Paul Feig saw some of the most painful moments of his youth re-created on the small screen in Freaks and Geeks, the TV series he and Judd Apatow made for NBC about dorks and burnouts suffering through high school in 1980. In 2000, in the middle of its critically acclaimed but poorly rated first season, the show was canceled, though its cult has increased since the release of a DVD box set last year. In 2002 Feig wrote a book in the same vein–Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence, a memoir about the humiliations of his childhood and early teen years. In a second memoir, the new Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin, he tells the anticlimactic tale of his long-awaited deflowering, confesses his love of roller-skating, and provides excerpts (complete with original misspellings) of journal entries detailing his excitement about and eventual disillusionment with a real live girlfriend. Feig is currently working on film and TV projects in Los Angeles. He’ll read from Superstud this Wednesday at Barbara’s on Halsted.
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I think that’s why a lot of the more geeky people turn out to be more successful, because they expose themselves to more things. If you’re trying to be socially popular, you’ve cut out about 90 percent of the things that you should or could be exposing yourself to. That’s why all the mindless lemmings who were the popular kids were into whatever dopey top 40 there was, or whatever the popular movie at the time was. I think all of us in the nerd and geek and outsider category bonded because we were always exchanging stuff: “Hey, have you heard of this? This is cool.” We bonded over, like, “You’re the only other person who ever saw that.” And our references were all so specific; it made us as much of a clique as the popular kids. But the cool thing about our clique was that it was much more open-minded and forward-looking.
HK: There must be some universality to the geek experience, otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten as far as you have. Or do you think more people think of themselves as geeky than actually were?
PF: That’s the other thing. Like these stories I tell, I go, “I’m kind of glad that happened, it makes such a funny story.” But at the time it was never fun. The only bitterness I have is when somebody’s being mean or a jerk. I always think, “That sucks, that somebody’s like that.” Those little run-ins you have every day–the jackass, the guy behind the counter at Starbucks–those moments where you’re like, “God, why are people so mean? Can’t everybody be a little nicer?”
The bigger problem I have is that my stuff isn’t edgy enough. That was one of the problems with Freaks and Geeks as far as the industry went: it wasn’t enough fantasy fulfillment.
HK: I have to ask you about the chapter where you describe an ill-fated attempt at autofellation. You say even your wife looked at you differently after she read it. And in the book you ask people to skip over it.
PF: Midwestern humor is so different from coastal humor. It’s way more honest. In the midwest we have a way-high bullshit meter. I think midwestern comedy’s a little more subtle, too. For me, Freaks and Geeks was always a very midwestern comedy. With comedy scripts, Hollywood loves jokes, so it has to be these wisecracking jokes. If you look at a script of Freaks and Geeks, some of the stuff in the show that’s hilarious isn’t funny at all on the page. Something weird happens, and Bill goes, “Huh?” The word huh isn’t funny. That’s the problem with writing these things and trying to get people to make them.
