When two comedians have their first really long conversation—usually after hours, in the back room of a comedy club—there’s this kind of pleasant squaring-off. The pair sort of kick their frames of references into alignment, marking out likes and dislikes, talking shop. You circle, and size each other up. It’s like wrestling but very gentle.
Hari Kondabolu is a comedian and former organizer genuinely interested in the stuff he talks about onstage: baseball, music, family, social justice. Which was why I decided I wanted to sit down with him and my Windows phone and his iPhone in Brooklyn last May. Our afternoon begins with our getting lost in Park Slope on the way to a meal—Were you following me? never follow me—and continues over omelettes. We skip some things: Kondabolu’s time spent as writer and correspondent on both seasons of the recently cancelled FXX show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, for instance, and we spend as little time as possible talking about race, a subject that has come up in “literally every interview [he’s] done” about his new album, Waiting for 2042. We don’t talk much about the album either.
—Alex Edelman
I. DIFFERENT KINDS OF SILENCES
HARI KONDABOLU: It should be noted that I’m Hari Kondabolu and I’m using my iPhone to record the interview.
ALEX EDELMAN:It should be noted that I’m Alex Edelman. I’m using my Windows Phone to record this interview. We have competing recordings.
HK: Is this print?
AE: This is print. Some unlucky intern will have to sift through this recording and bang it out. [1]
HK: Is it a paid intern?
AE: I hope it’s a paid intern. I would never do unpaid internships. That’s tantamount to slavery.
HK: It’s not tantamount to slavery.
AE: Well, “slavery” is a broad word.
HK: It’s not a broad word. It’s very narrowly defined. Internships are some kind of upper-middle class slavery. Which isn’t slavery at all.
AE: Well, then this is the end of the interview, I guess. Me offending you.
[Laughter.]
AE: I’ve run into you in auspicious places.
HK: Where did we meet?
AE: We did Morgan Venticinque’s show together.He had this show in a basement and there was a beam directly in front of your face and every performer mentioned it.There was a loud group in the corner—
HK: Did I yell at them?
AE: You did yell, but you were in the right. I remember thinking This is a guy who knows what his comedy is worth.
HK: I hope I finished that set and then stormed out.
AE: Ugh, why? There’s no glory in that.
HK: Every now and then you find a little bit...
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