Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (53 page)

Dave: A book to read would have to be an incredibly simple book, one word or fewer. Maybe a picture book would be good. We’re not a complex band. We don’t like to play complex songs. We can’t, really.

Corey: Sounds like you’re being a bit humble. Roger McGuinn of The Byrds said you play a pretty good guitar.

Dave: Well, Roger did a tremendous amount of drugs in the ’60s. There are a couple guys in the band who aren’t bad. Ridley Pearson’s good. Mitch Albom’s not bad. Greg Iles is pretty good. When we back Roger up and they play and the rest of us are playing quietly, we actually sound like a pretty good band. My guitar has a minus four I can go to.

Corey: When Roger’s not playing, you handle lead guitar?

Dave: Sort of. It’s kind of a strong term, lead guitar. I used to call myself lead guitar but that was because my only competition was Stephen King, and I am a better guitar player than Stephen King. So are you and everyone who will read this. We now have Greg Iles, who is a good guitar player. I find that I play quieter and quieter all the time. I may not even bring my guitar anymore. I’ll hold a piece of shirt cardboard shaped like a guitar up there.

Corey: A lot of strong personalities there. What is it like when you get together?

Dave: I think musically nobody says, ‘Man, you have to do what I want to do.’ It’s more like getting people to stop talking. We are a gabby group, and we’re a large, disorganized group. It’s not whose musical vision we’re going to follow.

Who doesn’t adore a bearded doofus?

Well, maybe a lot of people, but Chris Elliott’s goofball nature always stood out for me, whether he was cavorting about on the old Letterman show or stealing movies away from Ben Stiller like in “There’s Something About Mary.”

It’s a good sign that I’m going to like somebody if they appreciate—or even know—Elliott’s short-lived sitcom “Get a Life” or if they’ve seen “Cabin Boy.” (I was one of the 17 who paid to see it in a theatre.) I talked to Chris after he had completed his first novel, ‘The Shroud of the Thwacker.’ Yes, he’s written novels; why are you laughing?!?

Corey: Where did you get an idea for penning a novel?

Chris Elliott: I had been reading a lot of these historical crime thrillers, and my first idea was to do a book on the history of New York City without doing any research and just make everything up. Since I had been reading these thrillers, I thought maybe it would be funny to add a bad element to it, an actual story to it. It went from being a coffee table book to sort of a parody novel.

Corey: What was your writing process?

Chris: I had never written anything like this before. The process I figured out as I went along. When you’re writing a screenplay, you figure everything out and then connect the dots. Everybody told me not to do that and just see where it takes you, which is what I did. There were a lot of unanswered questions every time I sat down at the computer, but that made it fun.

Corey: Who was the first person you let see a draft?

Chris: My wife was doing a chapter look, and she would spell check things as we went along. So she was the first to see it. Our senses of humor are totally different—she’s not a big fan of mine. I could hear her laughing in the other room, so I knew I was hitting her audience as least.

Corey: For people who are familiar with your work, are they going to recognize your style?

Chris: I think so. Everything that I’ve ever done, the joke has always been that I’m trying to do something else that I’m not really good at. I’m always amazed when people look at stuff I do at face value. This works as a humorous novel sort of on its own, but the joke is I’m trying to write a novel. It’s not just a parody of historical thrillers; it’s also a parody of a guy writing his first novel, in the language and the choice of words. It’s not just mimicking Caleb Carr’s style of writing. It’s a guy sitting there with a thesaurus.

Corey: How long did it take you?

Chris: It took like six months to write it, and I thought I would be able to knock it out in like three. The holidays break up your time. That was pretty intense work. I worked on it every day.

Corey: Are you a dedicated worker in general, or did you have to force yourself each day?

Chris: I didn’t with this, because I really liked the concept of this. Something I’ve found through the years is that if you really like the concept of something, the writing comes easier. It’s fun at least, sort of solving the problems. If you’re not crazy about the concept, then it’s horrible.

Corey: Are you going to do the audio version?

Chris: I’m not. I’m gonna talk to Martin Sheen. I think if I get him liquored up...

Corey: How does this guy thwack?

Chris: He actually thwacks people upside the head with a sack of apples. Dispatches his victims.

Corey: That does not seem like a fun way to go.

Chris: No, he’s a very misguided, screwed-up guy. He calls himself Jack the Thwacker because Ripper was already taken.

Corey: Did you find yourself relating to any of the characters?

Chris: I’m in the book. I put myself in the book, because when I got halfway through I thought, ‘What if they make this a movie? I could be part of it.’ I guess I relate the most to me.

Corey: How was the process of taking an author photo for the dust jacket?

Chris: I guess picking out the turtlenecks took the longest time.

Corey: How was the first book signing?

