Mortimer: This is your first ever show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Have you got any preconceived ideas about what to expect from your audience? Doug Stanhope thinks we’re all a polite bunch.

Inman: I’ve heard a number of things about Edinburgh because I’m very curious, and I’ve asked all the people I know who’ve been there. Let’s see: intelligent, literate, drunk, love stand-up but heard every joke known to man, polite but like to heckle, nerdy suit and tie wearing but not too cool like Italians, hate America but fascinated by the craziness of it - I should be able to connect if they hate Bush and I don’t even mind hecklers. In fact, I really have no idea what I’m getting myself into to be honest. Stanhope likes to understate things when he knows I’m falling into something weird. He’s the kind of guy that’ll give you a handful of DMT and tell you it’s a lot like Ephedra.

Mortimer: Your monologue ‘The Greyhound Diary’ is a fascinating yet hilariously gruelling look into the life of a stand-up comic on the road. Will you be including any of it in your act over here?

Inman: We’re just sticking with the straight stand-up for this show. David Crowe says Hennigan, my booking agent, is some kind of neo-Luddite with an irrational fear of extra wiring. ‘The Greyhound Diary’ is a slide show anyway, so I’d have to hook up a screen and a digital projector with all these cables and a distortion pedal. It’s not as topical or political as my stand-up so we’re just going for simplicity. I don’t mind because I tend to be much looser with my act and find that anything can happen, as opposed to the structured one man show thing.

Mortimer: I’ve heard excerpts from it over the internet and you can’t imagine how delighted I was to discover there was someone else out there just as pissed off at public transport as I am. Have you had any comeback from Greyhound themselves? Have they tried taking you to court yet or are all your dark observations too accurate for them to even attempt it?

Inman: I have wondered that myself. When you ride Greyhound they always ask for your name and type it into a database. One time my projector mysteriously disappeared at baggage claim. The bag handlers could have been paid off or working as some kind of rogue element within the Greyhound power cabal. It could be paranoia but Greyhound is, and continues to be, a monolithic organization fuelled by pure greed and nepotism, bent on the accumulation of wealth and complete control of the oppressed working poor vitamin-deficient travelling class.

Mortimer: You’ve been described as a “rural punk Gen-X anti-hero”, is this something you find yourself identifying with easily?

Inman: I was born and raised in a small town in Kansas and the only guy in high school listening to The Clash. I even tried to collect all their seven inch singles but the record store kicked me out because I kept sneaking into the basement. I may have taken that line from Clampdown as a mantra for my act: “Let fury have the hour, anger can be power! Did you know that you could use it?” I feel a bit embarrassed to say this, I don’t know if punk is cliché now in the UK but all my favourite bands came from your island. I didn’t like the American punks at all. It had to be The Clash, The Jam, XTC, Elvis Costello and The Sex Pistols. Somehow I wanted to keep that spirit in my stand-up. Then I met Bill Hicks during his angry drinking stage and started taking more chances. A real trickster has to put his neck on the line - it’s part of the job. For instance, Michael Moore has done a great service to the stand-up community in America because it’s ten times easier now to make fun of Bush after Fahrenheit 9/11. Before I had people charge the stage and try to shout me down. More than a few times I had to be escorted to the car. We’re just getting to the point in America where you can do a Bush joke and not hear icy silence. And that doesn’t include David Cross or Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. They already have a fan base, I’m talking about unknown comics walking into a mixed crowd where the audience has no idea who you are.

Mortimer: As a Generation-Xer myself it often annoys me how we’ve been labelled the ‘slacker generation’ when much of the Gen-X attitude seems to me to have originated from the dark Thatcherite-Reagan 80s through which most Gen-Xers grew up in. How much does politics enter into your stand-up routine? Do you feel the new generation of Millenials have had a political complacency bred into them deliberately in an effort to stifle any rebellious youthful tendencies?

Inman: I don’t mind the ‘slacker’ moniker because I identify with Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. He’s the original slacker. I studied that book for years and it seems to make so much sense. And yes I grew up with Reagan in the 80s and we all hated him. We were scared shitless to tell the truth. Cruise missiles in Europe, Star Wars, multiple tipped warheads, Iran Contra, El Salvador - I find it funny that when he died everyone in the media said he was so well loved. Then I heard on CNN during the viewing of his casket they had everyone walk through a metal detector. He’s dead and they’re still afraid someone wants to pump a few rounds in him just to make sure.

Mortimer: You mentioned previously that you were not particularly proud of the politics in your act just after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, in that you felt they lacked the anti-American edge that you prefer to expound. How difficult was it to talk openly in the States after 9-11? Did you have to consciously change some of your material out of fear of causing offence?

