Pete Holmes is an excellent joke writer, which is to be expected from someone whose cartoons have been featured in The New Yorker. Every word matters when you’re writing a strip’s caption where the aim is to convey the humor as efficiently as possible. There’s always the hope of distilling the comedy even further, employing less words, perhaps even less meaning, maybe only noises — gurgles, whimpers, yelps — or movements — pratfalls, slow burns, raised eyebrows — until you’re left only with comedic presence. Pete Holmes has this presence.

When Pete takes the stage, he operates in a mode of heightened comedic being that’s missed on his appearances on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend or VH1’s Best Week Ever. Sure, Pete is funny on those shows, but funny in a different way. He can’t explore the moment like he normally does but instead must deliver the jokes with little room for improvisation. Even though Pete delivers his material naturally, and Best Week Ever is a show whose format conveys a sense of “I just heard about this weird thing today and here’s what I think,” it’s still not the same as when Pete takes the stage.

The various YouTubes of Pete, where he simply takes up the mic and performs however he pleases, best approximate what it’s like to see Pete live. It’s a comedian and an audience enjoying a moment together as it unfurls, with neither party having more of an idea of what’s in store than the other. Pete will make a joke, comment on a passing thought, maybe the sound of a fan, or produce a bit that sounds like it’s been honed over the course of many nights but really was made fresh just then. To see Pete on TV or online isn’t the same as seeing him in person. It’s the difference between seeing a moment and being in the moment. You’ll get plenty of laughs, but it won’t provide the feeling of experiencing that moment as it happens, of watching and hearing Pete making his choices, his pauses, and his jokes as he makes them. That aspect of a performance can’t be captured, and that’s what makes it so valuable.

Ben Kharakh: This is exciting. It’s 11:00pm my time so, at this hour, it’s almost like we’re doing a late-night TV program.

Pete Holmes: It’s like Conan O’Brien.

BK: Exactly. Where are you now?

PH: I am in Indianapolis or just outside of it. I flew in today to do a college. We actually went out to eat at Chili’s, which is a fine restaurant, and then did the show. Now I’m back at the hotel, unwinding with some fruit salad.

BK: How do you feel about a place like Chili’s?

PH: I’m actually a bit of a food snob. I realize more and more that living in New York is a real threat to my ability to relate with humanity in the sense that my friends and I make fun of Chili’s and would never eat at a Chili’s. But when I was growing up, I ate at Chili’s literally every weekend, so losing touch with that side of life is not a good thing. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I do find myself looking at the menu and thinking, “Oh, there’s probably trans-fat in this.”

BK: How else do you feel yourself losing touch with reality?

PH: Well, New York is just a different place when compared to the cities and towns I visit when doing the road. A good majority of people shop at Wal-Mart, while that’s not really an experience in New York. Not to say that it’s better or worse — New Yorkers just don’t have that opportunity. I actually don’t mind Wal -Mart or walking around inside it. Everything’s there. But one of the main things is that there’s nowhere to walk when you’re out here [Indianapolis]. Everybody drives everywhere. So literally, before this interview, I went to a grocery store, which was the only thing open. I had to cross eight lanes of highway to walk to it because I don’t have a car. It’s kind of a hard life to relate to. In New York, you might be living in an apartment building with such a diverse group of people. Everybody lives in New York, riding the subway, walking around the city, going everywhere, eating dinner at 2:00 in the morning, doing comedy shows, being a comedian… All of this is atypical and that’s fine, but sometimes you kind of have to remember that the rest of America is living a far more ordinary life, if you will, and that’s perfectly okay. Same thing in New York. If you’re playing an incredibly hip crowd who thinks it’s too cool to talk about ever going to Chili’s and enjoying it, like I did tonight, you have to downplay that for them.

BK: Do you make different references depending on where you’re performing?

PH: Well, the thing that really stood out tonight was that this joke that I’ve been really happy with — I don’t know if you’ve ever seen me do it, it’s kind of newer, but it has literally been my favorite new joke. It’s about how Subway, even though we all eat there, how we’re all kind of aware that it’s really low quality. And in New York, it’s actually gotten to the point where I can’t do it in the middle of my set because nothing I have can match the intensity of how I feel about it, so I have to close on that. It’s become my new closer joke. As I was going into it here, I thought, “This is probably the wrong call.” I’m making fun of a restaurant. I can’t say “Don’t go to Subway; go to Cactus Deli.” There’s no real alternative here, so you lose that frame of reference. So suddenly I am this city idiot who is talking about stuff that’s unrelateable. It’s not so much references — it’s more of a worldview. People don’t really think that Subway is a horrible restaurant, and I did eat there today because really there’s nothing else to eat around here that won’t kill you.

BK: Do you think someone in Indianapolis is likely to call Subway a restaurant?

PH: Yeah. In the neighborhood that I’m in, Olive Garden closed because people don’t go out to eat around here, and if they do, they’re going to Subway — that’s a restaurant. So the Olive Garden is considered fancy, and I’m not looking down my nose at that. That’s just a different lifestyle. To be honest, I like Subway. I just think it’s not that high quality of a place. But going onstage and talking about how a restaurant that the audience likes isn’t good, that’s not really going to work in a place like this.

BK: People reading this might be imagining you with a top hat or a monocle now.

PH: Yeah, I’m very cosmopolitan in an old-school way. I’d say like 90-95% of my act is still relatable outside of New York. It’s just little things here and there. And then there are certainly blocks of material that I only do in the city. I have a similar chunk that I do about museums — about feeling pressure to go to museums and then feeling like I don’t really understand museums. That’s not really something that people outside of cities are thinking about on a daily basis, whereas in Chicago, New York, you know, even smaller cities, if there’s a presence of museums, people will understand what I’m talking about. But if it’s just something you do on a once-a-year field trip to a bigger city, then you think, “Why is this guy talking about this? I don’t care. I’d rather he talk about things that are universal,” which I do talk about. Things like fear, death, humanity, love, and carnal needs — everybody has those. If I might wax intelligent for a second, that is actually something that I realized doing comedy. I used to go to Peoria, Illinois, which is a go-to reference city when you’re trying to say “the sticks.” Literally, I would play Peoria and I would be very afraid that nothing I had to say to them was relatable, as though we had nothing in common. That’s a terrible feeling for a comedian. But everybody does have something in common, which is typically that we’re concerned with, if not afraid of, dying and losing things we care about. Fear, for example, is a general topic, and at a comedy show, it’s nice to air out your fears. It’s nice to acknowledge the communal laughter where we admit, together, that we have those fears. Laughing at them makes life a little bit better for that time. So that’s what I try to think about — not so much when I’m in Indianapolis, which is a pretty hip enough place, but when I really get out there, I try to remember everybody’s afraid of something. Fear of being murdered by a serial killer in your back seat, for example, is pretty universal.

BK: That reminds me of TJ Miller.

PH: You think TJ talks about death a lot?

BK: He talks about how one reason he performs is that he feels that by providing laughter, he is doing a civic duty of sorts.

PH: Oh yeah. Well, TJ’s philosophy — and he often tries to push this on me when we’re doing a terrible show — is that we’re like superheroes; that we’re swinging into typically an otherwise terrible comedy night –- not to put down other comedians, but I’m not being specific –- so if you’re doing a terrible comedy show, you come in and you save people from feeling shitty that day and you can make them feel better. I agree with that sometimes, but I think I’m saying something a little bit different, which is that, specifically, maybe more my mission statement is that all of us are uncool, all of us are not smart, all of us are afraid, all of us can feel small…and when somebody like me, who is physically a big person, a friendly person, a noticeable presence, is on stage talking about how he thinks that he’s dumb, how he’s afraid of silly things that he shouldn’t be afraid of, how he has arguments in his head with people who don’t exist, when I talk about all the things that are contrasting with this put-together personality and put-together image, I think that makes people lower their guard, which is a type of tension that they’re carrying around all day. It lowers it and they go, “Oh yeah, we’re all just human and we’re all just flawed, and we all need to lighten up and laugh about it.” When they see other people — people that you maybe wouldn’t expect laughing at certain things and thereby admitting that they think about certain things, or are also afraid or concerned with certain things — that makes you feel connected to them. I know this sounds pretty heady and like I have pretty high standards for myself, but, at the end of the night, a crowd will feel unified and a little more connected to the idea of being a person on this earth at this time. Now that’s a pretty high standard to set for yourself, and I certainly don’t make it, but you hit what you aim for, and if I’m going for even 1/100 of that idea, maybe at the end of the night people, will feel good about themselves, and that lasts longer than an hour of stand-up.

BK: There’s certainly that feeling of unity, from seeing you perform, in that everyone in the audience has seen a show that, due to the amount of improvised jokes that you make, will never be recreated again.

PH: That’s actually something TJ and I have specifically talked about because I’ll call him feeling guilty and I’ll say, “I did all this stuff, but I didn’t record it or write it down, but I let it all out.” He’ll remind me of something I think is quite true, which is that some jokes are just for that crowd. Some jokes are just for that night. And there’s something kind of beautiful, almost like Tibetan Monk sand sculptures, like, do it once, throw it away, let that be a gift for people that came out for a live performance. And I’m not talking about making fun of somebody’s shirt. I’m talking about the whole experience can really be its own type of event, and ideally it is. At the end, I’ve stopped beating myself up by thinking, “Oh, I should remember that thing that I said when I called that guy blah blah blah,” or said this about a sound I heard. That’s not really the point, necessarily. Every show should be made unique, and the degree to which it’s made unique is often the degree to which it’s enjoyable for me and the degree to which it’s memorable for the crowd. Even tonight, after the show, people were saying to me, “My favorite part was this, when you said this to me, or when you called this group this,” or whatever. And that happens every time. No one, tomorrow even, will remember any of my jokes, no matter how memorable they might seem at the time or how well they do. They will remember that I said some off-the-cuff thing that brought them into the show and kind of made the whole thing our experience, instead of my experience being given to them. The more it’s “our” show, the better.

BK: With all these different elements occurring in one of your performances, is there any type of laugh you enjoy or prefer to another?

PH: Yeah, it’s funny that you ask that. Comedians are like Eskimos… I don’t think we’re supposed to say that. Comedians are like Inuits in the sense that we have 45 different types of laughter, just like they have 45 different names for snow. I don’t know how true that is. Anyway, we have this vocabulary of laughs. There are laughs that I hate. One is the slow hiss. It’s just an acknowledgment that a joke happened. I’d rather have silence than someone fabricating this sound of discomfort, and that’s actually what I’ll tell them. If I get the air-being-let-out-of-the-balloon laugh, I’ll say, “You can save that one. I’d rather not have it.” George Carlin talked about how a person laughing is a really great Zen moment where you’re totally off your guard. You let all your defenses down and you’re being almost like a child. It’s just purely you, and that’s the laugh I’m going for. An almost “we didn’t see that coming” sort of laugh. It’s like being on a rollercoaster. If I go on a rollercoaster with a friend, I’ll turn and look at them during the ride. It’s beautiful. They look like an infant. They’re crying and they’re drooling and their face is locked in joy. That’s what I’m going for — the kind of laughing that if someone were to look at you, they would ridicule you. I want you to look ridiculous and stupid and stop thinking for five seconds what you look like and just literally drool and cry and turn red. Your chin goes down and you look like Jabba the Hut, you’re literally in pain. That’s what I’m going for. It’s the type of laugh that if you were an actor and the director said, “Laugh,” you would be very hard-pressed to laugh that way because it’s something that you either do genuinely or not at all.

BK: That also made me think of something you sometimes say on stage: “Can you believe this is what we’re doing?” What is it that you say exactly?

PH: I don’t remember. “This is happening,” is something that I like to say. Or, “This is our life. This is the moment that we’re all sharing.” To get people laughing, you have to get them to live in the moment, and I’m not a very “live in the moment” person. That’s something I work towards, but in a good show, I’m very much in the moment, and in a good show, the crowd is very much in the moment. It’s similar to Johnny Carson saying, “These are the jokes, folks.” I’m reminding them that it’s happening, that this is the show, this is the time to use those laughs that you were hoping to get out. It can heighten the sense of immediacy and give the show a better, more urgent feel.

BK: When you say that you’re not a very “in the moment” sort of person, that it’s something that you have to work towards, what does that actually entail?

PH: You mentioned TJ earlier. TJ is one of the most “in the moment” people I know, and that’s something I really admire about him. But, again, I don’t beat myself up about this. The world needs people like me too. But what I mean by that is I’ll do a show and I’ll go out to eat and stuff, or we’ll go out to a bar and start hanging out, it’s always in the back of my mind, even if I were drunk, that I want to get a good eight or nine hours of sleep. I will go home and I’m always planning for the next day. “What do I have to do? What should I eat? How well-rested should I be? Will I have time for a shower? What are the trains like at this hour? Should I get a cab? Do I have money?” I’m always thinking ahead. I’ll start exercising more if I think I have an important show coming up, like that will be on my mind and I’ll be working toward that goal. Instead of some people, and again I say this in an admiring way, TJ floats around in a beautiful way and certainly won’t worry about how much sleep he’s going to get. Whereas to be the kind of guy I am, I require a lot of sleep. A big part of me not living in the moment is me considering how, when, and where I’m going to get my sleep and if it’ll be enough. So that’s the first sign that you’re not an “in the moment” person. Some people say, “Oh, I’m going to go out and get crazy and see when the night ends naturally,” like a Jackson Pollack painting, but I’m not that way.

BK: How much sleep do you like to get?

PH: My ability to perform, to write, and to just think on what I consider a heightened comedic level makes sleep very important. On one hand, if I have a show like I did tonight, where I have to do an hour, which is a pretty decent amount of stamina to keep that energy up, added to which you have the hour and a half, two hours beforehand where you meet the students and you go out to dinner and you meet the people that brought you there, which in itself is a type of performance, it’s all socially draining in addition to the job of performing itself, which is socially draining. I didn’t get it last night, but I’d like to get nine even ten hours of sleep and then go the whole day. So I’m going to bed probably around like 3:00, and I’ll get up around noon. Not every day, but that’s ideal — certainly not every day.

