Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You have to connect with people on some level,

or they're probably not going to give you more than one

shot, right?

They're probably not going to read more than one thing

that you wrote if they can't connect with you.

I know that there are certain contemporary writers that I

don't feel that the people they're writing about

are real to me.

They just seem like writing exercises to me,

so I have a hard time connecting with their work.

I think it's a bit different now as well,

when I was a young man growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina,

there were no books about gay men in the library.

I mean, there might have been in the psychiatry--

you know, in the deviant psychiatry section,

there might have been a couple of case studies.

But there weren't novels.

There weren't short story collections, nothing.

So I had to learn to relate to people just because they

were human.

I would read a novel or a short story collection,

and I could relate to it because this person was

living in the world, and I was living in the world.

And I feel like now, people want more of a mirror, right?

They want to see themselves in the book

that they're reading, right?

So if I'm going to read a book, I

need it to be about a gay man who's

62 who lives in England in the country,

but has a place in London.

And I'd have to just read my own books, I think,

if that was going to be the case.

But it's interesting to read something and then ask yourself

why you relate to it, right?

What is it about this that touches me or that--

that has meaning to me?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I mean, I'm constantly thinking, what can I cut out here?

What could go?

And sometimes, you wind up--

this will often happen.

You'll have a laugh line.

And then you'll say, well, I'm keeping this

because it's a laugh.

But then what we wind up doing is constructing an essay

around a laugh, and it never works.

It's better just to let go of that laugh or use it

for something else later.

But I've made that mistake before,

just trying to salvage a laugh, and then just heaping all

this crap on either end of it.

And then by the time you get to the laugh,

nobody's even going to laugh, because they've just

waded through all this crap to get to it,

and they've already left you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think it's important to be honest in your reactions

to things.

I think more people can relate to you.

For example, I had an editor at "The New Yorker"

who announced to me one day that he'd been working in magazine

for a long time, and he's a wonderful writer

of his own, Jeffrey Frank.

He's a novelist, and he's written

several non-fiction books.

And he said, I'm leaving, and I'm really

looking forward to it.

This is going to give me more time to concentrate on my work,

and so it's something I've been looking forward

to for a long time.

And I said, that's great.

But my reaction was, what about me?

Like, I need you.

Basically, my reaction was--

my private reaction was, I need you

to stay in this job that stifles you for my own benefit.

And it's embarrassing to admit, you know,

that you would be so selfish in that moment.

But I didn't say it, of course, but I mean,

that's what I was thinking.

And it is the sort of thing you don't really want to admit to.

If your reaction to something is selfish, just admit it.

Again, it's just going to make you more relatable, I think.

Because it's everybody's dark secret is that they're selfish.

Or if they're not selfish, they need to tell you

about how unselfish--

how unselfish they are, which means that they're

as selfish as everyone else.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I say this reluctantly.

And I know that many of you watching are going to say,

OK, I don't need to see this anymore.

I don't like dogs, never did.

If you gave me a dog, I would get rid of it.

Within hours, I would get rid of it.

And, like, I wouldn't put an ad in the paper to get rid of it.

I would have it put to sleep, because putting

the ad in the paper would be too much work, right?

Now, if I were to say that about children,

that I can't bear children, then my many people would think,

well I can forgive him that.

But man, you cross a dog person, and you are just off their list

forever.

And it's something I think about when I've been on stage

or if I'm writing something.

You know, if you say, I don't like dogs,

people just cross you off their list,

except for people who also don't like dogs.

My friend Dawn, she tied with me.

She, no, does not care about dogs one bit.

So do you hide that?

And do you say, well, I don't want--

if people knew I didn't like dogs,

they probably wouldn't want to read my book.

Or do you-- should you just aren't be honest about it

and then think, well, maybe they can connect with me

on this other level, right?

I tend to go with that, you know, and just--

I mean, I probably wouldn't write a whole book

about how much I dislike dogs, but I'm not

afraid to mention it every now and then.

