Druggy villainous LUXURY and virtuoso LAFFS
Adam Pally comes thru talkin' reclusive comedy geniuses; when clothes are funny; and copping Swiss timepieces while HIGH & feeling EVIL (he's much better now đ)
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Adam Pally â heâs a mf prince & gentleman with a FEARSOME comedic BLADE heâs been sharpening for decades now!! He started out getting off these longform improv laughs at UCB in the â90s, then starred on sitcoms like Happy Endings and The Mindy Project in the â10s, and, most recently, absolutely crushes it alongside his buddy Sam Richardson in the wildly funny & f**ked-up series Champaign ILL, which not enough people watched when it was a paywalled âY*uTube Original,â but is finding a fresh audience on Hulu, where it just dropped last weekâŠ.

More impressive than any of that?? Adamâs a longtime Blackbird Spyplane Cla$$ified-Tier Subscriber who apparently told a mutual friend that, when he wants to know if someone is really cool, he checks to see if they follow us on Instagram. (Is this accurate? I didnât ask him, because if itâs not, I DONâT WANNA KNOW BABY!!)
This much is clear: Adam has Mach 3+ taste in jawns and sletters, so it made perfect sense that when we touched down in NYC last week for some elite linking & building, we invited him to come chop it up in the first-ever I.R.L. Blackbird Spyplane Interview â and O mama he did not disappoint, telling us about some mad cool rare cherished books from a genius mysterious Simpsons writer; about once partaking in a spell of DARK LUXURIOUS DRUGGY VILLAINY; how Hollyweird sometimes makes you resent yr friends even though you truly love them; what he wishes someone told him when he started COPPING SAUCY WATCHESâŠ
And more âunbeatable quotablesâ !!
By the way â in this Thursdayâs newsletter we are once again STOKED to partner with the GOATS at Herman Miller, this time to give away 4 pieces from their new collection of extremely beautiful & vibey archival wall art, which will be available on Oct. 26th.
These pieces are highly PRIMO limited-edition SUPER TURBO STUNNERS â and this giveaway will be a âxclusie for our âbeautiful & blessedâ Cla$$ified-Tier subscribers, so donât sleep & sign up now if youâre not already in the Inner $anctum. More Thursday!

Blackbird Spyplane: Champaign ILL got me thinking about how fun it is to see comedies that get the clothes âright,â in a way that deepens the jokes. The pinnacle of âclothing comedyâ for me is probably Danny McBride, because everything heâs ever worn on screen has had this super funny, quasi-anthropological, character-specific accuracy to it, all the way back to, like, the pleated jorts or whatever he wore in Foot Fist Way. It feels both insane & totally real. Tim Robinson does it in a more heightened register on I Think You Should Leave, with the Dan Flashes shirts or homie wearing the fedora with a curtain attached⊠and the Palm Angels tracksuits and Vetements caps that you and Sam wear in the show are exactly what these two idiots would love.
Adam Pally: âI realized early on that one product of the way Hollywood budgets work is that clothing isnât given the proper attention, especially for men. Youâll go in for a fitting, and then because of budget and time, that person will go to Loehmannâs or Kmart and buy plain flannel shirts, henleys, tri-blends â itâs the last budget item. When we got to this show we were, like, âIf it doesnât feel right on that level itâs not gonna work,â so we hired Jas Benjamin, she came up through Yeezy and Donda and she styles Anderson .Paak and sheâs so talented. We told her, Donât dress us like Anderson, dress us like the dude 3 seats away. She was like, I got you, and it worked.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Thereâs a version of the show thatâs exactly the same except youâre just wearing, like, âgeneric neon streetwearâ hoodies â and itâs less funny.
Adam Pally: âTotally â thereâs this music video in the first episode that we actually had to delay shooting because Jas wanted these specific Gosha tracksuits for it, and these, like, Balenciaga motorcyle pants, which were so perfect for that time. Thereâs a little OVO Ryan in that. God bless him, no shots fired, love OVO Ryan â but he was definitely on our moodboard.â
Blackbird Spyplane: I think when you went on How Long Gone you talked about how, at a certain point in your career, you had to move away from L.A., because youâd see your friendsâ faces on billboards and feel resentment and envy toward them â emotions that you didnât want to feel toward them.
Adam Pally: âYou know, I came up with all these talented people and came to know them deeply â anyone from Donald Glover and Jesse Eisenberg, who I went to college with, to Ben Schwartz, who was in my sketch group at UCB, to Jonah Hill, where thereâs a weird family connection. You see these people blow up and itâs amazing. I was never the type of person who said, Whereâs my s**t? I was always able to be super happy. If youâre in a sketch group and your friend gets on SNL, thatâs only good news for you.
