John Priest Comedy by Design

November/December 2001

Interview by:  Lisa Marcoff Lackey

Comedian John Priest is as new York as it gets.  Described as looking like a cross between Woody Allen and John Travaolta with the banter of a friendly Don Rickles, John's humor is strongly rooted in the city of his birth.  His mother came to America from Russia when she was nine years old, and he claims "Half my family is Russian Jews and the other half is Bronx Jews.  So I grew up hearing half my family telling me how they got chased by Cossacks and the other half telling me how they got chased by Yankee fans on bat day."

Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, John compares the public school yards in New York to "any prison movie you've ever seen.  The black kids hang out with the black kids, the Puerto Rican kids hand out with the Puerto Rican kids and the three white kids are running for their lives."  Yet his affection for new York is obvious, and the city  has brought him success as comic and actor.  When we spoke he was funny and relaxed, his rather off center sense of humor surfacing naturally as we talked about his life.

I'm guessing you were one of those three white kids running for you life--did you like school?

I always felt like school was prison--the teachers were like wardens. And although I graduated from Northeastern University, I never paid attention. It's weird--I have the kind of personality where if they try to make you do one thing, everything else becomes more interesting--disassembling the desk lamp, whatever. Or with books. They'd want us to read Hemingway and I'd be like, 'well what about Saroyan? How come no one talks about him?' Then I'd spend three hours reading William Saroyan.

I think there's too much emphasis on being good at sports, being popular in school. I say no one's motivated in the classroom because there are no cheerleaders. Now if you could get cheerleaders into the schience lab to cheer on the nerdy guys, 'Go Eugene!', you'd be helping science. And if more minds got focues on science, the'd be helping to find cures. They could have pep rallies for petrie dishes. If they could give kids decent incentives, maybe tell them that if they made the honor roll, they'd get one week at the Playboy Mansion, people would be motivated! Think what if would be like for one of the nerdy kids to get a week at the Playboy Mansion, walk by the lockers by the cheerleaders and say, 'Up yours!I just slept with Miss November.'

What did you plan to do with your Journalism degree from Northeastern?

I thought I wanted to be a writer. I had this idea that I'd write novels, but like so many novelists, I'd start out as a journalist. I went on a quest and asked all these writers, what do you have to do to be a great writer? And they told me I had to have great stories to tell and read great novels. So I spent all this time reading the classics, and finally I figured I had enough of a base and I sat there and stared at my computer screen. I stared & stared at it, and finally said, 'I can't write novels! You have to be in prison to write novels. Guys do their best writing there, like the Marquis de Sade. You have to either be in prison or have this deep drive to write. I liked talking, though, and I noticed when I was a journalist that my questions started getting longer than the answers I got. That's when I knew I was in the wrong profession.

What prompted you to try comedy?

When I was a kid I was always funny with my friends, and they told me I should do comedy. But you never believe your close friends. What do they know? They're friends with me. But when I went to Northeastern people I wasn't even friends with said I was funny. But it was always stuff that was in the moment, something about a professor who talked with his hands, or the buildings being really gray. People told me it was funny, but I was like, 'well, an audience won't know Prof. Kurtz, it won't be funny to them.' But they told me to just go up there, that it would be funny by the way I explained it.

When I finally tried it, I got hooked. And when you get hooked, that's it, you have to keep doing it. I didn't even tell my friends and family. My cousin looked at my dad at a family reunion and said, "I think it's great how you encouraged John to do comedy, " and my dad was like, "Encouraged him? I didn't even know he was doing it until five years in. I thought he joined a cult." My father would call when I was in Boston at like two in the morning, and no one would know where I was. He'd say to me, "Tell me, are you doing drugs, are you an alcoholic, where do you go?" I told him I was in the library studying.

