Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat:

Michael Buzzelli: Another comedian friend of mine, every year around his birthday, he would rent out a roller skate rink and have an open bar. And it was a disaster, as you would imagine, because its drunk people on wheels. It was like me and celebrities. And you’d just be talking to Adam Sandler one moment or David Spade and then you’d see him bumping into a wall roller skating.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden. A podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Michael Buzezelli, calls himself a, uh, stand-up comedian and sit-down author. Michaels performed comedy nationwide, most notably at, uh, three legendary the Iceouse, the Comedy Store, and the Improv in Los Angeles. As a writer, Michael has been published in various websites, magazines and newspapers. He’s the theater and arts critic for Berg Vivant, Pittsburgh’s online cultural talk magazine. He’s also a moth grand slam storyteller and actor as well. Michael has presented workshops on humor to the Romance Writers of America and the PEN Writers Conference. His short film Lights out is playing at film festivals worldwide. Michael’s books, Below Average Genius, a collection of essays culled from his weekly humor column in the Observer Reporter, and his romantic comedy All I Want for Christmas are on sale at Amazon.com. his short StoryBeat Study Buddy is in a collection of LGBTQ romance stories entitled Winter Break. I’ve read All I Want for Christmas and Below Average Genius and can tell you Michael is a wry, witty, and often laugh-out-loud writer of heartfelt stories regarding the human condition, mainly his own. I highly recommend that you check out Michael’s work. He’s also working on a full-length LGBTQ rom-com called Why I Hate My Friends. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m thrilled to welcome the prolific writer and comedian, my friend, Michael Buzzelli to StoryBeat today. Michael, thanks for joining me.

Michael Buzzelli: I sound so good on paper, Steve.

Steve Cuden: You really do. I puffed you right up, didn’t I?

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah. All of the things you said were true, but they are. It sounds weird in succession like that.

Steve Cuden: It sounds like maybe you’ve done a few things you didn’t realize you did.

Michael Buzzelli: Um, I’m just getting old. That’s what it is.

Steve Cuden: It happens.

Michael Buzzelli: Believe me, it’s Better than the alternative.

Steve Cuden: So do you think of yourself primarily as a journalist, a critic, a comedian, a novelist, or simply a writer and storyteller? How do you think of yourself?

Michael Buzzelli: I think of myself as a writer and storyteller. I have an odd origin StoryBeat to my comedy that I would love to share with you.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Let’s hear it.

Michael Buzzelli: Uh, so I was living in Los Angeles and I had written a comedy spec full length features film. And I was shopping it around and my friend Yolanda said to me, tell me the story of it. And I told her the story of it and I told her it in the most dry, mundane way. And she said, I’ve read it, I know it’s funny, but what you just told me was terrible. And I was like, o, okay. And she, uh, was like, you need a pitch class. You need to learn how to pitch your story to executives to tell it in a funny way so that they’ll buy it. So I looked up pitch classes and they were like $1,000 and I was living on a shoestring budget in Los Angeles in a studio apartment. And I was like, I can’t afford this pitch class. Well, I found a stand up comedy class for $300. And I was like, I’ll learn the exact same thing in that comedy stand up class that I will learn in a pitch class. I will be able to learn how to tell funny stories in front of people.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely.

Michael Buzzelli: So I took so thrift got me into comedy.

Steve Cuden: Thrift got you into comedy.

Michael Buzzelli: I went to that $300 class and the final was at the Comedy Store and we had to do seven minutes on stage in front of a live audience.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s big.

Michael Buzzelli: It was big. It was huge. And I went up and I loved it and they asked me to come back. So I kept coming back and kept performing there and started performing everywhere. What I loved is, you know, when you’re a writer and you send somebody something, your editor, it takes you a while for your editor to get back to you. Or it takes, uh, when it does find an audience, say my column, for example, I find that a week later that, oh, people are laughing at it and people were liking it. With stand up comedy, I’ve got that immediate gratification. I knew it was working, it wasn’t working live and in person. And I had become a big fan of the genre. I really wasn’t a big, I was always a fan of funny TV shows and funny movies. I wasn’t a big fan of stand up comedy until I started doing stand up comedy.

Steve Cuden: And clearly you weren’t intimidated by it.

Michael Buzzelli: No, no, not really. I mean that first class. I will tell you a funny story too. I took the class more than once because I was like, I still have things to learn. So I took the class again, and then once again we went up on stage and my mom and my aunt were in town visiting when I had my show. And they came to the audience and I opened with, I don’t want to talk about sex or drugs or rock and roll, because my mom is here in the audience tonight. And my mom goes out loud to everybody like she was talking to me in my living room. She said, yeah, we don’t want to hear about that. And probably the loudest laugh I’ve ever gotten to this day was when I said, ladies and gentlemen, my mom is heckling me. And beautifully, she did a very good job of it.

Steve Cuden: Yes, well, so now when you say you’re going to take a comedy class in lieu of taking a pitch class for more money, did you know prior to that that you were kind of funny? Was that already in your bones or not?

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, well, I knew I was funny. I am a student of a particular college named Point Park University. I think you’re familiar.

Steve Cuden: Yes, I’ve heard of it. Yes, I am familiar.

Michael Buzzelli: I went to journalism and communications there, and one of my classes, I had to sit in front of a live camera and tell news stories. I took a newscasting StoryBeat.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Michael Buzzelli: Unfortunately, I’m not. I was never thin enough to be a newscaster. But I took this newscasting class and I would tell people news stories. And, uh, for some reason I had the camera started laughing. There was something in my delivery that I couldn’t even tell serious news stories. I will tell you. I remember talking about a small boy who was mauled by a tiger, which sounds awful, but I did it overly dramatic and was like, little Jimmy Markx was mauled to death by a tiger. And apparently it garnered lots of laughs from. And it was like, well, clearly I can’t be a newscaster.

Steve Cuden: But did you know as a small child that you were funny? Were you the class clown?

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, no. I was shy growing up. I was shri. I was a book reader. I was always in the corner with a book or a comic book or something. I was never a big. I wanted to go read somewhere.

Steve Cuden: So you didn’t have a goal or a dream as a kid to be, uh, a comedian? It’s just something that happened?

Michael Buzzelli: Well, it did. My favorite show, even as a kid, I would watch reruns of the Dick Van Dyke Show.

Steve Cuden: Excellent.

Michael Buzzelli: And, uh, that show, he was a writer. He was a TV writer. And my goal was to be a TV writer like Rob Petri, because he would, it looked like the most awesome job. He would go in and his and coworker would joke around all day. And I thought, that sounds like a great job.

Steve Cuden: Did that stimulate you to want to write?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: That’s what got you to be a writer. Was the Dick Van Dyke Show.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. And luckily he’s still around to say, yeah, Dick, if you’re listening. Thank you.

Steve Cuden: If Dick is listening, I’d like him to call in sometime.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay.

Steve Cuden: So at what age did you then start to write? Was. Were you still a young boy?

