Parts of this interview first appeared in edited form in Philly City Paper on August 28th, 2007 and Pittsburgh City Paper on August 30th, 2007
Neil Hamburger is the reigning king of anti-humor, a title that’s earned him plenty of fans, twice as many enemies, and not nearly as much money. When he takes the stage, which he does more than 300 times a year, he dons the same outfit he’s worn every night for over a decade: a shabby tuxedo. He sweats profusely and clears his throat constantly, wrestling with a ball of phlegm that might be older than his suit. “Why does KFC sell its chicken in a bucket? So you have somewhere to throw up after you eat it.” Audience members groan, boo and curse his name. But this isn’t some downtown open mic or a tiny theater — it’s Madison Square Garden and Hamburger is opening for Tenacious D on its arena-sized tour. In fact, it’s not the first time he’s played crowds this big. He’s performed at massive outdoor music festivals around the world, and opened for the likes of Mr. Bungle. Usually, though, he plays smaller venues, and on Sun., Sept. 2, he’s coming to Gooski’s.
How are you?
Doing well. Never better.
Really?
Well, in that I’m talking to you, which is always a treat.
Thank you. But how have things been going for you lately?
Oh boy. You haven’t been reading your Internet, have you?
Why? What have I missed?
Oh, just a series of disastrous shows. I just did some shows in the Midwest and some of them were quite controversial. You get people coming to shows with sour faces, and that’s always controversial. A lot of complaints. Some of the newer jokes weren’t top quality. People complained about the T-shirts we had manufactured- that they didn’t come in every size. Just a general malaise from some of the people.
Someone complained that there was a fruit fly in their drink and he showed me his drink. This was in Iowa City, for the record. There was a fruit fly that had landed in it and another guy showed me his drink and there was a baby cockroach in it. I’m not making it up. This is what’s actually happening on the road and it’s not being reported. It’s that sort of thing that gets in the way of trying to do a good job, which is what I’m trying to do when I’m out there on the road playing places like Sioux Falls and Carterville.
What are you supposed to do about the drinks?
They somehow blame the performer for that. The shows are advertised as being a Neil Hamburger show. Tickets are eight dollars and people come out with the expectation that the show will live up to the general quality of a Neil Hamburger show. That quality does not include being poisoned by insects. Nowhere on the ticket does it say anything about having to agree to accept the possibility of insects in your drinks. That’s where these people come from and then they get the lawyers involved and that whole mess. We’re just worried that I might be drawn into some sort of lawsuit.
Since you’re responsible for the whole show, what else do you have to do other than just tell your jokes?
I thought it was just to entertain people and make their fool heads fall right off with laughter. Apparently not. Now you’ve got people suing, I hesitate to call them, musicians. These punk rockers are being sued because someone chips their teeth or breaks their necks as they pile up on each other during these songs. These kids jump off the stage, wired on God knows what. They climb onto the stage, jump off onto each other’s heads, snap the neck, chip the tooth, break the skull, the arm, and the whole thing. Then you’re going to sue the musician? With me, you don’t get as much breaking of teeth and that sort of thing, so then they need to look for other inconveniences to sue me over and they find this insect thing. I saw the insects and I do believe they were real, but you don’t know if these things were placed there by somebody. Then there’s cases like this guy suing Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups because he found the tip of a condom in his peanut butter cup.
I haven’t heard about that.
It’s all over the news. You have to be tuned into world events if you’re going to be a journalist.
Have you ever had an experience like that?
I got a Hershey’s Bar years ago and I found amphetamines inside of it. Little pills. I didn’t know what sort of pills they were, but all of the pills have numbers on them and if you go on the web you can do a search by pill and number and that’s what it came up with. This was given to me by a fan at a show, so It’s very likely that this candy was tampered with.
What other things have fans given you?
There was a girl who was trying to give me herpes. She had a sore on her mouth and she said, “Oh, Neil, we love you’re comedy here,” and she keeps hugging me and wanting to take photos. And this whole time she’s trying to rub herpetic sore on my face. People who want your photo taken usually want a handshake, but this women kept nuzzling her face toward mine and the closer she gets the more you see the leakage on this sore. That’s communicable. It’s not necessarily a sexual sort of disease. It could be from something as innocent as any sort of human contact. That’s the sort of gifts I get.
What else do you get?
There’s a guy in Texas, I believe in Fortworth, and he has built a life sized Neal Hamburger robot. He works in the movie industry making horror monsters. It’s sort of like a mannequin, but it can move and it’s got a tuxedo and everything. It’s six feet tall and he’s been saying that he wants to present it to one of the shows. So if you come out to the Dallas, Fortworth area, you can see this thing in person.
Does this robotic Neal Hamburger also tell jokes?
That was the hold up. I think it was completed a while back and that he’s now working with some technicians, trying to get a voice chip installed, and that’s a more difficult thing. That’s where you start running into the big dollars and this guy’s doing it strictly on a shoestring budget out of love. I also believe he’s furthering his own skills. It certainly looks good on your resume.
