Background Image

...

Back When The Bible Was Written, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Rewritten, Then Re-edited, Then Translated From Dead Languages, Then Re-translated, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Given To Kings For Them To Take Their Favorite Parts, Then Rewritten, Then Re-rewritten, Then Translated Again, Then Given To The Pope For Him To Approve, Then Rewritten, Then Edited Again, The Re-re-re-re-rewritten Again...all Based On Stories That Were Told Orally 30 To 90 Years After They Happened.. To People Who Didnt Know How To Write... So...

-David Cross

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Back When The Bible

David Cross

...

Back When The Bible Was Written, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Rewritten, Then Re-edited, Then Translated From Dead Languages, Then Re-translated, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Given To Kings For Them To Take Their Favorite Parts, Then Rewritten, Then Re-rewritten, Then Translated Again, Then Given To The Pope For Him To Approve, Then Rewritten, Then Edited Again, The Re-re-re-re-rewritten Again...all Based On Stories That Were Told Orally 30 To 90 Years After They Happened.. To People Who Didnt Know How To Write... So...

Views: 5

Topic

More From David Cross

I Like Pot, I Enjoy Pot, I Like To Smoke It. But, The One Thing I Don't Like About Pot Is The Subculture It's Spawned. I Think It's Embarrassing And Really Juvenile And Uncreative

Because You've Been On Dates Where Y'know, You Forget To Open Your Eyes And Wear Pants And Speak English.

Florida Was The Low Point.the Entire State, Yep. I'm Not Sure I'd Go Back.

I Think Pornography Is The Only Art Form Where You Can Be Videotaped On A Shaky Handy Cam Sucking Off A Horse And Be Considered A Star.

The South Has More Of A Disproportionate Amount Of Irony On T-shirts Than Any Other Region In The Country.

I Would Say Just Stop Watching Me, I Guess, At This Point. That Is What I Do, And It Probably Is, In Some Way, A Bit Of A Lecture. I Can See How That's Not Something That Would Be Enticing For You To Watch In A Stand-up Hour.

There Is Nothing Interesting About Just Seeing Me Doing The Show Then Seeing The Fans And How Much People Love Me.

I've Never Written Jokes. I Mean, I'll Write Things On A Piece Of Paper And Riff On Them Onstage.

I Did One Of The Worst Shows For That Kind Of Thing In Northampton, Massachusetts, Which Is One Of The Most Liberal Spots On The Planet. There Were Numerous People Who Walked Out, Somebody Had Thrown A Beer, I Had People Yelling And Screaming.

I Hate Bumper Stickers, You Can't Sum Anything Up. All You Do Is Paint Yourself In Some Caricaturist Corner.

So All My Friends Have Kids Now... Which I Think Is Rude.

It's Just An Easy Catchall To Describe A Style Because There Are A Lot Of Alternative Comics Who Are Completely Different From Each Other.

I Stand By Everything I Said. I Absolutely Can Defend My Material, And I Take Issue With People Who Say, "it's Just Shock Value. It's Not Even Funny." I Disagree. There's Different Ways To Be Funny And To Be A Comedian.

I Just Often Find Myself Getting Shrill, Angry And The Jokes Get More Incredulous.

I Think For A Lot Of People, It's Just Where Their Saturation Point Was. Once You Get Into The [donald] Trump Stuff And The Republican Stuff And The Ayn Rand Followers, It Doesn't Let Up For About Half An Hour. It Gets Hard And Stays Hard For A While.

I Was In Antwerp - Which, I Had About 20 Shows Left At That Point - And A Guy Said, "that's Dave Attell's." Also, Antwerp Was My Smallest Audience, So The Guy Was Right There. I Was Like, "what?" He Said, "dave Attell Does A Bit About, 'why Are There Luggage Stores In The Airport?'" I Had Never Seen That, And I Would Never Ever, Ever, Ever - Please Believe Me - I Would Never Lift Material From Somebody Ever, And Certainly Not Knowingly.

I Have A Few Business Ideas (that I'm Going To Advertise In High Times, Amongst Other Places), And One Of Them Is A Service In Which I Offer To Eat And Describe Pork To Kosher People.

