Spinning Platters Interview: Jackie Kashian

Jackie Kashian is one of Spinning Platters’ most favorite comics. Her podcast Dork Forest embodies pretty much everything we stand for. She has another podcast call The Jackie and Laurie Show with Laurie Kilmartin, where they discuss the trials and tribulations of being a female touring stand up. She’s in town this weekend for three appearances at SF Sketchfest, presented by Audible. Those appearances can be found here!

Spinning Platters: Now still a good time for this interview?

Jackie Kashian: Yes, matter of fact. It is probably the best time because I’m about to park this car and the audio is better because my phone is dumb.

SP: Oh.

JK: Here we go.

SP: So, Wait. So, you’re driving right now?

JK: Well I’m about to park.

SP: Okay, Fair enough.

JK: Yes, I’m hands-free.

SP: Okay, cool. The best thing that could possibly happen and the worst thing that could possibly happen is if you got pulled over mid interview.

JK: [laughs] Yes, think of the drama.

SP: It’ll be so exciting. All right since we’ve got a lot of important questions to ask, my first question of course is what are you up to? Where are you parking at?

JK: I’m parking in front of my home in Van Nuys California, very glamorous ticky-tacky  house. Do you remember the Monopoly board homes? That is what my tiny house looks like.

SP: So no windows, and made of plastic?

JK: Completely made of plastic. Bright green.

SP: Excellent and your rent gets more expensive the more other houses get built near you?

JK: Right, I’m waiting for the  mc-mansions to pop up around me. They  want us to turn our garage into an apartment because there’s a serious homeless problem. The hilarity of that. And we’re gonna do it.

SP: That’s nice. So, you’re going to like be using your homes to house local homeless people effectively?

JK: There’s an L.A. county program called PACE and it will turn your garage into a living space.  The deal is that you get, I don’t know if you get tax breaks or what you get but they help you pay for it, and then the deal is like because of the tax breaks that they help you pay for it, you have to rent it out to people that are on a list in the city that need help.

SP: So then it becomes like low income housing kind of right?

JK: It becomes low income housing but after 10 or 15 years or something like that, then you can turn it into a regular, then you can gouge the hell of whoever you might want to. Or you can rent it out, what I plan on doing is just renting it into the new batch of comics that come every year. That’s something reasonable because they need to do something because they don’t have any money.

SP: That’s a good idea, it becomes a different version of low-income housing.

JK: It is a different version of low-income housing. So that was cool but helpful in some way.

SP: So you grew up in Wisconsin, what was the point of your career that brought you to L.A.?

JK: Well, it was in 1996 or 7 I think it was. I did a comedy festival and there were agents and managers there and it is the job of every agent and manager I think in Los Angeles and New York to say “Oh my gosh you should totally move to Los Angeles or New York.” And then you think that they’re offering you something and they are not. They are just saying ‘If you’re gonna try to do this you might as well roll up the flag pole to see if anyone salutes at a higher level.’

SP: Right.

JK: Which is what happened to me, in 1996 I think it was I did a comedy festival for HBO in Aspen, Colorado and I met a bunch of hair cuts and they were like “You should move to L.A.” And I have friends who live here and I was like “I’ve got to move to L.A. and see if anyone cares.” And so far everyone has been very polite.

SP: Starting to care maybe?

JK: Well they’ve cared at varying levels, you know very much a line graph of you know, it’s a sound wave and like when they care and they don’t care and what it all means in the end.

SP: So by caring, are they are happy to have you there or by caring that they actually helped you like find a job and a place to stay?

JK: Employing me when I was hoping that they were caring, like you know I mean everyone moves to Los Angeles thinking that they’re going to get either acting, writing or just a lot of sets. Just a lot of work and I think I came thinking that I would try to get into the clubs and then maybe get some acting gigs. That was what I did. So, I’ve had some acting gigs but mostly like I got that third thing where I’ve got to do a lot of stand-up comedy and I feel pretty psyched about that.

SP:You came for acting and stand-up but I think a lot of your fan base knows you best at this point for your two different podcasts.

JK: True. The podcast thing is weird because like I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 21 years and podcasting was invented probably 15 years ago and I started my podcast “The Dork Forest” 13 years ago. So I got in on the ground floor of something that nobody thought was going to be anything ever.

SP: Right.

JK: It’s just you know sort of, it’s a radio program kind of thing but it’s incredibly fun and it’s so simple anyone can do it. Right? All you need is a recording device and a computer and you can upload a show. You can do your own show and talk about whatever you want and that’s what brought me to it, and the name of it is based on a joke I did from like 1998 to 2003 called ‘The Dork Forest.’ So, what happened then was, I used it as an excuse to talk to people about what they really liked, you know whatever they were dork about. Right?

SP: Yeah.

JK: So, like I think last week was the band Ween, it’s weird. I don’t even know about the band.

SP: Yeah.

JK: So, mostly I don’t know what we’re talking about, I talk to comics about their sneaker collection and I would call them tennis shoes. I would say things out loud like “Who is Jay-Z?” And then I would find out like or “Is Joni Mitchel still alive?” Whenever music or sport or fashion I am completely, I have an empty slate. You can start at the very beginning and that’s the Dork Forest is super fun, but if it’s like nerd stuff if it’s like more traditional dorky stuff like video games, movies, comic books and science fiction and reading I can usually keep up and ask you know, then I’m not so much an empty vessel that you’re pouring your dork dom into. I can make more of a dialogue.

SP: Sometimes I think the empty vessel will do so great because you ask all the dumb questions that I would ask.

JK: Exactly, you have to ask the dumb questions I’m there for you. I mean its like, who? Alright, tell me again. What? Like, so chess? How many players? What? Anyway, or whatever. I mean it’s literally, it can be anything. I learned about cricket one time. Currently, I know very little about cricket but for an hour after the episode about cricket I knew about cricket.

SP: And then you forget again.

JK: That’s true.

SP: Has anyone’s dork-dom over something you haven’t known turns you into a fan of something?

JK: Yes, just recently. Amy Miller.

SP: I love her.

JK: I did her podcast and so I went to her apartment to do her podcast and she has a giant framed photo, not even a poster, a photo of Dolly Parton on her wall. And I looked at her and I’m like “Are you fan of Dolly Parton?” And it turns out she is an enormous fan Dolly Parton and so she talks to me about Dolly Parton for an hour and now I currently love Dolly Parton. How weird is that? It is really great.

SP: Yes, it is great. A conversation I have with many people pretty often is that Dolly Parton is the one entity that’s nearly impossible to hate by anybody.

JK: Right, she hasn’t done anything, but she also isn’t a doormat. Like she’s a genuinely whole person that you can like. Well, when I first talked about the black baseball league from the late, early 1900’s and I, baseball it has not made me a fan of baseball, almost nothing could. But it has made me a fan of the Negro League which sounds really cool.

SP: Yeah I think I listened to that one and it was really interesting.

JK: Yeah, all the great groups episodes are fascinating, I mean the thing about the Dork Forest is that you have comics on it. It’s plug and play, right? They’re gonna talk over an hour whether you are there or not.

SP: Are you having any trouble booking guests for it now after it’s been so many years?

JK: No, they’re coming out of the woodwork, I get two in Indianapolis I have some fans like “Can I be on?” And I’m like “Yeah, everyone can be on everyone is a dork.” Attainable goal to be on the Dork Forest. The biggest problem is in the scheduling and so I’ve been in Indianapolis doing the comedy act. I was doing Bloomington Indiana and these two Indianapolis who has done some stand-up. So I think that’s how they found me and one of them talked about Ween and the other one talked about karate, and she said it sounds, yes it sounds like a douche bag way to say it but that’s actually how you pronounced it. So, we talked about karate for about an hour and it was kind of fascinating. It was an amazing episode.

SP: That’s awesome.

JK: There’s been a lame episodes where I have not been able to, like I can’t ask the right questions, like I usually can. My interview skills hopefully have improved in 13 years. Like Laurie Kilmartin and Kathleen Madigan do a very early episode of the pre-recorded ones there’s 200 episodes that are essentially conference call episodes that you would have to, they’re buried in the yard and I have them all in the hard drive. But there’s 500 episodes that are pre-recorded so there’s plenty. But the Kathleen Madigan/Laurie Kilmartin one is entirely about the Kennedys. And I was so happy they had each other because I don’t know anything about Kennedys.

SP: I wouldn’t know.

JK: And not John Kennedy like his siblings and his parents, how weird is that?

SP: I guess I had a friend in college that was really obsessed with the greater Kennedy world.

JK: Yes. That’s it exactly, the greater Kennedy world.

SP: Yeah, there’s that movie with the Parker Posey where she’s obsessed with the Kennedys and tries to kill her brother.

JK: Oh, wow.

SP: Yeah, no idea.

SP Editor, Dakin’s Wife, Amy, eavesdropping: House of Yes.

SP: Yes, House of Yes. Thank you.

SPEDWAE: No problem.

SP: Yeah, that friend did not like that movie. Speaking of Laurie Kilmartin because that feels like a good segue since you brought her up. So, you’re here in town next weekend to do couple of stand-up sets and stand-up games, and then your podcast with her, which is an awesome premise because, it’s talking about women in comedy and also elevating women in comedy.

JK: Yeah.

SP: So, since the podcast started, how has that changed booker’s response to you specifically and what you’ve seen about women in general?

JK: You know what’s interesting is there are a couple of bookers who listen to the show. What I’ve got is I’ve got most of the indie bookers not club bookers like the old dinosaurs, like the guys that owns Helium. That guy is not listening to the Jackie and Laurie Show.

SP: No.

JK: I mean, if I don’t listen to podcasts, why should he be? But in all the towns where somebody books venues like Helium, and there’s an indie stand-up kind of conglomerate, like a bunch of comics trying to make you know 500 bucks on a Friday. San Francisco is a perfect example of that. So those people are all listening to the Jackie and Laurie show and the fascinating things is the fact that the next, the newer comics are super into it and the newer comics are telling all the Indie bookers, so Laurie and I for example were just in Boston Saturday. Laurie and I each did half an hour, and then we did the full Jackie and Laurie show. And he brought us in and he can’t do it their Indie shows so they are setup differently than club and we both came up to the club system. So we have certain expectations about what the booker provides that we’ve had to adjust if we want to do this, and we do. I actually love sitting down with them talking about stand-up. I mean there’s so many podcast where it’s just a couple of middle aged white guys talking about stand-ups and they usually don’t do stand-up before the live shows. So there’s that added elements and where two white middle aged ladies talking about stand-up comedy, so it’s more of a lateral move, we’re not breaking the glass ceiling here but it’s been really gratifying the response to it because you never know if a podcast, I was actually quite angry. No I was mock angry at how popular it was compared to the Dork Forest. So whenever people come up to me and say “I love your podcast.” And I’m like “Jackie and Laurie? Yeah.” And there’s a beat and most of them say “oh, and the Dork Forest”.

It’s so very specific you know I was thinking about this lately where if you only listen to the Dork Forest I am the nicest person on the planet because I let someone talk about what they love a lot and I encourage it and we celebrate it, right? If you only listen to Jackie and Laurie show I am an exhausted snarky jackass because all I’m talking about is sort of the good and bad things that happened in stand-up comedy for me, for people in general, and for women in specific. Right? And if you only listen to my stand-up and neither of my podcasts you’d think I’m your aunt or your college roommate. I can’t figure it out, depends of course.

SP: Your college roommate and your aunt.

JK: Or your college roommate’s aunt, maybe?

SP: What if your college roommate was your aunt?

JK: Rodney Dangerfield reboot.

SP: Yeah. Sorry.

JK: [laughs]

SP: No.

JK: [laughs] That was her response. No!

