Colin Quinn's Take on the Not-So-United States

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Brian Lehrer: WNYC. Maybe the slogan on New Jersey license plates should be New Jersey, New York's Straight Man. Maybe Pennsylvania should be The Cradle of Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Well, I'm sure you'll endorse this one for Florida, change it from the Sunshine State, to Florida a Hot Mess. Well, those slogans may not actually appear on license plates anytime soon, but they do all appear as chapter titles in the new book by comedian Colin Quinn called Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States.

It's a book with a lot of laughs but from some very serious underpinnings for the times we're living in. Colin Quinn's bio says he is a stand-up comedian from Brooklyn, okay, Park Slope. Of course, you know him from his time anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. Some of you know him as Hermie from Girls, or from his one-man shows like Red State Blue State, Colin Quinn: Unconstitutional, and Colin Quinn: The New York Story, directed by Jerry Seinfeld.

I could go on but you get the idea, so we're delighted to have Colin Quinn with us now and with that new book, Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States, Colin, thanks so much for making this one of your stops, welcome to WNYC.

Colin Quinn: Oh, thanks for having me on. Are you kidding me? WNYC is my thing.

Brian: I'm so glad to hear that. You start the book by saying you've been to 47 of the 50 states, which are the unlucky 3?

Colin: The unlucky three is the Dakotas and Wyoming.

Brian: I guess when we think of Casper, Wyoming, or Fargo, we don't think of comedy clubs?

Colin: No, but I'm sure they have them. I just never got out there. When it's not a direct flight, I get annoyed. I'm a bit of a diva, I've been around a long time.

Brian: You compare going to different states like going to a family reunion with all your distant cousins. Why is it like that?

Colin: Well, because like everybody, you're like, "Wait a minute, virtually I'm not related to these people," then you start to see a little gesture or it's something in their eyes or their-- where you're like, "Oh, yes, we do have the same blood." With different states what I mean by that is whenever you see another American, if you're in another country, you both have that look on your face when something happens like, "I wouldn't put up with this. I have rights like everybody else." It's like things.

For example, even when I go of flying. If you fly in another country, you go, "Well, the flight's delayed." In America they're like, "The flights delayed, we'll give you $500 if you just don't yell at us. We'll give you a free flight. Eight people if you promise to fly in the later flight, we'll take care of you." In other countries they're like, "The flights delayed, we're pushing you back and there's you're going to do about it."

Brian: Yes. I guess that's related to the serious thought that you have in the book that Americans have taken the concept of the citizen and weaponized it.

Colin: Yes. When I really dig beneath the surface, I'm kind of a benign dictator at heart. I feel like we take in the idea because the social media is really electric. It's like when Dylan went electric really. Every citizen now, everybody just has to weigh in on every subject all day, and the result is we're all insane, because we've got voices in our heads, which is a mental disorder, only we actually have real voices, everybody else's voice in our head all day. Nothing goes unnoticed, unquestioned, uncriticized, and it's insanity.

Brian: I read that line from your bio about being from Brooklyn then it says, "Okay, Park Slope." Are you from Brooklyn originally?

Colin: No, I grew up in Park Slope.

Brian: How do you think that colors your impression of the other 49 states? Have you thought about that?

Colin: Well, Park Slope, when I grew up there, it was very mixed neighborhood, and I feel like that gives you a bigger picture of humanity and all its flaws. When I tour at the other states, they're basically, I realized that every state is just like all states in the sense that it's all people that just don't want anyone to push them around. It was a really ambitious plan to go for, that's why it's called overstated because I feel like there should be about eight different countries, like Europe. Europe is our size and it's like 50 countries. I feel like part of the problem is that there's too many different opinions that you can't really force people to have your opinion unless you don't want to be America.

Brian: Do you consider your humor, New York humor? Is there such a thing?

Colin: Yes. Well, I did a show called New York Story. It was all about New York and it was all about New York personalities. That was my final statement on the entire affair, and I definitely considered that, but it's New York from a different time. Now, in New York is obviously a lot different. If you want to hear a New York accent, you have to go to South Florida.

Brian: [chuckles] That's funny. Certain old-school in New York accent. I'm from Queens. When I went to grad school in Ohio, one of the first things I noticed, Colin, was that my new friends didn't laugh at my jokes like people back home did. As a professional comedian, is that a thing as you play to different audiences?

Colin: I think it used to be back in the '80s. In the '80s, I feel like people would be like, "Well, you're very sarca--." Sarcasm, there's levels of it like anything else, like there was a drier kind of a humor. You know what I mean? It was definitely different in the 80s. Now, I feel like everybody knows who they're going to see, everybody knows personalities, because of the TV shows and movies, everybody gets where everybody's from.

If Jim Gaffigan's playing in Brooklyn, people get it, because even though he's a Midwestern guy, they know his type of humor. He's going to be very understated and really as funny as anybody else but it's a different style. People have different styles.

Brian: We're going to take a break and then we're going to continue with Colin Quinn. We're going to get into what he writes about New York in the book, what he writes about New Jersey in the book, and then we're going to just pick some states at random that may or may not be Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Colin Quinn's new book is called Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States. We'll continue with him right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue with comedian Colin Quinn. His new book is called Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States. All right, Colin, let's say, we did a little New York, so let's go on to New Jersey. You call it New York's Straight Man. They won't like that in Montclair.