All My Friends Are Always Telling Me How Hard It Is To Have Kids. 'oh, David, It's So Hard.' That's Not Hard. I'll Tell You What Hard Is. Try Talking Your Girlfriend Into Her Third Consecutive Abortion. Yeah, That's Hard, That Takes Finesse. You're Just Inconvenienced.

I've Gotten "condescending" A Million Times, And That's Not Good.

I'd Say 95 Percent Of My Audience Was White. They Were Mostly Kind Of Older Hipster Folks Like Myself.

I Think The Policies, For The Most Part, That [hillary Clinton] Will Put In Place Are Not Going To Make Positive Changes. There'll Be More Status Quo. She'll Certainly Be Good For Some Groups Of People. Whatever.

I Read The New York Times, And If I'm In A Different City, I'll Skim That Paper.

Sketches Have Characters, Exits, Entrances And Are Vastly Different.

In My Political Philosophy - Which Is Definitely More Socialist Democrat Than Centrist Politician Like Hillary Clinton - I Think Regulation For Banks And Those Platforms That Bernie Sanders Had Are Good For The Whole Of America.

I'm Concerned About Organized Religion Getting Away With What It Gets Away With.

There's The Disingenuous Duplicitousness, But You Can Apply That To Every Politician, Really.

Hopefully People Will Be Reinventing Comedy Forever And Ever. This Is Just What I Do, And It's A Type Of Comedy.

I'm Pretty Happy. I Obviously Have Complaints About Things, But For The Most Part, I'm On The Above-average Side Of Happy People.

It's A Lot Of Anti-gay, Racist Humor—which People Like In America—all Couched In 'i'm Telling It Like It Is.' He's In The Right Place At The Right Time For That Gee-shucks, Proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring-tones Act. That's Where We Are As A Nation Now. We're In A State Of Vague American Values And Anti-intellectual Pride.

I'm Concerned About How And Why There Is No Gun Control.

The Underpinning Of Immigration Concerns Is Xenophobia And Racism And Nationalism.

You Cannot Win A War On Terrorism. It's Like Having A War On Jealousy.

James Lipton: The Most Pompous Arrogant Failure In History.

I Think I Could Have A Funnier, More Economic Sets. But That's The Comedy I Do. And I Understand If People Aren't Interested In It And Would Rather Listen To Someone Else. But I'll Never Understand The Anger People Have Toward Me.

I'm Going To Keep Talking About What I Think Is Interesting For My Entire Career. If You Want To Hear About How Women Do A Lot Of Shoe Shopping Or How Being Married Sucks, Go See The Guy Who Does Jokes About That. But If You Come To See My Live Show, There's Going To Be 20 Minutes On Religion For The Rest Of My Life, Probably. If That Makes Me A Caricature, So Be It.

Go Back And Read Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen Here Or Babbitt. For A Guy Or Girl Who's Going To Do An Hour Of Political Comedy, It Might Be A Little Rough, Sure. But I Think If You're Spending 10 Minutes Or Less, And You're Talking About - Not Necessarily [donald Trump] But His Supporters And The Media Coverage, There's All Kinds Of Angles To Explore. It Doesn't Just Have To Be Simply, "this Guy Is Crazy!" It's More About The Idea Of That Kind Of Guy Rising To The Prominence He Has, To Actually Become The Republican Candidate.

If You Want To Reinstate The 14.4 Billion Dollars That Bush Cut Out Of The Veterans Program Then Vote Democrat.

What President Of The Airline Is Doing Is, He's Urging Everyone To Give Up Their Frequent Flyer Miles For Sick Kids... But As I Was Reading This, There Were Two Empty Seats Next To Me. Why Can't Sick Kids Sit There? If They're So Concerned With Sick Kids, Shouldn't They Have Like A Pen Of Sick Kids Next To The Gate?

What Happened To Our Friendship? I Really Think It's Our Obligation As Friends To Be Brutally Honest And Be Frank With Them And Say, 'look, I'm Sorry, But Your Baby Is Fking Boring.'

I'd Be Curious To Find Out, But I Don't Think People In The Entertainment Industry Are Proportionally More Or Less Serious Politically Than Anyone In The Landscaping Industry.

[on The Dating Handbook] 'with A Telescope, Some Munchies, And A Warm Blanket, Watch For Halley's Comet.' Yeah. I Like That. There's No Time Limit. Just Sit There And Grow Old Together.