SP: I apologize for everything. I’d like it if it was you and not Rodney. You have to actually be the aunt then it’s okay. The uncle it turns creepy… We brought you to talk about is our plan to do a remake of Back to School with you starring. What do you? Sorry, I don’t actually have that written.

SP: One of my questions was like for well we were gonna say this for the end but it kind of fits in now. Like if someone was, I’m always telling everyone you’re my favorite comic and I never know what to tell them to start with, so what would you want people to start with in your huge repertoire?

JK: Which album?

SP: Yeah which album or which podcast do you think like lends people to who you are or what who’s Jackie?

JK: Well if they don’t want to be surprised they should start with Jackie and Laurie. If they wish to see a simpler time Jackie they should start with the Bride album.

SP: Yeah.

JK: Because that one was great, actually it was number 1 on Amazon the year it came out and there were like countless comedy albums of that year. So, it’s the first time anyone ever speaking of someone getting an album, that’s the first time I had ever made kind of a list like that and the Bride album is mostly, it’s sort of the silliest and has a bunch of origin stories stuff on it so it’s kind of great for that. And then I love it to say late in the sentences, that’s amazing that I’m your favorite comic thank you very much.

SP: You’re welcome. You deserved it.

JK: Thank you. I appreciate it.

SP: So you’ve been doing stand-up for a long time and how was your stand-up comedy evolved in the years you’ve been doing it?

JK: Well, blessedly it has evolved you know, I mean the worst trap I think that a comic can get into is they stop writing or they get really mad at the stuff they didn’t get to do and so they get kind of bitter. So, like four of my albums, really because there was an album I printed myself back in 96-97 that I burn on  my own computer and then put a sticker on it and then sold those and a lot of that material is on the Bride album actually. So which is why the first album if you go to Amazon, Circus People, it’s sort of out of order but I would say, here’s what’s happened with the stand-up, I’ve always been kind of a story teller which is why I kind of thrive during the old comedy boom of ’97 to 2003, because that’s what all those guys were doing. It was a story telling genre where there were punch lines in it. You especially tell the story of how you wrote the joke and then tell the punch line and that’s how I’ve always written, what’s mostly changed is me accepting, you know good advice early on is that to never be afraid to be vulnerable not to do self-deprecating. The difference of self-deprecating comedy and just sort of being open to not being the hero, Right? Because there’s sort of ‘this sucks’ and it sucks because it shouldn’t be, I mean I don’t know why I wish I had a very specific example but what I can think of is a little too on the nose. Anyway, but there’s comics who are just angry and they’re just like “I’m an idiot so I do stupid things.” There’s this kind of brand of comedy that is self-deprecating that isn’t productive to me, I don’t mind “I’m a smart person and I do dumb things.” Because that’s funny and in both cases the third beat of those should always be a punch line. It’s not I’m an idiot I do dumb things, end of joke. I’m a smart person I do dumb things, end of joke. Whatever. Dumb things are funny but I not necessarily. What’s the point of you telling me that you shit your pants. Is there a punchline, right? I’m not saying that couldn’t be funny… I could say that but I won’t, and comedy is so subjective. I’m talking around a thousand people, but the thing, anyway, the way I changed is I become more willing to express the most current vulnerability thing that I’m working on. I am doing a lot of stuff that could be considered full on political comedy, except for that I’ve never done political comedy before. I’ve done sociopolitical comedy, right? Where I talked about sort of financial justice and push people around and stuff like that, but I haven’t you know, named names or you know set anything very specific and I’m still not super specific about it, but there’s absolutely no mystery in anybody’s heart or mind that not in our jobs is not my you know… I’m speaking up against genuinely standing up to people who are mean, my current jokes is about how the premises, is how mine, now my job is to stand up against other meaner or stupider white people, and I have an advantage because I’m a middle aged white lady and we cannot be killed and then I do a joke on that. But I mean that’s the premise and that premise is full of things that I don’t know if I would talked about 10 years ago talking like specifically talking about being white, I would probably couched it as my family or something else, right? Comedy or I would couched it a different way. Now, another layer I just pull the sheets off of that and I’m just like “Well, I guess this is what I’m writing about so I hope you enjoy it.” Which is always how it’s been though because I don’t know how to not do that like I’ve never purposefully written to an audience right. I don’t do a lot of corporate and sometimes for corporate gigs,  you have to write to a topic, to a corporation and I’ve never been able to do that, I’m sure I can learn to do it I don’t want to. Don’t make me.

