by After 23 years in stand-up comedy, Nick DiPaolo only just now has put out his first hourlong special, "Raw Nerve," which premiered last weekend on Showtime and is available now on CD.
I talked to DiPaolo after it aired. But first, let's take a look at the special. Here's a timely clip about DiPaolo's take on the Obama Administration and torture. Timely, right? Roll it.
Big weekend, eh? Your special is on Showtime, sandwiched in between President Barack Obama's White House dinner hijinx and killing Osama bin Laden. "Obama's a real cowboy, huh? I think it's way overdo, don't you? It didn't take me that long to find my wife's g-spot. Enjoy that virgin pussy, fucker."
Did you also catch the White House Correspondents Dinner video? "I caught clips here and there on the news. Some of it was really funny. Obama's got a great delivery. He's a great speaker. He does it real smooth, so he sticks the knife in real smooth. It was funny when he was zinging Trump. I thought Seth Meyers did a great job zinging Trump, too. I thought it was a cardboard cutout. (Trump) didn't move. He wasn't blinking. He was just staring. That's pretty ballsy, isn't it? To question the whole president birther thing and then show up? I think that's all good. And Seth Meyers is good, too. I like him. It must be hard sitting in a room like that. But I'm sure the president got the best jokes — Daily Show, or whomever, sent him the best stuff. But you know he's going to deliver them beautifully."
Let's get to you, though. In your new special, which is also available as a CD, you talk about the differences between doing stand-up at age 25 vs. now at 48.
"This is what I do. I still like it. I still enjoy comedy. I liked it better when I first got into it, when I was 25 years old. I was single. It was about getting laid after the show. You know? I'd go on the road, check into the hotel, run to the nearest drug store, buy candles, condoms, bottle of wine, maybe a box of hot pockets, in case I picked up a fat one. Now I'm married, I go on the road, check into the hotel, I run to the nearest drug store, it's not about getting laid, I buy like hair coloring, baby wipes, jigsaw puzzles. It's 4 in the morning, I'm laying in the hotel bed by myself with pitch-black hair, sparkling clean asshole, trying to find the corner piece to a covered bridge. What's sadder than a comedian sitting in a hot tub at a four-star hotel at 3 in the morning by himself cutting fart bubbles and giggling, you know? I remember when those were pussy farts. I gotta get back on TV!"
How much of that rings too close to home for you? "It's all close to home. It's supposed to be. It's all true. Just what the bit says. When you're young, after the show it's about getting laid, you're single. That's all true. When you should go back to the room and work on a script like Adam Sandler did. That's so disciplined. Although this weekend was great. One show in Minneapolis, get in and get out. Make a month's money in a single night. That all comes with exposure. And this Showtime thing will help."
You've never been concerned about being politically correct. How do you feel about the difference between going for the laugh versus getting applause for your material? "You don't have control over how they respond to it. That comes down to where you are politically. Look, the last 30, 40 years people have been conditioned to laugh at liberal stuff. Because that's who writes the jokes. Saturday Night Live. Making fun of old people, that's safe. But when you're on the other side like me and making fun of Obama or the First Lady, people are taught not to laugh. And I'm not even a political comic. People call it political correctness. I call it TV correctness because they get their material all sanitized and clean. But my audiences get what I do and come out to see me."
Have you been back on Louie for the second season of Louis CK's FX show?
"I did one. I did one a couple of months ago. There's no regular cast members on that show. They just call you when they need you. Louis and I are good friends. but you know me, look at my luck! I picked the show where they don't have regular casting. But he knows my sensibilities and I know him, we have a blast. We have such a loose set. We go back so far, I can bust his balls and the crew is aghast at me."
So what did you make of that "fight" with Louis CK during the first season being turned into a "real" incident due to gossipers? I know what Louis said, but what was your thought? "What happened was an extra on set recorded the audio and then threw it up on the internet, which was good and bad. And then Howard Stern talked about it. Which was good. But that scumbag will never work again."
Although you didn't really fight with Louis CK, you do go after at least one comedian in "Raw Nerve" with your bits about Rosie O'Donnell, though. "If you call her a comedian. Fat cunt. People say she's an easy target. But she is. She's got a big mouth. And now Oprah's going to give her a TV show. Is that what we really need? She's shitting on our men and women soldiers fighting over there. And then when we were doing 'Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn,' the original pilot on NBC, she was difficult."
But that got left in the special. "Yeah. I figured Showtime would cut that, the gay women's network, but they apparently hate her, too. I don't hate her personally. And like I said, it's kinda timely."
Are you keeping up with technology and social media? I notice you liveTweeted during the Showtime airing last weekend. "Yeah, pretty tricky! I had my web guy do that. I gave him a bunch of lines beforehand. They asked me to (liveTweet), and I said, 'No, I'd be onstage when it airs in Minneapolis, and I was."
"I'm already starting to write a new hour, which takes a year or two to put together. I touch on all of that. I'm not computer illiterate. But I go into the Apple Store, Westchester Mall, I'm looking at stuff I don't know what it is. The Genius Bar is a bunch of Indian kids, I ask him, 'Why are these iPods $299 and these other ones are $28?' And he said, 'Well, these ones are just the cases.' They're using Facebook to overthrow dictators in the Middle East and I'm using it to get 80 people into the Funny Bone in Omaha. I like to read political stories on the Internet and then read the comments, it shows you how uncivil we are as a society…"
Are there any differences between the CD version of "Raw Nerve" and the Showtime special? "The stuff that didn't make the Showtime special, and there'll be a DVD coming out, too. There were 10-12 minutes that got cut out for one reason or another. Those will be bonus tracks. I made fun of Katie Couric, killer bit, which they didn't let me use because she's an employee of CBS and CBS is part of Viacom, which owns Showtime."
If you had waited just a little big longer, you would have been OK with that since Katie is leaving CBS. "Yeah, that's my timing!"
You can buy Nick DiPaolo's "Raw Nerve" on iTunes or Amazon.com. It'll be available later in physical CD and DVD formats.
