Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Be there. I'm Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news. Now.
Speaker 2: When we last left, I left you on a cliffhanger.
Speaker 2: Did Matthew Brossard show up? Of course he showed up.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I saw one of the bus. Of
Speaker 2: course he showed up. He was fantastic. We did about
Speaker 2: forty five minutes raw with We had a technical snafpoo
Speaker 2: in the middle, so I'll take the break there. What
Speaker 2: happened was he had his ring light plugged in but
Speaker 2: not his phone, and his phone ran all the way
Speaker 2: down to zero. So all of a sudden you'll hear
Speaker 2: him drop out mid sentence. I'll explain that when we
Speaker 2: get to it. He's got a new special. It is
Speaker 2: called Hyperbolic. It is his full length debut special. In Hyperbolic,
Speaker 2: Matthew Bisard dives into painfully personal experiences growing up Cajun
Speaker 2: Jewish and a waspy Southern prep school, the challenges of
Speaker 2: millennial masculinity, is the bread loser to a former pro athlete,
Speaker 2: and candid stories about mental health struggles in his family,
Speaker 2: plus some oddly keen sidebars into grammar, etymology, pharmaceutical origin stories.
Speaker 2: And statistics. If you've heard me interview comedians in the past,
Speaker 2: this is a typical ride. We'll get into the structure
Speaker 2: of comedy. We'll talk a little crowd work, feeding the Beast,
Speaker 2: his favorite comedians, some comedy snobbery on my part. He
Speaker 2: turned me on to some people that weren't on my radar,
Speaker 2: and I really enjoyed. Mattie restart. Where are you today?
Speaker 3: I'm in my apartment in Brooklyn and sitting here. My
Speaker 3: fiance's out taking her Paris to the museum. So thank
Speaker 3: you for giving me an excuse to bail on in
Speaker 3: law entertainment.
Speaker 2: How'd you wind up in Brooklyn by way.
Speaker 3: Of Corpus Christy, Atlanta, Houston, LA? And then ended up
Speaker 3: here to.
Speaker 2: Work comedy out of New York as post LA.
Speaker 3: Yes, so I was dating my fiance who lived in Austin.
Speaker 3: I lived in LA and we wanted a place where
Speaker 3: we could both kind of do in the best version
Speaker 3: of the careers we were seeking.
Speaker 2: So she was a swimmer. You were a swimmer. Did
Speaker 2: you guys meet as swimmers or did you meet as commons?
Speaker 3: No, she was a swimmer. I did not swim on
Speaker 3: that level. I swam as a recreational swimmer. She was
Speaker 3: like a professional old dudes.
Speaker 2: I read an article yea, yeah, yeah, old dudes like
Speaker 2: me in the pool and you.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I was a I worked for the swim
Speaker 3: team in college, so I kind of knew of her
Speaker 3: through swimming. She knew of me through friends in swimming.
Speaker 3: In comedy, but yeah, just I was mostly I found
Speaker 3: her because she was a pro swimmer who I was
Speaker 3: a fan of and thought was very attractive.
Speaker 2: So did you get her into comedy or is that
Speaker 2: just an independent thing?
Speaker 1: Independent thing?
Speaker 3: I would say it's more she liked me because she
Speaker 3: was interested in comedy.
Speaker 1: And was doing improv when we met.
Speaker 2: Do you do shows together?
Speaker 3: Yes, so she comes into features from me on the road. Fantastic, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's pretty fun. We started doing Q and A
Speaker 3: at the end of the shows. It's it's neat. I
Speaker 3: have to tweak my set a little bit, because there's
Speaker 3: there's just no world in which there's no world in
Speaker 3: which you don't you don't know. Even people can be
Speaker 3: very stupid, people can be very smart. Most people understand
Speaker 3: when one comic is here from New York City who's featuring, Well,
Speaker 3: they didn't fly here to do twenty minutes, so clearly
Speaker 3: they may have come along with the headliner, and that
Speaker 3: we are the same age and share a lot of
Speaker 3: the similar demographics, it's not unreasonable to assume that we
Speaker 3: are partners. And even beyond that, the biography, the dual biography,
Speaker 3: you'd have to be pretty dense to not figure out
Speaker 3: that my professional swimmer fiance turned comedian was not her.
Speaker 3: Though some crowds have very much surprised me. I've had
Speaker 3: people after the show after I've set everything go. So
Speaker 3: just question. I noticed as she mentioned a lot of
Speaker 3: the things you mentioned, was that your fiance like they're
Speaker 3: Sherlock Holmes, and do.
Speaker 2: You guys get along in terms of like if you
Speaker 2: do fiance jokes. Does she understand the difference between the
Speaker 2: character the fiance or does that spill over? Yeah, back
Speaker 2: to Brooklyn, I think we all get it.
Speaker 1: We have to.
Speaker 3: You have to kind of force some details through for
Speaker 3: the sake of narrative and character, and you might have
Speaker 3: to embellish details. And I think we both understand that.
Speaker 3: And there are things that are said about us that
Speaker 3: are not accurate. But luckily we go up there and
Speaker 3: get to represent ourselves. So I say better than in
Speaker 3: most relationships where the other partner has no voice besides
Speaker 3: mocking impression.
Speaker 1: I have been.
Speaker 3: Really trying in my comedy to be extremely truthful. I
Speaker 3: do try to keep the stories pretty accurate, so at
Speaker 3: least on a detail space, especially about my mom.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of stories about my mom on
Speaker 1: the special that are.
Speaker 3: My favorite jokes, and it feels like cheating because I
Speaker 3: don't have to make up anything. The details all happened
Speaker 3: as I told them, sometimes even a little more ridiculous
Speaker 3: than the story I told. And my mom doesn't like
Speaker 3: certain details. I read a note she wrote on stage.
