<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" The only way Bobby McFerrin&amp;#039;s famous late-&amp;#039;80s anthem &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Worry, Be Happy&amp;quot; is making a comeback these days is if it&amp;#039;s laced with bitter irony and covered by Sonic Youth. Because whether we&amp;#039;re concerned over domestic terrorism, the economy, politics, religion, or just helping grade-school children with their math homework, we&amp;#039;re all a little freaked out right now. Luckily veteran comedian Tom Papa is here to help walk us through our feelings with his new special Freaked Out, which premieres Friday at 10 p.m. EDT on Epix. We sat down with Papa at the Comedy Cellar in New York to discuss why the fk we&amp;#039;re all freaked out (and why we shouldn&amp;#039;t be), his role in Behind the Candelabra, and how he gets away with making fun of his wife. ESQUIRE.COM: What happened to your standard black suit, black tie Reservoir Dogs look? TOM PAPA: Well, for my first special, Rob Zombie, who directs these, and I wanted a really sparse, classic look. So we did it at the Union Square Theatre where the paint was kind of coming off the walls. But this time we asked, &amp;quot;When was the last time in show business people cared?&amp;quot; And I was doing Behind the Candelabra, so we started talking about when we were kids and you&amp;#039;d see lights and dressing and people in show business really wanted to put on a show. So we were like, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s be big and be broad and have more fun with it. People are giving us money, let&amp;#039;s celebrate it!&amp;quot; So we designed this set that looks like The Gong Show, really blown out with lights. And I dressed a little more in that style, and just embraced the freedom of it.  ESQ: Funny, when I think of Rob Zombie I don&amp;#039;t think of The Gong Show. TP: Right? But Rob&amp;#039;s a showman. Have you ever seen his live shows? They&amp;#039;re huge. He pulls out all the stops, and it&amp;#039;s a big, big theatre extravaganza. And we were both kind of feeling that same vibe: Let&amp;#039;s enjoy show business.  ESQ: How does that idea fit with the special? TP: Well it&amp;#039;s titled Freaked Out, so the theme of the set is that people are freaked out and living in a really nervous time. And I don&amp;#039;t think we should be. I think that&amp;#039;s kind of a manipulation. I mean, those feeling come from real events, but for the most part we shouldn&amp;#039;t be so freaked out, you know? We should celebrate a little more, and we should be free. ESQ: And free of the news that, and I&amp;#039;m quoting you here, has become a 24-hour horror show of other people&amp;#039;s problems?  TP: Yes. This is why we&amp;#039;re freaked out, because we&amp;#039;re being bombarded all the time. It&amp;#039;s not healthy. Think of getting through the airport. You wake up and you have a flight and you&amp;#039;re so stressed out. You have to make sure you&amp;#039;ve got everything and get out the door, get to the airport, go through security, you get to the gate, you&amp;#039;ve made it on time. That is a whole day of stress. More stress than you&amp;#039;ve probably had in a month. And then you get there and CNN is just bombarding you with bad news. It&amp;#039;s sick. It&amp;#039;s really sick. I was in Seattle the other day and there were cartoons on at the gate, and I was like, &amp;quot;They have it right. These people are relaxing, they&amp;#039;re watching a talking owl. This is the way it should be.&amp;quot; ESQ: But we&amp;#039;ll sit and watch the Boston bombers get chased for days on CNN.  TP: I know, and I&amp;#039;m a slave to it, too. It&amp;#039;s my job to be aware of the world, so how can I not? But don&amp;#039;t you feel like you get overloaded to the point where you just can&amp;#039;t crack open the paper? Somedays you look and it&amp;#039;s the Senate and the Middle East and all these problems that never go away, and I&amp;#039;m just like, &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t. I can&amp;#039;t today. I&amp;#039;ll just find the sports section.