Michael Buzzelli: I was writing little stories, like as a freshman in high school. Were. I had a friend of mine, my friend Sandy Henry, who was my original writing partner. Years ago, we wrote a bunch of spec scripts for TV shows and we got pretty far. We just never got anything on air. And we were also both living in Pittsburgh at the time.

Steve Cuden: Oh, you were doing that from Pittsburgh? Not from la.

Michael Buzzelli: I was sending in spec scripts from Pittsburgh.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And, uh, that’s very hard to do.

Michael Buzzelli: There was a guy named Chris Rupenthal who was running or an executive producer on Quantum Leap, and he loved our Quantum Leap idea. Uh, he actually called us and said, we love the idea. Unfortunately, we’re already doing a JFK one because we picked up.  Like, obviously we picked up the most popular history story we could do. And of course they already planned one.

Steve Cuden: That’s so common, though. That’s really common for people to pitch an idea that because you’re thinking about that particular subject or show, uh, you’re right in line with something they’re already doing or have done.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. That’s why he called and he goes, look, I don’t want you to think we work re like, in three weeks this episode’s coming out and it has some of your elements, but we wrote it last year, so he was very kind and it was very encouraging to hear from producer of a TV show and call us up and tell us, hey, thanks, but we have one just like it. And I don’t want you guys to think we stole anything from you.

Steve Cuden: So you, at some point, you had to train to be a writer, didn’t you? Or did you just do this all on your own?

Michael Buzzelli: I did train. I mean, I did train. I took a couple of writing seminars. I read StoryBeat by Robert McKee, which I, you know, I read Save the Cat I read all of those popular screenwriting books.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Michael Buzzelli: But I did study journalism at Point Park.

Steve Cuden: Because you were already toward the inclination of being a writer.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. It just turns out I didn’t want to write news. I actually dropped out of Point park because I remember having to go talk to some widow whose house collapsed and her husband died. And I had to say, how do you feel? It’s like, I know how she feels. I don’t want to have to talk to her about this. You know, I didn’t want to be the guy that chased disasters. But the problem was, and here’s a.

Steve Cuden: Guy that winds up in stand-up comedy doesn’t like disasters.

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, you’ve seen the act? Uh, no, but I went in high school, I told them I wanted to be a TV writer and my guidance counselor said, well, nobody does that. Take journalism.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, that’s not good guidance.

Michael Buzzelli: I would say, no, he was a terrible. Unfortunately, if I could quantum leap back in time, I would slap that guy around.

Steve Cuden: So at what point, at uh, what age were you when you thought to yourself, I actually am a pretty good writer, and you know what? I. I think I want to try and make something of this.

Michael Buzzelli: That’s a funny story. And my aunt will tell you that it took many, many publications of mine before I called myself an aspiring writer. Even after I had columns produced and reviews of plays and films, I was still calling myself an aspiring writer. And she was like, stop it. Your byline has been in 15 publications. Shut up already. You’re a writer.

Steve Cuden: You had serious imposter syndrome.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes, yes.

Steve Cuden: There’s no way this could be real. I’m just doing this and hopefully somebody will recognize it. Even though you’re already doing it.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. Yeah. I think that’s probably more common than I knew about. But yeah, my Aunt Terry would definitely tell you that I was a writer long before I knew I was a writer.

Steve Cuden: Uh, oh, well, it’s not just common, it’s pandemic. Most people that are in the arts, of all the arts, and I talked to many, obviously on this show, and I’ve known many throughout my life. Most people actually will not admit to it, but they will tell you if you can get them to really sit down and talk about it, they can’t believe anybody believes that they can do what they’re doing. And many people. I have a degree of imposter syndrome and I’ve been doing this a long time. You can’t believe that anybody’s actually paying attention to you. And yet they are, and it’s great. And over time you recognize that’s okay.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. The funny story about that is, though, I am actually in a show right now. I am singing and dancing in a benefit show called off the record, which here Pittsburgh, is a locally produced show. It’s a benefit for the Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. I can neither sing nor dance, but the director has me up there, Christine Lata, she’s got me up there doing all kinds of stuff and I’m just doing it. And I have, uh, people coming to see the show and they’re going toa see me flopping around on stage.

Steve Cuden: So the more that you enjoy your flopping, the more they’ll enjoy you.

Michael Buzzelli: I hope so.

Steve Cuden: Don’t sweat it too much. Just do it and have fun. That’s the key.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. Since it’s a benefit, I’m doing it for the Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

Steve Cuden: So let’s talk about your ability to write for a while.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay.

Steve Cuden: What for you makes a story or subject intriguing enough for you to want to spend time to work on it? What draws you to a story or an idea?

Michael Buzzelli: That is a fantastic question.

Steve Cuden: Sometimes I get lucky.

Michael Buzzelli: I write because I have a column. I write a lot about personal experience. And I find that writing about your day to day frustrations and turning them into humor makes your day to day frustrations go away.

Steve Cuden: That’s interesting.

Michael Buzzelli: Uh, it’s sort of like when you have a grocery list in your head and you go, I need bread, I need eggs, I need milk, I need diapers, I need bread, I need eggs, I need milk, I need diapers. It keeps playing and playing over in your head until you write it down. And once you write it down, you don’t have to think about it anymore because it’s on a piece of paper somewhere.

Steve Cuden: True.

Michael Buzzelli: So driving around the city, I wrote a column one time about how I think I’m a pretty good person, but when I get to heaven, I hope I’m not judged for what I say when I’m in my car driving.

Steve Cuden: I think that’s most of us.

Michael Buzzelli: Right? Right. And that’s it. Uh, it’s a common thing. It’s a natural ineience. And it’s just a daily frustration that we all feel. All of a sudden people are pulling out in front of you. People aren’t looking, they’re just doing. It’s supposed to be a yield every other car. And then this guy decides he’s not going to obey the whole yield thing. And then, uh, suddenly I’m cursing Like a sailor on leave.

Steve Cuden: Are you telling me that your stories are actually psychiatric therapy?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. And I would hope that most writers are mining their own personal experience and from that, getting the gems out of it.

Steve Cuden: Do you find that you are pretty average as a human, that most people relate to what you’re talking about because you’re just living lives not dissimilar to theirs.

Michael Buzzelli: You know what, for the stuff I talk about when I’m in Pennsylvania. Yes. I lived 10 years in LA and I hung out with a lot of celebrities. And when I tell the celebrity stories, people get a little lost. I even had a friend of mine, Alan Olifson, comedian, uh, from LA. They also moved back to Pittsburgh, and he was like, I don’t want to tell these Hollywood stories. Just don’t tell them. Like, tell about your personal life. And I was like, that’s really good advice. Because if you talk about a story about, like, how you’re at a party with Adam Sandler, people can’t relate. But if you tell a story about the grocery store, people can relate.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Although it’s probably neat to throw in a story like that every now.

Michael Buzzelli: Every now and then, I do throw in one of those stories.