Speaker 3: It's the one pushback I've ever gotten from her.
Speaker 2: Oh what did she say?
Speaker 3: She doesn't like it. She sent this note, and you
Speaker 3: can if you want to hear the note. I think
Speaker 3: it's the I think it's my favorite thing I've ever
Speaker 3: talked about on stage is this note. It's the funniest
Speaker 3: thing I think I've accomplished. But the note is from
Speaker 3: my mom to my fiance for her birthday. And I
Speaker 3: told her I'm going to read this and say. She goes, okay, fine,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to do. I don't get why it's funny,
Speaker 3: and then she came through a show where I read
Speaker 3: it out loud and she heard everyone laughing, and she
Speaker 3: still can't understand why it's funny. She still can't understand
Speaker 3: why people are laughing at this thing. She goes and
Speaker 3: they're laughing at me, and I have to explain her, No,
Speaker 3: they're more laughing at how earnest you are. It's not
Speaker 3: that anyone thinks. It's that people feel the things you're feeling.
Speaker 3: It's just so rare and interesting and funny to hear
Speaker 3: them so baldly expressed. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: stories about my mom that I have, and a lot
Speaker 3: of stories with my parents they have in my back
Speaker 3: pocket that I don't realize are good for comedy until
Speaker 3: I just tell them to someone and I realize they
Speaker 3: are not a normal experience.
Speaker 2: Do you have a home club where you work stuff out?
Speaker 1: Home club the celler, But I don't work out stuff there.
Speaker 3: Sure, sure, yeah. I work out stuff more on the road,
Speaker 3: So when I have a full hour, I like to
Speaker 3: That's where I tend to stretch out, because if that's
Speaker 3: strange fallus. The difference is work it out in the city,
Speaker 3: take it to the road, absolutely opposite of the road,
Speaker 3: there's so much more leeway. They're already there to see you,
Speaker 3: whereas the club is just in the city is so competitive.
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't even know if it's a great
Speaker 3: training ground. I think it's just it's more of a showcase.
Speaker 3: It's where you go to prove yourself every night, not
Speaker 3: to improve yourself.
Speaker 2: So how will you work things in? Are you like, say,
Speaker 2: I don't know, thirty eight minutes in playing stuff that
Speaker 2: you know lands and you're like, all right, feel in
Speaker 2: the moment here, let me just yeah, try something.
Speaker 3: Touch it where you know it's safe, feel the momentum,
Speaker 3: and when you have it, be ready for it to
Speaker 3: all go away very quickly. When you're a new joke
Speaker 3: doesn't work, and learn how to sneak things in where
Speaker 3: it fits because a lot of time because like the
Speaker 3: best jokes I had wouldn't work by themselves. It's just
Speaker 3: that they're propped up by a lot of material around it.
Speaker 3: So it's that structuring. And then sometimes I've started to
Speaker 3: do a little thing where I just kind of tell
Speaker 3: the crowd this is the new section and just have
Speaker 3: all those kind of fail safe So what I miss is,
Speaker 3: you know, just go well, that did not.
Speaker 1: Work the way I hoped, And you know you usually
Speaker 1: get a little last.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because as an audience member, we're all in it together,
Speaker 2: especially if you tell us like, hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: trying stuff out here and you make the Bob Hope
Speaker 2: face of oops, that didn't like you know, that's fun
Speaker 2: to be in the room.
Speaker 1: Yes, the more successfully are, the more you get away
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: I have bachelor atte parties who never didn't know who
Speaker 3: I was when they bought the tickets and probably won't
Speaker 3: again after the show, who don't have the patience for
Speaker 3: my artistic process.
Speaker 2: So you talked about dropping something into a successful set.
Speaker 2: I've really been on my soapbox this year. That tiktokization
Speaker 2: of comedy now of you know, here's crowd work or
Speaker 2: here's a good slam, and I feel like we're starting
Speaker 2: to lose the art of an arc man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, buddy, I'm already a member. I've already a remember
Speaker 3: this church. You don't need to preach to me. I
Speaker 3: it upsets me. I go back and forth because on
Speaker 3: one hand, the modular form joke is a strength of mine.
Speaker 3: I am not a full on jazz on like Mark
Speaker 3: normand but I do have jokes that I can extract
Speaker 3: thirty to ninety seconds in length that are a good meal,
Speaker 3: a full piece of comedy, and that has served me
Speaker 3: very well on social media. And that I have modular
Speaker 3: form jokes. I didn't get into comedy to do that.
Speaker 3: I like jokes that pay off just kind of you
Speaker 3: get a sense of completion, a couple of lasts and
Speaker 3: a good circularity that a joke requires. But this doing
Speaker 3: this special was I debated if it was worth doing.
Speaker 3: I'm still debating if it's worth doing. I'm going to
Speaker 3: be able to extract a lot of clips out of
Speaker 3: with you WAT, And I think there's going to be
Speaker 3: structure in ARC. It's not a full hour structure, but
Speaker 3: there are three chunks that each kind of have their
Speaker 3: own theme to it. And this is not meant to
Speaker 3: be study. This is not meant to be like some
Speaker 3: you'll feel the thing where you want and if you're
Speaker 3: even watching passingly, I think there's a real good density
Speaker 3: of jokes throughout. So I don't know, I don't like
Speaker 3: that that shortening of attention span. I do think you
Speaker 3: kind of you know things moving cycles. I think that
Speaker 3: attention span kind of hit the bottom kind of hit
Speaker 3: that plank length and now it's kind of broadening back out.
Speaker 1: And I would attribute.
Speaker 3: Josh Johnson's success to that as well as his talents.