&amp;quot; ESQ: So just put on your purple blazer, read the sports section and you&amp;#039;re free? TP: Well in town it&amp;#039;s a little funky. I can&amp;#039;t dress that way all the time, just because I don&amp;#039;t have the wardrobe to support it. The purple jacket from the special is actually my buddy Dave Hill&amp;#039;s, who&amp;#039;s doing my radio show tonight. But I&amp;#039;m slowly amassing a little bit more of that clothing.  ESQ: Did you meet the real Ray Arnett before you did Candelabra to learn about him and who he was and what he would wear, or did you just say, &amp;quot;Fk it, I&amp;#039;ll figure it out.&amp;quot; TP: No, I think they cast me because of some similarity, so I just played myself. I was curious, though, because Steven Soderbergh texted me to say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m putting you in the gayest movie of all-time.&amp;quot; And I replied, &amp;quot;Great, what do I have to do?&amp;quot; He never answered, but once I&amp;#039;m putting on paisley pants and Cuban heels I figure I&amp;#039;ll just let it be. Steven met Ray right before the shoot, so I instinctively asked, &amp;quot;Was he gay?&amp;quot; And Steven said, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re much gayer than he is.&amp;quot;  ESQ: Did that influence your performance at all? TP: No. I mean, I know my role in the movie. No one is watching Michael Douglas and Matt Damon go down on each other and thinking, &amp;quot;Hey is that road manager gay?&amp;quot;      ESQ: So how do you make fun of your wife so much and not get stabbed in your sleep? TP: [Laughs.] It&amp;#039;s funny, because she&amp;#039;s a comedian, too, so it&amp;#039;s not her. She doesn&amp;#039;t care. But the bigger I get the more people show up, and the more neighbors and friends show up who don&amp;#039;t really know comedy. And they&amp;#039;ll come up to her after and ask, &amp;quot;Oh my god, do you really sleep like that?&amp;quot; And I say, &amp;quot;Well look, if I have to deal with hecklers you have to field those questions.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not mean spirited. I&amp;#039;m not ripping her apart. We&amp;#039;re just talking about life. The only problem is that she knows when things are real. ESQ: Because I assume most of it is exaggerated.  TP: Sure. And there are certain things I do feel that I won&amp;#039;t say because it&amp;#039;s about her or my kids or whatever. Because even though they&amp;#039;re cool and savvy, you can still end up labeling people with that stuff. But I have to say, my father has more of a problem with it than my wife does. ESQ: Of you making fun of your wife? TP: No, of him. I did a thing on the Tonight Show years ago about him watching the Oscars and complaining about how everyone was dressed while he had spaghetti sauce on his t-shirt. To this day, every time I visit him he still brings it up. Stuff like, &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t even have it on my belly.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s so funny to me, but people get a little sensitive.  ESQ: Why bring so much of your personal life to the stage? TP: Comedians write about what we know, and my family is such a huge part of my life. That&amp;#039;s my perspective. Even the stuff about the Chinese at the beginning of my special came from walking with my daughter through Chinatown. I mean, Dave Attell isn&amp;#039;t going to write about families. He&amp;#039;s going to write about oddball things he thinks about and crazy women that he&amp;#039;s been with. That&amp;#039;s his life. That&amp;#039;s what he sees. And this is my existence. There&amp;#039;s inspiration, and angst, and all that stuff. It all comes out.  ESQ: Has there ever been a joke that you&amp;#039;ve written that you crossed out or crumpled up because you decided &amp;quot;that&amp;#039;s the line I can&amp;#039;t cross&amp;quot;? TP: No. I&amp;#039;m not really mean-spirited by nature. But sometimes when you&amp;#039;re on stage and you&amp;#039;re just riffing you say something that you didn&amp;#039;t even consciously think about. It just kind of came out. I&amp;#039;m not saying it&amp;#039;s not true. It might be even more true. But then you&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;Well that worked because I called her a freak.&amp;quot; And later you think, &amp;quot;Well that laugh was really great. Is it worth her hearing me call her a freak?