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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.
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