Jamie Kaler

Jamie: Things have been taking off for so many years. It's so funny. I did Will & Grace, a pilot for George Clooney. Every season was another show. I remember people would come in where I worked and say, 'Dude, when are you gonna stop bartending and be famous?'

Jamie: (On stand-up) They either laugh or they don't. There's nobody else to blame. It's amazing. It's just a guy and a microphone. It's so magical.

Jamie: (On meeting fans) At first, people will come up and they're kind of taken aback. They're like, 'Hey, you kind of look like that dude from that show.' Yeah, I'm on that show. They end up at the end [saying], Yeah, I don't watch that much TV. One time I told this woman I pick up bodies for the morgue. She didn't talk to me for the rest of the flight.

Jamie: From bartender to Actor/Comic was an easy stumble. They're basically the same job, just different theaters. And sometimes the bartender makes more money. But each year gets better and I have a job where I'm lucky enough to travel the country and make people laugh. So, remember, "Laughter is the best medicine...unless you've got cracked ribs"!

Jamie: And in all my travels, the Navy taught me a couple of things. First of all, The United States is the best country on the planet. It's not perfect, but nothing is. If you don't think you were lucky to be born here, then go live somewhere else. Our homeless would be the ruling class of most other countries. The second is that time is precious. I certainly hope that there is an afterlife, but on the outside chance that there is not, I am planning on wringing out as much from this life as possible. So, after my navy commitment was up, I did the one thing my life had prepared me for up until that point. I became a bartender and a beach bum.

Jamie: To be honest, I'm not like most comics. I had a great childhood. Sure, there were the couple of years of acne, the uncontrollable shyness around girls, maybe a bully or two, and a particularly late "blooming" which resulted in me not really shaving until my twenties. But all in all, it was pretty good.

Jamie: I grew up in Hooksett, New Hampshire, with great parents. Yeah, my Dad was "crazy", but whose wasn't? He once made me re-mow the lawn because the tire tracks weren't straight enough. But he also made my lunches all through high school. (Although, when I told him the carrot sticks were making my throat swell shut, he refused to stop giving them to me. Of course, it turned out I am allergic to carrots). I figured since he was a pilot in WW II, he deserved a couple of eccentricities.

Jamie: (On going back to visit his hometown of Boston in 2008) It was timed so amazingly well, the Celtics had just won the championship and their parade literally went by the front of my hotel so I got to see them all. Then I went to the Red Sox game that night and was invited to a private party in center field because the Celtics' Paul Pearce was throwing out the first pitch and I got to hang out with all the Celtics, it was amazing. It was an insane weekend.

Jamie: (On his My Boys costar Jim Gaffigan) He's the best, I've developed such a mad crush on him - he's really my favorite person of all time. Everyone asks about him because of all the people on the show he's the most well known and he's hilariously funny but he's no funnier than anyone else on that set. I'm pretty amazed by the depth of that cast, everyone is hilarious. He's a fantastic stand-up, but when it comes to acting I feel like I'm looking up at the rest of those guys. Kyle is so funny, and Reid, and Jordana, Kellee, it's just an amazing cast every day - I'm just one of the cogs that help it run.

Jamie: (On his character Mike) The thing is he's totally innocent, he's not mean, he's just gruff, like Jackie Gleason was always playing the mean guy but at the end he would admit his mistake - he tries so hard but it just goes amiss for him. The show creator [Betsy Thomas] said to me, "you're the engine".

Jamie: (On comparisions between his character Mike and Eddie Haskell from Leave It To Beaver ) He was totally my role model for this [laughs] no, I remember Eddie Haskell, and there are these moments where my character is a jackass or the idiot for an episode. Now I might sometimes feel like an idiot or be an idiot but there's no way I'm as much of an idiot as Mike, he tries to be the best at everything and it's like "you're not, man". He's always got an angle, and that's kind of like Kramer in a way, he was right at whatever he was doing, even though what he was doing was insane.

Jamie: (On his work with Robot Chicken) Well I'm very proud of that, I love that show. Seth Green does a great show and I was flattered to be a part of it. It's really fun, you go in and do voices for 20 minutes and you're done, you never see anything until the final product is complete but it is really really funny stuff. It's so concentrated, it's only 15 minutes long but it feels much longer, when the joke is done it just moves on. When the vignette is over it jumps to the next one, there's no dwelling on it or any attempt to beat more out of it.