Have you seen or met with the robotic Neal Hamburger?
I’ve seen pictures of it, but they were from before it had the hair, so had a bald look. It had glasses, but no hair. It’s like looking into my future.
How much like you did it look?
I don’t have that Telly Savalas sort of look. The facial features were there, though, it was sad.
If you had this Neal Bot with you as you traveled around the county, then the fans that get overzealous can take their excitement out on the robot and you can avoid any herpetic scares and such.
That’s not a bad idea. I’m very tired. So far, we’re set to beat my record of most shows done by a comedian from the previous years. So far, we’re halfway through the year and we’re already 71 shows above one show per day. We’re on pace for something here and that’ll wear you out. And then you have these tortillas. We did a show out in Sioux Falls , North Dakota and we had Mexican food there with sugary tasting salsa. That sort of thing will really wear you out. So having a robot that you can send out on the road would really be a boon for most entertainers.
Do you think, if possible, that you could have this guy make you an army of robotic Neil Hamburgers that would perform all over the world for you.
No, that’s like what The Platters or The Drifters do. You look online and say, “I’d like to see the platters. Where are they playing?” Well, they’re playing tonight in New Jersey, and they’re playing tonight in Texas, South Carolina, and San Diago because they’ve franchised their name. The original Platters died 50 years ago. These guys are a bunch of kids who dress the part. They kind of look the part. A few of them are white, which doesn’t look like The Platters to me. They send this thing out on the road and they’re playing The Flying Jake Truck Stop up on The Grape Vine Highway. What happens then is that you debase the whole thing. People say, “Neil Hamburger is coming to my town!” but, so what? He’s simultaneously appearing at five other towns. That’s nothing. I may as well watch TV.
What I would do is haul the robot out onstage to do the act while I man the merchandise table, sign CDs, and sell souvenir trinkets while the robot does the joke telling himself. I think that would be much less stressful for me, if the robot could do a good job, which remains to be seen.
You’d rather have the robot tell the jokes for you?
Well, people want to have their photos taken or a personal signature and I don’t know how personal it would be to have a robot sign your albums. You write a letter to the president saying, “What you’re doing is just absolutely terrible, sincerely yours.” He’ll write back a letter to you saying, “Dear Constituent, I’m not so happy with what you’re doing either. Sincerely, George W. Bush.” You get this letter back and think you’ve got a letter to frame, but all the other letters that come back from this guy are signed exactly the same because he literally has a robot that holds the ball point pen and makes these signatures, thus rendering the signatures absolutely worthless. Now, these presidents have been doing this since John F. Kennedy. That’s when the autopen was first invented, which is a robot. Now, you can’t do that to people because it really tears them up and breaks their hearts.
In my case, I’ve appeared in Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny, they want to have their picture taken with someone who’s appeared in a movie. People don’t often meet folks who have appeared in films. I met a guy at one of my shows who appeared in a commercial for Lays Potato Chips, so if I ask that guy to sign my potato chip bag and he says, “No, I’m going to turn that over to my robot,” I’d think much less of him and perhaps not even have bought the Lays Potato Chips.
Although not quite a robot, are you against the automated tellers at super markets?
Yeah, for a lot of older men most of the sex that they obtain at this point is from picking up these cashiers. A lot of times they’re insecure teenage girls. Of course, I don’t have the time or charisma to do that, but I’m just saying that if you replace these teenage girls with these robots that you’re basically letting loose a lot of older men who are sexually unsatisfied, which, of course, will lead to an increase in pornography sales, shoplifting of pornography, and perhaps even rape and sexual assault. So they need to consider this sort of stuff when they come up with these ideas, who this affects, and how.
What do you see as other technologic advances that aren’t really benefiting human kind? I thought that all this automation was great. I never even thought about all of these randy, older gentlemen committing all these crimes.
I know, because some of these older gentlemen come to my shows and they complain about it afterward. A lot of the technology is, let’s face it, not up to speed. A lot of these new movies don’t use animators and have a computer that does everything. Have you seen any of those?
Like Pixar?
Maybe. I haven’t seen that one. I’ll tell you what I did see: The Fantastic Four. That was anything but fantastic. Now, when you watch The Flintstones, those guys knew how to draw. They’d get a pen out and a piece of paper and would draw Fred, Barney, Dino, and the whole gang. That was really funny stuff. Now you have these things that have a metallic sort of look and there’s monsters and it’s really unpleasant on every level. That is one place where I think the improvement is anything but.
You’ve mentioned in the past that you put a lot of hard work into comedy but that it doesn’t really pay off. What is it that keeps you going?
You’ve asked me that already. Couldn’t you just re-use parts of the previous interviews?
I wanted to know if it’s changed for you since it’s been a while since I’ve asked. I know you need the money, but what else?
Well, let’s face it- I’m getting super super old and worn out. Have you ever gone to the store and bought a new washcloth for the bathroom? It’s so wonderful and you use it to dry your face and that sort of thing after you’ve shaved. I don’t know if you’re Muslim, but if you’re not and you do shave then you know what I’m taking about. If you are, I’m sorry and I apologize. But, even if you’re a Muslim and didn’t shave you’d still use a washcloth after you washed your hands. Now, after you’ve used a washcloth for many washes they start to get worn out and before you know it you put out other washcloths when you have company over and put these in the back drawer. Then you’re using it to wipe up dog spills on the floor if you have a pet. And then you’re using it strictly as an oil rag when you change your oil and your washcloth is torn, the threads are coming out, it’s discolored, and it’s just worn out and tired. That, essentially, is what’s happened to me. If you listen to some of my older albums, you’ll hear a spark, a real spirit that’s not there anymore. Of course, my voice is wearing out and that will happen if you talk as often as I do. When I’m not onstage telling jokes, which can be for up to two hours a night, I’m giving interviews with journalists such as yourself, although usually not with as good of questions as yours. And, of course talking to myself during the day, with all the self criticisms, because you can’t be alone. You need to talk to somebody, even if it’s just yourself. You go crazy if it’s just the thoughts in your brain.
You could talk to God.
I was doing a lot of that, but it was just not panning out. And then he brought all that 9/11 garbage onto us and so many children are diagnosed with cancer. That’s supposed to be part of his plan? Well, that’s not a plan that I’m going to sign up with, you know what I’m saying? There are car accidents, airline disasters, aids, famine, and that sort of thing. If this is what this God is coming up with, it’s time we get someone new in there because it’s really a disheartening string of events. Asking the guy who created these typhoons, food poisonings, and diseases for help is obviously not going to pan out.
Were you ever religious?
I was very deeply religious for a short time when I was trying to get my career going. I thought that that might help. It takes its toll on you when you’ve seen some of the things that I’ve seen out there on the road. It’s hard to keep the faith. Are faith oriented, Ben?
Not particularly, but I am interested in the subject.
Are you a pastor at a local church?
I am not.
Do you own the holy bible?
I do own a copy.
Was it stolen from a hotel? A lot of those have been defaced. I opened up one the other day just out of pure boredom and someone had cut out from one of the gay magazines a picture of a man with a huge erection and inserted that into this particular copy of the bible. So you do have to watch out, because that was not in the original copy of the bible. This was strictly a prankster. Probably a 10-year-old kid trying to ruin someone’s experience reading the bible.
What exactly ended your religious period?
Let’s face it: it’s the filth talk and the rubbish mouth that people want to hear. They don’t want my sermons about trying to make the world a better place. They want to hear something about Paris Hilton stepping on someone’s severed penis and flattening it out or whatever you’re telling them about. There’s just no reason to keep the faith. And then you hear some of these celebrities thanking God when they win their awards, but then you look at the things that they’re winning for and you’re thinking, “Well, this Eric Clapton album must have been the answer to his prayers.” But the album is horrible and I don’t want to be involved with something like that. If that’s how God answers prayers and rewards people, with albums that are clearly unpleasant to all, then that’s not something you want to get tangled up in. It’s something to run from.
Are you in anyway spiritual, perhaps you practice meditation or believe in reincarnation?
I do believe in reincarnation because night after night, it’s the same. I was reincarnated as another to nights ago. The whole thing is a giant loop that you cannot break out of and I have tried. I do believe I’ll be reincarnated again after death, as another entertainer forced to perform 491 shows per year, which is what we’re on pace to do this year thanks to some of the triple-headers. Afternoon shows.
How have you tried to break that loop?
I’ve often thought that another career might be more beneficial.
Oh, I thought that you had attempted suicide.
Well, I have attempted suicide a few times, most recently when I jumped off a pile of bad reviews for my latest album. At this point, we’re trying to stick with a life program and keep this thing going. Honestly, the worst thing that can happen is to die a pauper in an unmarked grave and that’s what I’m looking at if I can’t get out of this financial hole. My dream is to have one of these fancy funerals where you’ve got a band playing- I mean an orchestra, not one of these rock and roll bands. You’ve got people coming out and offering their testimonials. Really something exciting and not just being dumped out of a tractor into a hole on the outskirts of town. It would be a wrong time for a suicide.
Is a fancy funeral a goal that you’re working toward?
It’s not that I want a funeral. In fact, I’m not at all interested in that scene. What I’m interested in is that if I did have a fancy funeral it would be proof that my career was a success. Let me put it this way: Bob Hope was not dumped into the city dump here in LA. Dig through the landfills of New Jersey and you’re not going to find the body of Frank Sinatra. These guys were treated right and that’s because their careers were so successful. Now, if you dig through the landfills you might find the girl from Different Strokes. She was killed by drug abuse and sexuality. You might find her body in a landfill and that’s a hell of a way to end a great career because, after all, she was so wonderful.
What would your ideal funeral be like?
