100 Interviews

Dorkwad on Dorkwad: Gaby Dunn And Meghan O’Keefe (Part 1: Comedy)

by: Meghan O’Keefe

This is a new column at 100 Interviews wherein two people interview each other over the Google chatting mechanism, GChat. Then, we post the nearly unedited conversation and expose their crazy. Because GChat saves everything. GChat knows.

The first in this series, Dorkwad on Dorkwad, is with 100 Interviews founder Gaby Dunn and HelloGiggles blogger Meghan O’Keefe. They are both writers and comedians in New York City, and knew each other prior to this interview. Sometimes in this column, the people will not know each other! Isn’t that quirky? This is not one of those times. Also, this is split into three parts. The first is about comedy.

The first time I met Gaby Dunn was at the comedy show that she and Gonzalo Cordova used to run. I went by myself, sat by myself and then awkwardly tagged along with her and some other comics to a bar afterwards. We didn’t really talk to each other. I saw her again a few weeks later at an open mic at the Yippie Museum. We both did our sets and afterwards made small talk.

The third time I met Gaby was at O’Hanolan’s bar on 1st and 14th. It was winter and I entered the bar cradling a butternut squash like a baby. I had to explain the squash was a gift from one of my best friends from college who was in town that weekend. She got to explain to me that she had just discovered that she had won the “Best Tumblr” award from the Village Voice for 100 Interviews. We finally had a long conversation together. Since then, we’ve been friends.

When Gaby told me that she was relaunching 100 Interviews as a submission-based site, my only idea for an interview subject was Gaby herself. We agreed to interview each other over GChat—that newfangled messaging device that was solely designed to save people from boredom at work.

What follows is a largely unedited (I cleaned up formatting and changed the order of responses when it was obvious that a delay caused by the physical act of typing had interrupted the natural flow of conversation) transcript of two dorkwads discussing how they became dorkwads.

Gaby Dunn: Hey lady!

Meghan O’Keefe: Hey yourself!  Did you know that you are busy and I may be interrupting?

GD: I am? I think that’s my way of using that little red dot as a GChat secretary. So only the cool people message me.

MO: The red camera is the April Ludgate to your Ron Swanson.

GD: Exactly! You’re cool, Meghan!

MO: I’m hip with the comedy lingo and references. Shall we interview each other?

GD: I’m actually right now debating what kind of flaming poop I’m going to leave on the doorstep of this reviewer who didn’t like [comedian] Baron Vaughn’s album.

MO: Oh! That’s important.

GD: Yes yes! Baron tweeted the Laughspin review. And it wasn’t good. I think the reviewer was wrong.

MO: This should all be part of the interview, btw.

GD: But I don’t want to be his mom and like, yell at the reviewer for him, but I want to leave a comment. I am a mom.

MO: Was the reviewer wrong because the reviewer’s opinion was wrong or because his critical arguments were unfounded?

GD: His argument was that Baron’s bits were too spaced out and that he sang and made noises too much.

MO: Oh, so it was a matter of taste.

GD: But the things I laughed the hardest at were some of the songs and the songs have jokes. Yeah, it’s a matter of taste. But also, he was wrong and he sucks and I hate him.

MO: Just write “Chacun a son gout.”

GD: Is that some kind of magic spell?

MO: That’s like being polite about it being a matter of taste and also being an asshole because you know French.

GD: Oh! Hahaha. Good idea.

MO: See? I’m the asshole. Say, Gaby, can I ask you an interview question?

GD: I can’t decide if I want to waste time writing a response in the comments. It’s tempting because it’s Laughspin and I know people will read this review and I want them to see another opinion. Yes yes! Go for it.

MO: You refer to yourself as a journalist and a comedian. Which do you feel more strongly defines you?

GD: I think I’m a journalist first. That’s what I’ve always been. Although, when I was a little kid I guess I was just more of a writer. I thought maybe I’d write novels one day, but now I hardly ever write fiction.

I think a lot of that, too, can be rolled into journalism. I write funny bits into my articles or play with words in a way that I know will make people laugh. I try to put the two together.

When I was in college, I was in a sketch troupe and I was the first journalism major in the comedy scene. Emerson [College] is very divided in terms of majors. Journalism kids do the newspaper and acting and screenwriting kids do the comedy troupes. Why would anyone ever cross over? I was the first one. And for a lot of people, for a long time, it didn’t make sense to them and I was seen as kind of…a weirdo outsider. The comedy kids didn’t get why I was writing for the newspaper and the newspaper kids resented me taking nights off to do comedy.

MO: I get that weirdo crossover thing now that I do stand up, improv and writing/blogging. What made you want to make that choice? Were you a comedy nerd growing up?