Steve Cuden: This gives you a little extra spice. But it’s not the norm.

Michael Buzzelli: No, it’s not the. Nor, uh, most of it is daily frustrations. It’s me being a klutz. It’s all of those things. I had one story where I was literally walking down a hill and there was a banana peel on the hill. And I was like, I avoided it. But the first thing I thought of was, wouldn’t it be funny if I slipped and died on that banana peel? It’d be like, comedian slips and falls on banana peel and dies in real life.

Steve Cuden: Perfect headline, right?

Michael Buzzelli: So, you know, that’s the other thing. I think my brain just goes to the funny place.

Steve Cuden: You’ve developed this. This was not a natural thing for you.

Michael Buzzelli: Any person in the world can be funny. It is a trainable thing. I don’t believe that somebody was born funnier than anyone else. I think it’s like tennis players. I’m not calling myself Venus Williams. We don’t look anything alike.

Steve Cuden: No, I’ll vouch for that.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay. But, yeah, uh, people can’t see. But I don’t like anything like Venus Williams. And I’m not calling myself, uh, a Venus Williams. But you’ve trained for something. You can do it. And comedy is something that is a trainable skill. I taught comedy, and I had a woman in My class one time, and she said, I don’t think I’m funny. And I said, okay, say name something that you like. And she said, I like to golf. I said, well, name something about golfing that you really like. And she said, I like to drive the cart. Which I thought was hysterical. Right?

Steve Cuden: It is. That’s very funny.

Michael Buzzelli: Like, not the thing most people would say, oh, I love getting out in the fresh air. I like the exercise. No, she likes driving the cart. That was hilarious to me. So people don’t know when they’re funny. And if you take the time to learn how to be funny, it is a teachable skill. You can learn it.

Steve Cuden: What you’re saying is that there’s a skill to it. You still have to have material and you still have to think about how line set up and so on. That’s a teachable and learnable skill. But it is, at the end of the day, a skill.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. It is not like, uh, a talent like I was born with. It is something I developed.

Steve Cuden: And you developed it over a very long period of time. It didn’t happen instantly.

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, God, yes. No, this is no overnight success. This is’t an overnight half success.

Steve Cuden: So, you know, we’re talking about mostly at the moment, the stories that you write for the observer reporter.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Which is out of. Am, uh, I correct? Washington county in Pennsylvania.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And so how do you develop a StoryBeat? You just think about your weekly foibles and just start writing them down.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: So you don’t have to actually spend a lot of time conjuring things. They’re just looking for what’s happening.

Michael Buzzelli: Well, I’ll tell you what. I have a couple of cheats. I am also the member of a group called Toastmasters. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them.

Steve Cuden: Sure. Of course.

Michael Buzzelli: It’s a nationwide storytelling day speech initiative, basically. And I almost don’t want to admit that I’m a Toastmaster because I’ve ummed so many times in this recording already that I know my fellow Toastmasters are going to be on me about that. However, there is, uh, something they call table topics, where we do impromptu speaking. And there is a list of table topics online, 365 table topics. I sometimes go to that list and read things like, name a time you were embarrassed in high school. Name a time you felt like you could accomplish something big. You sometimes use that as a cheat.

Steve Cuden: Well, I don’t know that that’s a cheat. It’s a prompt.

Michael Buzzelli: A prompt? Yeah, it’s a writing prompt. Yeah. So. Right. Okay. You’re right.

Steve Cuden: The cheat would be is somebody else wrote a story and you took it.

Michael Buzzelli: No, I don’t do that. Matter of fact, somebody told me a very funny StoryBeat the other day. I told my friend, I told her I wish it had happened to me because I can’t use that. Because I can’t use it. If it doesn’t happen to me, I can’t use it.

Steve Cuden: Can’t you tell a story that happened to somebody else?

Michael Buzzelli: No, I think that’s cheating.

Steve Cuden: That’s cheating?

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: I mean, you’re even giving them credit. You’re saying who it is and what’s going on.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. But the fun of it is writing from my perspective of where I am and how I’m feeling about the moment. I can’t propose to be in their heads less when I’m writing fiction. Then I can. Then I can extrapolate, and then I can, uh, hyperbole, like, just go a little further with it.

Steve Cuden: How long have you been doing this for the observer reporter?

Michael Buzzelli: I’ve been back in Pittsburgh 14 years. I’ve been doing for almost 14 years. It’s one of the first things I did when I moved back here.

Steve Cuden: And that’s 52 columns a year.

Michael Buzzelli: No, we’re. We started weekly and we moved to bi weekly. So it’s every other week. So I. Whatever. Half of 52 is 26. Oh. See, I don’t do m math.

Steve Cuden: It’s very complicated. I know.

Michael Buzzelli: That’s why I’m a writer. I couldn’t do math otherwise. I’d be making like seven figures at a.

Steve Cuden: So once you have an idea, you’ve figured out, okay, this is what I’m going to write about this week.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: About how long does it take you to put an article together? A story.

Michael Buzzelli: About an hour, sometimes two.

Steve Cuden: So it’s pretty fast then.

Michael Buzzelli: I’m pretty fast. I got pretty fast at it.

Steve Cuden: Do you outline?

Michael Buzzelli: Not really.

Steve Cuden: You just go.

Michael Buzzelli: I do the. There was a book years ago written called the Artist’s Way.

Steve Cuden: Yes.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay. And I used to do the morning pages, which is something that they did in that book, which is you’d get up every morning and you would write freehand with a pen and paper or pencil. You would just write and you would write whatever garbage came out of your mouth. Mind. It would be meditational, but on paper, free flow. Free flow. And it would even. I even started several of them. Like, I don’t want to do this. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Why am I doing this? And somehow it becomes something after three pages. And sometimes I throw it away. But sometimes there’s a germ of an idea in there. There’s a speck of diamond in a coal mine or something. I don’t know.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s a little bit like fishing. You’re fishing for an idea and sometimes a fish pop up out of the pond.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: And your articles are mainly about you, as you say. Uh, and they are also quite self deprecating, right?

Michael Buzzelli: They are, they are. And matter of fact, this woman Kathy said to me one time, this stuff doesn’t really happen to. You’m like, yes. I mean, obviously I’m still exaggerating or I. I’m telling the heightened reality version of it. It’s not journalism, it’s a feature column. It’s an opinion piece. It’s me expanding in the humor area. Right.

Steve Cuden: And it’s full of quirks and foibles, your quirks and foibles.

Michael Buzzelli: I think it’s much more human to. You do not want to hear about somebody that is successful in everything they do. Nobody wants to hear that. I was never as a kid, I told you, I read comic books as a kid, though I was never a fan of Superman because he could do everything. He didn’t need a team of superheroes. I always liked people like Spider man who got hurt and had to worry about his rent. His aunt was in ill health. I’ve always was the big fan of the underdog, the person that was. That had to work for everything that they got.

Steve Cuden: I think there are a lot of people that I’ve known in my lifetime who would not be able to recognize their own state of quirkiness or their own set of comedy in their life. And so I’m curious from your perspective, is that what makes you such a good subject is that you’re willing to reveal to the world these things about yourself that are a little bit offbeat.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah. I always think about, like when you’re at a party and you tell somebody a story, that’s all I’m doing is like, oh, I locked myself out of the house this one time. Everybody has one of those stories.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. The trick is to enhance it. And what I always like to think too is like, there’s a positivity about humor. Think about this. If you have a flat tire. Right?

Steve Cuden: Right.

Michael Buzzelli: It’s much more fun to call up AAA and say, hey, uh, you guys, I have three perfectly good tires right now. Right.

Steve Cuden: So that’s something that you had to Develop as a skill set. Most people would not think that way.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay.

Steve Cuden: I don’t think. I don’t think most people would think to themselves, oh, good, I’ve got three good tires and this one bad. And no, they’re thinking, damn it. This. I’ve got a bad tire, got flat.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, but isn’t it more fun to live life with that spark of joy?

Steve Cuden: I would say it is. But again, I think this is somewhat. Not totally unique to you, but it’s more unique to you than I think the average bear.

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, you would say an average bear, would you? I did mention that I am a larger person.

Steve Cuden: Well, that was not in my mind’s eye, but okay.

Michael Buzzelli: People don’t know they’re going to only see one little picture of me. And I tried to get the skinniest one possible.

Steve Cuden: Have you ever tried to write more dramatic or, um, straightforward stories?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. You know, I was always a big fan of science fiction, and I have tried to write science fiction, and it’s really, really difficult. And I find it difficult because you cannot use metaphors. You cannot say that she had spider like fingers, because all of a sudden, in a science fiction, she could actually have spider fingers.

Steve Cuden: This is true.

Michael Buzzelli: So it turns out I like to write very pragmatic things, but from a quirky angle.

Steve Cuden: And would you say that the training, though not you didn’t take the full degree at Point park in journalism. Would you say that that training, that classwork that you did has helped you to do what you’re doing now?

Michael Buzzelli: It does. I follow a lot of the journalism rules. I use AP style when I’m writing articles. It turns out I do end up. I write a lot of features for other magazines and other publications, and I do use that skill set. And, you know, you can’t be funny when you’re writing about someone else and their story.

Steve Cuden: Well, you can be, but you run a risk.

Michael Buzzelli: You can. And it’s rude.

Steve Cuden: They might show up at your door someday.

Michael Buzzelli: Right, right. Uh, the funny thing is, even I had an editor one time, even I got tired of he said, she said. But in a news publication, they don’t want you to use anything more colorful than that because it implies an emotion. They don’t want you to say, she wittily said, or she said with her tongue firmly pland in her cheek. They want you to avoid phrases like that. They want you because they’re like, no, no. That might come across as negative from that person. So.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s also, you’re trying to tell the story straight ahead rather than comment on it or give your opinion on it.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: That’s what journalism is supposed to be, though. That’s changing a lot in the way our society is.

Michael Buzzelli: That is. And I don’t like the new journalism. I’ve been seeing a lot of stories with the eye in it. With. I walked up the mountain to meet the president of the company. I was like, huh S. The president of the company was sitting at his desk or whatever you don’t need. I don’t like new journalism. I don’t. But the column is something different. It is not journalism. And I have a lot of me, me, me in it. But like you said, it’s self deprecating.

Steve Cuden: Well, you’re not writing news, you are writing commentary.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. So it’s a different skill set.

Steve Cuden: How important to you are deadlines?

Michael Buzzelli: My column is due on Fridays and I usually turn it in on Wednesday because I don’t like to be late. I’m also the person that shows up at. If you say 7:00, you’re having a party. 7:00. I’m there at 7:00. I one time went to a party when the woman at 7 o’clock and she showed up at the door with a towel around her.

Steve Cuden: Nobody else was coming at 7:00.

Michael Buzzelli: You said 7:00 and she said, no, uh, nobody actually comes at 7:00. I was like, I could go walk around the block for a bit. I don’t know.

Steve Cuden: So in other words, you don’t like the pressure of having to try to make it at the last minute.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, I worked for the phone company when I was younger. And when you work for the phone company, you are on a very tight deadline. And if you walk in that door at 801 and you were supposed to start at 8:00, they need a reuse from you. Like, why are you late? And I’m like, it’s 8:01. Like I’m not late, I’m on time anywhere else. ‘true they were filling a quota and you had to be at the desk at a certain time because they expected so many calls to come in at a certain time. So you had to be there.

Steve Cuden: So film crews are notorious for following the adage that 15 minutes early is on time, on time is late, and late is unforgivable. Yes, that’s the way film crews are. You better be there ahead of time.

Michael Buzzelli: This summer I had a short film that I was working on get made. A director loved the piece that I wrote and wanted to make his version of it. And I said, go for it. And I relinquished control to him because he was the director, he was paying for it, he was the producer of it as well. So I gave him all control. But I decided I would like to be on set the whole time. And I was. And I was the first one on set right after him.

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, in Hollywood, no script goes out as is. Nothing gets produced the way it’s written. Everything gets altered throughout the process. That’s just the way it works.

Michael Buzzelli: That was interesting of letting go of my work, because it was now his work. It was. He’s the director. I have a credit on it as writer. But it was interesting to see him change things. And many of the things he made much better. There was one or two times that I was like, why did he changed that line.

Steve Cuden: By the way? That’s why they don’t let screenwriters on set often.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly, exactly. But I was very. I have to say, I was very accommodating to watch my baby get adopted by someone else.

Steve Cuden: What would you say are the common errors that writers of articles like yours or journalists, what are the common things that they must do to keep working? In other words, not make this mistake or that mistake. What did you learn early on that you need to do?

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, that’s a great question, too. Listening is the most important part. If you’re writing a journalistic style article, you absolutely have to listen. And if you can record it, that’s even better. Getting somebody. Because say you have a firefighter, he has just saved people from a burning building. You want to get his words the way he says them, you want to get his personality across in a genuine way. And, uh, because his family’s going to read it, his friends are going to read it, and he’s got to sound like him or they’re going to call bullshit.

Steve Cuden: You, in other words, you have to get that part of it right in a real story that you’re covering as a journalist. Yes, but you don’t have to get it right in the stories that you’re writing about yourself. You can actually embellish.

Michael Buzzelli: Uh, I can embellish. And what I tend to do in those stories is I will even say it went like this, but what I was thinking was this. And that frees up a lot of extra space.

Steve Cuden: You’re also not writing fiction so much in what you’re producing for the observer reporter, but you’re able to shade it.

Michael Buzzelli: You’re able to shade it. Exactly. And it is not a. It is not a lie. To say I was thinking this, like, as I was going through the motions of this thing, you know, and those things, anything that I’m thinking obviously can be. It’s from my brain, so it’s not real. It doesn’t mean that these things occurred. It means that I was thinking this while this thing occurred.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s your take on what happened.