Speaker 3: But Josh Johnson is going so far the other way now,
Speaker 3: and I think there's an appetite for something that's more
Speaker 3: than twelve seconds.
Speaker 2: Sure, and you know, you know, I get too close
Speaker 2: to it, as you know somebody who is a fan
Speaker 2: and studies this. I recently went to see Craig Ferguson
Speaker 2: and he made a random reference like eight minutes in,
Speaker 2: and the back of my brain spent the next forty
Speaker 2: minutes going, he's going to bring that back, He's going
Speaker 2: to bring that. My wife's just sitting there as a
Speaker 2: civilian enjoying a good show, and I'm analyzing the structure
Speaker 2: in my head, and like sometimes that drives me insane
Speaker 2: when I do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, turn off the left brain. Yeah, the check out.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: You could spot the Chekhov's guns 's comedy. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: exactly what that is. That's that's funny. Uh, there's there's comics.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't mind the you know,
Speaker 1: you can feel your.
Speaker 3: Left brain working. It's like I imagine how like a
Speaker 3: coach feels watching a game. When you watch out of
Speaker 3: the comedian who are the comedians?
Speaker 1: Who were?
Speaker 3: Your left brain turns off and you start to feel
Speaker 3: like you're not a comedian.
Speaker 2: So, you know the tree that starts with Stephen Wright
Speaker 2: threw Hebberg into Dimitri and whoever else you want to
Speaker 2: put on that tree. You know, that's sort of just random, like, oh,
Speaker 2: your brain works different than differently than Melfanakis.
Speaker 3: And I would say, now, right now, Casey Rocket is
Speaker 3: probably the greatest successor.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know Casey. I want to check Casey
Speaker 2: out immediately.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, I'll get too close to it
Speaker 2: and I'll you know, i'll see the okay that happened,
Speaker 2: that's exaggerated for effect, that didn't happen at all. But
Speaker 2: it's funny like and you know, I hate that part
Speaker 2: of it. So I like going for the ride when
Speaker 2: I get a belly laugh of someone saying something that
Speaker 2: I didn't at all see coming I treasure.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's that's a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 3: I had that with a what's his name Chad Daniels
Speaker 3: joke this week, and he's such a traditional comic and
Speaker 3: a very good comic, but he had a punchline that
Speaker 3: it just knocked me on my ass because it was
Speaker 3: it was couched in such a traditional joke about men
Speaker 3: and women and parents and and and marriages that when
Speaker 3: I when I heard the.
Speaker 1: Punchline, it just it just got me.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: I would like to think it another in terms of it,
Speaker 3: how does your what what is your brain?
Speaker 1: Look like?
Speaker 3: Casey Rocket's great, but he's already more successful than me.
Speaker 3: So when am I getting out of this? Andrew Cassertano
Speaker 3: is a name that I hope everyone starts hearing more.
Speaker 1: It is. It is that true alt weird but still
Speaker 1: kills in a club.
Speaker 3: Andrew Cassertano, That's a that's a great name that I'd
Speaker 3: recommend to you.
Speaker 1: Sean Patton does that for me.
Speaker 3: Sean Patten's the guy where I lose track of what's
Speaker 3: the structure, what's the pattern, and just kind of enjoy
Speaker 3: myself because he seems to be on a ride every set,
Speaker 3: especially live. There's no game plan, there's no map or
Speaker 3: not one that I can see, and if there is one,
Speaker 3: I don't know how He's so good.
Speaker 2: The one I loved this year, My favorite Bit of
Speaker 2: the Year is Kyle Kanaane's chunk on Fast and Furious,
Speaker 2: just because he gets up a full head of steam. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's just fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He can have such strong opinions on such minutia, and
Speaker 3: I mean his Trader Joe's bit is one of my
Speaker 3: favorite of all time because it builds off of just
Speaker 3: a small inspiration. He builds characters and a scene. Do
Speaker 3: you know that one from I think it was like
Speaker 3: his first or second album might be from Death of
Speaker 3: a Party like his first album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, as we're talking about studying it.
Speaker 2: I had the pleasure of working with the Carlin estate
Speaker 2: put together George Carlin Radio for Serious in Another Life
Speaker 2: and his manager, Jerry Hamsa, sat down and what we
Speaker 2: tried to do with the station was build the sets
Speaker 2: the way Jeorge did. Carlin did, and George Hamsa, the manager,
Speaker 2: explained to me like he couldn't just come out and
Speaker 2: do these big arcs. So Carlin would come out and
Speaker 2: do a bunch of rat a tat tat jokes for
Speaker 2: a couple of minutes and then do the long arc
Speaker 2: And it really educated me on changing speeds, changing volume,
Speaker 2: and taking the audience for that ride, but you can't
Speaker 2: just like I love him. But I saw Stephen writ
Speaker 2: one time, and Stephen Wright for ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love him for an hour and ten.
Speaker 2: My brain was mud. It's tough, and I'm not here
Speaker 2: to bash Steven, but it was just like, I can't anymore.
Speaker 1: I hear you.
Speaker 3: Ronnie Chang gave me a good, long lesson about how
Speaker 3: to build a good hour. It's twenty minutes of ratatat
Speaker 3: and it was twenty minutes of kind of a more
Speaker 3: theme joke, and then a twenty minute story to take it.
Speaker 1: Home, and each of those ask to circum lay into me.
Speaker 3: But it's you're right, you have to say not every
Speaker 3: So when I started comedy, the real.
Speaker 1: Pie in the sky was late night. That was the thing.
Speaker 3: We all wanted to do five minutes for Conan or
Speaker 3: Fallon or Leno and Letterman or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you thought about doing a perfect five minute set.
Speaker 3: And I had the impression that a lot of young
Speaker 3: camicks have is that an hour, a great hour is
Speaker 3: twelve late night sets. And that's just impossible. I don't
Speaker 3: know anyone who's really done that. I don't know the
Speaker 3: brain could handle that the consumer can handle.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 3: I think a lot to Kumail nan Gianni's first and
Speaker 3: only special, Beta Mail, where he does thirty minutes very observational,
Speaker 3: pretty pretty run on the mill, and then thirty minutes
Speaker 3: of just one pretty long story. Oh and Jesus, Hannibal Buris,
Speaker 3: who's really one of my tough is maybe my favorite
Speaker 3: app My favorite special all time is Animal Furnace, but
Speaker 3: he has that Miami Nights, which is hard to find.
Speaker 3: Now he does ky twenty five minutes up top of
Speaker 3: his traditional style. It's great, but you know hannibalim so
Speaker 3: it doesn't knock do on your ass the way he
Speaker 3: used to and you're like, okay, well that's okay. And
Speaker 3: then at the minute twenty five he tells a thirty
Speaker 3: five minute story that is just in top gear the
Speaker 3: entire time. It's just such an incredible special. It doesn't
Speaker 3: slow down. You think, how can this story keep producing
Speaker 3: more plot points and laughs? And it's cool to see
Speaker 3: an artist evolved. I remember when jasel Nick the second
Speaker 3: half of Like What was It? The Thoughts and Prayers
Speaker 3: where he turns the story over to the death threats
Speaker 3: his family and that whole thing. I loved seeing when
Speaker 3: comics can change years. I love seeing what any artists
Speaker 3: can move away from a genre they've perfected into a
Speaker 3: scarier new realm and still succeed. I'm always rooting for
Speaker 3: the artist and whatever new stuff they're trying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, you run the risk of the fans turning
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 3: Though always, But you got to make what you like
Speaker 3: or you might as well have a desk job.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you I was one of the people, and
Speaker 2: I was wrong who When the late period Corlin stuff
Speaker 2: came out, I didn't like it. I thought it was angry.
Speaker 1: It just didn't soundn't like it either.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty years later, he's the great profit of the
Speaker 2: twenty first century. It just you play that stuff and
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, did you record this earlier today, even
Speaker 2: though you've been dead for fifteen years, But at the
Speaker 2: time wasn't feeling it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hicks as well too, I am in my current
Speaker 3: Well you know what, they're both dead. I'm not a
Speaker 3: huge fan of there prea too late stuff. It doesn't
Speaker 3: do as much for me. I loved it as a kid,
Speaker 3: but it's I like a little more light hearted heartedness.
Speaker 3: Though after Trump lanning, I am not a fan of Trump.
Speaker 3: I do currently value a little more explicit point of
Speaker 3: view from people whose politics I agree with.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: I've been listening to people on stage be a little
Speaker 3: more upfront about their anger and disappointment with things, and
Speaker 3: it is quite soothing.
Speaker 1: When your girl just lost.
Speaker 2: So for your particular style, you know, I would be
Speaker 2: surprised if I would see you tonight and you did
Speaker 2: political material. But are you letting your feelings? Are you
Speaker 2: telegraphing it to the audience, or it's just not what
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone.
Speaker 3: I would be surprised if anyone couldn't figure out my
Speaker 3: political leanings after twenty minutes of comedy.
Speaker 1: But I'm not overt with it.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's the place for it for me.
Speaker 3: We were all kind of a I have done a
Speaker 3: lot of political comminat I've put out. I've put out
Speaker 3: some I put out a set foth Comedy Central that
Speaker 3: was pretty overt and it was I've not really taken
Speaker 3: that tone before, and it was well received online. I
Speaker 3: haven't felt the urge to go after it again. I
Speaker 3: kind of did it more as a therapy and it
Speaker 3: served me well.
Speaker 1: This new hour is not very political.
Speaker 3: Little politics on the stage, but it's not as fun
Speaker 3: to address that on It's like a lot of things,
Speaker 3: it's fun if it comes into this frame. Right now,
Speaker 3: I'm talking more about myself and stories.
Speaker 2: And I happened to be at New Faces in twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen when you went up, Oh Wow, were you were
Speaker 2: one of them that popped. I put up the list
Speaker 2: right before I jumped on with you. But I definitely
Speaker 2: remember you because you know, you did your handsome villain
Speaker 2: from the movie's joke, and I always remembered it.
Speaker 3: Never use the word handsome, by the way, never I
Speaker 3: once heared that word on stage. A lot of people correct, okay,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people say that I said that
Speaker 3: about myself, and I'm like, I can't use that word.
Speaker 3: If I use that word, I would lose the crowd.
Speaker 3: It's good you heard that word, because that's when I'm
Speaker 3: hoping to imply. But the word handsome has never kind
Speaker 3: of come out of my mouth self referentially on a stage,
Speaker 3: at least not in many years.
Speaker 1: Because the few times it has, it is not served me.
Speaker 3: Well, you are a handsome Thank you. I appreciate that,
Speaker 3: but I appreciate that. I'm glad you think.
Speaker 2: So how was how was that experience for you? So
Speaker 2: at that point, if you're doing New Faces, you're not signed, right,
Speaker 2: you're like pretty new into this. How do you even
Speaker 2: get new?
Speaker 1: I was signed?
Speaker 2: Okay, So what happened right there? That's when he got disconnected?
Speaker 2: So I just you know, sent around for a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes, and you know, well, let's pretend that I
Speaker 2: just talked to myself and told you about his special Hyperbolic,
Speaker 2: which is on YouTube December tenth, that's Tuesday. Anyway, it
Speaker 2: kind of works out because I have to chop up
Speaker 2: the interview and stick the commercial so where anyway, so
Speaker 2: I might as well stick it here, be right back,
Speaker 2: all right? When I last left you, I had said
Speaker 2: to you mad hey, you weren't wrapped at that time,
Speaker 2: and he was correcting me, and then his phone cut out.