A screening of my full length movie, which had been completed by my death, followed by reminiscences from other comedians saying that they’d only dream of having the sort of success that I achieved, and then, finally, the band strikes up, the coffin is brought up, and when they lift the lid I pop out and say, “Folks, I’m still alive and I’m not going anywhere!” That’s the ideal funeral. Mostly, when they have these funerals, people don’t pop out. They get buried and that’s the end of them. That’s not great. I don’t wish that on anyone.
Not even on Carrot Top?
What I’d really like is for Carrot Top to get into professional baseball. Because of his steroid use, he can beat the Barry Bonds record. They don’t test comedians for steroids, so he would be right under the radar.
Have you personally taken any comedy steroids?
No, those are very expensive. Carrot Top is booked nightly at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, as anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to stay there knows. For me, I could live off the money of one night’s booking at the Luxor for years. Carrot Top is getting that money nightly and for a show that’s by all accounts very gross. A show that’s truly stomach turning.
What is it about the show that’s so gross and stomach turning?
The man himself. He’s got pubic hairs falling out of his pants and running down his pant leg. Some of these props are obscene. He brings out this trunk of props and they’re just obscene, phallic type props that could easily go where the sun doesn’t shine. Also, the look on his face- it’s bloated and not looking too healthy because of the steroids. His face is twice the size, his Carrot Top hair is twice as disgusting, twice as bright, and the show’s twice as bad. Please, folks, if you’re out there and you’re reading this, and I don’t know that you will be because I don’t think this part will be transcribed, but if you are please take the money you’d spend on Carrot Top and give 1/25th of it to your son, another 1/25th of it to your daughter, another 25th of it to your mother, another 25th of it to your father, your grandfather, your grandmother, your priest or Rabbi, your mailman. Just divide this thing up equally amongst all the people who are important in your life and then take what’s left over and you’ll still have enough money to see Neil Hamburger, live in your town. My tickets are cheaper than the carrot top tickets by a factor of 25. That’s why I make this request and we think it’s the right choice.
Now, we’d skimmed over your suicide attempt, but I think it’s something that the readers would be interested in, if you’re comfortable talking about it.
Well, the bad reviews were coming in for my album Great Moments at Di Presa’s Pizza House, which is the most recent album. We were collecting these reviews and I didn’t have the chance to read them, but as they were coming in we’d put them in a pile. The pile got bigger and bigger and then one day when I was staying at the Super 8 Motel at Moorhead, Minnesota. We dragged all of these reviews in from the trunk of the car. I was feeling pretty down already because I had received word that my daughter was seen laughing her head off at a Dane Cook show and she hasn’t spoken to me in two years. Last time I’d played her town, she didn’t even come to my show, but she goes to see Dane Cook. That was depressing and I was already heading down. Then there was a new lawsuit, if you can believe that.
What was that for?
This was some pirated software that was being used in the car I’d rented. You know when it’s hot and you want to turn the air-conditioning on, open the windows, or even look at the speedometer to see how fast you’re going on your digital display? That’s all done by a computer, unless you’re in an old 57 Chevy. It turned out that in the car I rented, the software that was doing all that was pirated. I didn’t know that. We had this car rented for two months. The next thing I know, I’m being named in this lawsuit for having used this pirated software. Insane. It was an insane lawsuit that was one of the very few that I actually won. The suit was eventually dismissed. But, at that time, I was dealing with that lawsuit and a lawsuit from a Motel 6 in Madison, Wisconsin.
What was that about?
You know the box spring on a mattress? They claimed that I had broken the box spring. One of the nails was loose and this whole thing was not in good condition. What I had done after that show because of the bad weather was take all my merchandise from the trunk of my car and pile it on the bed. I guess the weight of all this stuff caused a leg of the bed to break or for the wood to split. I think it was rotten ahead of time. That whole place was rotten! You wouldn’t believe how dirty the bathrooms were. When you check into a motel room, the first thing you do shouldn’t be get grabbing a toilette brush and cleaning the facilities. You shouldn’t have to use the coffee maker to boil water to pour all over the sink and sink top so that you can lay your tooth brush down without it getting covered in bugs.
So, we had all of these lawsuits going on and I bring these reviews into the motel in Moorhead and start reading them. They were horrible. Just spiteful, negative, and they did not like the record at all. I just piled the reviews up and they made quite a pile. I jumped off and I thought, “At the very least this is going to break every bone in my body and keep me off the road for a while, but I guess my shoes are in better condition than I thought or the carpeting there is soft or something because all I ended up with was a sprained ankle.
Did you take that as a sign to keep going?
Yeah, it’s definitely to keep going. Not as much as a message as some of the legal papers I get in the mail, but it certainly gives you hope.
What are these legal papers? What do they tell you to do?
We’re talking about huge amounts of money that are owed to these management companies. They’re sending out bills for the work they’re doing and bills for the work they have done, which I’m still paying off, plus the interest for this whole mess. It’s 24% per year, which is hard to keep up with.
That seems a little high.
Yeah, but that’s what a lot of the credit cards I have do, so I think it’s an industry standard. If you know of any loan guys or people who loan out money, please get in touch. The only problem is that I don’t have a lot of money.