Michael Buzzelli: Right.

Steve Cuden: So you’ve taken how many articles and put them into Above Average Genius.

Michael Buzzelli: Um. Below Average Genius.

Steve Cuden: What? Did I say above? I mean, below Average Genius.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah. My first book was called Below Average Genius and it was a culmination of a bunch of columns. It was the first year and a half of columns. There’s probably more than 50 some in there. I don’t know the exact count, but I’m looking at cover thinking that’s going to help me. But from here it can’t. The index could, but that’s too far away.

Steve Cuden: And it represents how many years of articles?

Michael Buzzelli: Uh, a year and a half.

Steve Cuden: A year and a half’s worth of articles in one book?

Michael Buzzelli: In one book.

Steve Cuden: And did you have fun putting it together or was it.

Michael Buzzelli: I did. I absolutely did.

Steve Cuden: It wasn’t a chore.

Michael Buzzelli: It wasn’t a chore. I had decided to call it Below Average Genius because one of the stories in there is called Below Average Genius. And my friend Sandy had wisely told me, make that the last story in your book because it’s the title story. Make people wonder why the heck the book is called that until they get to the end.

Steve Cuden: And have you had comments on that?

Michael Buzzelli: I have had comments on that, but I give it away in the book jacket. I give away the secret of why I call it below average genius.

Steve Cuden: And I’m trying to remember there is a table of contents, right?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes, there is.

Steve Cuden: So there it would be as well.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes, exactly. But the reason. I know, but they were like, you have to read it last. Okay, you still have to read the story last to find out the title.

Steve Cuden: So which do you think is more difficult, writing short stories, journalist pieces, comedy sketches, or full length novels?

Michael Buzzelli: I’m about to tell you a little secret. Here’s the secret. I wrote a Large’s Genius, and I was continuing to write and I thought I’d do another compilation of articles, but I renegotiated my contract with the observer reporter and they got full rights to the column. After I Rene, they got more money, but they got full rights to the column. Okay. So when this happened, I had someone say to me, you should write another book. And I was like, I can’t because of they’re tied up now. I can’t write a second one. And then I realized I had like four or five Christmas Stories columns that came out talking about Christmas. I was like, what if I took the columns and repurposed them a little bit and turned them into a story? And that’s how I wrote All I Want for Christmas.

Steve Cuden: All I Want for Christmas is actually you taking a number of Christmas stories and recasting them somewhat.

Michael Buzzelli: There were a few in there. And I only use snippets of these columns. But one of the things I did was I wanted to use some of the material again. And one of the things I was able to do is like, come up with a Christmas book and throw in. So I made my lead character a comedy writer in Los Angeles going to Connecticut to visit family. And so whenever she’s doing any sort of comedy bit, it’s something from the column.

Steve Cuden: Isn’t that interesting?

Michael Buzzelli: At one point, she’s on a date with a dentist and she goes off on Christmas songs because they’re playing Christmas music at the restaurant. And that whole section is from a column where I go off on Christmas songs.

Steve Cuden: How interesting. Tell the listeners what the story is of All I Want for Christmas.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay. This is also based on a true story, but it’s a heightened reality version. All I Went for Christmas was about, like I said, Kate, who is a comedy writer in Los Angeles, but goes to Connecticut to visit her family. And then her family is not going to be there. It turns out her mother gets, uh, a last-minute ticket to go on a cruise with the other child, her son. So now Kate is there without her brother and without her mother. And she’s stuck in Connecticut. She’s there without her luggage, and she’s trying to make the best Christmas. And, uh, everything goes wrong. She finds out that the show she was writing for gets canceled. And she’s just trying to make the best of it. In the meantime, there’s another guy. He is coming off of duty from the Navy SEALs. He’s a Navy SEAL, he’s getting off duty and he wants to visit his parents who also aren’t in town. So he goes and visits his sister in the same town. And it turns out that there’s a loose connection between his sister and, uh, family friends of Kate. And they sort of struggle to get together as you do in romantic comedies where you try to spend the whole book trying to kiss.

Steve Cuden: As I was reading it, it felt like I was reading a book that was going to become a movie. Have you written it into a screenplay?

Michael Buzzelli: I wrote it in the hopes that it could be a Hallmark movie. And I’ve been trying to get it to somebody that will see it. If you know anybody, Steve, help me make get that in.

Steve Cuden: I wish I did, but I don’t. Yeah, see, you know, I’ve been living in Pittsburgh a while and I’m a little out of that loop at this point.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, I know.

Steve Cuden: So, no, it’s very hard when you’re not in Hollywood to actually have those connections. Stay full.

Michael Buzzelli: Everyone though that has read the book, they come up to me and say, this should be a Hallmark movie or this should be a movie.

Steve Cuden: Well, uh, it reads like that.

Michael Buzzelli: Well, I, uh, came from screenwriting and then started writing books. So everything going to have. It’s going to have the exciting incident, a certain page. My books follow a screenwriter plot. They don’t go off too far. If you read other novels, you know, they’re getting into the character’s brain. I don’t do that. Uh, everything that happens to Kate happens to her. She’ll say out loud what’s happening to her.

Steve Cuden: I think of the holidays as a particularly funny time of the year.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Personally. And so I’m wondering from your perspective, is there such a thing as a perfect holiday season or is it that there’s always something that screws up?

Michael Buzzelli: Uh, I think there’s always something that goes wrong and you just have to roll with it. And I think the problem she gets the original title was A Perfect Christmas because she kept wanting a perfect Christmas and not getting it. And however, There were like 10 books with the title Perfect Christmas. And then I settled on All I Want for Christmas and there were 10 titles with that title too. So.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s a famous song.

Michael Buzzelli: Right, right, right. Well, originally I was thinking because she loses her front tooth. I was thinking in the song All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

Steve Cuden: My two front teeth. Sure.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. And there’s a true story in the book about how I lost my front tooth. And when you lose your front tooth, you can’t pronounce your Fs, which ironically is the first letter you think of when you lose your front tooth. And I had gone to the dentist. The dentist is working off in the corner. He’s doing something with this pink plastic stuff in the green. It was pistachio, green plastic-looking stuff he’s working on in the corner. And he said, what do you do for a living? And I said, well, I’m a, uh, stand-up comedian. And he comes at me with the pistachio stuff. And he says, let’s get an impression. And I said, I don’t really do impressions. And he meant of my tooth.

Steve Cuden: Yes, yes.

Michael Buzzelli: So I put it in the book. I was like, okay. I just made it happen to Kate instead of me.

Steve Cuden: So did you outline the book or did you also do that just by writing it?

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, no, I did outline the book. I don’t do the index cards. I know a lot of writers do the index cards. I, um, am more of a planner than a plotter, if that means anything to your listeners. Do you know what that means?

Steve Cuden: A planner.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay. There are two types of writers in the world. There are people that are plotters that write every. They know a scene by scene breakdown of where the book is going to go. A PNR is somebody that just starts writing and has a general idea of where they want to go. And they write by the seat of their pants. Okay.

Steve Cuden: Yep.

Michael Buzzelli: I am somewhere in the middle. I take one sheet of paper, I turn it sideways. Or landscape, if you’re taking a picture. Yeah, yeah, it’s a landscape. She. I draw a line on that sheet of paper and then I write my plot points on that paper. And then all I have to do is get them to there. It’s not. I don’t have a scene by scene breakdown. I try to go with the flow, but by certain pages I want this thing to happen. By another certain pages, I want this other thing to happen and barrel through to the end.

Steve Cuden: Did you get into trouble anywhere in doing it that way? Where you then had to figure out how to work your way out of it or were you good all the way through?

Michael Buzzelli: No, I actually like that because like I said, I came from a background of reading comic books and, you know, in issue like 32 or something, spiderman falling off the top of a building and he’s got no web shooters. Okay. And you have to wait a month and figure out what’s gonna happen. And then he grab the issue 33. He grabs a flagpole on the way down and stops himself from being us. Big splat. So I like writing myself into a corner to see what I can come up with to get myself out of the jam. Because I like improvisational writing because if I don’t know what’s going to happen next, my reader won’t know what’s going to happen next.

Steve Cuden: I think that that’s exactly the right way to do it. But you can do that in an outline. You can get yourself into a corner and work your way out of it so that when you go to write the actual book or the script or whatever it is, you’re not stuck in the middle of that.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: For me, I’m an outliner. Some people don’t. Some people are seat of the pants. I tend to want to know where I’m going before I get there.

Michael Buzzelli: Worst case scenario is, if I can’t figure it out, I go back and fix it. I go back and fix the thing I couldn’t get out of.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s the job. I mean, uh, you know, the craft of writing is in that first draft, and the art of writing is in all the subsequent drafts to make it sing and sore and all the rest of it, all the cliches. You’ve clearly, in your time, had people give you notes on things. Y. I assume. Had notes on the book. And I assume you’ve had notes over time on your articles and so on. What’s your philosophy or your approach toward taking notes? What do you do?

Michael Buzzelli: You take them with grace. You swear to yourself a few moments, and then you take them with grace. I had a really great editor on All I Want for Christmas, I think, except for one mistake that I found in the book. But anyway, I had a really great editor and she had me taking sections out. She had me rewriting sections. It’s what needs to be done. All of writing is rewriting, as you’ve said. Basically, the next draft always makes it stronger. Now, I know. I’ve been listening to another podcast where television writers just get bizarre notes.

Steve Cuden: Oh, yes, they can get some very strange notes.

Michael Buzzelli: I was lucky to have really good editors who basically reign me in.

Steve Cuden: You’re talking about on the book or on your articles?

Michael Buzzelli: Right, on the book.

Steve Cuden: So that’s a little different than TV writing, because TV writing is a bunch of producers who are also writers who feel like they have to put their two cents into everything. Your editor, I think, is not looking to make their voice in there. They’re looking to help you.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes, exactly. Agents and editors have always been my friend because they’ve always been able to make it better. And I might curse them for silently to myself, but they’ve always made my work stronger. And they’ve let me go in new areas and go, oh, I hadn’t thought about that. I wrote a screenplay one time and my manager was like, what if this happens? Instead of that, And I was like, you know, nodding politely in person and driving home going, what the, uh, if. And what the crazy man wants me to do. What now? But after two days, I thought about what he. He said and thought, this does make it better and it makes it more unexpected.

Steve Cuden: And that is the point of taking notes and not just, you know, getting rid of them immediately.

Michael Buzzelli: Right.

Steve Cuden: If you think about notes, sometimes it triggers better. It doesn’t always. But you should always take the notes and always at least say thank you and absorb them and think about them.

Michael Buzzelli: Right.

Steve Cuden: Because it can do just what you’re talking about. It can improve the work. Not always, but sometimes it does.

Michael Buzzelli: You might fill up the swear jar at home, but when you’re in front of the agent and the manager or the editor, you say, thank you, this is great. Let me get you a draft.

Steve Cuden: I can’t get any more in my swear jar. It’s all free. I would be remiss if I didn’t spend a moment with you talking more about stand-up comedy, because we touched on it early on. What do you think is the most challenging thing about being a stand-up comic? What’s really hard?

Michael Buzzelli: You know, the thing is every audience is different. And you’ve had this joke and it kills every single time. And you walk into a room and you tell it and it’s crickets and tumbleweeds. It’s just the nature of stand. The audience might be in a bad mood. They might have come in and it’s like, oh, I didn’t expect the COVID charged to be this much, or they’re charging this much for drinks. You do not know what’s going on. Something could have come out in the news that morning that you weren’t aware of, that they’re all thinking about when you’re there and you just, you just don’t know.

Steve Cuden: You stepped on a landmine.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. So you just got to roll with it. I found the thing, I think. The, uh, thing I think. Listen to me. I. I’m a writer that doesn’t know how to use.

Steve Cuden: You don’t have to get all specific on me.

Michael Buzzelli: I think the most successful way to be a comedian is to know when it’s working and when it’s not. Get the heck off stage.

Steve Cuden: Are you able to tell when you’re writing the joke that it’s going to work?

Michael Buzzelli: No, because what I think is funny sometimes is probably too dark or too weird or too something. And you tell it and they’re like, no. Or the setup’s too long. You have something you think is hilarious, but it just takes you a little bit too long to get there. And that’s always. And you can’t Figure out how to shorten it until after you tell it and you go, I could have used six words instead of 335 for this.

Steve Cuden: Ah, yes. Brevity is the soul of wit.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: Is it true that the only real way to become a great comedian is to bomb?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. But you know what? I bombed one time so badly I stayed off the stage for two years.

Steve Cuden: Really?

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. If you read below, aver genius, there’s a story in there called. It’s about my time at the Haha Cafe.

Steve Cuden: Yes, I read it.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay, so in that story, that is a true story, sad but true, where I threw cookies at the audience and injured them as I was before. I told to stand up because it was cookie night at that place. It was cookie night at the Haha Cafe. And I was going to hand out archway cookies to people before I got on stage. And I got up on stage and I was handing the box, I was holding the box of archway cookies and I thought, well, I’ll just throw them out to people. And I’m on stage, the spotlight’s on me and I’m throwing cookies out into the dark and I hear things like ow. And my eye. Yeah. Uh, it’s hard to win over an audience after you’ve injured them.

Steve Cuden: Yeah. If you’re gonna hurt them, they might not find that funny. I don’t know why, but they might not find it funny. How do you typically then handle hecklers? Forget about the fact that you’ve injured them, but how do you handle hecklers?

Michael Buzzelli: I have a funny story about a heckler. I one time was working in a club in Riverside, California, which is in the middle of nowhere. If you were a former la.

