ARTS INTERVIEW: TODD GLASS

Discusses His New Podcast with Jimmy Dore & Stefane Zamoran: 'Comedy and Everything Else'

By: Ben Kharakh

July 16, 2009

Todd Glass likes silliness. On his first album, Vintage Todd Glass and Other Crap, he punctuated his jokes with the word “seriously,” tickled by the idea that he could say “seriously” after claiming he liked to dress up like a kangaroo, take a dump on someone’s lawn, dispose of the costume, resume taking his dump, and cause an argument between a couple whose male and female components witnessed two different halves of a dump. “It was a man!” the husband would say. “It was a kangaroo!” the wife would counter. “Seriously!” Todd would insist.

People do silly things in earnest, though, not even finding it silly. Todd may poke fun at poorly constructed houses whose bathrooms are too close to the dining area on his Comedy Central release, Thin Pig, but he recognizes that behind that decision is a process — that at every step leading up to the house’s construction, someone had to survey the facts and give the go-ahead. It’s an indication of the dichotomous relationship one may have with the subject of a joke. On the one hand, it’s great that someone would do something so ridiculous and that it is laughable. One may relish the absurdity, adding detail after detail to the scene. One can imagine the suit an inspector might wear, the glasses sitting on the arch of his nose, and the gnawed pencil in his ear that he reaches for so that he can mark off, “Pass,” on his sheet of criteria next to the phrase, “Distance between bathroom and dining room is adequate.” But on the other hand, it’s unacceptable that, as educated an individual the inspector is, he fails to realize that the distance is not acceptable and that the sound of restroom use will radiate toward the diners or, at the very least, the fear of such radiation will cause great discomfort to the restroom’s occupant. It’s also disconcerting that, ultimately, the house’s builders don’t care about this fact and would rather construct a cheaper- or easier-to-build house than a comfortable one, saving a little bit of time and money at the expense of the future inhabitants’ wellbeing.

Todd doesn’t like the latter sort of silliness — the sort of disregard for others that dominates America’s political discourse and its social policies. Todd might keep it silly on Thin Pig, but when it’s time to get serious, he joins pals Jimmy Dore and Stefane Zamorano on their podcast, Comedy and Everything Else. The same acute sense of silliness that makes Todd so hilarious is what makes him so insightful on his podcast, weeding out the harmful sort of silliness from the benign sort. Whether it’s infomercials or social justice, Todd Glass knows how to keep it entertaining.

Ben Kharakh: I wanted to talk about your Watermelon Festival joke.

Todd Glass: I was going to this thing called The Watermelon Festival. My friend’s girlfriend is driving and we’re lost. By the way, I should preface, The Watermelon Festival is basically a carnival. They grow a lot of watermelons, so it’s a big part of the Festival — watermelon seed spitting, the largest watermelon contest…that sort of deal. So we’re halfway there, we get lost, she pulls into the 7-11 and starts driving toward a group of black people to ask them directions. I’m like, “Are you shitting me? You’re not asking black people directions to a Watermelon Festival.” That has nothing to do with being prejudiced, but it does have to do with there being a lot of hateful people in this world, and you could justifiably make this poor guy or woman think, “Really, you want to know where the Watermelon Festival is?” So I wouldn’t ask the black people directions to a Watermelon Festival if they had a Watermelon Festival t-shirt on from the year before that said “Ask me about the Watermelon Festival” and they were holding cotton candy in their hand. I’d say, “No, I’ll go inside and get directions.”

BK: As you were telling your story, you prefaced, which is a thing you often do, and I was curious – 

when did you begin doing it or notice that you did it?

TG: It’s very frustrating to sit and listen to something and you’re thinking, “Arghh. He’s got it all wrong.” So that’s why I always try to imagine what somebody sitting there would think and throw it out there. It’s like Phil Donahue. I probably got that from Phil Donahue, actually. He was famous for that. He’d say, “I know you’re sitting at home and these people are saying everything is going to fall apart.”

BK: Back to the Watermelon Festival. How long after that did you turn the experience into a joke?

TG: First off, she argued with me that I was being prejudiced and I said, “No,” and so did the five other people in the car. They got it…and it’s not a big deal. If she did it and nobody was around, the truth of the matter is, they probably wouldn’t have cared, knowing she didn’t have a hateful tone.  But I didn’t think that was a joke at all when it happened. I didn’t think, “Oh that’s funny,” until later when I retold it to some other people.

BK: That made me think of infomercials, which is something else you like to poke fun at. There are five people in the car and when you point out to them that there’s something one of them might do that could be really ridiculous — they stop themselves. If only you were around whenever an infomercial came on! Think of all the money people would save.