You’ve got to be careful with these organizations that give out loans but don’t require collateral. They could be mixed up with some of these Mafioso types and if you reach out to them and don’t pay them back, they might break some of your thumbs.
That’s the problem I ran into already because those types are mixed up with some of the management that I’ve used. That’s the mess we’re already in.
Have you witnessed them commit any illegal activity?
I can’t talk about that in the interview, but I will say this much: these guys have their fingers in some these Indian casinos, which has helped me get some of these bookings, but I’ve lost some of the bookings too when the shows didn’t meet the high standards of these degenerate gamblers that come to the shows and then complain. Can you imagine that? You come to a free comedy show at a casino and then you have the nerve to complain even though you have made a mess of your life by drinking and gambling. How dare you?
They sound like ungrateful pukes to me.
Yep.
If you declared bankruptcy and tried to start a new career, what would you do?
I could probably go back to what I used to do, which is working in the fast food industry. I’m also very interested in pest control. I stay at a lot of hotels and you see a lot of spiders, centipedes, bedbugs, roaches, and even ants. I know the highway system of this country very well because I’m touring all the time, so all I’d need to do is get some sort of vehicle to carry all of these pesticides, fly swatters, and whatever else it takes, go to these hotels that I’ve stayed in the past, and say, “Look, I know you have a problem and I’m here to be the solution.” You charge $5 to pest proof each room and that’s a good value. I think I could make a lot more money doing that than telling these jokes.
What are some tips that you can offer to take care of these bug problems?
You’ve got to get poison. You can’t just do it by slapping them out of the air with your hands. You need to spray your mattress with Raid or Lysol’s disinfectant. You’ve got to wash the sheets. You can’t just let that go forever. If you have food, don’t leave it on the floor. Do your dishes, that sort of thing. Stay away from refurbished mattresses. They just take mattresses right off the street and put a new cover over them and sell them as refurbished. Believe me, you’re going to be scratching your arms, legs, and all your other limbs as the bed bugs burrow into you the next morning.
Have you seen these television specials where reporters go into a hotel room with a black light and discover all of these horrific stains?
Yeah, we bought one of those black lights ourselves after the special aired and I can tell you that it’s all true. You’ll see some really disgusting things if you buy a black light. Ticks turn up well under a black light as well. Normally they camouflage themselves. The black light reveals the truth. I wish they’d hold up a black light to Carrot Top or Dane Cook. It’d reveal the truth about those assholes. It’s going too far with them.
What would the black light of truth reveal about Neil Hamburger?
That he has been the hardest working comedian there ever was. That he has the rare gift to bring joy where there is none and take a bunch of depressed, miserable, horrible people who are feeling awful and sorry for themselves sitting in a diseased, disgusting nightclub watching one horrible group after another perform. Then old Neil comes up there and cheers them up because we’re all heading to an early grave, I’ll tell you. There’s nothing better than someone who is this cheerful and really make you happy again. And that’s what people need to realize. Not like these Dane Cooks who are so consumed with hate, stupidity, and jealousy that they can’t put on a good show.
I came up with a slogan you could use for your pest control business. “You’ll catch more flies with Hamburger than with vinegar.”
I like that. We should go into business together. You can write the slogans and finance the whole thing and I will kill the centipedes and do what I can to make these room clean. I’ll vacuum. That’s the first step because half the bugs are in the carpet. And then you have to throw out the vacuum bag and get another one, which is expensive. A dollar a bag.
So, the weight staff at these hotels and motels isn’t really up to snuff?
No, because they’re not looking for bugs. They’re usually looking through your stuff and trying to steal your money. They’re not too interested in centipedes.
Have you ever caught someone looking through your things?
No, but things have gone missing. Not large amounts of cash, but coins. When I enter into a room, I tend to empty my pockets onto the dresser and sometimes you come back and the coins are gone.
Have you ever confronted any of the staff about this?
No, because then I’d get blackballed. You don’t want to be blackballed because then you’d never be able to stay at that chain again, although I do stay at a lot of the independent fly by night fleabag sort of places. Let’s face it: I make a lot of use of hotel rooms because of the schedule that I keep. We stay at a hotel room every third night, so to be blackballed by one of these chains would be a nightmare.
Tell me about your time in the fast food industry?
It’s bad food, I’ll tell you that. It’s not healthy. You’ll do much better eating fruit cocktails, canned peas, or maybe making pancakes if you can get a hold of some cheap flour. This stuff that they’re serving in these places, with their oil, salt, grease, worms, and bugs, is really nothing I’d recommend to your readers, assuming that you have any readers, which you may not because you’ve done so many interviews with me. You might have killed them all off.
This interview is actually going to three different publications.
Is one of them insect control weekly?
No.
Alright.
So,did you work as a manager or were you more hands on, preparing burgers and that sort of deal?
This was when I was very young, before I was doing comedy. I was very low on the totem pole. I was there for about a year and then I was fired. They said that my work was of poor quality.
