TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Ian Karmel, stand-up comedian and former co-head writer of "The Late Late show With James Corden." He's written a new book about his life as part of the "T-Shirt Swim Club." The criteria for this club - being a fat person in a skinny world. Growing up in Oregon, Ian describes being a chubby kid in elementary school, weighing 300 pounds by middle school and weighing over 420 pounds by the time he was 30. For years, much of Ian's stand-up comedy centered around his body size. Here's a clip from the 2018 Netflix special "The Comedy Lineup."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IAN KARMEL: I matched with a woman on Tinder, and we were messaging back and forth. It was very flirty and fun. I was excited about it. And then she sent me the following message. She said, you're cute. You're like a chubby Jack Black.
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: Jack Black is a fat person.
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: She told me I was cute, like the chubbier version of an already fat person.
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: And the worst part is she's 100% right. I do look like a fatter Jack Black. That's what I - like, if you saw me on the cover of Us Weekly, you'd be like, oh, Jack, get it together, man. Come on.
(LAUGHTER)
MOSLEY: That was our guest today, Ian Karmel, performing in Netflix's "The Comedy Lineup." Since then, Ian has lost over 200 pounds. But being a smaller body size is a new identity he's still trying to get used to because so much of who he was is tied to his experiences as a fat guy, a humiliating experience as a kid navigating gym classes, airplane seats and a relentless barrage of fat jokes from friends and strangers and pop culture, all of which fueled his comedy.
Ian wrote this new memoir along with his sister, Alisa Karmel, who also cycled through fad diets, eventually pursuing a master's in nutrition and a doctorate in psychology to change the narrative on fatness. Ian has worked as a writer on "Chelsea Lately," the Grammys, the Tonys and "Who Is America?" with Sasha Baron Cohen. And, Ian Karmel, welcome to FRESH AIR.
KARMEL: Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here.
MOSLEY: OK, so you're a slimmer man now.
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: On the other side, some would say, of obesity. What prompted you and your sister to write this book now?
KARMEL: You know, you say on the other side of obesity. And for me, it's a constantly evolving relationship...
MOSLEY: Huh.
KARMEL: ...With obesity. I just got back from, like, a 2 1/2-week road trip, right?
MOSLEY: Yup.
KARMEL: And I had a very active relationship with obesity on that road trip.
MOSLEY: What do you mean?
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: You know, It's hard to eat healthy on the road, and I feel - though I have lost all that weight, I definitely felt, you know - demon is too strong of a word for it, but I definitely felt like old habits creeping back in. Fifteen, 20 pounds later, you're like, oh, this is a lifelong relationship (laughter).
MOSLEY: Right. Right.
KARMEL: And, you know, that was honestly part of what inspired my little sister and I to start thinking about this book and having these conversations and start writing that book - is because once we lost, you know, a bunch of weight and went through that process, as well, we were kind of standing on the other side of it, looking back. And we realized we'd never had these conversations about it with each other. We never talked about the experiences of growing up fat.
MOSLEY: I think it's so interesting and also really great that you all had each other to be able to talk about this stuff because most people - their relationship with their bodies - it's a singular thing.
KARMEL: So, so singular. And even amongst my sister and I, you know, we both had such unique experiences. Certainly, the differences for a man and a woman going through being fat in America are very different, and the pressures are very different. And even the ways we dealt with it were different, which was interesting because, you know, we were both these fat kids. We were fat adults. And, you know, she got a doctorate in psychology. She's, like - does nutrition counseling. She has devoted her life to this pursuit.
MOSLEY: And you're a comedian.
KARMEL: The opposite of that (laughter), the opposite of that.
MOSLEY: Did both of you - do you think both of you growing up as fat kids was the reason for what you do?
KARMEL: Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I mean, definitely, you see a straight line with my sister with what she's doing. You know, she went through that as a kid. And now she does nutrition counseling with kids, teenagers, adults and wants to help them through it, help them through all the pitfalls that still currently exist for fat people in America. You know, she will, for example, prep people on going to the doctor. You know, fat people - it's very scary.
MOSLEY: Which we're going to talk about. Right.
KARMEL: We'll talk about that. Yeah. But so she will sit and prep them, you know, and, like, do sort of a pre doctor's appointment with them. So she definitely was affected by that. And for me, you know, the first place I learned to be funny was, like, on the school yard, trying to diffuse this weird tension around my body, both from active bullying of people, like, making fun of me, making jokes about me, and also this vague sense that, like, there was something wrong with me - that I held all of my insecurities on the outside of my body, right?
MOSLEY: Those thoughts happened at the exact same time.
