Jeremy Hotz
written by Ken Carlson
There are many ways to get to know a comedian. One of the most telling is to stop by his hotel room when he’s playing the road in the afternoon and wake him for a pre-arranged interview.
The hotel is located in the parking lot of a suburban mall that is home to a Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bertucci’s Pizzeria, and the Hartford Funny Bone. The state of his room was what you would expect of most single guys spending several days on the road; a couple of travelling bags on the floor, some clothes draped on a chair, the odd chinese food container on the bureau by the TV. It’s where we find one Jeremy Hotz. Amidst the glamour and success he’s attained in sixteen years in the business, his thought process at this moment was pretty simple, “I get to go home on Sunday. That’s pretty much it.” He corrected himself, “Monday actually. They have a Sunday show (he sighs, holding his face in his hands). God. Just the one show on Sunday. They keep you around for one lousy show. That’s pretty much my mindset. Then I get to go home and think about remodelling my house.”
If you agree that the professional comedian is most comfortable, is in his natural state, on the stage in front of an audience, then spending time with one prior to their show, on the road away from their family, and in Jeremy’s case, dog, has to be the most vexxing. To speak to one at that time seems less like a locker room before the big game, or dressing room before a play, and more like purgatory. “Almost five days at a hotel by a mall in the suburbs. Didn’t get rental car. I wouldn’t utilize a car. I just sit there and wait for the gig to end. I’m not a big sight-seeing guy. I don’t need to see the battlefield from the third battle of the English vs the Americans in 1721 or whenever the hell it was. Clearly I know who won. I don’t need to visit the battlefields.”
In our discussion, it’s not hard to see where Jeremy’s act comes from. Talk to his friends, talk to him, enter his miserable world and see why it seems to come out so naturally. “I just bought a house in and have to fix it up before I move in. I’ve never dealt with contractors before. They seem to be nothing but bald-faced liars! It’s what I’ve noticed. I had to buy the house. You get the call from the accountant, ‘I cannot hide this money anymore.’ That’s pretty much it. At the same time the economy goes crazy. I don’t know what to do. I guess I’ll buy gas appliances, do my part. What are you supposed to do? You buy a house for the first time, you turn on the TV, and the news says, ‘END OF THE WORLD’? What?”
Ottawa. The place where Jeremy grew up. The capitol of the country where he is wildly popular. The source of his profession. In discussing Canada, he clearly defines some of the differences between here an there. “It was kind of a sheltered existence growing up in Ottawa. I think I’m a stand-up because of that. It’s the capitol, but was a small town back then. Now it’s a couple of million, but when I was growing up it was around 400,000. As a small town I was able to play street hockey on a quiet street and move the nets when the cars came by, which wasn’t very often. This was back when your parents would say, ‘You’re bothering me. Go out in the street to play.’ They don’t do that anymore. Now it’s ‘Stay inside and shut up.’ It was a lot of fun. You make close friends, then lose touch with them completely because you’ve moved to LA. Then you tour theatres and they come up to you and ask, ‘Remember me?’ Kind of. You look in their face and they look just like they did as kids, except their weird looking old men. It’s strange.”
“I certainly wasn’t a woodsman growing up,” Jeremy explains in addressing American misconceptions of a our friends to the North. “I don’t think they even have those anymore. Well, they must have loggers or lumberjacks, I suppose. I was a city boy. You don’t know how small the town is when you’re growing up, but it seemed like a city to me. I was metropolitan and I suppose Americanized. When you watch TV and see a news reporter and you see that they have to sound like all the other news reporters. If you watched TV news in the 50’s, every reporter had their own style. There’s no more style in news reporting. Once stand-up becomes that, I’m out. Shows like Last Comic Standing where they try to teach you how to be a comic and everyone that shows up is exactly the same. Well, good luck to you. You’ll be just like fifty other people. What the hell is that? No, no, that’s not what stand-up’s about. It wasn’t like that in Canada and that’s why a lot of good comics come from there. There’s no good TV exposure up there, you’re not encouraged to do it. Up there, you’re encouraged to be a stand-up, one that is completely unique of everybody else who’s done it before. It’s the public and also the sense of mind in Canada; the way they think. Canadians don’t want to cause any problems, but while people aren’t paying attention, they’ll tell you, ‘Here’s the real shit about the world.’ They won’t start a war to change everything. ‘This is what’s wrong! Fix it!’ Perfect for a comic. I’ll tell you what the problem is, but I’m not fixing it. But, now that I’ve told you, get on that!”