Inman: Oh God it was just impossible. Here’s the deal: during the first Gulf War I experienced some frightening things. I got on the radio once with a direct line to the troops and came out against the war. Someone contacted both comedy clubs where I work in town, and the owners sat me down and told me to cool it. One place never booked me again and the other said I was lucky he respected my right to freedom of speech. Next thing I know my outside phone line was cut. It looked like someone came by the house and just cut my phone line to send a message. Then a creepy guy in a suit came to one of my shows and told me I better watch myself. At the time I was drinking a lot and it really didn’t register. Now when I look back, all that happened within about a week and it’s just creepy. So when 9/11 happened I thought to myself: there is just no way I could do what I did during the first Gulf War. So I started to make fun of the Taliban. Sounds safe right? Wrong. Two weeks after the attack I write these jokes about Osama bin Laden. Next thing I know I start to get all this hate mail from all over the country. People were calling me a racist and saying they knew where I lived and where I worked. I find out this guy, who was in the show, was half-Palestinian and writes for, get this, ESPN magazine and website. He wrote an article about my act, used my name and called me a racist. Thousands of people read this. Then he goes on the Democratic Underground forum denouncing me as a despicable human being because I used the term ‘towel head’. He tells everyone to email me and start a letter writing campaign, so not only do I get creepy religious Islamic fundamentalist emails but I get sensitive liberal touchy-feely people telling me I should be ashamed of myself. They even called the comedy club and tried to get me fired. I had to get on the forum and type out the entire bit just so I could tell my side of the story. About half of the people got the joke and realized it was all out of context. It was harmless really and politically I’m left of Lenin; but I ended up writing more material about racism and the term ‘towel head’. The whole thing was weird to me because I’ve been doing Fundamentalist Christian jokes for years and never got so much as one email. Right now I’m at a point where I don’t care what anyone thinks: Christian, Jew, Muslim, Bush, 9/11, the troops, they’re all targets.

Mortimer: I’ve heard through the grapevine that you have a profound interest in a number of conspiracy theories. What’s your take on them? Is it healthy curiosity or an unhealthy obsession?

Inman: It can be healthy if you have a good crap detector. If you believe everything you read stick to something safe like John Grisham. Right now I’m reading The New Pearl Harbour by David Ray Griffin. It’s all about the time line of the hijacked planes on 9/11, what happened, and why we didn’t scramble planes in time to stop the attack. It’s a frightening read. Of course some of it is just too hard to believe. Gore Vidal’s Dreaming War is great, Or James Bamford’s Body Of Secrets. Next book I want to get is The War On Freedom: How & Why America Was Attacked by Nafeez Ahmed. That’s what I’m into right now. I’ve read almost every UFO book known to man so I hope it’s a healthy curiosity. Freemasonry, crop circles, the death of Pope John I, MK-ULTRA, the history of assassins... It’s easier to connect the dots and when you read so much you actually start seeing the dots appear right in front of you. That’s ok isn’t it?

Mortimer: Rumour has it you occasionally go on retreat to a Buddhist Monastery. That seems kind of a peculiar place for an anti-hero to go. What’s the deal?

Inman: I was looking for a religion that I could somehow fit in with what I do on stage. Taoism seemed like the right thing for a while and I loved the ideas in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It seemed like a great Bible for artists, plus he’s always mentioning laughter: “He who climbs the highest peaks laughs at all tragedies real or imagined.” I also love this one: “And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound and solemn: He was the spirit of gravity - through him all things fall.” And so I fumbled around with that for a while. Then I found Tantra and The Tibetan Book Of The Dead. I don’t know why I felt drawn to it. One day in Minneapolis I just walked to a bookstore and picked up a copy. I think it had to do with the Dalai Lama and how he always seems to be laughing. Reading the story of the Buddha and his disgust with the worldly life was in the back of my mind. I’d been a comedian for ten years so I’ve never really had a real job. When Bill Hicks died I just got a backpack and took off. I didn’t go to India or Tibet searching for the mythical Shambhala, I found a few places in Northern California and stayed there for a while. It was quite an experience. I’d like to go back again some day but stand-up is keeping me busy right now. I just do my daily practice and leave it at that. I can use the anger on stage now and not be so attached to it. Pointing out the absurdity of a situation is a lot like reminding people that life is illusory, or to put it another way: life is a joke. Om Mani Padme Hum. Get it?

James Inman will be playing at the Edinburgh Comedy Room (The Tron, Hunter Square, Royal Mile) from 16th to 24th August 2004. Shows commence 10:30 pm and tickets are priced £8 (available from the Fringe Box Office, 180 High Street, Edinburgh).

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