Exactly, how was it shooting in Louisiana?

I mean: I’ve only shot one movie… so, I can’t really compare Shreveport to other places, but just as a place that this was filmed for four months it kind of sucked. We were there in the middle of like July-August, so it was the hottest month. It was like a hundred and two degrees with 100% humidity, and there’s just nothing there to do in Shreveport, man. I mean, there’s casinos and gambling, but at some point you want to do something other than gamble. There’s just really no culture there. It’s a dead city, kind of. But, you know, there was a good crew. We had a really good crew that worked on the movie and it was cheap. In terms of that, it worked well.

Would you ever shoot the sequels there?

Nah. There’s no chance. I wanna spend three months in a place I like.

I’m actually born and raised there and it’s why I’m here in Philly.

Exactly. So, you know what I mean. That’s why they call it “Shitport”.

So, according to your blog: people have seen your movie and read your book and after all of that somehow you’re still getting laid. How do you explain that?

Wow… That’s what makes it easier, man.

Really?

Aw, dude. Are you kidding? What do you think? Generally speaking, other women want the guy that other women want to sleep with. And so, a lot of women want me for whatever reason and that’s what makes other women want me even more, man.

Having read the book and seen the film, I’m actually kind of confused at how mild it was. I actually expected a lot more gratuitous sex. Did you guys write in anticipation of the MPAA or did you have to cut a few things out?

In the movie? You have to understand that a movie is only 99 minutes long.  So, there’s only so much we can put in, ya know? And beyond that, I never really thought much of the humor in my book came from the outlandish situations. If you’ve been partying or drinking for any number of years, then you can go story for story with me, no problem. The humor comes from the situation, the dialogue, and the perspective on life. So, we really kind of tried to emphasize that in the movie. I mean, granted, we still put a couple outlandish things [in there]. Like, the shit scene is, as far as movies go, that’s an iconic and as outlandish as you can get in a movie. But we didn’t fill the whole movie with stuff like that.

It actually worked well in the film. I was pretty surprised. I was expecting “balls to the wall” type humor.

I’m sorry, what?

I was expecting balls to the wall humor…

Um, “balls to the wall” in what way?

Something more along the lines of American Pie.

I don’t think American Pie was that funny, man. That’s not balls to the wall humor. That’s just people being outlandish. Like, “Look at how crazy I can be”. I mean, I don’t know dude. Have you ever heard of fucking a pie? It’s funny because it’s ridiculous, ya know? It’s funny because it really could never happen, but that’s just not my style of humor, and that’s not really the style of the book, and that’s not the style of humor in the movie. Hollywood [films] like Hangover, American Pie, and Wedding Crashers and all of those movie (i.e. Anchorman); they’re all funny in their own way. I think Anchorman is fucking brilliant, but they’re all a certain style of humor. They’re all slapstick and hijinks. Where as here, I wanted to make a movie that’s very different from that. We wanted to make a movie like Office Space or like Seinfeld; a movie that has a much more situational or contextual, realistic humor. So, in what we wanted to do we succeeded. But if you were looking for just another Hollywood slapstick comedy: this is absolutely not the movie you want to see.

How’d you get all those cameos in there?

Yeah, we had Paul Wall, Traci Lord, Forest Griffith. I don’t know if you follow Mixed Martial Arts, but Forest Griffith is in there. He’s a UFC champion and light heavyweight. Drew Curtis, who owns FARK is in the movie. Basically, I just put my friends in the movie dude. They’re all friends of mine. Except Traci, she’s an actress, but we got to be friends during this process. But we’d just ask if they’d do it, they’d say yes, and we’d put them in.

How’s your feud with Michael Ian Black going?

Michael’s not gonna fight me, man. It was a joke on his part . It was a joke to get publicity and I knew what he was doing. But I was totally serious. I actually would have fought him without question, but I knew he was kidding. I’m not mad at the dude. I enjoy the shit out of him, actually.  I think he’s very funny, but he’s not gonna ever fight me.

Have you guys heard anything from the critics of what to expect from the comedy?

You know, everybody expects something different and there are absolutely people that are not gonna like this movie because it’s not a normal Hollywood comedy or they’re not gonna like it because they feel like it represents my character or the book well enough or whatever. There’s really nothing you can do about expectation. You can make the best movie you can and hope it works. I mean so far- I don’t wanna sound rude or a dick about this- but I don’t give more or less weight to the critics’ reactions than I do anyone else’s reaction. Because in this world of digital media, word of mouth is what’s most important. Critics matter, but they really don’t matter anymore than someone who has a thousand Twitter followers that loved the movie. If you know all those thousand people and you go: “Dude, this was an awesome movie. Go see it,” that’s gonna mean more to most people than a professional critic’s review that they don’t know. So, to us, our goal was to make the best movie possible and just hope people talk about it. I mean, so far, the reactions have been amazing.