Is Orny Adams funny or just
funny looking?
A graduate of Emory University
with a degree in political science and philosophy, Adams dove
into studying comedy the same way others might immerse themselves
in the works of Einstein or Kierkegaard. Following his father's
advice to find the top man in his field and learn as much
as he could about that person's thought process and influences,
Adams found himself reading "every humor book in the
Boston public library," reading Woody Allen's heroes
S.J. Perelman and Robert Benchley before winding up in the
basement archives, poring through a book that hadn't been
checked out since 1905.
Driven by an obsession with Bob
Dylan's wordplay and improvisational determination to never
perform the same show twice, Adams has adopted the all-too-rare
stance of offering a different set each time he's onstage.
His work is pointed and political, hitting social targets
that other performers rarely aim at. Yet thankfully, he has
dropped the onstage hat and moustache that paid homage to
Dylan yet rendered him an oddity before audiences.
Thanks to Comedian, people across
the country have gotten to know Adams - or at least gotten
to think they know him. As the post-show crowd pours out of
the Laugh Factory and literally dozens of people stop to say
he seems a lot funnier, nicer, or cooler than he did in the
movie, Adams is enjoying the last laugh. Thanks to the extra
features the DVD affords, he has the chance to be justified
onscreen through a mini-feature of his standup appearance
on Letterman, a "Where Is Orny Now?" segment, and
a Seinfeld commentary that defends the relative youngster
fighting his way past the masters.
But Orny Adams doesn’t
really like talking about the movie. “Let it be what
it is,” he says. “It’s like Dylan said,
‘Don’t look back.’”
But with some prompting, look
back he does, and the musically-minded, Massachusetts-raised
Adams reminisces about his parents taking him and his two
sisters to the Boston Pops every Fourth of July. And he looks
back on attending Emory University in Atlanta, where he performed
“once or twice” at the Punchline Comedy Club and
majored in philosophy and political science. “It taught
me how to research stuff; how to be disciplined,” he
says. “I tackle my jokes like I’m writing a thesis.”
He eventually moved to New York
City, where he hosted America After Dark on Discovery’s
Travel Channel and appeared in national commercials for Coca-Cola,
ESPN, GTE, Starbucks and AT&T, among others. As captured
in Comedian, Adams hit Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival
in July 2000. Soon after, he landed a development deal with
Warner Brothers television and consequently moved to Los Angeles.
In December of that year Adams achieved what every up-and-coming
comedian dreams of, scoring the hallowed Letterman spot. He
had gotten everything he wanted that year, and he had never
been more stressed and more miserable.
But that’s all strictly
in the past. “Who cares about history?” Orny Adams
asks. “It’s all about moving forward! It’s
all about now and what’s next.” In fact, he hasn’t
even watched his complimentary DVD of Comedian, he doesn’t
want to talk about history, and he doesn’t want to talk
about the press. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks
anymore. Honestly.
******************
“Are you going to tell
me what you think of my act?” Orny Adams asks between
coughing fits. “You haven’t even told me what
you think.”
He seems truly interested in
hearing an honest opinion. Perfectly cocked eyebrow; model
furrowed brow. But than again, maybe he is hoping for an ego
boost, or some generalization to stubbornly defend himself
against, or even a shred of inconclusive evidence that all
the previous journalists have been dead wrong about him. Or
maybe he just wants an honest opinion. He listens intently
to rushed babble on the merits of finding a unique balance
between physical and cerebral humor, between observational
and political, between...
“I don’t do the political
stuff that often, but one night it just hit up front, and
I go, ‘Wow, I’m going to keep doing it.’
The rest of the country’s sick of hearing it, but New
York isn’t,” he interjects. “I just want
to go, ‘All right, get these people in the first few
minutes so they respect me.’ The fact that I could get
everyone silent is actually better than getting them to laugh.
For me. I got them sort of to lean in and listen.”