Did you work any other jobs?
Just that one and the job I have of making people laugh.
You’ve been performing for a long time. Have you noticed any differences in the sort of people that attend your shows?
I used to do pizza parlors and those crowds would yawn a lot or talk to each other during the show because they were there mainly for the discounted pizza. These pizza shows are usually in conjunction with an off night, so they’ll have a Monday night special like buy an extra large for the price of a large plus free live comedy. Those guys were pretty disinterested. Now the crowds are these young rock and roll type people and they’re very excitable. Sometimes too excitable because they holler out punch lines and make nuisances of themselves.
Are the crowds getting fatter?
Yeah, we started selling the extra extra large shirts this year due to requests and the smalls have been getting a lot less. There are certain regions where you’re better off ordering a lot more extra extra large shirts while in cities like your New Yorks, Bostons, and San Franciscos you get a lot more of these emaciated young men who are looking for something smaller than a small. They’re like a feather. They’ll blow away in the wind.
You’ve mentioned that your fans like to speak to you after a show. Do they ever use you as a therapist?
I would say yes. We had a young woman that confessed to an extra-marital affair after a show. We had another man who confessed a disgraceful blotch on his record during his time in the military. He wouldn’t say exactly what it was, but he received a dishonorable discharge. We had a young man who admitted that he had plagiarized my act for his own terrible act and we had a young lady who admitted that she didn’t find the show at all funny or entertaining. So, people do confess the most horrific things from time to time at the conclusion of the show.
Who was this young gentleman who stole from your act?
Some sort of asshole. Some prick. Prick prick prick who started his own comedy career who said, “I love your jokes so much that, in fact, I’ve been doing them in my own act,” and I said, “Listen, you son of a bitch, how dare you say that to me? You’re as bad as these cock suckers who come up to me and say, ‘Neil, I love your albums. In fact, I downloaded all of them illegally just last night.’” Some of these people just don’t know how to be pleasant to be around.”
You’ve performed in New York a few times. What has your experience been like performing in NYC?
Well, they have their various ways of cheating you. Is that what you’re looking for? Is this a muck-raking magazine?
It’s a comedy website, but if there’s some muck-raking to be done I’m certain the readers would be glad to hear about it.
We’ve a had people sneak in through the back door, robbing us of income. But, I’ll tell you what, we’ve always had a good crowd in New York whether it’s been in little clubs such as Pianos or the Madison Square Gardens, the pinnacle of all New York comedy clubs. People there love to laugh. It’s almost like they have so many problems that the clubs are therapeutic.
Do you find that the more problems someone has the heartier their laughs?
No, because at Madison Square Garden they had a lot of problems but they weren’t laughing. Some of the kids that are in these independent rock and roll bands who come out to my shows have severe emotional disorders and yet they find the time to laugh their heads off and that’s why I will always find time to come out to New York and why it will never be left off the schedule. That’s insane for you to suggest that we do that. We’ve played in Sioux Falls and we’ll play in Sioux Falls next year and we played in New York and we’ll play in New York next year. And I’ll tell you what, they say that if you can make it here you can make it anywhere and that is not true. It’s such an easier crowd in New York than in Sioux Falls.
Who laughs the hardest?
Fat guys tend to laugh pretty hard. Those are my heroes. Some of the people who are alcoholics or have a chemical imbalance or mental issues. And then there’s the giggling girls. You’ve got to love the giggling girls because they can light up a room. You see these pretty young girls giggling and although they’re not the hearty laughs of a fat man they’re better because they’re sweet giggles of someone whose face really lights up the whole room.
You mentioned Sioux Falls a few times. Why is that?
We did a show there last week and it’s still fresh in my mind. We pulled up in front of the venue and it looked like the sort of place Jimmy Buffet would own. There was a huge banner up on the front door that said, in giant letters, “Welcome Bikers!”
How did you perform in front of the bikers?
They didn’t come, but it was pretty intimidating because I didn’t know what was going to happen. You never know what bikers will do. There’s Sturges, which gets taken over by bikers and they get drunk and vomit on each other and the women get pictures of the vomit splatters tattooed on their breasts. It’s a whole scene.
What’s the most unusual crowd you’ve ever performed in front of?
You don’t know who’s really unusual until you look into their hearts and we’ve had a few people who had some pretty sick things in theirs. We’ve had people who were from supporters of genocide. That would be the most unusual audience I’ve performed for. Murderers, triple murders, quadruple murders, people who are twins but have sex with one another despite their blood relation, people who enjoy sex with bowel movements, people who are 19/20 year old Yo La Tengo fans and enjoy having sex with their grandmothers who are in their 90s. Those are the weirdest and most unusual audiences I’ve had, but you’ll never know because they keep their secrets to themselves.
Then how do you find out these secrets?
You never do. You just find out that they’re out there.
What percentage of your crowd, then, would you say is made up of sex perverts?
I’d have to say it’s high. I’ve performed for millions of people and there are millions of sex perverts, so you could easily see how quite a few of them would be at the shows.
