Megan Amram…For You!

Here’s a hot tip: if you’re interviewing a comedian over the phone, don’t do the transcribing yourself.

First, you’ll experience lots of technical difficulties, because your laughter will have made the comedian’s responses inaudible.

Second, you will have to live with every dumb joke you made in a vain attempt to impress said comedian, and you will never be able to look at yourself in a mirror again without flinching in shame. I learned this the hard way.

I really, really want Megan Amram to think I’m funny, because I think she’s very funny. Megan is the type of funny that brings her 33,400 Twitter followers. Within her sparse 140 characters, she can go from silly to absurd to the totally twisted.

There’s literally no way to know how many chameleons are in your house

— Megan Amram (@meganamram) January 15, 2012

This is a pretty shitty flash mob. It’s in my living room, only my family showed up, and they’re just telling me to stop drinking.

— Megan Amram (@meganamram) February 1, 2012

Sure, she’s got a day job. She writes for some dinky show…Parks and Recreation? Idk, here’s another great tweet:

I call my vagina “New Yorker cartoon” because it’s dry and a handful of people have laughed at it

— Megan Amram (@meganamram) May 29, 2014

Anyway, as of today, Megan is also a PUBLISHED AUTHORESS. Science…for HER! is the answer to a question we didn’t even realize had been asked, a textbook that finally makes science palatable for simple lady brains. There’s The Period! Ick! Table, Physics Through Nail Art, and everything else the modern gal needs to know to navigate her way through the fun, flirty world of science. I talked/lol-ed/fruitlessly tried to impress Megan on the phone. It totally worked!

How are you doing?
I’m good. Just watching a bunch of music videos about dancing to get revved up for this interview.

Oh! Which ones?
I was just watching Hot Chip. It’s like a space dancing music video. It really is the only thing I want to do all day. Whenever I think that I didn’t dedicate my life to becoming like, Beyoncé, I don’t know what I was thinking.

Yeah, because it’s working out like, really well for her. Being Beyoncé.
Honestly, I think she’s doing fine. I rarely worry about her. She seems to have it all together. Like, if I had danced for every second of every day since I was a tiny little kid, maybe I’d be great, and then that could have just been my lifestyle.

Making jokes on the internet is working out for you, though.
I think it’s a grass is greener situation. For all I know Beyoncé just wants to be a Twitter celebrity. Which could be what we bond on over during light lunch.

I think she’s waiting on you to make the first move.
I love Beyonce. I saw her perform in Los Angeles last month, and we were in a drought, and it started raining while she was performing. I was like, “My fucking God. You made it rain.”

Like how she made the blackout at the Super Bowl!
Yeah!

I remember reading a teen magazine when she was still part of Destiny’s Child, and she was saying that guys never approach her in public because they’re intimidated by her, but she would really like them to. She would like to meet new people. So I think you should just not be intimidated by her, and like, become her friend.
The next time I see her, I’ll be sure to…I really do think there’s a world in which that could work, in which I’m like her clown friend, where I push myself on her enough that she’s like, “Yeah, I guess I need a weirdo to be in my posse.” I’ll keep you updated.

Now I’m gonna segue: One might say you’re the Beyonce of Twitter jokes. I’m sorry.
Oh my god. Who said that?

I said that. Right now. You were there! So you started your Twitter account in 2010, and you graduated from Harvard…
I actually graduated in 2010 and started it directly after I graduated, before I moved to Los Angeles. I was trying to get a job with no concept of how to do that. I had no concept that it could be this performance tool that it’s turned into.

This conversation is a bit of a trip, because between Twitter and your Youtube videos and this book, I’ve always connected you with this personality on the internet. It’s always interesting to talk to comedians when they’re not “on.”
I take that as a big compliment, because the person I’ve fostered online is much different from who I am in real life. But I like that character a lot. I’m glad that it’s fooling you.

And you committed to it, throughout the book, from the dedication which is just ten pages of shoutouts to all your best friends. How is Megan the character different from Megan the person?
I think I weigh a little more in real life? No, they’re completely different. Megan Amram, the character, was a composite of the voices I read in women’s magazines, like Cosmo and Glamour. I just bought dozens and dozens of magazines and read them all at once to try to really get into the deepest parts of my core — -into these conversational, but passive aggressive women’s magazine’s editorial voices. It’s very fun and very upsetting to read so many of those magazines all at once because you realize that they’re all written in the same way — -it’s the reason I started with all those best friends, because that is sort of the crux of what’s going on. The narrators of these magazines are telling you that you’re best friends, but then they’re also telling you to change everything about yourself. And it’s usually to get a boyfriend. I thought that was very interesting. Best case scenario, interesting. Worst case scenario. it was very depressing.

