Posted: Thu., Feb. 21, 2013, 6:44pm PT New U.S. Release The Bitter Buddha (Documentary) By JOE LEYDON

A Gravitas Ventures release of a Cheremoya Films production. Produced by Mikki Rosenberg, Steven Feinartz. Executive producers, Daniel Smekhov, Spencer Willis, Brad Rutter, Neil Bagg. Co-producers, Matthew Braun, Tyler Condon. Directed by Steven Feinartz.

With: Eddie Pepitone, Robert Pepitone, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Jen Kirkman, B.J. Novak, Paul Provenza, Dana Gould, Todd Glass.

By turns robustly amusing and wistfully melancholy, "The Bitter Buddha" persuasively argues that attention must be paid to Eddie Pepitone, a fiftysomething Los Angeles standup comic who hasn't yet graduated from cult favorite to breakthrough success. Widely admired as "a comic's comic" by better-known peers -- some of whom, including Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt, offer oncamera testimonials -- Pepitone appears understandably frustrated by his relative obscurity, but determined to pursue what he unironically calls "the big career." Steven Feinartz's well-crafted docu may provide the boost he needs if this pic finds the aud it merits in VOD and limited release.

Pepitone -- whose appearance and demeanor suggest an angrier yet more enlightened version of Paulie, Rocky Balboa's underachieving brother-in-law -- rants about humiliating auditions and unresponsive audiences. But the picture isn't entirely bleak: He seems to land frequent if not remunerative club gigs and online-media work. And while he admits to battling personal demons, he also acknowledges his "flash anger" is high-octane fuel for his humor. Snippets of his show at Manhattan's Gotham Comedy Club indicate why he might be an acquired taste, and why those who acquire that taste find him hilarious.

Camera (color), Alex Sax, Danny Garcia; editors, Daniel Russell, Feinartz; music, Andrew Sit; animation, Allen Mezquida; sound, Daniel J. Clark; associate producers, Mezquida, Kevin Crowley. Reviewed on VOD, Houston, Feb. 20, 2013. (In Slamdance Film Festival.) Running time: 90 MIN.

The Bitter Buddha: Film Review 2:06 PM PDT 3/12/2013 by Frank Scheck

Director The Bottom Line Steven Feinartz This loving portrait of the angst-ridden comedian should well lift his profile.

This loving portrait of the angst-ridden comedian Eddie Pepitone should well lift his profile.

Every little-known stand-up comedian should have as stellar a showcase as The Bitter Buddha, Steven Feinartz’s loving documentary profiling the 54-year-old “comic’s comic” Eddie Pepitone. Delivering his raspy comic diatribes fueled by a rage directed both inwardly and outwardly, the comedian--whose big belly and bald pate makes his nickname seem apt--should see his star rise as a result of this cinematic mash note.

Peptitone, who’s been plying his trade for more than three decades, has achieved greater prominence in recent years thanks to his frequent appearances on Marc Maron’s popular podcasts. The two men are clearly kindred spirits, as evidenced by their frequent interactions seen here, including a hilarious off-the-cuff conversation about the complexities of navigating internet porn.

A gallery of famous comedians is on hand to sing Pepitone’s praises, including Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt, the latter commenting, “He’s the Charles Bukowski of comedy, only replace alcohol with Nutter Butter."

As it happens, Pepitone is now clean and sober, a lifestyle choice he explains by saying that “I just want to be conscious for the horror."

He’s also, for all the anger expressed in his stand-up routines, apparently a sweet soul, as evidenced by his adoration for his many pet cats, his fondness for listening to audio tapes of Eckhart Tolle and his habit of feeding squirrels in the park.

“Does he do it angrily?” asks Oswalt with a smirk.

There’s little structure to the film, which essentially follows the comedian around as he goes through his daily routines while offering frequent commentary about his addiction-plagued life and a career that has stubbornly resisted mainstream success. Some drama is supplied by his nervousness over an impending headlining gig at NYC’s Gotham Comedy Club, his first-ever in his home town, and whether or not his irascible father will bother to make the trek from Staten Island to attend.

Although the lack of a narrative structure eventually proves frustrating, Pepitone is such an engaging, funny figure that he manages to give the proceedings a firm anchor. The unique blend of angst and humor that fuels his personality is beautifully encapsulated in the film’s closing moments, when he muses about never having had children and the fact that he’s devoted his life entirely to his career.

“Is that sad?” he asks. “I think it is,” he answers while breaking into hysterical laughter.

Opened March 8 (Cheremoya Films) Production: Syndctd Enterainment Director: Steven Feinartz Producers: Steven Feinartz, Mikki Rosenberg Executive producers: Neil Bagg, Christine O’Malley, Brad Rutter, Daniel Smekhov, Spencer Willis Directors of photography: Danny Garcia, Alex Sax Editors: Steven Feinartz, Dan Russell No rating, 91 min.

'Bitter Buddha' milks the loser shtick, successfully ★★★

'The Bitter Buddha' (March 14, 2013)

Michael Phillips Movie critic 1:26 p.m. CDT, March 14, 2013

Except for all the lame, derivative ones, every comedian under the sun is special in his own way.

Eddie Pepitone's distinction resides in his need to flay himself at the same time he's blasting his loathing outward. Large, balding, a recovering alcoholic (he's now clean and sober), the veteran stand-up crank is the subject of director Steven Feinartz's wasp-on-the-wall documentary, blending performance footage, scenes with Pepitone and his sour but proud Staten Island father, and quiet moments in which "the Charles Bukowski of comedy" opens up and reveals some of the insecurities masked by other insecurities. Humor's nothing without them.

As his friend, fellow comedian and actor Patton Oswalt, says in "The Bitter Buddha": Pepitone's stand-up attack springs from "decades of fear and failure. And learning to deal with that creatively." Pepitone lives in LA, where he auditions (sometimes successfully) for a variety of TV jobs he'd appreciate having. And yet the paradoxically needy contempt he feels for those in hiring positions compels him, often hilariously, to trash the hand that may feed him. He's also an active Twitter blab. "I love to tweet," he crows in one stand-up routine. "It makes up for a life that wasn't well lived."

The movie's animated sequences have a way of killing the jokes when they're not coming off like an "Adult Swim" tryout. Yet the film succeeds in reflecting the weird sweetness in Pepitone, the eternal sweet-and-sour entree at a crowded buffet of more palatable comedians looking for guest shots on sitcoms. The doc also captures the essential melancholy of greater LA — the gnawing sense of failure that dogs even the most successful show business workers there.

"The Bitter Buddha" ends with Pepitone's biggest club date of his career (the film was shot in 2011), at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City, not far from where he grew up. He does well. His father's there. It's a good night.

Pepitone and director Feinartz hit town for a one-night showing of "The Bitter Buddha" at 9:30 p.m. Friday at the Music Box Theatre. AV Club editor Nathan Rabin will moderate a post-screening talk; go tomusicboxtheatre.com. [email protected]

No MPAA rating (language).

Running time: 1:30.

Playing: 9:30 p.m. Friday at the Music Box Theatre; also available via Amazon and other streamers.

Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC

Interview: Eddie Pepitone Talks Deconstructionist Comedy, The Seven Stages to Accepting Yourself Onscreen, & Saying Yes To 'The Bitter Buddha'

BY KATIE WALSH MARCH 17, 2013 8:32 AM

Eddie Pepitone is a comic’s comic, a deconstructionist stand-up comic with a scream like no other, who’s willing to put everyone, most often himself, under the microscope. Pepitone gets that treatment in the documentary film "The Bitter Buddha," directed by Steven Feinartz. It’s an engaging portrait of this man and an instant classic film about comedy that will be fascinating to comedy nerds and mainstream audiences alike. In our review, we said the film is 'a portrait of an interesting and endearing misanthrope,' and we got a chance to talk to the man himself on the day of his film’s premiere at the Cinema Village in New York City.

How did you get in touch with "The Bitter Buddha" 's director, Steven Feinartz? He had seen me perform the rants on Marc Maron’s WTF Live Shows, and Steven really liked what I did, and I had just fired my manager and contacted me through Twitter. We met at UCB, and he just proposed to me a documentary on me. And I was like 'oh yeah!' I had a really good feeling about Steven so I said, yeah let's do it. It doesn't sound like you had many reservations about agreeing to this project. I went with my instincts, because – this is really wild – I had been approached by someone else in New York. About 6 months earlier, he wanted to do a documentary on me, and my instincts were: definitely not him.

It's apparent in the documentary that you’re very in tune with the energy around you in a very innate way. Well, it's a huge undertaking. He followed me for close to a year.

What was that like for you letting these people in? The first couple of times I was filmed, I was like, 'oh man, I don’t know if I can do this,' because I felt very conscious of the cameras and I felt uncomfortable. And then, I don’t know what happened, but after the first night, it just felt okay. I think it was just developing a rapport with Steven, and it just felt so fine, and after that first night or two that he filmed me, it was cool and I actually really enjoyed it.

Did you have any input in the shape of the movie? Not really, it wasn’t in my hands, and I think Steven was kind of figuring it out as we went along, and then, the Gotham show materialized, and my father, and that became the arc for it.

What was it like for you to watch this movie for the first time? I have gone through a couple of changes. The first time I saw it, I was absolutely thrilled, and then second time I saw it, there were things that made me cringe about it, just personal things, like me talking about AA and some of the intimate moments with my dad – I felt like I was too flawed a human being. And then I came to terms with it. It's been the seven stages of death, I went from anger to acceptance. And I really do like the film, I do think Steven really gets me as far as my stand up, and that's the most important part of it to me, because that’s my life's work, that's what I was talking about at the end of the movie. I really did love the way Steven put it together.

Has your dad seen the movie? He has not seen it, and that is fine with me. He kind of lives in his own world, he lives in Staten Island. I don’t know if he’s going to see it or not, but, parts of it were kind of rough on him, when I’m talking about him.

What is going to be the life of the movie going forward? What is its role going to be in your comedy and your career? That's an interesting question, and Steven has been handling all of this. It's screening for a week in New York at Cinema Village. I just found out that it’s going to Melbourne, because I’m going to Melbourne to do the Australia Comedy Festival, and then in London, I’m doing the Soho Theater for three weeks in London and I would love for it to play over there. Since it is our show, I think it would be great if I could keep it alive and keep people seeing it, I don’t know how that's going to happen, but I hope it will as I get more popularity. It’s certainly given me a jolt of popularity and hopefully more and more people will see it. But it is tricky, you know? I love that your comedy is about comedy itself. It’s about breaking it open and being meta with it. I love to be deconstructionist with comedy because I spent my life doing it, and I just realized the absurdity of being in front of people, yelling and screaming about stuff, I think it’s hilarious to break it down. It’s hilarious to me, and whenever something’s hilarious to me, it usually resonates with the audience.

Is that something that took you awhile to develop? It took me a long time, and I’ve been talking about it with people, I think it takes a long time to become comfortable in front of people, and I’ve become confident now, as I’ve done it for more and more years, to talk about just the things I want to talk about, and that’s one of the things I want to talk about. So it’s just a matter of my confidence reaching a certain level.

It seems like it takes someone a long time to gain that confidence. Many years, many years.

Review: 'The Bitter Buddha' Captures The Brilliant Meta-Comedy & Existential Angst Of Eddie Pepitone

BY KATIE WALSH MARCH 8, 2013 1:52 PM

Eddie Pepitone is a comedian of dualisms. At 52, he's the next big thing. He's a meditating vegan with rage issues. He enjoys swearing at LA drivers as much as he likes to feed squirrels in the park. This duality of character is what Steven Feinartz's documentary "The Bitter Buddha" (the title an oxymoron itself) attempts to convey about Pepitone, a man who is as delightful as he is loud, as incongruous as he is familiar, as buddha-like in nature and stature as he isn't.

Pepitone is a stand up comedian in LA, a comic's comic, as the slew of comedians interviewed attest to in our introduction to the man (testimony is given by Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Jen Kirkman, B.J. Novak, Paul Provenza, Dana Gould, Scott Aukerman, Andy Kindler, Sarah Silverman, and more). And yet, he's still under the radar, still trying for that big break. His signature scream belies his ennui and frustration with life itself, and one gets the sense that screaming into a mic is one of the only things that helps to keep him sane (he alludes to this himself).

That primal scream is derived from many things: a rough childhood, struggles in the industry, the unbearable weight of life itself. It's a scream all too many can relate to, and because Pepitone is so honest about it, he has a magnetic force about him. He's extremely self-aware while also heartrendingly raw about everything from his own personal existential angst to larger political and social issues. He goes "there" but isn't offensive; he's too smart to rely on cheap laughs from that kind of insult.

The film relies heavily on the quirky acid charm of Pepitone -- there's not much else going on except for him. It's a swiftly and smoothly edited piece of snippets from Eddie's life: bits onstage, hiking with his girlfriend, cleaning up after his cats. But maybe it was the right instinct in giving the film room to allow Eddie to be Eddie, as some of the funniest and most touching moments come from his one-liners in the car or at home, busying himself with work. He's as laugh out loud funny in the bits onstage as he is yelling at an LA driver or trying to scan his headshot. One wants more about his past and his journey (it's briefly alluded to how he got a "late start") but ultimately, this project is just about this man at this particular moment in time.

Much of what we learn about Eddie comes from his talking about his family and life story with friends, and on podcasts. The filmmakers show us the behind the scenes of that comedy world, and allow the story to unfold through Eddie’s interactions. There are few ironic moments of old friends talking about his wild man days that are intercut with Eddie going about his daily life, just being the sweet and gentle man who’s about to yell the house down at the local comedy club, just because he has to. Also, there are a few animated sequences featuring Eddie and Marc Maron, with audio from Maron’s WTF podcast or WTF live shows, and truth be told, an animated series featuring these two as themselves would be a monster hit (Comedy Central execs, take note).

