Podcast Transcript
This is Buzz Knight. And today on the Takin a Walk Podcast Series, I’m outside the historic Ed Sullivan Theater in New York city. This landmark is where the Beatles played, and it’s where The Late Show with Stephen Colbert happens. And it’s where our guest spends a lot of hours every week.
Paul Mecurio is an American comedian and writer. He’s been working his craft across the country as a standup. He’s been in film, TV, including on Colbert. Let’s go take a walk with Paul Mecurio.
Takin a Walk, with Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Paul, it’s so great to be with you.
Paul Mecurio:
Oh.
Buzz Knight:
As we’re taking a walk kind of sort of here outside the Ed Sullivan theater.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Thanks for joining the Takin a Walk Podcast Series.
Paul Mecurio:
Oh, absolutely.
Buzz Knight:
I’m really grateful. So I have a lot I want to talk to you about. First of all, you’re just back here in terms of your work on the Stephen Colbert Late Night Show.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Must feel great to be back.
Paul Mecurio:
It is, yeah. We were dark for a week and every, I don’t know, every, seems like six to eight weeks, we have a dark week, and it’s basically so everybody on the show can go into rehab. A lot of drinking on the show. And they try to just do it en masse, just everybody at one time, as opposed to piecemeal it.
Paul Mecurio:
No, it’s intense to put a show on five nights a week, an hour show. I was a writer and performer on The Daily Show and it was just… On this show, I perform, mainly. I do the warmup, I perform on the show, do standup on the show. It’s like taking a final every day to get the show on the air.
Paul Mecurio:
It’s just always… There’s never enough time, and there’s breaking news. And so…
Buzz Knight:
Love the show. Love the show.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. And then we double tape on Thursdays, and you have Friday off, and then… But it’s exciting, and then you’re in the Ed Sullivan theater, which is where Elvis, the Beatles… It’s insane. And I’m standing on the same stage as they are.
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Paul Mecurio:
And then of course I’m wiping my brow with napkins and throwing them to the women, and the women are like, “Why are you throwing this at me?” And I’m like, “Hey, I’m Elvis, aren’t I?” And they’re like, “No, you’re just some Italian kid from Providence. Stop throwing your sweaty handkerchiefs at me.” No.
Paul Mecurio:
And then you look around and it’s 1922, I believe, it was built, this beautiful dome theater. And it’s just insane how the history… Jackie Gleason was performed there. It’s really incredible.
Buzz Knight:
Do you pinch yourself every time you go in there? Just…
Paul Mecurio:
I pinch other people, which apparently I’ve got a meeting at human resources in five minutes, so I’m going to have to cut this short. Apparently can’t do that anymore. Not even on the arm, Buzz. Look, I I just pinched you, I guess there’s going to be a lawsuit.
Buzz Knight:
There’s no fun anymore.
Paul Mecurio:
There’s no more fun. Yeah, and then you just meet… I grew up in New England, in Providence. I’m a Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, Bruins fan. We did a Halloween themed show where all the guests dressed up and Gronk was on the show.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And they dressed him up as a transformer.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
He was so massive. They didn’t really have to do much. They put a tiny, like a pee-
Buzz Knight:
You can touch me, Paul. It’s okay.
Paul Mecurio:
Like a pee… Peewee hockey players have little shoulder pads. That’s what they put on him, and he still looked massive. His hands were… and I just went over like, “Nice to meet you.”
Paul Mecurio:
And I met Brian Cranston, and some of these people who have been on my podcast, Paul McCartney…
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
… I met, at The Colbert Report, and I got him on my podcast, which was surreal. And I could tell you about that.
Buzz Knight:
Well, okay. So…
Paul Mecurio:
So yeah, it’s been crazy. It’s been great.
Buzz Knight:
What’s an average day as a writer on a show like this?
Paul Mecurio:
On a show? Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
How did… Walk us through that.
Paul Mecurio:
I mean, I’ll talk through The Daily Show, which is where I did mainly my writing. In the morning, there’s a morning meeting to go over what’s current in the news. And then people, usually it’s the head writer, executive producer, show runner, decide, “Okay, well, these are the stories that we want to focus on,” and then go off and write for two or three hours.
Paul Mecurio:
At that point, depending on how it works, there may be some consultation with the host ahead of time, by the senior writer, head writer, executive who’s like, “These are the stories we’re thinking about.” And the host might go, “Oh yeah, that sounds okay.” But then we would work through the newspapers, at The Daily Show, with all these other… whatever feeds we would get from different news organizations. “Okay, these are the six, seven, five, whatever, top stories or things that are… ” And then you go off and write for three hours, like you’re taking a final.
Paul Mecurio:
And you just hope to God that you’re funny that day. And some days you are, and some days you’re not so funny. That’s why you have many people on a staff, so if you’re off, I’m on. Okay, we’re covered. Or vice versa. I mean, I was never off. I was brilliant, but no.
Paul Mecurio:
And then-
Buzz Knight:
Of course.
Paul Mecurio:
And then at noon-ish, one, depending on the schedule of the show, the jokes get… called a read down. They get read by the senior people, and then they get picked and then they go into production. So then you need a couple of hours.
