The Daily Orange: A 12 p.m. interview – isn’t that a little early for you?

Dave Attell: It’s a radio day. Usually I like to sleep in.

Syracuse University has a big reputation for binge drinking – do you think your jokes sound better to drunk people?

Usually, once people start drinking, they have their own jokes that they yell out at me. I know that’s a party school, so I guess that’s a perfect match.

So why not ‘Insomniac Syracuse?’

We’re just done shooting for now, we only get 10 shows to shoot. Anything’s possible, but this is a theater show.

How is touring colleges different from, say, a gig at Caroline’s (a famous club in New York City). Do you change your act depending on the audience?

With colleges you have to be kind of politically correct. Usually there’s a lot of politically incorrect stuff that they don’t want you to talk about. But I usually don’t do those colleges. I like to do more the ones where you learn to fix a diesel engine in six weeks. Those people, they really don’t care – they’re just glad to have something to do before they go home.

Not exactly SU.

Syracuse is a good school, so I really don’t know how to change my act up. I think everybody pretty much knows what I’m about, and if they’re offended then I’m thinking, ‘What did you think you were gonna see, puppetry of the whatever, Blue Man Group?’

So, what’s with all the gay jokes? Are they just an inherently funny group of people, or is there something you don’t want us to know?

I like talking about all different things. I guess it’s politically incorrect. I think for yourself, asking the question, you’re a little, let’s just say, uncomfortable and curious … maybe a dancer.

I’m actually out. I was just curious.

Is that why you were late, were you on gay time? Did you have to tweeze your eyebrows and look at your ass in the mirror?

Yeah, it’s my morning routine.

Was that critical? I’m gonna judge the crowd from you, man. Are you feeling bad?

I think I’ll be alright.

I hope people aren’t offended by those jokes, but I have a feeling that we live in these politically correct times, which are not politically correct if you read the newspapers. People are killing each other, they’re blowing things up, there’s millions of pandemic viruses, kids are dying all over the place. It’s weird to not be able to say a word. And if you listen to my jokes about the gay thing, it all has to do with just me personally. It has nothing to do with a group of people or anything like that. I do have one joke that is politically incorrect, and that’s my Eskimo joke, but I try and follow it up with a pro-whaling bit.

What’s your favorite character from ‘Insomniac’?

There’s the street guy, who is probably the most interesting of the bunch, but he’s like clinically insane, so Comedy Central will never let us put those people on. Like the guy just walking around with a lunch pail on his head. The most interesting character, I guess, would be Neal Smither, he’s the crime scene cleanup dude, which for college kids especially, that’s a field of work that not many people are going into. This guy is cleaning up hotels and suicides. People don’t see that much, but its an important job and he’s well-known for it. He’s an intense guy.

What are you doing with all the snapshots you take during the course of the show?

You see that movie ‘One Hour Photo?’ I put them all on the wall and I like to masturbate to them. I keep them.

You said you haven’t been able to fuck with crowds as much because they know who you are. They have higher expectations of you. Will you feel that way for the Syracuse show?

No, usually the stand-up aspect of it is pretty good. People will ask me, ‘Where are you going drinking tonight?’ It’s usually later on in the bars when people see me drinking. That’s when it gets a little intense, ’cause it just becomes this never-ending ‘I want to do a shot with the guy who’s on the show, man, and then tell him why I should have that show.’ That kind of gets old.

Is it less exciting to play to an uncritical audience because you don’t have to work as hard?

I don’t think there’s a critical audience or an uncritical audience. It’s either people get it or they don’t get it. I don’t talk about anything up there that people don’t do in their daily lives. It’s not like I’m this alternative genius or something, up there tying my cock into different butterfly shapes and stuff. College audiences are usually really enthusiastic.

Published on September 25, 2003 at 12:00 pm