I do. I still do. I pop in and do gigs here in New York, when I‘m in New York and then when I’m in Los Angeles. I don’t have as strong a point of view. The truth is, I’m not as hungry. I’m successful now. What somewhat fuels a younger performer, especially a comedian, is, “I have to do it.” It was $26 bucks a night to do gigs here. You had to do a lot of them to make any kind of rent here. In LA it was even worse. It was $15. You’ve really got to work a lot in those big cities so you’ve got to go on the road. You’ve got to do Mississippi and all around the country. When you go all around the country you get a pretty damn good idea that this country, most of it is not New York and Los Angeles. As the election proved. Whatever we all thought in LA… New York and LA thought one thing and the rest of the country went, “Nah, nice try.”
What do you mean you don’t have a strong point of view?
I’m not hungry so I’m not searching for something to connect with them.
Are you not as angry?
I’m more angry probably. Before I was fun. I don’t know. I still pace. I do New Talent nights, that’s where I think I belong. I haven’t worked my way back up to doing an hour. I can only do about 38 minutes. I did the Montreal Comedy Festival and it was pretty funny. I’m very comfortable on stage because they know me now. I can pretty much do an arm fart and get a laugh out of it. I don’t have to work so hard because [of what] the expectation is. But I took a lot of chances up in Montreal. Montrealers - I really feel like I’m their native son. I’m kind of a half-breed Canadian. My grandmother’s Canadian. I use that a lot. All of a sudden I speak fluent Canadian.
So you’re angrier?
The stuff that’s bothering me bothers me totally now. Intolerance. I have these three major religious jokes. I’ve been reading religious books since I was a kid and now I’m able to understand them. I was stuck on pork for about six months. You read the Koran and it’s very, very descriptive about pork. You read the Jewish text of the Bible and somehow pork comes up again. But somehow Christians enjoy a BLT. There’s just no mention of pork in there. How did that work out? Christians really can do pretty much whatever they want to do. Hamburgers, pork meat, you eat shellfish. Jews, Islam, stay away from pork, shellfish, don’t do this, don’t do that. You Christians run wild. Run and build bridges and whatever else you do because you’re the builders. That’s what the sages say. The Islamic are the hospitality. The Jews are the thinkers. They’ve got to figure out the way. The Christians will build it. And Islam will maintain it. I said, “That’s kind of a neat deal.” But you start bringing religion up on stage and you’re going to get… I said you can’t say Jesus. You can’t bring that up unless you’re talking about gardeners or Hispanics. You just can’t say Jesus. It’s almost like the new words. Carlin did the [7] things you can’t say and it was hit or miss. They weren’t ready for me to be serious about stuff like that.
Other than the pork, what else are you angry about?
Intolerance. I just can’t imagine, especially in the Middle East. My mother asked me after September 11th, why? She was upset as we all were. If you saw it here in New York, it was terrifying the reality of what happened. She said, “I think it’s because of our SUVs.” “What in the hell did you say?” What bothered older people is why would they do this. How far away you come from what’s really happening. What is happening? Why is the Islamic world so angry at us? And then is starts unraveling about false promises and invasive foreign policy in Iran. If you read the history of Iran, what we’ve done to those people, I’m surprised they even speak to us. And yet we’ve got a new president every four years, we have this short-term memory loss. “A new president, it’s all new s**t.” No, you’ve been f**king us for 40 years so we remember this. The only guy that really knows what’s happening in the world is Castro because he’s been around so long. There’s a point the dictators really have a good point of view, but bad for the population.
Tim Allen on Christmas Movies and "Santa Clause 3"
