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Ep. 31 Jim Norton: The Art of Comedy

Ep. 31 Jim Norton: The Art of Comedy

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Announcer:                 This isn’t your average business podcast and he’s not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show on the Stansberry Radio Network.

James Altucher:          This is James Altucher at The James Altucher Show. I have with me a very special guest, comedian Jim Norton. Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Norton:                 I’m glad we could finally schedule this. It’s amazing how long it’s taken us. I’m happy to be doing this.

James Altucher:          Yeah, I’m really excited. And Jim you have a lot of stuff going on right now, but I want to talk about when we first met because I have a very specific memory. Everybody knows you from Opie and Anthony and Lucky Louie. You have a ton of guest appearances on basically I feel like every TV show out there, but I first met you – you moved into town when we were like 10 years old and you were the new kid in the class and you were instantly funny. Like everybody – I remember specifically on the first day everyone was saying this guy’s gonna grow up to be a comedian. Like did you always want to be – I don’t know if you remember this even. Like maybe you were uncomfortable. You got everybody in the class laughing on your very first day in school. You were the new kid.

Jim Norton:                 I don’t remember that. I remember – I think Halloween of 4^th grade was my first day there in North Brunswick. I don’t remember what I did, I just remember wearing a Darth Vader costume. And I wanted to be a comic back then. I don’t know if I knew what standup was yet, but I know the idea of being funny was kind of always what I identified myself with as a kid. It was that feeling you got when you kind of got the girls to notice you. My memory of you from back then was that you were a chess player and I remember we were talking. I think you were in the chess club and I was fascinated with Bobby Fischer.

                                    I said, ‘You think you can beat Bobby Fischer?’ You said, ‘Well, if he spotted me a rook.’ I’m like, ‘You think you can beat Bobby Fischer if he spotted you a rook?’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, I think so. With a rook advantage I probably could.’ For some reason I’ve remembered that for 40 years.

James Altucher:          I was really cocky back then, so probably if he spotted me a rook and a few pawns I could handle him.

Jim Norton:                 He [Crosstalk].

James Altucher:          So you knew you wanted to be a comedian back then and what’s interesting to me is that you were – you know, a lot of kids are funny but like it was so – like everything you said was hilarious. And I remember that and I also remember you were obsessed with the band Kiss. Like those two things: you were funny and you were obsessed with the band Kiss. And it’s like the same thing now, like you’re a comedian and you’re still just obsessed with the band Kiss.

Jim Norton:                 I am. Now I’m obsessed with Black Sabbath. There’s a number of other obsessions I have, but yeah there were just certain things that I never gave up on. I’ve met Kiss individually. I’ve interviewed them all individually, except – yeah, Paul too. I never actually got to meet them as a band, so that’s still part of my obsession. But at that age I would have these weird daydreams of Kiss where – it wasn’t sexual, they would just kind of beat me up and hurt me and throw me down the stairs and that they would hug me and love me and make it all better.

                                    I’ve told that story for many years and it’s true and I remember we interviewed – Opie from Opie and Anthony made me tell Paul Stanley and they made me tell Gene Simmons those stories and they were really humiliating to have to tell Paul Stanley. So we interviewed Paul and then we walked onto 57^th Street with him and before he got into his truck there was a big crowd of people and Opie got Paul Stanley to hug me in front of a whole bunch of fans on 57^th Street. It was really creepy, but I was kind of happy he did it. That was one thing from childhood I get to check off.

James Altucher:          So it’s like a bucket list, so like forget about all of the prostitute stuff, this is like a big bucket list moment that Paul Stanley hugged you.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, I’ve gotten all four of them. I’ve gotten Ace, Peter, Gene as well. I’ve got a picture of Gene hugging me on stage in front of 3,000 people because he had been – I told this story on Happy Endings, but he had been kind of a [Expletive deleted] to me when I was gonna take a photo with him years ago, so I went on the air and I just kind of ranted and raved. And then I was doing a live event. Gene Simmons was one of the hosts and I was one of the judges. Gene didn’t remember me. He was actually being really nice to me. So some fan was heckling Gene from the audience and so Gene stopped the show and he’s like, ‘What are you saying? Do you want to come up here?’

                                    The kid jumped up on stage and grabbed the mic and he goes, ‘I want you to apologize to Little Jimmy Norton for being mean to him and not’ – and I was like it’s okay. I was so humiliated. To Gene it was something had happened and he didn’t know what. He didn’t remember blowing me off for a photo two years earlier. So he’s like – Gene says to me, ‘What would you like to happen right now.’ There’s 3,000 people watching at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. I was like how about a hug? So he walked me out into the middle of the stage and hugged me in front of all those people. It was really a great moment.

James Altucher:          And how did you feel at that moment?

Jim Norton:                 It was wonderful. It was so funny because A) a fan stuck up for me which I thought was so great, and B) I know Gene had no idea what the hell was going on, which I thought was kind of funny. I got pictures of it, which is even better. I knew that there was people snapping photos of it. But it was like a surreal moment, like how often do you get to have these little silly, weird moments from childhood come true? It didn’t mean anything, it was just fun.

James Altucher:          I think – for me right now this is a silly little moment from childhood coming true. Somebody from my class that I get to interview who’s like a world-famous comedian; like you’re the funniest guy I know.

Jim Norton:                 Well thanks. I’m getting there. I mean there’s still plenty of things in my act that need a lot of work. I mean –

James Altucher:          Like what? Let’s talk about that. What – so let’s reel it back. You wanted to be a comedian, but what happened? You dropped out of high school. You had a suicide attempt. What was going on? Why did you – you didn’t really talk about the whys of the suicide attempt in your books. What was happening at this pivotal point, because right after that you became a comedian.

Jim Norton:                 To be honest it wasn’t even the most sincere attempt, it was one of those –

James Altucher:          Oh, it was an insincere suicide attempt.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, it was more ‘notice me.’ It was just that attention-seeking nonsense, really. There was absolutely nothing genuine about it. If I wanted to do it I think I would have done it. It was one of those things for attention when I was a teenager. But I wound up in rehab and I wound of dropping out of high school, so I have no formal education past high school really.

James Altucher:          That’s great. I’m a big advocate of that because look what happens? Then you have to sort of blaze your own path. You have to kind of figure it out. And what you figured out was to become a comedian. How did that happen?

Jim Norton:                 I mean you’re right. I mean I ______ that was all I was gonna do. I was like I’m either gonna do this or I’m just gonna absolutely fail. So I purposefully left myself no safety net. It’s gotta be standup or it’s gotta be nothing. Once I started I gave it a few shots, like this is the only thing I’m ever gonna try to do. And you know, I just started going to like open mics. I had a job – like a little crap day job. I was doing forklift operating and I hated it. I was working in warehouses doing stuff that was going nowhere. I just knew that if I left myself no safety net I would be forced to work in that direction.

                                    In hindsight, you look back and go wow, that’s been 25 years since I started. I can’t believe that I actually made myself continue to perform. You bomb a lot when you first start and a lot of times you’re like I can’t do this. I’m not good enough to do this. I should not be doing it. I’m just really happy that I didn’t listen to those crap messages and I did it. If I had a great education maybe I wouldn’t have.

James Altucher:          That’s very true. I think actually education sort of ruins the lives of most people because they get stuck down this one alley and they feel they have to be like a doctor or else they wasted all this money or whatever.

Jim Norton:                 Sure, exactly.

James Altucher:          But you say you bombed a lot. Now you were – I mean I don’t know how to calculate this, but you were 100 times funnier than anyone in school. How – what’s the difference between you just being naturally a funny guy and then going up on stage and trying to do a standup act. Like why couldn’t you just go up on stage and be funny like you were always funny?

Jim Norton:                 Well being funny is a relative thing because it depends on , a lot of times, your relationship with the person who’s hearing you. Like in high school you have years in common and commonality with the people and friendships and relationships so you build these things and these running jokes. You might do a certain voice and you know your friends like it – it reminds them of your gym teacher. When you’re doing standup the hard part for me was immediately I don’t have this relationship with these people. Like I didn’t know when you start out you have to establish anything, so I’d just walk on stage and start telling dirty jokes and the crowd wasn’t laughing.

                                    And then as you go on you’re like oh, I have to connect with them somehow. There’s a lot more to this. There’s a million funny people. The only difference between me and 100,000 other people is I actually did it as a job and learned how to do it professionally – because there’s a million funny guys out there. It’s a matter of you have to be willing to take it the face for a long time. You have to learn how to build those relationships. A lot of guys think hey, I’ll just walk on and be funny – and maybe that works a few times but like as time goes on that’s not gonna work. You have to learn.

                                    Bob Newhart’s an anomaly. He was the number one selling comic in the country after a couple of months. I guess the world was a little different back then.

James Altucher:          But Bob Newhart’s interesting because he kind of did it through an album with these fake phone calls he would do. I don’t know – was he like a standup guy before he had his albums out?

Jim Norton:                 That I don’t know. I think one of his albums was standup, wasn’t it? Didn’t he have two number one albums at the same time or a number one and number two at the same time – the only time a comedian’s ever done that? And I think maybe one was phone calls and one was kind of storytelling and he just resonated with the audience. For whatever reason, for him that relationship was instant and natural and immediate, but I think for most of us it is not.

James Altucher:          You knowing that right there is interesting because he put out those albums I think it was like 52 years ago. So clearly you’ve studied the history of the art form. You obviously started doing that before you were doing standup or not? Did you start getting really into it before hand?

Jim Norton:                 No. I mean I enjoyed it. Like as we’re talking right now I was watching a Sugar Ray Robinson documentary, so I hit freeze frame on my television so we could talk and Woody Allen is on the screen. Woody was talking about Sugar Ray Robinson. And when I was a kid my mother went to the library – when I was about 12, the New Brunswick Public Library – and she would bring records home –

James Altucher:          I was a customer there.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, of course. We all went in there because it was before the internet so if you wanted something you’d actually have to go in there and reference it. My mother would bring home these records – the Woody Allen three-record Nightclub Years set. So I kind of have an appreciation for guys like Woody Allen. I was obsessed with Richard Pryor. I loved George Carlin. I loved Robin Williams back then, his album Reality, What a Concept. The history I learned more of as I got older and as I went on. I loved Rodney and all those. I don’t think I knew who Newhart was back then or Mel Brooks or any of those guys. Mel Brooks I knew through his movies, but a lot of guys – I think a lot of the standups I learned more as I got older.

James Altucher:          Well okay, so now you started doing standup and what are some ideas, even for people who are public speakers, how do you connect with the audience? How do you kind of establish that very quick rapport with the audience so you can get them going?

Jim Norton:                 What I have found works for me, the audience likes you think you’re confident and one thing to remember is they don’t know if I’m nervous. They don’t know if I’m unsure. They only know what I show them and what I tell them. So sometimes it’s called ‘act as if.’ If I’m a little bit nervous I act as if I’m confident. I don’t mean cocky, I mean just don’t walk up there and be sheep and act like I don’t belong up there. A lot of times I’m honest, though, like if something goes wrong I’ll acknowledge it. I find the honesty helps me a lot. Not to say, ‘I’m nervous, guys.’ I wouldn’t really say that to an audience, but if something doesn’t work or if I’m uncomfortable with something in the room, a lot of times addressing it helps.

                                    So I try to be honest about my surrounding and project some kind of confidence. Honesty gets you so far. Your crowd doesn’t want to hear, ‘Wow, I’m forgetting my act.’ They don’t want to hear that [Expletive deleted]. You’ve gotta kinda be – you gotta be smart about it. But I find being honest helps a lot about what’s going on around. If you’ve got a table of people that’s talking, I can’t pretend they’re not talking. If the sound sucks, I can’t pretend it doesn’t. If the lighting is bad or if I feel ugly I can’t pretend I don’t so I kinda tell people like that. Does that make any sense? I know you’ve been trying [Crosstalk].

James Altucher:          Yeah, well that can be really funny. You saying, ‘I’m ugly,’ can be funny. It’s almost like nobody – it’s like Carrie Fisher says, ‘Nobody wants to laugh at a really good-looking rich guy,’ So it’s sort of like this idea of removing skills and make something comedic. But I find when I go to open mics and every single comedian says, ‘Oh, my act is sucking right now’ – I find that’s not very funny when they do that.

Jim Norton:                 Oh, they all say – yeah, I guess it’s too many people. It’s like anything else if too many people are doing it and too many people – see sometimes people will see something that works in another comedian and they’ll try to adopt that little personality quirk on their own and that kind of comes off as not genuine. But anybody – too many people doing anything – like open mics are tough but how many people can you hear talk about relationships? How many people can you hear talk about driving or marriage or whatever it is that they’re going to be talking about at an open mic or anywhere else? You know what I mean?

                                    After seeing 10 comedians in a row you’re bound to see patterns. If you see 10 black comedians in a row you’re going to hear a similar take on race, or if there’s 10 women in a row or 10 white guys in a row, you might hear a similar take on whether it’s relationships or race or politics or whatever. Does that make any sense?

James Altucher:          Yeah, yeah.

Jim Norton:                 Like you see [Crosstalk] in a row and you’re gonna see similarity.

James Altucher:          It seems like you were able to overcome that by kind of finding the edge of honesty and going beyond it. Like honesty is really a big part of your show. It’s like obviously I’m referring to all the prostitution stuff, the sexual stuff. You go beyond the edge of what most people are willing to talk about. You’re not just funny, you’re this extreme almost radical honesty – this dysfunctional radical honesty combined with comedy. I’m wondering like how – what comes up in your relationships when they hear your act and they know your act and they know who you are? How do they – how to girls or women deal with that?

Jim Norton:                 It depends. Some of them don’t like to be talked about in my act. They don’t want to be talked about – and I never mention names or I never connect real people to these events, but to that point I’ve been doing it for so long that women I kind of meet now know what they’re in for. They understand who they’re dating or who they’re going on a date with so while I won’t blow up somebody’s personal information ever, they kind of know it’s like if we do something crazy sexually you might wind up hearing about it on TV. You’ll never hear your name referenced and you’ll never hear any connecting information reference, but people by now kind of know me and I date women who tend to know and are familiar with my material and my sexual stuff.

                                    It’s a big thing because it’s a big part of what I talk about and I don’t want to date someone – I’m too old to have to explain myself, like oh no, this is why I like that. So I figure if I put it out there in the stratosphere nobody can complain. Nobody can claim ignorance. I’m 46 now. I’m tired of – you don’t want to go through this thing where you have to tell people. There’s nothing worse than having to explain yourself to somebody and be apologetic about what you like or who you are. It’s [Expletive deleted] embarrassing and it’s ____. Sorry about [Crosstalk].

James Altucher:          There’s a certain kind of spiritual aspect to that. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of it this way, but honesty frees you in a real big way. It’s like you say, you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to keep two or three or five lives sorted in your head. It’s almost like – obviously you and I are the same age. We’re too old to have to hide anything. It’s too much work.

Jim Norton:                 It’s nice to not have to hide it. It’s nice to not worry – oh, like ________, like one of my ex-girlfriends caught me dirty texting with someone. She knew I wasn’t sleeping with this girl. She could tell by the texts that we weren’t actually physically hooking up. And it caused a big fight and it was a really ugly thing, but she was hurt and betrayed but she’s like, ‘Why am I surprised? I know what you’re like. I shouldn’t be surprised.’ So she was pissed off at me, but we did survive it because it’s not like some woman who was married for all these years. Like do you know how much explaining Larry Craig must have had to do when he got home? Why are you putting your foot under another man’s stall?

                                    Because he’s probably like that and he’d probably lied to his wife. I’m guessing he’s bisexual – I don’t know what he is – but I’m guessing and he probably couldn’t be open about that so he had to lie and cover it. But I always feel bad for guys like Travolta who – again, I don’t know for a fact what he is. My opinion is that he is probably gay. It’s just an opinion from what I’ve read. The torture, if that’s true, of him being gay and having to live this leading man life and just wanting massages from men and worrying that his wife is gonna find out – the torture of that. I think of that guy a lot and it’s like John, as great as it is to be Travolta it’s gotta be awful, too. There’s probably a lot of times he wishes he was not famous just so he could do what he wants to do.

James Altucher:          Right. And like you say, you’re 46 and you’re too old for this kind of lying. These people are older than 46. Like Larry Craig is like 100 years old or whatever and he’s been doing this lying forever. Imagine the burden. It is a very freeing thing to be honest. I just know for myself, when I started writing in an honest way it was enormously freeing for myself and it actually created tons of opportunities for me because people knew they were gonna get what they saw. There was nothing I was hiding.

Jim Norton:                 Well I know, especially in this day and age where everything is revealed eventually, the media are such pigs. We have no respect for each other’s privacy at all. I’m lucky where I kind of throw my own garbage out there, but a lot of people want privacy and nobody respects the privacy of anybody but themselves. Like Ben Stein, look what he’s going through now. There’s a woman who used to be an escort but she said Ben Stein was trying to sleep with her and they were texting back and forth.

                                    But now Ben Stein’s dirty text messages show up in The New York Post or his attempts to whatever. And that’s the kind of people we are. We want our own privacy, but when it comes to Ben Stein’s text messages or Tiger Woods’ text messages, we have no outrage at all about them being in the newspaper. Donald Sterling is a scumbag, but we have no qualms about his private conversations being played just because we don’t like what he’s saying. So we kind of – we need to stop obsessing over the fact that we have the right to have our own secrets when we’re not respecting the rights of others to have secrets. Does that make – I don’t know.

James Altucher:          Yeah, that makes sense and you know it’s never gonna change. It’s never – it’s only gonna get worse because that’s the way humans are. We’re gossiping creatures.

Jim Norton:                 We really are. I’m one of the few people – and boy, a lot of my fans were pissed at me – but the NSA, when Snowden came out that they were spying, I’ve been saying good, I’m so happy they’re in everybody’s business because now maybe the nosy idiot country that we are will wake up and do something about this invasive tedious culture we’ve become. I know the government’s different. When the government does something it’s much different than a bunch of people being curious about who Justin Bieber’s sleeping with.

                                    I know the legal differences, but it’s just this ugly voyeurism we’ve developed. Hey, let’s not be shocked when the government is displaying that ugly voyeurism on us. I mean we do it to each other. We tattle on each other. The government didn’t tape Ben Stein’s text messages and print them, some woman gave them to the media an the media thought this should be printed and they put them out there. The same with Tiger Woods’ stuff and Mel Gibson’s phone call. So I find that I kind of cut a lot of that off for myself because I give it away myself so there’s nothing interesting for people about getting information on me. Of course I’m not famous enough.

James Altucher:          You are famous enough. You’re literally everywhere. You’re kind of like a mini master of all media. I think you – I mean you have bestselling books. It’s funny you say you’re not famous. You’ve got two bestselling books. You’ve had four HBO specials like with your series. You’ve been on Lucky Louie. You’ve been in tons of movies, Opie and Anthony. Every time I turn on a TV show you’ve got a guest spot. In the past week I’ve seen you on Inside Amy Schumer and Louis. You’re everywhere. So how come you still don’t think you’re famous and that you have more to improve in your act? What’s next that you’re gonna improve?

Jim Norton:                 I guess when you’re close to a situation and when you are living in it you don’t feel like you’re doing anything – I don’t know. I guess you don’t see the growth. It’s like when you lose weight or you gain weight. You don’t notice it as much as somebody who doesn’t see you for five months or six years or whatever it is. So I feel like I’m barely hanging on by a thread. I know that’s not rational. I know that I’m saying something that is not necessarily logical, but I’m just telling you how I feel. Sometimes we feel crazy, irrational crap and I feel like I basically am fairly anonymous and that I know people know who I am and I have a fan base, but I feel like man, you have made almost no impact and you really, really have a lot of work to do.

                                    Maybe that’s what keeps me motivated. I don’t know. But it’s one of those things that you say that – I guess because I haven’t watched these things, like I haven’t seen myself on Amy’s show. I’ve seen one sketch that we did in the pilot and I saw like one or two of the poker scenes, but I don’t very often watch anything that I’m on.

James Altucher:          Amy interviews you in the show.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, I know. We did do that. I know we did a couple of sketches last season. I love Amy. She actually just had me do a scene with her and Bill Hader. She’s doing a Judd Apatow film –

James Altucher:          Yeah, Trainwreck.

Jim Norton:                 Yes. And she’s such a good friend. I really love Amy Schumer and she put me in a really funny scene. So I mean that I’ll probably see if I get invited to the premier and I make the final cut I’ll definitely see it. But I just try not to watch anything or I try not to get excited about anything because I figure it’s all gonna go away so why get too used to it and enjoy it? It’s like my stupid negative thinking, I guess.

James Altucher:          It kinda reminds me of like what Jay Leno has said where he always does standup and he always puts the money from the Jay Leno Show – or he did put the money from the Jay Leno Show in the bank and he would never touch it because he was always afraid he was going to go broke.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, Jay’s a workhorse. I’ve been talking about him a lot lately because I haven’t seen him since the show ended and I’m guessing he’s out doing some dates and working on cars, because that really is a passion of his. I’d love to know how he’s filling the time because he so loves to work. He loves being Jay Leno. He loves doing his gigs. He’s he non-laziest guy in show business, so I would love to know how he’s adjusting right now to all this free time. It’s got to be driving him crazy.

James Altucher:          And again, though, you’re a pretty hardworking guy yourself. Like you’re about to do, I know, San Francisco soon. You’re touring constantly on the road, so in addition to doing scenes here, scenes there – so when you say you have room to improve in your act, obviously everybody in every career has room to improve. What do you think is the next thing you need to improve in your act and how do you go about improving?

Jim Norton:                 What I want to do – one specific thing I want to improve – a guy like Colin Quinn, I think, is so brilliant. A) the material that he writes is just smart and intuitive, but the thing that makes Colin so great – and I’ve said this about Colin before – is he doesn’t do the audience’s emotional work for them. Like if I’m talking about anger or something that makes me angry, I want to do the jokes without doing the emotional work. It’s not my job to tell the audience how to feel. So do a joke about being angry without displaying anger or do a joke about something without displaying the emotion.

                                    I don’t need to do that for the crowd. They can make up their mind about it. It’s just something that comes with being a comedian and performing year in and year out. Colin is a master at that, but you don’t ever want anger to block your creativity and you don’t ever want to come off as the angry – because that’s boring to people. When they immediately know what emotion you’re gonna come out with it bores them, so that’s something I want to improve on. It’s coming from a point of view, too, consistently. As human beings we’re all complete people so you want to kind of display a more complete side of yourself. And I guess that’s again, the more you do it the better you get. So that’s an area I need to improve on.

James Altucher:          Reminds me of let’s say maybe the Louis C.K. bit where he’s talking about the environment but he plays two roles. One role is God and god is yelling, ‘What did you do here?’ And so in some sense he’s playing a character to display the emotion as opposed to himself displaying the emotion.

Jim Norton:                 Right. If you’re doing a character, absolutely. If you’re doing a character or something responding to the other bit, either yourself or the other character, that’s a lot different than ranting at the audience. I don’t really rant at the audience any more, but my last special, American Degenerate, when I edited that, there was a bit about school shootings that I did where I’m attacking the disgusting press coverage. I edited a good amount of that out only because there were moments in it that seemed to preachy or too self-righteous and I was happy that I caught that; like that’s not my job.

                                    I want to make a point when I perform, but my job is to be funny. Any horse’s ass can stand up there and make a point. That’s not my job. My job is not to make a point. People are paying to see me do what I do, but at the end of the day they want to be made to laugh. So if I want to make a point, I have to do that coupled with being funny. So if I caught myself being a little preachy – for a couple of lines you can get away with it, but it was like two lines too many or something I felt was a little too speechy and I took it right now. I was very happy that I caught that.

James Altucher:          Do you feel you caught that more in American Degenerate than in the special before that, Please be Offended? Because there I feel in Please be Offended it was hilarious and very funny but there’s definitely – you’re angry in there.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, there’s probably moments. I can’t think of the bits as much. I listened to that again recently – that special. I watched it and though oh, that’s a good special. Once I watch a special and I’m done editing it, because I have to be there through the whole editing process – once that’s finished, man, I immediately don’t watch it again. I just don’t look at it again. There’s stuff I’ve shot that I haven’t seen in years. So I’m trying to think with Please be Offended, I might have been, yeah. I think I was more aware of it in American Degenerate. I was more conscious of it.

                                    Again, you improve as you get older. You improve the more you do it. So the next special after this I’ll be even more aware. You don’t ever want to get caught in a trap and not be able to get out of it. That’s something you want to avoid. So I figure if there’s weaknesses I have as a performer, if I’m working on them and getting stronger and getting better at them by the next special, then I’m doing well. Every comedian has – I look at Carlin’s stuff and a lot of people like his older stuff better. I like his later stuff better – the newer stuff where he was angrier.

                                    But I notice the improvement in the writing and the way he would deliver thoughts. You get smarter as you get older, that’s all.

James Altucher:          So you’ve mentioned several times Carlin as a big influence. In your second book you started off actually talking about Carlin. Do you do his idea of kind of rewriting the act ever year? How has he been an influence on you?

Jim Norton:                 Well I mean I just get so sick of material very fast because talking on radio five days a week you get very accustomed to saying different stuff all the time. I mean we all repeat ourselves, but every day you’re talking about different news stories and it’s a different conversation. Even if it’s the same subject it’s still a new day. With standup you have to do the same jokes over and over again. So yeah, I shot – in 2012 I shot Please be Offended. In 2013 I did American Degenerate.

I want to do a new special that I have probably been ready to shoot since May – or actually maybe April – but the network won’t do it because I just shot in August so they have to wait at least a year. They can’t just put you on 10 months later. It’s stupid. It’s not just about me. There’s other performers. So hopefully I will shoot something by October or November. I would love to do one a year. That’s kind of where I’m going.

James Altucher:          But Jim, why don’t you just shoot it and sell it on your website. I mean I know it’s not – Louis C.K. did it, it was great, but why always depend on the network?

Jim Norton:                 Well Louis is an anomaly. Louis can do that. Aziz did it. Jim Gaffigan did it. But these are guys that have – and I have a good fan base and a good following, but these are guys that have a bigger following than I do so realistically I don’t know how much I’d make. A special probably costs $150,000.00 to shoot or something like that to get it done well and edited and stuff. So just to make your money back you have to sell a lot of $5.00 specials. So you have to start off, I think, with a base like Louis C.K or like Aziz Ansari or one of those guys.

                                    It’s kind of hard to do that and get it in the theaters, you know. Gabriel Iglesias is going into the theaters. I’m realistic about where I am. I’ve got a good fan base, but I’m not on the level of Louis C.K. where I can just go on my website and know that I’m gonna make $500,000.00. He pulled that off. I think he did better than he thought he would, but I don’t think I’m there yet.

James Altucher:          But you know, like when you guys were both doing Lucky Louis, I sort of feel like you were – I don’t want to say at the same level, because I really don’t know what that means. But you were both at a similar point in your career doing this interesting show for HBO and then it got cancelled and then he went on to do Louis, which sort of surprised everyone how amazingly successful it was. Have you thought about trying to do a show like that or what did you think of that kind of breakout that he did with Louis?

Jim Norton:                 The show I’m doing on Vice now – it’s on Vice.com and it’s a talk show. It’s me doing a monologue and interviewing guests and I feel that that’s a great vehicle for me. Louis did his – see, the thing about Louis that worked is Louis writes it, he directs it, he edits it. Louis can do everything on a set so Louis had a deal where he said to the network I’m not interested in notes from the network. So he just turns in completed episodes with no notes at all from them. You have to have a certain amount of skill to do that. It’s like I’m funny, I can write and I can be in a show but I don’t know how to edit or direct.

                                    Like there’s things that Louis did in that show which enabled him to have 100 percent control. There’s almost nobody in show business that has that, but when you look at the results it’s a great thing for all of us because the show, if you let a funny guy do what he knows how to do then you can get great, great results out of it. So I’m not surprised at all because Louis knew what he was – he wrote most of Lucky Louis. He had writers, but that was his show. He had a lot of pilots – and I’ve known Louis for maybe 17 years – so he’s been doing like these little vignettes and things at the Comic Strip Christmas party for many years. So Louis has always been involved in that.

James Altucher:          One thing Louis did, though, with this is he basically said no to the network. The network obviously had their list of demands and he said no and he was willing to walk away. Do you ever feel that you have a hard time saying – if a network wants you to do something, do you have a hard time saying no, I need this type of creative control?

Jim Norton:                 I haven’t necessarily been in that position. I had a lot of creative control in this project I just did, but it was kind of because they’d never done it before, so they were really lax with it. They’re like oh yeah, just keep putting up what you think is funny. I’ve never actually had that with “network” but Louis I don’t think had that before either. He had a certain amount of control, but when we did Lucky Louis, HBO would come by and give him a lot of notes. So Louis did not have total control over that project. He had a lot of it but not total. He did not have total control – I think he did a pilot after that that did not get picked up by CBS.

                                    So Louis had a lot of misses as well before he finally landed and he told them this is what I want to do and they wanted him to do a show so he said okay, we will honor what you want.

James Altucher:          So when Lucky Louis was cancelled, you’ve tried a lot of different things. There was Lucky Louis, then there was your four episodes with HBO where you were introducing other comics. What was your biggest disappointment in all this? Was it the worst that Lucky Louis got cancelled or where were you most upset and scared?

Jim Norton:                 Well the frustrating part of Lucky Louis getting cancelled, the critics didn’t like it but the audience was growing. Louis broke it down. We talked about this for hours and he understands how a TV show starts off and usually tapers off. What was happening, he said, was the numbers for Lucky Louis were growing every week which is very rare for a first-run series. The critics didn’t like it, so HBO cancelled it, but it had a great following. Down and Dirty did very well with people as well. It went up a little bit every week as far as viewers were concerned, but HBO – the only reason HBO, I think, cancelled that is I got that gig from a guy named Chris Albrecht.

James Altucher:          I remember Chris very well.

Jim Norton:                 I love Chris Albrecht, but he left the network or was fired. That project got green lit and then Chris got fired so they honored the four-show commitment that Chris had promised me because my relationship with HBO was very good, but at that point they wanted to put in their own stuff. What happened when a network head leaves whoever takes over kind of wants to build, from scratch, what they can. I think they honored my show. They probably were not even going to honor my show, but I wound up talking to a guy named Mike Lombardo who was running HBO and he was very, very cool about it so he honored the four episodes that Chris had said okay to.

James Altucher:          That was great. I encourage people to go back and watch those episodes because you introduced some funny comics on there.

[Crosstalk]

Jim Norton:                 And Bill Burke.

James Altucher:          What about you have a relationship with Anthony Jeselnik. You brought him on the show.

Jim Norton:                 Yes. I haven’t seen him in awhile. I saw him in New York. I like Anthony because he let me do two episodes of his show and you always like when friends put you on their projects. I did of his – I’m sorry to hear his show got cancelled because he was really nice to me.

James Altucher:          Yeah and he and Amy Schumer, they both started their shows around the same time and her show just keeps going now.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah. Amy’s show is a beast. I mean as a sketch show, I think Anthony’s show, which was really funny. I don’t know why it didn’t work. Maybe they got a complaint or maybe someone at the network didn’t like it, but Amy’s show just got the right press and she’s so funny and she’s so funny in interviews. She has a very original voice because you can’t say Amy’s like this or Amy’s like that. She’s attractive, yeah. She’s dirty, yeah. She’s a lot of great things, so Amy’s show is going to be around for quite awhile.

James Altucher:          Yeah, I would say – I mean she reminds me a little of Sarah Silverman, I don’t know. What do you think of that?

Jim Norton:                 Is she like Sarah at all? I think Amy is more personal than Sarah. I don’t mean personable, which I think she reveals a bit more of her own stuff than Sarah does. I think she uses a different performing style. But yeah, Sarah probably would be the closest comparison. Sarah is very funny and she talks about herself. I think Amy talks a bit more about her own experiences a little more.

James Altucher:          I like your interaction with Sarah. I think it was in this season’s Louis in one of the poker scenes it was very funny.

Jim Norton:                 I think I’ve done two poker scenes with her, I believe. Yeah, I did one last year or two years ago and then one this year. I lose track of them, to be honest with you. I really do lose track.

James Altucher:          I want to get back to – you mentioned how the next level of improvement is when you take the emotion out of the skit or the bit or whatever. How does that make it funny? I’m still not quite sure I understand how taking the – how not doing the emotional work for the audience makes it funnier for the audience.

Jim Norton:                 I don’t mean take all the emotion out of it. I don’t mean just deadpan it or not show emotion. But I mean when you’re – almost by being – if I’m delivering a joke about this and it’s like, ‘And what the [Expletive deleted] are they doin’?!’ in the delivery, it’s like there’s no need to say it like that. What the [Expletive deleted] or whatever words they use, we all have the commonality of language, so people speak English so they understand what I’m saying. I don’t have to go, ‘Here’s what I read about and it really makes me angry!’ The words are the same if I say it really makes me angry.

                                    To me when you’re doing too much of the work for them, I just think you’re leading them too much and it almost gets them to pull away from you a little bit. I’ve noticed that because Colin is so good at not doing that. Maybe it’s hard to explain.

James Altucher:          Interesting. It also goes along with this idea again of removing skills to be funny. So for instance, if you’re saying this thing but not exhibiting the natural anger or hatred or whatever, it’s like you’re removing some elements of knowledge from the act and giving it to the audience so that makes it funnier in some way.

Jim Norton:                 I also think people respond better if they don’t feel they’re being preached to or talked down to. When Carlin would display anger on stage – look at how silly a lot of his delivery was. He didn’t necessarily yell and scream. He was talking about some very angry stuff, but he left it out there, you know what I mean? His delivery was fairly consistent. It wasn’t crazy, over-the-top. Not that I yell and scream a lot, but you know what I mean. I think Carlin just basically let his words talk for him and let the audience either come with him or not. I like the fact that he led them with logic as opposed to doing it emotionally.

James Altucher:          So how long – so like right now do you write every day or do you have your act all set or are you constantly reworking it?

Jim Norton:                 I’ll go onstage and I’ll just talk about what I want to try on stage. I’m not good at actually writing things down any more, but I’m on stage so much. So I’ll get an idea like when Donald Sterling was hot. I’ll go okay, let’s talk about Donald Sterling. So I’ll get a few ideas or I’ll tweet a few things and then I’ll go onstage that night and I’ll really try it. But it’s basically just from trying it on stage.

James Altucher:          That’s interesting. So you tweet a joke, do you kind of gauge its success by how many people engage with that tweet?

Jim Norton:                 No. If I think it’s funny I will do something else with it. It’s never a reaction or people going, ‘Hey, I like that. LOL.’ It’s not that. It’s maybe it just sparks my memory. Like a lot of times I’ll look back at tweets and go oh, I can do that. That’s how I got my Duck Dynasty bit. I had tweeted a bunch of stuff and I’m like wow, a few of these things might actually work on stage. When I tweet I’m usually not thinking about doing it on stage, I’m just tweeting because to me that’s like doing it on stage. You’re performing it. You’re sending it out to people and they’re enjoying it or they’re not enjoying it.

                                    But a lot of times I’ll look back and go wow, maybe I can use a few of these. That’s not always how I do it, but just usually with something topical. Because in my mind, like I said instead of jotting things down at home I’ll jot them down on Twitter and just send it out.

James Altucher:          You mentioned earlier than the audience doesn’t want to see you nervous, which kind of implied to me that you are a little nervous when you’re going on stage. Like what’s your usual sort of pre-stage ritual, let’s say 10-20 minutes before you go on? This applies to all public speaking, I think.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, I think – I’m not sure that I’m petrified before I go on, but I have at times little jitters when I’m gonna do TV or whatever. I men it’s normal. You’re supposed to have a little feeling. If you’re not feeling anything before you go on there’s something wrong with you. If you’re gonna go on television and perform and you have nothing going on emotionally – so yeah, I think a little bit nerves but you don’t want the crowd to see it because they don’t want to think, ‘Oh Christ, this guy is reacting exactly how I would on stage.’ You want them to feel like you’re up there and in case things go wrong you know what you’re doing.

James Altucher:          Right. You gotta take control.

Jim Norton:                 Yes, certainly.

James Altucher:          So now it seems like big career changes are happening right now for you. So Opie and Anthony – Anthony just got fired. Now is it like the Opie and Jim show? What’s going on there?

Jim Norton:                 You know, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I mean we’re not gonna call it Opie and Jimmy. Even though I love doing radio with Opie and I loved doing it with Anthony, I just – I loved the two of them together. I would feel the same way if Opie was gone and Ant was still there. It just takes a lot of getting used to. So I really don’t know where we’re gonna wind up. I mean we’ve actually been doing better than I thought it was gonna go, surprisingly.

James Altucher:          In what way? Like in the interactions and the humor? In what way are you doing better?

Jim Norton:                 Just for the fact that it’s more comfortable than I thought it would be. And I think that we are – I don’t know. It’s just more comfortable than I would have thought. The flow is good. The guests have all been good. We’ve had some really good guys come in in recent times and that has helped quite a bit, because a lot of times you rely on your guests, but if your guests are really awful then it’s just not as good. So we’ve had Ricky Gervais. Pete Rose came in last week and he was tremendous. Jim Brewer was in all morning and he was great.

                                    But it takes a lot of getting used to. A lot of the fans are very, very pissed off because they want Anthony back. And I don’t blame them. They loved Anthony so I don’t blame them for being angry.

James Altucher:          Are they mad at you because you’re like taking his place?

Jim Norton:                 No. I’m not though, because I was always there. I think no one looks at me like I was taking his place. I think people know – but people know I’m not jumping on Anthony’s grave as it were. They know enough about the thing, like I’ve been on podcasts for the last couple of weeks talking about it and I think they know how I feel, which is really I’m bothered by it and I’m very, very frustrated by it. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t either texted with Anthony or talked to him. I mean we’re in constant touch and when his new project comes out I’ll help him promote it because I want to see him succeed. There’s no advantage to me if he fails. I want him to succeed.

James Altucher:          It’s interesting because I guess this project is sort of, from what I’ve read, kind of like a podcast that he’s gonna start.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, it’s kind of a – it’s based in I guess a subscription-based thing, but yeah he’s doing a – I guess a video podcast four days a week. I think he’s doing it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in the afternoon because in Long Island he’s got an amazing set up. He’s got an amazing thing. He has $50,000.00 to $80,000.00 worth of equipment, a green screen. Anthony is ready to broadcast so yeah, Anthony will be fine.

James Altucher:          What I wonder is pretty soon there’s gonna be wi-fi everywhere, more and more cars are getting equipped to just download directly podcasts, what’s the lifespan of Sirius XM at this point? Have you considered doing a podcast?

