There's so many good comedians in D.C. I started hanging out with those guys. Dave Chappelle was there. Actually, Dave was too young to be in the clubs, so when his mom couldn't make it, he would ask me to pretend I was his aunt, so he could do open mike.
I do enjoy them. I get to meet the next generation of comics and help them out. Big comics doing small shows was something that used to happen a lot more back in the day. I wish there was more of that.
I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that.
Samantha Bee said to me when I first started on the "Daily Show", she was like no - there is no - the only way you'll learn this job is by doing this job.
I kind of was raised at The Comedy Store by comedians. When you see my dad on stage before me and then you see me, you'll see where I got a lot of my stuff.
We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera.
I've already produced one hour specials for other comedians and I have a TV show called Stand Up Revolution where I showcase new talent and so I'd like to continue to do stuff like that and help out the next guy.
My brother nurtured the love of stand-up comedy in a skinny little black kid named Tony.
T.J. Miller and Kumail Nanjiani I met when I was in Chicago, learning how to do comedy.
When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.
And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.
When I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me.
I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me.