SP: That made me think of something that I’m not sure if you talked about on Jackie and Laurie, I can’t remember, but there’s the whole thing, like myself as a 40 year old white woman, where as you go into middle age you become more and more invisible, do you think that it affects comedy in being booked and things like that as well, or is it just easier to be vulnerable because people don’t? You’re almost dismissed.

JK: Is the question whether be vulnerable because no one is paying attention to you?

SP: Yeah.

JK: There’s something in that, I think something in that. The fact it’s like they’re either going to book me or  not book me, at this late date, right. So I might as well talk about the things I want to talk about and I think there’s something in that for sure, I know that it’s like a broder question. You know that there’s sexism and I don’t know if this is true of my friends who are black and brown and Asian, like you know there’s racism but you can’t stop trying because there’s racism or sexism or any of that. Right?

SP: Yeah, the only thing to do about it is to push through, right?

JK: Right because I mean the work is the work right and you’re supposed to just get the pleasure from doing the job. Sometimes that works and sometimes you’re like ‘I like it but I wish someone would give me a giant bag of money for it.’ Right? So you’re like I didn’t get that because I was a woman and you’re like ‘Okay.’ Well the key part of that sentence is, or this is how I’ve always lived my life, you didn’t get that because you’re a woman the key part of that sentence was you didn’t get that.

SP: Right.

JK: So keep working because it won’t, you’ll meet a guy booker who doesn’t care… There are these guys who just books the funny comics and I don’t know if it’s a sign of inattentiveness or if it’s him trying to effect some change, because there are also you know plenty of male bookers who are trying, who are making the effort which actually needs to be made because we all automatically go to the things that we go to, I know more white women comics than black women comics. Black women comics know more black women comics than I do you know, and white guys tend to know a lot of white guys. So they’re gonna book the people that are in front of them and so if you want to mix it up you actually have to make a small amount of effort.

SP: Knowing what your biases are and then being aware of them when you work.

JK: Yeah knowing how to actually just being your self aware of the fish bowl that you are in and being willing to look outside it, something that I am still learning you know. It’s very funny, Marie Bamford said to me the other day she goes “You are the greatest! The greatest threat to your next hour is the bitch that begins. “Let me teach you the thing I just learned.” All right it went out wrong.

SP: Although I do love that the prospect that somebody in Tucson is the perfect example of somebody that seems to be judging people exclusively on the merit of their work.

JK: And their willingness to work for $850 a weekend. There’s a Ven Diagram. One of the last times I worked for him I got there before the show and he comes up “Okay, I don’t even want to mention this, but someone just mentioned it to me, it can’t possibly matter, but I accidentally booked all women like you have a woman emcee and a woman feature that doesn’t bother you right?” And I said ” No it does not.” “Are they funny?” “Sure, I like them.” He was like, “that’s what I’m looking for usually.” But here’s the weird thing that happens to straight white guys all the time because it’s usually you know 85% of whatever of every show is straight white guys. Then after the show different audience members would come up and tell they like joke the joke of mine that was not mine.

SP: Interesting.

JK: They mixed up the women.

SP: Wow.

JK: And I know that happens to white guys who do stand-up all the time. They say “Oh I loved that bit about Chicago!” and he’d be like “I’m from Philly. You’re thinking about the feature, and I’m glad you liked his joke.” But that’s almost exactly what happened to me with this they’re like “I love your joke you did about those shoes.” And I’m like “I didn’t do that joke.” But she did, and it was a great joke, you’re right.

SP: I guess we’ll know there’s progress when you get more and more of that.

JK: Exactly right.