Steve Cuden: I know exactly where Riverside is. East of Los Angeles. Right.

Michael Buzzelli: So I drove out like an hour to Riverside, California to this gig. And I got there and the guy that was the producer of the show said, we’re going on after the hockey game. I’m like, oh, great, this ought to be fun, me going on after a hockey game, you know. And what had happened was the person that got on stage before me was heckled off the stage. She actually was crying when she came offstage. There was a guy in the audience that was like youo stank. Get off the stage. He was rip roaring drunk. Of course, it was like I still want my $50 for driving all the way to River. This is all I was getting at the time. 50 bucks for driving, ah, all the way to Riverside and back, which was probably used $50 in gas.

Steve Cuden: Gas, yeah, sure.

Michael Buzzelli: So it’s My turn to go up there and I’m like, I don’t know what I’m going to do. What I did, I got up on stage, I took the microphone out of the stand and walked down to the guy that was heckling and sat at his table and said, you seem like you have a lot to say. What do you want to talk about? And he put the microphone in his face. He was dumbfounded it, could not speak. So I was like, well, I’m giving you a chance. He had nothing to say. So I got up on stage and I was able to do the whole act and get my $50 and get the heck out of there.

Steve Cuden: You’re lucky he didn’t haul off and hit you.

Michael Buzzelli: Well, that’s a risk I could have taken. But luckily he was at a table with a bunch of friends who were also drunk. But he was the most belligerent. But he was fine with me after I did that because I him an opportunity. He wanted to speak. The hecklers want to be noticed. They want to be. They want to make the show about them.

Steve Cuden: Mhm.

Michael Buzzelli: I gave him an opportunity to make the show about him.

Steve Cuden: Well, you took the bully down is.

Michael Buzzelli: What you did in a way, but in a kind and gentle way.

Steve Cuden: Well, I’m saying you didn’t cause any physical harm and you pro. He probably woke up the next morning having no memory of it at all. But you basically deflated him by doing that.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. I might throw cookies at the audience, but I don’t want to hurt them emotionally. I want people to enjoy the experience there. People come out, they get dressed up, they come out, some of them hire babysitters, they pay to go somewhere, they pay for alcohol. I want them to know I appreciate all of those things. I’m not. What’s his name? Richard. Michael. Michael Richards. I’m not yelling at my audience for acting up.

Steve Cuden: Your job is to entertain.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, I was once went to see some drag queen perform somewhere and the audience was enjoying themselves, but they started talking amongst themselves and she’s like, shut up, it’s my turn. Well, it immediately turned everyone off. Nobody wants to be people were there to have a good time. You have to find a way to realize you’re in their space, you’re coming into their lives. That’s what you have to do.

Steve Cuden: Well, the really great comedians are excellent at defusing all that.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Because you have to. If you’re going to work the clubs, you’re going to get heckled.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: Even the top guys get heckled.

Michael Buzzelli: It’s A matter of the business. Yes.

Steve Cuden: I ask this question often. You know, the old line is that dying is easy, comedy is hard. That’s the old saw. And it’s almost impossible to actually define. But are you able to say what makes comedy comedy and why it’s so difficult to do well?

Michael Buzzelli: That is also a great question.

Steve Cuden: That’s three strikes.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, you. Three. Geez. You’re just. You always batt a thousand. As a frequent fan of this podcast, I knew I was getting into. I knew I was going to be facing some intelligent questions, and I knew I wasn’t gonna be.

Steve Cuden: Who, me?

Michael Buzzelli: I don’t know who’s writing your material? Safe.

Steve Cuden: I’ve got a whole team behind me.

Michael Buzzelli: Oh, okay. Oh, my God. I’ve forgotten the question already.

Steve Cuden: What makes comedy so difficult to do?

Michael Buzzelli: Well, like I said, that’s a great question, because I think the problem is no one would go, I think I’ll perform brain surgery this Saturday night, right?

Steve Cuden: Well, some people might, but just about.

Michael Buzzelli: Everybody thinks they can get up on stage and tell, like, oh, my friends think I’m funny.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s like everybody thinks they can be a writer just because they have access to a pen and a pad of paper.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. I think that’s where the fallacy is. I think it’s so much more than that. It is so much more than having the pen and paper. It is so much more than just standing up on a stage for sure. And I think a lot of people think, oh, if, you know, it’s like art, you can see it and you see it like a Rothko, and you think, well, I can do that, right? Well, Rothko did it first, and Rothko did it best. So, oh, I’m going to get in so much trouble for my toastmasters for using so many sews, but, uh, it’s.

Steve Cuden: Just a needle pulling thread.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. Everybody thinks they can do it, and it’s more like a, uh, skill and more like exercise. You have to do it and do it and do it and do it and do it and do it and do it. But it looks easy. It looks like, oh, it’s a man in a microphone. That’s all you need. Or a woman in a microphone, that’s all you need. You just need to stand up on the stage in front of people and talk. It’s so much more than that. Inflection, intonation, the way you speak, the drama of your speech patterns, all of those things are important.

Steve Cuden: The structure of a sentence and how.

Michael Buzzelli: The structure of a sentence, how you.

Steve Cuden: Set A joke up, all that.

Michael Buzzelli: Right. You want to end on the line, kumquat and not kumquat tree. Right. The last word has to be the funny word. Right. Because kumquats are funny. I don’t know why.

Steve Cuden: Well, and kumquat is just a naturally funny word.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. But Kumquat Tree is less funny. Yes, because. So you’ve got to end on the funny word. A lot of people don’t know the structure of it.

Steve Cuden: That is the challenge. And I think that there is a large learning curve of failure that most people have to go through in order to get good.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And do you have to be able to weather that and put up with it for maybe a long time, maybe years of doing it? But that means you have to really love it and want to do it.

Michael Buzzelli: You have to really love it. Exactly.

Steve Cuden: It’s like most things in the entertainment industry, if you’re not passionate about it, you might not be in the right place.

Michael Buzzelli: That’s. I was listening to another podcast of was cheating on you and listening to another podcast.

Steve Cuden: That’s it. I’m done.

Michael Buzzelli: I’m so sorry, Steve. I didn’t mean it. I was listening to another podcast and there were these writers, the writing team. Their last name was Mulrooney, I want to say, and husband and wife writing team. In 10 years, they couldn’t get anything done, but they were trying to write what they thought people wanted and then they started writing what they wanted to write. That’s when they became successful.

Steve Cuden: For sure. You’ve got to write what’s in your heart and soul.

Michael Buzzelli: Right.

Steve Cuden: Unless somebody’s paying you to write it.

Michael Buzzelli: Well, that’s true. Don’t start out with a zombie movie because people all think zombie movies are going to be, you know, million dollar sellers. Well, I think zombie thing is over right now, but whatever.