Speaker 2: So when we're picking up the conversation, as Johnny, Max
Speaker 2: stupidly said at New Faces, you weren't repped, and he
Speaker 2: was correcting me, saying, no, he did have an agent
Speaker 2: and hadn't had one for about five years, if I
Speaker 2: remembering correctly, And then I said something like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I was confused between New Faces Unrepped. Anyway, let's jump
Speaker 2: back into the conversation. The last thing I heard was
Speaker 2: you had been signed, So you're reminding me I'm mistaken. Obviously,
Speaker 2: there's a different show called Unrepped, right, so new Faces,
Speaker 2: you're repped, and then there's Unwrapped. But you were new Faces.
Speaker 1: That's right. I was New Faces regular.
Speaker 3: The whole system's a stam and everyone's pushed him through
Speaker 3: their agents, and people who get it aren't exactly getting
Speaker 3: a big break. They've already made it and they're just
Speaker 3: being jfl makes it so someone can take credit for
Speaker 3: discovering someone who's already very well on their way. I
Speaker 3: will tap dance on that grave until they have power
Speaker 3: to give me something else. Then they need to play
Speaker 3: nice again.
Speaker 2: But they're back.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, cool, cool, good for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had auditioned. It was my third time, so I
Speaker 3: got it pretty quick. I had auditioned in Austin when
Speaker 3: I was maybe two years into comedy, and then I
Speaker 3: auditioned again once my first year in LA and didn't
Speaker 3: get it, but I felt pretty good. And my third
Speaker 3: year I auditioned and got it, and I had I've
Speaker 3: been on Comedy Central once and I had some stuff
Speaker 3: going on with MTV and E mostly MTV, and got
Speaker 3: it and went there and did it, and it was
Speaker 3: the next year that things took off for me. More
Speaker 3: so a year after that, I did Conan and Roast
Speaker 3: Battle in the same summer, and that was that was
Speaker 3: a big break for me. The JFL was a weird
Speaker 3: time for me because I did the set and I
Speaker 3: remember the set being fine. I remember not loving now
Speaker 3: it went, but no, it probably went good enough, but
Speaker 3: that being one of the last luster parts of the
Speaker 3: week for me, they signed me up for Roast Battle
Speaker 3: because there's every comic who goes there, they're supposed to
Speaker 3: give you another set to do while you're there, and
Speaker 3: they didn't have one for me, so they put me
Speaker 3: in a Roast Battle.
Speaker 1: I had no real experience with it, and.
Speaker 3: I was annoyed because like I wanted to do stand up,
Speaker 3: I didn't want to do I didn't want to write
Speaker 3: jokes about another person. And the first night I went
Speaker 3: really poorly and I went against Jack Knight and we
Speaker 3: were both trying to lose, and he won it losing,
Speaker 3: and that meant I went from the whatever sixteen down
Speaker 3: to the top eight, so I had to do it again,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to do it, and I was
Speaker 3: going to skip it, and Jeff Ross was like please,
Speaker 3: So I wrote four jokes pretty quick. I went up
Speaker 3: and did them, and that night went well. I had
Speaker 3: some momentum and I won that night. And then the
Speaker 3: third night, now I'm down to the top four. Exponential
Speaker 3: Decay is pretty strong, and that night was the best
Speaker 3: night of my life because Roast Battle was at like midnight,
Speaker 3: so there was no other shows competing with it. At JFL,
Speaker 3: you have what a couple dozen shows a day for
Speaker 3: a month, all these showcases and weird hours all day,
Speaker 3: all long shows, shows, show shows, and at midnight everyone's done.
Speaker 3: So all the comics and all the agents and all
Speaker 3: the industry come to this Roast Battle. There's a really
Speaker 3: fun thing to watch if you do comedy or are
Speaker 3: around comedy or a lot of people love it, just
Speaker 3: love it. I had agents, My agents couldn't get in
Speaker 3: to see it. By the third night. It was that
Speaker 3: big of an event, and I had all this pressure
Speaker 3: on my shoulder. I was staying up till six writing.
Speaker 3: I was doing everything I could to have joke five
Speaker 3: jokes ready. I went against kshevver Wilson. He did really
Speaker 3: really well.
Speaker 1: I did love him.
Speaker 3: I did a little bit better, and I went on
Speaker 3: to the final round against Jimmy Carr and that was
Speaker 3: where how'd that go?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: He's pretty good at that kind of stuff, mean short jokes.
Speaker 3: But the third night was the night that my people
Speaker 3: started to know who I was in the industry, because
Speaker 3: everyone was watching and everyone was rooting for me because
Speaker 3: I was the underdog. I was the American who kind
Speaker 3: of came out of nowhere, who had nothing else to
Speaker 3: his name. So you always you always kind of root
Speaker 3: for the little guy in a roast battle, and that
Speaker 3: was that was a big turn for me. I still
Speaker 3: don't really consider myself like a roast or a roast
Speaker 3: battle comic, but I do like jokes.
Speaker 2: I feel like the next Comedy Central. Sorry Netflix, I'm
Speaker 2: living the past. Netflix roast will will be hard to
Speaker 2: perform at because the Tom Brady roast did crush. I
Speaker 2: watched that live and it was very funny.
Speaker 1: I wrote for some of that.
Speaker 3: I wrote for I won't name who, but you could
Speaker 3: easily figure it out one of the comedians up there.