GD: I think why not do it all? Use whatever you have to express yourself. Anyway, I was a comedy nerd, yeah. I saw stand up for the first time on TV. I was in 6th grade. I saw Mike Birbiglia’s Comedy Central Presents. And then Maria Bamford, Demetri Martin and Pablo Francisco had them too.

And I thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen. You hear about kids now that start doing stand up when they’re sixteen or whatever, but for me, up until college, I thought stand ups were gods. I thought there was no way I could do it. I could not fathom a world where I’d be …them.

MO: Yeah, comedy looks like magic to the untrained eye. I think it’s interesting you mentioned Birbiglia first. I think of Birbiglia as someone who is going more into storytelling than stand up now. He is concerned with reporting the truth about people’s lives, but in a comedic way. I can see a lot of that in the 100 interviews project and your work. Just this obsession with the small story being the bigger story.

GD: Aw, thanks. I never noticed that semi-connection. Yeah, he was a big one for me. He’s the first person that, as a kid, I could just quote his whole act. The joke about rappers putting their names in songs. I would like, fall over laughing but I could sing the whole thing. And I met him at a bar when I was a senior in college and I told him, “Oh my god, I loved you when I was a kid!” and he was like, “I hope a grown lady never says that to me again.”

MO: Well, he’s going to get it more and more from the grown ass ladies.

GD: I know! Embrace it, Birbigs! We’re all grown up.

MO: The stuff that made me as a kid laugh was so random.

GD: What made you laugh as a kid?

MO: I remember being obsessed with quoting A Hard Day’s Night. I thought it was hilarious. I also loved The Great Muppet Caper. Lots of British infused stuff. I dragged my mom to the first Austin Powers film. She was morally offended and no one else was in the theater.

GD: A Hard Day’s Night is the best. I will fight whoever disagrees. It’s my go-to home sick movie.

MO: IT’S THE BEST. “He’s a very clean man.” I still describe icky things as “grotty…you know, grotesque.”

GD: Yes! I was in love with George Harrison circa that era.

MO: Ab Fab is a huge comedy landmark for me.

GD: I never got into Ab Fab.

MO: There was this moment in Ab Fab that I honestly think changed my life, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

GD: Yeah?

MO: I remember seeing Jennifer Saunders in (I believe) the Morocco episode ride a baggage belt at an airport. Since I was like, 2 years old, I’ve always wanted to do that, but I couldn’t because “nice girls don’t break rules.” I remember having this epiphany that Jennifer Saunders was allowed to break that rule and have fun because she was a woman doing comedy. And I was jealous because I knew I could never be funny. It wasn’t until I saw Tina Fey on Weekend Update that I thought I could be funny.

GD: Wow, I really like that. That she could break the rules because she’s doing comedy. That she doesn’t have to be a “nice girl.” (Also, I left a comment on the review of Baron’s CD. I couldn’t not. I am that person.)

MO: She’s still a nice girl, but she’s given a pass because of comedy.

GD: For sure. I guess I meant “nice” as in boring.

MO: In fact…if a good girl does comedy and doesn’t give it her all, she’s not being a “good” girl in the construct of the comedy world.

GD: In the sense of working hard at what she’s doing?

MO: Yeah. Both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have addressed this in certain terms. When did you start to think you could be one of the comedy “GODS”?

GD: Mmm, I didn’t think I could do comedy until college. I got into a comedy troupe my freshman year. I never would have auditioned but I was dating a kid whose family created the TV show Monk.

MO: LOL. Sorry…that’s…go on.

GD: And he wanted to audition, so we went to “The O Show” which is the orientation comedy show. And I saw the troupes perform and I was like, the most jealous I’ve ever been. I was so jealous. I was literally sighing and thinking, “One day….” But I was too scared. So he signed up to audition. And then he got mono. And had to go home.

MO: OF COURSE HE GOT MONO

GD: And I was like, “What about your audition?” and he goes, “You do it.” So the night before, I wrote my first sketch ever. And went around the dorms reading it to everyone asking them if it was funny. And then I went and took his audition spot and got in. And I was in the troupe all four years. And he never got into a troupe.

MO: But his parents created Monk! Surely that has sway!

GD: We’re still friends, and he did stand up a bit and went out to LA and then decided it wasn’t for him. He’s a really talented musician and drummer so now he’s pursuing that. It allllll worked out.

MO: Yay!

GD: But yeah, I had never written a sketch before and I was shaking during the whole audition. I used to do that every time I was on stage. Did you ever shake?

MO: Yeah. I still sometimes shake. I sometimes blank on everything. Mostly, I stutter and talk too fast.

GD: When was the first time you did stand up?

MO: Officially, in 2003. Do you know the Walsh Brothers?

GD: Yeah, yeah!

MO: They’re getting big in LA now. They used to have this show at the old ImprovBoston in Inman Square on Thursday nights. I should back up with the story. I decided senior year in high school that I wanted to be like Tina Fey when I grew up. This was slightly crazy because Tina Fey in 2002 was not Tina Fey in 2011.