Paul Mecurio:
Say you wrote a joke with a punchline where Steven needs to put on a funny hat, or that you need a clip from a movie that you want to cut in as a punchline. Intern has to go get the movie. All of this stuff has to happen, so you have to build all of what they call the elements for the joke to work.
Paul Mecurio:
And then the show gets rehearsed around three-ish, four-ish, in that timeframe. And then it goes through a rewrite. And while the show’s being rewritten, the audience is being loaded into the studio. Everybody’s cavity searched twice. Steven’s hang up, I don’t know what that’s about. Weird, weird, Buzz.
Paul Mecurio:
I like it. Sometimes I just… I’m not even in… I just go through the-
Buzz Knight:
Just for the fun of it.
Paul Mecurio:
Just so I can be with the people and understand what they’re going through.
Buzz Knight:
Sure. It’s a Providence thing.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So at that point, you’re on the clock again, because we’re trying to tape by a certain time. I think we were 5:30 PM at The Daily Show, too. It’s 5:30 PM at The Late Show. Start the taping and end… We try to tape in real time with the commercial breaks, so end by 6:30 PM, because the show then has to be edited, tightened up, and then it has to be delivered, beamed to a satellite at 9:00 PM so that it could air at 11:30 PM.
Buzz Knight:
It’s like a machine.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, it really is. It’s a couple hundred people on the show, and they all… It’s just this synchronized dance that has to happen. It’s pretty amazing when, even just talking about it out loud, how many moving parts there are.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And then there are those days when there’s huge, breaking news. And so there’ve been those days where…
Buzz Knight:
And none of that’s been happening lately.
Paul Mecurio:
Exactly, right? The script might be ready at, say, 3:00, 3:30 PM to be rehearsed. And then at 3:00 PM, especially when Trump was president, there was always something going on.
Paul Mecurio:
And same with The Daily Show, the same thing. Something happens, and you got to scrap half the… because if you don’t, what is that? Eight hours later, at 11:30 PM, it’s now eight hours that that news has been out there. You’re going to look lame if you don’t address it.
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Paul Mecurio:
You can’t. So it’s exciting, it’s invigorating, but it’s definitely a process because of the timely nature of it.
Buzz Knight:
Sure.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
So when you walk out on that Ed Sullivan stage…
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
You must… It’s electrifying.
Paul Mecurio:
It really is.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. And-
Buzz Knight:
You ever wet your pants?
Paul Mecurio:
Well, it’s part of my act, so I’m keeping Depends in business, basically.
Buzz Knight:
I don’t think they’re even a sponsor of this.
Paul Mecurio:
Well, I think you should look into that.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, you realize who’s been out there, and it’s this beautiful dome theater, and it’s 500 people, and you’re on Broadway. It’s a Broadway theater. And I actually did an off-Broadway show based on my standup, and what I do in the warmup in the show, because I like to talk to people, and I bring people on stage from the audience and they tell stories from their lives. And then I was approached by some producers to do it as a off-Broadway show.
Buzz Knight:
And this is where you found, at that off-Broadway show, all these kinky sex addicts, pretty much, who were over 65.
Paul Mecurio:
You saw that. You saw that, right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. It was called Permission to Speak. And the premise of the show was if we talk, we connect, and if we connect, maybe we realize we have more in common than we think. And you can’t judge a book by its cover, because I was getting these incredible stories. And then in my standup, when I tour, and then also in doing the warmup here, or just… Even when I perform on camera, I like to play with the audience, and they basically…
Paul Mecurio:
You meet people and they look like John and Joan Smith from middle America. And then you find out… For example, this one couple in their ’70s, “How did you meet?” “On a dom website, domanatrix website.” And I go, “Why did you connect?” She goes, “Well, he’s a dom and I’m a sub.” And the place is… Their jaws… And no one’s making fun of anybody. It’s just people talking about their lives.
Paul Mecurio:
And he said, “Yeah, I realize I like to be submissive.” This is the woman. “Not because I’m a woman,” she said, “but because it’s the only point in my day when I’m free and I don’t have to be in control. And it makes sense.” And I said, “By the way, how are you?” And they go, “We’re 76 years old.” It was incredible.
Paul Mecurio:
There’s another woman. And sometimes you just talk. You’re not looking to make jokes. The funny comes out of these circumstances, but not in a way that makes fun of people. So I said to this woman, what’s your name? She goes, “Lydia.” I go, “No. Nidia?” She goes, “No. Lydia.” “I’m sorry, what is your name?” She goes “Nidia with an N.” I go, “That’s an unusual name. How’d you get that name?” She goes, “Well, my father got my mother pregnant. They were married, got pregnant with me. But at the same time, my father was having an affair, and he named me after the woman he was having an affair with.”
Buzz Knight:
Do you tell your mom about these-
Paul Mecurio:
Oh my God.
Buzz Knight:
Or do you shield her from some of-
Paul Mecurio:
No, my mother doesn’t… She’s insane. She doesn’t need to be… She’s 94, she thinks she’s 25.
Buzz Knight:
They take the filter off at that age.