Since you’ve performed so many times in New York, have you ever been the victim of any sort of mugging?
I have not. I’ve had people come up onstage and demand money-homeless guys who wandered into the venue. But since we’ve been doing these bigger shows, like Madison Square Garden, there’s less of a chance of being mugged. If anything, I’m more likely to be refused entry myself because there are ten or twenty check points before you get to the stage. I don’t think the muggers could get on that stage. Even in smaller clubs like Pianos no one can mug you because they’re packed in so tight that no one can move. You’re like sardines. If someone was to draw their fist back to punch you, they’d be unable because their arm is pinned into place by the 10,000 other people jammed into the room.
How about when wandering the streets?
Like when I’m sitting on my cot or sleeping in the alley behind the venue?
Yes.
No, I haven’t been mugged at that point, although we did have a man who urinated behind a trashcan that I was set up behind The guy was urinating onto the wall, so that was splattering all over my feet and blanket. I don’t think he knew I was there, so I don’t take that as a personal attack by the people of New York but rather an unfortunate coincidence.
Have you ever been attacked?
Are you trying to promote this? Who’s reading this? The Son of Sam? Is this being given out in prisons?
I’m not trying to encourage anything.
These are the sort of questions that got Mark David Chapman where he was. It sounds like you’re trying to incite a riot or get me to explain how best to attack me. It’s like asking the guy who heads the national security administration about what they did to foil attempts to sneak bombs onto a plane, what some things are that they don’t anticipate, and what the glitches in their security are. That’s what it sounds like you’re doing and I resent it because it puts myself and others in danger.
I apologize. But it makes me wonder, if that Robotic Neil Hamburger goes bad and tried to attack you, how could you take it down?
I think if you take the batteries out the thing is dead.
Not at all like the real Neil Hamburger.
I think my batteries were taken out a long time ago, but I’ve got some sort of reserve power apparently because the shows keep going on.
I think that’ll do it for this session.
What a sad note to end on.
Well, we can leave it on a more cheerful note. Your interviews do tend to highlight the misfortunes of Neil Hamburger, but what have been some of your victories?
Well, the numerous interviews with you. How many have you done with Carrot Top?
None.
How about Dane Cook?
One, but it was through email.
So you don’t even know if he answered it. It could have been anyone. How about Mussolini?
None.
Who else have you interviewed this many times?
Your top competition are Andrew WK and Dana Gould.
I’ve heard the name and, of course, WK is a real sweetheart, I’m told.
He is. He’s very nice and a big fan of yours.
I’ve heard that he was a comedian himself in his own way. I’ve also heard that he’s afraid of ghosts and hauntings. Ask him about that next time you speak with him.
I haven’t heard anything about that.
Well, I stayed in a hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, Mr. WK had also stayed at that hotel and had left because of the ghosts. He saw the spirits and could not sleep because they were haunting him. He checked out and stayed at another hotel. When he checked into the other hotel, they asked him why and he said, “Well, it’s because I had to get away from these ghosts,” and they told him that that hotel was known to be haunted. He went on the Internet and found a whole website about the ghosts and spooks at this hotel.
Have you had any experiences with ghosts yourself?
The ghosts left me alone. They were probably bigger fans of his than mine. But when I checked in they told me, “This hotel is haunted. We’ve had other famous names stay here, but they left. Let’s see if you can stay the night.” But I was happy just to stay at this hotel and not sleep on the street.
Did you encounter anything supernatural that night?
I felt like I couldn’t breath. Like the ghost was sitting on my chest, but that could be anything. It happens lot, actually. I don’t dispute Mr. WK’s account. That hotel could certainly be haunted. There’s a lot of evidence of this. It’s called The Marlboro hotel in Winnipeg.
Have you ever had any encounters with ghosts?
Only when I look in the mirror.
Do you believe in the supernatural, or perhaps Big Foot or UFOs?
I believe in Big Foot for sure. That is very real and you do have to watch out for that guy. The UFOs I’m not so sold on.
You’re not a conspiracy theorist, then?
I’ve got a lot of my own problems. I don’t need to take on everyone else’s too. I believe there’s a conspiracy to keep my career stunted, but I don’t believe in the conspiracy that the UFOs shot Kennedy or anything like that.
What is this conspiracy to keep Neil Hamburger down?
Look around you. Dane Cook? What’s going on there? Carrot Top? I mean, these people are selling out giant venues. People have got to be under some sort of mind control drugs and I don’t know what the agenda is there. I don’t know why the mind control people want people to go to a Carrot Top show, but apparently they do.
How far does this conspiracy go? We’ve got Dane Cook and Carrot Top. Who else is involved?
