Patton Oswalt opens up about the moments that defined his career

Getting to sit down and come up with a joke out of nothing is so, it's never not been thrilling for me

When you've got this vague idea that doesn't work and then, oh, wait, I got it

Like that, that'll never get old for me. Welcome to Save More

Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Yeah, you kidding? Yeah, I'm not kidding

So you're being totally serious when you say you're happy that I'm here. 100%. I just wanted to establish that

You weren't messed, you do mean that. I do. You are happy that I'm here

I am thrilled. Okay, ask your first question. Okay, my first question is your new special

It is a special that's only airing audibly. Yeah, it's just audible

It's just audio, that's it, and it's on. It's just audible, and it's on audible

See what we... Sorry. You still happy I'm here? I'm thrilled. Okay, good

I've watched all nine of your specials up until now. This is the 10th, this is the 10th, yeah

I've always liked, because you always do have a lot of physicality. Right. But this is one where it's just audible to throw back to, like, to specials of yesteryear

My first two albums are just on album. They just you know on vinyl or on CD or wherever you want to listen to them And they are my performances are so much looser and so much freer because what I realized was and I was very happy to get the specials that

I've done. I've done a lot of specials on TV for Netflix ones. Um, but you are thinking of other

elements that have nothing to do with the comedy. And when I did this one, which we recorded at the

Mineta lane here in New York, and I, it took me about 20 minutes where I realized, Oh, it doesn't

matter what I'm, this is just a performance. This is just my voice and the audience. And this is

this is how I grew up listening to comedy, you know? And I also feel like this is just so much

more portable. You just, you download it on the app and you've got it. You've got a one hour of

comedy whenever, if you're traveling or I, I, I think even at one point in this, cause I, it's

very much Autobom. It's like, um, at this point in the show, you should probably put the stuff

that's in the washing machine, in the dryer, because you can listen to this while you're doing stuff

Yeah, as soon as I heard that come up, I was like, oh yeah, it's been about an hour. Yeah, it's been about an hour

But my performance, I'm so much more happy with it because I just realized I don't have to think about the set

the lighting, how I'm going to edit this afterwards. This is just this raw one hour and we used pretty much one show You know of the shows that I did we just did the one show and it feels so I don know I just I have never

I haven't felt that good doing an album since my, I haven't felt that free doing an album

since my second album. We're just like, I'm just talking. All it is is the jokes and that's it

That's huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did stand up for about 10 years

Here in New York? Chicago first and then New York. You started in Chicago

I did. Were you there when the Lincoln Lodge still existed? Yes. Oh, nice

Yeah, I lived in Lincoln Park, so I lived not far from there at all

Oh, nice. And I used to go to, I mean, I used to go to Mike's all around that area, but Jared Logan used to run one at Crush in Lincoln Park

But, yeah, I mean, it was like 2003, 2004, so it's when a lot of those guys who came out of there were really kind of humming along

Oh, yeah. But it was like pre-YouTube. It was pre all of that

So I was still going off of the albums that I grew up listening to. Yes

And then once YouTube and social media came into it, it's become a whole different game

Well, it's a different ecosystem, especially in how people consume comedy. They expect comedy to be cut up into smaller bits for them And there a special I have coming out next year that I have filmed And one of the problems that I getting or at least one of the notes I getting is

you need to move around less and not think horizontally. Try to think more vertically

because we want vertical clips to put on reels. And I was just like, oh my God

Like it's this whole, the way that the medium is delivering it, that affects how you do it

And that can be kind of frustrating with someone like me that you said, I do like to pace around

I do like to have a whole stage. But, yeah, that's going to be really interesting to see who adjusts and who doesn't

But that is something that always, always, always happens in the arts

There were silent films. Then suddenly there were sound. Then they were color

Then there were, you know, same with music. It was acoustic. Then suddenly it's electric

Then suddenly there's music videos. You've got to think of the visual. Then there's all the, you know, the SoundCloud stuff. It always mutates and people either evolve with it or they find a way to make what it is they do that really expresses who they are work in that new medium

So that's always interesting to see the people that go, yeah, I'm not going to actually, I'm going to, I'm going to build my fan base on people that, that come back around to what I do