Paul Mecurio:
She’s always… And she started her own business, a very progressive woman, in 1960, in a tenement house in Providence. Started a furniture business with two, three kids, married. She wanted to have her own career. And when that generation, the mothers stayed home and worked in the house, which is equally hard, and raised the kids. And she did that too, but she wanted this business.
Paul Mecurio:
And so we just closed her business after 63 years.
Buzz Knight:
Really?
Paul Mecurio:
Well she’s 94. She has cataracts. She never could hear well. And she won’t get a good hearing aid because she’s too cheap, because she grew up in the depression. So she has a hearing aid she actually found in the garbage, and it literally (whistles). “Is that me? Is that… ” It’s a lot of that.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
When you go for a walk with her, at least 12 to 15 dogs will follow you within a minute. It’s like talking to a tea kettle in a house dress, basically.
Paul Mecurio:
And so we wanted her to do a big closeout sale, and she wouldn’t because she goes, “Well, I’m going to open the store again somewhere else.” I go, “You’re 94.” She goes, “Well, what am I going to do?” I go, “Well, you go to the seniors center and hang around.” She goes, “I don’t want to go with those people. They’re old.” I go, “You’re old.” I go, “What do you think, you’re going to go see a Taylor Swift concert with 23 year old girls? You’re frigging old. You’re old. Deal with it.”
Buzz Knight:
She doesn’t want to deal with it.
Paul Mecurio:
No. She’s healthy and everything, but she will never give you… You’re always a child in your parents’ house. I worked on Wall Street, blah, blah, blah. I’m still Pauly, right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
So we’re helping her close the store. She’s also a pack rat, like a lot of older pack… People don’t want to throw stuff away. And there’s some old papers and catalogs, furniture cabinet. I’m like, “Okay, let’s just throw this out.” So I throw it in the basket and then I turn back, and I’m working on something and I turn back again, and the thing I just threw in the garbage is now out on the table again. I’m like, okay. So I take it, I’m like, maybe I’m spaced, I thought I threw it in.
Paul Mecurio:
I throw it away again. I turn back. I look again, it’s out. So when my back is turned, she’s un-throwing away, to taking stuff out. So the way you have to clean with my mother and throw things out… You remember the scene in Godfather II where the young don, played by Robert De Niro, he goes into the stairwell and he shoots the old-
Buzz Knight:
Yes.
Paul Mecurio:
… in the white suit, and he shoots him in the cheek?
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Paul Mecurio:
And then he goes up onto the roof.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Paul Mecurio:
And he takes the gun, and he breaks the gun into pieces so they can’t trace it, and he puts it in different stove pipes?
Paul Mecurio:
That’s how you have to throw things out with my mother. You have to take the thing and rip it up into multiple pieces and then throw it in different garbage cans.
Paul Mecurio:
You have to leave the premises. I was driving to Stop & Shop and throwing it in dumpsters. I was knocking on people’s doors like, “Can I just throw some stuff away so my mother doesn’t find it?”
Paul Mecurio:
It was a year ago we did it, and it was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done…
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
… because she went kicking and screaming.
Buzz Knight:
Now would you ever have her on your podcast?
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. No I wouldn’t because she can’t hear, so it would be a lot of repetition. So we would talk about one thing but it would take 45 minutes. I mean, it could be fun, but then she would just start hamming it up and wouldn’t say… I know her, she would just go off… She wouldn’t-
Buzz Knight:
Off script.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. Not that I would script her, but she’s just…
Buzz Knight:
She sounds adorable.
Paul Mecurio:
No, she’s not. She’s a pain in the rear end, okay? Stop it. She’s not. We had to fumigate her car.
Buzz Knight:
Pauly, it’s your mom.
Paul Mecurio:
No, we had to fumigate her car because she went shopping, this is when she was driving, to get some food. She was having some friends over, so she went to a deli and she got some cold cuts and some really strong cheeses, whatever. Provolone and blue cheese, whatever. And then she realized she had to stop at Target for something. And it’s a summer day and she locks the car. She put her food, the food, under the front seat of the car, and then took some of it, like the cheese, she put on the front seat of the car.
Paul Mecurio:
And then she went to the house and her friends came over, and she forgot the cheese was in the car. And it stayed in the hot car for two days and it stunk up the car. And when I said to her, “Why did you put the cheese under the front seat of the car?” She goes, “Oh, I was hiding it. I didn’t want people to steal the cheese.” I’m like, “Is there a Gouda thief running around Rhode Island? What are you talking about?”
Buzz Knight:
Probably is.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. So yeah, so she’s a piece of work, but she’s got it all together, still. Yeah. So it’s interesting, let’s put it that way. Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
I’m sure she’s very proud of you.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, I think so. I don’t know.
Buzz Knight:
But did she really want you to stick with the investment banking? Or…
Paul Mecurio:
No. I mean, I think more… It was like, whatever’s going to make you happy. My wife, who I went to high school with, she said to me, “Well, you’ve worked so hard at this. Why… To get to Wall Street. You want to start over again?” And no, when I first told her, I said, “I think I want to leave Wall Street.” This is my wife. “To be a comedian.” She looked at me and goes, “That better be your first joke.” And I’m like, “Uh oh.”