"The Bitter Buddha" is arranged around the story of him returning home to New York City to headline at Gotham Comedy Club. However, the loose narrative meanders a bit until ramping up to the climax, where finally we get more story conflict-- will Eddie sell out his show? Will his dad leave Staten Island to come see him? The filmmakers refrain from cutting into his show at the Gotham, allowing his comedy to play out, and at this moment, we are allowed to see just how brilliant Eddie really is. His comedy is about comedy, it's about bad auditions, it's about the career itself, Twitter, hecklers. He leaves the stage and heckles his empty mic stand, developing and unraveling layers upon layers of inner monologues and questioning and doubt, calling himself out, taking his comedy and breaking it completely open, exposing its insides. It's brave and bold and completely in step with the way that he lives his life completely bare and self-aware.

This is a portrait of an interesting and endearing misanthrope, but someone who we all know lives inside of us. Eddie’s just more willing to put it all out there, to express that existential angst most modern people experience. At the end of the film, Eddie still lives in his world of dualisms: he feels like he’s just starting out, and yet he’s also ready to look back on his legacy of comedy. And then he just laughs, because what else can you do? [B+]

"The Bitter Buddha" opens in NYC on Friday and will be rolling out in major cities throughout March.

Eddie Pepitone: 'I'm just another clown on the bus like you'

Sarah Silverman, Hugh Grant and Zach Galifianakis are fans of this US comic's righteous anger but the man himself is less keen. 'I'm a completely flawed hypocrite,' he tells us

o Paul MacInnes o The Guardian, Friday 12 April 2013 •

Eddie Pepitone: "So, Hugh Grant walks into a bar…" Photograph: Mindy Tucker

It's not often that Hugh Grant finds himself marooned on a pub fire escape, at least not outside of a Richard Curtis movie. Last summer, however, that's where the actor and press agitator ended up, as he and a gaggle of young admirers found even the sneaky route could not gain them access to one of the Edinburgh festival's hottest tickets. That this ticket was for a stand-up show by a dyspeptic overweight fiftysomething who's spent most of his career failing and now spends most of his act talking about it only made it more unusual.

Eddie Pepitone is the comedian, and next month, after 30 years as a performer, he brings his act to London for the first time. Not just an object of fascination for floppy-haired romcom actors, Pepitone is also the subject of a documentary – The Bitter Buddha - covering his career and work, a film that's broken up with the driest of deadpan endorsements from peers such as Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakisand Patton Oswalt ("I guess he was shitty when he was younger," says Silverman). Forget the comedian's comedian; he's the comedian's comedian's comedian. What's more, he could be in danger of actually making it big, which might just be the last thing he needs.

At the heart of Pepitone's act is the vicious mockery of one Eddie Pepitone. At least 10 minutes of his deliberately chaotic sets can involve him heckling himself ("Hey Pepitone, how come at six in the morning you're thumbing through medical journals, you asshole?"). When he's not lambasting himself, he's lambasting his work, such as an audition for detergent that requires him to say his lines "with a smile" but ends up with him bawling, on the verge of tears, "Hey honey, how'd you get the shirt so fucking fresh?"

"I like to think that I criticise myself and show that I'm a completely flawed hypocrite," says Pepitone, down the line from Los Angeles, where he's en route to a chiropractor's appointment. "When I show that to the audience I think they get the fact that I'm just another clown on the bus like them. I think I take rage to an absurd level, but the core of it is real. And if I lose that I don't think I've got much to talk about. I don't think I'm one of those guys who can talk about pigeons. You know what I mean?"

The subjects of Pepitone's rage extend beyond himself, his inadequate life, the failings of his career and out into the world, specifically the big gap between the lives that people are sold and those that they actually get to live. "I just think that globally the amount of poverty, the disparity of wealth in the world is so disgusting and in America is just smoothed over with the jingles of corporations," he says, becoming more animated with each word. "Whenever you have money just look around and there are people suffering. There are truths that really need to be talked about. I think the harshest truth is how egotistical we all are, that we all are so fucking self-absorbed, it's just amazing. We think we're so important that while things go to shit around us, as long as we have our little enclave, our little buffer to the world, that we don't care."

Born into an Italian-American family in Brooklyn in 1958, Pepitone took up comedy after a nervous breakdown in college. He tried character comedy, sketches and improv, but devoted himself full-time to stand-up 15 years ago, leaving the east coast for LA not long afterwards. To watch him in action now is deceptive. At first glance it seems as if you're watching an outsider artist, a man whose fury with himself and the world should really be being worked out in the company of medical professionals rather than alone onstage. But then you notice you're laughing continuously and the fact of Pepitone's well-refined craft becomes a lot clearer.

"The first job of comedy is to make it funny," he says. "And I do feel like that and I really take that to heart. Like If I'm going into a rant. If I'm going into a rant onstage about a corporation, and it's too preachy and I'm not getting many laughs I realise that I'd better get the fuck out of that rant and start being funny. Bottom line is that if people aren't laughing then I don't want to be up there."

Therein lies the dilemma for Eddie Pepitone. He's a comedian first and polemicist second, but what would he be without the polemics? Would he, like his friend Galifianakis, play nice with Hollywood, even if it meant doing the things he lambasts onstage? Pepitone is both honest and contradictory about his ambitions. "We don't work in a vacuum you know and I do want validation," he says. "When you're out here in Hollywood there's a big thing about being a star and a lot of my friends have become famous you know, and [when they] get a piece of the pie you're like, 'Fuck I want a big piece of the pie, too'. If I do compromise, I don't want it to be a big compromise at all. I want it to be stuff I feel good about doing."

Eddie Pepitone: Electrified runs at Soho Theatre, W1, from 6 May to 25 May

The Bitter Buddha: an interview with comedian's comedian Eddie Pepitone 30 April, 2013 by: Emma We talk to the raging US comedy veteran, currently enjoying newfound success in his career.

No one does New York angst quite like Eddie Pepitone. Earning himself the nickname of 'The Bitter Buddha' for his chaotic style, blending social rage with calm self-reflection, Pepitone is a force to be reckoned with on stage, and one of America’s most exhilarating comic voices. At 54, he’s no stranger to the comedy industry, with thirty years of performance behind him and a string of appearances on US shows and films including Flight of the Conchords, The Sarah Silverman Program, Conan and Old School alongside Will Ferrell. Known as something of a comic’s comic and one of the best kept secrets on the alt-comedy scene, a new documentary about his life entitled The Bitter Buddha, and a string of international festival dates, has introduced him to a whole new fan base. Following a triumphant debut at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, Pepitone has now been snapped up by the Soho Theatre for a month long run in May. We were lucky enough to get catch up with Eddie in an uncharacteristically jolly mood, ahead of his London show. Last year was your first Edinburgh festival. How did you find it, and the process of performing a show nearly every night for a month? Edinburgh was a great intense experience for me, as another comic told me "Edinburgh is exam time for clowns" - meaning I was pushed to the limit by having to perform every night for 25 nights. My act is high high energy so I got exhausted vocally by week three and had to find ways of keeping it going. Also being away from home for a month was difficult. The festival was also a great experience for me as I met so many great comics that I never would have met in the states. You’ve been doing stand-up for over three decades now. What has kept you in the business for so long? My love for stand-up and my insanity for the need to get laughter from people. It's so rewarding to do shows where people are doubling over with laughter (when that happens) and after the shows, when people tell me I made their day or helped them through a tough time in their life by making them laugh. That keeps me going. If you hadn’t become a comedian, is there any other career you think you’d have suited? If I hadn't become a comedian I don't know what I would've been doing. A criminal perhaps or a bonds trader. No wait that's the same thing. Maybe working with animals. No wait that's the same thing.

You have a lot of followers on Twitter and Facebook. How do you feel about social media and where it's heading?

I do enjoy making people laugh online. Twitter and Facebook give you captive audiences, so there's an instant gratification element to it that I love. On the other hand, I feel like I waste time on it and wonder about the returns. As far as where it's heading, I think it's great that comics can reach people without big networks or studios to cowtow to, so I hope that keeps happening. Who are your comedy heroes? Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Jackie Gleason. Pryor and Carlin because they were so funny and scathing social critics. Jackie Gleason because he was so committed and big and bold, which is what I like to do. You’re coming to London in a few weeks time, what are you looking forward to doing most when you’re over here (apart from performing!) I am looking forward to seeing the city! I have never been here except for one night for the premier of The Bitter Buddha ( the documentary about me). We showed the movie in Leister Square at a great cool cinema and I saw some of London! I can’t wait to see more. And The Bitter Buddha will be released in May in the UK so I am excited about that. What was the last thing that made you bitter? Waking up in the morning. I have a propensity for bitterness you see. What’s been the most enjoyable experience in your career so far? My most enjoyable career experience has been the movie about me, The Bitter Buddha. It's such a great documentary by Steven Feinartz and the press and fan reaction have been so great and rewarding. Have I mentioned it's available in the UK in May? Eddie Pepitone: Electrified is at the Soho Theatre from Monday 6th- Saturday 26th May.

Portrait of a Cynical Genius in ‘The Bitter Buddha’ Submitted by BrianTT on March 15, 2013 - 1:42pm.

CHICAGO – We live in such a cynical world that when a film critic tells you a stand-up comedian is damn funny, it might not hold as much weight as it did in a universe before everyone had an opinion on everything online. So how can I convince you that Eddie Pepitone, the subject of Steven Feinartz’s “The Bitter Buddha,” opening this weekend at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, is damn funny? Do you like Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, Dana Gould, or the amazing Patton Oswalt? They think he’s hilarious. And if that doesn’t do it, the movie will. Just trust us.

Eddie Pepitone is a comedian’s comedian, a guy who other funny people know and respect but who simply hasn’t broken out beyond the critical and comedic communities. Someone compares the record sales of REO Speedwagon to that of Elvis Costello, noting that the former sold many more copies but almost everyone would admit the latter is better artistically. I’m not sure Eddie Pepitone is the Elvis Costello of comedy but the comparison is apt when one sees the variety of respectable, successful comics who took time for a documentary about this cynical genius.

Pepitone’s act is hard to put a finger on (which is why widespread success has eluded him as I think producers and even comic club bookers don’t know how to sell him). At first, he seems like an angry preacher type like Sam Kinison but he doesn’t have Kinison’s ego. He has echoes of Lewis Black but not as politically angry. And there’s certainly some Rodney Dangerfield in him with his noted lack of respect from the world. Whomever one compares him to, Eddie Pepitone has his own rhythm and his own unique, multi-layered approach. Few comics with this degree of rage have been this self-aware and comical about it. He’s a fascinating blend of NYC anger and L.A. trends. He’s a wannabe vegan with road rage. ‘Nuff said.

The Bitter Buddha Photo credit: Bitter Buddha Movie, LLC

In “The Bitter Buddha,” Feinartz tracks Pepitone’s work on a routine to bring to the legendary Gotham Comedy Club in New York City, the first time that the comic will headline there and the first time he’ll be coming back to his hometown in years. His dad, who lives on Staten Island, may even venture into the city for the first time in seven years. Pepitone is over 50, ancient in show business, and he’s wondering if he’ll make it while auditioning for sitcoms and praying that “Bob’s Burgers” uses him again. And yet Pepitone seems very much a part of today’s cynical comedy scene. He fits right in with the increasingly-popular Marc Maron, with whom he does stage shows.

Not to spoil anything but Pepitone’s Gotham set is fantastic. In fact, I wish the movie had included more of it, maybe even the entire thing. “The Bitter Buddha” kind of feels like it’s over just as Pepitone is about to make that next step to stardom. But perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps we’ll look back on this in years and wonder how Eddie Pepitone was ever not famous. Or perhaps, like the great Bill Hicks, we won’t recognize his brilliance until after he’s gone. Which is not to imply he’s going anywhere soon. I’d hate to get that in Eddie’s mind. Lord knows he doesn’t need anything else to worry about.

“The Bitter Buddha” stars Eddie Pepitone, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Marc Maron, and dozens of other comedians. It opens on March 15, 2013 at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, IL and is also currently available On Demand.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]

'The Bitter Buddha': Director Steven Feinartz on his documentary about cult stand-up comedian Eddie Pepitone by Clark Collis

Were you to ask 100 passers-by to list their favorite stand-ups it is unlikely any of them would mention the name Eddie Pepitone. But were you to ask any random group of comedians the same question it might be a different matter. The New Yorker has long been a fixture on the L.A. comedy scene and his rage-fueled rants are beloved by the likes of Sarah Silverman,Marc Maron, and Patton Oswalt, all of whom appear in the new documentary about Pepitone, The Bitter Buddha.

Below, Bitter Buddha director Steven Feinartz talks about Pepitone and his film, which is currently playing in select cinemas and is available on VOD and iTunes.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: To be honest, prior to this documentary, I had never heard of Eddie Pepitone. It seems strange that someone who is so revered by comedians can be so unknown to the public at large. STEVEN FEINARTZ: Absolutely. With the Internet now, you would think everything would get out there. But for some reason this guy has been sort of hidden in L.A. in the comedy community. He’s this treasure that nobody really tapped into.

How did you come across him? I came to Eddie kind of late in the game, three years ago or so. I listened to him on WTF with Marc Maron, the podcast. He does these rants at the end of WTF which we animated in the film. Each rant was different. It was something that was going on today in Eddie’s life, whether it be his struggle with veganism or the entertainment industry that he had been hating so much for the last 30 years.

It was something that I was drawn to, just this manic energy. It was a voice that I had never heard. I approached him through Twitter because he had fired his manager and there was no way of really getting hold of him outside of Twitter and the Internet. I reached out to him and we sat down after a show and talked about the idea. It took a little time but we eventually got into it and just started filming.

Making a film about such a relatively unknown subject is a double-edged sword: On the one hand the viewer does get that real sense of discovery, but on the other you must have had people saying, “Why don’t you direct a film about someone people have actually heard about?” “…something more commercially viable?” Yeah, for sure. For me, that was the challenge. And it was my first feature and I wanted it to be on something that I really truly believed in. And Eddie is, to me, the embodiment of something totally new and totally original. I just wanted to expose Eddie to the world in the best way that I could. And this documentary I think does that.

