A Conversation with:
KATE CLINTONDo you remember the first time in your life that you
said something funny? Or when you became aware of humor as something that was
coming from you?
Well, I was actually thinking about this the other day. I was a middle
child. I had two older brothers, a younger brother and a younger sister,
and it was a way to make myself heard; sort of a way to diffuse the towel
snapping that could happen after dinner. My goal was usually to get someone
in my family to fall off a chair or something. When I was in second grade,
I did my first lip-synching at what probably was like a early version
of a gong show. I did ?Iy?Nm Getting Nuttiny?N for Christmas.?h I remember
seeing in the third or fourth row back a woman named Mrs. Como, who was
the fourth grade teacher, and she fell out laughing. I remember thinking
?I like this; this is fun?h. [laughs]
How did it make you feel?
Well, Iy?Nve taken a lot of heat for it. Certainly many people think ity?Ns
trying to divert and ignore or stay away from a problem by being funny.
But I really think that being funny can move you through tough issues
or lighten them momentarily so that you can move on. Iy?Nm always admiring
the people in meetings who could say something light and break up a hideous
gridlock [laughs] and move along.
You write a little bit in Dony?Nt Get Me Started about the first time
you started doing stand up comedy. When did you begin doing stand up?
Well, I started performing stand up in 1981 - the same year as Reagan.
I had just left teaching. Iy?Nd taught high school English for eight years,
which is very good stand up practice. When I tell people where I got my
start, they say, ?oh yes, you worked very hard there?h [laughs]. But I
had talked about performing and talked about it, and talked about it,
just wanting to try it. And my best friend, who has the lovely quality
of actually listening to you and taking you at your word, booked me in
a club and that was my first show. I had wanted to try it; Iy?Nd never thought
of going beyond that. And I got encouraged by other people, thank goodness.
At that point, what was the connection for you between writing and humor
and performing comedy?
Well, Iy?Nd always wanted to be a writer. That was what a girl could do
if she didny?Nt do nursing or teaching English. That was before word processors,
and I was a horrible typist, so there would always be these giant wite-out
holes in the paper. It was a mess. So I basically I went around and said
it. I took a writing class, and thaty?Ns how I started to perform more and
more. I mean, I would write short stories and generally be the last person
to read in a group of fairly lugubrious people and Iy?Nd make everybody
laugh. Then I felt I should try this more directly, and thaty?Ns when I
started talking about it and then finally perform. But to come now to
writing is sort of full circle. Ity?Ns lovely.
It was at the Womeny?Ns Writing Center that you first started doing that?
Yes.
What was most important for you about being in a community of other
women? How did that sense of not being alone and being supported by other
people, help you grow as a writer as well as a humorist?
I was at the National Womeny?Ns Studies Association convention last night.
I was struck again by how important their work is. Because when I was
in college there was no Womeny?Ns Studies program. I went to a Jesuit college
and I could never quite figure out what, you know, was the quintessential
American experience about hunting the great white whale. I always was
wondering ?where are the women??h And when I went to this writers program,
it was the first time that I found women who had been writing: Zora Neale
Hurston, Kate Chopin, so many women were writing, but I never could have
proved it through my college education. I mean, I wrote my Mastery?Ns thesis
on how Ralph Ellisony?Ns Invisible Man was like a jazz piece. No one ever
pointed me to women jazz performers or to black women writers. So, to
go to a place like The Writery?Ns Center was to go and be among wonderful
minds; to find the writers that I had been missing, to see other women
writing. One of the wonderful things about when I was there was that every
six weeks or so there would be visiting faculty - it was amazing! The
first week was Rita Mae Brown. At the time, I had no idea who she was.
And all these women at the Writery?Ns Center really did think I was a spy
because Iy?Nd just come from eight years of teaching and had all these teacherly
clothes. They thought I was like some spy from the ?E^burbs, you know they
were all [laughs] wonderful. So, Rita Mae Brown was there. Susan Sherman,
who wrote a literary magazine in New York at the time. And an astounding
poet whoy?Nd just won the Yale series for younger poets. Marge Piercy, and
then finally Adrienne Rich came. I was completely knocked out.
In what way did meeting those women and reading those authors most change
your life?
They made me whole. They validated what Iy?Nd been thinking. I mean, I
remember reading Mary Daly. I had so many questions about my religious
experience, growing up as a Catholic girl in a pre-Vatican experience,
and she just laid it out. It was like reading a map; it was just like
coming home. She really made me come to terms and come to peace with a
lot of the things that Iy?Nd been thinking. A lot of them about humor. I
was always worried because humor had been used against me so much, I was
worried that, perhaps, in becoming a humor practitioner myself, that I
would hurt somebodyy?Ns feelings. Or that I wouldny?Nt know what I was doing,
that I would just add to the repressive nature of humor. So reading people
like Mary Daly and other feminist thinkers really helped me to see that
the real primary joke was the joke on women, that women were oppressed
and what was that about? [laughs] So it really helped me to reclaim some
nice qualities that I had been shuffling off to the side.
What kind of experiences did you have as you began to work more and
more doing comedy?
Ity?Ns been quite a role. I mean when I first started, I performed in womeny?Ns
coffeehouses. It was a very much of a separatist experience, very lesbian,
and then in about 1985, when gay and lesbian people started working together,
in the AIDS crisis, it became less separatist and more mixed gay and lesbian
experience. At that point I think I really got the notion of ?fun.?h I
think gay men learned to be more ?content-ful?h, and women, lesbian performers,
have learned to put on more of a show. So that was a kind of nice, I learned
to have more fun and to be more showy and bigger from gay men. And then
the end of the eighties, and with the beginning of the Clinton administration,
which was a natural for me, we seemed to have done a lot more mainstreaming.
I actually think that lesbian and gay people are becoming more straight
and straight people are becoming more gay. So my humor is seen by a larger
group of people than (in the days of) the early separatist coffeehouses,
although I always called myself a feminist, which to me is a very inclusive
term. A lot of times people would think was very exclusive but I think
ity?Ns for all people. And actually my audiences seem to be reflecting that
little by little.
From what sources did you find it most interesting to find humor as
you were living through the decade of the eighties and into the nineties?
And have those sources changed?
Some have changed. Some haveny?Nt. Iy?Nm still the person at dinner parties
who, if someone says something funny, is writing it down and saying ?can
I have that??h And still very much interested in kind of found humor -
things that just present themselves. Like today, going to the airport
and having that arriving/departing moment when you drive up, where youy?Nre
arriving at the airport but youy?Nre departing, and ity?Ns like, ?Oh my god,
where do I go??h That kind of stuff really hasny?Nt changed much. But I think
the viewpoint of really looking in as an outsider has changed. I think
that as a lesbian, really, when I started not a lot of people were doing
it. [laughs] And then for a period there we were quite chic. So that the
viewpoint has changed somewhat. I think for me when I first started I
really talked about lesbian life, and lesbian politics, and lesbian social
and cultural things, and with more lesbian performers I dony?Nt have to
do all that. I feel like Iy?Nve been able to talk more about politics.
Which is a pretty good source of humor, I imagine.
Oh, ity?Ns really kind of embarrassing now. I think that has been an enormous
change lately. The political humor is very difficult to write because
ity?Ns harder to write past whaty?Ns real.
Ity?Ns hard to compete.
I know. I feel like sometimes I just say whaty?Ns happening and turn my
head [laughs].
And ity?Ns funny.
Yeah.[laughs]
In what way have you found humor to be a force for social change? Or
for awakening people?
I think humor is very dangerous. Look at Aristotley?Ns comedies and tragedies:
the comedies were destroyed, the tragedies lived on. But the comedies?
I think comedy is very, very dangerous because a number of things happen.
People put their body on the line to actually have a physical reaction,
which I think is great practice for political work. Iy?Nve actually seen
people who were extremely resistant in an audience laugh and I can see
things go into them. Therey?Ns like a window of vulnerability. They laugh
about things that they never maybe would, and in that laughing the things
come into them and they think. So I think ity?Ns very dangerous in that
way. And I really think that ity?Ns more than just - although I certainly
believe in the power of entertainment and getting away from it all and
just pure slapstick - I also think that as a feminist, I want to change
to world. And so therey?Ns a way that humor can bear the weight of that
where a lot of times the serious just cany?Nt. It just becomes overloaded.
Because peopley?Ns defenses go up if they feel like theyy?Nre going to get
a serious message?
Um hmm. And ity?Ns just really heavy. Ity?Ns heavy and they just cannot move.
I really think the sense of humor is the sense of movement. Therey?Ns a
kind of dynamic quality about it. I dony?Nt know, serious is very much a
closed system. I should have been a physicist, probably at some point,
maybe I will be [laughs].
Ity?Ns never too late. How did Dony?Nt Get Me Started come about for you?
When did you begin to think about writing a book?
Well, Iy?Nve always thought about writing a book, but then I started performing.
What happened was that I was at the Lamda literary award dinner, which
is a yearly thing that happens around the American Booksellers Association.
I emceed that and ity?Ns really one of the few times of the year where I
can write very arcane book jokes that no one else will get. Only dweebs
like me and other book people can understand them, so I wrote very specific
book jokes. The sales people from Ballantine were there and they went
to Ballantine and said, ?get her to write a book.?h Then Ballantine approached
me. Thaty?Ns how it came about.
What was the experience of writing like for you? Sitting down and writing
humor for the page, as opposed to writing for a live audience?
Well, Iy?Nve always written. I think thaty?Ns from my teaching experience.
I dony?Nt like to waste peopley?Ns time. I dony?Nt like that: ?wherey?Nre you
from??h ?Pittsburgh.?h ?Oh Pittsburgh!?h I hate that. So Iy?Nm always probably
overprepared from those old lesson planning days. But the experience of
having to translate a lot of physical things that I would do performing,
into the written word on the page, was very different. I tended to overwrite,
but I had a lovely editor who said, ?Ity?Ns ok, you dony?Nt need to write
that much.?h I really had to trust. If youy?Nre performing, there is a certain
moment [finger snap] where you want everybody to laugh. Ity?Ns very much
about control. Ity?Ns like, now! But when youy?Nre writing, you have to let
go. Which is a very difficult thing [laughs] to do. I really do trust
people I think thaty?Ns a critical factor, a critical thing for anybody
whoy?Ns into world revolution, that you trust that people, given the opportunity,
will be the best they can be and it will be good. I got back to understanding
that as I wrote, that people would read it and do what they would do with
it, and it would be ok.
Whaty?Ns most important to you about the relationship with your audience,
either as a readership or as a live audience?
Well I think that people are hideously spoken down to. I think therey?Ns
been an incredible dumbing down in comedy. Ity?Ns everywhere, ity?Ns on television,
you cany?Nt look at an e-mail listing without somebody sending you a joke
thaty?Ns so hideously racist, sexist, or something ? but [whispering] ity?Ns
email so ity?Ns ok. I think that people love to be challenged. They love
to be a part of a creative moment in live performance, they love to follow.
I mean they love to go right with me and they love to be part of it. They
love to know, to think they know, where Iy?Nm going and I dony?Nt go there.
I think people are really very happy to be challenged mentally. And I
love it when someone, in reaction to my book, says ?I really liked it.
It gave me things to think about?h. Thaty?Ns wonderful because I think that
people long for that excitement and that one of the most sexy parts of
the body is the brain.
How do you see that comedy has changed in this country in the last 30
or 40 years? And where do you see yourself fitting into the growth of
comedy as a whole?
