Tom Papa

That part of it, I gravitate towards the ones who are a little more written, who really kind of attack it that way.

That's when I worked with Jerry Seinfeld for years.

That was a perfect... He's of that ilk.

And just to watch them play with words and...

and really just treat it with respect.

Like you put all this stuff into it and you get this great life back was, uh, yeah, those are great.

Yeah, no, I think that was the biggest, the thing that calmed me down the most as a young comic was learning that it was a craft that you could get better at.

This wasn't this just vibe of, you know, you were all funny when you start, but then how do you harness that into being a stand-up comedian for your life?

And that there was actually rules to it and you could actually...

crafted and there was yeah that all of that that there was a working structure to it was really calmed me down and and made me realize oh you know i can do this in increments and i will if as long as i keep doing it the right way i should be getting better each year is that because there was like you found a method in the madness like you know you get out there at first and you're just like trying to find what's funny but then you realize like hey there's like a a math to this there's a science and an art to this and i can yeah there's also

I think it's also finding examples of people that you could emulate because you work that way.

When I was starting in New York, there were guys that would just get up there and riff, and Chappelle would go up and just be up there for an hour, and David Tell would be smoking cigarettes and look like he just came home.

out of his apartment onto the stage.

And it was like, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm that guy.

I don't know if I'm that guy.

But when I would hang out with like Colin Quinn and Jerry Seinfeld and it was like, Oh no, these are writers.

And even Carlin said like he was a writer before he was a comedian and he considered himself a writer.

Like then I was like, Oh, okay.

So I, that makes sense to me that I could take my notebook and,