HTA-0618: Tony Provenza — Complacency and Activism

Metadata

Summary

Henry interviews Tony Provenza about the dangers of complacency and the importance of civic engagement.

Full Transcript

00:02
I don't want to be complacent because complacency is the problem.

00:05
You know, people just go, oh, well, that's the way it is, and well, that will be the way it is.

00:09
But then, you know, I've got to make a flight because every year or two I have a gig.

00:14
So I just was hot under the collar one day.

00:16
I was traveling a lot.

00:17
Paul Provenza, this is a clip from a brand new show that is going to be on Showtime.

00:23
Woody, you're pointing at the screen like there's something wrong here.

00:26
I'm still, I'm still meeting on this little clip.

00:28
It is. That looks suspiciously like you.

00:32
I could be wrong, but...

00:33
No, that isn't... Okay, that isn't you.

00:36
That's Sandra Byrne.

00:38
Paul Prevenza is with us.

00:39
He's the author of the book Saturistas,

00:42
Comedians, Contrarians, Reconteurs, and Vulgarians,

00:45
photos by Dan Dion, who's, it turns out, local.

00:48
Fabulous photos, too.

00:49
Local guitar, brilliant artists.

00:51
And these are interviews with some of the great satirists and comedians of our time,

00:56
if I may coin a phrase.

00:59
and so talk about cheating on a book you know go have conversations with the bike and a tv show

01:04
i know isn't it great i'm actually i've actually turned hanging out with my friends into my actual

01:09
career i've been trying that for years but the bar that i do that if i had planned if i had planned

01:17
to figure out a better way to have fun i could never have achieved it just accidentally uh yeah

01:22
So these folks, comedians are funny people usually, but sometimes, every so often you get a comedian who really isn't that funny.

01:32
Well, a lot of them are very, very serious, too.

01:34
A lot of them have, there's a lot of meat behind what they say.

01:37
And we focused in this book on comedians who, as Harmon Leon put it, take the path of most resistance.

01:47
The ones who have something to say and there's something fun and funny in going to those edges and very much in the George Carlin vein, who, by the way, is the final interview in the book.

01:57
We did his last interview before he died.

02:01
It's a pretty interesting book and it's not about comedy.

02:03
It's not about politics and it's about all of those things at the same time.

02:07
And so the show on Showtime, if you can say that that way, the show on Showtime Green Room, is it a spinoff of the book?

02:16
No, it's just a sort of variation of this thing that I've been really interested in, which is I'd like to express, I'd like people to feel some of the things that I feel when I'm with comedians.

02:28
How I feel part of a community and how comedy just sort of changed my life, you know, with new ideas and different ways of seeing things and making me feel like as an outsider, which I felt like my whole childhood.

02:41
All of a sudden there was a whole bunch of outsiders that I became a part of.

02:45
And it's really uplifting to be around people who own who they are, who aren't trying to, you know, they're not walking on head shells.

02:51
They're not worried about saying what they really think, you know.

02:54
There's no passive aggression.

02:56
It's all just aggression.

02:57
In your face.

03:00
It's just, it's really refreshing to be around people who speak their minds and will engage people who disagree with them.

03:05
You felt like an outsider when you were a kid?

03:07
Oh, you sure didn't you?

03:08
You should have, really.

03:10
I still do.

03:10
I think so.

03:12
But seriously, I mean, look at you.

03:13
You know, New York kid, good-looking guy, you know.

03:16
Probably geeky.

03:17
He went to Bronx Science, which is one of those high-end schools.

03:20
I was very geeky.

03:22
I had these weird growth spurts.

03:24
My pants were real short.

03:25
I had lazy eye, so I had glasses with an eye patch.

03:29
And because I only had two-dimensional vision, because one eye was only working at a time,

03:33
I'd be bumping into things, so my glasses would break.

03:35
And I had a big Hunter Scotch tape here, bad haircut.

03:40
My grandfather was a barber, so he had to cut my hair.

03:43
And I don't know if he ever actually learned how to cut hair or open his eyes when he was doing exactly.

03:48
And yeah, I was super geek.

03:49
And then I would go to the movies and I'd see Jerry Lewis falling down, bumping into things, being an idiot just like me.

03:55
And he's a movie star.

03:56
So I said, well, if this is going to happen to me anyway, I may as well make it look like it was my fault.

03:59
So you got a classically trained as an actor.

04:01
That doesn't make a lot of sense.

04:02
I played Romeo in London, American actor playing Romeo in London.

04:06
My proudest moment in that is that nobody actually realized that from my accent that I was from the Bronx.

04:13
they didn't actually believe I was from England

04:16
they thought I was from New Zealand

04:18
but they didn't know I was from the Bronx

04:19
so that's a little personal victory at least

04:22
you know

04:24
but I mean to be an actor

04:25
I mean same thing you felt like an outsider

04:27
and all of a sudden hey I'm a star

04:28
well yeah it's just well I'm not exactly a star

04:31
if I was a star I wouldn't be up at this hour with you

04:36
and no entourage by the way

04:38
would you be your George Clooney today?

04:40
I don't think so

04:44
so uh i i you know we only got a minute left i just have to ask a little bit on the news

04:50
um just because one of the paul prevents of course is also on wait wait don't tell me which is a great

04:54
great npr so they sat satirized the news uh but i do have to ask you about like arizona

05:00
and the situation in arizona because obviously that's huge news and i just spent two weeks in

05:04
arizona sorry um so what do you think about that situation well you know i i think this uh this

05:09
country really I don't think this country's ever needed immigrants yeah you know they don't really

05:15
serve a purpose here in this country this is America we're Americans we don't need immigrants

05:20
well it's a country born of this is a country of immigrants I say let them all in I say let

05:24
everybody in let everybody in so that nobody knows who to fight with anymore well just remember that

05:30
that's what the Native Americans did that's right that's what happened to them so it's maybe not

05:34
such a great idea but I believe they carded Christopher Columbus when he first landed

05:39
If we let all immigrants in, we could open our own casinos.

05:45
Paul Provenza.

05:47
The book is called Saturistas with photos by Dandion, which are really fabulous as well.

05:53
And also, don't forget, on Showtime, on the TV screen near you soon, The Green Room.

05:59
Thank you for coming in.

06:00
He slept through the whole interview.

06:01
You can see him when he's awake.

06:04
We're going to take a break.

06:04
I thought I was doing good.

06:06
You were fabulous.

06:07
Coming up.

06:08
News and weather and maybe some sports, who knows?

06:10
We'll be right back.