The problem with not being famous while forced to do the press circuit is that it leads to heavy, heavy drinking. This happens for a number of reasons. The main one is that there is lots of free booze in the green room and you usually have about five production assistants asking, “how you are doing?” or “are you nervous?” every eight seconds. They gauge your reply with seeming nonchalance, but really they are shit scared that you are going to seize up in front of the camera and the segment will crash and burn. No one wants that to happen… so you drink.
Then, as you are drinking, you watch the real famous people, who usually have an uproarious history with the host, joke and josh about having an affair with Kim Kardashian, or the time they all got wasted at Mel Gibson’s house and Johnny Depp mooned the riot squad as they arrived with mace cannons, etc. Meanwhile, all you have in your arsenal are sad, sobering stories about heroin-addicted child soldiers in Africa or the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan. So you drink some more.
Videos by VICE
Now you have three choices of which guy to be: funny guy trying to joke it out with the host (never, ever do this, you will fail AND sweat a lot), Crispin Glover guy who goes bonkers on stage and makes a spectacle of himself “I’m strong! I can kick!” (never had the balls to do that one) or smiling guy who waits patiently for the questions and answers them concisely and thoughtfully and completely boringly and then gets off the stage with lots of fake “great segments!” and a waiting car that whisks you to your boozy hotel room replete with tears of regret and failure. So here I sit in Conan’s greenroom boozing–they have me on “buzz patrol,” which means they are watching (and monitoring ) my wastedness–waiting to crash and burn. Tune in tonight and watch the catastrophe unfold.
Watch Shane on Conan tonight on TBS at 11/10C!
Update: Here’s the interview
