James Beard is The Moon’s Video Producer and Co-Prop Master. He’s also known to do some acting, and literally brought down the house like Latifah playing a song by the now defunct White Stripes at the Hootenanny With The Moonkids. I sat down with him on the internet.
James Beard. You share your name with a famous person who has a giant peach. As far as I know you have no such peach. Maybe we could call you James and the Giant Beard? Tell me about your beard over the years.
We’ve been through thick and thin together. My beard and I are really close now, but really we didnt meet until college. Still, it was like we had always known each other. I tend to treat my beard better than the rest of me. Currently, though, I’m ironically clean shaven but maybe MTV will pay me to grow and cut another one someday.
What you may not know is there’s another James Beard. Wikipedia tells me that “many consider him the father of American-style gourmet cooking.” Let’s apply that to you. Many consider James Beard the father of American-style…
Rapping. I’m a veteran of the flow game. Been in two mega groups, sold tens of albums, and drank a lot of 40’s. 905 Crew is forever!
[Ed. note: I have a like-named celeb for myself named Jordy who many consider the father of French-style baby rapping. So, we match.]
I’ve found that the ads facebook provided on the side of my profile are always very telling. What are the ads currently on yours and how do they represent you as an individual?
You know, I’ve been online for decades now and have really gotten used to looking at only what I want to see on the sites, so I had never looked at those ads until you just asked me to. Apparently I need a credit card, since I’ve never had one, there’s 365 things I need to do in Brooklyn before I die, and I should join a bowling league. Oh and I need to enter a contest to win love. I thought love was a battlefield, what is this about contests?
[Ed. Note: those are all hauntingly accurate.]
What is your history with comedy: live, video, and divine?
I like funny things. Have all my life. Really, spent a vast majority of my time on this planet so far laughing. As for specifically working in it, I met a lot of immensely talented and funny people at college who needed help shooting their videos. Been doing that ever since. I also do a lot of freelance work here in New York and have had the pleasure of making Zach Galifianakis fly, Eugene Mirman time travel, John Gemberling and Curtis Gwinn save the internet, and have been working with The Onion on their many web series’ for the past four years now. In fact, I’m doing this interview during lunch of a shoot for them RIGHT NOW!
How has your experience on The Onion informed your work in comedy, and in love?
Its taught me a lot not so much about comedy, but more in how to create top notch entertainment on a low budget. Seeing as The Moon is free, the information has been vital. As for love, I got into comedy for the ladies, and so far, so good.
Do you consider yourself a ladies man or a man’s man?
Wow, I need to start reading the future questions before answering the previous ones. Anyway, I consider myself a human man. I could always also go for a good make out session. I love ladies, not just romantically though. I’ve always needed to have solid female friends in my life. [Ed. note: better than liquid female friends, I ‘spose] Gives me a different perspective on things. Plus they’re so pretty to look at when having conversations. But I also grow a hell of a beard, so I’m definitely a man’s man as well. [Ed. note: too bad, you chose ‘human man’ and that’s that]
What is your favorite thing about New York in the winter?
When it snows a ton and no one is out on the streets. It’s really amazing to be in such a busy city when it stops being busy.
What is your favorite thing about me in the winter?
Your koala sweater.
Mine too. You went to Southeast Asia for a long time last summer. Tell me one way in which your entire life changed for better or worse as a result?
It reinforced a long standing thought I had that I work really well in the moment, trusting my instincts and just going on adventures.
So you learned nothing. Cool. If you weren’t already a video production guru and a world class chef, what would you be?
I would give up everything to go back and take school a tad more seriously in the past so that I could be a quantum physicist or astronomer. Space is the place. I’m obsessed. Others look at porn or pictures of cats when they surf the net. I read articles about string theory and black holes. Oh wait, that last one is my top linked porn site. [Ed. note: Hey-Ooh! BAM!]
If you could eat a sandwich with any celebrity alive or dead, what sandwich would it be?
I would want to eat a turkey, cheddar, hummus, and avocado sandwich on olive loaf bread with Douglas Adams. That man enjoyed a good sandwich.
James also writes a blog with Brendan Walsh called Dear Movies in which they write letters to movies. Very Po-Mo. (That is to say Post-Modern, not poor homosexual, though I would hear that argument out.) His beard waxes and wanes like the moon cycles, and by that I mean both the show and the celestial body.
by Jordan Clifford