Colin: No. Well, first of all, Montclair, they think that they're better than rest of Jersey anyway. New Jersey is basically-- it's got this weird relationship where half-- like a code of authority of authority is I care for New York, I care for New Jersey. There's a strange relationship with it, but there are also. Since we dump out garbage there, that sets a low self-esteem thing right then. The fact that they're our garbage men gives them a bad-- it's not a healthy relationship between us and them.

Brian: Yet you write that. Go ahead. You write that New Yorkers is don't just look down on New Jersey, they resent it. Why would that be?

Colin: Well, we resent them is because we have to share the Statue of Liberty, the Holland Tunnel was half-in half-out, even MetLife Stadium, the Jets and the Giants, we have to share a stadium with them. I don't understand what that is. That's going to cause problems and the Jets end up being more like a-- They're more New Jersey than the Giants, the Jet fans, they have a Jersey personality even they're from New York.

It's a very strange relationship and, like I say, thank God for Bruce Springsteen, for giving them self-esteem, because Springsteen, he created a personality for New Jersey. I knew its New Jersey, it's strange. Also, it's one of the original 13 colonies, which nobody, nobody being honest likes, even New Jersey. They seem like they came around 1975. The fact that they've been around forever is just uncomfortable.

Brian: You note that it was so dangerous when Washington crossed the Delaware, because of the Jersey drivers. Have you had similar experiences?

Colin: Oh, yes. I don't know if they have, if their exits are on the other side I feel like, and it's insane. I mean, just leaving Newark Airport is so-- I've almost killed and died like four times from Newark Airport, just trying to get out of that. I don't know how it's set up that way, 13S, 13B. It's insane.

Brian: Let's pick a couple of other states at random from your book in our remaining time and see what you have to say about them. Eeny, meeny, miny, Florida! Look at that. The Hot Mess State, you call it, where do you even want to start?

Colin: That's the thing, Florida. The thing I like about Florida is, Florida is one of those states that says, "Look." They're the wild kid on the block that you're not supposed to hang out with. That's Florida's charm. They were there. They were supposed to be. We wanted them to be the Gold Coast of America, and it's just not. It's because most people, in most vacation places, they work 30 years at their job, then they retire, get a boat, get a place by the Beach. Florida is people that said, "I'm not going to waste my time working for 30 years. I'm going to skip that step and go right down to the sun. I'll get a job DJ-ing or dealing drugs, or ideally both." That's Florida's personality.

Brian: That's why Florida is a hot mess because people from other states decide they want to go there before they retire. That's interesting.

Colin: Yes, they're like, "I'm not going to do the dirt. Let's just go." Then, they just keep building. The whole city's built on cocaine money. South Florida, if you go to Fort Lauderdale, there's giant skyscrapers every-- it's more than New York, you can't even see the beach. It's crazy.

Brian: Let me pick another state at random, oh look, Pennsylvania came up. You call it the Cradle of Monday Morning Quarterbacks, and that's not about sports talk, right?

Colin: No, it's sort of about sports in the sense that, the early cradle of quarterbacks was West Pennsylvania obviously, but they were like, "That's where it all happens." A whole system comes out of these guys in Pennsylvania, setting up what we have today, for better and for worse. Supreme Court, Electoral College, they went through everything that we deal with today. It's really amazing. It's brilliant, but at the same time, it's obviously-- if I had my way, we would have a constitutional convention, every year, for the next 10 years in Pennsylvania, every year. A serious one like they did it, no press, just a bunch of thinkers get together, and figure out what we're going to do about the situation.

Brian: In the Pennsylvania chapter, you have a section on the Supreme Court, and I think you were present, having your book come out right now with a proposal to expand the court, right there on page 41. What made you think about that while Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive.

Colin: Because it is insane to have nine old people-- this is one of the jokes. Because we had nine from the beginning, there was 1 million people, now we have 300 million people and we still have nine. We should have 270 Supreme Court justices.

Brian: To keep the ratio. Then the Senate would never have time for a coronavirus relief bill, they'd spend all their time confirming justices.

Colin: Yes, maybe we should get rid of the Senate and just have the Supreme Court.

Brian: You write that, "We treat the Supreme Court with an idealistic innocence that only our country could have." We're innocent about the Supreme Court or that's part of the American character?

Colin: Hell, yeah. By innocence, I mean, no other country do people get that outraged when things are unfair. Only here do people go "Wait. Whoa, that can't be corruption. We're outraged." Every place else are like, "Yes, well, of course, there's going to be corruption." It's like they have a more realistic view of what the leaders are capable of. Over here, we look to these pure people, and because you can't have a shady past, then the only news you get are the most strangest, honest people that have never lived and never made mistakes.

Brian: We've got about 30 seconds left. What do you see is the role of comedy in such serious times?

Colin: The role of comedy and this is just my opinion, obviously, is to attack all hypocrisy on every side of things, and even your own hypocrisy as a human being. That is basically it. Just try to call out all the untruth in everybody's, at every angle.

Brian: Colin Quinn his new book is, Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the 50 States. Now, this Thursday, September 24th, Collin will be holding, An Evening with Colin Quinn, a virtual book event from The Paramount in Huntington, in conjunction with Book Revue, a local bookstore. Admission into the event is possible by buying Overstated from Book Revue's website. That's a virtual event, right?

Colin: Yes. That's where I get them, they buy the book.

Brian: You can do that from home, right?

Colin: Sure, you have to do it from home, actually.

Brian: Maybe that's the only good thing about coronavirus. You get to do a Huntington event, without getting on the LIE.

Colin: Well, the LIRR which is how I usually get out there. [laughs]

Brian: Colin, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.

Colin: Thanks. Thanks so much. Thank you.

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