Paging Mr. Mirman: What the Fuck Is Indie-Rock Comedy?

Paging Mr. Mirman
What the Fuck Is Indie-Rock Comedy?

by Jeff T. Johnson
illustration by Chris Lane

KS: Let’s get this out of the way: Do you think there is substance to your reputation as an “indie-rock comic,” or do you see it as an association based on the fact that you’re on Sub Pop, and that you’ve toured with bands?

Eugene Mirman: I don’t really know what it means [to be called an “indie-rock comic”] ... There’s music that is called alternative music. At one point it was because it was an alternative to mainstream music, but then at some point it just became a genre. So I feel like the way that now you can call something indie-rock that’s a shirt or an object or a thing that isn’t really music... I mean, I’m not an independent musician ... but I do tour venues that indie-rock bands tour, and I am on indie labels, and my career is similar to that of an indie band in certain ways.

Eugene Mirman is a funny guy, and as I transcribed my interview with him, I wondered how his comedy would come across on the page. Perhaps it’s something like providing a lyric sheet to an album—on its own, it doesn’t do much, but animated by music, the words take on weight. Once you’ve heard the performance, reading the words is no longer a purely textual experience. Mirman’s voice attends his words as you read them, if you’ve heard one of his routines. Of course, an interview is not strictly a performance, but the thin barrier between talking and performing in Mirman’s case is telling, because of his observational, even conversational comic delivery. Listening to comedy, it’s easy to wonder what it would be like to speak with the comic—would he be funny in person?

I’m pretty sure Mirman is funny in conversation, and his general good humor and ability to perceive and convey the funniness of mundane reality is a key to his appeal as a comedian. Stand-up as a form can seem staid and instantly stale. Many comedians counter the canned element of stand-up by adopting a conversational tone, but, like trying to be funny, this strategy can come off as contrived. Of course, so can singing about love. It takes talent to make it work, and Mirman’s talent for comedy is both evident and seemingly effortless, but he also understands that stand-up is performance:

EM: Stand-up is the illusion of having a conversation. You are telling jokes, you’re just trying to make it seem natural, and a good stand-up does that, in a certain way.

On the other hand, Mirman is not afraid of the punch line, which made his first album, The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman (2004), such a standout. His grasp of the conversational nature of good stand-up is braided with an appreciation of well-delivered one-liners and jokes, and this mix of progressive comedy and vintage nightclub-style humor casts a self-aware penumbra on stage. Though he’s known for bizarre imagery, abrupt flights of fancy and jarring language play, Mirman takes care to bring his audience with him.

KS: Do you worry about people not getting your jokes?

EM: Yes, I do worry about that. ... There are tons of things that people don’t get, and then (I) either redo them or stop doing them. The point is to convey a certain thing, so if I can’t do it, then I don’t do that joke. ... Sometimes some people really love a joke, and I personally love the joke, and though most people don’t get it, I’ll still do it. I mean like one thing out of a bunch of stuff that works. If I have a joke that’s like 10 punch lines or whatever, and one of them doesn’t totally work, but I personally love it, I’ll still do it, because some people love it. But it’s important for people to get what (I’m) trying to do.

This awareness makes for comedy albums that don’t wear out after one listen. Mirman’s delivery is full of crafty, nearly invisible transitions in his material which reveal additional layers on repeated listening, when the familiar joke becomes indistinguishable from its delivery. The first time you listen to a rock album, it might not stick with you, but after a few spins, a chorus or phrase begins to stick out, or the delivery of a particular line takes hold of you. Mirman eschews artificial transitions like “Hey, does anyone here like to drink?” without sounding disjointed, establishing flow in his routines.

EM: What I don’t like is the idea of a false transition. I sometimes have jokes in a row that have similar topics or something, and that makes sense to me. But the idea of like, falsely linking two ideas that aren’t really linked, it just seems fake, so I don’t really like to do that. ... A lot of my intros are like, I found some thing, and it’s this, or like this thing happened. And there’s other things in terms of performing you can do to tie it together—you don’t need to link, necessarily, the ideas—in terms of just, like, pausing, or commenting on something in the room, or taking a sip of water. They’re all transitions that are nonverbal.