That all goes to say that it was like a very, in my nerdy, analytical way of going about the character for the book.

The real-life Megan has almost as many best friends, but not quite.

More, some might say.
Yeah, I need to talk to some of my best friends to make sure we’re all on the same page. Maybe they think we’re best friends.

Yeah. But we’re like…we’re like best friends, right?
I didn’t want to tell it to you first, but you’re literally my number one best friend.

That’s what I thought, but I figured we should keep it professional. So. To jump back. Did you know you wanted to be a comedy writer right when you graduated?
I knew through my college years that I wanted to be a writer of some sort. I wanted to write musicals when I was in school. Musicals are my number one passion. I thought for a little bit that I was going to move to New York or try to apply to grad school to learn how to write musicals after college, but I also really loved comedy television, and thought that would be a slightly more accessible world to try to break into. Both were crazy, to be like, “I’m packing my bags and I’m going to go write a musical or a television show.” But yeah, I moved to L.A. right after school with no real plans, and started my Twitter just to keep writing and to practice writing jokes.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, which is the best.

Is it-
It is exactly what you think it is. It’s definitely a caricature of itself and is very cartoony. My mom still lives in Portland and likes to tell me crazy things that she sees there. She was once in a Target and saw a hippie woman, topless, with twins in the shopping cart, and she was breastfeeding both of them and pushing them at the same time. I was like, “Yep, that sounds exactly like Portland.”

I’m…really impressed. Jesus.
I know! Honestly, that’s great. She should name that move and trademark it in some way.

What were some of the first TV comedies you remember connecting with?
I wasn’t, like, a little kid when I started watching The Simpsons. I know there are people who watched it when they were like five. I was never, like, a funny kid, but I remember watching The Simpsons and being so obsessed with how they structured their jokes even before I knew what any of it meant. You get a feeling watching that show; you know that the jokes are somehow smarter, even if you can’t put a finger on why, than other shows you’ve seen, especially other children’s shows. Even now, I don’t watch it regularly, but when I do it’s still really funny. It’s an incredibly hard thing to do, to write a show that’s still funny after four years, let alone thirty years, so I give them the most credit in the world.

What’s your favorite episode?
My favorite episode — -which is a lot of people’s favorite — -is Lisa’s Substitute, with Dustin Hoffman under the fake name Sam Etic. Lisa is such an incredible character, especially if you are a Lisa, which of course I was. The way that they explore her feelings of not feeling connected to her family, or feeling like, childhood depression, or first crushes, is so touching. The Simpsons gets credit for being a very funny show, obviously, but it’s also made me realize you can do a lot of wonderful sweet things with comedy, and that’s what I love so much about working at Parks and Recreation too. We’re a show that really tries to have moments of sincere emotion and sweetness that has no irony or post-irony irony attached. I think that there’s so much snarkiness in the world that it’s very refreshing.

Lisa, especially in that episode, could be a proto-Leslie Knope.
Oh, totally! It’s definitely in the same family, someone I connect with very much. I think it’s a type of woman that a lot of people, women included, identify with. There’s still a bit of a push and pull, trying to write female characters that are not just these archetypes. I think that’s one of the first characters I came across who was, I think, a pretty nuanced portrait of a young woman, someone who would grow up to be an interesting person, probably akin to Leslie Knope. I think it’s a great show. I’ll be the first to say it. The Simpsons is a great show.

That’s a very controversial opinion, but I like that you go there.
The Hairpin might get a lot of flack for this, but I’ll say it: The Simpsons is great.

So what’s it like in the writer’s room of Parks and Recreation?
It’s very fun, and it is much different than writing on your own. I think it’s hard — -even if you know what writers room vaguely resemble, like if you watched 30 Rock, it’s still completely different when you’re in it. But I truly believe that the best work that anyone can do comes out of that environment. Like, you are pushed to think of things your brain would never have come up with alone, because you’re just being inundated with so many other thoughts. It’s this weird groupthink that happens. Like we’re all wolves talking to each other.

Does it ever happen where two people will have two different ideas about where a joke or plot line should go?
Oh, totally. All the time. Which is good, because you basically want to think of every single possibility and pick the best one. There are tons of different writers rooms and they all have different vibes. Our room at Parks and Recreation is renowned for being a very sweet, nice room. There have never been any real fights.

