The Power of Positive Drinking

Raising a glass to actor/comedian David Cross’s debut as an author, I Drink for a Reason.
-By J. Rentilly

He’s been called “smug and condescending” (by Pitchfork Media), and he’s also been ranked among the 100 greatest stand-up comics of all time (by Comedy Central). He cocreated one of the most beloved sketchcomedy series in TV history, Mr. Show, acted in one of the better sitcoms in recent memory, Arrested Development—and starred in the wafer-thin kiddie flick Alvin and the Chipmunks. This month, David Cross tests audience and critical reaction in yet another medium with his first book, I Drink for a Reason. It’s an offbeat, pungent, and sage riot of personal essays, satire, and “top-ten lists of top-ten lists.” Cross attacked the project with the passion and vitriol he brings to his stand-up, so much so that it left us slightly stunned at how soft-spoken the man is offstage as he told us about the rigors of writing a book, the polarizing effect of his standup, and what it’s like to get onstage at age 17.

How different is writing a book from putting together a stand-up set?
It’s so different for me, at least, because I’ve never sat down and written out my stand-up act. So much of my live set is just riffed onstage. I go out with my ideas and go from there. I can craft an hour-long set if I really put my mind to it—if I’m not just dicking around, which I also do—and I go from there: topics, ideas, and I riff. I record the set and listen back: Okay, that’s a worthless five minutes. Oh, there’s a funny line. And I cultivate it over time. The book, though, took me forever. I had to get an extension, actually. I didn’t think it would be effortless, exactly, but I did think, Oh, I’ll just write about this thing and then I’ll write about that thing, and it’ll be great. None of it happened as easily as I’d hoped.

What was the trouble?
The first stuff I wrote for this book was such shit that I threw most of it out. Then I went in and did the whole thing differently. But here’s the thing: I used to always fool myself, thinking that I’d have enough time to do everything I need to do. Oh, I’m going to L.A. to shoot a movie and I’ll be there for three months, but I’ll only be working a few days a week, and even then I’ll mostly be hanging out in my trailer, so I’ll have all this time to write books and do great stuff. Never. Never, never, never.

A lot of comics write really horrible books. What did you learn from those books?
I was very aware of that pitfall. I’ve always been very sensitive to ripping off my fans. There’s clearly a market for rehashed, repurposed bullshit, but I’ve never wanted to sell my fans the same old crap, with 20 percent new stuff, just so I can make more money. So many comics take their jokes and put them in slightly different form and then charge people 18 bucks for the same shit. It’s criminal. I have no respect for that.

As a comedian, you tend to have a polarizing effect on people. They respond to you in extremes.
That doesn’t bother me so much, and it bothers me less now than it used to. I used to be called condescending a lot, and it used to surprise me all the time. I don’t want to be condescending. I don’t like to be condescended to. On the other hand, if you have, literally, hundreds of people saying that you’re shrill and condescending, it makes you stop and think. I don’t mind being called angry, because I am angry.

You hit the stage when you were 17. Tell me about that.
I had one of the worst things happen that could ever happen to someone starting out: The very first time I did a stand-up set, at a place in Georgia, there were lots of really fucking bad Southern-fried open-mike guys doing their shtick, and I went up there and I fucking killed. I mean killed. Like top five kills of all time.At the end I said, “Okay, that’s my time. I’ve gotta go.” And people were like, “No! Don’t go!” And they’re clapping and yelling for me. It was like out of a movie—a really cheesy movie that you wouldn’t believe. I walked out of there thinking I was the fucking shit. I was a genius. I’m going to go to The Tonight Show to morrow. The next 20 shows, maybe half a year, I totally sucked. Same material. But I sucked.

We’re often told that comics are all miserable assholes. You don’t seem like a miserable asshole.
I’m far from miserable. There have been people who have called me an asshole. But I don’t really think I’m an asshole. If you think I’m an asshole, you’re probably the asshole. Most of the people I know—the vast majority of them comics—are not miserable or assholes. They’re enjoying their lives and being as funny as they can. I’m not doing stand-up because it’s the only thing I know how to do. I do it because it’s fun and I love it. If I’m hating it, I’ll leave the stage. I don’t like to be around miserable, neurotic people, and I won’t hang around them.

Kids love you from Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I’m so fucking sorry about that. Kung Fu Panda made up for that, didn’t it?

That said, you’re signed for Alvin 2.
Yeah, I am. I’ve got plenty of money, so I don’t really need to do it. But my contract says I have to do it, and you know what? I should do it, because I have plenty of money because of the first one.

You’re an avowed atheist. What do you think will happen to you when you die?
The same thing that happens to anyone else: the decay and putrefaction process. The body will give off methane. But because I don’t believe that global warming is a hoax perpetuated by some business-savvy people on the left, and my body will give off methane, I’d like to give out all my organs, but only to that guy Andrew Zimmern who does that weird eating show on the Travel Channel. So he can eat my organs on TV. And the bottom half of my torso I’d like to shoot into outer space, but only far enough so that it returns to Earth—as an interesting art project.

What would you like the world to remember about David Cross?
B-plus for effort. The guy didn’t try as hard as he could have, but he tried hard enough. Harder than most of us. He could have tried a little harder. But all in all, all things considered, at the end of the day, doing up the numbers, yeah, it’s better that David Cross was around than not around.