My Biggest Problem Is Retaining The Exact Information.

Most People Who Have Kids Are, "hey, I Want Another Me. I Like Me. I'm Pretty Cool, And I've Got Really Great Ideas, And The Way I Think Is The Right Way To Think. Let's Put Another One Of Me Out There.

There Are Really Funny Alternative Comics And Really Funny Straight Comics Who Write And Perform Traditionally.

The Best Thing About Me Is There Are No Skeletons.

I've Never Thought Of Myself As A Hoity-toity Cultural Critic.

I Do Lots Of Other Drugs But I Smoke Pot Maybe 5-10 Times A Year Now. I Used To Smoke It All The Time, But I Don't, And I Haven't For Awhile. That's Just Because It Makes Me - And I'm Not Saying This About Everybody Else - But It Makes Me Kind Of Dumb And Self-conscious.

Maybe If You Live In Brooklyn, You Don't Need To Hear That? But Please, Trust Me, In Most Of America, They Do Need To Hear It. And They're Quite Thankful That Somebody Came Out And Did It. For An Hour And A Half In That Theater, For Once, They're In The Majority.

I Really Don't Have A Problem With Gay Marriage... Because I'm Tolerant And Rational.

I Know This Is Obviously Biased As Well, But In My Twitter Feed, On My Facebook, 90 Percent Are Gushing, Glowing, "thank You For Doing That" - Type Of Reviews. "it's Ballsy, It's Honest, It's Hilarious" - That Kind Of Stuff. Obviously Those Are Fans.

Occasionally I'll Watch Fox News For As Long As I Can Tolerate It, Or Cnn. I'll Watch Until I Get Infuriated, But You Got To Know What They're Talking About And What They're Not Talking About.

If You Wanna Find Out 101 Things To Do With Plums, Heh, Read Your In-flight Magazine.

As Far As Just My Stand-up Is Concerned, I Don't Care About Changing Anyone's Mind. I'm Not Making An Argument. I'm A Guy Doing Comedy.

I'm Finally Going To Be Able To Finally Criticize [hillary Clinton] Without Being Accused Of Being A Sexist - That Idea. I'm Not A Fan, I Don't Like Her, But You Can't Say Anything Without Being Accused Of Being A Sexist Pig, Which Is Unfair.

I'll Think Of The Idea And Then I'll Write Something Down, Then Within That There Will Be A Joke Or Two Which Is The Original Thing Which I Thought Was Funny.

You Can't Just Yell Jokes At People.

I Have No Hesitation Doing Children's Movies. Zero. And I Don't Even Have Kids.

I'm Directing The Sky Show. I'm Not Going To Be In It. I'm Just Writing And Directing It. So That'll Satisfy That Part Of My Brain.

I Was Heavily Influenced By Andy Kaufman And Steven Wright.

I Lived In La For Almost Nine Years And If I Never Went Back There Again It Would Be Fine.

I'm Not Going To Benefit From Free College Education, But I Think All Those Things Are Good For The Country.

Hopefully People Are Upset For The Reason I Want Them To Be Upset. Even When I Was Doing Open Mics, I've Always Had People Upset. I've Never Been The Consummate Crowd-pleaser.

I Think People, For The Most Part, Actually Want What They Think Is Best.

I Love Doing Stuff With Todd Barry And Jon Benjamin. We Give The Stage To Good Bands And Funny People.

Once You Get Into The [donald] Trump Stuff, You Get People Going, "i Didn't Come Here To Have My Political Views Bashed."

There Is Also A Kind Of Mean-spiritedness With La Comics.

I Don't Think Of My Opponents In The Sense That I Don't Think Of Them Consciously, I Don't Steer It One Way Or The Other.

Besides If People Really Want To Support The Troops They Would Vote Democrat.

I've Had Plenty Of Negative Reviews. I Have My Entire Life.

I Know Dave [attel] And We're Friendly, And I Have Nothing But Respect For Him.

I Don't Mean This To Sound Hyperbolic But There Are Increasingly, Albeit Really Minor, Similarities Between Now And How Germany Was Lulled Into What Happened Pre-ww2.

Nobody Is Going To Be As Bad For Free Thinking, Right-minded Individuals Than George Bush.

