Eugene Mirman & David Cross Get Wasted, Discuss Indie Rock

Eugene Mirman and David Cross go five rounds with Entertainment Weekly's Laura Gilbert.

ROUND 1
EW (Heineken): How long have you guys known each other?
Mirman (Dewar's neat): I moved to New York four years ago, and we met maybe a year after that.
EW: So why's David here tonight?
Mirman: I've guided him through hard times -- but more specifically because I opened for him in D.C. for the recording of his album, and he did the liner notes for mine.

ROUND 2
Mirman (Irish Car Bomb [a shot of Baileys and Jameson dropped into a pint of Guinness]): We drop the glass in here?
Cross (Irish Car Bomb): Then chug. [Drinks] Belch.
EW (Irish Car Bomb): You opened for the Shins, right?
Mirman: Yes, I toured with Modest Mouse, too, and I'm about to do a tour with Yo La Tengo.
Cross: How'd Modest Mouse go?
Mirman: Fun. Most audiences were cool, I do a lot of videos, so people are hesitant, but then you do a video and they pay attention, then people are excited. On one, I edited myself in the Mötley Crüe Behind The Music. So it's Mötley Crüe talking about how fucked up everything is, and then I'm like, "I woke up with 17 girls inside my dick!"

ROUND 3
EW (Irish Car Bomb): When did you move here from Russia?
Mirman (The Macallan neat): When I was about 4 ... I'm pretty drunk.
Cross: I heard the Von Bondies did this Five Rounds thing and didn't even drink all their drinks.

ROUND 4
EW (Heineken): What albums should someone buy if they wanted to fake being a hipster like you guys?
Cross (Heineken): Get one electroclash CD, whatever it is, then pretend you don't listen to it anymore and you hate it. And you have to have something on the Vice label, the Streets or Death From Above 1979.
Mirman (The Macallan neat): It depends. Just how cool do you want to be?
Cross: It's like when The New York Times writes about hipsters and they're always a year and half behind. I swear to God they just wrote an article about the Blackberry. "Outside of hotshot office people and metrosexual people, most people don't know about it." What?!?! It's been around for fucking years. Years. Not months, years! Several years. But "Hot off the press!"

ROUND 5
Cross (Heineken): Let me tell you what happened in London. It's been several years since I puked from drinking, but in London we went to Crobar.
Mirman (dirty Tanqueray martini): Is that here?
Cross: In London, England, not London, Arizona. I said London like three times! Anyway, I did Irish Car Bombs, then Jägermeister shots and more beer. I woke up the next morning really out of it, with my glasses on the ground, stepped on. I go to the bathroom and there is a deep red, bloody purplish, massive amount of puke on the side of the walls, the side of the bowl, in the back of the bowl...
Mirman: And that's when I remembered I murdered a kid! I never feel sick. The only time I'll feel sick is if I have a lot of water.

ROUND 6
Cross (Irish Car Bomb): It's "Five Rounds With..." but it didn't say "Only Five Rounds."
Mirman (Irish Car Bomb): Wow. We just fucking put the Von Bondies to shame! Let's break a a record, too! I will be the first to start ... with another Diet Coke!

SIDEBAR: EW stole Eugene Mirman's iPod, put it on shuffle - and confronted him with the results...

"Pink Triangle," Weezer
(from Pinkerton, 1996)
Mirman: I loved this when I was in college. I was never in love with a lesbian, oddly enough, but I'd be like, "If I was in love with a lesbian, I bet this is how I'd feel. But I'm not, so I guess I feel ... differently."

"Executioner," Robyn Hitchcock
(from Eye, 1990)
Mirman: A lot of people think of him as eccentric, but I find he's either very straight-forward or his absurdity is sincere - something I also try to do in comedy.

"Track 17," Eugene Mirman
(from The Absurd Nightclub Comedy Of Eugene Mirman, 2004)
Mirman: This dance remix of my jokes just happens to be in my iPod. I'm not like, "God, I am really making a different with my song jokes!"

"I Saw Nick Drake," Robyn Hitchcock
(from A Star For Bram, 2000)
Mirman: I guess I have 1,000 songs and 400 of them are Robyn Hitchcock, so he's going to come up a lot. Nick Drake is awesome. You can ask anyone at Volkswagen. They'll back me on this.

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