Steve Cuden: I’ve told my students many times. What do you like? What kind of movies do you like? Write that first, because you’ll enjoy writing it. You’ll be better at it. It’s something you’re akin to etcetera, etcetera. Don’t suddenly. If you like zombie movies, don’t suddenly start with a rom com, because that may not be your cup of tea.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. Write what you want to write. Right. The weirder the better. The other thing I say about comedy all the time is be specific. It’s very important that even that you think nobody knows the Heidelberg Shop and save it engenders an idea, uh, bigger than just saying the grocery store.

Steve Cuden: I agree. That gives it color and life and depth.

Michael Buzzelli: If I say drugstore, it could be anything. But if I say the CVS in Times Square, you start having ideas like, oh, it’s probably really white and bright in there. It’s probably 24 hours.

Steve Cuden: Or in Walgreens.

Michael Buzzelli: Yeah, or in Walgreens. Exactly. You paint a bigger picture. Specificity. I can’t say that word. Being specific helps sometimes. Those details are very important, and the trick is to know when not to do the details. It’s sort of like, once again, I relate it to painting, because that’s the second degree I went after was graphic arts. But anyway, if you drew every line on your fingers, you’d look like an old person. You’d look way older than you really were because some of those lines are not as deep or not as shaded or not. You’ve got to know when to put the details in and when to leave them out.

Steve Cuden: That’s a good line. That’s absolutely true. So I’ve been having just so much fun talking to Michael Buzzelli for a little more than an hour at this point. We’re going to wind the show down and I. You know, you’ve told us a ton of really great stories, but I’m wondering if you have one more in you, perhaps of something that has happened to you that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange or just plain funny. I’m sure you’ve got more than one.

Michael Buzzelli: I’ve got a bunch. And you know what? I don’t want to rely on the celebrity stories, but I am going to go back to the celebrity stories. But I went roller skating with Zachary Levi one time. Another comedian friend of mine named Nick Swarton. Every year in October is another reason I’m telling this story. Every year around his birthday, he would rent out a roller skate rink. A, uh, roller rink and have an open bar and people roller skating. And it was a disaster, as you would imagine, because it’s drunk people on wheels.

Steve Cuden: Oh God.

Michael Buzzelli: But it was all celebrities. It was like me and celebrities. And it was hilarious and fun and weird. And you’d just be talking to Adam Sandler one moment or David Spade, and then you’d see him bumping into a wall on the roller skating. At one point, I was going around the rink with Zachary Levi. We had a nice conversation. He was not famous yet. He was sort of on his way up. Uh, so I saw him at the beginning of his career and now we’re here towards the end of it and still bumping into walls and still probably I’M still bumping into walls.

Steve Cuden: You and me both getting in line. All right, so last question for you then. Today you’ve already told us a huge amount of great advice and thoughts on how the world works, uh, especially in the comedy world, Michael. And I’m just wondering, do you have a single solid piece of advice that you like to give to those who are maybe just starting out, or maybe they’re in a little bit and trying to get to that next level?

Michael Buzzelli: I think we did touch it a little bit, and I think it is to be open to suggestions, be open to editing. You know, one of the things I do is I’m on the board of a group called Pittsburgh Newarks, where we do short plays. We have a festival every year where we put on about 15 or so of those short plays. In the meantime, throughout the course of the rest of the year, we’ll, uh, take one of those plays that didn’t make it to the festival, and we’ll do a reading of it, a staged reading. And this woman came up from Jers, came over from New Jersey to see her play be performed. Just a stage reading of it, a bunch of actors on stools. And afterward there’s a little bit of a talkack. And some people had some suggestions, and she was like, nope, plays done. I’m not doing anything more with it. And it was like, wow.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, wow, wow.

Michael Buzzelli: She was, like, so close to the idea that, like, some of those changes would made better. Not everyone’s suggestion would have made it better. You know, people. Sometimes people raise their hand and make a suggestion because they think it’s their turn to talk. But some of the other suggestions were very valid and would have improved the script. And she wanted nothing to do with it. And I thought, wow, you drove all this way from New Jersey to hear it out loud and think you’re not going to change one word of it. And I, uh, found it very strange. You have to be open to suggestion. You don’t have to like the suggestions when people are suggesting them. You don’t have to take all of their suggestions, but you should sit there and say, thank you. I’ll take it into consideration. And that could be the end of it. You might not ever change a word of it. But you don’t need to sit there and be so closed off to the idea that you can’t improve something, because unfortunately, everything I’ve written could use another pass and be improved. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. I bet you William Shakespeare, if he came Back to life as a clone. He would read some of the plays. He’d go, I have some ideas now about, like, what I want to change.

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, Sondheim kept changing his works all the time.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. There’s a perfect example. And he had a pretty good career.

Steve Cuden: He had a pretty decent career. Yeah. You know, I think that’s really, really wise and excellent advice. Because the truth of the matter is, most people who are confident in their work are open to hearing other people’s opinions about it. It’s usually people who are uncertain of what they’re doing and insecure in some way that are closed off because, please don’t adjust this because it’ll screw it all up for me. Which means that they’re somewhat insecure about it. Not secure. People who know what they’re doing and have been doing a lot of it. They. Yeah, tell me what you think. And they sometimes will take those notes and make it thing better, as we’ve alluded to earlier in the show.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly. Can I have one more little piece of advice I want to share?

Steve Cuden: Oh, please.

Michael Buzzelli: It is. If you want to write, if you want to act, if you want to dance or sing, start doing it. Just do it. Nobody has to hear it. Nobody has to see that first draft. Just start. I. I’ve been to a lot of. I’ve taught at a lot of seminars, as you mentioned at the top of the show. And there are some people that go from seminar to seminar to seminar, but they’re not writing anything. They’re going to all these writing conferences, but they’re not writing anything down. Like, start doing it. Just do the thing you want to do. You might fall. And like, when you’re riding a bike, you do not jump on that bike and become Lance Armstrong or somebody that’s less controversial. But you fall and you tumble and. But you get back up and you keep doing it. And that’s. You just have to start and you have to keep doing it.

Steve Cuden: Yeah. Nobody is born coming into, uh, the world already writing at a high level.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: Now you have to write a lot.

Michael Buzzelli: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: So there’s no time like the present.

Michael Buzzelli: Yes. Start. Put that pen to paper now. Unless you’re driving.

Steve Cuden: Unless you’re driving. And then I listen to all of.

Michael Buzzelli: Your podcasts in my car, driving. So don’t. Like, I was listening to this one podcast in the car, the Shakti Goan. Okay. It was a meditational thing, and she was like, close your eyes. And I’m like, o. I better not.

Steve Cuden: No, you better not. Is right. And you know, if you’re going to listen to my show, please don’t drive off the side of the road.

Michael Buzzelli: Okay, I will.

Steve Cuden: Michael Buzzelli, this has been a ton of fun for me and I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and your very funny wisdom on life itself. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Michael Buzzelli: Thank you for having me. This is a feather in my cap, uh, being on StoryBeat. Thank you.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please, please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. Storybeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Tune in, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your StoryBeat stories be unforgettable.