Then I Will Tape The Sets And Even Though I`m Not Very Successful Sometimes I Will Try To Cut Out The Fat And Put The Jokes Closer Together.

Because I Think Whenever You Sit Down With Another Human Being Who Would Absolutely Disagree With You On Every Issue, You Learn About Them As A Person And You Relate, In Human Terms, And It's Much More Difficult For Either Side To Dismiss Out Of Hand, Like That Person's A Freak, That Person's A Nazi.

I Still Think That, Hopefully, You're Not Ahead Of The Jokes, And I Think That Has Value. There Is A Punchline And It's Pointed - And, Again, Whether You Think It's Funny Or Not, That's Subjective.

I Have Always Tried To Use Humor To "help Ever" And "hurt Never," For I Find That To Laugh Is Like Swallowing A Secret That Santa Claus Farted.

If People Disagree With Me And Want To Articulate It, That's Not Only Their Right But Almost Their Obligation.

I Am Against The War, But I Do Support Our White Troops. No, I'm Kidding, I'm Kidding. I'm Not A Republican. I'm Not A Member Of The Party Of Inclusion. Wonderful, Tolerant, Rational Human Beings They Are.

I Do Not Want To Encourage Heckling And Outbreaks At All.

I Love Tinkle, It's Really The Most Fun I've Had In Years.

There's Quite An Overlap Between Musicians - Especially Drummers - Who Have An Affection And A Proclivity Towards Comedy And Comedians Who Fantasize About Being In A Band. And A Lot Of Comics Play Instruments.

A Verbose, Prosaic Review Which Mentions Whistling Winds And The Timeless Feeling Of Jade Doesn't Mean Anything To Me; I Don't Need A Novella Telling Me About How An Album Is Like A Fine Meal.

That's What Social Media Is, That's What Twitter Is, That's What Facebook Posts Are. It's Just Really Anti-intellectual.

Back When The Bible Was Written, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Rewritten, Then Re-edited, Then Translated From Dead Languages, Then Re-translated, Then Edited, Then Rewritten, Then Given To Kings For Them To Take Their Favorite Parts, Then Rewritten, Then Re-rewritten, Then Translated Again, Then Given To The Pope For Him To Approve, Then Rewritten, Then Edited Again, The Re-re-re-re-rewritten Again...all Based On Stories That Were Told Orally 30 To 90 Years After They Happened.. To People Who Didnt Know How To Write... So...

It's Not That I Don't Have Kids For Some Personal Reason Outside Of, I Just Haven't Had Kids. And I Haven't Met Someone Who Wanted To, As Far As I Know. And Perhaps I'm Attracted To Women Who Aren't Ready To Make That Commitment Just Yet.

And It's One More Shitty Thing To Write About Somebody, In Between Getting Really, Really, Really Upset At Female Ghostbusters And Gamergate, And The Things That Really Matter.

We Get To See It! January 1st, 2000! We Get To See... All Those Fundamentalist Preachers Having To Do Their Backpedaling When The Armageddon Doesn't Occur.

I Recently Attended A Pro-drug Rally... In My Basement.

I'm A Professional Comic. Whether You Think I'm Funny Or Not, That's, Again, Subjective.

When We Were On The Bus Doing The Mr. Show Hooray For America Tour There Was A Lot Of Laughter And A Lot Of Pot Smoking And A Lot Of Speed Metal Listening And Video Game Playing. Of Course That Was All Brian Posehn.

I Just Did 101 Shows In 86 Different Cities In America And Europe And Canada, And I'm Not Lying Or Exaggerating When I Say, At The Vast Majority Of Shows, They Loved It. There Were Encores, There Were Standing Ovations.

I Work A Lot And I Like To Get Out And Work But The Work I Do To Make The Other Work Work I'm Not Very Good At.

I Grew Up In That Minority. I Grew Up In The South, In Roswell, Georgia, And It Was Heavily White, Baptist, Conservative. And The Idea That Somebody Would Come There And Say Those Things That I Said Created An Atmosphere Where Some People Would Walk Out, And Suddenly They Weren't In The Minority. For An Hour And A Half, They Were The Majority. So I Would Argue That It Does Need To Be Said.

Ive Got A Lot Of Friends There And There Is Stuff To Do But As Much As I Dislike La I Really Like Living And Working In New York City.