âBut then, after things worked out for me, when there were dips, I couldnât be happy for anybody. And it wasnât good. I donât blame it on them, of course, it was me. I needed to learn what matters and recalibrate. I still feel it when Iâm in L.A. sometimes, but my relationship to that city has gotten healthier. I remember when I first went there I saw all the billboards on Sunset and I said, âThis is an amazing land of opportunity. One day I might be on there.â And then I was, and then I wasnât, and it f*cked me up. I was upset I wasnât on them. And I donât do good sh*t in that state of mind. I make bad decisions.â

Blackbird Spyplane: I asked U to pick some rare cherished possessions to tell Spy Nation about and the first thing I wanna discuss is your collection of books by John Swartzwelder. Heâs a fascinating guy â this reclusive ex-Simpsons writer who almost never grants interviews and self-publishes paperbacks about a time-traveling detective⊠I know about the legend of Swartzwelder but Iâve never read any of the books.
Adam Pally: âThe thing I really love about them is you can tell theyâre unedited. Thereâs no one being, like, âThis doesnât make sense,â and there are so many jokes per page. More jokes per page than Iâve ever read, and I donât think a publisher would have allowed that. There are times where youâre in a joke thatâs in a joke thatâs in a joke, for a full chapter. Youâre lost in the joke. Itâs like a symphony to me.â
Blackbird Spyplane: How did you first get into his s**t?
Adam Pally: âWell I loved The Simpsons, and when I was on Happy Endings, one of the writers, Daniel Chun, was like, You have to read these books. I was like, I donât read. He said, Trust me, youâre gonna wanna make it into a television show, and I read the first novel, The Time Machine Did It, from 2004, and I was like, I wanna make them all into television shows. Itâs like Naked Gun x 1,000,000.â
Blackbird Spyplane: O baby, shout out to the Zucker Brothers!! Real ones know that Airplane! and Scary Movie 3 are cinematic classicsâŠ.
Itâs funny that you say you donât read â thereâs this one New Yorker interview with Swartzwelder where he says, âNobody wants to read a book. Youâve got to catch their eye with something exciting in the first paragraph, while theyâre in the process of throwing the book away.â Thereâs something to that!
Adam Pally: âThe first lines of Time Machine are so funny: âFrank Burly is my name. Okay, itâs not my name. I lied about that.â
âI actually did try to make the books into a show, I talked to my buddy Matt Selman, the current Simpsons showrunner, and he said, You canât make it into a series because you canât find John. And he was right. I couldnât get to him. Supposedly heâs misanthropic and agoraphobic â but honestly, itâs nice that theyâre untouched.â
Blackbird Spyplane: He seems like a fascinating dude â apparently he used to love writing at this one diner so much that he had a reproduction of the booth built at his house, and thatâs where he posts up and gets his writing done??
Adam Pally: âI love people like that. Usually they have bodies in the basement, but weâll cross that bridge when we get to it. But yeah, what I love about Swartzwelder is that itâs all jokes, and thatâs okay. I think recently thatâs been deemed irrelevant or dishonest or thirsty, to want to make someone laugh.â
Blackbird Spyplane: You mean, like, post-Louie and Atlanta and, like, Nanette?
Adam Pally: âI think it started before Louie and Atlanta â and those are supremely funny shows, but theyâre also poignant and, you know, a different bag. Iâm just saying thatâs not the only valuable way to do comedy.â
Blackbird Spyplane: That reminds me, did you get into Angie Tribeca? Peace to Mach 3+ SpyFriend Rashida Jones, she was so funny on that show, which paid huge tribute to that Zuckers-style absurdity and sillinessâŠ
Adam Pally: âYeah, it was great, and that style of humor has the same value, to me, as a show like Louie or Better Things. Itâs just different. I Think You Should Leave is another perfect example â thatâs an album to me, each of those sketches are like a beautiful song you can throw on over and over. Bad Trip was one of my favorite things that came out last yearââ
Blackbird Spyplane: I loved it, what an insane movie.
