I felt like I was in a unique position, or I am in a unique position, to show the evangelical world in a way that I haven't seen on TV before. That's a world that I'm very familiar with.
— Pete Holmes
It's funny - the reason I started doing a podcast was because every time I was on someone else's podcast, I would take it over a little bit.
The skill set of pastor and comedian are incredibly similar. You want to affect people. You're good at reading rooms. You're persuasive, and you're likable.
I think 'everything sucks' is too often leaned upon as a comedic stance. It's a really easy and pretty weak perspective.
I remember talking to comedian Jimmy Pardo about his experience waiting to hear about his own pilot, and we both agreed on one thing: When you can't control your showbiz fate, you can at least control the amount of ice cream you're eating. And if you're like us, it was a lot.
I'm not religious anymore, but I was raised religious.
I'm the weirdo that tells - asks - the Uber driver to please turn the radio down. I'm so polite about it, though.
As soon as I heard the term 'comedy nerd,' I'd hoped there was a lot of them.
I booked an E-Trade commercial. That's a lucrative gig.
My mom wanted me to be a youth pastor, and when I became a comedian, she said it was close enough.
It's hard to control the things that are going to inspire you.
I needed to let go of the idea of a God who was mad at me for feeling how I was feeling. Now, I bask in an understanding of the divine that delights in truth and the complexities of the human experience - even when it's not very 'clean.'
I think there's something so funny about Ram Dass. I was lucky enough to sit across from him at dinner once, and I got up the courage to tell him that he was my favorite comedian. Even though he's not a comic, he talks about showbiz in a certain way and understands that there's a presentation to it.
I love 'Year One.' I read 'Year One' over and over again.
When it comes to being called a pronoun, sometimes I like to call other people 'me.' I go, like, 'Oh, these mes voted for Trump. This me is begging for change. This me is driving me to the airport.' I find that useful instead of going, like - because it's so pleasant to go 'you.'
So we have the story of who we are. I'm a man, and I'm a comedian, and I'm a tall man. I have big teeth and all these things, and I like the first two Batman movies, and I don't drink coffee, or whatever it is.
When I look at what's happening with #MeToo, my heart breaks, basically, for everybody involved.
When somebody comes across as authentic and genuine and sweet, people just want to spend time with that person.
Whenever I make a blasphemous joke, I always say that I believe in a God big enough to know that I'm just kidding. How can God not know that I'm kidding? And also, how could God be offended at a thing that he made not believing in him?
I wanted to be a pastor. I was going to be a youth pastor. I mean, I play guitar; I like to make people laugh.
Traffic: Sit there. Sit. Occasionally move your foot from the brake and crawl forward, then put it back. That's all you do for hours. It's very calming.
When I got divorced, the first people I called were Nick Kroll and John Mulaney and T. J. Miller - all the pals.
I knew I wanted a 'Girls'-type show about my life, but what's the big thing that happened to me? Oh, I got married when I was young.
Literally, my honeymoon was driving to Chicago.
Yeah, I had a talk show canceled. Okay, let's go back to the list of people who had talk shows canceled. Johnny Carson had his first talk show canceled. Jon Stewart. Letterman. Conan O'Brien, if you look at 'The Tonight Show' as a show that got canceled.
I used to just want so badly to have afterlife insured and make sure I was going to heaven.
I'll admit that I'm self-centered - all of us are - but I can also be external and giving and listening and empathetic and all that sort of stuff.
The biggest idea of a good time for me is making the Batman videos that we did. That is my ideal day. That is exactly what I want to be doing... I like doing cartoons. I like writing things.
When you slide into television, no one tells you exactly how manage expectations and work with your staff.
I'm not going to have the TV personality and be like, 'There's no bitterness. There's no ugliness.' There's bitterness. There's ugliness. There's pain. There's greed. There's malice, and there's hurt. That's all good stuff for any kind of art. I'm not necessarily feeding that side of myself, and I try not to encourage it too much.
I really love the Frank Miller 'Year One' stuff.
Why do we say 'Have a great weekend?' That's just a spell. You're just going - I have no control over your weekend. But words matter. They change our interior world. Have a great weekend.
We can give space to someone's depression. We can love them; we can honor - we can just eat some noodles, we can watch some movies, whatever it is. We can just sit and not talk. That's real stuff. It's a real - I don't know if you call it a disorder, a disease, but it's happening, and we don't need to coach people through with ideologies.
We'd all like to increase pleasure and minimize pain, but the truth is, suffering, even collective suffering that we're going through, is often the earmark that some real change is happening.
It's true that in show business, a lot of times a producer will just not ever be there, not even be aware that a show is renewed or canceled.
I look at my faith like a room, and there was all of this furniture in there, but I had inherited most of the furniture. Then, when I got divorced, I took everything out just to see how I was going to refurnish the room, and that was a very essential step in my life. It was great.
A stand-up act is almost like a pool. You know what I mean? It's like a pool, and you're always skimming little leaves out of it, messing with the chlorine level, putting up umbrellas. You're trying to make one little stagnant body of water perfect. Whereas a late-night show is like a river, always moving forward.
The world is so mysterious, and there's so many social interactions where I have no idea what I'm supposed to do - what's being asked of me, what's expected of me.
I always wanted to do something about what it's like to get divorced, especially when it's a young marriage to start with.
I thought divorce was for people that threw plates at each other, and I'd have to be an alcoholic or having affairs. But the truth is, sometimes a very sweet, well-meaning person just doesn't do it for you, and you need to get out of there.
I mostly do faces and sounds. That's what I do. Comedy doesn't have to be art.
I saved my money.
My wife left me when I was 28 in real life.
When I was in junior high, I went to a really hippy dippy Quaker school where we called our teachers by their first names and stuff.
Sometimes I liken the comedian's lifestyle a little bit to a firefighter's in the sense that there's a lot of waiting and a lot of nothingness. And then there are moments of urgent firefighting.
Good comedy can be liberating, and if I'm doing my job as a comedian, part of the joy for the audience is getting that release.
If I open a Batman book, and he doesn't look right, I can't do it. It has so much to do with the art.
Religion often is very embarrassing, and I totally get it. So I am sort of sometimes burdened with the fact that I love talking about it with anybody. Not just religious people.
I can't speak for everybody. But I will say that for me, when I've been depressed - and I get depressed. I have irrational bouts of anxiety. I have random FedEx deliveries of despondency. Just like, 'I didn't order this. Oh, well, keep the PJs on, cancel everything you're doing today. It's time to take a sad shower.'
I hate when pastors have a gay son and then they become pro-gay.
