Our Moment with Ben

New York magazine knew what they were talking about when they said, "If you've laughed in the last ten years, Ben Karlin was responsible." Karlin's career kicked off as the editor of The Onion and he is the former executive producer of the award-winning The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and co-creator and former executive producer of The Colbert Report. He was also a co-author and co-editor of the bestselling America (The Book) and his latest project takes him back to the book world as the editor of the anthology (with the best book title of 2008 so far) Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, 212 pages of semi-insightful and mostly hilarious life lessons from a lineup of writers and comedians.

I recently caught up with Karlin to talk about his new book, the ongoing writers' strike, the serious job of writing comedy, and what makes him laugh (hint: it isn't America's Funniest Home Videos). You can read the complete interview or listen to the podcast on Amazon Wire. --BTP

Amazon.com: First question I have for you... Are you sporting a strike beard?

Karlin:   [Laughs] I don't have the ability to grow a strike beard. I can grow a series of strike patches.

Amazon.com: Have you been tuning in to see how Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are handling their return to the airwaves?

Karlin: You know, I haven't seen--I saw a little bit. For me, I think what's far more interesting has been not what they do in week one, but what they're going to do in week three. [Laughs] Week one you can really talk about, My god, we're back on the air and we don't have writers. You have a lot of games probably stored up. But I think the real challenge is probably going to be three or four weeks into this thing how fast they can dance. I guess those two guys probably are as well equipped as anyone on planet Earth to do that.

Amazon.com: So taking us back to December 2006 when you stepped down from your dual role as executive producer on both of those shows. I'm sure your days were filled with humor--

Karlin:   I was drunk. I just want you to know that. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done that.

Amazon.com: [Laughs] That must've been extremely stressful. Can you take us into a typical, or atypical, day for you back then?

Karlin: By the end--it was very different from when you're starting up a show than when the show has kind of found its legs. I liken it to perhaps how a small child grows. When a small child is learning to walk it's quite comical to see it on wobbly legs and it looks like it's not a small child but a drunk old man. But then the child soon learns to walk and can actually go places on its own. It's kind of the same deal with a new show. Starting up a show you always have to be around and making sure things are right and there isn't going to be a sharp object that the show will then fall and impale itself on (to keep using this metaphor until it's no longer useful).

So I think at the beginning, doing both shows, it was really like I was trying to split myself in two. Managing the day to day of The Daily Show--that's basically beyond a full-time job, and then on top of that you had the rush of the hiring of people and finding out exactly what the show was going to be, the kind of creative genesis stuff of the new show. Then once Colbert launched it was two very similar processes but in very different stages of being. So you're kind of wearing two different hats, dealing with, for example, a group of writers who have been working together for five or six years versus a group of writers who did not know each other 30 days ago. So it's a very different dynamic that you're trying to jump between different rooms, different buildings as well. And also putting on a very different type of hat in terms of how you're dealing with problems or creative challenges that come up when putting together a show.

I know that's a very obtuse kind of answer. It doesn't have the brass tacks, like, At 9AM I would have a cappuccino... But I feel like the day to day guts of putting together a comedy show is the least funny thing in the world.

Amazon.com: Did you have to turn in your scooter that you used to use to go back and forth?

Karlin:   No, I actually kept the scooter. I do not use it for such short distances anymore, though.

Amazon.com: So essentially, Ben, what makes you laugh? Are you quick to find amusement in situations or is your funny bone pretty jaded?

Karlin: I would say that my funny bone is fairly jaded. I think it's the same thing that probably happens to anyone who spends way too much time doing something. That thing becomes kind of demystified in a way. You can kind of see the wheels turning and understand it on an intellectual level rather than a visceral level. I do find a lot funny but it's usually things that aren't intended to be funny or are truly surprising. I find that the Internet has actually been, for me, a personal Renaissance of humor. There's just so much content that is rediscovered or repurposed or coming from a really strange place, and to me, that's really joyful. For me, comedy is all about surprise and it's always surprising when you click on a link and you don't know what it's going to be and then it's something and you're trying to figure out what it is. To me, that is a really exciting and funny thing that takes away that guard you normally have when something is professionally produced and you're watching it television, which you kind of understand a lot more.

Amazon.com: Does America's Funniest Videos do it for you?

Karlin:   It does not. [Laughs] It does not. I mean, I love a good swift kick to the nuts as much as the next guy...

Amazon.com: Now, Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me is easily the best title of a book so far in 2008. I know we still have a ways to go...

Karlin:   It's a little early. Talk to me in mid-February.

Amazon.com: Was the title the first thing that came to you and everything fell into place after that.

Karlin: Absolutely. [Laughs] Actually, the title was for a TV show idea I had... I pitched a TV show to NBC some years ago when I had a deal with them and... They didn't like it. They liked the title. They didn't like the concept very much. But I always kind of carried around that title with me. And then when I wanted to do a book I knew that I had that title and I had an idea for TV show and I thought, oh wait a second, can that TV show idea be converted into a book idea and it kind of then became an anthology.

Amazon.com: So the anthology features a really eclectic lineup of contributors. There's Stephen Colbert, A.J. Jacobs, Dan Savage, Andy Richter... How did you go about compiling this shortlist of people you wanted involved?

