Writer/Comedy/Journalist/New York | Steve Heisler

In case you missed it, I wrote a big ol’ article about...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:59:12 -0500

In case you missed it, I wrote a big ol’ article about Jimmy Fallon and why I think he needs to shake up the late night talk show format, though he hardly has to. Won’t you insert the words into your brain face?

[The A.V. Club]

HERE’S THE THING: Dane Cook gets really defensive and horribly misguided about comedy criticism (among other pretty bad things)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:54:00 -0500

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

My friends and cohorts at The A.V. Club started a shitstorm on the Internet yesterday when they posted about Dane Cook’s horrible stand-up set that was, to borrow the words of Sean O’Neal, “…the egotistical ramblings of a narcissist who has lost all touch with humility and quite possibly humanity.” Cook apparently went off the deep end, delving into material so disturbing and misogynistic it drew the ire of every other comic in attendance, including TJ Miller—who chronicled the entire horrifying recount on Twitter.

Lamer still, Cook spoke to LaughSpin presumably via email, and the site posted his words without much commentary nor a single follow-up question (taking a page from the Michael Ausiello book of nonconfrontational starfuckery—or if you prefer, the Tom Haverford book of “betting on all the horses”). This includes invoking the name of recently deceased comedy favorite Patrice O’Neal, inviting Miller and The A.V. Club away for a spa weekend, and this statement of defensive defensiveness: “It’s impossible to be both an artist and a critic.”

What I think he is trying to say is that TJ Miller’s opinion about his comedy is meaningless, because TJ is a comedian. As he outlined to Marc Maron on his WTF episode, he really doesn’t care what his peers think. And you know what? That’s fine. He should have just said that.

But the notion that artists can’t be critics is horribly misguided. In order to be good at what they do, artists need to honestly and purely experience the world around them, tracking the way people create. Same goes for critics, who are able to discuss art in a way that excites and inspires because they’re familiar with the tortuous creative process, and fully understand how someone gets from point A to point B.

For fear that this gets too vague and weird, let’s just talk about comedy. Artists and critics are the rare people who watch comedy and don’t simply evaluate it in binary; they’re able to think beyond, “Was it funny or not?” And that’s worth celebrating.

Can you imagine a critic who has no idea what it takes to be a comic? That person would be so removed from the artistic process that there’s now way they could appreciate the joy of a perfectly constructed joke or a life-changing stand-up set—nor could they articulate that in an inclusive way. (I mean, I’d like to think even Roger Ebert learned a thing or two about film by making his own.)

Can you imagine a comic who hadn’t thought deeply about what makes something funny, deconstructed the way other people make things funny, and wasn’t a harsh and relentless critic of their own work? They’d be really shitty and boring, and probably have a self-proclaimed nickname like “The Sassinator.”

I’m a comedy critic, but I also run and host my own comedy show, produce a major comedy festival, act with an arts education group and craft comedic pieces to perform at storytelling shows, reading series and stand-up-type shindigs. Am I bias, then, when I write about comedy? Of course I am. It’s human nature. But I see it not as a limiting factor, but one that opens my opinion up to the world. I always try to come at a piece of comedy with as open a mind as possible—with as nuanced an understanding of what that artist had to go through to get it made just the way they wanted. I also like to think I’m way more forgiving when something doesn’t live up to expectations, because I know what it feels like to bomb and take it personally.

Actually, I take everything personally, which means I also know what it feels like when a peer doesn’t like something I’ve done. It sucks, Dane. I know it; you know it. But you can’t have it both ways—you can’t purport not to care about your critics while simultaneously discrediting them. Maybe it’s not that it’s impossible to be both an artist and a critic, Dane. Maybe you’re oblivious to the fact that we all are.

Remember the time I spoke to Jon Glaser from Delocated? I was...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:01:35 -0500

Remember the time I spoke to Jon Glaser from Delocated? I was “Tappin’ On Empty.”

[The A.V. Club]

I was psyched to talk to Jean-Ralphio from Parks & Rec (aka...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:18:22 -0500

I was psyched to talk to Jean-Ralphio from Parks & Rec (aka Ben Schwartz), and not just because he name-checked Star Fox in our interview.