A few evenings before at Gotham,
his plan of attack had been to hold off being funny at the
beginning of the set in order to place an emphasis on building
the laughter throughout. Adams has become a master of unpredictability,
constantly shuffling and reshuffling his timing, prop use
(“I prefer to call them instruments.”) and material
so that every show is markedly different. Each bit must remain
on High Alert throughout the set, ready to be called into
action. Every topic, every tantrum from his 10-year career:
shark attacks, backpacks with wheels, DNA evidence, “that
one joke about Amsterdam, which is sort of new, and you know,
I don’t necessarily like to talk about drugs, but it’s
sort of not a drug thing for me. But I was curious, having
seen the film, is that what you were expecting?” Around
Orny Adams, everyone is in a Code Orange.
Another stammering, poorly thought-out
answer to his question; more eyebrows, more coughing. “All
the shows, it wears on you. Wears on you,” he says,
unwrapping a cough crop. “And I just am so passionate,
there are certain jokes that just vibrate through my body.
That stuff means so much to me, I’m so passionate about
what I say, that it really takes a toll on my body. It really
does. Even when we’re talking now, I really...I mean
all of it. It’s really important to me that I convey
my message.”
Orny Adams is simultaneously
talking, eating a hamburger, sucking on a cough drop, and
bringing a thick wad of folded copy paper forth from his pocket:
his typed joke notes. The kung pow chicken, terrorists and
virgins, the psychologist girlfriend; all traveled a long
and treacherous journey through catalogued and searchable
lists, journals and notebooks to emerge as stage-worthy material.
As one of the more memorable
Orny scenes in Comedian illustrated, he has a lot of thoughts
to keep track of, and a very complex method of doing so. “Want
to know a secret?” he asks, eyebrows reaching dizzying
heights. “There’s so much more than that. The
system is so complicated, because it involves a computer,
too.
“I had a nervous breakdown
the day we did that filming, because I couldn’t explain
the system. After it’s logged into a book, it goes into
a computer. Every revision is dated and saved, and I can save
them all and look at [joke versions] one through seven, because
sometimes the way you say it the first time is the best way.
And by the time you revise and revise and revise it, you go,
'Wow, I really lost the essence.'
“I always have a pen, the
same pen. I will have it for three months until it runs dry.
If I lose it, I go crazy. It’s the hardest thing, because
I really feel like the ink is precious, and that I’m
pulling jokes out of the pen almost like Michelangelo used
to look at stone and could see people stuck inside the slab.”
Adams has a habit, like many
other comics, of stopping to write when inspiration strikes,
wherever he is. He also has a habit of secluding himself in
his apartment, shutting the air off and sweating the material
out a la Jack Kerouac when inspiration hits. “I would
imagine if someone witnessed it, it would almost be scary
to watch, because I probably look like a madman. Nothing can
stop me, just get it down get it down, getitdown!!”
he says. “You’re scared because you’re not
writing, and you go, ‘Oh my god, I’m tapped. That’s
it. I’m done. I’m done.’ And all the sudden,
boom, another explosion.”
******************
“Don’t fuck me,”
Orny Adams says with a grin. The mark of a true stand-up master:
repeating references throughout, emphasizing the bits he wants
you to remember. The act may fold back in on itself and rebranch
out in countless directions, but some central themes remain.
Quite honestly, the guy is mesmerizing, and deep down inside
you know you must not fuck Orny Adams. Must not fuck Orny
Adams. Must not become another story.
Or maybe he really doesn’t
care at all. He’s got his life out in L.A., and he keeps
busy. He recently wrote a few award-show jokes for someone
he calls a genius and is fielding offers from the WB and TLC
networks.
He spends a lot of time answering
his e-mail, of which he gets a lot. In fact, he has gotten
so many and such gushing e-mails that A&E asked him to
contribute to an upcoming show about fan letters, also featuring
notes to the likes of Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King,
Jr. “I’ve inspired a lot, which is the greatest
compliment you can give me,” he says. “Because
I think of who inspires me, they’re geniuses, so that
means so much to me."