So how do you draw the line between being

honest when you know that it will alienate certain people?

That's beyond your control.

The thing about writing as opposed to speaking is writing

gives you the illusion that you're in control.

And it's just that.

It's just an illusion.

You can-- you can write something,

and you can explain why, let's say, you don't like dogs.

Let's say you a bit in the face by a dog when you were young,

or you've just been hurt one time too many by pets

dying, or whatever.

And you think, well, I've explained myself,

and now the reader will--

will cut me some slack, but not necessarily.

And it's important to let go of that illusion of control,

because you don't want your writing to come across as--

as defensive, and you don't want your writing

to come off as over-explaining your position.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I always feel like if you're writing humor,

then you need to be harder on yourself

than you are on everyone else.

And that will always--

people will tend to forgive you if you're

making fun of yourself, if you're

saying the bad thing about yourself

before they even get a chance to say it.

But I don't mean doing that in a false way,

but being genuine about it.

I wrote a book a number of years ago called "Squirrel Seeks

Chipmunk," and it was a fictional book,

and it was sort of updated fables, I suppose.

And it was the same whenever I wrote any fiction.

I would look inside myself at a horrible characteristic

that I had, and that's what I would write about, whether--

you know, in that case, it was like a bear would have

my horrible characteristics.

And in the case of fiction, it would just be, you know,

a man or a woman.

But I would need look no further than myself

for the worst in human behavior.

And I am a goldmine that way.

If I'm looking for pettiness, selfishness, small-mindedness.

If you're writing a fictional story, or writing a play,

writing a fable, take that.

Take a step back, look at it, and realize how funny it is.

You can't write humor and not be able to laugh at yourself.

It's not fair.

It's like, you know, when people say, oh, I've written a book.

I've written my life story, but I don't read any books.

I don't like reading books.

It's not fair to ask someone to read your book when you're not

going to read anybody else's book.

And it's not fair to laugh at everyone else

and not laugh at yourself.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I'm one of those writers who I love

to read what I've written in front of an audience.

I've always admired people who will say, no,

I don't go on a book tour.

No, I don't want to be in front of people.

I've always felt like they're somehow purer than I am.

But at my age, I'll just accept who I am.

But I love to be in front of an audience

and I like to make an audience laugh.

It means a lot to me.

And people often say to me, well gosh, you're going to Alabama?

No one in Alabama is going to laugh at what you have to say.

But I find that audiences in America are pretty--

the audience in Alabama is not terribly

different from the audience in Seattle.

It's not terribly different from--

I mean, they-- they dress differently,

and they have different accents.

But it's the same sort of person who comes to hear me read.

So I feel like I know who the audience is.

And were I to get on stage and--

were I to get up on stage and say Donald Trump--

is Donald Trump an asshole, or what?

The audience would applaud, but I didn't

say anything clever, right?

And I didn't say--

that feels like pandering to me, right, just

to get a reaction from an audience.

And I know that the audience, sometimes you

want to be in an audience, and you want to look around,

and you want to say, wow, everybody voted the way I did,

or everybody hates the same person I do.

But I don't want to get into that with an audience.

Now, if you were to go to Republican National Convention,

and get on stage, and say, Donald Trump's

an asshole, that's interesting, right?

But not in front of generally speaking the audience that

I'm in.

I don't want that laugh.

Because those laughs, they don't--

I don't know.

They don't feel, they don't taste right to me.

And quite often, I hear from people that say,

I went to your show, and you told a story about a man

putting a coat hanger up his ass,

and I thought you were better than that.

And A, I don't know how it gets any better than that.

And I don't see the value in a clean show.

I mean, a lot of the times when people write and complain,

I just think, you know, if you're not interested in--

OK, the man shoved a dildo up his ass,

and then he couldn't get it out, and then

he went after it with a coat hanger, OK?

If you're not interested in that,

there's nothing I can do for you.