[The A.V. Club]

Whoa there! I spoke to Jorge Garcia (Hurley from Lost) about why...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:08:53 -0500

Whoa there! I spoke to Jorge Garcia (Hurley from Lost) about why he doesn’t like most comedies on TV and how apprehensive he gets about sharing personal information about himself. But it was effortless, mostly because he’s an effortlessly likable guy.

[Vulture]

World! I now write about Up All Night for Vulture. “As a...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:10:27 -0500

World! I now write about Up All Night for Vulture. “As a single, childless guy in his late-twenties, I feel uniquely qualified to tackle a sitcom that deals in the issues of marriage, parenthood and general maturity as an adult who washes his coffee mug more than once every few days.”

[Vulture]

I wrote about Chris Gethard’s awesome new book—and if my...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:10:03 -0500

I wrote about Chris Gethard’s awesome new book—and if my review doesn’t do it for you, consider the following sentence lifted from the book itself: “It was just my boner stabbing you in the temple through a pillow.”

[The Spit Take]

HERE'S THE THING: Advice for aspiring journalists, because you asked nicely and it's almost 2012

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:34:00 -0500

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

Sometimes I get emails from people who ask me how to get involved in journalism. Sometimes those emails ask about producing comedy shows or even just simply being affiliated with The A.V. Club in any way. Sometimes those emails ask me to approve the Facebook friendship of a beautiful woman who thinks I, “have a nice picture profile with a good page.. i just created my profile on here… if i may ask how long have you been on this site? i hope you are having fun over there.” I usually respond to all three, because the more Facebook friends, the more people who will “hear” my response to the previous two inquiries with their eye-ears.

I’ve gotten a decent amount of them in the past year, which leads me to believe that there are a whole lot more hungry young freelancers (unemployeds) out in the world, eager to sit around all day resisting the urge to play Fortune Street and having ingested enough coffee to distract even the most medically sedated of my cousins. So I thought I’d answer everyone at once in a heavily trafficked public forum—or failing that, my personal website.

First, a caveat: I do have to admit that my first thought upon receiving such emails is “Why me?” It’s nice to hear that people think I have discovered the secret to success™, but I do feel like a phony talking about something I figure out more and more every day, and something that other people seem to have figured out more than me. But maybe it’s a façade; perhaps we’re all in the same boat, waterskiing our way around a lake until we decide to let go of the rope. Plus, maybe I’m just as qualified as anyone. As my brilliant Just For Laughs boss once put it, “Somebody has to do your job, and that person just so happens to be you.” So I’m embracing the circumstance—and, hopefully, everyone else’s tolerance for boring blog posts.

HOW TO BE A JOURNALIST WHO WRITES ABOUT POP CULTURE AND INTERVIEWS COOL PEOPLE, SO ADJUST YOUR 2012 RESOLUTIONS ACCORDINGLY!

1) Don’t quit. There are a lot of wonderful careers, and a lot of work goes into doing what I wrote up there in the bold font. If any of what I’m about to say is overwhelming and insurmountable, know that it’s okay—you’ll get through it. But if it gets to the point where you’re driving yourself crazy, you’re not a failure for thinking you might want to try something else. You’re probably pretty sane, actually. Just know that by not quitting, you have a non-zero chance of success!

2) Seriously, don’t quit. No judgment if you do, but if you don’t quit, you’re even better off than everyone who does. Now, I used to tell people this, then tell them the caveat that all the previous people I told had quit, so if they don’t quit then they’re even better off. They’d say, “Nice!” Then quit. Then the next group, I’d begin the story again and add another caveat about how all those other people quit, and soon I had my own rendition of a “12 Days Of Christmas” kind of thing. Is that how Christmas works? I’m Jew-ish.

3) Read a lot. Go to websites that write stories you enjoy reading, and read all of them. Then ask yourself, why is it that I enjoyed this? What tone was it written in that spoke to me? What did the author say that I agreed with, and what did they say that I disagreed with? What about how they said it? It’s important to have a solid knowledge base of what journalism-y stuff is out there for the next step. AW, HERE IT GOES! (Related question: Who loves orange soda?)

4) Ask for what you want. If you’d like to write TV recaps for TV Recap Weekly, then email the editor of TV Recap Weekly and ask if you can write TV recaps for them. HOWEVER: Get yourself prepared. Any good editor is probably going to want to see relevant writing samples, both in format and voice. So if you don’t have any to show, mock some up. As in, go out and write fake TV recaps for no one other than yourself. Or, better yet, start a Tumblr page and just post the recaps on it, and send links to the editor. Also, be specific in what you ask for—do you want to recap Community every week for a site that currently doesn’t cover Community? Do you want to interview Dan Harmon for a site that hasn’t ever spoken to him before, or maybe hasn’t spoken to him about a particular aspect of his show yet? Poke holes in a helpful way, which is the name of my failed PSA campaign from the late ’90s.

5) If you don’t hear back, follow up. There’s an old saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and it’s true not because it’s old, but because it’s true. But at the same time, know when to walk away. You know how that one girl you’re sort-of kind-of interested in is always way more attractive when they’re dating someone? If an opportunity isn’t panning out, give yourself a self-five® and email somebody else to ask out in a totally non-committal way because you haven’t made up your mind about them and are unwilling to admit to yourself that, actually, this is all pretty indicative of the fact that you probably have made up your mind. Journalistically speaking.

6) Be prepared to suffer from these emotions: Parks & Rec exhaustion, paralyzing oversleeping guilt, self-aggrandizement, questionable eyebrow-raises from loved ones, Tumblr, repeated Googling of the word “letter” to make sure you spelled it right, guilt for ending the work day, guilt for taking a break to eat, guilt when you look at the clock, guilt when you’re mentally exhausted, guilt when personal feelings get in the way of what you deem to be cold and hard professional situations even though it’s impossible, just a lot of guilt, temporary sandwich Alzheimers.

7) Don’t quit.

Congratulations! You’ve sufficiently procrastinated right along with me. Maybe you’re cut out for this after all.

The people (I work with) have spoken! Here’s our Best TV...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:37:03 -0500

The people (I work with) have spoken! Here’s our Best TV Of 2011, along with my ballot. Also, I want to give a shout to Delocated and Wilfred, both of which only narrowly didn’t make my list. Especially Delocated—just caught up in a marathon, and holy crap!

[The A.V. Club]

From Kotaku: “Note that the “split” is due to Ocarina’s...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:14:30 -0500

From Kotaku:

“Note that the “split” is due to Ocarina’s time differences and assumptions based on different ways that story could have ended and branched off from his two ages: the Link to the Past split is Link failing, the Majora’s split is Link defeating canon and branching off from his boyhood and the Wind Waker split is Link defeating Ganon and branching from his older years.” —> That’s some Inception stuff right there.

[nerdology]

Ready to think really deeply about the Extras Christmas...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:43:33 -0500

Ready to think really deeply about the Extras Christmas special/series finale? I was! Part of the AV Club Advent Calendar series that counts down the days until some holiday that has nothing to do with the Maccabees.

[The A.V. Club]

You should all play this sort of Monopoly-type game Fortune...

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:32:31 -0500

You should all play this sort of Monopoly-type game Fortune Street, because it’s awesome and way better than any Monopoly comparison makes it sound. Plus it’s for the Wii, so I’m as surprised as anyone.

[The A.V. Club]

Albert Brooks wants to make you piss from fear. [Variety]

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:05:22 -0500

Albert Brooks wants to make you piss from fear.

[Variety]

So much fun. Thanks to paulscheer and company for having me...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:04:00 -0500

So much fun. Thanks to paulscheer and company for having me on.

HOW DID THIS GET MADE - Ep. 23 “THE ROOM - The Directors Edition”

This is the Citizen Kane of Bad Movies & while many people have spoken about this film at great length, few have gotten to sit down with GREG SISTERO (Mark), Actor, Line Producer and Wiseau Confidant. Plus we are also joined by Steve Heisler (AV Club) and self proclaimed Room investigative journalist.

HERE'S THE THING: Can you really trust comedy critics?

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:32:00 -0500

Welcome to HERE’S THE THING, where I talk about comedy-related things in a very HERE’S THE THING-type way.

I got to see Norm Macdonald perform at the New York Comedy Festival last Saturday. I say “I got to see,” because the ticket was paid for by the wonderful Julie Seabaugh, a fellow comedy journo who’s launching a new stand-up review site in the near future. I was reviewing the show, see, and therefore the ticket was free, which I think might have tainted my opinion.

