Paul Scheer – Live at LAist

Episode notes

(Photo: James Van Evers /LAist)

Paul Scheer is an actor and comedian. You may have seen him on The League, Black Monday and Fresh Off The Boat. He’s a founding member of the sketch comedy group Human Giant, who had their own show on MTV. Paul also hosts the podcasts How Did This Get Made and Unspooled.

And now, as an established actor and comedian in his late forties, Paul is now also an author having released his first book. However, he didn’t write the kind of book you might expect. Yes, there are bonkers stories about celebrity encounters and other experiences from his comedy career in this book. But it’s not really what the book is about.

The book is called Joyful Recollections of Trauma. It’s a memoir-in-essays about his childhood, the abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather and, mixed in with that, some very funny stuff.

(Photo: James Van Evers / LAist)

Paul joined us before a live audience at LAist – our hometown public radio station in Los Angeles – to talk about the new book and how it came together. He also shares a story about an intense encounter with the actor Christopher Walken he had when he was a teen. Plus, he tells us how he’s become such a big Los Angeles Clippers fan.