KARMEL: Yes.
MOSLEY: You learned you were fat, and then you also learned that it was bad.
KARMEL: That's how you find out 'cause when you're a kid, you know, there's just, like, vaguely different shapes of kids, right? You know, there's, like, kind of a little chubbier kid, skinnier kid. None of it really matters. And then you find out that you're fat and that it's bad when somebody makes fun of you for being fat. You find out those two things at the exact same time, and that was - that's terrifying 'cause you're like, oh, I'm that? Oh, and it's bad? OK, let me work on trying to distract people from that or diffuse the tension. And when you're a little fat kid, you're learning that you're going to get made fun of. And for me, I was like, well, if that's happening, I want to be in on it.
MOSLEY: Right. Right.
KARMEL: I'm going to beat you to the joke.
MOSLEY: It's a defense mechanism...
KARMEL: It's a defense mechanism.
MOSLEY: ...To be funny.
KARMEL: I'm going to make fun of myself first. And I'm going to do it better, and I'm going to be in on it. So at least if we're destroying me, I will be participating in my own self-destruction, so I can at least find a role for myself, right? Being a kid is terrifying. And if you can be the funny fat kid, at least that's a role. To me, that was better than being the fat kid who wasn't funny, you know, who was getting - who was being sad over in the corner, even if that was how I was actually feeling a lot of the time.
MOSLEY: The title of the book, the "T-Shirt Swim Club" - anyone who has been fat - it immediately - you immediately know what that means.
KARMEL: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: It is this unspoken thing that fat kids and fat people wear a T-shirt in a pool. And where did it even come from? Because it doesn't help.
KARMEL: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: It doesn't change the fact that you're fat, and people could see that you're fat.
KARMEL: It accentuates it.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: It's also this thing - thank God for learning about, I guess, the damage that the sun does to our bodies 'cause now all sorts of people are wearing T-shirts in the pool.
MOSLEY: Right. Right.
KARMEL: But, like, when we were growing up, I don't think that was happening.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: It's absurd. We wear this T-shirt because we either want to protect ourselves, I think, from prying eyes. But I think what it really is is this internalized body shame, where we want to, like - where I'm like, hey, I know my body's disgusting. I know I'm going to gross you out while you're just trying to have a good time at the pool. So let me put this T-shirt on. And it's all the more ridiculous, you know, 'cause it doesn't change any - it doesn't actually cover you up. Instead, it's, like, a thin...
MOSLEY: Right. Once you get in the water, it accentuates every single roll...
KARMEL: It hugs...
MOSLEY: ...Every single - hugs you.
KARMEL: ...Every curve. There are people - there are Italian men in Milan who have been looking for that form-fitting, you know, science of a wet T-shirt for their entire lives, crumpling up papers, right? There's nothing like a wet T-shirt. And so now you're just a fat kid with, you know, like, your torso peeking through a wet Big Dog logo...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...As you stand in the shallow end of the pool. And it becomes all the more ridiculous because a T-shirt in a pool sort of becomes the calling card of a fat kid.
MOSLEY: This book is about your formative years growing up as a fat kid and the impact that it had on you growing up. And then there is, towards the latter half, your sister Alisa really contextualizes it and gives folks who are reading the book an understanding of actually how to understand and how to interface with young people and older people who are experiencing - who are fat. And you know what? Every time I say fat, Ian, I feel like I'm saying a bad word.
KARMEL: I know what you mean (laughter). There's that little twinge in the back of your head, right?
MOSLEY: But you claim it. Like, you claim it. You say, I mean, we should say what it is. There's actually in the book, there are these little notes where, like, the funny names we use, overweight, husky, heavy...
KARMEL: Oh, yeah.
MOSLEY: Like, just say fat.
KARMEL: Well-upholstered.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: All of these that - Rubenesque. There's all these different terms. And, you know, early on, when I was talking to Alisa about writing this book, we were like, are we going to say fat? I think we should say fat. And we had a conversation about it, and we landed on the determination that it's not the word's fault that people treat fat people like garbage. And we tend to do this thing where we will bring in a new word. We will load that word up with all of the sin of our behavior, toss that word out, pull a new one in. And then all of a sudden, we let that word soak up all the sin, and we never really change the way we actually treat people. It becomes the word's fault.
I've been called fat, overweight, obese, husky, big guy, you know, chunky - any number of words, all of those words just loaded up with venom. You know, you could call me, like, obese. Obese actually became worse than fat at a point because, like, obese had this weird - obese was like fat with a doctorate, where it was, like...
MOSLEY: Connected to death, almost.
KARMEL: Connected to death, absolutely - morbidly obese. It has that word morbid in front of it. It hurts way more than fat. Fat is, like, connected to - I don't know - the contents of almond butter or John Candy, right? I mean...
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: And, yeah, so we decided we were going to say fat because that's what we are. That's what I think of myself as. And I'm going to take it back to basics, because what we're hoping to - I mean, we didn't really set out, I guess, with a direct hope. But if I could - in my wildest dreams, if this book affects even the way one person thinks about fat people, even if that fat person happens to be themselves, that would be this book succeeding, you know, in every way that I would hope for.
MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is stand-up comedian and writer Ian Karmel. He's written a new memoir called the "T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories Of Being Fat In A World Of Thin People." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOLDENBOY SONG, "KITTENS OF LUST")
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and my guest today is Ian Karmel. He's an Emmy-winning comedian and former co-head writer of "The Late Late Show With James Corden." He's written a new book about his life as part of the T-shirt swim club. The criteria for this club? Being a fat person in a skinny world. His new memoir is written along with his sister, Alisa Karmel, who herself cycled through fat diets, eventually pursuing a master's in nutrition and a doctorate in psychology, with the goal, she says, of changing the narrative on fatness.
One of the things is so powerful, among many things that you write in this book, is that when you're a fat kid, you learn to anticipate the cruelty of people.
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: That's why you became a comedian, because you're able to, like, step in there. Before you get to me, I'm going to make fun of myself. Has the anticipation of cruelty changed or shifted at all now as a thinner person?
KARMEL: I did anticipate that cruelty. But I think I anticipated the cruelty to my own detriment. And I think there's something really odious about bullying, and this is probably true across the board. For me, it was about being a fat kid. But it's when it happens a few times, you start to wince. You do start to anticipate it, right? You think it's going to be everywhere. Even if it's, like, four or five kids at a school...
MOSLEY: You think the world feels that way about you.
KARMEL: You think everybody. You think, like, if four or five people are saying this to my face, then there must be vast whisper campaigns. That must be what they're huddled over there talking about. Any time somebody giggles in the corner and you are in that same room, there's a part of you...
MOSLEY: You become paranoid.
KARMEL: You become paranoid. There's a part of you that thinks, like, they must be laughing at me.
MOSLEY: Yeah. One of the things you talk about is the way that your parents, the way that the adults related to you...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...As a young person who was fat.
KARMEL: My mom and my dad - our mom and our dad, me and Alisa, they were wonderful. You know, they, I think, did the best they could, given everything - I mean, given the onslaught of popular culture, given the nature of food in the 1990s. You know, like, this was...
MOSLEY: Yeah, 'cause it was processed food heaven back then.
KARMEL: Yo, it was...
MOSLEY: That was, like, peak process.
KARMEL: Everywhere, and it was delicious. It was so good. Like...
MOSLEY: And it was marketed to you as a kid, yeah.
KARMEL: Specifically.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: Even the health food was, like...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: That was the year of SnackWell's cookies, right? That's when you were - like, the box was green, so we thought it was healthy. They were like, no fat. And we were like, OK. So I guess that was before we knew about what sugar was or something like that...
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: 'Cause they were loaded with that. And, you know, we didn't really know. I think people were doing the best they could, especially my parents, you know? My parents were divorced but they were both very active in our lives. My mom would work nights as a nurse, and that involved a lot of, like, sticking a frozen lasagna in the oven...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...And then heading off to work for 12 hours. And she was gone, so if I ate four more pieces after she was gone, she couldn't have done anything about that. And my dad...
MOSLEY: Pop in a hot pocket in the microwave.
KARMEL: All the time.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: And there were four kids in our house. So, what, is she going to, like, line us up like the von Trapp family the next day like, all right, who had how many hot pockets? My dad had us involved in sports and all that stuff and, like, was very, you know - checked in with us about it. But more than anything, I think there was this drive to make our home a refuge from how cruel the world could be to fat people and specifically to fat kids. It was...
MOSLEY: So they didn't talk about your weight?
KARMEL: We never talked about it.
MOSLEY: What you do in the book, though, with this is really - you're able to see that there would have never been a world where they would have had the language to be able to talk to you about it.
KARMEL: Absolutely. You know, you write a book, and it's weird. You write it and then it comes out in a year and a half later, right? Like (laughter), I mean, you go through this process, like a year later it comes out. And I didn't really think about how my parents would take this. And they've both kind of taken it a little harder than I had hoped and, certainly, intended.
MOSLEY: How have they taken it?
KARMEL: You know, my mom and - my dad in his way and my mom in her way, which is very honestly and very, you know, vulnerably, said, like, I wish I could have done more. I wish I would've been there to protect you. I wish I would've known. You know, I did the best I could. And not only did she do the best she could, she did the best. So many fat kids, so many people I've talked to just in, like, the few weeks since the book has come out - and I've had all these conversations. I went on the road and got to talk to, like, so many people at these shows who went through similar things, and oftentimes worse. So many people did not have the support at home, even if that was just, you know, in the form of it being a place where we didn't have to talk about it. So many people got shamed at home.
MOSLEY: Right, because your parents thought the best way to build confidence in our children is to not be another voice. And a lot of people are in homes where they're constantly shamed about it as a way to get them...
KARMEL: Constantly.
MOSLEY: ...To lose weight.
KARMEL: I learned about this term almond moms in the last month or so.
MOSLEY: Ooh. What's an almond mom?
KARMEL: An almond mom is the mom who, like, smacks the cheese that's out of your hand and replaces it with a bag...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...With five almonds in it...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...And who say, like, oh, you're getting a little chunky, or, like...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...We're going to have to get new clothes for you - like, that kind of stuff, you know? And we didn't have that. That is why I attribute my parents as to whom I attribute having a happy childhood. And I had - I know it's going to seem morose, and if you read this book especially, I hope - I tried to point out that I was having a great time while all of this other stuff was going on.
MOSLEY: You were being a kid. You were also being a kid. Yeah.
KARMEL: I got to be a kid. I got to - every now and then, I'd get to the front of the roller coaster line after two hours, and the bar wouldn't close. And that was horrifying and humiliating and terrible. But I was still at the amusement park. My parents still took me there. You know, I still got to ride the other rides. I still had an elephant ear, you know?
MOSLEY: There was an incident where you got on a ride and you couldn't close it.
KARMEL: Yeah, absolutely, where I was waiting in line and I got up - for two hours - got up to the front, couldn't close the bar over my stomach - just wouldn't close. The guy, like, kind of, like, tried to jam it in like you were trying to close luggage in the back of a hatchback, and it still wouldn't go. And I had to get up in front of all these people and walk away. And in doing that, some guy from the back yelled, get in my belly, like Fat Bastard...
MOSLEY: From "Austin Powers."
KARMEL: ...From "Austin Powers," which was the other thing. I mean, like, this was also an era when, you know, our finest comedic minds were devoting their energy to making fun of fat people.
MOSLEY: The '90s were all about fat jokes.
KARMEL: Vicious.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: And hilarious. I should also point out. It's hard to - they were funny. That's kind of what killed so much about it - is I would go to Austin Powers, you know, "The Spy Who Shagged Me," the second one. And you were laughing at Fat Bastard 'cause this is Mike Myers. This is one of the funniest people of all time devoting his brain, his genius to creating this character, who was funny but also devastating and heartbreaking. In one of the Austin Powers movies, you know, he says, like, I eat...
MOSLEY: I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat.
KARMEL: And that was the first time I'd ever heard that concept, you know, 'cause I'm, like, in my teens.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: You know, nobody says that to you. And that was the first time I'd heard that concept ever laid out like that. And it was like, oh, my God. And then five seconds later, he farts for 20 seconds.
MOSLEY: Right. And that's the punchline. That's the joke.
KARMEL: That's the punchline...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...Is that even, like, this big, fat idiot can't even hold a concept in his head without later doing something disgusting, you know, in the same breath. And that is funny. I'm a comedian. I was probably laughing in the theater, but there was another part of me at the same time that was like, oh, damn it.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: And also, you leave these movies, and you're like, Well, I'm going to be hearing that for the next two, three years.
MOSLEY: You're going to be Fat Bastard to all the classmates...
KARMEL: I was...
MOSLEY: ...And stuff like that.
KARMEL: ...Fat Bastard. I was Eric Cartman. I was Fat Albert. And it sucks 'cause it's funny, and it hits. And that was what memes were. That's how - you know, when I was growing up, that's how people communicated with one another - was through quotes. At least little boys...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...Was, like...
MOSLEY: Constant.
KARMEL: It was a "Simpsons" quote...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...Followed by a "South Park" quote followed by...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: ...You know, a quote from a movie. And you had everybody - Eddie Murphy in - you know, in "The Nutty Professor," you know, like, doing - putting on a fat suit. Everybody was putting on fat suits, and they were all hilarious. And it was all pretty devastating, partly because you didn't really have alternatives. You didn't have that and.
MOSLEY: You didn't have any positive role models.
KARMEL: No.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: It was - you didn't have Fat Bastard and there's this, like, cool character in...
MOSLEY: Right.
KARMEL: ...You know, in "Blade Runner" or something.
MOSLEY: Is there one today?
KARMEL: No.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: No. No, that hasn't gotten any better. There are less bad. But still, I mean, pop culture has evolved. Like, fat people, I think, are still one of the groups that it's definitely OK to make fun of. That's absolutely true. But they have figured out how to - they - I mean we. I'm part of this industry, too, and I've done it to myself. We have figured out how to continue doing that in - maybe it's less on the punchline and more on the pity. You know, you have Brendan Fraser playing...
MOSLEY: Right.
KARMEL: ...You know...
MOSLEY: "The Whale."
KARMEL: ...The big, fat guy in "The Whale." And at least that's somebody who is fat and who has dealt with those issues, maybe not to the extent of, like, a 500-, 600-pound man, but still to some extent. And good for him - I mean, an amazing performance but still one where it's like, here's this big, fat, pathetic person.
MOSLEY: Our guest today is stand-up comedian and writer Ian Karmel. We're talking about his new memoir, "The T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories Of Being Fat In A World Of Thin People." We'll be back after this short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF REGGIE QUINERLY'S "MY BLUE HEAVEN")
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my guest on the show today is Ian Karmel, stand-up comedian and former co-head writer of "The Late Late Show With James Corden." He's written a new book about his life growing up called the "T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories Of Being Fat In A World Of Thin People." His new memoir is written along with his sister, Alisa Karmel, who herself cycled through fad diets, eventually pursuing a master's in nutrition and a doctorate in psychology with the goal of changing the narrative on fatness.
You have very strong feelings about the body positivity movement.
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: You're not 100% onboard - like, oh, yeah, we're all self-love - because you feel like there's a lot of things we're not considering in this movement.
KARMEL: I do think there's a lot of things we're not considering in this movement. I think one is that it is a way for people to sell things to us. And I think it will always be the case. I mean, we live in America, for God's sake.
MOSLEY: Right, corporate body positivity.
KARMEL: There's corporate body positivity. And that's where you see, like, the fat person in the Gatorade ad, where they figured out that fat people drink Gatorade, too, and they're like, oh, we should put a couple of them in the ads. But it's never fully representational. It's always us doing something slow. It's always us doing yoga or something like that, or tai chi, because God forbid we jiggle in one of their commercials, you know? So they don't let us - you're never going to see, like, a fat person doing high-impact interval training in a Gade commercial. When we do, that'll be progress, too.
MOSLEY: But one thing that you point out in the book is that the places that fat people actually go and the products that they actually use, we never see fat representation in those commercials.
KARMEL: Never. I have yet to see the Olive Garden commercial...
MOSLEY: (Laughter).
KARMEL: ...Where there's a fat family enjoying themselves at dinner. Never. It always looks like people who just stepped off a yacht at the Cape and they're like, oh, shall we go to the Olive Garden for dinner, honey? Like, those are the people we see.
MOSLEY: Why do you think that is? Because, I mean, if a population is bringing in the profits, why aren't they shown?
KARMEL: I think because unless a fat person is seen to be working towards something and inspiring and, like, trying to throw off the yoke of being fat, then we're still thought of as disgusting. Even though we are the people who go to the Olive Garden - walk into an Olive Garden. Walk into any one of these restaurants. I worked at one. I was a fat waiter, and I was serving fat customers. It was a real fat-on-fat situation.
MOSLEY: (Laughter).
KARMEL: But they're afraid that people will see that and associate their food with being fat and being disgusting. And here's the flip side of that coin and what makes it so tricky and what makes body positivity so tricky to me is that, you know, one of the big impetuses - I started my journey towards trying to be a healthier person. And this is the part where I think it's very important to point out that there are all sorts of fat people. And a lot of fat people are healthy. There's a lot of people who, like, on the BMI are considered obese - there's that word again - or any number of things. Their blood pressure is under control.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: They have a good blood sugar, they go to the gym, they work out, you know?
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: But I was not one of those healthy fat people. I was very unhealthy. I'd already started trying to get to a healthier weight and eat healthier and move more. But there was a point when I went to the doctor because I woke up one morning thinking I was having a heart attack. I was, like, 35-years-old, 34 maybe. And I had been eating healthy for a couple of months, and I took a break from that.
I went out with my friend and I had some drinks. I went to my favorite chicken wing restaurant. I had a bunch of chicken wings. And then I went to bed, and I woke up at 4 in the morning with my heart pounding so fast and so hard against my rib cage in a way I'd never felt before. And I thought I was having a heart attack.
MOSLEY: You thought you were going to die?
KARMEL: I thought I was going to die in that moment. And while I was having that thought - oh, my God, I'm going to die - was also, well, here it is. It felt like...
MOSLEY: It finally caught up with you.
KARMEL: It finally caught up with me. It wasn't a matter, in my head - still I have these thoughts. It's not a matter of if but when.
MOSLEY: What also struck me, though, about this story...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...Is that when you felt that and you thought you were going to die, you called 911. But you also went out to the front of your house...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: Because you didn't want them to have to come in and carry you out.
KARMEL: I didn't even call 911. I went downstairs because I didn't want them to come carry me out. I didn't want, like, three paramedics to get underneath me, and I didn't want people to see that. So I walked down and I went and stood on the sidewalk and I put 911 into my phone. And I didn't even hit send, because I knew if I hit send - and at this moment I'm like, I'm having a heart attack. But if I hit send, that means it's over. Then an ambulance would come and they would examine me. And they would be like, all right - if I wasn't having a heart attack, they'd be like, show's over. You at least thought you were going to. Now you need to, like, get your head out of the sand.
MOSLEY: Because you had been avoiding doctors all this time.
KARMEL: For more than a decade. And at that point, that was such a traumatic, horrifying experience where, like, I kind of felt like I didn't pull my head out of the sand. My body was ripped out of the sand and my head went with it. I was like, it can't get worse than that day was, so I started going to the doctor. And that sucked. The first doctor I went to was like, all right, we're probably going to do a bariatric surgery, but it's going to take six months, and you're on blood pressure medication. You'll probably be on that for the rest of your life. So just, like, very callous, very direct in a way where it hurt, but I was like, oh, God. OK, I'm going to get that surgery, I guess. And no shade on anyone who gets that surgery. I think that's - any way you can address these kind of health concerns I think is good. But he was just very blunt and very callous and didn't treat me like a human being, treated me like a problem, which was the fear I had had my entire life.
MOSLEY: And what many people who are overweight say they experience.
KARMEL: To the point where it is more unique if they're not.
MOSLEY: There was a switch, though, that went off in you.
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: You didn't do bariatric surgery.
KARMEL: No.
MOSLEY: But you ended up over the last few years losing a considerable amount of weight.
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: Do you find that people are oddly suspicious of your weight loss, especially in the...
KARMEL: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: You know, we're in the time of Ozempic...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: And weight loss drugs.
KARMEL: Definitely. I was in Boise, of all places on God's green Earth, doing shows a few weeks ago. And I had found that amongst the Boise comedy scene, there was, like, a consensus that I got that surgery. And everyone was like, so you did the surgery...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: And then you look fantastic - blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I didn't get the surgery. And then it's this weird thing where I'm like, but I also don't think there's a problem if you do get that surgery.
MOSLEY: Right.
KARMEL: But it is weird to have people be suspicious of you and look at you askance.
MOSLEY: My guest is stand-up comedian and writer Ian Karmel. He's written a new memoir called the "T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories From Being Fat In A World Of Thin People." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF TODD SICKAFOOSE'S "PAPER TROMBONES")
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is Ian Karmel. He's an Emmy-winning comedian and former co-head writer of "The Late Late Show With James Corden." He's written a new book about his life as part of the "T-Shirt Swim Club." The criteria for this club - being a fat person in a skinny world.
You were a writer for James Corden for several years. And there is this cool moment in 2019 where you decide that you all have to do a rebuttal on something...
KARMEL: Oh, yeah.
MOSLEY: ...That Bill Maher went in on about how we need to bring back fat-shaming. How did you and James address what Bill Maher said?
KARMEL: Bill Maher did one of his - you know, I don't think Bill Maher - I like some of the stuff he does, but he can be very condescending, and I think that's why a lot of people like him. And he had one of his condescending videos where he was talking about wanting to bring back fat-shaming. And it was laden with all these tropes that I'd been hearing my entire life, like, put down the doughnut, pick up a kale chip.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: Being fat is bad for you. You're driving up - you're stressing out the healthcare system in America.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: Blaming America's healthcare problems on...
MOSLEY: On fat people.
KARMEL: ...Fat people. And I hated it. I saw it. I watched the whole video. I watched it a couple times, and it really made me angry.
MOSLEY: But you and James sat down.
KARMEL: Yes.
MOSLEY: And you thought about, how are we going to offer a rebuttal to this? So I want to play a clip...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...From some of what you wrote. And in this clip, James Corden offers a rebuttal to Bill Maher. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN")
JAMES CORDEN: We're not all as lucky as Bill Maher, you know? We don't all have a sense of superiority that burns 35,000 calories a day.
(LAUGHTER)
CORDEN: I kid because I love - Bill, I sincerely believe that what you think you're offering here is tough love, and you're just trying to help by not sugarcoating reality for fat people, even though you know how much fat people love sugarcoating things.
(LAUGHTER)
CORDEN: But the truth is, you're working against your own cause. It's proven that fat-shaming only does one thing. It makes people feel ashamed, and shame leads to depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, self-destructive behavior like overeating. When I watched that clip, I got up, walked to the freezer and grabbed a pint of ice cream.
(LAUGHTER)
CORDEN: I'm kidding. I was already halfway through the pint when I started watching.
(LAUGHTER)
CORDEN: But Bill may have made me finish it. He might have done.
(APPLAUSE)
MOSLEY: That was a clip from "The Late Late Show With James Corden" from 2019, where my guest Ian Karmel was the lead co-writer and helped write that rebuttal to Bill Maher's fat-shaming comments. And, Ian, what's so interesting to me about that rebuttal is also you're making fun while also saying, hey, it's not right for you to call out us. So it's kind of like doing both those things.
KARMEL: Yeah, listening back to it now, I'm like, oh, this is full of fat jokes.
MOSLEY: Yeah, exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: But it's - I mean, I guess it goes back to the thing you were saying, the wanting to apologize. It's - you do feel like you have to apologize for being fat or even for, like, sticking up for yourself a little bit. And the other part of it is we're a comedy show.
MOSLEY: Right.
KARMEL: And I wrote all those jokes in there. James and I sat down in an office, and I wrote, you know, the sugarcoating and the sense of superiority, and the two of us sat there and figured it out. Now, going back and listening to it, I guess I am a little embarrassed...
MOSLEY: Really?
KARMEL: ...That I had to put so many fat jokes in it. But, you know, part of what I think what Bill Maher's message failed in doing - and I think what we were hoping to do was using some of that, having a fat person make those jokes to get that message out to as many people as we could. And if they were laughing every five or 10 seconds, you know, if you're sugarcoating the medicine, hopefully, it'll go down, and hopefully those words will get out there. But I was struck a little bit listening to that back, you know, being like, oh, geez, you know, I was really trading on the system, participating in my own self-destruction.
MOSLEY: During your time working for James Corden, you earned an Emmy award - congratulations...
KARMEL: Thank you.
MOSLEY: ...For your work on "Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney Live From Liverpool."
(LAUGHTER)
KARMEL: We tried to add a few more words to the title, but the Academy cut us off.
MOSLEY: Right. Right. You only have so much space. You've also been nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding writing for Variety special for your writing for the Tony Awards. Who was hosting?
KARMEL: James Corden both times.
MOSLEY: James - both times he was hosting.
KARMEL: Yeah, yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: Which - if you could host the Tonys for a living, that would be his job. He's really, really good at it.
MOSLEY: You all have a great relationship. You're able to see each other. I noticed that, even when you're on his show when you've done some stand-up, and he's looking at you almost like a proud papa.
KARMEL: He's - I mean, he's amazing. He's a dear friend, first of all. But also, like, getting to work, like, in the industry for a fat dude, for a guy who grew up fat and, like, made it in the industry as a fat person was very cool. Even when we were doing, like, fat jokes on the show, I'm like, at least it's us doing it, man. Like, at least it's you and I making these jokes. And I could write things for him that he would implicitly understand without having to explain it to him the way I would have to, maybe, to another host. You know, I think, like, a lot of his sensibilities were defined either by being fat or raging against it.
MOSLEY: Going back to the Tony Awards, what's the process of writing for a show like that? Were you writing during the show?
KARMEL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Grammys, the Tonys - you are in a room underneath the stage, and the host comes running back every now and then. And you have to respond to stuff happening...
MOSLEY: In real time.
KARMEL: ...In real time on the stage. If something crazy happens, you need to be able to comment on it, or else your host is going to look oblivious and. like, completely out of touch. So it's usually - it starts probably about a month out, maybe a little bit longer, and that's when you start the big swing ideas. I'll give an example of something that I wasn't able to get to happen on the Grammys, even though we got it right up to the goal line - is Miley Cyrus and Elton John were doing "Tiny Dancer" at the Grammys.
MOSLEY: I remember this.
