If you didn't read the first half of the Zach Galifianakis interview, here's what you missed: Cheech and Chong, whistled song, secret jokes, angry folks, pair of mimes, bygone times (and this rhymes — how unnecessary).

For those of you who still don't know, Galifianakis is a comedian and actor whose spontaneous and experimental style of stand-up could be rightfully regarded as avant-garde. Much of his show involves either sitting behind a piano and playing melodious music as he tells jokes, or interacting with audience members. He will be performing tonight at the Barrymore Theatre, and if his May performance in Milwaukee is any indication, it will be a blast.

This time, Zach and I will be discussing claustrophobia, "Fat Jesus," the bear community, Morrissey and mayonnaise (sorry, no time to set it to rhyme).

Mike Peters: Have you ever considered releasing a CD, or do you think your material would suffer without actually seeing you perform it?

Zach Galifianakis: If I do a CD, it would be more like a radio play or audio skits. It would not be me live. I need people to see the physicality of it.

MP: Throughout your new DVD, you joke about potential DVD titles. Did you ever consider anything besides "Live at the Purple Onion?"

ZG: No, I never thought about it, and then we were like, "How about 'Live at the Purple Onion?'" And I was like, "Fine." The DVD is just so bizarre and all over the place, I don't know what else to call it. I didn't want to be too specific with it, like, "This is what the DVD is about." I wanted to make it pretty generic.

MP: On your DVD, we find out you have a fairly extreme case of claustrophobia. Does this stem from any experience as a child?

ZG: The claustrophobia thing had happened recently. I got a huge rush over me once in an elevator that broke down. My brother — I'm very close to him now, but we were talking about how mean he was to me — he admitted to me this past weekend that he tried to kill me with a pillow once.

MP: I hear you're going to have a part in the new Sean Penn movie "Into the Wild." Is this a significant role?

ZG: I don't think it's significant, but I'm in four or five scenes. I didn't have any lines. I spoke, but nothing was scripted. He asked me to just kind of make stuff up.

MP: In "The Comedians of Comedy," you refer to a movie concept called "Fat Jesus." Is this something you've tried to pursue?

ZG: Yeah. I'm actually writing it right now with my writing partner, and we're trying to get it made.

MP: I'd like to ask you about the mayo incident from "The Comedians of Comedy." What's up with that?

ZG: Brian Posehn, the whole time on tour, kept saying to me, "Zach, I want to have sex with you." I'm like, "Brian, I'm not attracted to you." So one night, he and I were at a diner, and I asked the waiter if they had a really big vat of mayonnaise that we could buy. And we did. The rest is cinema history. It'd be great, on the Oscars, how they'll have people that died and do a tribute to them, if Brian Posehn passes away, or me, and they do a slow-motion montage, and that was part of it.

MP: That'd be great.

ZG: We were laughing so hard, because it was just so immature. I think a lot of it is — I can't believe that kind of stuff still makes me laugh. So I'm really laughing at the fact that I'm laughing.

MP: When I watched "Dog Bites Man," despite being a main character, it seemed like you were often in the background and featured sparingly, which I felt added to your character's impact when he was actually on screen. Was this a conscious effort on your part, or was it a result of editing?

ZG: It was a conscious thing. I played the director on it, so I thought it would be funny for the director to be the most passive and the one that didn't really care. The other characters were real talky characters. I felt, as we were molding the show, that somebody needed to be quiet, and I wanted to be that quiet person. Also, selfishly, because it was a prank show, and I was kind of uncomfortable with doing some of the pranks, it was also kind of a strategic move on my part. I wanted us to look stupid, but I think the producer didn't care who we made look stupid. So my character was really, really, really vacant and quiet. That was a conscious vision on my part. We named our characters and got to write our own characters, which was what was so great about working on that show.

MP: I definitely think you succeeded with that.

ZG: I think sometimes the other actors, who were all friends of mine, got a little bit frustrated because I didn't have to do as much work. They were like, "We should do a scene where…" this or that. And I'm like, "You know, I don't think I should be in that scene." I would purposely write myself out of stuff.

MP: I've been told that I resemble you.

ZG: You poor guy.

MP: How do you deal with being so good-looking?

ZG: It's tough, man. It's really tough.

MP: I saw you in Milwaukee in May, and after the show, girls were asking to touch your beard. Would you say your beard is a source of sex appeal?

ZG: It is for a select group of the gay community known as bears.

MP: I have one final question: Do you like Morrissey?

ZG: Yeah, he's all right.

Zach Galifianakis will be performing tonight at 8 p.m. at the Barrymore Theatre.