Paul Mecurio:
And I was doing it on the side, but I wasn’t telling anybody. I was living a secret double life where I was on Wall Street doing these huge M&A deals, and working 120 hours a week, all-nighters. And when I had any down time, instead of going to dinner for an hour with the rest of the associates, I was sneaking off to dive bars in New York City, working open mic nights.
Buzz Knight:
And that’s ultimately… Then you got the gumption to pitch Jay Leno, right?
Paul Mecurio:
Jay Leno, right. Yeah, exactly. And that’s… was where I got to meet him at a private function and gave him some jokes, and he bought the jokes and started using them on The Tonight Show. And then he said, “Go try the jokes out.” So I started to go to these clubs, and I was living this secret double life. And I would sneak out and I’d get in a car, and I’d take my suit coat off, and my tie. And I’d try to look as edgy as I could because I was working at some really dive-y places in New York. One of the places was called Downtown Beirut 2.
Buzz Knight:
Oh Jesus.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. I liked the 2, because apparently they were franchising them or somebody blew up one. I’m probably thinking the latter. And there was a hooker that worked out there and she would give you notes on your jokes when you came off.
Buzz Knight:
No.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. She’d come over and I’d be like, “You know that joke about whatever? I think it needs something.” She goes, “Oh, excuse me.” And then she’d run into the bathroom and take care of business, so to speak.
Buzz Knight:
Oh geez.
Paul Mecurio:
It was unbelievable. And then I’d get dressed back up, and I’m going to this 50th floor, white-shoe law firm after getting joke notes from a hooker down in the East Village, where they were dealing drugs out of this place.
Paul Mecurio:
And then when I finally told my wife that I was doing standup, she goes, “Oh, thank God.” I go, “Why?” She goes, “Oh, I thought you were having an affair.” I go, “Why?” She goes, “Well, you were supposed to be out working, but you were coming home reeking of beer and cigarette smoke, and you had women’s names written on a piece of paper. And those were other comics who had rooms to work, but she thought it was me screwing around.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And so she had a whole other puzzle that she put together.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Paul Mecurio:
And she said, “Oh, thank God. You’re doing standup.” I go, “Well, wait until you see my act. You may not say thank God so much.”
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, right?
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Paul Mecurio:
And so I did that for a while, until I was about to have a nervous breakdown, because I was trying to keep the two worlds apart, and then sort of realized I got to either go for this full time or hang it up.
Buzz Knight:
Now, when did you, before the investment banking and everything, realize that you were funny? I mean…
Paul Mecurio:
Well, I just was funny with my family and my friends, and everybody. So I never had a plan to do this. It was always definitely just to go and work on Wall Street and do that. And then it was… I don’t know, I started just writing these jokes and…
Buzz Knight:
The bug bit you.
Paul Mecurio:
And the bug bit me, and this all happened because I gave these jokes to Leno. And when he called me… I’d written my number on the papers, and he called me, and I thought he was going to blow me off. And I got this phone call, and it’s like, “It’s Jay Leno. Is Paul there?” And I thought it was a friend pulling a prank, doing a Jay Leno impression.
Paul Mecurio:
And I go, “Yeah, really funny. David, my friend David’s name. I go, “It’s not Jay, it’s David, I know.” “No, no, it really is.” I go, “Yeah, right.” He goes, “No, it is.” I go… And I actually said to Jay Leno, “You do a lousy Jay Leno.” And then he goes, “Well, I think I do a pretty good me.” I’m like, “Oh God.”
Paul Mecurio:
And then he goes, “I’ll hire you to send stuff in, and I’ll pay $50 a joke.”
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And then he did… About a week later, he did one of the jokes on The Tonight Show and it blew my head off my shoulders.
Buzz Knight:
Oh man.
Paul Mecurio:
And $50. And here I was, middle class kid from Providence, Rhode Island, working on these huge merger deals, and this little $50 joke just sucked me in.
Buzz Knight:
Did he pay by check?
Paul Mecurio:
His check bounced, that cheap bastard. Oh my God.
Buzz Knight:
You still have the check though, of course.
Paul Mecurio:
I do. I have the check. I have a frame. And Big Dog Productions, that’s the name of his production company.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And with a caricature of his face with a big chin. And yeah, he was… and then he would… He was the one that said you can try the jokes out before you send them to me. And that’s how I started doing standup.
Buzz Knight:
That’s so awesome.
Paul Mecurio:
And then that’s led to the double life, and then that led to… There was a stabbing at the bar one night at Downtown Beirut 2, and I had to go on stage after a guy got his neck slashed over a drug deal. He was still standing. It was not a deep, deep cut, but he was cut, and he was bleeding.
Paul Mecurio:
And I went on. I thought I could go, I thought the show was over, and as I’m leaving, because I was supposed to be next after that happened, and as I’m leaving, I hear, “All right, you guys ready for some comedy?” The guy’s bleeding in the middle of the bar, and the cops are there, taking report. And then I basically said… I go on stage and I go, “Hey, well it’s nice to be here at Downtown Beirut 2. I always wanted to follow a slashing.”
Paul Mecurio:
Thank you. Thank you for laughing. I thought that was a pretty good joke.
Buzz Knight:
I love it.