The “free” part isn’t revolutionary news or anything. It’s common knowledge that reviewers get free things—whether it’s access to movie screenings, retail copies of video games, or box sets shaped like a house that contain every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. As a comedy critic for the last five years, I’ve seen countless free shows. Most of them are $5 UCB showcases or $14 Improvised Shakespeare Company evenings (easily the best use of $14 in all of Chicago—including two specials at Hot Dougs). It’s rare that I get to see something like a $60 Norm Macdonald show in a huge New York theater during the heart of the town’s biggest comedy festival.

The point is, I thought the show was just so-so. The girl next to me, who had paid big money for the tickets and was a die-hard Norm Macdonald fan, fuckin’ loved the show, even though there were long stretches where the entire audience was clearly iffy about what was happening, given their silence and polite chuckles. I know this because she giggled giddily to herself many times, and afterwards was gushing about it. She was way more forgiving than me, clearly. So would I have enjoyed the show more if I had financially invested in its success?

I think so. It’s a basic psychological principle that our brains will want to take more away from something we’ve put a lot of our resources into (to put it loosely). That’s why members of hazing fraternities claim to love their frats more so than members of non-hazing ones; your brain is gonna find a way to justify the shit you had to go through. My gut tells me that if I had put in my own money to be entertained, and that amount of money was not insignificant, I would probably be subconsciously seeking much more enjoyment from the show, and therefore like it more. To be fair, I didn’t dislike the show, not by a long shot. It was just okay, which is a wishy-washy reaction I think some other form of investment would have pushed me one way or the other.

There’s this notion of the critic in pop culture as someone who’s totally removed, casting judgment from his or her ivory tower (in my case that tower is made of tenuously patched plaster walls and cheap bagels from the bodega on my block). I’ve never liked that perception, so I’ve done everything I can to remain engaged. I’ve gotten to know comedians and studied the ways they work behind-the-scenes as well as on stage. I’ve performed myself, to get a better sense of the difficulties of the process. I think deeply about the state of modern comedy, and refuse to mock something or snark up a review just for a few self-serving yuks. Obviously it’s a process, and I’m still working on it, but the point is that I care an awful lot about getting my true opinion out on the page.

The financial thing is just par for the course I suppose. If it wasn’t for the free tickets, I’d literally go broke doing what I love, as opposed to going semi-broke. I just wonder how my experience at the Norm show would have been different had I paid for the ticket myself. Every time I mentally checked out even for a second (probably thinking about my Skyrim character—I settled on a Breton, BTW), would there have been something snapping me back to reality because I wanted to make the most of this bank-breaking experience? How many of my reviews have been even-so-slightly tainted because I’m lucky enough—and extremely grateful, too—to have the kind of job where my ideal form of entertainment is often comped?

I don’t really know. All I can do is write about my experience with the show, and hope that no matter what other psychological factors are at play, my opinion means something.

I sat down with Colin Quinn last night to talk about his weird...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:38:24 -0500

I sat down with Colin Quinn last night to talk about his weird Twitter feud with Will Ferrell. Basically it boils down to this: “Slow news day!”

[Vulture]

When Amy Poehler first met Nick Offerman, he was "super scary"

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:57:00 -0500

I’m working on a profile of Amy Poehler for Variety, and during our conversation, she had this to say about the first time she met Nick Offerman, the man of many faces, in Chicago. He looked…very different:

“I remember meeting Nick Offerman in the early ’90s before I moved to New York. He was doing straight theater, A Clockwork Orange on stage [with Defiant Theatre]. He had his hair dyed orange and shaved, all except for two devil horns. For years I thought he was a super scary badass. Which, by the way, he can certainly tap into that, but he’s like the most lovable, kindest, greatest guy—a total straight-up giggler.”

Yikes! Hopefully we’ll see that look on Parks & Rec’s next Ron and Tammy-related episode.

Next on the list of interviews I did accompanied by disembodied...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:51:01 -0400

Next on the list of interviews I did accompanied by disembodied torsos: Kal Penn on going to and from the White House and Harold & Kumar’s triumphant 3D return.

[Vulture]

Jonathan Nolan wrote the short story that became my favorite...

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:16:20 -0400

Jonathan Nolan wrote the short story that became my favorite movie of all time, Memento. My interview with him will become my favorite link to this interview I did with him of all time.

[Vulture]

I sat down with Mike Judge to talk about why he’s bringing...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:02:51 -0400

I sat down with Mike Judge to talk about why he’s bringing back Beavis & Butt-Head. As opposed to, you know, anything else.

[The A.V. Club]