Speaker 2: I just feel like the bar is going to be
Speaker 2: so high in the expectation is going to be so
Speaker 2: high that I would be one to sit out other
Speaker 2: than the paycheck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really good. It did really well. I
Speaker 1: did not expect it would be. They put a lot
Speaker 1: into making it a very good thing. That mean it
Speaker 1: was belowated it.
Speaker 3: They could have used half the number of people up there,
Speaker 3: So next time they'll probably have forty different people and
Speaker 3: it'll be seven hours long. But yeah, I think the
Speaker 3: next one's going to be as long as they invest
Speaker 3: in good writers and good talent, I think they could.
Speaker 3: They could bring that back because I think the the
Speaker 3: celebrity roast and Roast Battle are things that will always
Speaker 3: have a great audience, and right now there's no real
Speaker 3: form for host Battle, and I hope someone brings that back.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not waxing your car here, but that
Speaker 2: New Faces said it was really good. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the list, and there were some people on there. Now
Speaker 2: I saw all twenty. I don't remember seeing say Langston
Speaker 2: Kerman or Alex Edelman, who have had great careers. I
Speaker 2: remember you. I remember Vlad Camanio. I thought it would
Speaker 2: be further along than maybe he is right too, lad
Speaker 2: crush that night. Yeah, I do remember John Ridnitski. Yeah
Speaker 2: he got snl off that, but I think Lauren used
Speaker 2: him in like three sketches.
Speaker 3: And John Radnitzki, I want to tell that's a great
Speaker 3: story because he was no one, and I don't think
Speaker 3: a lot of people expected him to get that. He
Speaker 3: was on his way as an actor or doing okay
Speaker 3: as an actor at that point. She came up to
Speaker 3: me and and we're doing all of our JFL stuff,
Speaker 3: which is miserable. You do these early you know, a
Speaker 3: prelims competition and a regular competition, and the crowds are
Speaker 3: bad and you get three minute sets or whatever. And
Speaker 3: John said, I think I'm gonna do something different. And
Speaker 3: I said, John, you don't want to. You don't want
Speaker 3: to take a risk with this. Do your best material.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: He goes, now, I got this new thing now where
Speaker 3: it's all music. And I don't say anything, and I go, okay,
Speaker 3: good luck, John, best of luck to you, you know,
Speaker 3: your funeral kind of thing. And he goes up there
Speaker 3: and he did the flash dance song.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 3: He just danced to the flash dance song. Doesn't say
Speaker 3: a fricking word the whole time. And he had the
Speaker 3: best set of anyone on that show, on the showcases,
Speaker 3: all of it, and that set, without using one word
Speaker 3: got am snl, so pretty pretty neat set in the
Speaker 3: history of JFL.
Speaker 2: It was solid, all right. So I was on Threads,
Speaker 2: just on Threads because I get some comedy news there,
Speaker 2: and I was laught. Think at the timing, I see
Speaker 2: you whatever we do on threads, thread, You're right, I'm
Speaker 2: having trouble getting booked on comedy podcasts right now because
Speaker 2: they're busy influencing geopolitics, and I'm like, this, poor guy
Speaker 2: just got booked on my dumb shows. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't care about that, totally get it. Are you
Speaker 2: having trouble getting booked?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's a lot of rejections I'm getting. Man,
Speaker 3: Oh boy, oh boy. I feel like a high schooler again.
Speaker 3: I'm sending you know, messages to very successful Carlis whom
Speaker 3: I'm in friends with. Some am not getting no's or
Speaker 3: getting ignored. You know, it's uh, it hurts real bad.
Speaker 3: I don't know at what point in your life you
Speaker 3: have enough success to stop feeling rejection like you're you know,
Speaker 3: got turned down to prom or don't get to sit
Speaker 3: at the cool kids table. But man, oh man, that
Speaker 3: that feeling is as raw as it ever was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and some of the people I reached out to jd
Speaker 3: Vance or Trump on their podcast lately, so you can
Speaker 3: put that together. So Okay, I guess, I guess it
Speaker 3: makes sense that I'm not the top with their list.
Speaker 3: A guy who has following on Instagram and hasn't been
Speaker 3: on TV in five years.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly you know, prime real estate of the YouTube.
Speaker 2: They don't want to pretape for the holidays and take
Speaker 2: some time off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but it's it's it's just it's insane to
Speaker 3: me how outsized the influence of comedy podcasts has become.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, who is really the mainstream media at
Speaker 1: this point?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you know, the big media conspiracy. I've worked
Speaker 2: in radio and media Chasened for thirty years now. I've
Speaker 2: never actually run into the conspiracy. It's it's dudes like
Speaker 2: me running things and like we just show up and go,
Speaker 2: all right, what should we make today?
Speaker 3: It's I know, I'm a Jew, I feel the same way.
Speaker 3: And that was another thing of people during Roast Battle.
Speaker 1: It was either, do you think these are just murmurs? Online?
Speaker 1: People were like, oh was it rigged? Did they rig
Speaker 1: roast battle?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I would be thrilled if they had
Speaker 3: enough organization to even consider reggae things. I literally no
Speaker 3: one checked my jokes. I walked out there. I said them,
Speaker 3: there was no plan. There's not enough people making money
Speaker 3: to read to choose who won it. Buddy, I'm happy
Speaker 3: if they pronounced my name correctly.
Speaker 2: Take one more break. We'll come back with Matthew in
Speaker 2: a second's new special Hyperbolic out of December tenth. So
Speaker 2: I promise I won't devolve this into just reading what
Speaker 2: you posted on social media. But you had one other
Speaker 2: one that spoke to me, because I think the point
Speaker 2: is so on. You wrote, want to know how hard
Speaker 2: it is to be a woman. People hate Yoko o
Speaker 2: O more than Mark David Chapman. There was like, wow, he's.