Paul Mecurio:
But the guy who heard me, got slashed and heard me, he didn’t think it was that funny. And he threw all these bloody napkins at me and they stuck to my shirt. And that was sort of my introduction to comedy. Welcome to the world of entertainment.
Buzz Knight:
I get your reaction on one of my favorite movies of all time. King of Comedy. Huh? I mean-
Paul Mecurio:
Oh my God.
Buzz Knight:
Is that tell the story in some way?
Paul Mecurio:
It does. And also the casting of Robert De Niro in that is really interesting. I would not have thought of that, but he’s so good in it.
Buzz Knight:
It’s brilliant.
Paul Mecurio:
And…
Buzz Knight:
Sandra Bernhard.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. But I used to love watching standup growing up. I would beg my parents to stay up to watch any comedian on late night television. I’d do Rod… Go into school, and then I’d do Rodney jokes. And people knew it was Rodney. I wasn’t pretending it was mine. I wasn’t planning on being a performer. I just loved jokes. I loved watching anybody. Jonathan Winters, brilliant improvisationalist. And really the master that… I know Robin Williams looked up to him. And I knew Robin Williams. We were friends and he was a great guy. So it was just… I don’t know. I guess it was in me but I didn’t know it was there, and it kind of got bitten by this bug.
Buzz Knight:
But it’s a community, right?
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
I mean, there is competition.
Paul Mecurio:
Yes.
Buzz Knight:
Among comics.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. Some of it supportive, some aren’t.
Buzz Knight:
Okay. Just like any business.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. I remember I got my first special and I said… I was so excited. I was in one of the clubs and a comic goes, so I go, “I got a special.” He goes, “How’d you get that?” That’s all he said. And I just wished the guy from Downtown Beirut 2 were there to stab him, because I wanted to just stab him.
Buzz Knight:
Right. Right.
Paul Mecurio:
You have to stay positive because you’re right. But you know, a lot of great people. Lewis Black’s a good friend. Brian Regan, good friend. They’re really great guys.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. And supportive.
Paul Mecurio:
And supportive and nice and yeah.
Buzz Knight:
But Leno, too, in that early phase, as you had submitted your joke, gave you advice on getting to the punchline.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I sent him a… Once he said, “I’ll pay you, just send stuff in,” I would just send stuff in. And then one day he goes, “What do you do for a living, anyway?” I go, “I’m a lawyer.” He goes, “I knew it.” I go, “Why?” He goes, “You write like a lawyer.” He goes, “You’re writing jokes. Get to the punchline. You’re not writing the Magna Carta for God’s sake.” And they were really long. They were long, because you know, I was all about the detail, right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
But by the time you got to the joke, the punchline, you had gray hair. You just aged. It was too much. So it’s a learning process. And then for yourself, you have to learn your own voice and what you want to say and talk about.
Buzz Knight:
But are you ever-
Paul Mecurio:
That’s my… Yeah, that’s my limo.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
It’s a Yugo, but…
Buzz Knight:
The Yugo limo’s here.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Are you ever happy with what you’ve come up with? I mean, you’re constantly, obviously in search of continually improving, but are you ever happy and at peace with your voice?
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, I think I like my voice. There’s just always jokes that you’re… you want to keep improving on, or new jokes you want to introduce. And then there’ll be some jokes where you know they’re funny, and you just can’t seem to get it 100%, or there’s…Lewis Black mentioned this. There’s some weird thing that happens. You do a joke for the first time and it does really well. And then it bombs for four times after that for some reason. And I don’t know if it’s because of the excitement of doing it for the first time.
Paul Mecurio:
I mean, the art of good standup is to making it feel like you’re talking about it for the first time. Because if you come off bored with it, then they’re going to not come along on the ride with you. So you’ve got to really perform it like it’s fresh and new and you haven’t said it before. At least for me, and I think a lot of comics, you’re always introducing new stuff into your act, because you want to keep it fresh for you or people that come back to see you, or…
Buzz Knight:
But here’s the thing that constantly amazes me about you and other standups, how effortless you make it. And I know it’s not effortless.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, but that, you grow into that. If you saw me in the beginning, you’d be like, “This guy should stay on Wall Street.” Talk about peeing your pants every… You’re stiff. You’re not confident. You really have to… The jokes are just a vehicle to convey who you are. The words are important, but it’s really important that they come to know who you are as a person and understand your thinking and everything else. So if I’m not confident in leading them, they’re not going to come along.
Paul Mecurio:
The audience has all the power. You just can’t let them know it, because they’ll crush you like and ant.
Buzz Knight:
They smell it.
Paul Mecurio:
Yep. They’ll not give you the love that you want. It’s like if you’re attracted to somebody and you try too hard and you start… They go like, “All right.” You’re a little too needy.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Back off.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. So it’s this fine line between, I don’t really care what you think, but not… with an audience, but not to the point where you’re just a complete jerk to them either. And then they’re like, “Well, why am I even here? The guy’s obnoxious.”
Paul Mecurio:
So you go out and you just… For me, the rule is, if I got to care about it, I got to find it interesting first for me and then funny for me, and then you’ll come along.
