The biggest void that people can have in their lives is a sense of humor. Spending your life with someone who doesn't have that wouldn't be palatable.
Regardless of what I do, whether I write a book or whether I act or whether I host, I'll always do stand-up comedy because those moments, that's what I crave. If I do something funny, and I hear a crowd laugh in that moment, we're all sharing the exact same experience and the exact same feeling.
We sat down and told stories that happened to us in our childhood, to our children. They were all basically based on the truth. These stories were funny and poignant to us. They just took off. These are all stories from my life.
I have to be the only person in America who had a doctor say to him, 'Please don't put any more surgical gloves on your head and inflate them.'
I was always incredibly obsessed with germs and cleaning and taking shower after shower after shower. Even when I was very young, I wouldn't tie my shoelaces because they had touched the ground. I had continuous repetitive thoughts that I couldn't get past. As a child, my mind was a lot busier than I was.
I once missed an appointment because I left my house, I locked the door. And then I thought, like anybody else, you know, 'I don't think I locked the door.' I just kept going back to the door. And I couldn't stop myself from checking and checking.
Everything runs its course. We had told a lot of stories that happened in our life. My kid was getting older, and we were running out of stories to tell.
Standup keeps me grounded and keeps me in touch. I get to go from small towns to big cities, across Canada and the U.S., and you're out there and talking to people. You get a sense of what they respond to.
My childlike qualities sometimes lead me to jump into projects without thinking of the consequences.
I think the thrust of any child is to try to fit in and be part of it. And I can't tell you how many times my humor, you know, what I thought was humor ended up making me the outsider. Like I'd be, I go, 'It's a joke.' And they'd go, 'Well, what was funny?' And they just thought I was insane.
I was kind of a misfit, actually. When you're young, you want to be like everybody else, and I was like nobody else. I couldn't sit still. I was impulsive. I still am. What is now called a 'talent' did not serve me well as a child. I didn't have friends. I was really an outcast.
There isn't anybody out there who doesn't have a mental health issue, whether it's depression, anxiety, or how to cope with relationships. Having OCD is not an embarrassment anymore - for me. Just know that there is help and your life could be better if you go out and seek the help.
In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.