He gets angry about a lot of things onstage, but he seems like a fairly amiable chap in real life. Did he ever lose his temper with you? [Laughs] Eddie has his moments for, sure. But we got along surprisingly well. I think that he knew I was a fan from the get-go. There was no other kind of angle. No, we never really fought. We’ve been traveling together with the film for the last six months, to festivals and whatnot, and we’ve gotten to be pretty good friends.

I was surprised to learn in the documentary how often he goes out on auditions for things like Transformers 3. Having read a little bit about him, I had assumed he would be in some sort of ivory tower of I-want-to-do-my-comedy-and-nothing-else. Well, that’s the contradiction of Eddie’s life. He hates the Hollywood system so much, but at the same time he wants to be famous, he wants to be well-known, and he wants to be an actor. He’ll do big budget movies if they cast him, there’s no question. That’s the quandary for a lot of performers.

I could totally imagine him voicing in an angry raccoon or something in a Pixar film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he does a lot of voices for cartoons like Bob’s Burgers.

Actually, I was looking at Eddie’s credits on imdb.com and since you started working on the documentary he does seem to have enjoyed quite an uptick in his professional fortunes. Definitely. He traveled to do the Edinburgh fringe festival. He’s doing London for three weeks in May. He’s traveling the world!

Were you worried that he might get too successful? That if he scored, say, an NBC sitcom before the release of the film then your it might have seemed less current? I don’t think Eddie will ever change. I think people who make it later in life are already set in their ways. That personality is not going to change too much.

Has Whitney Cummings seen the documentary? [Laughs] No, I don’t believe so.

Because he does get quite enraged about the existence of her show Whitney at one point in the film. I think he lets loose not on her, but on the industry for putting these big billboards. Eddie likes to say that these billboards are basically a promise that they can’t keep. Usually they’re mediocre shows. I’m not saying Whitney is a mediocre. show But a lot of them tend to be.

In The Bitter Buddha, B.J. Novak talks about this terrible building Eddie lives in. But when we see his accommodation I thought it looked pretty nice and roomy. Maybe it’s just because I’m a New Yorker, but I would absolutely live in that apartment. [Laughs] Eddie got mad at me for using that line. I was like, “Sorry man.” I do feel bad about that one. Because it isn’t that bad of a place. He actually just moved too. So he’s doing fine.

Novak’s got that Office money. I assume he lives in a palace with a moat. Exactly.

What’s next for you? I’m working on a feature comedy. We’re developing that as we speak and starting to look into possible casting.

Will there be a role for Eddie Pepitone? I think I’ll have no choice.

You can check out the trailer for the Bitter Buddha below and find out where the film is playing at the movie’s official website.

“The Bitter Buddha” Now On iTunes and Video On Demand by Perry Michael Simon on FEBRUARY 19, 2013

It’s been a long time coming, but The Bitter Buddha, the documentary about Eddie Pepitone, is, as of today, now available on iTunes and Video On Demand. For comedy obsessives — you’re out there, I know it — this constitutes a major event.

By now, you HAVE to be addicted to Eddie and Matt Oswalt’s Puddin’, and anyone who’s seen Eddie’s stand-up will never forget it, a maelstrom of hilarity and rage for which “unique” is an understatement. Eddie’s fascinating enough on his own, but director Steven Feinartz got help from an all-star cast of comedians with their own perspectives on him, including our own Todd Glass, plus Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Marc Maron, Dana Gould, Paul F. Tompkins, Paul Provenza, Scott Aukerman, BJ Novak, Todd Barry, Andy Kindler, Rob Huebel, Jen Kirkman, and more. It’s fascinating to consider where Eddie’s comedy, and anger, are coming from, and how his career and reputation have taken off at a stage in life when others might have thrown in the towel.

Seriously, you like comedy, right? You’re interested in the comedic process, and what makes creative people the way they are? This. See it for yourself.

Tony Bartolone Actor, comedian, writer

The Bitter Buddha: Eddie Pepitone's Ascent Posted: 02/21/2013 7:19 pm

What separates the greats from the rest? What makes somebody a genius? What is it that makes an artist's voice echo throughout the tunnels of time? Arthur Miller said it is "... a fierce moral sensibility, which is unquenchable... anger for how the world is." If that is what it takes, Eddie Pepitone has it. He has that intangible quality. Eddie breathes fire from the stage. This standup is a force of nature. He digs deep into the depths of the collective unconscious, rips out the truth of our modern age and aggressively confronts our complacency. Pepitone is a warrior for greater understanding. A hero for the disenchanted. A mythical madman martyr for higher truth. Above all, Eddie Pepitone is fucking funny.

Courtesy of Bitter Buddha Movie LLC

Steven Feinartz's thoughtful documentary paints so perfectly a portrait of what we should want in contemporary comedy. The Bitter Buddha reflects the life and work of a true musician of language. The inner- conflict of Eddie Pepitone, the every day struggle to function with some sort of normalcy, consistency, the fight to escape the status quo... that is the key to Pepitone's power.

There is a constant friction within any great entertainer who longs for a collective life's work of substance. And it is that constant friction that makes them so engaging to watch. That friction between art and money, hunger and excess, confidence and fear. Out of that friction, Frank Sinatra sang, Jackson Pollack painted and Eddie Pepitone yells in dark rooms full of strangers to illicit uproarious laughter. There are comics like Jerry Seinfeld who are good at what they do. Seinfeld crafted his act, did the tonight show, got a sitcom and became immensely successful. And that is what people know and have come to expect in a standup comedian. Then there are comics like Eddie Pepitone who are just freaks of nature. You can easily break down a Seinfeld bit. You can easily imagine Seinfeld writing it and working on it. But with somebody like Pepitone, the whole thing seems like it was spawned from a volcano or thunderstorm or outer space. Even though he writes out his bits and works on his stuff comparable to how Seinfeld does, it’s much more raw and primal. It's hard to imagine that this stuff was thought about and carefully crafted as opposed to just erupting out of the earth as some accidental magic of being. That is what sets Eddie Pepitone a place apart from most comedians.

Courtesy of Bitter Buddha Movie LLC

Man has two kinds of desires that motivate all action. The first type is physical: food, sleep and sex. The other set of desires is much more abstract. They are metaphysical or spiritual. Things like love, freedom and knowledge fall into the second category. All art is a side effect of these desires. And all the wonders of the world were constructed because of these impulses. Sex is often believed to be the most powerful motivation of mankind. However, there is something much more emotional that rivals sex as the main motivation for all of man's actions. And that is the intense, primal need to impress one's father. Every man knows the need. Even most concepts of God seem to be formed from this idea. The most affecting moments captured in this documentary revolve around the need for paternal approval. It is that solely human need for approval that makes this little movie relatable, poignant and powerful.

There seems to be a hole in life. A hole that people try to fill with love or booze or laughter or music or whatever will suffice from day to day. For some people, that hole is a vast bottomless pit, and they are incapable of living a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy life until something closes the gap. The Bitter Buddha is a rare opportunity to see a human being closing that gap, and achieving something sacred. Certain things in the world are illusive to certain people, and everybody has their own path to the middle... This film is a unique window into one man's path to enlightenment or something like it. The Bitter Buddha is now available on VOD and iTunes.

Review: 'The Bitter Buddha' follows Eddie Pepitone's dreams The stand-up comedian has been at it for 30 years but has yet to get his big break. Director Steven Feinartz takes a freewheeling view.

Eddie Pepitone gets a close-up in the documentary "The Bitter Buddha." (Cheremoya Films)

By Gary Goldstein

February 14, 2013, 7:40 p.m. Eddie Pepitone, perhaps the funniest stand-up comedian you've never heard of, gets a deserving close-up in the amusing, freewheeling documentary "The Bitter Buddha."

Although the dyspeptic Pepitone, an unmade bed of a guy in his early 50s, has reportedly been at his craft for 30 years, he's yet to turn into the household name that such not-dissimilar comics as George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinison became. Still, the native New Yorker, now living a busy if largely unglamorous life in L.A., consistently plies his trade in comedy clubs. He also scores parts in movies ("Old School," "The Muppets") and TV series ("Community," "The Life & Times of Tim"), regularly appears on the hit podcast "WTF With Marc Maron" and bangs out lots of off-kilter tweets. This self-described "man at war with himself," who counts such comedy stars as Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis and Paul Provenza (all seen in "Buddha") as fans and friends, also works to maintain his sobriety, keep his "flash anger" in check and fend off the demons of a complicated childhood as he strives for the "big career."

Director Steven Feinartz captures it all, along with an entertaining sojourn to New York for Pepitone's gig at the Gotham Comedy Club (and a vivid reunion with his crankily supportive, Staten Island dad), with freewheeling, nonjudgmental fervor.

"The Bitter Buddha." No MPAA Rating. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. At the Downtown Independent, Los Angeles.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-02-13/film/the-bitter-buddha/

The Bitter Buddha: What Happens When the Bookable Years are Over By Sherilyn Connelly

Wednesday, Feb 13 2013

Eddie Pepitone reads his tweets in the trailer for The Bitter Buddha.

The ragey Eddie Pepitone has been in the comedy business for decades, but for many stand-up nerds he seemed to emerge out of the aether on Marc Maron's WTF podcast in 2009. Steven Feinartz's frequently hilarious documentary The Bitter Buddha focuses on these past few years, as Pepitone's star has risen in spite of the fact that, as friend and fan Patton Oswalt recalls a CAA agent saying, Pepitone's "bookable years are over." The movie follows Pepitone as he goes on about his life of obsessively cleaning his house, dominating Twitter, killing at live gigs, feeding squirrels in the park (much to Oswalt's bemusement), and learning to enjoy his late-in-life career surge while making peace with his demons. One of those demons—his angry, unsupportive father—is at the forefront as the L.A.-based Pepitone prepares for his first headlining gig in New York, his hometown. It bears repeating that The Bitter Buddha is very funny, and for all its bitterness, Eddie Pepitone's comedy is a taste that's easy to acquire. What's more, everyone else who's bloomed later in life, loves their cats like children, and has unresolved issues about their family's lack of interest in their artistic career stands a chance of finding a new hero.

SXSW 2013: Gethard’s Trailer: Spooning with Eddie Pepitone

The Bitter Buddha stopped by Gethard's trailer for a snuggle at SXSW

Posted March 15th, 2013, 2:03 PM by Melissa Locker

When your nickname is the Bitter Buddha you probably aren’t used to people asking you for a cuddle. Yet when comedian Eddie Pepitone swung by Chris Gethard’s trailer during SXSW, that’s exactly what happened.

In comedy circles, Pepitone is revered for his acerbic wit and blistering stand up routines, but until recently outside of comedy circles, Pepitone wasn’t especially well known. That is all starting to change, though, thanks to the success of his podcast, The Long Shot, and his frequent contributions to other comedy podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron (hey, we know that guy), Pepitone is finally getting the attention he deserves. He recently released his first stand-up album, A Great Stillness, he’s starting to tour nationally, and the documentary called “The Bitter Buddha,” which he stars in and features some of our other favorite comedians including Maron and our Comedy Bang! Bang! host Scott Aukerman, was well received.

Watch as our adopted comic Chris Gethard woos Pepitone into a hammock for some quality spooning and a chat about comedy and life:

SXSW 2013: Eddie Pepitone on the art of stand up and being The Bitter Buddha

We chatted with Eddie Pepitone, the comic's comic

Posted March 16th, 2013, 3:03 PM by Melissa Locker

Eddie Pepitone is a comedian and for those in the know, Eddie Pepitone is THE comedian. He is a true “comic’s comic,” who only recently started to see his comedy reach far outside of comedy circles. He has over a million views for his daily Youtube video series “Puddin’,” hosts a popular podcast called The Long Shot, he’s got a solid following on Twitter and frequently contributes to other comedy podcasts like WTF with Marc Maron. He recently released his first stand-up album, “A Great Stillness,” and he’s starting to tour nationally. If that wasn’t enough, Pepitone is also the star of a documentary called “The Bitter Buddha,” which is what brought him to SXSW. The film, directed by first-time filmmaker Steven Feinartz, is an in-depth portrait of the life of Pepitone and features some of our other favorite comedians including Maron and Comedy Bang! Bang!’s Scott Aukerman. The film is directed by Steven Feinartz, and stars Pepitone, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis and a cavalcade of comics including Patton Oswalt, Todd Barry, Dana Gould, and Paul F. Tompkins. We chatted to the comedy legend about the film, a life in comedy and whether he’s using his powers for good or evil.

Have you ever been to SXSW before? This is my first time. I just got off the plane and I think it’s insane. We were at the convention center and the amount of people, it just has this energy. I’m feeling the energy. It’s kind of early in the evening right now and I can feel the energy that it’s going to build into an intense thing. It’s exciting and scary at the same time.

What are you going to be doing at the festival? We are screening the movie that’s about me. And I’m doing a bunch of stand up shows. Two tonight and two tomorrow. I’m hosting a thing called “The Bitter Buddha Blues,” which is me. I do a lot of song parodies …well, not parodies. I do a lot of characters, like lounge singers who have lost their minds. Like lounge singers who are having war flashbacks or lounge singers who are singing about crazy personal stuff instead of love songs. So I’m going to do that as kind of a musical comedy show tomorrow. And tonight I’m doing two stand up sets. So I’m busy. I’ve been traveling so much with the movie that I don’t think I’m going to any parties, but you know this is the type of place where the energy just kind of sweeps you along. I’m 54 now, but if I was younger, forget it. I would wind up living here for years on an acid bender. It seems like the place where you could. It feels like a Hunter S Thompson novel, like you could come to Austin for SXSW and lose yourself for a lot of days.

Like a very long “lost weekend” Totally.

You’ve been working in comedy for 30 or 35 years now. Yeah, I always say I started when I was 20 and I’m 54 now. I’ve been doing all kinds of comedy, not just stand up. I’ve done stand up a lot and pretty heartily the last 15 years, but I’ve done one man shows, I’ve done improv groups, I’ve done sketch groups, so I’ve done a lot of different forms of comedy, but always comedy. I did study acting and I loved doing real plays. I haven’t done a real play in a long time.