Chris: It was good. It was in New York. I did a combination signing and screening of ‘Cabin Boy’ in Boston, and there were more than 400 people there. So I was pretty blown away.

Corey: What would you say the average Chris Elliott fan is like?

Chris: I’m meeting them now. I never really thought I had fans. I thought I was just a recognizable feature of ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ or ‘Get a Life,’ or people thought I was somebody else. Meeting these hardcore fans, I am really humbled by it. What is the actual Chris Elliott fan like? They run the gamut. There are some that are a lot older than I thought because I still think of myself of having more of a college crowd audience, but there are 50-year-olds who are fans of mine. They all, I notice, wear big thick belts with big belt buckles on them.

Corey: Has anyone asked you to sign anything odd?

Chris: Not really, just ‘Cabin Boy’ posters and ‘Get a Life’ DVDs, but I did sign someone’s stomach, a pregnant woman.

Corey: I hope the ink didn’t seep in.

Chris: I wondered if I pressed too hard when I dotted the ‘i’s. The kid might have an extra dimple now.

Corey: Did you have ideas for ‘Get a Life’ to go on for years and years that went by the wayside?

Chris: We barely had ideas for the second season. The writing was pretty much on the wall at the beginning of the second season that we were gonna be canceled, so the ideas were kind of built around me not wanting to do a lot of work. The first season, those were big shows we did. Most sitcoms only do a big show every six shows, and we were doing a huge set piece every week. The second season, when we knew we were cancelled, I’d come in there and see Chris was gonna be in a vat of Jell-O. No, I’m not gonna do that. We ended up just ripping my head off and kicking it down the street in the second season.

Corey: It did change things a little bit when Brian Doyle-Murray came on as a regular. How was he to work with?

Chris: He had done an episode in the first season; he ran a male modeling school. We loved working with him. Adam Resnick and I were huge fans of his. We wanted to bring him back. One of the notes Fox was constantly was giving us was they wanted me to be more grounded and responsible, which was not at all what the show was. We would give them things, like OK, he’s gonna move out and get his own place. Then they would open the script and see that I’m moving out of my parents’ garage and into this lunatic’s garage across town. That was why Brian was brought in.

Corey: Are there plans to put the whole thing out on DVD?

Chris: Yeah, Sony plans to put it out. I’ve done commentary on it, so hopefully it will be out soon.

Corey: Are there any episodes that didn’t air?

Chris: No, there aren’t any lost episodes out there. I’m not sure if it will be on this release, but there are some outtakes. One thing that’s interesting and I don’t think they have anymore, June Lockhart was the original mom, but for some reason we had to change and re-shoot the pilot scenes with Elinor Donahue.

Corey: Is it correct that Wally from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ directed the show?

Chris: Yeah, Wally, er, Tony Dow did. It was weird because there was one day I was shooting, and Dwayne Hickman was there, and Dobbs (James Hampton) from ‘F Troop’ was there. Elinor Donahue was my mother. It was like being shoved into your TV set when you were a kid.

Corey: I think a lot of people would like to know how you got Dave Letterman to make his movie debut in ‘Cabin Boy.’

Chris: It wasn’t hard. It was at a time when Dave had done a couple cable specials for me. He had always been very supportive of what I had done, and Adam Resnick, who directed ‘Cabin Boy,’ started at ‘Late Night’ as well. So it was really just a favor he had no problem doing.

Corey: Has your relationship with Dave changed over the years?

Chris: I don’t think so. When we see each other, it’s the same. I don’t see him socially, but I don’t think I did back then either—maybe at dinner some time. I think the accessibility to him has changed, but the relationship’s the same. Every time I do that show—and I rarely do these shows now because I’m feeling old to do them—but going back and doing Dave, it just feels like the old days.

Corey: Did that bit on the Oscars with celebrities doing the Dave line from ‘Cabin Boy’ surprise you?

Chris: I didn’t even see it. I just heard about it. Adam actually directed those sequences.

Corey: Was Tim Burton on the set a lot when it was filming?

Chris: No, not a lot. The movie was originally set up for him to direct so when we were writing the script, we put in all these mythical creatures because that’s what Tim Burton likes to do. Then he decided not to direct it, and he said Adam could direct it. The budget went from being from at least a $30-40 million movie to like a $9 million movie. We never changed the mythical creatures or any of the script. We had to do a heavy special effects movie on a low budget which I think gives it the weird look that it has.

Corey: Do you think things would have been different if Tim had directed it?

Chris: I think it would have been a totally different movie. I stand by the movie as it is, though. The fact that it’s got a cult following tells me there’s something there. The people that went and saw it at the screening I was at were laughing in the right places. It wasn’t some ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ thing. It wasn’t so bad it’s good. It does work.