Speaker 3: Right, dude, dude, people hate Yoko Ono so much, they
Speaker 3: hate him so much her. Sorry, Yeah, it's crazy how
Speaker 3: which people hate women. And I always knew it was bad,
Speaker 3: but in comedy in particular. Just read the comments section
Speaker 3: on YouTube of any woman doing comedy. My fiance you know,
Speaker 3: watch her do comedy and just the response sheet just
Speaker 3: what women have to deal with, especially online, but even
Speaker 3: in person. I noticed it with myself with I open
Speaker 3: on the road for bigger comics, and sometimes we end
Speaker 3: up in more rural places, and a lot of my
Speaker 3: jokes are built where I make fun of women, and
Speaker 3: then I will kind of flip it around and make
Speaker 3: fun of men, just just for the sake of symmetry,
Speaker 3: just because it's a great structure to have things kind
Speaker 3: of collapse back in on themselves. And you know, when
Speaker 3: I perform in a city, I typically I hear the
Speaker 3: men laughing at the part making fun of.
Speaker 1: Women, and I do the joke about the men. I
Speaker 1: hear the women kind of get the haha. We win
Speaker 1: in the end.
Speaker 3: And when I'm on the road, you see those crowd
Speaker 3: laugh too hard of the part about the women.
Speaker 1: And when I make fun of men, no one.
Speaker 3: Laughs, not even the women. Women's seed women. It's nuts,
Speaker 3: it's crazy. It's how it's these I think it's these
Speaker 3: in cell young in cell men who just have no
Speaker 3: place in the world, and there's all this more women
Speaker 3: are kind of catching up an education and an income,
Speaker 3: and young men aren't taking it well, and I have
Speaker 3: some sympathy for them, But on the other hand, the
Speaker 3: hatred is just so misplaced.
Speaker 2: So the new special is called hyperbolic. I could have
Speaker 2: looked it up, and I'm like, I don't think I
Speaker 2: know what the word means, because I'm stupid.
Speaker 1: Nah, what does it mean or related to hyperbola or hyperbole?
Speaker 3: Whatever the plural is, which is the opposite of a
Speaker 3: circle X squared minus y squared equals one. It's a
Speaker 3: great word. It also has another meeting, which people are
Speaker 3: probably more versed with. But I like that word a lot,
Speaker 3: and I also, I mean, I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: too much about why it's called that, But one of
Speaker 3: my goals was for my first two things released to
Speaker 3: be adjectives. My first album was called Pedantic. This is
Speaker 3: called hyperbolic, and that is a nod to Raw and
Speaker 3: Delirious by Bettie Murphy. I love that he went with adjectives,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to do my own adjectives that represented me,
Speaker 3: and I find those two be I am neither raw
Speaker 3: nor delirious, but I can be very pedantic, and I
Speaker 3: happened to sometimes be hyperbolic.
Speaker 2: If you're of a certain age. Those are two wonderful
Speaker 2: specials and people my age, I could probably do half
Speaker 2: that album in the.
Speaker 3: Memory, and people my age are more influenced by that album,
Speaker 3: even if they've never listened to it, those albums than
Speaker 3: they could ever know.
Speaker 2: So the specials out on the tenth of YouTube. Great.
Speaker 2: The date moved a little bit, but it's the tenth
Speaker 2: is on YouTube Tuesday?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Is that the best way to distribute? Now? The Netflix
Speaker 2: money is kind of backed off a little bit. Hulu
Speaker 2: seems to have picked a lane Netflix.
Speaker 3: Netflix didn't offer me anything until I have a big
Speaker 3: fan base there, and they won't Hulu. I think we
Speaker 3: showed it to Hulu a they did to make and
Speaker 3: I would do Netflix, but I wanted the freedom of YouTube.
Speaker 3: I wanted to be able to put the clips up
Speaker 3: and control it and have kind of build my audience
Speaker 3: off of it. And it truly is an experiments to
Speaker 3: see if people will like long form. If you have
Speaker 3: liked anything I've done, and if you would like to
Speaker 3: see something more developed for attention spans longer than ten seconds,
Speaker 3: please watch it. I'm I really tried to make sure
Speaker 3: it was It stayed entertaining all the way through, and
Speaker 3: I think if you listen to the whole thing through,
Speaker 3: you'll get more than just watching.
Speaker 1: My comedy one Instagram reel at a time.
Speaker 3: So that's my mission here is to hopefully make people
Speaker 3: a little more a little less stupid.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to that one. You've been very generous
Speaker 2: with your time. Last one. I want to ask you
Speaker 2: about going down your IMDb as just part of the
Speaker 2: general prep your role as comic number two at Stage
Speaker 2: DELI yes, tick me off. No one could be bothered
Speaker 2: to give this character a name. We can't just call
Speaker 2: the comic Matt or something like it, just like, what
Speaker 2: is that?
Speaker 3: I mean, Bud, that's I was. I have no complaints
Speaker 3: about that. That was one of the best days of
Speaker 3: my life. Marvelous, marvelous missus Maisle. Yeah, I auditioned for it.
Speaker 3: I had taken a class with the casting director, and
Speaker 3: I learned that that show is work perfect, meaning you
Speaker 3: do the script exactly as it's written, which not my
Speaker 3: new shows are like that, and the dialogue is basically
Speaker 3: as fast as you can talk.
Speaker 1: And that helped me get the part.
Speaker 3: And woke up at six am, went down to the
Speaker 3: diner on the Upper West Side, and it's a real
Speaker 3: place brought right. Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Bornstein ran their lines,
Speaker 3: and I sat there and ate pancakes and said, what
Speaker 3: was it? I know the whole exchange still joke Wire Graton, Boston, Philly,
Speaker 3: I get to Denver.