After having been working for so long, now with the album and the movie, do you feel like it’s paying off? You know people have been asking me that a lot, but I’ve been earning my living doing this for a long time, but I am kind of reaching the peak of my powers in a way.

Are you using your powers for good or evil? I think a little of both. No, I hope for good. But I think I have finally figured out stand up. Stand up is very difficult. There are just so many different things that you have to be good at. You have to be good at words. You have to be good at performing. Courage is the biggest thing, I think. What I mean by courage is the courage to say what your truth is – which sounds pretentious and some comedians would probably laugh at me – but for me, I’ve just become more fearless as a stand up and I can get up on stage and speak my truth. I think that’s always the funniest thing with me anyway, because my truth is so twisted. Some comics do really abstract things, which is funny and clever, but you forget it two seconds later. You think, ‘Oh that was a clever joke. Ho hum, I’m going on to the next show.’ I think stand ups who have something to say are interesting. Like I’m into the whole genre of stand ups as social critics.

Who do you think of as stand outs in that genre? The lineage of Lenny Bruce to George Carlin to Richard Pryor to Bill Hicks. Not Jerry Seinfeld, let me put it that way. He talks about why pizza is stuffed with cheese in the crust. I’m not saying that doesn’t have its place, but with all due respect, it’s quite superficial. But a lot of people like that milquetoast stuff.

When you talk about speaking your truth on stage, where does that truth come from? For me it comes from trying to figure myself out. I had a tumultuous family growing up, just a dysfunctional family. My whole life I was an artist who has been figuring myself out, like, ‘Who the hell am I? What the hell do I want?’ I’ve been relating that and now, as I’ve matured, I also relate it to the world I live in. It’s not just about me anymore, it’s also about what’s going on in the world. I’m pretty upset about the economic inequality in the United States. I was very into the Occupy movement that got crushed. I think dissent is going to be a big part of our future. I get really political. But the job of a comic is to be funny first. To be funny and then be political or be political within being funny. And I’ve developed a few bits that work really well.

This is a question we are asking everyone: What’s one high school experience that was really awkward? Who doesn’t? Isn’t all of high school awkward? My awkwardness went way beyond high school. It’s so funny, I’m trying to think of the ultimate awkward experience and I am sure it has something to do with trying to ask women out. I was just …well now I’m married, thank god. But back then I was so terrified of rejection and I remember a couple times just blurting out, ‘will you go out with me?’ Just horrible and awkward.

Tell me about “The Bitter Buddha,” the documentary about you. I admit I haven’t seen it yet, because it just came out yesterday. It’s been available on iTunes and video on demand since February, so you can order it now.

So you’re saying I have no excuse. No, you really don’t.

I will go download it as soon as we’re done here. Did you spearhead this documentary yourself or were you approached by someone? They approached me.

What’s it like when someone comes to you and says, “I want to make a documentary about your life?” It’s weird and flattering and I just had a good instinct about Steven Feinartz. When he approached me I was like, ‘I kind of like this guy’ and he pitched it to me. He said he loved my comedy. I really love the film. I had nothing to do with the film except perform and he followed me around. I think he really gets me as far as who I am and the way I perform.

Where did the title come from? It came from the fact that I have tried to meditate and do a sort of Buddhist thing, but I’m still so kind of pissed off. My friend Sean Conroy, who I’ve been doing comedy with for a long time, dubbed me “The Bitter Buddha.”

A movie that I am going to go download now. Good!

Indie & Arthouse: 'Bless Me, Ultima' and 'The Bitter Buddha'

By Special to The Oregonian on February 21, 2013 at 5:00 PM, updated February 21, 2013 at 5:08 PM

"BLESS ME, ULTIMA" Starts Friday, Fox Tower

"Bless Me, Ultima" is a well-meaning multicultural fable that gets lost in its own myopic point-of-view. Working from a novel by Rudolfo Anaya , writer/director Carl Franklin ("One False Move," "Devil in a Blue Dress") promises a peek into the myths and traditions of an under-

Luke Ganalon, left, and Miriam Colon in a scene from "Bless Me, represented culture -- in this case, Ultima." Mexican immigrants living in New

The Associated Press/Arenas Entertainment Mexico during WWII.

Little Antonio (Luke Ganalon) is the youngest in his family and the closest to his grandmother Ultima (Miriam Colon), a medicine woman alternately shunned and respected by the local farmers. Antonio is trying to reconcile her mumbo jumbo with his budding Catholicism, making for a bizarre and eventually tiresome mix of theology and folklore. "Bless Me, Ultima" seems just as confused about its intentions. The low-level magical realism never gels with the coming-of-age drama. By the time the cartoonish villain shows up in his black duster and eye patch, there's no turning back and the movie grinds to a halt long before the credits roll.

"THE BITTER BUDDHA" 7:30 p.m. Friday, Hollywood Theatre, hollywoodtheatre.org

Steven Feinartz's profile of 54-year-old comedian Eddie Pepitone, "The Bitter Buddha," is as raucous, crass and furiously delightful as the subject's stand-up comedy. Pepitone has long been a comedian's comedian, admired by folks like Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman (both of whom appear in "The Bitter Buddha") but failing to achieve mainstream success. This documentary spends less time wondering why that is and more time making a case for why Pepitone should be huge. The stand-up material here is hilarious, and worth the price of a ticket on its own. The rest of the story, however, is just as good. Using the right balance of confession and observation, Feinartz gets at what makes the comedian tick, exposing this Buddha's alleged bitterness as its own unique form of serenity.

-- Jamie S. Rich

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-bitter-buddha,92495/

B The Bitter Buddha

By Nathan Rabin February 14, 2013

Balding, fiftysomething Eddie Pepitone is an actor, comedian, and podcaster, but his real art form is being Eddie Pepitone. Like Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Mason, or Don Rickles before him, Pepitone is one of those gifted creatures who doesn’t necessarily need to say or do anything funny to get laughs, because he’s inveterately funny on a profound existential level. Pepitone looks and talks like an extra in a Bowery Boys movie. He’s a quintessential working-class New Yorker, perpetually apoplectic and at war with a cruel, unfeeling universe. But over the past few years, this old-school New Yorker has made a big name for himself as a Los Angeles alternative-comedy fixture skilled at navigating the tricky waters of new media via his “live-action cartoon” YouTube series Puddin’, his popular Twitter account (which he somehow manages to recycle extensively in his stand-up act without seeming lazy or obnoxious), and The Long Shot Podcast, which he appears on alongside Sean Conroy, Jamie Flam, and Amber Kenny. Comedy geeks and podcast nerds consequently have heard rumblings about The Bitter Buddha for months now; for hardcore comedy geeks, it’s liable to feel like old news before they see a single frame.

Steven Feinartz’s directorial debut eschews straight chronology in its abstract portrait of Pepitone coming into his own personally, professionally, and creatively in his 50s after struggling on the margins of show business for decades. Feinartz follows Pepitone from gig to gig and podcast to podcast as he prepares for a big show in New York, where his complicated father contemplates seeing Pepitone perform live for the first time in around a decade.

Onstage, Pepitone is a powder keg of barely controlled aggression, but the soulfulness in his eyes betrays an underlying gentleness that comes to the fore in scenes where he plays with his cats or talks about the simple joys of feeding pigeons. Pepitone is a riveting camera subject, a fascinating combination of light and dark, mercurial rage and tenderness. But the film’s attempts at stirring up Oedipal drama in its climax, while compelling, feel tacked-on. The Bitter Buddha strains a little too hard for dramatic heft, but it’s nevertheless a compelling, sweet, funny valentine to a comic’s comic and a true American original. The Bitter Buddha closes with Pepitone pondering whether he’s wasted his life by focusing on comedy rather than family, but everything that’s come before suggests that decision has led to a life that’s a triumph rather than a tragedy. Besides, Pepitone has a large and loving family; they just happen to be his worshipful fellow comedians rather than sons or daughters.

Stand-up Comedy Comedians Give 'Bitter Buddha' Eddie Pepitone the 'Vegan Roast' He Deserves

By Paul T. Bradley Tue., Feb. 19 2013 at 11:17 AM

Eddie Pepitone

Who is Eddie Pepitone? If you're not aware of the man they call the Bitter Buddha, you've clearly got a life, well-adjusted friends or an upwardly mobile job -- likely all three. If you've got none of those, he's the comedian-slash-prophet whose shrill screams of truth and tribulation might just briefly soothe your angst-ridden nightmare of an existence.

He's the lye-spiked balm created from the ashes of Bill Hicks and Harvey Pekar, suspended in the colloidal tears of every brilliant but commercially failed social comedian. He's healing your wounds while opening up new ones you never knew were there -- mostly by yelling.

But, as the saying goes, comparisons are odious. That's fine -- so is Eddie Pepitone. Ok, he's really just odious to look at. Ok, and probably to sleep with. And be around socially. But that's about it. The rest of him is perfectly charming. And on Friday night, he suppurated that charm all over a packed house of well-wishers and semi-celebrity roasters at the premiere of his own documentary, Steven Feinartz's The Bitter Buddha.

Dana Gould mugs while Pepitone chuckles in the shadows

The event, spectacularly presented by Jeremy Burke's Loud Village, drew a hilariously stratified crowd: classy west-of-Fairfax'ers in laundered smart attire mingled around mopey schmoes in pit-stained grunge t-shirts. It's safe to say that the bulk of his audience are aspiring comics of all stripes. Dubbed a "vegan" roast, due to Pepitone's entertaining struggles in earnestly attempting a vegetarian diet, the roastmasters included fellow comedians David Koechner, Dana Gould, Henry Phillips and Brody Stevens.

"This man makes audiences laugh so hard, we, ironically, all get a workout," said host Overton during the roast portion of the evening. Among those who took their best shots at Pepitone were Overton, Anchorman star David Koechner and Simpsons scribe Dana Gould. At one point, Gould recounted a horrible encounter inadvertently annoying Bob Hope, only to spin into a big hearty "fuck you" chide to Pepitone. "But, Eddie knows how annoying he is...babies roll their eyes in boredom when he walks into a room."

All of the chuckles and good-natured ribs at Pepitone were overshadowed by the emotional depth of Feinartz's film. While the flick takes turns in showing the inner workings and peccadilloes of Pepitone's life in L.A., including his crazy-old-man sensibilities, like his cat-obsession and squirrel-feeding rituals, it also shows portions of his 30-year struggle in the entertainment industry. The through-line in all of his laughs and screams is his relentless pursuit of his indifferent father's respect.

While watching the documentary, you could hear audible gasps of surprise at scenes of Pepitone's father's prickliness during a visit back to Staten Island. Clearly none of those folks ever experienced the emotional prison of a trip home for the holidays -- where the eggshell dance of avoiding confrontation reaches absurd acrobatics of politeness. Dads, man.

Smiling Buddha

But most of his fans clearly understand that complexity, and we spoke to some of his biggest supporters outside in the smokers' huddle. One in particular, Jeannie, who is in her "late 30s," said of the event, "This is really the culmination of the 'alternative comedy' scene...at least for me...because I have stalked Eddie Pepitone. Why? He's a master of cynicism, there is no one better. He is a beacon of hope for all of us cynics."

Compare him to what and whom you will -- Pepitone's goddamn funny and he's a screaming on the outside, laughing at himself and crying on the inside, transcendent clown. Regardless of classiness or class, it's just phenomenal to see that he has enough well-wishers and young comedian acolytes that he's sure never to die in obscurity. In fact, he might even actually make it -- whatever that means anymore. Hence, the documentary.

There is, of course, that Zen Koan of Eddie Pepitone: If he ever does make it and become legitimately cool, will he will cease to be Eddie Pepitone? We hope not.

Jonathan Kim Film Critic for ReThink Reviews and the Uprising Show

ReThink Review: The Bitter Buddha- Rage, Peace, and Laughs Posted: 02/19/2013 3:36 pm

With the rise of more confessional, experimental, and storytelling styles in the exploding category of alternative standup comedy, it seems that the angry comic has largely been left by the wayside. But comedian Eddie Pepitone clearly never received that note, and over 30 years into his career, Eddie and his often raging, self-loathing, unhinged act have managed to forge a devoted following among comics of both older and newer guards as well as younger fans of both stand up and sketch. And now, in his mid-50s and with comics of all stripes rooting for him, Eddie seems poised to finally break into the mainstream entertainment industry that has been the source of his bitterness for so long, a journey captured in Steven Feinartz's affectionate documentary, The Bitter Buddha, which is available Feb. 19 on Video On Demand and iTunes (go here for more info). Watch my ReThink Review of The Bitter Buddha below (transcript following).

THE BITTER BUDDHA - ReThink Review (Video)

Transcript:

There's a stereotype that most standup comedians are sad, angry, dark souls who take to the stage as a form of therapy to exorcise their demons in front of strangers. Personally, I've been around enough comics to know that comedy draws all types of people and personalities, but in the case of Eddie Pepitone, "angry" and "bitter" are more than accurate descriptions of Eddie and his raging, often unhinged style of stand up comedy. Over the past few years, Eddie has become known as a comic's comic who's still inexplicably outside the mainstream, mostly landing bit parts on TV, an occasional film, and on late night shows. But what makes Pepitone interesting is that recognition of his unique voice only came later in life when he was well into his 40s, where's he's unexpectedly become a cult favorite with a new generation of young comics and fans. What he'll do with this moment, and what got him there, is the subject of the captivating documentary, The Bitter Buddha.

Throughout The Bitter Buddha, some of the most respected names in stand up profess their love, admiration, and respect for Pepitone, including Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Dana Gould, Jen Kirkman, Paul Provenza, Zach Galifianakis, and Marc Maron, who often features Pepitone in the live tapings of Maron's extremely popular podcast, WTF. The film follows Pepitone to various shows and podcasts, as well as through his everyday life, all leading up to a triumphant return to New York city where he'll perform perhaps the biggest show of his life, and with his father in attendance. But it's been a long time coming, since Pepitone was born in Brooklyn in 1958 and has been doing comedy for over 30 years.