Karlin: It was a very very complicated process. It involved me opening up my e-mail address book and scanning it for people who I thought were really funny. I started with the people who I know and I think are really funny. I actually did start out thinking that I would ask people of grand status, like Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, Bruce Springsteen. Then I remember this famous quote--not necessarily famous--by a longtime writer at Saturday Night Live. He was always asked why SNL was so inconsistent and he would always respond, Have you ever tried to make Wayne Gretzky funny? And I think that's a really good point. If you want to do a funny book you absolutely have to have funny people. Even if you were lucky enough to get Bruce Springsteen or Bill Clinton to write something for your book it's never going to reach the comedic standard that you want if you're writing a comedy book or putting together a comedy book. I really just wanted to make sure that all the people in the book were people who I legitimately thought were funny in one way or the other.

Amazon.com: And that includes your mother?

Karlin: [Laughs] Well, no. That did not include my mother. The mother thing was kind of this weird very hare-brained idea that you should get the least objective person in the universe to defend someone who's been dumped and that person is always going to be the mom. Mothers would never dump their sons.

Amazon.com: Was you mom difficult to work with?

Karlin:   She was not difficult to work with. Honestly, her piece came in in better shape than a lot of the others.

Amazon.com: [Laughs] And aside from your mom's essay and your own, do you have a favorite from the collection or is that too hard?

Karlin: I don't really have a favorite. There are things about certain pieces that I absolutely love. Some are just flat-out hilarious, others are kind of more poignant than I would have thought possible from people who I never looked at in that way. I don't think that I have like one piece that really jumps out at me the most. I think that Dan Vebber's piece, the first piece in the book... I think that achieves a great balance and that's why I put it first. It has a lot of funny jokes in it but it also was about something incredibly relateable and really specific to Dan Vebber's voice as a writer. He isn't one of the more well known people in the book. I feel that that story, in a certain way, accomplishes as much if not more than I wanted to with the book.

Amazon.com: Was putting the collection together sort of like making a mix-tape--a literary mix-tape?

Karlin: It was... I wish it wasn't so difficult, just the logistics of getting in touch with people and getting them to agree and working with them. Everybody's all over the place and everyone's really busy. It's like putting together a mix-tape if each song was on a different computer in a different state and some were in different countries. You know? So it's that kind of mix-tape. You have to go to Belgium to get the Led Zeppelin song.

Amazon.com: While we're shelving this book in Humor rather than Self-Help, do you think there are any life lessons a young man can take away from this volume?

Karlin: Um... Yes. If you find yourself in a foreign prison facing charges you don't understand, it might be time to change some of your behavior.

Amazon.com: Nothing to do with women--

Karlin: [Laughs] No. I don't think you should be turning to this book for anything other than joy and laughter and hopefully... Laughter.

Amazon.com: Do you want to keep it away from your girlfriend or do you think, High Fidelity style, it offers a little insight into the male psyche?

Karlin: If it doesn't then the book is kind of a failure. If people read the book I do think that they will take away either something very specific about a specific type of mind or maybe some general kind of amalgam of, like, wow, I didn't know people thought that way, or I didn't know that kind of behavior was interpreted that way. I hope so. I mean, I feel like, for me, the worst kind of book is one that the second you close it it's like completely gone from your mind. All you did was fill some time, but it didn't enrich you in any way. I would really hope on some level, besides just providing some laughs, does give someone something. Maybe the clap? Can a book give someone the clap?

Amazon.com: [Laughs] I don't think it can. Depends if you find it somewhere.

Karlin:   OK.

Amazon.com: The Port Authority or something.

Karlin:   Yeah.

Amazon.com: I think it has the potential, from a marketing standpoint, to definitely become a perennial favorite on the Valentine's Day circuit.

Karlin: That was the idea. That was definitely the idea. I think that corner on ironic Valentine's Day books hasn't quite been turned and I'm trying to do that.

Amazon.com: Finally, Ben, I just wanted to ask you if you could tell us... Can you share any details on your development deal with HBO? What you're going to be working on...

Karlin:   Besides re-inventing television? You mean you want something more specific than that?

Amazon.com: A little more narrow.

Karlin: The strike has obviously kind of put a serious kibosh on almost everything we're doing, at least in the short term. We're obviously hopeful that that won't be the case in three or four months, or two months, or hopefully one month. What we're doing, and one thing that we actually can do while the strike is on, is that we're doing a series of readings from the book. We're turning the book into a live stage show with the various contributors. And we will be performing that show in New York and in Los Angeles. We're also going to go to Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin. That is something that's actually taking over for lots of work. That's actually the thing I'm working on the most right now. Seeing how these pieces sound out loud. Obviously there's an audiobook. Seeing how something feels performed and seeing if maybe there's a TV show in there after all, which would be kind of fitting.

Amazon.com: And with the Valentine's Day theme you've got kind of a hip Vagina Monolgues thing going on there.

Karlin:   Exactly! Exactly. The world has been waiting for a hipster version of The Vagina Monologues.

Comments

[Jackie O'Neal on February 02, 2008 at 08:58 AM]

I really enjoyed reading about how the anthology was compiled. It de-mystifies the process in a certain way. When I was in the graduate writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, we met with many famous writers, but I wanted to hear more of a casual response about the process of writing. The tone of your blog is both humorous and accessible.

Jackie