Buzz Knight:
So in your travels, too… So I know you’re all across the country doing standup, you will work the localized angle somehow, right?
Paul Mecurio:
Not really.
Buzz Knight:
No?
Paul Mecurio:
No, because to me it’s a little bit of a crutch, and I think they should come to see you for you, and not so that they can hear jokes about stuff that they’ve already heard jokes about. Right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Like, “Oh you must be from Peabody.” You know what I mean?
Buzz Knight:
So it’s too obvious to do that.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. I mean, it’s just too simple. It’s almost like a painter saying, “Okay, I’m going to paint a certain way for the Boston market, and then I’m going to paint a different way for New Mexico,” and… An artist painter. And I think you just want to be who you are and take… I think somebody in Minnesota should have a flavor for a Northeast guy who might be a little… I’m animated and got whatever. I get agitated and I… whatever, versus somebody who might… And experience that kind of person as opposed to somebody who’s exactly like maybe a more… Sometimes people in the Midwest can be a little mellow and more even-tempered, right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Well, they see that all the time. They should experience me for who I am. So I don’t want to go into a marketplace and try to be their friend by talking about… I mean, look, if I’m in the area and I care about something, like if I’m in the Boston area, I’ll talk about the Celtics or whatever because I care about it. It’s not an angle to get to them.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
But you just want to be who you are and bring who you are to them so that they experience somebody that maybe they haven’t experienced before.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Does that make sense? You know what I mean?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, completely. Yeah. It’s authenticity, really.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. I’m not going to come up with anything… unless there’s something really unusual about their city, but even then, I’m probably not going to come up with anything that they haven’t already heard from somebody else, or said to each other over a beer or whatever.
Buzz Knight:
Right, right.
Paul Mecurio:
Right? Because they’ve got years and years and years in that town. And I’d rather spend the effort talking about things that matter to me.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Right now I’m working on a joke about somebody I know gave somebody a lottery ticket for their birthday. And I’m like, “Is there any gift that says more, ‘I really don’t care about you,’ than a lottery ticket?” I care about you to the extent of 327 million to one that you enjoy this.
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Paul Mecurio:
I mean, just take the money and just throw it down the toilet. It just is the most… It literally is saying, “I like you, but $2 worth. And I really don’t want to see you enjoy this. So the odds are so stacked against you.”
Paul Mecurio:
So I know I have something there.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
And I started to work on it recently, in this last week. The punchline’s not there. Sometimes I just have to talk it out on stage.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Paul Mecurio:
And something’ll come in the moment.
Buzz Knight:
Yep.
Paul Mecurio:
Sometimes it’ll come all at once, and sometimes it’ll come if I sit in front of the computer with it. It just depends on… It’s weird.
Buzz Knight:
When you said it, you know what flashed through my head was all the people that have given me, at Christmas time or whatever, a lottery ticket.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Wipe those people off your list.
Buzz Knight:
They’re gone.
Paul Mecurio:
They’re not your friends. They don’t care about you. They’re jerks. They’re really jerks.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. So growing up in Providence.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
You had a mayor there who has since passed away.
Paul Mecurio:
Oh, Buddy Cianci.
Buzz Knight:
Buddy Cianci.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Who, I mean… Did you ever encounter him in your time in Providence?
Paul Mecurio:
He appointed my mother to the school committee in Providence.
Buzz Knight:
Is that right?
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. I met him. Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Were they dating or something?
Paul Mecurio:
No, because he would’ve killed himself if he dated my mother. No, he was a character. He was this little… Very bright, very charismatic. He could have run for national office, but he was a small time politician in some ways. Little pudgy guy, Napoleonic complex, wore a bad toupée, smoked a cigarette. He was a tough guy, but very bright, went to law school and everything. And he just couldn’t get out of his own way.
Paul Mecurio:
He had his own line of marinara sauce. “Yeah. Hey Buzz, what are he doing? I can run the city, and I got a little Bolognese for you right there.”
Paul Mecurio:
But you know, it’s funny. He got arrested and kicked out of office because he took a guy to an abandoned warehouse and slapped him around, and put a cigarette out on him.
Buzz Knight:
Oh.
Paul Mecurio:
And he himself did it because the guy had an affair with his wife. And then he got kicked out of office and they reelected him in a landslide when he was…
Buzz Knight:
Only in Providence.
Paul Mecurio:
Well, exactly, because Providence… This is this typifies Providence when it comes to crime. This old Italian woman on Federal Hill, which is an Italian part of Providence, she goes, they go, “Ma’am, why would you vote for him after he did what he did to that guy?” She goes, “Hey, the guy was messing around with his wife. He got what he deserved.” And that’s Providence in a nutshell. It’s like, “Hey, a little bit of crime’s not bad.” You know what I mean?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
My cousin, I got a cousin that was running numbers for a long time, and then he would… He was just running numbers and he would stand in front of us. He like was like Sopranos. He’d stand in front of the street corner, tight pants, his legs are always moving like he’s got a live snake in his pants, like, “How you doing, how you doing?” And he dressed, always, really loud clothes, and quaffed hair. And he was selling stuff at one time out the trunk of his car. At one point he was selling suits, ratchets, and car alarms.