In conversation and in quieter moments, we see Eddie as a sweet, sensitive, sometimes overwhelmed guy who dotes on his cats, feeds squirrels in the park, meditates, has a supportive girlfriend, and dabbles in veganism -- which all seems totally at odds with the ranting lunatic he becomes onstage. The film explores the possible roots of his rage, a mix of an angry father, a troubled mom, working class resentment, righteous indignation at the state of America, and a whole lot of bitterness and jealousy towards the entertainment industry Eddie is trying to be a part of.

But what The Bitter Buddha illustrates about comedians is something that, at first blush, seems paradoxical -- that through sharing and even exaggerating the worst things about you on stage, whether it's your rage or your sadness or your hypocrisy, you can begin to deal with and minimize them in your actual life. And by being as honest and funny as you can about them, you can actually use those dark things to make people feel less alone, give them a new perspective, or at the very least, help them get their minds off their own problems for an evening.

This isn't to say that Eddie has vanquished his demons, and you see several times throughout the film that his anger and insecurity are never far from the surface. But having earned the respect of his peers and found an audience without compromising his voice, it seems like Eddie recognizes that all his struggles are finally starting to pay off, and the fact that it's happened later in life in such a notoriously difficult industry makes it that much sweeter. Eddie hung in until he was able to harness his pain and his flaws instead of being handicapped by them, and by doing so, turned them into something that could be a source of joy not just for himself, but for others as well. The Bitter Buddha is a wonderful testament to perseverance, and for anyone who's pursued a dream for what seems like too long, this might be the kind of inspiration you've been looking for.

Capone enters the funny and disturbing world of comedian Eddie Pepitone in the doc THE BITTER BUDDHA!!! Published at: Feb. 18, 2013, 4:31 p.m. CST

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

If there was ever a time when 52-year-old comedian Eddie Pepitone was going to break through into what passes for the mainstream, it's now. And there is no better case for him doing so than director Steven Feinartz's documentary about Pepitone, THE BITTER BUDDHA. I first became aware of Eddie's value as a comic actor during his appearances on "The Sarah Silverman Program," a couple of shots on "Community," and a bunch of featured appearances on "Conan." And if you didn't blink, you might have caught him in THE MUPPETS as a postman.

But his true gifts come to light during his live act, in which his exquisitely worded rants almost feel like a volatile mixture of a sociopath's manifesto and a hobo's suicide note--a combination that manifests itself in Pepitone's physical appearance as well. His five-days-a- week web series "Puddin'" is simply one of the most consistently funny things I've ever seen, and it's attracted some fairly high-profile celebrity guest appearances, who add to the depravity.

As THE BITTER BUDDHA reveals, the pain that fuels Pepitone's act and persona comes from a very real place, and his ability to transform into a very thoughtful and caring man is matched only by his rarely leaving a psychological foundation built on self-hatred. And somehow learning all of this about him makes us love him more.

Not surprisingly, a host of edgier comics line up to sing Pepitone's praises. Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Paul F. Tomkins, Marc Maron, Paul Provenze, Todd Barry, Todd Glass, and more talk up the strange career path Pepitone has taken (by choice or not) and what a master monologist he is. He doesn't so much tell jokes as he does talk in long, raging sentences that reveal a window to the world that is both obscured by cracks yet crystal clear. He sees people and situations for what they are and strips them down on stage to their ugly, self-centered core. He also reads his tweets, which, when strung together, seem like they are those of a drooling mental patient with a great sense of humor.

One comic refers to Pepitone as "the guitarist that all the other guitarists go see," and that seems about the best way to understand his influence. He's like one of those punk bands that never quite got famous but inspired dozens of other bands that went on to sell millions. He's comedy's Sonic Youth. He's angrier and more unbalanced than the rest, which is both his greatest gift and has likely held his career back until now.

But by far the greatest moments in THE BITTER BUDDHA are those surrounding Eddie's return to New York for a big showcase performance. The show itself is important, but for Eddie, it's a chance to reconnect with his father, who I'm fairly certain had never seen him perform to that point. Eddie's confidence is clearly on the brink of collapse at both the prospect of his father being in his audience and the very real possibility that his dad may decide not to show up. Either way, Pepitone is guaranteed to be an emotional wreck come showtime, and it's a fascinating process to watch.

You can't help but watch Pepitone on stage and off and immediately start to form opinions about his mental makeup. What damage was done to him when he was younger? What motivates and fuels him? What terrifies him, both in the world and in his day-to-day life? And of course, what makes him happy, smile, or laugh? Following Pepitone around for months, Feinartz answers some of the questions, while leaving a few parts of the man's life a fun mystery.

I don't remember a film about a comedian getting quite this deep before, while still providing so many laughs. Even his friends seem baffled at times by Eddie's decisions, but there is something undeniably irresistible, and for that we can be grateful.

THE BITTER BUDDHA has been on the festival circuit for the better part of eight months, is now playing in Los Angeles, hits VOD on February 19, and hopefully will make its way around the country after that (I know it opens in Chicago in mid-March). Just kick back and enjoy the awkward chuckles.

-- Steve Prokopy "Capone" [email protected]

http://www.deadline.com/2013/01/sundance-gravitas-ventures-nabs-trio-of-slamdance-films/

Sundance: Gravitas Ventures Nabs Trio Of Slamdance Films

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday January 21, 2013 @ 6:01pm EST

Gravitas Ventures announced today the acquisitions of three raucous Slamdance films: Steven Feinartz’s documentary The Bitter Buddha, Michael Urie’s comedy He’s Way More Famous Than You and Peter Baxter’s documentary Wild In The Streets. As part of the arrangement, each film will be released in the next three months in over 100 million North American Video On Demand homes.

First up debuting in select theatres on February 15, 2013 and on VOD on February 19th is The Bitter Buddha, Steven Feinartz’s perceptive look at alt-comic genius Eddie Pepitone. Though often revered as a “comic’s comic”, Eddie Pepitone is a man at war with himself. And he has the scars to prove it. The Bitter Buddha takes the viewer backstage in the alternative comedy scene to reveal one of its most undervalued treasures. This portrait of a comedian looks at Pepitone’s off beat humor and lifestyle as he battles the world around him. Stand-up comedy, original animation and interviews with Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis and others provide insight into this beloved career comedian known as ”the guitarist that all the other guitarists go to see.”

On April 23, 2013 director Peter Baxter and narrator Sean Bean unveil one of the most remarkable and violent sports documentaries ever made. In Wild In The Streets, toward the end of winter on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday the people of Ashbourne, England gather in the center of their town to renew the longest running sports rivalry on earth. The game is called Shrovetide Football and originates from two medieval communities living opposite the river Henmore. Today, they are known as the Up’ards and Down’ards. Each team consists of hundreds if not thousands of people. The field of play…the town itself. There is no referee and few rules. Each game begins at 2pm and ends at 10pm. The ball cannot be carried in motorized transport. Cemeteries, churchyards and memorials are out of bounds. Under no circumstances is manslaughter to be tolerated.

And finally, Gravitas Ventures has nabbed the hilarious comedy He’s Way More Famous Than You directed by Michael Urie which premiered in dramatic competition at Slamdance. Plans are to take the film out on VOD April 8, 2013 followed by a theatrical run on May 10, 2013. Archstone Distribution will handle the remaining domestic rights and all foreign rights for the picture. The film was produced by Christopher Sepulveda & Michael Anderson of Logolite Entertainment, and Geoffrey Soffer with Imagination Pictures and Ur-Mee Entertainment. The deal was negotiated by Noor Ahmed of Reder & Feig LLP on behalf of the producers and Melanie Miller of Gravitas Ventures. When once-up-and- coming indie film starlet Halley Feiffer loses her boyfriend, her agent and her career in one fell swoop she finally realizes that something has got to change…she has to become WAY MORE FAMOUS! Armed with a stolen script and two pitchers of sangria, Halley enlists the help of her brother Ryan and his boyfriend to make a movie, starring herself (of course), and any A-list celebrity she can land. She will stop at nothing, even if it means hurting the only people who truly care about her.

“We are thrilled to be working with such an array of talent coming out of Slamdance,” remarked Melanie Miller, VP of Acquisitions of Gravitas Ventures. “Nobody channels the cultural zeitgeist quite like Eddie Pepitone, no one with a competitive edge would want to be left out of hundreds of years of bloody town tradition in Wild In The Streets. And, who doesn’t want to work & co-star in a movie with Halley Feiffer? At least that is what Halley believes & she’s got the moxie to convince you too!”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-mov-0615-chicago-closeup-20120615,0,3569905.column

Just for Laughs doubles up on Pepitone

'The Bitter Buddha' (June 14, 2012)\

Nina Metz Chicago Closeup 4:22 p.m. CDT, June 14, 2012

Watching a comedian for the first time is a little like listening to a band for the first time. You have to acclimate yourself. And then you have to make decisions. What is this? Is it good? Do I even like it?

I had never heard of Eddie Pepitone before I got a look at "The Bitter Buddha." And yet gradually, over the course of the documentary — which follows Pepitone for the better part of a year, including a gig last summer at the Hideout in Chicago — I found myself won over by the man's schlumpy comedic rage. Picture a very, very angry New York-accented Homer Simpson in human form, and reader, you have envisioned Eddie Pepitone.

Receiving its world premiere Friday at the Siskel Film Center (with Pepitone present), "The Bitter Buddha" arrives in town as part of the small film component of the Just for Laughs festival. Without question, it is the Platonic ideal of what a film at this type of event should be — a movie about a comedian who is relevant now, and who is also performing in the festival itself.

Just for Laughs has seen noticeable improvements during its short history in Chicago, (booking a deeper, stronger bench each year), but the slim lineup of films still feels like an afterthought — one largely disconnected from what's current in the world of stand-up, let alone what's happening in the fest. That's a mistake, although "The Bitter Buddha" is a meaningful shift in the right direction. Down the line, Just for Laughs will need to be more proactive about securing films, or commissioning a Web series or two, that directly relate to the festival's roster of live performances.

A note to JFL's organizers: Do not underestimate the value of screening a movie such as "The Bitter Buddha" one night, and giving audiences the chance to see the guy perform live the next — that's what makes a festival a festival. Pepitone is indeed booked to appear in two shows on Saturday (at the Lincoln Lodge as part of The Set List), and I suspect there will be high demand for those tickets after audiences see the film. Want to feel like you've discovered something new? That you're watching a comedian poised to hit critical mass? This is your movie.

A career surge has been a long time coming for Pepitone, 53, whose epic grumbling has a lovely, vulnerable, crazy poetry to it. Type his name into Google and the top related search is "Eddie Pepitone angry old man or genius." You wouldn't want to be trapped next to him on a long flight, but he's precisely the sort of one-man-band you want nearby at a ballgame, hollering at the ump.

The documentary (from Chicago native and Columbia College alum Steven Feinartz) reveals — and I think it's fair to say, revels in — many of Pepitone's personal and professional frustrations, while making a steadily persuasive case that the man deserves a following equal to that of his friends Patton Oswalt (who will also be at Friday's screening, along with Feinartz) and Marc Maron.

The life of a struggling comic is not glamorous. Certainly not as Pepitone lives it, or Feinartz photographs it. "I feel like you need to see his chaotic lifestyle," said Feinartz (who three years ago moved to Los Angeles, where he makes cable documentaries for the History Channel and other networks). Overweight, balding and not much of a dresser, Pepitone looks like a "homeless guy grabbed the mic and got on stage," someone says in the film. His LA apartment appears to be a few precarious piles short of a hoarding intervention. Somehow, the surroundings feel right; Pepitone's comedy is built on a foundation of discontent.

"My dad was so intense about everything," he says during an appearance on Maron's "WTF" podcast included in the film, describing the "Sicilian, operatic anger" that filled his childhood home. It was easy to set the old man off, he says, and in the bit Pepitone imagines himself as a child, on his knees, bellowing in mock melodrama: "Daddy, look in your heart! Yes, I did turn the thermostat up, but I like it warm, father! And remember, Daddy: You and mommy decided to have me! I am part of la famiglia!"

There's something inherently comedic about the way Pepitone yells. Or wanders out into the audience so he can heckle himself while staring at an empty stage. (He occasionally appears on"Conan"as a heckler, as well.) He shakes his fist at the world, and it's kind of endearing. "There's a twinkle in my scream, a little wink," is how he put it when we spoke last week. In the film, comedian Paul Provenza describes Pepitone as an everyman "who's been put upon and beaten down and can't figure out how to get out of that position." That absurdist scream is only the logical outcome.

(The film later follows Pepitone back to Staten Island, where his father lives; the tension is palpable and it is a terrific counterpoint illustrating how Pepitone has transformed this dynamic into grist for the comedic mill.)

Though he is still largely unrecognized, Pepitone has no shortage of admirers among fellow stand-ups. And he is a regular presence in the world of comedy podcasts, which (as the film makes clear) have become just as important for comedians as the traditional comedy club. If podcasts aren't inherently cinematic, Feinartz has landed on a clever solution, folding in animations from Allen Mezquida, who brings Pepitone's audio rants to life (in the vein of HBO's"The Ricky Gervais Show"). I'm just going to say it: I would watch an animated TV series featuring Pepitone going off the rails if a studio were willing to take the plunge.

But that suggests a potential pitfall: success. If Jackie Gleason and Larry David made a baby, he might come out sounding something like Pepitone. "I have really honed this persona of the rageful, semienlightened person," he told me. But if he ever achieves real celebrity, (and the money and adulation to go with it), one suspects he would have to tweak this image.

"I always worry, because mainstream people tend to be a little freaked out by me," he says in the film before a performance in Chicago. The bigger question might be: What if it mainstream audiences end up liking him a lot? Eddie Pepitone, Patton Oswalt and filmmaker Steven Feinartz will take questions after the screening of "The Bitter Buddha" Friday. Go to siskelfilmcenter.org. For info on Pepitone's Saturday performances, go to justforlaughschicago.com and search under the show title "The Set List."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/screens/2012-10-20/aff2012-the-bitter-buddha/ picture in picture AFF2012: ‘The Bitter Buddha’ Comic's comic Eddie Pepitone is still hungry for his big break BY KIMBERLEY JONES, 10:00AM, SAT. OCT. 20

Buddha belly. Bitter man.

