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HBO:
Give us the pitch for your show. What are you doing tonight?
Jim Norton:
Uh, the same dog sh** I've been doing on the road for a long road. It's going to be really thrilling. That's the pitch. It's all right. I'm kind of mean, I'm kind of a d**k on stage. If you like that humor, you'll like me. If you thought Will and Grace was really funny, turn on Showtime because you're not going to enjoy this, you're not going to enjoy me.
HBO:
Fair enough. You described yourself in various places as a 'meaty aggressive little nothing.' Could you tell us a little bit more about that self-assessment?
Jim Norton:
It's accurate. I got man-tits so I talk about them. My body is a tremendous source of insecurity for me from the waist up, so I talk about it. It's awful. And I like my nipples played with which is hard when I'm f***ing and my udders are just hanging in a chick's face. [LAUGHS] It's brutal, it's brutal.
HBO:
Does that make radio more appealing? I know you do a lot of stuff on the radio.
Jim Norton:
Oh yeah I do it everyday. I just tell the truth. I'm such a sex addict, I'm such a degenerate f*** that it translates into funny radio. But really it's just a pathetic lifestyle, an awful way to live. A lot of prostitutes, occasionally the old gender error. [LAUGHS] Oh, you're a fellow are you? Well who hasn't made that mistake a couple times.
HBO:
So what sort of jobs were you doing before you started doing full-time comedy?
Jim Norton:
Well I didn't graduate high school - your old wrist-slice, go to rehab, miss your graduation type of crap. So I got a GED and then I was just doing warehouse work, forklift operator, just awful, awful work.
HBO:
And where were you living?
Jim Norton:
I was with my parents until I was 30, then I moved in with Jim Florentine, who was special-ed on crack. That guy got me my first paid gig in comedy and he was my first roommate ever. That was a great living situation, in Cliffside Park, Jersey, a river view place. When I moved out, there was mold on the walls. They actually made it Section Eight housing. I was 13 years into my career and the place I lived in became Section Eight housing.
HBO:
How about living with Jim Florentine - he must've been making some money in comedy then?
Jim Norton:
Yeah, Jim was doing okay. We both started to do really well together at the same time. We kind of had parallel careers. We did the same kind of gigs, made a decent living, paying $900 a month rent and splitting it. Then his girlfriend moved in so it was $300 something a month - to live in a f*** moldy, awful apartment.
HBO:
What got you to do your first stand up gig?
Jim Norton:
I wanted to do it since I was 12. I'm a Richard Pryor freak. Every comic says Richard Pryor, and you wish you had another one to be original. It was one of those little punk dream things you think you’re never going to do. And one night I went to a comedy show with my buddy Larry, and signed up for the open mic, never intending to go through with it. I don't know how it happened but I f***ing showed up and I stunk. I was awful, really filthy. I can't believe I even went back. I used to root for gigs to get canceled because I was so afraid of performing. I used to be like, I hope no one shows up so I can just get half the money and go home, convince myself that I'm working hard. Scary.
HBO:
Did you get up there without any written material?
Jim Norton:
Oh I wrote material, it was just awful. One of the first jokes I ever did was about Oprah Winfrey's legs being opened and the size of her vagina. It was just an awful joke, probably accurate but an awful joke. And the crowd hated me, of course. And I couldn't believe it.
HBO:
What about now, do you have favorite places or cities to perform in now?
Jim Norton:
Boston. I love New York but Boston is probably my favorite because they're just miserable white people. They are in New York too, but they're not quite as angry here. In Boston, there's such a subtle rage. I love San Francisco too, though I never thought I would. That's one of my favorite cities. Actually, there's very few cities I don't like. A good club is a good crowd. It really doesn't matter. But I'd say Philadelphia, Boston, New York - those are my three favorites.
HBO:
What about the middle of the country? Are the crowds really different?
Jim Norton:
They're okay. I haven't done much Midwest stuff. Chicago is a major city, so not really the Midwest. I've done the South, where they kind of hated me. But if they're showing up, they're paying the cover, they're usually okay. As long as the middle act isn't some high-energy guitar hack, some local hero that knows all the funny local stuff. But aside from that, nothing matters on the road.
HBO:
Any crowd that you're particularly aiming for?
Jim Norton:
Yeah, an open, happening crowd. Those are the people that I like to perform for. They don't laugh at everything you say, but they judge it on whether or not it's funny. I loathe when audiences have that one little process they have to put a joke through, like Do I agree with the ideology? Does the content offend me? It's either funny or it's not, that's it. I laugh at sh** that I don't necessarily agree with. I watch comics that are really liberal and still not mind watching what they do. If I don't agree with it, I can still enjoy what they do. So when crowds make that little judgment before they laugh, I just want to f***ing spit in their faces. I hate them for it.
HBO:
Do you do colleges?
Jim Norton:
Yeah. College fans are cool but they have this hypersensitivity, because they kind of think that they're supposed to. They don't really know why they're groaning, it's just that anything that's mean is really a window into their deep-seeded superiority complexes. So they don't want to f***ing have that come out. That's why I don't do any colleges. But adults are kind of sh**heads, and kind of know what it is. College students still kind of think that they have that moral superiority, which is just irritating.
HBO:
You also had a small part in Spiderman. Can you tell us what you did?
Jim Norton:
Well there's a scene with man-on-the-street interviews, asking people what they think of Spiderman, and I just said 'He stinks and I don't like him.' I won't act it out here, just watch the movie. It was very mediocre, my acting. It kind of sucked. And that was it, just one line, and I'm surprised they kept me in. My manager was like, Do you want to audition for Spiderman? I'm like, No, f***ing I don't read that crap.
I went in and I just had this improv dialogue and I trashed him, and they kept it in. But it was fun to be in such a headlight. That's kind of cool - I'm not going to lie.
HBO:
Yeah, it's huge to be in that - it's an institution.
Jim Norton:
Yeah, yeah. I never saw it in the theater and I kind of wish I would. The first I saw it, I was with my fat friend Bob Kelly in a hotel room in Buffalo. He's such a passive aggressive sh**head, he knew that my part was coming up, so he walked out to get ice, just so he wouldn't have to watch it with me. My f***ing friends are such scumbags, they can't even celebrate my one victory in this whole business. He had to go out and get ice. So I watched it alone in a hotel room in Buffalo, really anti-climatic. It's not quite like hanging out in LA and going out with Toby and getting blown afterwards and raving at him when he gets chicks back. Me and fat Bob Kelly in a Buffalo hotel.
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