Adam Pally: âEric AndrĂ© is a genius and Lil Rel is amazing, and thatâs just as hard to write and craft as, like, Scenes from a Marriage. Iâd like to see Scenes from a Marriage pull off the dick prank from Bad Trip! So thereâs something similarly unapologetic about Swarzwelder â he doesnât need to appeal to anyone he doesnât want to.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Meanwhile U also sent some pics of yr lil WATCH COLLECTION and I see youâve got one of these babies on wrist todayâŠ
Adam Pally: âIt feels kind of gauche to talk about â like, I feel weird saying, âLook at my cool watch,â but I truly donât know what else I own thatâs cool.â
Blackbird Spyplane: I know what you mean, but thereâs plenty of cool watch dudes out thereâŠ
Adam Pally: âYouâre right, thereâs a full spectrum. So anyway this is the first one I got â itâs a 1982 Submariner, the year I was born. I went to this great old watch store on Melrose called Wanna Buy A Watch? Here in New York thereâs this guy Aaron Faber, heâs an art dealer, so he has a different eye.
âMy friend David Caspe, the writer and creator who I do pretty much everything with, was the first person to introduce me to watches, and he likes flashy s**t. He has that big green Rolex I think they call the Hulk because itâs a green bezel on a green dial with white gold. He knows how to pull off that style, and when I first met him I thought, Youâve got it figured out. Iâve since learned he doesnât, but thatâs what I thought at first, and when we both got a little money we went to buy watches together, and I picked this up.
âMy favorite thing is the little round inset thing at the top of the bezel. I forget what it is. This is where John Mayerâs gonna read this and be, like, You f**king idiot, do some research. I think itâs ivory? Which almost makes me feel like one of the Tr*mp kidsâŠâ
Blackbird Spyplane: Yeah, chill, letâs leave the ivory on the elephants, babyâŠ

Adam Pally: âSo then I bought two more watches, because I was like, This is a cool, interesting way to blow my money. But I made a policy where I could only do it after I got a big job. The next one was an â85 Datejust Oysterquartz, which isnât super expensive but itâs very rare â the bracelet is a f**king tank, and I think they only made them that year. I donât think Mayer would even know about it, or have his hands on one.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Letâs see if he texts me about it.
Adam Pally: âI think he likes to go bigger. But yeah with this watch, it feels kind of like buying this rare mistake, like having a Delorean. It has a bit of a gaudy, â80s, âAlways Be Closingâ Glengarry Glen Ross vibe to it. The champagne dial makes it feel kind of American Psycho. I donât know if watch people will say, OH SH*T, but I like it.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Any community of obsessive collectors is going to have all these arcane prerogatives and preferences that, if youâre on the outside, can feel unintelligible and nonsensical. And of course those prerogatives and preferences connect to all kinds of fickle trends that change with time, so shadowboxing with your imagination of what those people think is a chumpâs game!!
Adam Pally: âYes, exactly.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Is there something you wish someone told you early on about getting into watches?
Adam Pally: âExactly what you were just saying: âGet what you like, because youâre gonna have it a long time. Youâre not gonna sell it. Youâre not gonna do that work. Youâre buying that watch, so donât get something super expensive that doesnât look good to you.â Like, I donât love the look of those new glossy APâs â I always prefer the flex of If You Know You Know.â
Blackbird Spyplane: And whatâs up with the Cartier Tank on the right?? Look at the LITTLE HIT OF AZURE on that crownâŠ
Adam Pally: âItâs from 1977. I liked the blue crown and the blue hands, but Iâll tell you the truth â I was not in a good headspace when I bought it. I was in the headspace of being a villain. I was feeling reckless, and I said, I really want this gold watch, and I got in a fight about it with my wife, where I said, I want a f**king gold watch, no oneâs gonna tell me what to do. I wasnât doing well mentally. This was a few years ago. My mother died, I had 2 kids, I was feeling insane. When I went into the store and bought it I was wasted.â
Blackbird Spyplane: Wow, usually watches commemorate happy moments, but this one was born out of â
Adam Pally: âSpite. And insecurity. I was not a happy guy, and Iâd soon get arrested for drugs â I had drugs on me and I was so drunk that I walked out of a steakhouse in Times Square and lit a blunt in front of a police station. I was begging for it. I wanted someone to, like, slap me in the face. I was unhappy, dealing with a lot of grief. But today I look at this watch and feel good about it!â
Blackbird Spyplane: You mean, rather than seeing something ugly about yourself â
Adam Pally: âYeah, I donât see that, I see: âIâm here, and I managed to crawl out of a tough time.â I love that watch. Iâm glad I own it.â
Adam Pallyâs on IG here and Twitter here. Champaign ILL is streaming here.
Thereâs a bunch of used Swartzwelder books here for like $15 each. Adam suggests starting with the first one, 2004âs The Time Machine Did It.
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im about to invest in swartzwelder novels like Pally does in watches