Interview: Julie Klausner Doesn't Care About Your Band

As a writer, Julie Klausner's credits include recent stints on Best Week Ever with Paul F. Tompkins and The Big Gay Sketch Show as well as a writing credit on an already classic SNL TV Funhouse sketch. She's written for various major publications and blogs, and has launched an internet sensation or two. She's had multiple TV appearances and been a part of multiple successful live UCB shows. That is a very impressive resume! She doesn't need to pad it out by making up unverifiable internships at NASA like we all do (I mean, I all do).

And now her resume just got a whole lot better. Her new book I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated has just been published, and it is great. I had a chance to read it for the interview, and I have to tell you guys, it is a very funny, honest book, and you should all buy seven copies each because it made me laugh a lot. (You can read an excerpt from the book here).

Anyway, let's move on to the interview, shall we? Yes, WE SHALL!

Your new book is filled with disaster stories about guys you've dated. Are you worried some of this will get back to them? You already had some experience with putting dating stories out there with the New York Times Modern Love piece. Was that ever a worry then?

As a Jewish Person (is it okay if I begin every answer with this phrase, by the way?), I am constantly plagued with guilt, so I have never not felt what it's like to be worried in general, though I'm sure it's a lot like the sensation you get when you land a really great serve on the Squash court, old chap. That said, I didn't write this book to make anybody feel bad, and it's more about myself than anything or anyone else. Ultimately, if anybody ends up looking like an idiot in this, it's me. And I'm the one using my real name! The publishing house, for whatever reason, didn't like my pseudonym, "Melissa Hitler." THEIR LOSS.

A female comedian friend recently expressed frustration to me that being funny hasn't really helped her in the dating world. As a funny lady that just wrote a book about the dating world, what is your perspective on that? Do you have any advice for female comics entering the dating world?

I think in general, funny women would like to end up with somebody who's also funny, but funny guys can be happy with with a woman who has a sense of humor or a generous laugh. But obviously that's a generalization. I know there are plenty of funny guys whose ultimate "gal pal," (I learned that term from the NYPost!) would be a collaborator, or at least a peer. And as far as my advice to female comics entering the dating world, may I suggest "yukking it up" and also "making with the gags" and finally "cracking wise." Whatever makes it easier to face the bottomless, despondent, gore-filled canyon that your emotional life can become become when you are dating.

How did you get involved in the comedy scene? What made you want to go into comedy?

I've always been a huge comedy nerd, growing up on SNL and Letterman and listening to Steve Martin's comedy records with my brother. As for how I began getting involved, when the UCB Four came to town, I went to see an ASSSCAT at The Flea, before they had an actual theater space. And there, I saw Andy Richter do a monologue about living in Chicago and being so poor, he could only afford to eat one burrito a day, which he'd make last as long as he could. And then, his nails began flaking off because of the vitamins burritos are missing? Anyway, that show made me want to get involved at UCB, where I took classes and started putting up shows of my own. I don't know what I would have done if the UCB Theater hadn't come around when it did.

Any plans to work with Michael Kupperman on another series like you did on What's What and NYC Tourist Beat? Both of those are so great, I'd love to see guys work together again.

Thanks! Not right now, but maybe? I know Michael has a cute little baby now, so that's his main project, har. (You: Babies aren't projects! Me: They sort of are!) But if people want to pay us money to do things, then things we shall do!

You have a pretty great online presence, having worked on some of my favorite Internet videos like Whats What, Cat News and an episode of the Oh Hello Show. It seems like Internet sketch comedy is really influencing what you see on TV. How do you think those two will mesh in the future? How has it affected your career?

Thanks! Well, I hope the internet meshes with TV better than the way I make them have awkward, fumbling sex in my new media/old media related fantasies that I didn't realize I was typing out loud just now and not just thinking about. As for the shorts I did, I think for me, at a certain point, it was a better use of time to put an idea on tape and then preserve it for eternity, than it was to put it up on stage. But planning a shoot takes a lot of time stress; and then a cat falls in a toilet and it's funnier than anything you could ever write.

What is the funniest, greatest thing you've seen online?

Well, I don't know about superlatives, but here are the closing credits to the Sweatin' To The Oldies 2 VHS tape– I think they're pretty important.

[Ed Note: Julie Klausner co-edits, alongside her pal Jesse Murray, a blog listing other things that are important, That's Important]

We love being introduced to new people. Who is someone who you think is immensely funny that we might not have heard of?

I've heard good things about this Nancy Meyers gal.

I was sad to hear that Best Week Ever with Paul F. Tompkins was canceled. I read in an interview he said he loved how the immediacy of that show. They way he described it didn't sound that different than just putting on a live show. As a staff writer, what was your experience like working on that show?

My experience working on that show can be best described as "brief"; I was there for literally four weeks before it got canceled. And it was a huge bummer, because writing for Paul was very much a dream gig for me. I think his point of view on the week's clips was what made that show great; you could see Heidi and Spencer act like jackasses anywhere, but Paul's jokes off the footage were never cynical or mean, and he's every bit as good of a sketch comic as he is a stand-up, which is kind of insane, because his stand-up is the best.

I was wondering what initially inspired you to write a book basically charting this part of your life? Towards the end of the book you mention that you wrote the book right before turning thirty as a way to say goodbye to twenties. Has writing the book helped give you new perspective? Was it all cathartic?

Sure, it was cathartic. It's fun writing stuff down that happened before and used to be painful. The distance gives you the ability to find out what you think about it. Writing down those stories wasn't at all like reliving them. As for what inspired it, I'd been thinking a lot about how uniquely shitty dating can be, especially in your twenties. I also thought that it would be cool to do a girl's version of that Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me book, in a way, because so many women I know have been disappointed, which led to their having dumped dudes, or however people use words now. So I began writing stories, and I submitted one to the New York Times "Modern Love" column, and it was rejected. And I tried again, and it got published, which was awesome. That motivated me to finish my book proposal, and with the help of my literary agent, I got to sell a book.

As a schlubby male comedy writer, there was a part of the book that particularly stuck out, which is where you write about how geeky guys embrace mousy women, as if all the wanted was themselves with a vagina. The line that stuck out to me the most was, "There are plenty of nerds who fear women and aren't sensitive, despite their marketing; they just dislike women in a new, exciting way." You wrote that part in a chapter dealing pretty specifically with comedians and comedy writers. With all of the recent talk of women comedy writers on late night TV, what advice would you give to women who aren't mousy, who take pride in the way they dress and are decidedly feminine, yet are also funny as hell and deserve a chance to work alongside their schlubby comedy peers?

Just advice that anybody who isn't crazy or stupid would give–don't let anybody make you feel so bad it gets in your way, and do the work you love. If it's a matter of figuring out which of your friends make you feel awful, by all means get rid of the ones that do. But if you want to succeed, make sure your work is so good that it speaks for itself, so you could come into the office wearing a pink tutu, ala The Rock in The Tooth Fairy, and your colleagues will be like, "Yay! You are here! Who gives a shit that you are crazy!"

Also, make fun of yourself constantly. It's just a healthy habit, and it beats people to the punch.