&amp;quot; ESQ: Has that approach to comedy changed at all since becoming a father? TP: Not really. The only thing I&amp;#039;m conscious of with the kids is that I don&amp;#039;t want to glorify drugs. That&amp;#039;s the only thing. Because I really celebrate women. I&amp;#039;ve got daughters, so I&amp;#039;m in kind of a safe area where I live, and whatever I talk about on stage will be stuff that they would be cool hearing. But if your&amp;#039;e talking about smoking weed and those kinds of things, I hear this little censor in my head saying, &amp;quot;Be careful.&amp;quot; Because they&amp;#039;re watching it now. They&amp;#039;re on YouTube, and they&amp;#039;re trying to piece together what I do. &amp;quot;This guy goes off and he&amp;#039;s with all these eighteen year olds at the Laugh Factory on a Saturday night.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t want them to think that I&amp;#039;m also getting high with them in the parking lot.  ESQ: Which is why the punchline of the only drug joke in your special is &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a loser.&amp;quot; TP: Yeah, it plays into that a little bit. It&amp;#039;s protection of them, but it&amp;#039;s also my transition. I don&amp;#039;t really smoke weed anymore and I really stopped smoking weed when I started getting good as a comic. It was getting in the way. It was great in the beginning. It&amp;#039;s fun. But I went back to a party with friends one night and this guy Chris, just this funny Irish kid who I used to have a blast riffing with before I was a comedian, was just running circles around me. I didn&amp;#039;t have it. And at that moment it was like, &amp;quot;If I&amp;#039;m going to be really funny, this thing is going to hurt me.&amp;quot; ESQ: It slows you down? TP: It does. It slows you down and shrinks your world. If you&amp;#039;re a cerebral comic that talks about that really small, really insular stuff I could see it helping, because everyone&amp;#039;s different. We&amp;#039;re all like a chemistry set. But for me it was shrinking my world, it was taking my motivation. It was not good. I wasn&amp;#039;t funny.  ESQ: But it seems like you&amp;#039;re exploring those small insular ideas of the &amp;quot;Freaked Out&amp;quot; concept on your radio show? TP: Yeah. And the thing I like about the radio show material-wise is that it allows me to not be funny all the time. I can actually just talk about ideas. Sometimes they really hit and sometimes they don&amp;#039;t, but the audience stays with you. Which is very surprising as a comedian that&amp;#039;s used to getting that laugh every ten to thirty seconds. Now I go for several minutes just talking. We&amp;#039;ve explored time, we&amp;#039;ve explored the holidays, and they all get bent back to something meaningful by the end.  ESQ: How much prep time do you take to write the radio show? TP: A little less than a week. I started this one last Wednesday on a flight. It takes time to get my head around what the theme is, and if I find one i&amp;#039;m excited about then I can start plugging in what kind of sketches will build on that. And if I can just get through that first draft and go to work on it, I&amp;#039;ll be okay. But I&amp;#039;m not going to talk about how painful writing is. Everyone likes to talk about how hard and painful it is. And it&amp;#039;s uncomfortable, but so? If your head is throbbing and you&amp;#039;re not getting it and having a bad day, just do it. How painful is it, really? I&amp;#039;m trying to keep that mentality of &amp;quot;Just do it.&amp;quot; ESQ: It&amp;#039;s fun to see guys like Matt Damon and Joel McHale wanting to get in on it. TP: Yeah, it&amp;#039;s really starting to take off and I&amp;#039;m really enjoying writing it. I&amp;#039;m not pushing to take it to TV, but it&amp;#039;s growing. I feel it. Now we have some good names doing it and what&amp;#039;s really cool is that comics love doing it. I always wanted to do a Garrison Keilor thing with comedians. I write the scripts, but I know if I put it in the hands of these guys it&amp;#039;s just going to get better. So I&amp;#039;m really concentrating on this. But look, it&amp;#039;s all about getting more people to come see my stand up. My name keeps getting a little bigger, and more people come, and then it&amp;#039;s one tweet and I&amp;#039;ve sold out some town. That&amp;#039;s the goal, to do comedy on my own terms.  Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a24087/tom-papa-freaked-out-interview/>