TG:  Well, I make fun of infomercials, but I love to watch them too because they’re such great salesmen. I don’t know how many people, when they see an infomercial say, “Order now in the next 15 minutes,” rush to their phones, screaming, “Hey we’ve got to order now!” It’s a pre-recorded commercial! I love this other thing they do. We all know what a blender is, right? You know what a blender is. Someone reading this right now as we’re talking and I’m saying to the reader in quotes, “You know what a blender is, right?” and they shake their heads, “Yes.” So all we really need to know about this new blender is why it’s different. Tell me it’s a different size, it has more speed, it has a more powerful motor. That’s all we need to know because we just established that everybody knows what a blender is. So we don’t need to say, “You can blend smoothies. You can make ingredients for guacamole. You can make banana nut muffins, strawberry muffins…” We know what you can blend. No one is sitting at home going, “Oh you can blend a lot with a blender.” We get it! But that’s what makes it seem like it does so much. Same thing with the ShamWow — “It wipes up cola, juice, sauces… Use the ShamWow inside. Use it outside. Use it to wipe your RV…” We know where we can use a rag. I get it. Nobody goes, “Hey, what can you do with a rag? Can you use a rag inside? Can you use a rag outside?” Yes, we’ve established what rags do. Don’t tell us where we can use a rag; tell us why. Is it more absorbent maybe? It’s beautiful. And it works! You know it works because they’ve been using this trick for over 30 years.

BK: Have you ever bought a thing because of an infomercial you saw?

TG: Yeah. It was called the sandwich press, but now they don’t call anything sandwich presses. Now they give them numbers because people love it. It’s the Grill 6000. They try to give them names that sound futuristic. But yeah, I bought a sandwich press and you put the bread in there and then you put the ham and the cheese and you put another piece of bread on top and you close it and it cut it into two triangle pockets. You can put bread in there and then apples and cinnamon and make apple turnovers. Great for parties! Yeah, people want to wait as you make one sandwich at a time — wait seven minutes so you can give one sandwich out. It’ll be a great fucking party.

BK: What if you made the sandwiches in advance?

TG: Then they’re not going to be toasted.

BK: Do you remember the food dehydrator?

TG: Yeah, one of their great lines was, “Are you tired of throwing out hundreds of dollars in jerky?” A lot of people have gone under because of their inordinate desire to eat beef jerky everyday. You know how much money I spend on beef jerky? I don’t know. Five dollars a year, ten dollars a year? And then they go, “You can make turkey jerky, fish jerky…” and that’s the part where you go, “Oh, alright, shut up.”

BK: There’s a book called As Seen on TV  that pokes fun at infomercials. It’s actually on sale, used, for a penny on Amazon. For the Food Dehydrator, it said, “Pros: you can make banana chips. Cons: nobody wants banana chips.” That always stuck with me.

TG: That’s the other thing. Slice bananas — make banana chips. Most people, when they want a snack, they want it now. They don’t want to go, “Hey, are you in the mood for banana chips?” “Sure.” “Let’s start them now. We can have them by the end of the day.” “Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and buy the ones for a dollar.”

BK: It’s almost like we’re getting transported back to the 1700s, where if you wanted butter on your bread in the morning, you had to wake up at 4:00 a.m.

TG: Infomercials are a lot like religion: the less you have to say, the more you yell and scream. And for anyone who goes, “But I hear you yell,” yes, I yell sometimes too.  But when I yell, it’s completely different.

BK: What makes it different when you yell?

TG: Because I’m right and I’m mad.  People always say that we can agree to disagree. Sometimes you have to just bulldoze through stupidity, and you know there have to have been people like that saying the same thing about slavery or women’s rights. “You know, some people think there should be slavery and some people don’t, but you have to agree to disagree. Hey, some people think women should vote. Some people think women shouldn’t vote. You have to respect the people that think that women shouldn’t vote.” No you don’t. People that don’t think women should vote are not intelligent people and you don’t need to listen to them, and there are plenty of people who try to use the same trick today with other issues. A lot of people don’t want to say anything, but I’ll tell you what you do. Next time you’re in a public situation and somebody says something that is just not right, think about how you’ll look back on it later and will wish you handled it differently. If there was a tape recording of you at a party and somebody said, “I don’t think black people should marry white people,” don’t you wish the tape recording of you said, “Excuse me?” “Yeah, I don’t think black people should marry white people.” “Yeah I know we’re at a party and I really want to treat that as if you just said you don’t like the movie that I really liked, but I can’t be here and listen to that. I’m really sorry, and I know we’re at a party, but I can’t join in on this conversation because my stance on that is ironclad. I’m going to sort of move on here.” Wouldn’t that be great to hear? Or you explain to them why they’re wrong and stand up for what’s right?  Or would you rather hear, “Yeah, well, you know, I respect your opinion. Some people think that and some people don’t.” You respect his opinion? You want that to be what you say? I sure wouldn’t.

BK: Politics, religion, comedy, social issues — these are the sort of things you discuss on Comedy and Everything Else. With all those things in mind, how do you feel about the current state of American society?

TG: We are far from where we need to be, but we have made a lot of progress. A lot of people say we need to go back to the way things used to be. I’d love to set up a fake house and put people who wish things were like they used to be and have them find out what it would be like. People like that don’t give enough credit. What about all the things we’re doing right? Besides women’s and civil rights, back then we used to hide retarded people. People thought it was embarrassing. We used to hide it if our sons or daughters were alcoholics; we used to hide people in wheel chairs. We’ve moved past that and have ways of helping people. If we thought of our answers as being ahead of us and not behind us, we’d be a lot better off.