Jon Stewart: The Playboy Interview (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a brief message of her displeasure. She was the Felix Unger of cats: If it wasn’t just right in the litter box, “I’m sorry, my friend, I’m going right on the floor next to it, just to show you.”
    Playboy: Much of your humor is based on your being Jewish. You even called your HBO special Unleavened . Are Jews funnier?
    Stewart: Than?
    Playboy: Gentiles.
    Stewart: Any time you’re a group that wants desperately for others to like you so they’ll let you stick around, you have a tendency to be more amusing. When you’re in charge there’s really no need to be funny. The captain of the football team doesn’t have to be funny. Water boy? He has to be a little amusing.
    My comedy is all about anything that, when I was growing up, made me feel different or disenfranchised in any way. What is comedy other than: Love me! We’re not so bad. We don’t really love the money. Love me! Height, looks and religion became the cornerstones of what I talk about. They had to, because as a kid you learn preemptive-strike comedy. If I hit someone with a tremendous joke about how small and Jewish I am, they had nowhere to go. All they could do is punch me once and leave.
    Playboy: Were you the only Jew in your school?
    Stewart: No. There were probably four or five, but Lawrenceville was not a predominantly Jewish area.
    Playboy: Did you feel ostracized?
    Stewart: It’s not like I walked into school and everyone turned their backs and shunned me. [ laughs ] It was just in my head. I felt different even if no one else noticed or cared. Most people were very nice to me. I got my share of ass-kickings and being made fun of, but it wasn’t anything unusual. My parents divorced, but other people have gone through that as well. I’m not going to write Jonathan’s Ashes. I didn’t have a tragic childhood. It was OK, normal. But if you’re looking for what informs my thought process, it was those feelings of inadequacy that were placed there by me, for me . They were grounded in reality, but one with far less importance than I gave it. In other words, it wasn’t like The Breakfast Club, with Judd Nelson just fucking poking me in the chest every day. But in my head I was a weirdo.
    Playboy: Are you now at ease with your height, religion and looks?
    Stewart: When I stopped thinking about them, all the problems they caused went away. There comes a point in your life where you go, “I guess I’m not going to be six feet tall—and I can’t believe how important that used to be to me.” I’m fine. If I can’t reach a glass, I can just stand on a chair.
    Playboy: Jewish mysticism has been in the news lately. Have you given any thought yet to studying the Kabbalah?
    Stewart: I’m letting Madonna get her feet wet, and if it seems OK, I’m jumping in. You know, nothing shakes my world more than giant celebrities who tell us about their spiritual awakenings.
    Playboy: Oh? Why?
    Stewart: Because it’s amazing to me that the journey to superstardom always culminates in, “Hey, we really all have to be nice to each other.” Well, thank you! Of course you should be celebrated for coming to that conclusion!  
    All kidding aside, I can’t believe that it’s newsworthy when somebody of grand fame and wealth has an epiphany that maybe there’s a larger world out there beyond their narcissism—and I’m not speaking of anyone in particular. It’s as if a celebrity epiphany is somehow more valid than anyone else’s and therefore that star is to be congratulated on their arduous spiritual journey. And guess what else? There is no grandeur in that epiphany. A celebrity’s spiritual awakening is no different from or more important than one that happens to whomever is mopping up come in video booths on 42nd Street.
    Playboy: Sounds like business as usual.
    Stewart: Of course, because in this business your status is elevated just for not shitting on people. You’re celebrated as more than decent for acting normally . It makes me wonder: