terms of...

31:12 And you see this with comics,

31:14 you see too much simile, you see too much rhythmic similarity.

31:20 I want to have, like, you know...

31:22 For that one it was, like, you know, have a story here,

31:25 character piece here, strange random diatribe that's petty here.

31:32 You know, you want to give a variety, a platter of stuff so that it

31:36 always feels surprising and never feels predictable.

31:42 But in terms of thematics, I don't have the intelligence to do that.

31:49 I don't self-examine well like that in that way.

31:54 I will say that I do feel cleansed.

32:00 The more I express myself in that way, I do feel freer and lighter.

32:09 In a way, that's almost, like...

32:10 When people say, like, "What's next?" You know, I'm, like, "I don't know.

32:14 Hibernation?" Like, in some ways it feels like when

32:19 I put out something that I love, I'm, like,

32:22 "I'm pretty content right now."- I will say I took away from it feeling,

32:30 like, oh, expressing is important.

32:32 Yes.

32:33 [Joe] So kind of in a way that is a thing.

32:35 (exhales) You know, if an authentic expression, you know,

32:38 and not just doing what you think you should be doing.

32:42 I think always pushing it further, surprising yourself, scaring yourself.

32:49 And more authentic expression of myself,

32:54 I do find that people are always very receptive tours.

32:58 It's great and I encourage it.

33:02 This is also why it's so important to have a good

33:04 audience and to know when to insulate yourself as a comic.

33:08 I was really privileged to have The Comedy Studio, which was in Harvard Square.

33:13 So it was the very...

33:14 There were a lot of, like, really...

33:15 You were pushed to do not just the basic comedy.

33:24 At that time, especially was, like, kinda like brash and kinda like hateful.

33:29 It was, like, they were curious audiences and they wanted to discover you.

33:35 And I think there's a lot of comedy clubs where the culture is not that.

33:43 And I think that it's really important

33:45 for young comics to find places that hold them.

33:51 And again, not too much clapped and all that stuff, you know, but, like,

33:56 I do think that a curious audience is what

33:59 has made me who I am and why it's different.

34:05 Because if I started...

34:07 If I was performing at the comedy store every night,

34:10 I would belittle myself, I would...

34:14 It just flattens, I think.

34:15 Sorry, it does.

34:17 I think tourist traps, you learn to survive 'cause I performed in them too,

34:26 but I knew not to do it too much, you know.

34:28 that's just my 2 cents.

34:30 I mean, I think something I run into a lot with our brand,

34:33 our series "American Masters" is,

34:35 you know, there's a tendency in America to think

34:38 about the individual achievement in everything that's being done.

34:41 But so much is social, so much is communal.

34:43 Of course.

34:44 And what you're describing to me sounds like a communal achievement.

34:47 Of course.

34:48 Yeah, completely There, it's a full collaboration.

34:52 Otherwise, we would just be twitch streaming or something.

34:55 You know, like, if you're...

34:58 They are so...

35:00 'Cause I'm not a psycho, like,

35:02 I'm not gonna go on stage and thrash around like that in front of a crowd,

35:07 that's not feeling it.

35:09 Like, it's like kindling, their laughter and support is what is fuel...

35:14 It's like someone paddling, you know, to give you energy.

35:17 It's, like, they're helping me get through these things.

35:20 They're helping me fly.

35:22 And so when they're not, you have to find a way to survive.

35:28 And exactly what you said, it's communal, it's chemistry.

35:32 So much is, like, "Who are you as a performer?" It's like, well...

35:36 Or who are you as a person, identity stuff.

35:38 It's, like, not to say that you should let go of yourself or whatever,

35:43 but like chemistry changes.

35:48 Who you're around is going to really change you.

35:51 If you filmed me in front of a crowd that didn't see me,

35:56 you would be horrified at what would happen.

35:59 And, like, I am stronger now, but like...

36:04 Yeah, my audience is such a part of who I am as a performer because I mean,

36:12 I've had the luxury of doing theaters for, like,

36:16 10 years and they've let me in investigate

36:21 things that a tourist trap comedy club would not.

36:28 When you put out a special like the one we're talking about today,

36:33 that is in a vacuum for most people watching it.

36:37 Most people didn't see you at Largo 12 times seeing where you're developing.

36:42 [Chris] Right.

36:43 You know, what do you hope people take away from the special?

36:46 Hmm.

36:48 When you're starting out writing,

36:50 you have this idea that something has to be everything where you're,

36:58 like, I remember being really bogged down by this, "Oh,

37:01 I have so much to say and I have so much..." I think a lot of young creatives

37:05 or people starting out creatively have this feeling of knowing

37:07 what you could do and wanting to squeeze it.

37:10 I still do this, wanting to squeeze everything into everything.

37:12 I do it with my late night appearances.

37:14 I definitely try to do too much 'cause I have, like, seven minutes to play with.

37:18 And as you get older, you realize that showing where you are right now

37:25 is the best thing you can do for yourself.

37:28 The most interesting thing you can do for yourself.

37:31 I want people to get out of it.

37:35 I just want them to get something out of it.

37:37 That's completely outta my control what they get out of it.

37:40 I have no interest in that.

37:43 I hope they like it.

37:44 I hope they enjoy it.

37:50 I hope there is a little bit of, like, "Wow,

37:54 damn, I can't believe that's on HBO" in some ways.

37:57 Like, "Wow, okay." (laughs) (both laughing) Like, you know,

38:02 when you're seeing stuff when you're younger,

38:04 like, "Jesus, this is being broadcast?

38:07 Wow.

38:08 Okay." Like, yeah, I guess to be a formative moment of, like...

38:13 Like, when I saw "The Mighty Boosh" when I was young, I was,

38:16 like, (exhales), you know, to kinda like shake things up a little bit.

38:24 I would be really happy if I did that for somebody.

38:28 (laughs)- Well, thanks for giving us time today.

38:30 I appreciate it.

38:31 Thanks for coming.

38:31 Thank you, Joe.

38:32 Thank you for having me.

38:34 [Joe] That's our show.

38:35 A big thank you to Chris Fleming for taking the time to talk.

38:38 "American Masters: Creative Spark" is a production of the WNET Group,

38:41 media made possible by all of you.

38:44 This episode was produced by me, Joe Skinner.

38:46 Our executive producer is Michael Kantor.

38:48 Original music is composed by Hannis Brown.

38:51 This episode was mixed and mastered by Josh Broome.

38:55 Funding for "American Masters: Creative Spark" is provided by the Rosalind P.

38:59 Walter Foundation, the Anderson Family Charitable Fund,

39:01 the Marc Haas Foundation,

39:03 Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, the Charina Endowment Fund,

39:06 the Ambrose Monell Foundation, the Kate W.

39:09 Cassidy Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation,

39:12 and by PBS viewers like you.

39:14 Thanks.