The belly is that of a late night owl nearing senior citizenry. The bitterness... Well, chalk that up to decades in the trenches, doing good work in his field, becoming an inner-circle darling, but still a dud in terms of commercial recognition.

Steven Feinartz’s engaging doc follows comedian Eddie Pepitone – still hustling, still waiting for his big break. The alt- comedy glitterati – Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, B.J. Novak – sing his praises to the camera (well, and get a few good digs in, too), but so far, Eddie Pepitone isn’t in the same neighborhood – hell, even the same state – in terms of name recognition. And that has made him bitter... and that is counteracted by his meditation and vegan lifestyle... and that is counteracted by palpable rage, fairly radiating off him both onstage and in day to day life.

Feinartz shifts the focus between Pepitone’s stand-up (very funny) and the talking-head testimonials (also very funny), the mundanities of Pepitone’s private life and lively, illustrative animation work by Allen Mezquida that caricaturizes Pepitone’s angry-man tics and sad-man’s dark eye circles, but also crystallizes what is so potent, and sometimes so pitiable, about the man.

The arc is perhaps predictable – the action builds toward a climactic show in New York that for Pepitone marks a significant uptick in his profile and also the chance to prove himself to an emotionally distant father. Still: Just because we’ve seen a guy work through daddy issues before doesn’t make it any less moving when father and son leak tears in tandem.

The Bitter Buddha screens Saturday, Oct. 20, 7pm, Austin Convention Center - Meeting Room 18, and Monday, Oct. 22, 7pm, at the Alamo Drafthouse Village, with Feinartz and Pepitone in attendance.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118063219

Posted: Wed., Dec. 5, 2012, 7:15pm PT Slamdance unveils competition, docu titles 'He's Way More Famous Than You' among narrative selections By DAVE MCNARY

Slamdance, launched 19 years ago as an alternative to Sundance, has unveiled its competition lineup with 12 narrative films and 10 documentaries -- including 13 world premieres and seven U.S. premieres.

The lineup, announced Wednesday, was culled from more than 5,000 submissions. Slamdance will take place Jan. 18-24 in Park City, Utah, at the Treasure Mountain Inn. All films films in competition have budgets under $1 million.

Michael Urie's comedy "He's Way More Famous Than You" is among the more notables titles in the narrative category with a cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Mamie Gummer, Ralph Macchio, Natasha Lyonne and Ben Stiller. Penned by Halley Feiffer and Ryan Spahn -- who also are in the cast -- pic centers on a struggling actress who will stop at nothing to get her movie made.

Steven Feinartz' documentary "The Bitter Buddha," focusing on comic Eddie Pepitone's life, includes Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Sean Conroy, Paul Provenza, Dana Gould and Marc Maron.

"Our goal is to showcase exhilarating filmmaking with a revolutionary take on our world," said Peter Baxter, president and co-founder. "These filmmakers have a tremendous ability to innovate, explore and revitalize the independent filmmaking landscape."

Narrative selections include Brea Grant's dark comedy "Best Friends Forever," Neil Drumming's drama "Big Words," Jan Eihardt's German experimental movie "The Court of Shards," Matt Johnson's "The Dirties," Harry Patramanis' drama "Fynbos," Ben Peyser-Scott Rutherford's found-footage comedy "Billy Chen Presents: Ghost Team One," James E. Duff's romancer "Hank and Asha," Nadia Szold's drama "Joy De V.," Aron Lehmann's mystery "Kohlhaas," Constanze Knoche's family drama "Visitors" and Marie Jamora's family drama "What Isn't There."

Documentaries include "Battery Man" from Dusan Saponja and Dusan Cavic, "Bible Quiz" from Nicole Teeny, "The Brotherhood of the Traveling Rants" from Gavin McInnes, Steve Durand and Bryan Gaynor, "The Last Shepherd" from Marco Bonfanti, "Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde" from Suzanne Mitchell, "My Name Is Faith" from Jason Banker, Jorge Torres-Torres and Tiffany Sudela- Junker; "The Institute" from Spencer McCall, "Where I Am" from Pamela Drynan and "Without Shepherds" from Cary McClelland.

Variety is the official media partner for the festival.

http://teamcoco.com/content/what%E2%80%99s-so-funny-bitter-buddha-comic-doc-rocks What’s So Funny: “The Bitter Buddha” Eddie Pepitone Stand-up Doc Rocks By JohnDevore on March 29. 2012

We’re not asking, we’re telling. Here’s some stuff we like.

The Bitter Buddha Official Trailer

"The Bitter Buddha" -- Eddie Pepitone Stand-up Documentary Eddie Pepitone is what a stand-up comic might call a ‘comic’s comic,’ which sounds like a comedian who performs explicitly at comedy clubs that cater to only stand-up comedians. Man, those audiences are passive-aggressive. Pepitone is also one of the funniest comedians working today. (Full Disclosure: we're fans.) You can see him both being funny and working in the new documentary “The Bitter Budhha.” The flick follows Pepitone as he does what he does best, as well as interviews about the man with friends of his like Sarah Silverman, Todd Barry, and Patton Oswalt. [Youtube.com]

Rise Of The Fenix -- Tenacious D The face-melting "mock rock" duo is back. Tenacious D is releasing a brand new album, “Rise of the Fenix,” on May 15th. This is amazing news for fans of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, as well as fans of sweet licks, fist pumps, and awesomeness in general. Check out the new video! [TenaciousD.com]

One Of Mitch Hedberg's Final Interviews Legendary comedian Mitch Hedberg passed away seven years ago, and his surreal brand of humor is sorely missed. Listen to this interview with the hilariously deranged performer five months before his untimely death.[SplitSider.com]

The Oatmeal Animates The Song "Dinosaur Disco" The Oatmeal animates Sarah Donner’s profane song dedicated to flying thunder lizards, “The M*****F****** Pterodactyl.” Warning: the song is, how do you say? NSFW. It’s also, possibly, the best thing ever.[TheOatmeal.com]

Product Placements In "The Hunger Games" What if, during the Hunger Games, Katniss took a moment to crack open a delicious can of popular carbonated sugar water? These “The Hunger Games” parodies are worth checking out, if you’re a fan of underage tributes fighting for their lives in a dystopian future. [AVClub.com]

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/comedy/fringe_2012/302572-eddie_pepitone_bloodbath

Eddie Pepitone: Bloodbath

REVIEW BY BERNARD O'LEARY.

PUBLISHED 06 AUGUST 2012

Eddie Pepitone appreciates the absurdity of a 53-year old man crossing the Atlantic just so he can shout at strangers in a basement. Pepitone appreciates the absurdity of a lot of things, including his life and his act, and occasionally stops to ask himself what the hell he's doing.

Pepitone's got that Sam Kinision style of delivery, which says that if they're not laughing then you're not shouting loud enough. But Pepitone likes to break it up, lowering his voice, whispering, occasionally stopping and laughing at himself. Strucurally the show is like jazz, looping and spiralling as Pepitone dives into routines, then stops and questions what the hell he's doing, before swooping straight back into the rant. The callbacks and references are so dizzying it's advisable to take notes.

There are some jaw-achingly hilarious routines, like his failed commercial audition and being heckled by his own subconscious. Maybe the most telling is the one where Pepitone explores his idea for Stand-Up Tragedy clubs. This ultimately is a show about his misery, his uselessness, the fact that he's alone and dying in a godless universe. Takes talent to make that funny; takes genius to make it hilarious. Maybe the best solo stand-up performance you'll see at the Fringe.

http://www.chortle.co.uk/shows/edinburgh_fringe_2012/e/20282/eddie_pepitones_bloodbath/review

Show Details

Show type: Edinburgh Fringe 2012

Eddie Pepitone's Bloodbath

Description

Eddie Pepitone is an Apocalyptic-American (with a conscience) and a master of the dark art of stand-up comedy. Hailed as Don Rickles meets Eckhart Tolle, the Bitter Buddha is a force of nature onstage, switching between social rage and self-doubt.

Reviews

Eddie Pepitone's Bloodbath: Fringe 2012 Live Review Just The Tonic at The Tron

Pugnacious American Eddie Pepitone’s relationship to his audience is very much like a tramp’s relationship to pigeons. He yells and hollers to them, apparently his only impotent outlet for the visceral rage and bitter frustrations he feels at the world’s wrongs.

Then, in a heartbeat, he has a moment of calm. The voice quietens and he reflects on what he’s doing with angst and self-doubt. And that only ultimately leads him to get all het up again about the miserable reality of his life.

For the punter, it’s the best of both worlds – the passionate rants of a big-issues comedian combined with the more inward-looking comedy of the smart, detached deconstructionalists. There’s something of his compatriot Andy Kindler in the way he frets about how his jokes, his show, and his whole career are going. At one point he coins the catchphrase: ‘Funny, no?’ which he amusingly admits shows a gargantuan lack of confidence in his own abilities.

This cocktail of anger and anxiety can only have come from one place: New York, and Pepitone has the air of a supporting Seinfeld character around which a whole episode might have revolved, thanks to his swirl of contradictions, all writ large. The passion of the delivery and the shambles of the performer certainly suit this late-night slot in the Tron’s slightly dingy cellar bar, for this is a dirty, visceral style of stand-up.

Pepitone tries to get out his set pieces, such as his impression of the lounge singer plagued with war flashbacks, but gets drawn into so many nested tangents it takes him a while to get back to the point. Easily distracted, he worries whether his references will translate to Scottish audiences, muses on the loneliness of life on the road, and confesses his need for validation by retweet. But even in these moments he cracks character again to reveal that even the self-doubt is exaggerated for the sake of comedy – and done so brilliantly.

There are a couple of tour-de-force ‘bits’ here: primarily his (failed) audition for washing powder, where he pleads in agonised tones for his wife to explain how she got his whites so white, when the whole world is heading for the scrapheap, and a signature piece demanded by one fan in the room, which involves positioning himself in the audience and heckling himself with a piercingly accurate assessment of the shitty state of his life.

Throwing out stand-up conventions while delivering pungent routines laced with misery: that’s what makes Pepitone a heartily recommended act this Fringe.

Date of live review: Sunday 5th Aug, '12

Review by Steve Bennett

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 20:46 Eddie Pepitone - The Biggest Thing I Have Is My Honesty Written by Siobhán Kane

Siobhán Kane spoke with comedian Eddie Pepitone ahead of his show in Whelan's next Monday and the imminent release of his documentary The Bitter Buddha.

Over the years Brooklyn's Eddie Pepitone has become well-known for his appearances on other people's endeavours, whether the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, Conan, Chapelle's Show, Flight of the Conchords, or Community, the list is large and varied.

However, Pepitone has quietly been etching out a long narrative, that now sees him co-hosting The Long Shot Podcast, and releasing his own stand up albums, such as A Great Stillness (2011). This made him a perfect subject for documentary, and last year The Bitter Buddha was released to great acclaim, and includes many comics own thoughts on Pepitone, from Patton Oswalt to Zach Galifianakis - all exploring the natural force and range of this true "comics comic", and he is only just beginning, as he tells Siobhán Kane.

hen did you realise that people found you funny? I remember Woody Allen suggesting that it was his upbringing, chaotic, chattering splendour - and that perhaps there was so much to communicate and observe, and these remain staples of his comedy, how has it been for you?

I realised I was funny when I was about 9, and would make my friends pay attention to me in school. I was the classic class clown, if you will. I was brought up in a tense household, but funny. My father was Sicilian and had operatic emotions which led to fear and comedy. I think my comedy has always been about larger than life emotions. Emotions taken to an absurd level and I had my Dad as a great example. But I wasn't able to express it till I got around my friends in school. I used to make up gibberish languages. I was always into playing with language. But I'll never forget making up a gibberish language and my young friends thinking it was hilarious and I was off and running.

So many of my favourite comics had childhoods that were full of weird representations of love, as in, no real love shown, or in repressive environments - would you relate to that in some way? Yes, I definitely relate to the lack of love in growing up. Just caught up in other people acting out their dramas and you are an appendage to their personal drama. You as a child are just there and not of your own doing. You are thrust into an insane world where you are terrified. I relate to it and survived it. I'm not saying there wasn't any love, I'm just saying it wasn't the predominant emotion.

Is there something in the water in Brooklyn? It is not lost on me that so many of my favourite comics have come out of Brooklyn. I think Brooklyn is known for artists and comedy because it is such a melting pot of people. It is extremely working class and a hard place to grow up and thrive. Very crowded, very intense. You need strong survival skills. Therefore, it’s a breeding ground for humour. Humour as survival. Just being exposed to all the different races of people coupled with the struggle is a great place to develop a strong sense of humour.

You have a long-standing relationship with Conan O'Brien, he is such an interesting man, and seems so generous, still curious with the world at large, and that curiosity never seems to be sated, how did you two meet, and can you recall some of your fondest experiences with him? I met Conan by being hired to do my first big television role. I know so many of the writers on Conan who love to write for me. My first big spot on Conan was written by a guy named Andy Blitz - a funny stand up and great writer- and ever since the first spot I did I have been a staple on the show. My bits are now mostly heckling Conan from his studio audience. Which is so much fun because I get to scream at him on live television. Conan is a funny funny man who really understands what is funny. I love that he has an edge to him because that's what I love to do. Our relationship is real professional; I do my bits on show and we get along great and then off I go. We don't hang out offstage.

Were you nervous at all when The Bitter Buddha came out? How do you feel about it now? You are so very honest, and I think that is often why I am drawn to comics - there is a direct sense of honesty with the best comics. I was nervous about how The Bitter Buddha would come out because it was so personal. I didn't want to look bad, I wanted to come across well. But when I saw what Steven Feinartz, the Director, had done I was very pleased. What was great was he captured what I do onstage because he really gets my comedy. He gets what I am trying to do up onstage and the film reflects that. As far as being honest onstage, I feel that the biggest thing I have is my honesty.

I was also thinking about Alone Up There - do you think that comedy is hard to make sense of in a way, hard to make documentary out of? It is hard to capture the atmosphere of an audience, and that sense of being completely out on a limb, although there are some great comedy documentaries/capturing stand-up, like Richard Pryor's. Yes I do think it's hard to do a comedy documentary. My favourite is also Richard Pryor: Live On The Sunset Strip - really a concert film - but I feel the best thing is to see the stand-up live and capture that on film because that what a stand-up's life is: the performance. My life can be boiled down to the performances in a sense. It's all onstage, really, that I try to distill my life into.

Your work is littered with a sense of anger against injustice, recently I read The Guardian piece where you said you are a "flawed hypocrite" - I think we are all flawed, but you see things more clearly than most and rail against things other people are very apathetic about. Did you grow up in quite a politicised household, or when did this sense of things come about? I did get politicised by my Dad who, early in his life, was very involved with the Teachers Union in NYC. He gave me a book by Ferdinand Lundberg called The Rich and the Super Rich. I was so struck by the unfairness of the polarisation of wealth - which keeps getting worse and worse - in the US. So for some reason I always had a political bent. And I am glad I do although it's so easy to say "fuck it, who cares, I'm just going to have a cake and watch tv."

Your podcasts are very successful, I wonder if it is something that you really enjoy? I always think that listening to comedy is always quite effective, when I was growing up comedy vinyl was some of my most prized possessions, and that hasn't really changed - so I wonder if the podcast is a very satisfying thing to do? I also enjoyed listening to comedy albums! Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Shelly Berman, George Carlin. There is something about just listening that is very comforting. You close your eyes and are transported. I do like doing podcasts because there is no one editing your content and you can basically say what pops into your head and, depending on who you are doing them with, they can get on a roll. It's like a great chat session with a friend when they work well. And no television executives telling you to not talk about this or that.

Going back to that, you have released work on record such as The Big Push, more about your characters, and then A Great Stillness - do you feel that it is as important for you to have documented this work, as for the audience? Great comic writing is such a craft. It is such a great feeling to have work documented because it gives me a sense of relief that the work will be here forever and not lost. I do so many bits off the top of my head that I don't remember later and I sometimes feel such a sense of loss. There is something about knowing your work is there in some form that is quite comforting.

Fairly recently, the writer Howard Jacobson was at a reading event, talking about what is perceived as "serious" writing and "comedic" writing, and he won the Booker prize a few years ago for what he said is regarded as "serious" writing, yet has written more comedic novels that didn't win anything, yet he said he is more proud of those novels, and they were actually harder to write, yet comedic writing is seen as a poor cousin in a sense - what are your thoughts? I think comedy writing when done well is great art and deserves to be taken as seriously as any writing. I think the best writing of any form has to have great comedy in it. Any book or film that doesn't have a deep sense of humour, a deep sense of the absurd, is only half a book or film. Life is a comedy first and foremost. When we lose our sense of humour, we are doomed.

Following on from that, who are some of your favourite writers? My favourite writer is a Brooklyn boy: Henry Miller. I also love Kurt Vonnegut. Douglas Adams is my favourite comedy writer. I also love a novelist comedy writer, Mark Leyner.

You have a background in improv, do you credit that with providing a good basis for comedy? Yes, improv helped me stay with moments that don't work onstage and then not panic and work toward being funny again. Improv helped me always be in the moment onstage. I got into improv because when I first started doing stand-up comedy I was terrified of it. I was so alone up there. So improv was getting to find my comedic abilities with others onstage. Less frightening than stand-up.

You have talked before about the Occupy movement, where does it stand at present in America? The Occupy movement was crushed by the police state here, plain and simple. The brute force of the police was too much for a small movement. However, there is tremendous dissatisfaction here in the States with the status quo and I feel that it will come back - the movement that is - in a bigger way. It is still active in stopping people's houses being foreclosed. I think it's an awareness and activism that is still building. We shall see....

Sometimes I worry about how things at present seem so immediate and equally disposable in the world, advanced by the over-reliance on technology and fragmented way of communicating. I know that you have a relationship with social media, but you seem to have an ambivalence about it also - I don't just blame the medium, although it doesn't appeal - but I think it can often allow people to exist in an echo chamber. What are your thoughts? Yes, I also feel that the saturation of the Internet makes people into spectators rather than participants. I think social media gives the illusion of participating as opposed to really engaging. It is a rabbit hole of narcissism that is easy to go down.

So much of your own work springs from a kind of pain, and I have always felt that the best comics are ones who are struggling within themselves as well as the world - what do you think? And does comedy provide you with a kind of cathartic platform? Yes, I feel like the best comedy comes from intense self-examination and the pain of living. Comedy coming from thoughts and concepts doesn't make me laugh as hard. For me, comedy is very cathartic. I feel like I can breathe again when I am on a roll onstage. All of my pent up energy, angry and frustration has a place to be acknowledged and received. I don't feel ignored and shunted aside anymore.

Puddin' is so wonderful - was it that Matt Oswalt just approached you directly? Did you know instantly he was someone you could work with? Yes, Matt had the same dark, repressed rage sensibility that I have. He was writing for me and the tone was something I immediately related to. Dark and biting and no apologies.

You live in Los Angeles, what on earth is it like? One of the reasons I love Larry David so much is because he always seems like a fish out of water, in Curb when he is wandering around Los Angeles, all crumpled up, he seems so out of place, it is all sunshine and fakery, and he is so rainy and true. New York has always seemed to represent the latter. Woody Allen explores that too in Annie Hall, where Annie goes to Los Angeles and meets the the Tony Lacey character (Paul Simon) to "work on her music" and it is so creepy. What is your relationship like to Los Angeles? And have you ever struggled with living there? Do you miss New York, and what is your relationship like to New York? My relationship with Los Angeles is definitely love/hate. I love the creativity of the place - there are so many artists from around the world that come and seek fame and fortune. I love the eccentricity of all the artists there. On the other hand, it's so hard to be surrounded by all that competition and constant onslaught of who got what show and feeling that you have missed out on something. It is also too damn sunny for me! I like rain! I like clouds! You get to rest in bleak weather. I do miss NYC and how vibrant it is. L.A. is a giant suburb with no centre, so I miss the heartbeat that NYC has.

Your show in Edinburgh last year was wonderful - how did you find the experience? It must have been very special to you as you had never performed there, and if I am correct, had never been to Europe before. Edinburgh was an amazing experience. I had never done that many shows in a row in such a scrutinized environment. It was draining and rewarding. I had no energy or voice left by the end of the festival but it was well worth it. I am not going this year but plan on going in 2014. The city itself is so beautiful and old.

What are you reading? I am reading about 10 books at once these days: Flowers for Algernon, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Hell, The Tao, it goes on and on.

Lastly, what are your plans for the next year? My plans are to write a new hour of material and get that filmed, to keep traveling and hopefully develop a couple of TV shows with me at the centre of them!

"The Bitter Buddha" is available to buy on iTunes now and will shortly be available to stream through the Volta Video-on-Demand service.

SIOBHÁN KANE Over the years, Siobhán Kane has written for various publications on music and culture including The Irish Times, Thumped, The Event Guide and Consequence of Sound. She occasionally contributes to radio, including the arts and culture show Arena on RTE1, and amidst trying to write her doctorate and teaching, runs the collective Young Hearts Run Free, putting on music, literature and arts events in unusual spaces, raising money for the Simon Community in the process. Website: www.myspace.com/youngheartsrunfreeevents

Review: Eddie Pepitone, Soho Theatre

The last time I went to see Eddie Pepitone it was downstairs at the Tron pub during the Edinburgh Festival last summer and I had to fight my way past a minor kerfuffle outside. As I squeezed past the group I noticed Hugh Grant at the centre of it. The actor was on a flying visit to the Fringe and also wanted to see Pepitone that night. Unfortunately an issue with IDs among his entourage meant that he didn't make it in. Pepitone is now at the Soho Theatre until May 25 and I heartily recommend that Hugh makes sure all IDs are in order and gets down to W1 pronto.

The Brooklyn-born 54-year-old, whose fans include Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt, is a fascinating mix of old school self- lacerating schmuck and postmodern anti- comedian. Like, say, Neil Hamburger, or our own Ed Aczel, his act deconstructs his act while he is actually performing his act. But he also has some very good Route One jokes too. It might sound strange, but Simon Munnery might be a better comparison.

Pepitone comes on to the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop and starts as he means to go on – doing a bad sub-Jagger dance routine, imagine a pickled, portly Bruce Willis, and then writing it off as a bad idea. From there he shuttles between working through a hate-list of things that bug him – from self-help gurus to American TV ("all they want is cute people") – while punctuating his riffs with bittersweet banter with the audience. "Whaddya do?…I don't care." All of this is delivered at an increasingly angry pitch. Pepitone's dyspeptic style has shades of Sam Kinison's decibel-deafening misanthropy but it is slightly more modulated. At times he recalls a less political but equally stroppy Doug Stanhope. At other times he is briefly benign and an ironic smile flickers across his mug, such as when he talks about his nice new hat or he picks up a sheet of tatty notes that turn out to be printouts of his despairing Tweets.

There are clearly a few routines here that he has been doing for a while, but they work very well. At just under an hour this is a short, but impressive set that ends with Pepitone "self-sabotaging" his own gig by showing hecklers what a real heckle could be like. The only trouble is that, as he says, there hasn't been any heckling all evening. The irony is that Pepitone, for all his human frailties and failings, is way too funny to heckle.

Bruce Dessau writes for The Times and the Guardian and is the comedy critic of the Evening Standard. His latest book is Beyond A Joke: Inside The Dark World of Stand-Up Comedy. And yes, he's got a cellar. Wanna make something of it?

Dark Comedy Festival goes from blue to black

Acts can indulge in public indecency without being kicked out of the club

By Bill Brownstein, The Gazette June 4, 2013

Founded in Toronto in 2011, the Dark Comedy Festival comes to Montreal for the first time this week, with performances at the Comedy Nest by Leighland Beckman, clockwise from right, Derek Seguin, Peter J. Radomski, Paul Ash, Dan Derkson and Morgan O’Shea. “Three of us went to the Toronto festival last year and, frankly, we were too dark and dirty for them,” Ash says. “Now they’re bringing the festival here because they realize Montreal has no filter.” Photograph by: Pierre Obendrauf , The Gazette

MONTREAL - The Dark Comedy Festival: It came from Toronto. Apparently no longer The Good, for reasons comedic and political.

Imagine, Toronto having the inside track over Montreal on a laugh fest of a troubled and twisted nature. The Dark Comedy Festival got its start there two years ago, thanks to Hogtown humorist/impresario Rob Mailloux. The fest featured 18 shows over 10 days and showcased 50 unwell wits, including Jim Jefferies, Big Jay Oakerson and Tyler Morrison. Mailloux has since brought the festival to Vancouver, and now it hits Montreal, the rightful home of troubled and twisted humour. Think of Montreal’s Dark Comedy Festival — running Thursday to Saturday at the Comedy Nest — as a precursor to the Nasty Show series at Just for Laughs next month.

No Jefferies for this city’s festival, but there will be an abundance of local talent, as well as cult legend Eddie Pepitone and Morrison, who won the first and only Dark Comedy Contest at the 2011 spectacle in T.O.

Comedy Nest co-proprietor Dave Acer was keen to host the fest at his club, but cautions that the shows are definitely not for the faint of heart. “These comics are going to talk about stuff most comedians wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot mic stand,” he says. “The idea is that the comedians performing on these nights are allowed to go places that are too risqué, sensitive or polarizing for a regular weekend comedy show.”

Mailloux will serve as host for the shows, Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Montrealer Derek Seguin headlines Thursday, with homeboys Morgan O’Shea and Dan Derkson as opening acts. On Friday, the spotlight shines on Morrison, who gets support from locals Leighland Beckman and Paul Ash. And Pepitone does the two Saturday shows, with veteran city wit Peter J. Radomski getting the crowd into a loosened state.

The tone of these shows suits Seguin just fine. “I’m darker and dirtier than Dave (Acer) likes me to be on a regular weekend,” he says at the Comedy Nest. “Except when I attend parent/teacher meetings at my kids’ schools, I tend to say whatever pops into my mind — which is usually bad. That’s why when I headline at the Nest now, they put out a warning before the shows.”

Seguin likes to ruminate about certain words that have become taboo to others, but clearly not to him.

Derkson doesn’t need any motivation to get down and dirty: “I just got out of a marriage about four or five months ago. I’m already really depressed. So I figure this is the perfect time to pass that anger I have on to an audience. I want the audience to want to divorce me, too, by the end of the set.”

“I’ve never seen Dan (Derkson) that happy,” O’Shea notes. “I’m the opposite of Dan. I’ll be raging about porn — about how I don’t watch porn and how I offend people for not watching it. Even women come up to me and ask if I’m some kind of sick f--- for not watching.”

Guitar-strumming troubadour Beckman, like the others, relishes the opportunity to play weekends at a local comedy club: “I’m usually not welcome to perform.” That may be due to the fact that Beckman croons such personal compositions as Rectal Prolapse: “I can handle the pain, but I can’t stand the shame / I’m filled with doubt when my anus comes inside out.”

Thanks for sharing.

“The point is that Montreal is the real home of dark and dirty,” says Ash, who is also at the helm of Battle-COM at the Nest and elsewhere. “Three of us went to the Toronto festival last year and, frankly, we were too dark and dirty for them. Now they’re bringing the festival here because they realize Montreal has no filter.”

Radomski is particularly pumped by the presence of Pepitone, the eccentric central figure in the acclaimed documentary The Bitter Buddha, which screened at Just for Laughs last year as well as at the Cannes and Sundance film fests. “Anyone who is remotely interested in comedy has a moral obligation to be here to see Pepitone. In my mind, he’s the finest comedian on the planet,” Radomski proclaims. “The guy has been doing comedy for over 30 years and has influenced a generation of comedians. Screw the Grand Prix this weekend — there is a historical event in comedy taking place in this city.”

Among those Pepitone has influenced are Marc Maron, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt, who shower him with praise in The Bitter Buddha and don’t feel he’s received his due.

“I can’t dwell on that, getting angry and bitter,” Pepitone says in a phone interview. “I just stuck to my guns and did what I really liked. They just never knew what to do with me. I feel I am getting my due now, thanks to the documentary. It’s also gratifying having comedians that I respect a lot saying that they like what I do.”

This will mark the first time in more than a decade that Pepitone — who has appeared in everything from Flight of the Conchords to House — has performed here. His last Montreal appearance was a small set at Just for Laughs’ Alternative Show.

As serene as Pepitone sounds on the phone, he figures he’ll have little difficulty getting into a dark frame of mind for Saturday’s shows.

“Dark is my specialty,” says Pepitone, whose influences are Richard Pryor and George Carlin. “With much of the world going down economically and with so many people barely scraping by, there is more than enough for me to draw on.”

The Dark Comedy Festival runs Thursday, June 6 to Saturday, June 8 at the Comedy Nest, 2313 Ste-Catherine St. W., third floor. Tickets cost $15 for Thursday and Friday’s shows (8 p.m.), $20 for Saturday’s shows (8 and 10:30 p.m.). Call 514-932-6378 or visit comedynest.com.

Interview with Eddie Pepitone | The Bitter Buddha

If you haven't heard of Eddie Pepitone then you surely will soon. With a huge cult following in the US through stand up and appearances in shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Flight of the Conchords, The Sarah Silverman Show Pepitone has been making his mark in the US for the last 35 years. Dubbed as the 'comic’s comic' Peptione has a fanbase which includes Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, and Robin Williams. The comedian is finally making the cross over onto the international scene and all we can say is it is about time. Nicknamed 'The Bitter Buddha', Pepitone is now starring in his own documentary, of the same name, which will be available to rent exclusively from Volta this Friday 31st May. 'The Bitter Buddha' is a humorous documentary that takes an unconventional look at an unconventional man as he struggles with his career, his past and the world around him. We caught up with him ahead of his gig in Whelans tonight to talk about the documentary, his life growing up in a dysfunctional family and his upcoming appearance on Arrested Development. As well as finding out what is in store for the New York born comic...

Interview by Claire Duffy

You're playing tonight in Whelans with David O'Doherty. What can we expect from your show? Well I think it’s going to be interesting show because David is so light and silly. And I tend to be painfully loud and angry, like I try to take the rage to an absurd level. But I think it's going to be a good contrast; one dark one light. Like a little nymph playing piano and me bellowing about failure. 'The Bitter Buddha' is available for fans to watch this Friday. Can you tell us a bit about it? The director Steven Feinartz, followed me for about a year last year. It chronicled a lot of my stand up shows in L.A., a couple of road gigs in Chicago and one big New York gig, where I was headlining in New York for the first time in a long time in a very big comedy club. So, it was like a homecoming. He really captures a really complex relationship I have with my father which I think becomes one of the emotional arks of the film. I was very happy with it. I thought Steven did a great job capturing my stand up. To me the most important thing about my life is my stand up. I don't know if that is sad or not but I don't have any kids, I talk about this in the movie. It's like my legacy, the comedy. Steven captured the comedy. I just really like the film from the music to the way he weaved it so I'm happy with it.

Where did the name ‘The Bitter Buddha’ come from? Because I have a lot of anger aka bitterness and then because of the anger I started meditating and that's where the Buddha part came from. I think my physique looks a little like a Buddha.

How did you feel about letting a camera into your life? Why did you decide to do the documentary? Did you find it very exposing? At first I found it a little uncomfortable. I remember the first night of filming I thought this is going to be a little uncomfortable. I thought I wasn't going to be able to be natural. But the second time he filmed me, I just felt me and Steven really hit it off. I thought he was a really nice guy and that's why I let him do it. My instinct said that he was someone who really appreciated what I did and I thought it would be a great way to get my work on film for all time.

You talk about how angry you get on stage do you think this stems from your relationship with your father? Yeah, one thing I realised in my comedy, is I'm channeling or doing an impersonation of my dad. He is Sicilian and has operatic rage. I think that as a kid I was very frightened of how angry he got and now as an adult I'm making fun of what I got afraid of. It's kind of cathartic for me to make fun of what I was afraid. I love taking it to an absurd level because on stage I get so angry it's absurd. I get angry at small things on stage and I get angry at small things in life too.

Did you find the documentary was a way of confronting this? I, basically with the documentary I just did my thing. I think knowing that it was being filmed, my stand up was being filmed and my life was being filmed, it heightened the reality of it so maybe I was more aware of the camera. I knew I always wanted to do my best.

You have a huge cult following in the US but how did you break into the international comedy scene? Well last year was how it came about through the urging of Paul Provenza. He always said it to me, he pushed me and set me up to do Edinburgh. He said it would be good for me that they would love me. That the UK and Ireland and overseas would love my loudness and bitterness. Before Edinburgh I did the Vodafone Comedy Festival that Bren Barry booked me. And because of Edinburgh I got the Soho gig and I have also done a gig in Norway this year which was really fun.

How did you find an Irish audience in comparison to the US audiences? I really like them. I was very scared at first just because I had never performed overseas and was worried. One thing I learn't about was don't talk to an Irish audience about therapy because they don't want to know about it. Every American is in therapy but I don't think it's talked about much here. It's stuff like that, it's interesting what you will learn. I realised the best thing I can do is be myself. How does it feel to be getting a career surge in a late stage in your career? Why do you think it's all happening now? I'm wondering if because maybe my whole demeanour is more suitable to today while there is a lot of disenfranchisement and unhappiness. Not to say that I'm unhappy but I try to do this whole thing about overcoming the anger. Maybe cos it's a bad economy. I don't know I think also have come into my own. I'm just the classic late bloomer, it just took me a long time to get it right.

Just to go back to where it all began, how did you get into comedy? I grew up in such a dysfunctional household, my Mom was always in and out of hospital with a bipolar disorder. So it was just a way for me to deal with all the unhappiness that was around me as a kid. It wasn't a great household to grow up in so the only way I was able to deal with it was through humour. It's kind of a cliche but it really was the way I dealt with all the tragedy was through comedy.

You said before that the Conan O'Brien show was a big break at the start of your career how did that come about? A lot of the guys that I did stand up with wound up writing for Conan and one of them wrote a bit that he thought I would be perfect for. So I went in and did it, it was about a fake commercial about being on the cover of a cereal box. It was a long monologue and the guy who wrote it really knew my comedy well and ever since then that I do this recurring character that heckles from the audience. Conan just liked the fact I heckle him and it's been really good bits for me.

I loved your stand up piece where you heckle yourself, what has been your worst experience of a heckler? How come everyone wants to know about that? Everyone likes that one. I haven't really had any, lets knock on wood here, bad hecklers that I think I come on stage with so much anger myself that people are scared or they feel sorry for me cos they see I'm an older man really trying very hard. I’m not sure which one.

Some of your fans include Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Robin Williams. How does it feel to be held in such high regard by fellow comedians? That's the best, it's like the greatest because I know those guys are so funny. That I know they know comedy, so for them to like what I do is a big tribute, it's very flattering. But of course, success depends on the average person liking you so sometimes it's a curse to be known as a comic’s comic because you want broader popularity. But I love the fact those guys like me. Now it's just getting the average person to love me. That seems more elusive.

Where do you get your inspiration for your material? Your background is in improve -- how much of your stand up would be improvised? Here's the thing, I just did 3 weeks at the Soho Theatre and it was my first run in London. Especially the first week I didn't improvise very much 'cause I was a little tentative with the crowd. I don't know London that well. Like when I'm in the States I improvise a lot like I would improvise over half. But when I play overseas I tend to rely more on material until I feel very comfortable with the audience and then I like to just go into my own head. The most fun is playing with ideas that pop into my head and I just love going on rides like that because I have an improv background. When I'm really comfortable I let myself go but if I feel like I don't know if this crowd knows me well enough or I know them then I rely more on the material. But I'm happy when I'm doing improv. The written material, and some of it I have done for a while, is not as creatively challenging.

Who are your favourite comedians? Who inspires you? Here it's so funny you don't get to see a lot of Irish or UK comedians in the US, they don't travel there. Last year at Vodafone I saw and it blew me away, I saw Tommy Tiernan . And I'm like how do I not know about him, it was so amazing. I have never seen anyone this good. The other guy I found really funny was David McSavage and of course David O'Doherty. I just love these guys. Stewart Lee in London and Sean Hughes as well. So now I go on YouTube and look around and watch some UK comics.

You have done numerous sitcoms, films and stand up. Out of it all what is your favourite and why? Well sitcoms are great money and it's easy. I feel like sitcoms and TV is the pay off for working very hard as a comedian because you just go in and you have a few lines and they have written the lines for you. It's so easy and the money is so good. But the most rewarding is to do stand up but the pay off seems to be the TV and film work.

This weekend saw the return of Arrested Development and I know you star in one of the episodes. What character do you play and how did it feel to be part of all the hype that has been surrounding it's return? It's a small part but that was fun. I want to get to the point where I'm one of the big characters in a great show like that because everyone loves that show. I'm nearly there. Like that's a great show, everyone loves that show. I also get a lot of praise for being on Flight of the Conchords. I had a really great episode in that.

So what does the future hold for Eddie Pepitone? Can you tell me, can you tell me? I hope really good things. I'm such a natural pessimist that I feel like who knows, hopefully people will really latch on to what I'm doing but part of me is like maybe this is the height of it. I think if I keep working, if I keep exploring what's inside me comedically my popularity should grow from there and let’s see where I go from here.

The Bitter Buddha is available to watch on Volta from this Friday the 31st May. You can watch it here.

Story by EI Team | 09:00 | Monday 27th May 2013 | Comedy

http://www.stpaulslifestyle.com/articles/2013/01/28/eddie-pepitone-global-phenomenon-brings-the-house-down-in-oslo/

EDDIE PEPITONE - GLOBAL PHENOMENON BRINGS THE HOUSE DOWN IN OSLO.

Posted on Jan 28, 2013 St Pauls Lifestyle reports from the Crap Comedy Festival in Oslo where Eddie Pepitone headlined on Saturday night.

Wherever in the world Eddie Pepitone goes these days he is preceded by audible expectation. So it was in Oslo on Saturday night as the time for Eddie’s headlining set approached.

Murmured anticipation swept through the venue before Eddie’s appearance on stage “have you seen him before … no, but I’ve heard”. The auditorium was rammed to its gills.

When Eddie arrived at the Parkteatret, his modesty and gentleness was immediately felt backstage. His act may be causing excitement internationally, but Eddie is more grounded, more engaged with life – and us, people living our lives, than ever. His determined concern with the roots of humanity and his regard for others persists.

The packed Parkteatret was humming. Sensing all this, you wonder how it’s going to go. It’s one thing being a US comic and delivering to a UK audience. It’s another thing being a US comic and delivering in American English to a foreign audience whose first language and culture is Norwegian. Add to this that Eddie was following a high comic standard – set by the likes of Bard Tufte Johansen, Robin Ince, Josie Long and Daniel Kitson.

Would Eddie thrill?

He entered the stage a shimmering, shivering impersonation of a rapper, his body tremulously shaking – all the way to the quivering peak of his cap and his ‘rap’ trousers. You think you’ve seen funny – well you haven’t – not until you’ve seen Eddie come on stage like this.

This stupendous entrance set the bar for a phenomenal gig. Hilarious, insightful and touching, Eddie’s set attracted whistles, screams, wolf whistles and respect throughout.

Eddie’s giving comedy knows no boundaries: his innate generosity transcends any semantic, literary and cultural differences. Eddie’s upbringing may be – literally – an ocean away, but his largesse, his true and deep spirit of humanity captures audiences in different continents, speaking different languages and whose lives have been entirely separate.

All that is great and exciting in a stand–up is encapsulated in an Eddie Pepitone gig. It has pace, power and presence. It teeters on the edges of insanity.

When he took himself down into the audience to perform part of his “split personality” routine – I say no more so as not to wreck your enjoyment of Eddie live - the crowd was awed and touched by his being. For when Eddie is near you, next to you, he is with you - yet he is also a super star. This apparent contradiction of massiveness and intimacy is part of his extraordinary appeal. You feel you know him even though you know you share him with an ever-growing global audience.

Such is Eddie's spirit, his natural humility and kindly intellect that it will always be so.

Eddie Pepitone did not merely thrill – he took the Parkteatret down.

Be warned though, – at an Eddie Pepitone gig you’ll laugh so much it hurts.

Audio Review of the gig - first reactions.

After Eddie’s gig, he had time for chat with the other performers including Robin Ince – before heading homewards through the glistening white of Oslo’s snow-muffled City where there was time to wonder and awe at the stunning street art.

Above, Eddie and Robin Ince chatting backstage.

Above, Eddie backstage.

Above, Eddie and Robin Ince checking out Street Art on the way back to the hotel.

Eddie coming to the UK and 'The Bitter Buddha'.

Eddie Pepitone is also known as “The Bitter Buddha”. A same-titled documentary about Eddie will be shown at San Francisco Sketchfest on the 2nd February 2013 and on general release on 15th Feb 2013.

We have a wonderful filmed interview with Eddie coming to St Pauls Lifestyle – watch our space.

Some of you may have heard of the UK’s desire to adopt Eddie Pepitone; for his comedy is a perfect fit for the UK audience and our eccentricities. We’re pleased to pass on that Eddie told us he has a 3 week stint in Soho in May. Hopefully this is a test run for us. Lucky, lucky UK. The Eddie Pepitone experience will be opened to all.

There is a downside of course – we recognize the health and safety problems this inevitably causes the venue. So we’ve devised a warning the venue may wish to affix:

“THIS IS AN EDDIE PEPITONE GIG. WE DO NOT ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR INJURIES TO THE AUDIENCE CAUSED BY EXCESSIVE HILARITY”

Below, a Crap Comedy Festival banner with the symbolic liquorice pipes which are illegal in Norway.