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Sometimes what is 'real' because it takes place in the physical world, like 9/11, is so unreal on the level of the soul. Then other things, which in terms of the physical world seem so magical and unbelievable, on the level of the soul seem very real.

I had studied Russian in college. I had gotten into it first through literature and then just really found it kind of fascinating; of course, this was during the Cold War. So they were kind of the other great enemy that you grew up hearing about.

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn't stand the news, I knew that if the missile were launched, mortality would arrive in half an hour, so I spent a lot of my childhood feeling that I was 30 minutes from being dead.

Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.

The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks.

Come to find out, the Russians were never afraid of the Americans. They weren't raised with the terror that we were by our government. I was struck by how our government misled us for so many years.

Those of my generation who grew up in the midst of the Cold War had a very, very strong awareness and very much were sort of influenced by the demonization of the Soviet Union, whether that was through the Cuban Missile Crisis or duck-and-cover, or any of those things that so affected us then.

People nowadays don't know about the Cold War and the U.S.'s old rivalry with the U.S.S.R.

What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality.