Jay Mohr

I interviewed Jay Mohr last week. It was a two-parter just because he started out on his cell phone as he and his wife were driving up from Los Angeles to San Jose. He kept cutting out. After a couple of call backs, we decided he'd call back that evening, which he did. The first part of the interview was awkward because of the communication problems, but at night he cut loose. The interview was more conversational, which is just as well for me.

We spoke for a total of about 45 minutes. That full 45 minutes will eventually make it into print (or its online equivalent) via transcription, but I've crudely edited it down to 12 minutes for your listening pleasure. I realize 12 minutes is still a long time to spend listening to anything on the internet, so I'll give you a rundown on the topics covered:

• Jay talks about calling our humble town "Hongcouver"
• Russell Peters
• Riffing as Norm Macdonald on male nurses, sausage curls and wiener dogs
• The origin of his Christopher Walkin impersonation
• His Rickles impression
• What Danny Gans means to him
• His knowledge of hockey
• SNL gigglers and Jimmy Fallon
• First false ending
• Thank God for Canada
• Canada in World War II
• Second false ending
• The problem with kids
• One last weiner dog

Here's the clip:


My story on Jay will run in the Georgia Straight on Thursday, ahead of his May 23 visit to the River Rock theatre. His opening act will be Tom Segura.

By the way, I just finished reading Jay's book, Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live and really enjoyed it. If you haven't picked it up already, you should. It's a light, breezy, catty, self-absorbed read. Right up my alley.

ADDENDUM: The Mohr story came out today. You can read it here.