Speaker 1: Nothing.
Speaker 3: It's a regional joke, my sandwich joke. I have a
Speaker 3: different region in every city, which sandwich is funniest? HOGI
Speaker 3: HOGI is a funny sandwich. That's the whole exchange. That
Speaker 3: was really cool. That was really is the first show
Speaker 3: that I've been a fan of and then got to
Speaker 3: be on and it's a it's a great show.
Speaker 2: Is it hard reading or performing exactly someone else's words?
Speaker 2: And what? I'm at the podcast company they were doing
Speaker 2: a doc and they asked me to voice a cop
Speaker 2: and I couldn't just I'm just some dude, but like
Speaker 2: I couldn't just read the written words. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't speak this way. I just tweak this one word,
Speaker 2: no no, no, no no. I can only imagine on
Speaker 2: a like a.
Speaker 1: TV show, right, it was, It's very exact.
Speaker 3: I remember Rachel ran her lines before we all went
Speaker 3: to hair and makeup and wardrobe, and she was already
Speaker 3: off books. She already had three pages memorized for that scene.
Speaker 3: And at one point she said, I just know when
Speaker 3: I'm up there on the stage, on the stage, or
Speaker 3: that stage, and they corrected her on that stage versus
Speaker 3: on the stage.
Speaker 1: That's how particular they are. It's very hard to say it.
Speaker 3: A lot of a lot of projects, let you kind
Speaker 3: of word it for yourself, but often there's some importance
Speaker 3: to the wording they chose. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 3: what makes great actors, though they can deliver lines that
Speaker 3: wouldn't naturally come out of their mouths.
Speaker 2: I'm in the union of people who interviewed comedians, so
Speaker 2: by law I have to just throw out some topics
Speaker 2: of you feel free to pass the culture, cancel culture,
Speaker 2: trans Joe Rogan, your pick or passing all three?
Speaker 1: Cancel culture. These blue haired, whiny.
Speaker 3: Liberals who get offended at everything, I'm still looking for
Speaker 3: them because I live in Brooklyn, and these things people describe,
Speaker 3: I don't see them happening. I don't see people storming
Speaker 3: up and getting out and walking out of clubs over
Speaker 3: things that are only mildly offensive. This feels like some
Speaker 3: kind of unicorn that Fox News has created it's not real.
Speaker 1: I don't see it.
Speaker 3: I've seen maybe a couple things in twenty twenty when
Speaker 3: everyone was very sensitive, But for the most part, I
Speaker 3: go up in front of crowds of educated liberals here
Speaker 3: in New York City.
Speaker 1: And try to push buttons. My comedy is not tame.
Speaker 3: I do like to walk the line and sometimes they
Speaker 3: don't laugh, but rarely do people shout and who and
Speaker 3: all clubs and venues I'm booked to try to get
Speaker 3: me canceled. So it feels like a boogeyman that a
Speaker 3: lot of people have created to make themselves more important.
Speaker 2: I do have one more real question. So I'm hearing
Speaker 2: from audience from comics that audience members are trying are
Speaker 2: now trying to be helpful, And since you're going to
Speaker 2: post crowd work clips, let me be a helpful audience
Speaker 2: member and hickel you so you can slam me and
Speaker 2: then you'll have a clip. Are you running into that?
Speaker 3: Well, bad people are just I think people are just
Speaker 3: worse behaves lately. And we're in the middle of a
Speaker 3: comedy bubble, which means a lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: necessarily normally consume comedy are now at clubs, and that
Speaker 3: means they don't know how to behave and a lot
Speaker 3: of uncultured people think it's okay to shout out things
Speaker 3: during a comedy show. Stand up comedy is a fragile
Speaker 3: art form that only thrives if the consumers respect it,
Speaker 3: and I am resentful of these crowd work comedians who
Speaker 3: have trained ons to be bad audience members and reward
Speaker 3: people for doing the thing we hate most. I'm running
Speaker 3: into a little bit of it, but I'd like to
Speaker 3: think people who watch my clips understand that that's not
Speaker 3: exactly the way I would like the show to go,
Speaker 3: and if they sit patiently, they will be rewarded because
Speaker 3: I try really hard to write clever and thoughtful things.
Speaker 1: And for some of those comedians.
Speaker 3: I've heard stories at some of these comedians who have
Speaker 3: posted a lot of crowdboard clips and are getting audiences
Speaker 3: now or having trouble doing material because that's the only
Speaker 3: thing people know them for.
Speaker 1: And I revel in their demise. You made your bed,
Speaker 1: now sleep in it.
Speaker 3: You could have taken the hard path and written good jokes,
Speaker 3: but instead you took you took the easy path. Also,
Speaker 3: I very bad at crowd work, so I'm resentful of
Speaker 3: people who can do it well. That's most That's mostly
Speaker 3: what I'm man. I'm terrible at listening. I can't come
Speaker 3: up with stuff that quickly.
Speaker 2: Super You don't have your bag of tricks, your go
Speaker 2: to slam.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I should do you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you time today is no. I'm just some
Speaker 2: jerk with a podcast. I hope you enjoyed him as
Speaker 2: much as I did. Matthew Brissard Hyperbolic on YouTube, December tenth.
Speaker 2: He's fantastic. And that is your comedy news for today,
Speaker 2: normal episode tomorrow. If you like the show, tell a
Speaker 2: friend about it, Hopefully they'll like it too. If you're
Speaker 2: a publicist who works for Hulu, get back to me.
Speaker 2: See I could do this kind of thing with your specials.
Speaker 2: You can get forty five minutes of publicity. Why don't
Speaker 2: you get back to me. I'm nice See tomorrow