I think ity?Ns changed enormously. The comedy delivery system has changed
from humorist writing, to performance, to then performance in a vast system
of comedy clubs, which then were superceded by the comedy channels, which
you know, that are owned by corporate [and] what drives them is money.
Theyy?Nre very standard and just do whaty?Ns been done and ity?Ns really disappointing.
And ity?Ns also fueled by the mindlessness of sitcoms. I really do think
that the Internet is a very interesting form in comedy, a change in comedy
delivery systems. Everybody thinks theyy?Nre in on the joke because they
can get it really fast. You know, Frank Sinatra dies and a day later therey?Ns
?So didja hear the one about??h that kind of thing. So, I think where I
fit in, and whaty?Ns happened is, Iy?Nm happy to be participating in a return
to actual live performance, not mediated by television, not mediated by
the Internet. What Iy?Nve loved about my performance career ? and ity?Ns been
a blessing and a curse to be a lesbian - I knew that I wasny?Nt going to
be on any of the mainstream late night talk shows when I first started.
I never had to night after night after night work on six minutes that
was going to be on television. I got to do a lot of material, a lot of
different ways - in non-standard, e.g. male ways. They were more discursive,
more narrative and I hope that we get back to that kind of live thing.
Do you want to tell the story of when you first started writing your
act and asked your manager how long it should be?
[laughs] Yeah. I had gotten a manager, or a booking agent who had been
in womeny?Ns music for ten years. Her band broke up, and she said that she
would book me for the summer, and she ended up booking me for five years.
One time after a show, it was my second show, in Boston, there was a place
called the Caldron - I think it was in the South End - and we were driving
back from that show and talking about what we were doing and everything
and I said ?now, how long do you think a show should be??h From her musical
background she said, ?Well, I think you should do forty-five minutes,
then wey?Nll take a break and then wey?Nll do forty-five more minutes.?h [exclamation]
whoo! But I did it and I amaze my friends now. It really was wonderful,
and it allowed me to?.I would go back to a city every year or eighteen
months. Many of the same people would come back and bring friends, and
I just didny?Nt think I should talk about the same thing so I invariably
would have changed at least two-thirds of the material and try to bring
ahead material that they had really liked, some standard things.
How do you approach a performance in terms of selecting material? Is
it similar from night to night or do you change and shift things around?
It depends. I do think of it as a kind of newspaper. You get the daily
news, and then you have the opinion pieces and the sports page. I read
The New York Times and theyy?Nve a segment for every minor thought youy?Nve
ever had like ?home,?h ?home styling.?h [laughs] For example, I did this
show last night for the National Womeny?Ns Studies. I talked about my experience
with womeny?Ns studies, and my experiences being the only woman in a literature
class and having the professor say to me, ?lety?Ns get it from the horsey?Ns
mouth?h and point to me, that kind of thing. So Iy?Nll do things that are
specific for the situation. Iy?Nve been known to pump the person who drives
me from the airport to the theater about whaty?Ns going on. You have to
be careful with that cause you can meet somebody who happened to be driving
but theyy?Nre really into toy trains and you think the whole towny?Ns into
toy trains [laughs] so (the audience is) like, ?what is she talking about??h
How have you perceived - I dony?Nt know if this is the right word - the
?rules?h of comedy and if theyy?Nve changed since youy?Nve started? Are there
places you can go now that you couldny?Nt go before and are there places
that you wony?Nt go?
Oh, God yes! There are places that, for example, a lot of the improv,
the wonderful exiting improvs where I would go to tryout nights and theyy?Nd
(say) ?you cany?Nt talk about that here.?h But ity?Ns interesting because a
lot of the improvs are going out of business. Now they have gay comedy
nights, because somebodyy?Ns there to pay the ticket quite frankly. I dony?Nt
think ity?Ns the big liberal thing that ity?Ns often made out to be. Ity?Ns
just about tickets. I can perform anywhere but I like it when people are
more intentional about coming to a show. I dony?Nt really like to perform
at an improv and ity?Ns just people who are like passing through. I like
people who have heard me before, theyy?Nre bringing other people, or theyy?Nve
heard about it, or they want to see what this is about. Therey?Ns a kind
of ?intentionality?h about it thaty?Ns not just ?Comedy Club, wey?Nre in town.
Lety?Ns go!?h That kind of thing.
How did it feel for you to finish Dony?Nt Get Me Started and have it now
out in the world?
Iy?Nm still in shock. Sometimes, when Iy?Nm signing the book, just as easy
as pie, I look at it and think ?my god! I wrote it?h and ity?Ns wonderful
to have it. I do feel that ity?Ns very much a record of what I was doing,
and now I want to move on to something else. I would even say that after
some mornings when I would be like, ?what am I doing, why am I doing this??h
Now Iy?Nm thinking Iy?Nd really like to do another one. [laughs] But ity?Ns
really a thrill and I love how people are very happy for me. I love that
they know theyy?Nve been part of it and ity?Ns a very special moment for them,
so thaty?Ns really nice.
Do you have a sense of who your audience is for this book and do you
have hopes for it reaching an audience beyond your previous audience for
live [comedy] stand-up?
Yeah, I think that anybody with $23.00 is a good audience and they can
buy multiple copies, thaty?Ns the other thing. I really do think ity?Ns for
anybody. And the more that I can do large venues, appear on big things
on television, and have the person whoy?Ns interviewing me go ?God, I love
that book?h and then they [the viewers] love that person, so they go and
buy the book and [with a mid-western accent] ?Well, gee, you know ity?Ns
about gay people, but I didny?Nt know.?h But ity?Ns about so much more than
that. That it can expand that way, I think is wonderful and they really
do have a life of their own.
Whaty?Ns most meaningful to you about having made the decision to stop
teaching, and to do the work and live the life that youy?Nve lived for the
last seventeen years or so?
Hmm, I am amazed that I can do what I really love and get paid for it,
and that what I love to do is make people laugh. Ity?Ns so much better than,
like, being an undertaker. I love the freedom that I have. There have
been moments when I could have taken a path that would have gotten me
into writing on a sitcom or doing that kind of thing. Iy?Nve gone there,
and the money certainly has been steady. [But] I love the time that I
have to create my own thing. That freedom is incredible. I really think
that in another life I was born in some hideous wrong century where women
had absolutely no freedom. They were indentured, and they had to get married,
[and] if they didny?Nt have children, I dony?Nt know, some kind of Silas Marner
damage or something . . . I would be sitting by my brothery?Ns hearth [laughs].
But I think that because I love my freedom
Whaty?Ns most exiting for you about the future? And the things you want
to do that you have not yet done?
I really dony?Nt think Iy?Nve been better as a performer. I dony?Nt want to
stop it. Iy?Nm sure at some point, maybe when Iy?Nm seventy, it will become
unseemly, but I really feel like Iy?Nve learned so much and I just want
to keep doing it. And then I think, ?Jackie Mason, what is he, ninety??h
So, Iy?Nll do it [laughs]. I want to understand more about performing, but
I also am exited about - Iy?Nve been getting an opportunity to write columns.
I have a column for the Progressive. Iy?Nm writing a column for the
Advocate. Iy?Nve done some things for the New York Times.
I just did a column for George magazine and I would love to be
able to get into high-priced punditry [laughs]. That would be good.
Well good luck! And thank you for talking with me. Ity?Ns been a pleasure.
Thank you. Oh, Youy?Nre very welcome. Thanks for your work. Youy?Nre so good! Wow!
Because you know, there are people that areny?Nt [laughs]. You read about the one
that starts the interview and then says, ?I love your music?h [laughs]. Well thank
you very much, my pleasure.
Kaye Gibbons || Ruth
Rendell || Isabel Allende || Alix
Kates Shulman
Terry McMillan || Helen
Caldicott || Doris Lessing || Kate Clinton
|| Sara Paretsky
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