CHRIS GETHARD

Both creatively and organizationally, being medicated has helped me immensely.

The street I lived on for the first handful of years of my life was lined with modest, lower-middle-class houses with small front yards and cracked driveways - your typical North Jersey neighborhood, with all the odd hidden darkness that that implies.

I moved to Queens from New Jersey in 2004 and have continued to stick with New York to such a degree that when people ask me to explain it, I'm sometimes unable to provide an answer.

I think, in my own life, I'm pretty political. I think I have some very strong ideals, and I struggle a lot with it. I struggle a lot with feeling like, 'I have a platform; should I be saying more?'

As a largely unsuccessful comedian, I've become someone that younger people sometimes find and ask for advice, which I'm happy to give, even though it makes me feel old.

New Yorkers will be rude, but at least they do so out of the rationale that everyone around them is always slowing them down. Los Angeles, I learned, is a city full of people who have the personality of the coolest pretty boy from your eighth-grade class.

Sometimes I get gigs in weird, artsy places because weird, artsy people embraced my public-access show, which I could only have done in the way I did in New York.

A lot of the things I loved the most growing up were, on the surface, kind of challenging or impenetrable. I loved Andy Kaufman, and half his shows, people would walk out in a rage. I love punk rock, which is notoriously music that doesn't always sound very inviting or appealing but, I think, unquestionably has the most heart, the most integrity.

I do not like confrontations in New York City.

Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that shows you civilization up close.

I will say I miss teaching improv way more than I miss performing improv.

Anyone who's ever been around an emergency in Manhattan realizes that there are plainclothes officers on these streets walking past us more than we ever realize.

By August of 2003, I had graduated from Rutgers, gone through a stretch of living at my parents' house, and wound up sharing an apartment with a college friend of mine in Montclair, New Jersey.

To a crowd that loves improv, Robin Williams is like Chuck Berry.

Everyone likes to laugh. Everyone likes to dance along to some music.

As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I've done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.

I think the key to improv is always listening. It's embracing. It's positivity. It's hearing things and not shutting them down.

Cops are everywhere in New York City. Cars drive by every few minutes. Uniforms stand nonchalantly at street corners.

I don't think I'm ugly per se, but on bad days, I have been told that I look like the monster from 'The Hills Have Eyes.' That was extremely confidence-shattering, so I try to take care of myself.

I'm a dummy from New Jersey.

I had bedbugs in 2005. I felt like a leper. Worse than a leper. At least lepers had a colony they could go and live in with other people who empathized. I instead had friends stand up from tables and walk out of restaurants when I told them I had bedbugs, because they were afraid I'd transfer the bugs to them.

I remember the people who mentored me, and I just love being able to do that for other people.

Bedbugs have never been cool, and bedbugs will never be cool.

Cops in New York City don't have the best reputation. It's a fast-paced city, and they deal with a lot, and many people have seen lots of cops interact with the public utilizing what can be gently called 'not the best customer service.'

'What if?' is just about the worst question I can ask myself, and I want to avoid it at all costs for the rest of my life.