You also have to let go of your own ego to be in that situation. You have to think, “Ok, I’m going to do my best work, and some of my jokes are going to be in the show, and that’s great, but if someone else thinks of a better joke, then it’s a better joke and that’s what should be in the show.” There are some writers who are very married to their own work, and if you are, you should be writing stuff solo. It really, truly becomes everyone’s show. Even though there’s one or two names on an episode where it says “written by,” that sort of just means you’re the point person, and there’s still a lot of other people’s work that goes into that.

You said you didn’t think of yourself as a funny kid. When did you start realizing that you could make people laugh?
I was always a huge comedy fan. I think, in the same way you learn a language — -you understand it before you can speak it — -I think I could understand what made things funny before I could actually make them funny myself. A piece of advice I give to people who ask me how they can become writers is to just consume as much comedy as you can and figure out what you like.

I had an English teacher in high school who gave us an assignment: write something to make him laugh. It was a very short writing assignment. It was the first time I ever tried to write jokes at all, and wrote a funny piece, and he encouraged me to read more about prose comedy writing, like McSweeney’s, or to watch these television shows, and that was very cool for me. I figured out that you could sort of “logic” your way into certain types of comedy writing.

That being said, I do think there are different camps. Tina Fey talks about in Bossypants, about how she would fill her room with Harvard dudes and then Chicago improv dudes, and I think there are different types of comedy writers you meet where some of them — -I consider myself more of the like, nerdy, analytical type, and then there’s just people where every inch of them is funny, and they were class clowns as a kid.

Can that type of funny be taught or learned?
Yeah. I mean, you always need a general predilection for the thing you want to do, but I’ve seen my friends who are standup comics, and it’s incredible to see how much better you can get at standup. I thought if you were funny you were automatically good at standup, and if you’re not you’re not, but that’s so not the case. Standup is an acquired skill. I think you can teach yourself to be a performer/class clown in that kind of way. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of comfort on the stage, whether that’s a literal stage or just a group of people you’re trying to make laugh.

You were talking about how your teacher encouraged you to read prose comedy. Who are some of your favorite writers?
Some of the people I think are the funniest I’ve ever read are not comedy writers. I love George Saunders so much. When I first read him — -he writes, obviously, very dark short stories — -I was so blown away because I hadn’t yet read a writer that was thinking about such dark things, the kind of things I love to think about and I love to ingest when I watch movies or read books, but also was writing such great jokes. There’s something that really draws me to people who are inherently serious but then are great joke writers. Even, like, Quentin Tarantino, who I’m a big fan of, I think he’s a great joke writer who makes movies that are not comedies.

I grew up not just watching The Simpsons, but I think I’ve seen Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure sixty times. It’s probably my favorite comedy, and the one I’ve seen the most, and that is such a silly movie. I just watched it recently, and was like, “It totally holds up.” It could not be a lighter comedy. I kind of thing that that’s where my tastes tend to. Either extremely dark, not-even-comedy comedy, or just the silliest stuff.

Who are some comedians today that you’re really excited about?
I think there are so many talented people in television. Everyone I work with at Parks and Recreation. I’m a big fan of Tina and Amy, like everyone should be, and I’m truly excited everyday that I get to work with Amy. She’s an extremely funny person and a great role model. She’s lovely. No one I’ve ever met has had anything bad to say about her. I think before I met her, I was like, “Everyone thinks she’s the best, so I guess she has to be,” and then she totally was.

You could have told me she was evil, and I just wouldn’t have believed you.
There’s this idea that “Hollywood people” are manipulative, and I think when I was just a little kid reading People, I was like, “These people who seem really nice, maybe they all really suck in real life.” But I honestly think if you suck in real life, it sort of makes its way to the surface. No one is raving about you if you’re not a good person. I don’t know of any examples, at least, of people who are universally beloved in the public and then when you meet them are terrible. Hopefully when you hear someone is a good person, they probably are.

That’s really nice to hear!
That’s something I also feel is important, and I’ve said this before, you can still succeed and be a monster in this industry, so when people are successful and also still really wonderful, it’s a great breath of fresh air. I would much rather be remembered for being a nice, mediocre comedy writer than a fantastic writer who is mean to people.

Who are some other comedy writers that you’re really into?
The girls of Broad City, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. I think they’re doing really awesome stuff — -obviously their show is coming from a girl’s perspective, and it’s a perspective we really haven’t seen before, the perspective of gross stoner girls. It’s so funny without being, I don’t know. It’s just silly. And I think that goes back to what I like about Airplane! and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Lighten up, have a silly time. I think that that’s totally the type of stuff I hope young women are doing. That’s the kind of stuff that I like.