Probably some other comedians. I don’t want to implicate people who aren’t involved. There’s some musicians. Have you heard of The Maroon 5? I would think that they’re involved. It makes sense. There’s certainly no reason to attend one of their concerts, unless someone’s manipulated your brainwaves, which they can do now with remote control. They don’t even need to put you in for surgery like they used when they were introducing some of these other substandard entertainers like Pat Boone. They had to operate on people in a hospital to build up that fan base. Now, you’re shopping for groceries, there’s a guy looking through a one way mirror in the ceiling of a supermarket implanting this Carrot Top seed into your brain. He’s not even breaking a sweat. It’s as easy as typing in a couple of numbers. When are you going to talk with Carrot Top?
I tend to only interview comedians I’ve personally seen or enjoy, so I don’t think I’ll be interviewing Mr. Top.
Have you seen Chairman of the Board, his movie?
I have not. Should I rent it?
I wouldn’t go that far, but it would certainly give you lots to ask him about. And that’s an interview you could probably sell. Also, you could tell him how much the world hates him and how we wish he would retire because it’s just killing hardworking folks such as myself, Neil Hamburger, America’s Youngest Comedian, all of us suffering because of poor attendance caused by Carrot Top and these mind implants.
What was that about being America’s Youngest Comedian?
That’s a tag line we’ve been using for a while because people like younger comedians.
Is that an attempt to reinvent yourself?
Very much so. People want to see the young, hot shot comedians and I think that’s a good phrase to get people into the door. If they think people are going to see America’s Youngest Comedian, then they’re going to come in. If they think they’re going to see America’s Comedian with Hair that might work too. It’s worked for Carrot Top. I do think America’s Youngest Comedian is a great line. Attendance has gone up since we’ve started using it. Walk outs have been up too, but that doesn’t matter once you’ve been paid.
What are some other ways that you’ve attempted to re-invent yourself? Have you thought of being Neil Hamburger: America’s Dirtiest Comedian, or Neil Hamburger: America’s Hardest Working comedian, or Neil Hamburger: America’s Blackest Comedian?
Any of those would work. It’s not like there’s any rules against people stretching the truth. Pringles has ads where they claim to be America’s favorite potato chip, but if you eat two of these things you’re going to have a stomachache and you’re running to the toilette. There’s ads for debt consolidators that aren’t quite true. They claim that they’ll get you out of debt, but how? By letting you borrow money from them? That’s not going to work. If someone wants to get you out of debt, they’d say, “Here, Neil, here’s $200,000, no strings attached, enjoy.” Thank you. Now I’m out of debt. Not somebody who figures out some new payment plan or a potato chip that’s absolutely horrible but claims to be America’s favorite.
Have you thought of aligning yourself with any charities?
There are some foundations that I’m happy to collect money for. If you get a phone call from a woman and she says, “We’re collecting for the Diabetes Fund,” she gets paid from your donations and that’s totally legal. Plus, there are all of those administration fees. I will collect for any charity there is with a very low administration fee of one percent and I will pass on the rest to the charity. If the American Cancer society calls up, believe you me, the administration fee’s going to be a lot higher than one percent. So, in that sense I believe I’m America’s Biggest Humanitarian. And that’s a phrase we’ll use as well.
That’s excellent news. It seems like with this new marketing campaign that things will certainly be on the up and up for Neil Hamburger.
It certainly couldn’t get any worse.
Are you sure? Certainly something could happen and make it worse.
I don’t know. I think we’ve reached the peak. I don’t think it could get any worse. Looking at my schedule for the next few weeks, I’m doing three shows a day and I have one day where I’m in three different states.
What if a large rock fell on you? That would certainly be worse.
I don’t know. That might not be as bad. The large rock is painless and doing these shows is not. A small rock, now that I wouldn’t be into. That just puts you in the hospital with a slow death. But a large one, that’ll take you right out.
Well, I’m sure that America’s Youngest and Most Gracious Comedian will attract the sort of crowd that’s not only more interested but will also have some money in their pockets to give to you.
It has so far. We have a lot of people who really want to keep up with the newest and youngest thing. Folks who go to sequels for films without seeing the originals and they don’t want to see the originals because they’re too old.
Have you thought of a black tie affair performance?
You want to set that up for me?
Where would that happen? At some sort of affluent area like Martha’s Vineyard?
Yeah, we could do a show there. Or Connecticut. I hear Hartford is quite fancy.
When we speak next, that’s what we’ll have in store for the readers.
Will you be coming to the show at the Knitting Factory?
Of course. I very much enjoyed your performance at Maxwell’s of Hoboken last year.
That was tragedy.
Why do you say that?
We had all of two people there.
That sort of intimate performance was very enjoyable for myself and the other audience members.
Other audience member.
Was that the smallest crowd you’ve ever performed for?
We’ve done a few of the two person shows. We did one in Tasmania in the University of Tasmania. Two people came. We bounced back in another show in Tasmania where about 40 people showed up.
Do you ever cancel a show because due to poor attendance?
The show must go on. The show cannot be stopped by that. They paid their money and they want their show. In that case it was a free show, but they showed up and you have to honor that. I gave just as much to the two people as I gave to the 17,000 at Madison Square Garden.
I guess that makes you the world’s youngest, most generous, and most honorable comedian.
Why yes it does. Thank you.