He doesn’t have a manager
any more, because he left George Shapiro. “Yeah, I left
George. Time to move on. It wasn’t going in the direction
that I needed it to, and so I left him,” he says. “I
just haven’t decided where I’m going to go next,
or if I’m gonna. I’m enjoying being on my own.”
Was it amicable?
“On my end it was. You’ll
have to ask him how he feels.”
He doesn’t want to speak
for Shapiro, and he doesn’t really want to talk about
the split. And doesn’t want to talk about his background,
or the movie, or the press. Honestly.
Well then, what are his current
goals? “Oh yeah, that’s interesting,” Orny
Adams replies to what appears to be the only question of the
evening he didn’t expect. “Just to become the
sharpest comedian that I can.” But honestly, he’s
already a regular Ginsu. Quick and cutting, he shines in the
spotlight. “I really enjoy it because it’s the
only time in life that I’m completely autonomous and
bereft of direction from other people, so really that and
to continue to move forward, to continue to build a steady
career. I’d love to be in something, be in films more
than anything, and draw my audience. I just haven’t
found that vehicle yet.”
So he’s put it all behind
him, all the stuff he doesn’t want to talk about, and
he is looking ahead. An too-honest man, adrift in the possibilities
of the future. Searching for something more than the soundbites,
more than Comedian. A new era of Orny is dawning. Honestly.
“When do you think I’ll
be able to put this movie to rest and never have to talk about
it again?” he asks over the phone a week later.
No rambling, poorly-thought out
answer this time. Instead a pause, and then a wave of pity.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to be able
to do that.”
“Well I’m going to
have to, and I’m going to just pray that I get another
project so I can start talking about that.”
“But you know, it’s
in your body of work now. You talk about how people have to
really study you to understand your work, and that was the
first thing you became really known for, so it all goes back
to that. No matter how much you want to bury it. It’s
like you did porn somewhere back there and somebody’s
always going to dig it up.”
“Yeah, yeah. Boy, I hope
this isn’t as bad as porn.”
E-mails follow, and the voice
inside gets louder. Must not fuck Orny Adams.
“I guess it is also important
to me that people understand that I understand I still have
a LOT to learn and that hopefully people can learn from some
of the choices and roads I have gone down,” he writes.
“I want to give people a chance to get into my head.
But inevitably, I will come off to some people not favorably.
To others a hero. But I am very nervous about coming off as
I had not intended.
“I am hoping that some
of my writing, to you, will clarify me and where I am coming
from and replace some of the driftwood in the piece. Driftwood
being the stuff that may alienate some...I like this format
– gives me a chance to think.” He explains and
clarifies and reveals, and yet he remains a mess of contradictions,
energy and eyebrows; an honest, opinionated enigma; the indecipherable
entity that is an Orny Adams.
“I never knew that being
ambitious and driven would offend so many people,” he
says. “They caught me at a time when I really was pumped
up about myself. You couldn’t get me acting that way
now. NO WAY. No way. I’m too smart now, but isn’t
it a beautiful thing that they did? Isn’t it great?
Isn’t it great to look back and see how I’ve grown?
I’m proud of that.”
Adams's stand-up mixes the energetic
physical shtick of a Robin Williams with the intelligent wit
of a Seinfeld or Jon Stewart. His typical act bobs and weaves
between off-kilter observational humor and edgy takes on current
events. He brought the house down recently when he suggested
President Bush send the Washington-area hit-and-run sniper
after Osama bin Laden, screaming, "If we could only get
bin Laden pumping gas in Baltimore, our troubles would be
solved!"
Adams takes the business of comedy
very seriously. "It is a 24-hour job — it is an
obsession," Adams told the Forward following a recent
show. He has been known to spend days at a time locked in
his Los Angeles apartment with the air-conditioning off, in
non-stop writing sessions, literally sweating out the funnies
— a writing technique he borrows from beatnik writers
such as Jack Kerouac. He views his comedy as true art, constantly
perfecting and changing his bits to the point where every
word in his act has been honed, and the slightest change can
affect his mood for days.