These subtle transitions rise from subtext to text when one becomes familiar with the material, and in this way Mirman’s reputation as an indie-rock comic makes sense. Not only does he discriminate between the things he likes and doesn’t like about stand-up conventions, adopting and adapting what works for him, but he is tuned into his audience in a way that a comedian speaking to a huge hall of people cannot be. So it is entirely congruous with his comic style that he was signed to indie-rock super-label Sub Pop, for which he recorded this year’s En Garde, Society!, some of which was done live in the studio, like a band making an album.

Tears of a Russian
Mirman’s family emigrated to America when he was a child, and he maintains a Russia trope in his stand-up. When I ask him how being Russian matters to his stand-up, he says, “You know, not totally.” After a pause, he says, “I think that to a degree it gives me a certain outsider perspective—growing up, or something.” His responses to my next few questions give a better sense of how his experience influences his comedy.

KS: How does being a comedian affect the way you deal with the world on a daily basis?

EM: I think the way I see the world is what affects [my comedy]... you know what I mean? I don’t wake up and go, As a comedian, I think I’m gonna get Thai food today. I think that the way I filter the world is what makes me a comedian, or want to be a comedian. ...

KS: How do you feel about America right now?

EM: Oh, you know, it’s not bad. I think this is where elements of being Russian [are relevant]... It’s funny, I was talking to my mom—it was probably like a year or two years ago—on the phone (I mean, we’ve talked since, and do all the time), but at some point, I forgot what I said, but she was like, Shhh. Don’t say that, they could be recording you, and I was like, They‘re not recording us, this is America. And now we find out, OK, maybe they are recording us. So I feel like a lot of the things... I mean, I personally dislike communism. I think it’s a bad idea. A lot of people are like, Oh, it’s a good idea, but you can’t enact it, and I think it’s a bad idea that shouldn’t be enacted. But I feel like a lot of the things of the far right are very similar, like in terms of ... patriotism and nationalism [are] very similar to communism, and the religious right—the overwhelming one-sided opinion. So, in that sense I think it’s scary. ... [America] probably is a much better place to be than most anywhere else in the world, which I feel like a lot of people don’t really understand—that actually it’s really pretty good here—when they complain about America. But also, our government is shitty.

KS: Sometimes ... I feel like I can’t listen to music or watch a movie without thinking about how I would write about it. Do you have trouble thinking about your life without relating it to comedy or trying to turn it into stand-up material?

EM: It’s not even that I have trouble, it’s that that’s how I see things, so sometimes if I think something is funny, I will turn it into stand-up. I don’t watch something and go, Please, god, don’t turn this into stand-up, this is just a movie. I’m fine if I do or if I don’t. I think in the same way that I don’t have transitions, it’s just that some things hit me as being funny, and I can either figure out how to convey (them) or not. If I can, I’ll make it into comedy, and if I can’t, then I’ll just think of it as funny, and never relate it to anyone.

Sounds kind of... healthy. Mirman’s stand-up, patched together from close attention to the funny, mind-boggling shit that happens every day, is a reminder that with a sense of humor, one can live happily with hyper-awareness. This brings up the classic dilemma for the artist in a dynamic world, which Mirman takes in stride:

KS: Life is funny. How do you compete?

EM: I think I probably filter it and explain it. Explain how it’s funny. ... A lot of what I might do is notice something that is just like a thing that happens, that’s common, but is actually ridiculous, and then point it out. ... I guess that’s probably what comics do. I don’t know. Was the question Life is funny, how do I compete? Right. Maybe then also, I’m not sure I’m in competition with life.

Read the full interview transcript here.

Senior Editor Jeff T. Johnson is binging on comedy to keep from burning out on tragedy.