Lots Of Friends

I'm Very Vocal About My Belief That All Religion Is Garbage. Most Of My Friends Are Religious Or At Least Spiritual. These Are People I Like And I Know Are Intelligent. It's This Thing That I Carry Around. I Know I'd Be A Better Person If I Was Fairer, But It's At The Core Of Who I Am And What I Believe.

We Should Just Get Somebody From The Left And The Right And They Should All Throw Bumper Stickers At Each Other And The First One To Cover The Other One Wins.

I Think It Was There Before, But - Because Of Social Media, Too - There Are These People Who Fancy Themselves As Tolerant, And Don't See The Hypocrisy And Double Standard Of How They're Not Tolerant At All, And They're Just Strident And They Don't Listen. There's No Dialogue Anymore. That's Maybe, Truly, The Worst Part Of Trump's Legacy Is Just People Yelling At Each Other.

The Bible Is The Funniest Book I Have Ever Read. It's So Funny! Right In The First Six Pages, It's Funny!

I Think I'd Be A Really Good Dad. So Perhaps I'm Doing Society A Disservice By Not Having As Many Kids As Possible.

You Have To Get The Second Season By Acquiescing To A Third Season.

High Times Magazine Is A Notch Intellectually Below Highlights For Children. I Mean, They're Both Great To Read When You're Baked, But Come On, Ya Know.

[if Donald Trump Does Get Elected, I Will Be] Probably Secretary Of Reeducation. Or I Don't Know. I'll Probably End Up Working In The Cafeteria.

I Was Born Jewish, But I Am An Atheist. I Dont Believe In God.

It's Easy To See That Two People Might Come Up With That Same Idea.

I Am Truly Passionate And Concerned About The Lack Of Empathy That People Show Towards One Another.

I Went To A Bunch Of Marches In New York And Washington, And You Know I Believe In The Cause, But To March With Those People Takes A Lot Of Compromise On My End.

I Also Try To Think Of Ways To Articulate The Joke More Economically.

I'm Not A Centrist, And There's Nothing About Me That's Centrist. I Never Have Been.

It Probably Does Make It More Difficult To Enjoy A Good Laugh At Someone Who's Onstage, Seemingly Yelling At You. But I'm Not Yelling At The Audience, I'm Yelling At The World. It Genuinely Sucks If People Are Taking It That Way. But I'm Not Talking To Individuals.

In New York, You Are Constantly Faced With This Very Urgent Decision That You Have To Make, About Every Twenty Minutes...you Have To Decide, Immediately, You Have To Go "ohmigod. Do I Look At The Most Beautiful Woman In The World Or The Craziest Guy In The World?"

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Is One Of The Funniest Shows On Tv And I Was A Little Intimidated Working With Those Guys 'cause You're In A Sound Booth By Yourself And They're All In A Room In Atlanta.

I'd Like To Think That I'm Not Just Making The Point That I'm An Atheist Over And Over, But That I Explore Different Facets Of Religion. There's No Way Of Bringing Up Religion Without Sounding Like An Asshole.

There Were A Number Of Referendums In '98 That Most Of The Things I Voted For Passed. That's Very Satisfying When You Feel That Most Of The Country Is In Step With Your Views.

There Were A Handful Of Shows That Were Just Painful. Not Many, But Things Where I Just Said Going Into It, "why Am I Here? What Am I Doing?"

I Don't Want To Do 20 Minutes On Donald Trump. I Want To Do 10 Minutes And Move On. I Wouldn't Even Do That With A Live Show, Because I Don't Want It To Feel Like "an Evening Of Political Comedy."

You Have To Have Some Level Of Attachment, You Can Still Have Passion And Believe But It Has To Be Softened Somewhat.

I Do Believe That On A Whole, Women Are Definitely Smarter Than Men... I Also Believe That Dogs Are Smarter Than Women. No? That One, You Don't Believe It? You Believe That I Didn't Do A Series Of Tests? You Are Right To Not Believe It, Because I'm Going To Go Ahead And Admit That I Do Not Believe What I Just Said, It Was What's Described As A 'joke.' Um, I'll Be Telling A Bunch Of Them Here Tonight.

Trending Author

William J. H. Boetcker

Kathleen Quinlan

Category