BK: When is it that you find yourself most receptive to generating material?

PH: When these things come to together. There are two sides of this coin. One is — and this will happen quite often — that you’re on the road and you’ll only sleep four hours, and then you have to get up and drive to the airport, which is two hours away, and then you have to get on a flight. If you’re being deprived of those things, where you’re hungry and tired, that’s when my mind is churning, almost like still in a dream state and I’ll be speedwriting everything I’m thinking. I’ll consider it all brilliant. “This is amazing.” And then, on the other side of the coin, is the more manufactured type, where I’ve slept nine hours, I ate what I consider to be good brain stuff, I’ve been to the gym, I’ve read something… I think it’s important to put a lot of things into your head if you want to get good things out of your head. I’m not talking about comedy stuff; I’m talking about just reading an article. It’s nice to read other people’s writing to get yourself in that mode, and then you’ll generate a different type of material than you would in that frantic, deprived place, but both are going to produce results.

BK: A lot of people say that if you’re up late, unable to sleep, that’s when you’re going to feel more creative, but I think that’s an illusion because, at that point, you’re doing nothing but just sitting around and thinking, so it’s no surprise that you would feel more creative.

PH: Yeah, I agree with that. There are two times that I feel most creative during the day, and I think that it’s at night, when the pressure is off, the day is done, the phone has certainly stopped ringing, people have stopped IM’ing you, and you’re just by yourself, and basically you can work until you want to fall asleep. And then also right when I wake up. I happen to find that food and activities will sedate productivity, especially like writing productivity, so those isolated times in the morning when nobody’s really asking that much of you, are, of course, the best times to get some work done. That being said, I’m a huge proponent of under-preparing. Like tonight. That went really well, if I do say so myself, and it was because it felt good to me. It felt like the audience and I connected. It felt like my brain was firing. I was capable of getting into that place where I felt like the performer that I want to be. And the fact was that most of what I was saying had been written down, but a lot of it was being added to. I thought of a lot of the ideas before they weren’t written down anywhere specifically, so then I’m going up traditionally “under-prepared,” but that gives everything an urgency to get it out and remember, and you’re frantically trying to piece the joke together live, and that gives it a type of energy that people relate to and makes everything funnier or makes everything a little more interesting to watch. So while I’m talking about writing at night or writing in the morning, a lot of times I’m talking about writing sketches or writing screenplay ideas, or writing treatment ideas. Those are types of things where you have to be disciplined. You have to get up and work. But when it comes to stand-up these days, if it’s funny and it’s an idea, I’ll jot it down somewhere — not in its entirety, but just like the bullet points of the idea. The perfect way to do that, at this point in my development, is not fully fleshed out — not written out beat by beat by beat, punch-line by punch-line, but rather as something I care about. So I can trust myself to go up on stage, do a couple jokes, work into it, and that adrenaline and the inherit passion for the topic will come together with a good crowd, and at the end of the night, I’ll have it then, and then I’ll just keep trying to recreate that initial performance.

BK: How long did it take for you to become comfortable enough that you could go up on stage like that?

PH: About five years. I was always doing it, but I’d over-prepare, so it took a while for me to stop over-preparing and just get up there. If you look at my set list, at the ones that I’m holding when I’m just improvising, if I did every joke on that list, it would take me over an hour. You have 15 minutes, but I create a set list that would last over 15, and that gives me a safety net to go up and feel that I can say anything, and if it doesn’t work, there’s a million things I can switch into. In order to feel that free to improvise, I need to feel like I have stuff that I can fall back on to, and it takes about five years to get to a place where you feel like you have a pretty good collection of material that you can fall back on to. A lot of it just has to do with all the things that people are always talking about: feeling like you know your voice, feeling like you know your persona… Once you know those things and once you know how people perceive you a little bit better, which takes a really long time, then you can almost be on stage doing not quite an impression of yourself, but being in a mode of doing material you’re comfortable with as though you were doing material that you weren’t comfortable with. You’re still speaking confidently, but the cadence and energy allow you to present yourself as though you’ve never said any of these things before. That’s the place that it takes, like I said, five years to get to. Where you can say, “I’m just going to rip on this.” It tends to be a little bit more passionate to have a little bit more clear point-of-view, because in order to perform in that “high-wire act” style, you really do have to care about it; you really do have to know what your point of view is and have a real need to lay that out for strangers. Honestly, it makes the type of material that I’m writing now in that way and the type of material that I wrote when I first started stand-up seem very different. And I prefer how I’m doing it now.

Photos courtesy of Seth Olenick.