Kids say the darndest things

Scott Thompson

Time Out New York: What does it feel like to be getting ready for another tour?
Scott: Fabulous. I was afraid I was going to be sarcastic…and I thought, I can’t: no irony for this. I feel great—especially with new material and a new beginning.

TONY: What made y’all decide to do new material?
Scott: Our collective failure? I mean I’m joking, but not really. We felt that this is the last chance. We want to finish what we started. We were derailed years ago when Brain Candy did so badly. And we thought, Maybe the public’s finally ready and maybe we gotta do it now. And everybody’s schedules came up right—no one’s in demand, and that’s got a silver lining, because if any of us had skyrocketed to superstardom, this would not be happening. The flip side is that we’re all still hungry. And why shouldn’t we be able to do this? We’re not old. We’re in our prime comedically—we’re not rock stars, you know what I mean? You don’t have to be 28. We can be, you know, older! I didn’t know what else to say so I just said “older”! Oldery!

TONY: I will have to ask you how old you are at some point…
Scott: I’m the oldest: 48. I’d lie but then there’s the Internet. That bastard Internet. I could spend time going into Wikipedia and changing all the facts about myself, but I’d rather let other people do that.

TONY: Would you like to make a formal request in this article for someone to do just that?
Scott: YeScott: I would like to be 42.

TONY: We’ll see if we can make that happen for you.
Scott: I’m not asking for that much—I’m not asking to be made 30—I just want to be 42, no big deal. And I wouldn’t mind a daughter. A little girl, who’s doing very well—first in her class! And leader of the ballerina. I’d like to have a little ballerina daughter and maybe with a genius IQ and who lives with her mother, but spends an awful lot of time with me, and all of her time with her mother praying for her weekend with Daddy. That’s all I’m asking for! And I’d like her name to be…hmm…Opal. Please. That’s all.

TONY: Let’s see how long it takes after this goes to print for all of that information to show up on your Wikipedia page.
Scott: And she’s very tall for her age. Six feet. Maybe we’ll call her Sarah. She’s only seven but she’s named after that movie Sarah Plain and Tall so she’s a very big girl. And precocious—but not obnoxious about it. Everybody goes, “She’s a genius child who’s incredibly gifted, yet you don’t resent her for it.” And then I look modestly down at my feet and say “And isn’t she pretty?” And people say, “She’s not pretty; she’s beautiful.” That’s all I’m asking for.

TONY: I’m not sure which point you stopped talking about the daughter you wanted and started talk about the person you wish you’d been.
Scott: [Screaming] Get out of those drawers, Sarah! Those aren’t for you! Those are scissors! Just because Augusten Burroughs wrote a book about it doesn’t mean that it’s going to work for you. It only works once.

TONY: What is it like when you’re five minds come together?
Scott: It’s the closest thing to perfection I can imagine. My favorite thing is when someone mentions something that’s incredibly insane, that couldn’t possibly work—and you know that, even to say it, the person had to really go out on a limb—and then someone in the group takes this impossible notion, or maybe even a detestable notion, and picks it up and before you know it, it’s workable and it’s actually what you were looking for, but it took all five people to do it. That’s amazing to me.

TONY: Can you give me an example?
Scott: There’s a scene in the new show called “Superdrunk.” Bruce is a superhero who’s power is that, when he gets superdrunk, he saves people. I play a woman that he saves from a robber, but Mark said something the other day in rehearsal about how his robber should be a terrorist, and say something to me like, “I hate your freedom,” which made no sense to me. And he goes, “I’m making fun of George Bush and the American invasion of Iraq and etc.” And then someone said, “Well, maybe the woman is the Statue of Liberty.” And before we knew it, Superdrunk was saving the Statue of Liberty from a sexual assault. It all happened in two minutes from a comment Mark made that I thought was ridiculous.

TONY: I can’t think of anything more insulting to America than having a gay Canadian play the Statue of Liberty who’s about to get raped.
Scott: And speaking French! Because when Bruce takes her home, it’s France. So a Canadian gay guy, speaking French, playing the Statue of Liberty, being carried home by a drunk. She’s like, [Adopting a French accent] “I don’t feel very free anymore—send me back to liberté, egalité, fraternité.” And then Dave actually said, maybe when she gets to France she gets raped by the Eiffel Tower and decides to come back to America. We still haven’t found the blow line, the final choke to end the piece—I hope we will before we get to you guys. Maybe the Eiffel Tower tries to fuck her and she goes back to America because she’s gotten used to circumcised cocks.

TONY: And maybe a reporter from Time Out New York helped you find the ending.
Scott: [In French accent] “Oh, I’ve gotten used to the army helmet. I don’t like the crown anymore. I got used to that pink American cock. Shiny red heads. I don’t like the smelly turtlenecks anymore.”

TONY: Scott, this is all going up on Wikipedia, by the way.
Scott: I really think that I might have stumbled upon something. I think that might be it. Maybe she thinks the Eiffel Tower has learned something in the last 300 years. Then she goes and, no: still the same.

TONY: I think it’s funnier if she’s not raped by the Eiffel Tower; if she just doesn’t like the sex. She walks away going, “Enh.”
Scott: I hate that I’m using you as a soundboard…

TONY: Are you kidding? I love it.
Scott: So yeah, we just ordered the outfit so I’m definitely gonna play the Statue of Liberty and that’s exciting.

TONY: How many American icons have you sullied? Do we need to keep a list?
Scott: I’m taking this question very seriously: sullied physically, spiritually, comically or all three?

TONY: All three.
Scott: Well, not really, no one yet. Not yet!

TONY: Kevin says that there’s always a girl or two who thinks that she can flip you.
Scott: Yeah, once every five years. But that happened two years ago so it’s probably not going to happen on this tour.

TONY: Well, I’ll see about that!
Scott: Is that a challenge? Gauntlet has been thrown, my dear!

TONY: Well, Scott, thank you so much for your time. I can’t wait to see the show in New York.
Scott: I can’t wait to do it for you. And I’ll do it for everybody else, too. Okay?

NEXT: Bruce McCulloch»