There's the idea of the lone comic working feverishly at his craft, honing it under the glare of many cramped clubs, always in some kind of isolation. That's true, but not complete, because comedy, the whole culture of it, is also pushed forward by what happens at certain gathering points, places where comedians come together to exchange ideas, try stuff out, screw around.
One of these hubs is Comedy Bang! Bang!, a podcast and now TV show hosted by Scott Aukerman, who brings in guests — sometimes comics, sometimes their alter egos — and interviews them. Comedian and impressionist James Adomian is often on, less as himself than as someone else. So here we have Aukerman interviewing Adomian (more or less) as Adomian, which accounts for only some of the eccentricities in the following.
Where appropriate, I have added field notes and annotations to hopefully illuminate some of the mysteries and in-jokes of a long relationship that, like every other, is as strange as it is universal.
James Adomian: Hey, so, Scott.
Scott Aukerman: Yes?
Adomian: I don't think we've ever worked together in person, have we?
Aukerman: We've only done phone interviews like this?
Adomian: We've exclusively talked on the phone like this.
Aukerman: I've never actually seen your face before. I've always wondered what you look like.
Adomian: Well yeah, I do come in heavily cloaked.
Aukerman: I imagine your features as soft, but a bit swarthy.
Adomian: That's right, that's right. Yeah. Sort of a Lawrence of Arabia.
Aukerman: James, do you remember the first time we met? Because I remember the first time I ever saw you.
Adomian: We probably met at El Cid [a club in L.A.'s Silverlake neighborhood tucked sort of under an overpass], perhaps in the audience, or perhaps backstage, or maybe even in one of the bathrooms.
Aukerman: I remember seeing you onstage actually at iO West [an improv comedy club in L.A.] for the first time, I don't know if you remember doing a show there. It was a sketch show that a group of people were doing, I don't really recall who it was. But you did a few sketches including you did one as Maximilian Blank, your sort of Vincent Price character—
Adomian: Oh yes, yes.
Aukerman: —and you did a video sketch where you taped yourself getting very upset that you, it was something to do with your car—
Adomian: It was with [comedian/actor] Josh Fadem! I had a really shitty car back then, it was like an '83 Honda Accord that was severely damaged and barely arguably street legal. And Josh Fadem rode with me once, like I gave him a ride and he was like, "We should shoot a video, this car sucks." And so we just shot a video about the many different ways that car could break down. I don't know, it didn't make any sense, I was 25, it was just driving around screaming.
Aukerman: It was super funny. So you were 25, how long ago was that?
Adomian: It was 10 years ago. We've known each other a whole decade.
Aukerman: I was really struck by how fully formed your voice was. And how you seemed like a guy who had such huge things coming in your career. And—
Adomian: None of that has panned out, obviously.
Aukerman: Well, some would argue with that. But I was really struck by how I wanted to just attach myself to your rising star. So you and I have tried to work together for quite a few years.
Adomian: It never gets past one coffee. No, yeah, we keep writing TV shows or appearing on them together.
Aukerman: As a young guy back then, first of all you're an amazing impressionist, how did you develop that voice, how did you first figure out that you could sound like so many other people?
Adomian: I did it when I was a little kid and I would make people laugh, and when I started being at school, I realized that people didn't necessarily like me or care about me unless I made them laugh. and so that was like the easiest shortcut—
Aukerman: As true today...
Adomian: —that was the easiest shortcut, was just to make fun of teachers. 'Cause I don't know what it is, but something about all teachers make them ideal targets, before you get old enough to do celebrities.
Aukerman: If there was any justice in it, then teachers would still be bigger celebrities than actors and sports stars.
Adomian: I heartily agree. That reminds me, one time I saw Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. He has a big graphic next to him and he goes [in pretty good Rooney impression], "Here's my solution to America's education crisis. Step one: Fire America's teachers," and then the screen flashed, "Fire America's teachers." And then he went, "Step two: Hire America's seniors."
Aukerman: Okay. By the way I think that because this interview isn't audio, it needs to say next to your name when you start speaking, in brackets, "Does perfect Andy Rooney impression." I think it should really judge the quality of the impression as well, as to how good it is.
Adomian: I agree with you. I think the brackets should be asterisks with maybe little emoticon flashy faces. And then we tag it with, "Aukerman guffaws." [He did not.]
Aukerman: So James, I have a question for you. I found it really interesting in working with you over the years, having you be on my podcast so much—
Adomian: We grew up on the air together—
Aukerman: —I always find it really fun and really, I don't know, I hate to say moving, but it does move me emotionally to see audiences get to know your personal life and to realize that you are a gay performer—
Adomian: Right, we've seen some people come out to the shows expecting just to see generic Joe Straight Comedy, and then when they see that I'm gay they have to tuck away their "Austin 3:16" T-shirts [as in professional wrestler and middle-finger enthusiast Stone Cold Steve Austin] and they quickly start hiding their 700 Club [a Pat Robertson joint] bumper stickers. I've really changed single-handedly a lot of comedy perceptions.
Aukerman: Do you feel any kind of responsibility to be viewed as someone who's changing minds out there, or do you not care about that kind of stuff?
Adomian: I go back and forth. It's more like if I detect that someone or sense that an audience might be homophobic or somewhere on that spectrum, like heteronormative — where do you want to go in the sociology? — but sometimes it's more like I just personally get angry, like, "Oh I'll show these assholes." ... One funny thing I realized is how many people had no idea that I was gay because they don't bother to look it up or ask.
Aukerman: Well I'm not really in the habit of looking up the sexual preference of any person that I ever watch on a TV show—
Adomian: Right, and that's just a phenomenon of playing characters on a podcast or a TV show. I feel like standup is the only place where I'm really talking about myself, otherwise it's some fictional lunatic like Jesse Ventura [Editor's note: Contrary to popular belief, Jesse Ventura is not fictional per se. Another former wrestler, actor, naval veteran, and governor of Minnesota (1999-2003), Ventura's colorful past and love of conspiracies has made him one of Adomian's more popular impressions.]
Aukerman: The flip side of that is something that I don't really like: when I hear people criticize other gay comedians for talking about their experiences and using you as an example to say, "Well, James Adomian doesn't have to talk about being gay when he does characters, why does this person have to talk about being gay?" It's almost like an audience saying, "Do whatever you want in your personal life, I don't want to hear about it," when that's not really what comedy in general is about. Comedy is about shedding a little light on the human experience.
Adomian: Well that makes you enlightened in some small way.
Aukerman: I was gonna ask about your favorite characters to do and ask you about your method of retiring characters when either they die in real life or in the case of George W. Bush, when he stepped, or he didn't step down from office, when his presidency expired. You're widely acclaimed as the best George W. Bush impersonator in the world, and your Huell Howser [1945-2013, creator and host of KCET series California's Gold] is amazing, Christopher Hitchens [1949-2011, author, contrarian]. Why stop doing those people?
Adomian: With Huell Howser, I liked him. So when he passed away I didn't really want to rub it in, like make fun of the guy anymore. I might bring him back at some point when it's been a while. That's the thing, when somebody's gone, they're not really in the news much anymore.
Aukerman: It's not like you haven't done dead people before. You do Orson Welles and he's dead. I think you would have a stable of ghost impressions that you could do.
Adomian: Eventually, Scott, all of our impressions will be dead. That's one of my favorite things about Paul F. Tompkins' Dead Authors podcast is to be able to do impressions of people you've never otherwise think to do or get to do. I did Walt Whitman on there and that was really fun. You've done that show.
Aukerman: Yeah, I did the guy who wrote "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" [Clement Clarke Moore] who, I did a little research and found out he was a racist, and I think owned slaves. So I just made him a real racist character who was constantly bragging about all of his slaves. And I also did Benjamin Franklin having done barely any research about him and I just kinda went through his early drafts of his famous sayings. The only one I remember is [in a chipper voice] "A penny saved? That's pretty good."
Adomian: What is it? "Early to bed, early to rise? Sure, if you've got nothing else going on."
Aukerman: So, James, getting back to the theme of what we were told this is about: Do you enjoy working with the community of comedians that we have? Are you competitive with people or do you enjoy the support of people who are all trying to do the same thing? Or a mixture of both?
Adomian: I like hanging out with funny people. ... In L.A., everybody's working on their own stuff. You see really funny people, like you and all the other people I've known over the years, but maybe not spend as much time together. But I really love when you go to a festival, and you get to see all your friends from L.A. but suddenly you're hanging out in some other city. Like San Francisco's Sketchfest has always been like that, and Austin. I think one of the perks of getting to do comedy is the ability to hang out with the funniest people in the world.
Aukerman: Certainly my show has benefited from the incredible community of people who like to work together and who support each other. Comedy Bang! Bang! wouldn't be what it is without a wonderful group of super-talented people who are willing to just pop by at a moment's notice and do amazing work on it.
Adomian: In fact I popped by earlier this week to do another episode.
Aukerman: You certainly did!
Adomian: Scott, I've got to catch my wagon to San Francisco right now.
Aukerman: Any final thoughts?
Adomian: I want to know: Do you do it for the laughs or do you do it for the love?
Aukerman: I do it for the love of the laughs, James. Come on. I love the laughs too much.
Adomian: That's valid. And it's also probably a psychological problem.
Aukerman: I have some sort of condition.
Adomian: I've always wondered if at some point everything will snap and it'll be like Alice in Wonderland, where the delightfully mad people turn into sinister mad people.
Aukerman: I would say a good percentage of human beings snap at some point, so I don't think it'll just be comedians. Hopefully the comedians will be the more fun people to hang out with when they snap.
Adomian: True. So, Scott, look, when I snap, come on by, let's have a drink or something.
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