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
But they were car alarms that he stole out of other people’s cars. And he had no sense of the irony that… I was like, “Bob, the fact you stole this means it’s not a very good alarm.” He goes, “What are you talking about? It just doesn’t have the box. Here, take it. It’s $25.” So it was just… There’s a charm to it that’s… You know what I mean?
Buzz Knight:
I love Providence. I really do.
Paul Mecurio:
It’s just like a world unto itself.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
It really is. My mom’s still there, so I go back up and still see some of the same people hanging around.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Hanging around.
Buzz Knight:
Doing the-
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:32:34] shakes. I know another guy. He said to my mother one time, he goes, “Yeah,” he goes, “Ms. Mecurio, I’m in your business now. I’m in the furniture business.” She goes, “What do you know about the furniture business?” He goes, “Well, I’m selling mattresses.” She goes, “How you getting your hands on mattresses? You have to have an account with the mattress company.” He goes, “Nah, I don’t need an account.” He goes, “I go to the dump.” They got a bunch of mattresses. I pick them up. I pay nothing for the mattress. I got a Chinese guy, he recovers them for $100. I sell them for $600.” Which is a complete violation of health code. You don’t know what’s in the… He’s, “Hey, everybody wins.” And my mother’s like, “Just get out my store.”
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Paul Mecurio:
He goes, “You want something?” I go, “No, I don’t want your bug ridden mattresses from the dump in my store.” So it’s-
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. It’s just a colossal…
Speaker 5:
… there’s a good burger place that just opened up.
Buzz Knight:
Okay. Thank you.
Paul Mecurio:
And oh yeah, we’re going to have a burger. There you go. And I basically-
Buzz Knight:
I love New York.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, I know. He gets right up to you. He’s got an agenda. He did his shopping and he has flyers. He’s got two birds with one stone.
Buzz Knight:
No, it’s amazing.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Everybody’s got a hustle.
Paul Mecurio:
Exactly.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. So talk about your podcast.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. Yeah. I liked doing one on one. I grew up listening to… My mom would always listen to Larry King and David Susskind. Old, but really great interviewer in the New York area. And I always just loved one-on-one long form, because late night shows, there’s not a lot of time. People come on, they have six, seven minutes. They got to promote their product, whatever they’re doing, their movie, whatever. So I want to do a podcast. And it’s the law that you have a podcast. Everybody has to have one now’s.
Buzz Knight:
That’s right.
Paul Mecurio:
It’s congressional mandate, especially if you’re a comic. I don’t want to necessarily be standup, have it be a standup pod, so I just wanted do one on one long form interviews.
Paul Mecurio:
And then I started getting really great guests. Colbert’s done it. Kevin Costner, Brian Cranston, and Kyra Sedgwick, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. And I have just a broad array of interest. So I just… Whoever I can get.
Paul Mecurio:
And then I got Paul McCartney on the podcast.
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
It was all by… And I love to talk to people about their process and how they do what they do. And I met him, I met McCartney, at the Colbert Report. I was working at the time, and he was about to perform. And he was hanging out in the hallway outside the studio, and he was just leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling and chewing gum, like he was waiting for a bus, all alone. And I just went up to him and I go, “I just want to say… ” Well, first, when I saw him, my whole world stopped, because around the corner, you don’t expect to see Paul McCartney.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
Especially alone, without an entourage and security. And my whole world’s like slowed down. And then I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s Paul McCartney. Should I… ” The whole world just completely stops. And then I’m like, “Should I say hi? Should I not say hi?” And then I’m like, you know what? He’s alone in a hallway without security. He’s like a gazelle on the Serengeti plains and I’m a lion, and I’m going to pounce. So I went up and I go, “Just wanted to say hi. I’m honored to meet you and be in the same building with you, and psyched to see your show tonight.” He goes, “Oh, thanks.” And I walk away and he goes, “Come back. What’s your name?” He goes, “Paul.” He goes, “Oh Paul, that’s a good name.” I’m like, “All right, I’ll do the jokes, buddy. Back off, will you?
Paul Mecurio:
“You just make all your royalties on those silly love songs.” No. He goes, “what do you do?” I go, “I’m a standup and I work on this show, and act and… ” He goes, “Oh yeah.” He goes, “I love standup.” And he knew Richard Pryor about when he started talking. He goes, “You got a kid?” “Yeah. I got a kid.” “Yeah. It’s hard when you’re going on tour.” I go, “Yeah, it is.” I go, “But I’m thinking your touring is a little different than my touring.”
Paul Mecurio:
And five, 10 minutes, go by. We’re just talking like regular people, like you and I. That’s it.
Buzz Knight:
Oh.
Paul Mecurio:
But as I’m talking to him, I’m getting closer and closer to his face. Because he’s so iconic, I’m checking him out. I was so close, to the point where he starts leaning backwards. I was so close, I was like those chimps in the National Geographic channel where they clean ticks off their mates. I could have cleaned fleas off his eyebrows. I was that close.