Before I told anyone, I wanted to make sure my friends were right, that what I was doing was legitimate. I didn't have enough confidence, and the only thing that gave me confidence was the audience. The more I could make strangers laugh, the more I thought I could make a career of it. I loved hearing laughter, but I had to hear it from strangers. I remember being up there for the first time doing open mic, shaking, and there was this mone moment...I heard a real big laugh and looked up and saw my reflection in teh bar mirror, and it was like my brain took a picture--for that one moment everything was so perfect. The rest of it was completely crazy and scary, but I went back the next week trying to recreate that laugh, that perfect moment when I felt completely relaxed and comfortable. Then you try to feel that for the whole 45 minute set.

So you were a natural at comedy?

Yeah, I guess so. People always ask who influenced me, but when I grew up my father was always the funniest person I knew. There's where I got his sense of humor. It's my personality, but I picked up his humor.

How would you describe your comedy?

I'm a storyteller. I tell about personal experiences, whether it's being in a relationship with a woman or some other dysfunctional relationship. I talk about things that aggravate me or that I experience more than getting political. I look for things that other people can relate to. For example, I talk about how the worst part of being in a relationship with a woman is when her memory goes. When every good thing you've done never happened and every night it's, 'we never go anywhere.' And when I hear women in the audience laughing, I say, 'that's when the guy should have been saving his receipts. 'What's this, then? What's all this? $20,000 in four months? Up yours!' When people laugh it's because they see themselves. So many people point out, 'oh, men are like this, women are like that...'--and that's true, but there are more similarities than differences.

Being Jewish yourself, do you play much on ethnic jokes?

When you're with ethnic crowds, ethnic humor works well. But when you're with white middle class crowds, they're very politically correct. "Did you just say black? I'm leaving." You can make fun of Puerto Ricans with Puerto Ricans, but when you do it with white audiences, they're like, "Hey, there's a nice Puerto Rican who cleans my car! I went to school with Puerto Ricans! They're nice!"

How do you like college audiences?

They're really great. Most of the time you're in small theatres and no drinks are served, so it's a theater feel. The kids are attentive, they want to laugh, and it's the one timeof the day they can just sit and not take notes. It's funny, I'm performing for kids born around 1980--I was getting beat up on a regular basis in 1980. I look out there and these kids look like adults, they're civilized!

I see from your bio that you've performed off-Broadway and at the Actor's Studio. Would you leave comedy for theater or film?

Of course. You always want to keep growing as a performer. I just finished a play, and I love it. It's fun working with different actors, and there's always a chance you'll meet a woman in theater. There are no leading ladies when you're doing comedy.

What would surprise people to know about you?

That I'm very into yoga. My mother was into yoga my whole life, and it was embarrassing as a kid. She had this 8x10 picture of her guru in the living room, this 80 year old Indian guy with a two foot beard, hair down to there. My friends would come over and be like, "Is that your dad?" God. When you're a kid you want your parents to be totally normal. I'd be like, "Ma, could you quit chanting?" She'd be walking around in her yoga pants burning incense. Stop that! I want to be like the Brady Bunch!

But then I got totally into it. Before that, I used to box. People would be surprised, but I'd tell them I was undefeated until my first fight. I was knocked out in my first round, and didn't even see the punch coming. People asked me afterwards if it was a right or a left hand, and I thought it was a chair. When you're tall and skinny like me they think you've got long arms and a good reach, but I had no killer instinct. You've got to be angry to do this, and I think shorter guys are angrier than taller guys. They're always more successful. I guess they overcompensate--have more to prove.

How would you describe yourself?

Like funny, charming, aloof, self involved, egotistical, insecure, those kinds of words? Then, all of the above. I always say that performers are egotistical maniacs. You have to be insecure to want to get up onstage, then you have to develop this kind of ego so you can believe in yourself. But I think you only get more insecure the higher up you go, because you have more to lose. You'd think you'd get more secure, but then you come to realize how fragile it all is.

Comedy is more than an occupation, it is a way of life--a purpose, if you will, for those who are truly dedicated. For John Priest, it is evident that it is more than a living.