#SEINFELD EPISODES MASTER OF MY DOMAIN SERIAL#
#SEINFELD EPISODES MASTER OF MY DOMAIN SERIES#

Was that a stressful time? I always say this to my kids: if I had to trade in the experiences I’ve had in my life, the last ones I’d trade in would be the really bad ones. You performed on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1981, but it still took eight years until Seinfeld launched. I asked him all these questions and he went, “You know what? You’ll figure it out.” He was right. I did have a funny conversation with Rodney Dangerfield one time at a club. And I give my parents credit for that because they were secure people. But I try to do that because I’ve been fortunate that I came into this life with security. Comedians are not generous by nature because it’s a very, very tenuous existence. Which comedians mentored you along the way? There’s not a lot of that in the field. There’s a restaurant here in the East Hamptons, The Palm, that still smells like that. It’s a 1970s New York bar smell that I love. I remember the air and the old wooden bar smell and the beer soap. I don’t like the word “wallow” but I am guilty of constantly reviewing my life. How often do you think about that night? You know, a lot. I don’t really love drinking, so it was horrible. So, we went to a bar next door and I had a shot of whiskey. One was a big Humphrey Bogart fan and he said Bogey would have a shot of whiskey before he would do something like that.

How’d you find the gumption to walk to the stage? I think because I told my friends I was going to do it and they went with me. It was at Catch A Rising Star in New York City. Even when I started performing, they thought, “Oh, this will end very quickly.” They thought anybody could do this.ĭescribe how you felt just before that first stand-up gig. You don’t think the kid’s going to be a car designer you just think they’re going through a phase of building model cars. Didn’t your parents pick up on that? It’s like kids building model cars. There’s a wonderful childlike freedom in that.īut you grew up obsessing over Alan King and Robert Klein albums and watching comics on The Ed Sullivan Show. Is revisiting old material like leafing through a diary? Like any person who looks at early work, you get a little embarrassed and go, “Oh my god, this wasn’t very good.” But that was the bridge that got me to where I was good. You pick up tiny clues and hints and follow red yarn, and that’s how you find out you’re going to dinner.

#SEINFELD EPISODES MASTER OF MY DOMAIN SERIAL#

In a marriage, you have to piece together things like you’re trying to catch a serial killer. Right now, I’m noodling with this bit about marriage information versus outside information. I mean, you get a little better at what you do, but the things that interest me and want to communicate to others are the same. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, I think it is. Reading the book, it seems like your life has changed but your personality has not.

Now 66, he has a cup of fresh-brewed coffee in hand on this rainy New York afternoon as he Zooms from his office in his Long Island home (where he and his family have been residing during the pandemic) to talk about his roots and his upbringing, Seinfeld memories, the post-pandemic future of comedy and more.

#SEINFELD EPISODES MASTER OF MY DOMAIN SERIES#

Seinfeld has since returned to his stand-up roots and, starting in 2012, has discussed his craft with peers in the breezy series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which launched on Crackle before heading to Netflix. The highlight, of course, was Seinfeld, the mega-popular 1989-98 sitcom-about-nothing that he starred in and co-created with Larry David. This passion for the inconsequential has led to a seminal career. The title comes from what comedians say to each other when they’re testing any new bit: “Is this anything?” Fans can pore over Seinfeld’s iconic musings on chatty airplane pilots, parking-lot confusion and breakfast cereals, dating all the way back to his first on-stage joke – bias against the word “left” – back in 1975. Instead, most of the material consists of comedy routines that he originally scrawled on loose-leaf paper and stuffed into brown accordion-style folders over the decades. “Life is not long enough for me to do that,” he says. Decade by decade, it retraces his journey from comedy-worshipping kid in suburban Massapequa, New York, to domesticated family man with his cookbook-author wife Jessica, 48, and their kids Sasha, 19, Julian, 17, and Shepherd, 15.īut it’s not a typical celebrity tell-all. The result is Is This Anything?, his first autobiographical book in 27 years. “I should leave something behind for people. “I thought, ‘Well, gee, I’m just about done here,’ ” he says. Jerry Seinfeld was feeling reflective after his 65th birthday last year, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size

Seinfeld episodes master of my domain