If you look for Jeremy on YouTube, you find a collection of his work from Comedy Central and Canadian performances ranging TV specials to hockey rink ceremonies before a packed house in Ottawa. “Yeah, I did the hockey rink. Shit. You know, it’s funny. You do these gigs, and then forget completely about them! I did to that! There were 10,000 people there. If you follow me around in Canada, it’s not very pleasant; especially for a guy like me. Canadians are weird and are very intrusive. They stare at you. They fuckin’ stare at you from afar! ‘Is that the guy or not the guy?’ It’s really weird. That’s why LA is so great. Nobody knows me. I come back and go to a movie and you might get, ‘Hey I saw you at the Laff Factory and you were hilarious!’ and they go away. Not the crazy staring; the interruptions in restaurants, the ‘You’re the guy on TV!’ Yeah, I’m the only one on TV!”
Some comics treat their venture into stand-up like a minster’s calling, some sort of mystical moment of clarity. Jeremy’s reasons were slightly less romantic. He couldn’t get a job at all. He tried but nobody would hire him. He briefly had a job at a laundromat, taking over for the guy running it who was having an in-grown toenail operation. Then he came back and fired Jeremy. It lasted two weeks.
“I did dinner theatre,” Hotz recalls, “which was embarrassing as hell. One of those Lord Henry’s King Feasts, or whatever the fuck it was called. I was the jester and old women tried to pinch my ass, which was in tights. I had a bell on my hat. It was quite embarrassing. Then I got into stand-up and said, ‘Fuck this, I can’t do it anymore.’”
“My first few gigs were shitty,” he continues, “I went up at the Sidetrack Café in Edmonton, Alberta. It was just miserable. The crowd was terrible. I put my act together which was awful. I gave up. I didn’t do it again for three months. Then I tried Yuk Yuks in Toronto on amateur night. The same exact act and I killed! The owner of the chain was in the club. He asked me if I wanted to do this professionally. I did. That’s it. I started doing stand-up, and kept doing stand-up because nothing else was working.”
From Canada, Hotz made his way to New York and wrote for the Jon Stewart Show, precursor to the Daily Show. Jon’s manager was executive producer of the show, Barry Secunda. When Hotz left the show to return Canada, he asked Secunda to represent him. “I said I was going to Montreal and didn’t have a manager. He said he’d do it. He went with me. I had been on a New Faces show in Montreal and this guy with a moustache named Gene something-or-other from Disney followed me around for a couple of days, creeping me out. I went out and had another good set and they said they were really interested in me. I was invited to Los Angeles after the festival and they put me up at the Laff Factory. I had a really good set. So they invited me and Barry to Disney and offered me a development deal. They gave me a big check three months later.”
“And, nothing happened,” says Hotz, with a shrug and a laugh. “Disney never called me. I didn’t read for anything. In the three months time, I had moved to LA and picked up work at The Improv. They had seen me at the Festival and I had quite a bit of material, so Bud Friedman started booking me right away. Not only did I move, I was fuckin’ staying because I was getting work. My assimiliation into America through stand-up was complete. I did not move to LA and struggle. I had work right away. For some reason Bud took a shine to me.” The Disney contract ran for a year. (Never called. No plans) Now I know it to be par for the course. Back then I was – ‘What the fuck!’ Then I got a couple more. I went back to Montreal every couple of years and got a couple more. CBS, back-to-back, gave me development deals. They at least had me write a script...and said No both times. They said, ‘We want to bring you in, Jeremy, because we want the younger audience. We want to do something different at CBS.’ We wrote a script, me and my friend, Brian Hart. They said it was great. Then they came back and said, ‘We don’t do this kind of show at CBS. We’re an old person’s network.’ The year after that, they gave me another deal. They wanted me to do a show with Anthony Clark. Then they decided they wanted him for a part on Yes, Dear and wanted me to read for a part on it. I wasn’t going to read for that! Could you see me on that kind of show with kids and shit. That would’ve been them saying No to me again.”