Since his days reciting Johnny
Carson monologues in his elementary school in Lexington, Mass.
— he was Adam Ornstein then — through his nights
performing stand-up as a college student at Emory University
in Atlanta, Adams, 31, has known that this is where he wanted
to be: on stage, making people laugh. "Every famous person
always knows — I always knew I was gonna be famous."
Starting with the Punchline in
Atlanta, he continued writing and performing in clubs around
the country. Once his confidence and his act improved, he
decided to move to New York and spent another four years sharing
a small apartment in Greenwich Village and showcasing his
stuff every chance he got. Adams slowly but surely gained
momentum, getting bumped up in club schedules and even landing
a spot on NBC's less-than popular "Friday Night Videos"
in the early 1990s.
It wasn't until The Hollywood
Reporter named him the "it comedian" of the Montreal
Comedy Festival in July 2000 that things really began to snowball.
After signing with George Shapiro, Seinfeld's manager and
the biggest name in comedy management, he started headlining
clubs, landed a development deal with the WB Network and finally
got a chance with the mic on Letterman. It was during this
fast-paced time that he left his beloved New York to head
for Hollywood. Adams has spent the last two years living in
Los Angeles, writing, performing and hobnobbing with the rich
and funny.
Of course, no Jewish mother is
ever thrilled when her future lawyer drops the news that he
is going into stand-up comedy. "She wasn't happy,"
Adams recalled. Nonetheless, his friends and family have supported
him, and Adams invariably comes home for the holidays and
makes the immediate calls to mom after every big break.
For all his recent success, however,
Adams brings truth to the stereotype that comedians are by
and large miserable. "I am a typical Jew — I am
not happy unless I'm complaining," he said after the
show. "You never fully 'make it,' it is just different
levels of getting to different places." Shapiro sums
it up well in the movie when Adams's asks, "Think I will
be a star?" He replies, "Yes, and you'll still be
unhappy."
While "Comedian" depicts
the energy and confidence of the 31-year-old Adams, it also
shines the spotlight on his less attractive egotism, and his
lack of confidence. The reviews have pounced on that; The
Hollywood Reporter wrote of his "brazen arrogance and
misplaced sense of entitlement." But Adams welcomes the
criticism. "The reviews are great... I couldn't have
written some of them better myself. I am an insecure person.
I have to tell you 'I'm great' because no one else will."
He knows, as all performers do, the amount of confidence it
takes just to get on stage every night. "You're telling
me that I should be quiet and reserved [off stage]?! I am
in the pre-game! If you're an Olympian, you don't say, 'you
know what? I want to come in fourth.' You want the gold!"
It was his no-holds-barred attitude
that earned him the attention of Seinfeld and "Comedian"
director Christian Charles and producer Gary Streiner. Adams
had met Seinfeld backstage at various clubs. "One night
Gary... asked me what I thought of [Seinfeld's] act, and I
was pretty honest. It was enough that Jerry said, 'God, this
guy is honest. Follow this guy!' and he said that I was one
of the only guys who had the balls to criticize him."
It's around 1 a.m. and Adams
has just finished a very busy evening. Five 25-minute sets
in the span of 4 hours — one at Gotham, then downtown
for three at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, and then
back up to Gotham to close out the night. But instead of trudging
to his hotel room to get some much-needed sleep, he is shaking
hands and schmoozing with the audience. He knows that he has
a lot of work to do, and that sleep is a luxury. But for a
split second he actually seems satisfied with his place in
life, singing, "I'm in a major motion picture!"
as he does a little dance toward the bar where Streiner is
sitting. By the time he reaches the bar you can already see
that the moment has passed, as they get to work critiquing
his act and getting down to business. Because after all, for
Orny Adams, that's what comedy is.
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