GD: She was just doing Update?

MO: Yeah. But she was also the first female head writer of SNL.

GD: I flipping loved her on Update. I will defend her and Fallon as a duo forever. They were stellar.

MO: FOREVERS.

GD: Perfect dynamic.

MO: Yeah, totally. Anyway, there was a scant amount of online resources on Tina Fey or comedy or SNL or women in comedy in those days. When I landed at Boston University, I spent my whole first couple of days in the dorms Googling “Tina Fey”. I found out she did improv in Chicago. Then I found out Amy Poehler did improv in Chicago. Then I found out Rachel Dratch did improv in Chicago.

GD: Right, right.

MO: I was devastated that I was not going to be in Chicago for the next four years of my life. I made a HUGE MISTAKE. I was 17. My life was ruined.

GD: Of course.

MO: So, I tried to Google improv in Boston. There was ImprovAsylum which seemed glossy and very much like the cool kids who always made me hate myself. There was an on-campus team called “Spontaneous Combustion” that was impossible to get a hold of.

GD: I love that you’re like, “I know! I will just do exactly what Tina Fey did and then I will be her! Simple!”

MO: I am a nerd, Gaby.

GD: Hahahaha I’m so tickled. I was doing a similar thing with Jon Stewart.

MO: Also, my mom used to give me biographies of great women in history and I used to look at them as templates for life. Like, I took Latin because Queen Elizabeth did.

GD: See I never had “women” as a thing in my mind. The only woman I really liked, or even, knew of in comedy was Maria Bamford.

MO: I didn’t have a dad or brothers growing up. I was raised to be a feminist warrior.

GD: There you go. I’m my dad’s girl, all the way.

MO: Anyways…I finally found ImprovBoston. They were looking for Box Office help. So I emailed them and told them I was a smart girl who had been Vice President of her high school Key Club and they hired me. I started taking classes—wherein I was HORRIBLE. And I spent most of my Freshman year riding the T out to Cambridge to do Box Office for a then very tiny improv theater in Inman Sqaure.

GD: I have such a soft spot for college improv. Most of it is so bad, but so…cuddly/bad. College comedy is just hilarious.

MO: Yeah, I found my college improv troupe, Liquid Fun, by accident by the end of Freshman year.

GD: At BU?

MO: Yeah. But back to stand up. I used to do box office for the Thursday night show before the Walsh Brothers. I asked them for a spot. They gave it to me. I was…meh… I didn’t do it again until I was studying abroad at Oxford (where I bombed harder than I have ever bombed, or probably ever will bomb.)

GD: Had you written an act?

MO: I tried to write an act. I thought I wrote an act. I spent more time shopping for my outfit than actually writing or rehearsing my act.

GD: Ha! But you did okay?

MO: I looked really cute. I did okay with the Walsh Brothers. Like, for an 18 year old with no concept of stand up, for a first set, yeah…I did fine. Then, I didn’t really do stand up until last June at the PIT’s open mic. And I’ve been doing it on the regular since then.

GD: You said you bombed in Oxford, but then you started up again. You didn’t want to throw in the towel?

MO: There was a five year gap between stand up in Oxford and stand up in New York. I did throw in the towel.

GD: Right, but is it like childbirth where eventually, I imagine, you’re like LET’S DO THIS AGAIN.

MO: Yeah. Well…there was a lot going on with doing it last year. I moved to NYC because I decided that I was unhappy not doing a lot of comedy in Boston. I really wanted to give writing and performing a solid shot. I noticed that my favorite up and coming writers had stand up on their resume.

GD: Writers like TV writers?

MO: Yeah—and also comedy performers on TV. Like Kristen Schaal, John Mulaney, Nick Kroll, Jessi Klein.

GD: All good people.

MO: I liked them all when I saw them on TV. And then I saw their stand up, and it was like I finally saw stand up for weirdoes with my sense of humor.

GD: I was about to say they’re all weirdoes.

MO: Right? So am I.

GD: I don’t relate at all to jock stand up.

MO: What’s jock stand up?

GD: Where it’s some good looking dude being all…jock, I don’t know. I like a good weirdo. How can I explain it? Like, mean jokes or jokes about women that maybe he doesn’t really believe that but also…shut up.

MO: I feel like doing comedy in New York is like finding my own Happiness Hotel. Do you know The Great Muppet Caper?

GD: Yeah!

MO: I feel very strongly that all comedians are Muppets.

—

Meghan O’Keefe is a comedian and writer living in New York. She’s been dorking it up since she was four years old when she entered her kitchen and proclaimed: “Give me iced tea or give me death!” Only half of her family understood the Patrick Henry reference. Follow her here or here. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.