Paul Mecurio:
And then I’m like, “I’d better leave this guy alone.” And I go into the bathroom, I call my wife, I’m hyperventilating. I’m like, “You’re not going to believe. I just talked to Paul McCartney. Oh my God.” And then I say this out loud, “You know what?” On the phone with my wife, I go, “Paul McCartney should do my podcast. I should talk to him about how he makes music.” So I go and I knocked on the door of his dressing room and I said, “I know this is crazy, but would you do my podcast?” And he goes, “I just want to talk to you about music. That’s all.” He goes, “Yeah, sure.”
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
Just like that. That’s it. And you know if there was that… Anybody listening to me can relate to this, they’re that hot girl or hot guy you want to ask them out. They would way above your pay grade, they’re never going to say yes, but you say, “You know what? I’m going to ask them out anyway. They’ll say no, but at least I know I asked them out.”
Buzz Knight:
Sure.
Paul Mecurio:
And instead they say yes and you don’t have a plan.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Paul Mecurio:
That was me. He goes, “Yeah, sure. How do we do it?” And I got completely flustered and I literally… I’m not doing this to be funny. This is how I sounded. Anyway, he goes, “How do we do it?” I was like, “Ah. Ah.” And I start rubbing my thigh, like Rain Man, like, “Ah, um.” And my eyes are darting back and forth, and I’m sweating, and I go, “Well, I’ll come to London.” And he goes, “We’re in a room in New York together. Why would you come to London?” And then I go, “I don’t know.” And then he goes, “Is it easy to do?” And I actually said to Paul McCartney, “Oh yeah, it’s really easy. I don’t want to be a bother. I know you’re really busy. You could do it on your phone, naked from your toilet.” I’m like, oh my God.
Buzz Knight:
I really said that, right?
Paul Mecurio:
Right, right. I’m like, “I got to… ” I go to look up, “I’m going to just leave you and I’ll go find your assistant.”
Buzz Knight:
Figure it out.
Paul Mecurio:
And he goes, “No, no. You and I will do it.” I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “You and I will just exchange numbers because they’re going to make it way too complicated. And I want to give you a chance to talk to me the way you want to talk to me.”
Paul Mecurio:
And so we’re exchanging phone numbers.
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God.
Paul Mecurio:
And just like Leno, I thought I got a blow off, right? So he does the Colbert Report performance. And now I was working at The Daily Show at the time, so I’m rushing to get to that taping, and I’m late. And my phone rings while I’m trying to get out of the studio at The Colbert Report to get to The Daily Show, and I don’t have time to pick it up. I’m like, “Ah, I don’t know who this is. It’s probably a telemarketer.” And I let it ring to voicemail.
Paul Mecurio:
And this is the message on my phone.
Paul McCartney:
Hi Paul. It’s Paul McCartney here. I’m going to ring you back in five minutes to do the podcast thing. I’ve got some time now, otherwise I’m going to run out of time. So if you’re there at five minutes time, you’ve got me. Okay, bye.
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God. That is brilliant.
Paul Mecurio:
And I called him back and I was like, “Why are you bothering me? Jesus.”
Buzz Knight:
That is brilliant.
Paul Mecurio:
And then he did it.
Buzz Knight:
That’s awesome.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, he did.
Buzz Knight:
Wow. So let’s wind down. You got some shows.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Tell us what’s going on with some shows that are going to be in the Boston area.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. May 14th, I’m going to be at Plainridge Casino in Plainville, Mass. Really beautiful casino. One show Saturday night, May 14th, 8:00 PM. And you can go to my website, paulmecurio.com, or the casino website for tickets. And then June 2nd-4th, I’m going to be at the Comix comedy venue in Mohegan Sun.
Buzz Knight:
Awesome.
Paul Mecurio:
And you can go to comix with an X, C-O-M-I-X website or my website, paulmecurio.com, for tickets. That’s June 2nd-4th. May 14th, Plainridge Casino in Plainville, Mass.
Paul Mecurio:
So yeah, they’re both great venues. I’m really excited to be back. And now with COVID dying down, I’m back out on the road and… or you can go to my website. It’s Paul Mecurio, one R my last name, M-E-C-U-R-I-O. If you put two, there’s an Australian actor who was in Strictly Ballroom, and that’s not me. I had to change the spelling of my name because he got in the actor’s union before I did
Buzz Knight:
Well, the heck with him.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. And every once in a while, people would Google my name, and he was a really hot dancer at one time, a choreographer. So there was a shot of him in a white tank top, spraying water on himself. And friends would be like, “Are you doing gay porn? What is going on?” I’m like, “No, that’s this other guy.” So I changed the spelling. So it’s M-E-C-U-R-I-O. paulmecurio.com.
Buzz Knight:
Oh my God. Well, I have to tell you the great joys for me of doing this Takin a Walk Series is, it gives me something to do, first of all, Paul. But secondly, it’s reconnecting with old friends, but third, or maybe it should be first, reconnecting or connecting with new people, new folks.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, I hope we’re friends for a long time.
Buzz Knight:
I really appreciate this.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah. Even though you’re already asking me for money off air. He’s, “Can I borrow $20?” I’m like, “Whoa, I just met you.”
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, well, it’s a New York thing.
Paul Mecurio:
Yeah, exactly. No, this has been great, man. You’re fantastic. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Buzz Knight:
I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 7:
Takin a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
