David Cross on Finding Comedy in Unfunny Times

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When David Cross filmed his confrontational 2016 comedy special Making America Great Again!, Donald Trump had yet to secure the Republican nomination and Cross, like many observers, was dead certain he’d never actually be elected president. What a difference two years makes. Cross is now touring an even more-divided country behind a new show while trying to process what feels like a constant barrage of dismaying headlines. Ahead of his stop at the Pabst Theater on Friday, July 13, and with Trump’s policy of family separation fresh in the news, the alternative comedy veteran spoke to the Shepherd Express in late June about finding the right balance between humor and politics.

What kind of subjects are you tackling on your current tour?

Well, as you know, I placed 14th in the annual bass fishing contest, so that’s really what my world has been about. I’m doing roughly an hour and 15 minutes, and I’d say a good hour of it is about bass fishing—both domestic and international, and the different approaches. I have a whole story about bass fishing in Tunisia and how they bait their hooks differently. It’s pretty fun stuff! Hmmm, what else? I love talking about muscle cars and my muscle car, so it’s mostly muscle cars and bass fishing. And bowling.

Why bass fishing?

Well, that’s been my world the last couple years. You know, I quit Hollywood as it were, and it’s just been myself. I left my family. And I have a tent. I had gotten a gift certificate at REI and I just went and got a bunch of camping shit, and that’s what I’m into, and I hope everybody else is with me on this journey.

You’re joking, but considering the state of the world and politics right now, the idea of taking a break and just going bass fishing sounds kind of nice.

I mean, all kidding aside, you’re right. Obviously, I’m not talking about bass fishing, but all kinds of things are brought up in this set. Some you might be able to anticipate, some you might not. There’s a whole range of things addressed.

It just feels like a really hard time to be a standup comedian right now. Audiences are angry, and the biggest stories in the news right now are so upsetting that nobody finds them fun to think about.

That is very true. And it’s palpable. You know, I have an obligation to that audience, and there’s a number of responsibilities. The first and foremost is to be funny and entertaining, and then I feel a responsibility to most of my fans to touch upon some subject matter that I think they would want me to touch upon. The most difficult part of it—and, look, I’m fully competent in this set. I’ve done it a bunch. I’m fully happy with it. I’ve done I think nine shows on this tour, so I know the set works, and the audiences have been great—but new things happen each week, each day, each hour, that are upsetting in a way that the accumulation of it is just tough. As you said, it’s not a good time and people are bummed out, myself as well. I’m not doing a shit ton of stuff about Trump—I never like to do too much political stuff—but I do some, of course, and when I start really getting into it and addressing these new things, it’s depressing and there’s nothing fun or funny about it. These are really hurtful policies and if you care about other people, people other than yourself or other than your tribe, it’s really distressing. This goes beyond Bush-era willful ignorance. This is complicit hatred and violence. So we’ve really kind of crossed the line.

I’m listening to myself and I’m thinking, if I were reading this I wouldn’t want to go to that show [laughs]. But the shows have been really fun and of course I talk about Trump, but it’s less about Trump and more about his fans. It’s less about him as a person and more about him and a culture and his fans and what brought this. Who knows what my set will be by the time we get to Milwaukee, because it’s always evolving, but I approach this set the same way I approach every set, by designing it so that roughly a third of it is dumb jobs—just jokes, where it doesn’t matter what your politics or religious affiliation is, you’ll like the joke. A third are anecdotal stories—this thing happened to me, or I went to the store and this guy said this—and roughly a third is topical/political/religious type stuff. I actually think this set is a little softer than the last set I did which had a number of gut punches to it. While this one still has that anger/frustration/dismay to it, it’s a little softer than the other one.

When you were doing your last special, if I recall, you didn’t think that Trump was going to win..

No I did not!

That changes the stakes a lot.

Yeah, it’s distressing! You know, I was no Hillary fan at all, and who knows what my set would look like if she was president. I’m sure there’d be all sorts of stuff about arguing with my wife, because she’s a huge Hillary supporter and all that. But now America is a different place. And it’s depressing how gleeful all these people who won are. All this “liberal tears, snowflakes” bullshit. They’re just so happy! And they’re just laughing all the way to whatever the opposite of a bank is. There’s just so much inhumanity.

I’m sure you saw that CNN where they interviewed people near Duluth where Trump talked maybe four nights ago. And this woman was like, “I resent the media trying to make us all teary eyed over these children!” And I was like, “Uh, I don’t think they’re trying.” They’re just recording what’s going on, they’re not trying. But that’s the temperament. They resent it. they resent trying to wring out some sort of empathy for a kid who’s separated from their parents. We’re dealing with a world where people get upset when they hear Spanish spoken. They get angry and they yell at people. “Stop speaking Spanish!” Like, what a weird mindset. What a weird, terrible life they must lead if hearing people speak Spanish upsets you that much.

And the frustrating thing is, we’re the ones who are supposed to bend over backward to understand them…

Oh yeah! I had a thing that I dropped from the set but I may bring back about this idea that we’re all supposed to be civil. It’s just wrong. Like, I don’t feel like I have to wring my hands and really think about this. No. Not me. I don’t need to be civil. I don’t. I don’t need to be.

Well, the argument somebody could make for civility is we’re being pulled down to Trump’s level.

But I’ll never be that dumb. I would have to be in a serious bike accident or something to be that dumb. I’m not that narcissistic. I don’t have a serious personality disorder that forbids me from admitting I’ve ever made a mistake. I can freely admit I made a mistake. I know how to apologize. I’m sensitive to others. I’ll never—and I think I speak for most of my fans, too—that there’s no way we could ever sink that low. There’s no way we could be that kind of person. So we can’t be that low. Also I don’t lie. I’m not a liar. I don’t worship money. My self-worth is not based upon how much money I have or how much gold is in my house, so I’ll never be that person.

You mentioned responsibility earlier. What responsibility do comedians have right now? Should the situation change how comedians conduct their acts?

No, not at all. When I was talking about responsibility, I was specifically talking about me and my relationship with fans and the people that are hardcore fans that know my standup that are familiar with it and want me to spend some time on this subject matter. I think they would almost feel cheated if I didn’t. But I don’t think any comic has any responsibility to anything outside of being true to themselves and being funny to their audience. That’s the responsibility. But we don’t have a credo. There’s no J-school for comics. Judges, journalists, scientists, they have certain oaths and credos they have to follow. Comics don’t.

I’ve seen so many comics who aren’t predisposed to doing political comedy give it a go anyway, maybe because they feel a need to, but they really aren’t contributing very much to the conversation.

I think people who aren’t predisposed to doing it mostly shy away from that stuff. I know good comics, people who I respect and I’m friendly with, who aren’t comfortable with that milieu, and they will just run away from it. That’s OK. That’s their crowd, their thing. The only person I would disrespect is a comedian who said to me, “I have this funny, salient, poignant joke, this take on this thing, but I can’t do it, it might bum people out.” I would lose respect for that person.

I think it’s tricky for comedians who maybe aren’t well versed in progressive politics or don’t follow the conversation. They might have good intentions, but if they aren’t a part of that world, sometimes they get the messaging a little bit wrong.

That I get! One side note related to that is I’ll bring something up then I’ll wonder if people are availing themselves to the same places I am to get my news from. So they might not know what I’m talking about. They may not know why I’m so upset about this thing happening, or this specific person being elevated to a government post. I might think, “Well, everybody in my circle knows this,” but it’s possible a third of my audience doesn’t.

Are you finding that’s the case?

Not so far. It’s early days; I think I’ve done nine shows so far. There haven’t been any walkouts or anything. No yelling, nothing disruptive. Again, early days, but everybody seems to get where I’m going, and there hasn’t been reference or a joke or a bit that I’ve done where it’s like, “Where is this guy coming?” But my audience, and I don’t mean this to sound ass-licking, they’re pretty smart. They’re a smart, curious, intellectual group. I have a lot of respect for them.

David Cross headlines the Pabst Theater on Friday, July 13 at 8 p.m.