KARMEL: It was amazing. I love Elton John. I love Miley Cyrus. And they were doing it together. And we knew James was going to come out afterwards and throw it to a commercial break. That's why I'm like, OK. You get that run a show. You see what all the performances are going to be. I spotlighted that one, and I was like, I have the dumbest idea on the planet. I think after "Tiny Dancer," James should bring Tony Danza out. And then once the camera cuts to them, he looks at Tony. He's like, oh, I'm so sorry; I completely misunderstood - a joke we've all made, like, a joke - everyone has been like, I thought it was hold me closer, Tony Danza, right? It's one of those - it's like, as soon as you hear the song, it sounds like that. It's not very smart. But to me, it would have been very cool if you got Tony Danza to actually participate in it for the very first time.
MOSLEY: Yes.
KARMEL: And James was on board. Elton John and Miley Cyrus...
MOSLEY: Were on board.
KARMEL: ...Were on board. They were like, we're going to get them to be like, it actually is Tony Danza.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: You know, like, we have this big moment with them. And we got it right up to the goal line, and Tony Danza's lawyer shut it down. I'm like, Come on. And, like, the world would have loved it. That's an idea that, like, you have a month out, and it keeps getting - the closer it gets to feeling real.
MOSLEY: It evolves - right...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...In the moment.
KARMEL: It evolves in the moment, and then...
MOSLEY: How do you keep the high when it doesn't happen? So I can imagine as the jokes hit, as you hear the crowd into it....
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: That just fuels you to come up with more and more stuff. But when you hear the bombing, when you're like, oh, that's not going to work, or...
KARMEL: Oh, like in stand-up...
MOSLEY: In stand-up...
KARMEL: ...Or in anything.
MOSLEY: ...Or even during an awards show where you're hearing your - the feedback from the crowd on what you're doing.
KARMEL: Well, hopefully, you have a good host. And a good host will know - a good comedian, a good anyone like a live performer will know to acknowledge the bomb. A really good comedian or host can own the bomb. When a joke doesn't hit, you acknowledge it, and that makes you seem self-aware and charming. And then that helps you win the crowd back. The worst thing you can do and when things truly get out of hand is when someone is bombing and then they just try to fight through it...
MOSLEY: Right.
KARMEL: ...And don't ever acknowledge it. And then you see, like the sweat forming on their forehead and at their armpits, and you're like, oh, no.
MOSLEY: Right. And you're feeling pity. Yeah.
KARMEL: And you're feeling pity, or you're feeling disdain. And, like, as a writer, like, in the back, I've been both sides. I've been a writer and a performer, and it is the worst feeling on Earth 'cause you're - you can lose - we've seen it happen with awards show hosts. I'm never - I will never name names 'cause I like to continue...
MOSLEY: Working.
KARMEL: ...Working. But, like, you see it, and you're like, uh-oh. They lost them early. And then the audience just resents them more and more throughout the night. Corden - and I don't think I'm telling tales outside of school. I think he's said this publicly before. It is a - hosting an awards show is a job that you can only really lose. If it goes well, you get a few nice phone calls and a couple of e-mails, and if it goes poorly, it can, like, really tank you.
MOSLEY: Yeah. It can change...
KARMEL: Yeah.
MOSLEY: ...Your career.
KARMEL: So anytime anyone actually goes out there and does a good job, it's like, oh, my God.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KARMEL: That's amazing, you know?
MOSLEY: Has your vision for your career shifted? Of course, you're a comedian. You're a stand-up comedian. But now, like, you could be a leading guy...
KARMEL: Oh, thank you (laughter).
MOSLEY: ...In a show. Like, you could be on a sitcom or a movie and be a leading guy, a love interest.
KARMEL: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I long for a life when - a world when the 400-pound me could have done the same thing. I, strangely, have found myself less interested in being on screen than ever now that I have lost weight. I loved writing this book. I love writing for television. I'm currently trying to write a television show featuring a fat person going through a lot of the stuff I went through and letting that person be the leading man.
And, you know, I think about what I want for myself and what I want for the people at home, you know, watching these shows - is for something better. And I think the way I can do that the best is with a keyboard now, you know, and, I think, through writing these things and communicating my experiences that way.
MOSLEY: Is it funny, though?
KARMEL: (Laughter) I think it is funny. I think it is funny. Being fat is being human, and it is very funny to be human.
MOSLEY: Ian Karmel, thank you so much for this conversation.
KARMEL: Thank you for having me. This has been a dream come true.
MOSLEY: Ian Karmel, stand-up comedian and author of the new book "The T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories Of Being Fat In A World Of Thin People." Up next, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the third season of the FX series "The Bear." This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF LARY BARILLEAU'S "CARMEN'S MAMBO")
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