Jeremy’s appearances on Just for Laughs in Canada was the tremendous boost to his career. “What it did for me was turn me into a theatre star in Canada. I’m playing Niagara Falls for a 12 to 15 hundred seater. I’ll sell that out easily. That’s because Just for Laughs sent me out with a bunch of guys. I’m on television a bit in Canada. People just became fans. They don’t have that in the United States. If you’re not in a sitcom or a game show nobody knows who the hell you are. Just for Laughs is also quite popular in England and Sweden. Sweden! Of all places... Over there, if you’re funny it’s all that matters. It doesn’t work like that in the United States. People will come out to see someone because they’ve been on a show, like at The Improv, who are notorious for putting someone like that up. The crowd leaves incredibly disappointed because the performers aren’t professional comedians and aren’t funny. Then they never come back to The Improv again. Good thinking! Pick a chain and look at their lineup and see who’s performing there? Someone from Last Comic Standing with ten minutes. Good god! There he is, headlining? Good luck there chum.”
“But, I’m doing well,” he says with comfort, “so I want to keep what I’m doing and not have it end. It seems to be getting better and better and better. They gave me an award recently when I was in Canada. I got the Broadfoot award, named after the first Canadian who really did stand-up in Canada. Things are really good. I’ve got no problems. I’m working in the States and in Canada. I’m as busy as I’d like to be. I turn down work left, right, and center. But I foresee in the very near future with the new special (recently recorded) and I have a deal with the Weinstein company to do a DVD. I foresee, unfortunately, me being very busy. I guess you do it for a couple of years. Then you say, I can’t do this because I’m profoundly old.”
“Here’s what I love about Hotzy, said Alonzo Bodden, comedian and friend. “He’s convinced you hate him so he hates you first as a preemptive measure. Its a beautiful misery.”
“Hotz wanted a Mini Coupe,” Bodden recalls from a recent car purchasing adventure he assisted with, “and since I’m a car guy he asked me to negotiate. We went to the dealer. First Hotz insults the salesman for being named Benjamin Xu. Apparently in Hotzy’s world, a name cant have just 2 letters. Then he gets into it with the sales manager. The manager says we are professionals and there is no need to curse. Hotz explains he’s a comic and in our profession all we do is curse. Finally, a deal is set and I tell Hotz how to sign the papers and I leave for a weekend gig. When I get back Hotz, has no car. He says his manager didn’t like the interest rate which I had explained to Hotz didn’t apply to him since he was getting a different bank loan, but of course it was somehow my fault for leaving. So we went back and did the whole deal again – same car , same dealer, but the price is 400 more and the dealer wont budge. I argue for an hour. Finally Hotz says he’ll pay it. This time I’m going to the bank with him and making sure he drives off in this damn car. On the way to the bank he looks at me and says ‘anti lock brakes’”
“What?”
“Anti lock brakes. This car has anti lock breaks the other didn’t and that’s why it’s 400 more.”
“I asked him why he didn’t tell me that. He said he figured I was doing so good negotiating I could get them for him free... Don’t get me started on the girl in the waiting room after we drove off!”
“It always changes, says Hotz about his performance style. “It depends on the mood I bring with me when I go on stage. I change it up from what I want to talk about at that moment. I don’t stick to any sort of rigid guideline. I’m just a guy who’s really used to doing it. My second Tonight Show, I made up bits that weren’t in the repertoire at all. I have a set, then make shit up around it.”
“I just continue to go on stage,” Hotz remarks on his current projects and pressure to release CD’s. “I don’t think about that sort of thing. I just did a big special in Canada that they’re editing now. I’m sure Comedy Central will buy it. I’m moving more towards the mainstream eye, begrudgingly. I make enough money, so why bother. I don’t need people to tell me I have do THIS by the end of this year and THAT by next year. I’m going to do what I want to do when I want to do it – which is precisely why I got into stand-up in the first place. Don’t tell me what to do! I saw the special and people were saying it would do this and that, this was in the early part of the editing process, and I said, ‘I’ve got some problems with it!’ They said I was crazy, but, no, I’m not. I’ll always look at myself and find fault somewhere along the line. I should avoid watching myself because it doesn’t make me happy. I was talking to my girlfriend who watched it, said it was fantastic, and that I was crazy. I’m the guy who kills at Montreal Comedy Festival, has all the networks after him, then you see me through the window at the deli with a big fuckin’ scowl on my face. When is this over, when can I go home and see my dog?”
Hotz’s life is his is stand-up and his stand-up is his life. It’s personal. It’s miserable. It has served him well. “If you were to just meet a guy who constantly complained, you wouldn’t want to hang with that guy. But, to make point, you do it with humor and jokes. The jokes are strategically placed throughout the performance to fool them into thinking it’s a stand-up act. Many people have been successful at stand-up and make no point whatsoever. There are no rules to stand-up. You bring what you’ve got and that’s what makes you different and unique. It’s when you copy other comics, you’re essentially plagiarizing. You can’t learn stand-up from watching other people. Just do it. Over and over again. Then, you figure yourself out. Once you figure yourself out, you can make up forty minutes on stage and the audience won’t know it’s an act. I don’t test any material. I’ve got my act. I do my act. Whatever audience I’m in front of, I adjust in the moment to what I think they’re going to go for. Some nights in the bigger cities, they go for exactly the same shit they go for in Richmond, Virginia – although they’ll never admit to it. Other nights, not so much. Maybe they’ll be more of a Republican or Democratic crowd, so they want to hear THIS stuff and only let you go so far.”
“The thievery,” Hotz tone deepens, “is sickening to me. There’s a lot of people who are stealing. America doesn’t seem to care about it. That’s really uncool in Canada to do that. There’s a group of comics who watch for that kind of thing, at least there were when I was coming up. Here, they don’t give a shit. ‘If you can make it here on someone else’s act...good for ya!’ What? That’s not cool. You hear some guys saying he’s ripped of him and that guy ripped off that guy, but the way it’s being presented in the media is petty and cheap. It doesn’t do anybody any good. You better find a way to police it. The club owners should say, ‘This comic’s ripping off this guy. I’m not going to bring him back until he stops doing that!’ Then it won’t happen. Wise up to what’s going on! Once they figure out what’s going on with comedy, they’ll find stand-up is not about building sitcom stars. First of all, sitcoms seem dead because they keep on doing the same show over and over and over again. What they do is pick palatable good-looking people for television and they put them on sitcoms? Of course they fail. Look at All in the Family! Look at the successful ones. Were there a lot of good looking people on Seinfeld? Look around! Roseanne! Curb Your Enthusiasm! He’s an ugly old man! That’s what makes it funny. You don’t put soap opera stars on sitcoms. It’s not funny. Then they say the sitcom has died. No, you fucking killed it! But, at least now you have to come see the real funny stuff in the clubs. Then it’ll come around again. Unbelievable. Comedy had no formula that works on television. You can’t just do it like drama or action. You can’t! It’s timing and ugly people! That’s comedy, man! Jesus!”
“Sure he’s neurotic,” says Joe Starr, comedian and fried, “and he’s pessimistic, fatalistic and sometimes morbid... he’s Hotz and people can’t get enough of him. Even though Jeremy is the opposite of a rainbow; the flip side of bliss; the underbelly of joy, audiences always want more. He makes people thankful for their lives because he points out how ‘shit’ the world can be. What sets him apart from other stand-up comedians is that he actually wants to be left alone... in his misery.”
“The house is barren,” says Hotz about his newly purchased home. “It hasn’t been fixed up. It’s miserable to be in! I called the chimney guy. He was supposed to meet me there at 10 in the morning. I’m sitting there with the dog thinking the guy’s not coming. At 1:30, I take the dog for a walk and come back. It’s 2:30 and he’s still not there. I start to pack up, when there’s a knock on the door. It’s the guy. He showed up five hours late! Didn’t mention it! He just asked, ‘Where’s the chimney?’ It was surreal. No sorry or mention of the fact he was that late. I just told where the chimney was and he went upstairs. He was my second opinion on the chimney. The first one said it would run between $3,500 and $10,000 to fix. He comes back down 20 minutes later, saying ‘There is absolutely nothing wrong with your chimney. He gave me a sheet of paper that proved it. Then he walked out the door. The guy is five hours late, but nobody mentions it because he saved me ten grand.”
A couple of days after this interview, Jeremy was able to go back to his new home, his new dog, and of course, the car. “The car took about a month to get. When you alienate everybody at the car dealership yet. I was told to watch my language. They said, ‘It’s like this and that.’ I said, ‘You’re a thief! That’s all you do!’ He goes to the back room and talk to his manager. There’s nobody back there!"
Ken Carlson is the editor of The Comedians Magazine.
For more on Jeremy, visit JeremyHotz.com.