Jim Norton:                 Oh yeah, I think of it all the time just because it’s one more way to get your name out there. I think what Sirius XM has is the things they have that are sports related, whether it’s football or baseball or hockey or basketball, those are hard things to replay, especially through your car. Even with wi-fi that’s kind of hard to replay. A lot of the original talk talent, whether it’s the Opie and Anthony Show or Opie and Norton or Howard or whoever else is on there, the original talk content is what they have going for them. I hope they recognize that’s the strongest stuff they have.

James Altucher:          So is the stuff you’re doing for Vice, is that like podcastable? Can they make that into your podcast?

Jim Norton:                 Well it’s not really – a podcast should be a bit more of a specific thing. The Vice show is so built on being visual – like a podcast a lot of times – Joe Rogan does it right. You’re just sitting there having a conversation. Some of – on the Vice show wouldn’t work in a podcast because it’s visual as well. So I kind of wasn’t thinking of just audio when we did this show, but there are definitely parts in it that could have – that would be a good podcast, I think.

James Altucher:          What’s the next thing that you’re doing that we should promote? You’re gonna be doing standup in San Francisco in early August. What other stuff do you have going on? What can I look forward to?

Jim Norton:                 As of right now just the show on Vice.com. That really is it. I mean that’s it. That’s all I’m concentrating on, that and some standup. Those are the two main things that I really want.

James Altucher:          You do a ton of standup. Is it worth it to keep going out there doing the standup or do you do it to improve and get new material? What’s the role of standup in your life right now?

Jim Norton:                 I do it almost every night. It’s always gonna be a constant with me. It’s always going to be something I do. That’s one thing that they can’t take. Like they can fire me from Sirius or whatever else I do. They can can my show on Vice, but doing standup is something I’ll always have. I’ll always be able to make a living doing standup, which is kind of a nice thing to have. There’s no way they can take that. So I’m not gonna be broke or, you know, to always be able to go out and make a living is nice.

James Altucher:          Well Jim, once again I really appreciate you coming on the show. I know we tried to work this out for awhile. You’ve been so busy. I’ll tell you, I remember – this is like a stupid memory, but I remember in 6^th grade, for whatever reason, I was obsessively trying to explain to you how all the Kennedy brothers were getting assassinated and you were trying to explain to me about Kiss, which was a concept I just did not get.

Jim Norton:                 Oh, really?

James Altucher:          Yeah. This memory just sticks out in my head. We were in the school cafeteria and I just did not get the Kiss thing at the time, like a bunch of guys with their faces painted. But now I get it.

Jim Norton:                 [Crosstalk] been together. Yes, and I now understand the Kennedys. Who knew that 35 years later you would understand Kiss and I would finally get the Kennedys. At least we’ve both come full circle.

James Altucher:          Yeah, we’re improving. Life is a constant improvement.

Jim Norton:                 Yeah, well hopefully. Hopefully it is.

James Altucher:          Well, well once again congrats on everything. We haven’t spoken in such a long time, but I’ve followed your career. It’s really been amazing. I was like blown away, actually, when I first watched Lucky Louis and there you were and I was a fan from the beginning of that show. I wish it had continued.

Jim Norton:                 Thanks [Crosstalk].

James Altucher:          I was really broken up when Louis, on the show, was getting a divorce at the end from Pamela Adlon I was getting a divorce and the show really impacted me. I really felt sad for Louis on the show.

Jim Norton:                 Oh, wow, really?

James Altucher:          Yeah. The character really had an impact on me and your character was hilarious, of course, so it was a great show and I was sorry it was cancelled.

Jim Norton:                 Me too. It was really refreshing.

James Altucher:          Again, thanks a lot and I’m glad you came on. Thank you.

Jim Norton:                 All right, man. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks very much, buddy.

James Altucher:          Okay thanks, Jim. Talk to you soon.

Jim Norton:                 Bye, James.

Announcer:                 For more from James check out The James Altucher Show on the Stansberry Radio Network at StansberryRadio.com and get yourself on the free insider’s list today.

[End of Audio]

Episode Snapshot

Jim Norton, comedian, radio personality, and author, joins The James Altucher Show.

Today, James interviews his close friend and author of Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch, Jim Norton.

You may know Jim from his various appearances on shows or even his own stand-up routines. But what you don't know is the process behind all his achievements.

Here is where you meet the real Jim Norton. You'll learn how he overcame the darkest part of his life and decided to rise above it all and "choose himself."

Just like James, Jim found it difficult to perform in front of an audience, but he shares his strategy for connecting and building a quick rapport with a crowd.

He gives several other tactics that have helped him overcome the anxiety and doubt that builds during his shows. His examples could be approaches that help you cure your own stage fright.

Something that James and Jim both believe in is honesty. An audience responds to honesty and it's what will always work in your favor.

Not only will it free you from guilt and stress, it will protect you if the truth is ever questioned in the future. To have a true connection and respectability with your fans, you need to hide nothing from them.

Get ready to see a side of comedy that is not revealed very often...

Enjoy!

This Episode's Guest

Jim Norton

James Joseph "Jim" Norton, Jr. (born July 19, 1968) is an American comedian, radio personality, author, and actor. He is an on-air personality, often dubbed the "side-kick" on The Opie & Anthony Show, which airs on Sirius XM Radio. Norton has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Late Show with David Letterman, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. He has filmed a HBO stand-up special for the series One Night Stand as well as his special "Monster Rain", co-starred in the short-lived HBO sitcom Lucky Louie, and had cameos in the films Spider-Man, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and Courting Condi.

Norton hosted a four-episode stand-up showcase for HBO titled Down and Dirty with Jim Norton and appeared on The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget. He was also in Jerry Seinfeld's 2002 documentary Comedian. Norton was a regular guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Website: http://jimnorton.com/
Latest Book: Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch

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