Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Shonny Mack with your
Speaker 1: daily comedy news. Ope you had a good Christmas. Crack
Speaker 1: dot com did a really fantastic interview with Anthony Jessenick,
Speaker 1: and they are curious about the character he portrays on
Speaker 1: stage and asked him does the character have a backstory.
Speaker 1: Jess Nic said, I have no backstory villain. I love.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's happening here, We don't know what
Speaker 1: their problem is. My character was like the Devil's Son,
Speaker 1: where there's no motivation other than just being evil. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into here's my upbringing. If I
Speaker 1: had a better babysitter, and maybe I wouldn't be like this.
Speaker 1: I wanted none of that because that stuff always sucks.
Speaker 1: You don't know why I'm like this. You don't have
Speaker 1: to know, and I love that. I'm very interested in
Speaker 1: villains and what makes someone a good villain. A lack
Speaker 1: of an origin story is always preferable to me. Yeah. Remember,
Speaker 1: I was a Trevor Batman movie, Dark Knight. Is it
Speaker 1: just called the Dark Knight? The second one where the
Speaker 1: Joker tells a different origin story every time? Fascinating jess
Speaker 1: Nick said, every New Hour, I can resurrect everyone. The
Speaker 1: mom dies in the last bushl she's back alive. Now
Speaker 1: I've got five brothers and sisters, and now I've got one.
Speaker 1: Now I'm an only child. The audience doesn't care. They
Speaker 1: recognize me, but they're just in it for the story.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter what's true and what's not. And
Speaker 1: I don't write a whole New Hour until the special
Speaker 1: hits because I don't want any of that old stuff
Speaker 1: in my head. I don't want to think about the
Speaker 1: grandma killed or the grandma who's still alive. Let's just
Speaker 1: go from scratch and do it that way. Cracked again
Speaker 1: doing a great job, asked him, are there any parts
Speaker 1: of you that are actually hidden in the jokes? Or are
Speaker 1: we hearing about your personal life? J just nug said
Speaker 1: not at all. Really. Maybe in terms of my morality,
Speaker 1: I think you can probably get a sense of what
Speaker 1: I think about the trans issue. I think you get
Speaker 1: a sense of what I think about pro choice or
Speaker 1: pro life. I think you can get a sense of
Speaker 1: what I think about cancel culture. But otherwise, now it's
Speaker 1: not like I feel like I need to hide something.
Speaker 1: If you listen to my podcast, you get all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So there are fans at different levels. Oh I want
Speaker 1: to know him. I have people come up after the
Speaker 1: show and they're like, can I meet Anthony, And my
Speaker 1: tour manager will say, sorry, he doesn't meet people, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, I know he hates people, and
Speaker 1: they'll walk off. And I kind of got in the
Speaker 1: reputation of my fans that if they're a good fan,
Speaker 1: they want to leave me alone. They'll come by and say, hey,
Speaker 1: that was really funny. I don't want to bother you.
Speaker 1: If you want my personal life, you can find that
Speaker 1: through the podcast. But I think personal stories on stage
Speaker 1: and stand up for boring. Unless you have some amazing story,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear it. I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of it becomes the same, and my stories would
Speaker 1: be the same. I'm not special. I'd rather have something
Speaker 1: more creative on stage. Follow up from Cracked, You're never
Speaker 1: tempted to get more personal as you get older. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm tempted because it's so much easier. I try it,
Speaker 1: and I get sick of the story. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, it is easier. I'm meeting up ten minutes,
Speaker 1: But why I didn't only not tell stories in the
Speaker 1: beginning because I didn't have much to talk about. It
Speaker 1: is because I was bored telling the same story. Another
Speaker 1: good follow up, Will you'd toured this material for two years,
Speaker 1: What are these jokes never get boring? I gotta think
Speaker 1: it's because they're short. The jokes are very short, and
Speaker 1: the payoff, it's not just the payoff for the audience,
Speaker 1: it's to pay off for me. I like those laughs.
Speaker 1: I like those bursts of energy. If I'm telling a story.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm bombing, but it's just that there's
Speaker 1: five minutes without a laugh, I start to feel anxious,
Speaker 1: and I don't like feeling anxious. I don't want that.
Speaker 1: I want to have those hits, which is why the
Speaker 1: stories that I do have are just joke joke, joke,
Speaker 1: joke joke, because I don't want to have that explanation period.
Speaker 1: And even if the audience is locked in on a
Speaker 1: long story, we love this and we're just focused on you,
Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable. I'd rather have the laughs. Maybe at
Speaker 1: some point I come up with a story that I
Speaker 1: enjoy enough that I'll be like that, but I've tried it.
Speaker 1: I understand why people want it from me, but I
Speaker 1: also understand why it's better that I don't do it.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of people who do. Texas Standards spoke to
Speaker 1: shang Wang, one of my faves. He said, as a toddler,
Speaker 1: I had a reputation for slamming my head into the
Speaker 1: ground when things didn't go my way. I think that
Speaker 1: explains everything up until now. I'm originally from Texas. I
Speaker 1: grew up in Houston. I went to the same middle
Speaker 1: school as Beyonce. That's crazy, right, Beyonce alone is pretty
Speaker 1: big deal. But then you find out Shang Wang also
Speaker 1: came from the same part of town. It's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of talent. Most have been something in
Speaker 1: the water y'all. The Standard asked what his parents think
Speaker 1: of his success, and he said, I think they're proud
Speaker 1: of me. I'm really grateful. Follow up, they haven't told
Speaker 1: you not in so many words. You know, Asian American
Speaker 1: parents or Asian parents tend to be pretty stoic when
Speaker 1: it comes to expressing affection or things of that nature.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I'm grateful for my parents. I
Speaker 1: know they're very loving folks. I feel like my folks
Speaker 1: are very much hands off in a way that was like,
Speaker 1: as long as you're not getting into trouble and you're
Speaker 1: doing well in school, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: They weren't against me doing what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: They would sometimes my mom especially suggest alternatives to stand
Speaker 1: up That is sort of related. She's like, if you
Speaker 1: want to be on TV, maybe be a news reporter
Speaker 1: or something. You know. I guess she was inspired by
Speaker 1: Connie Chung. But yeah, they were pretty hands off and
Speaker 1: not pushing one way or the other. Jim Gaffian spoke
Speaker 1: to The La Times about touring with Jerry Seinfeld and said,
Speaker 1: I never had an expectation that that would happen. Jerry
Speaker 1: has a very clear and concisive view and philosophy on
Speaker 1: stand up comedy. Then when you talk to him, you
Speaker 1: feel like you're talking in Aristotle. He's kind of like
Speaker 1: a stoic who reminds you to have control of your material.
Speaker 1: You don't get caught up in the trend of the moment.
Speaker 1: You work on evolving your act in your writing. Jay
Speaker 1: Leno and Adam Carolla are doing a comedy Fantasy camp.
Speaker 1: In January. Jay was asked about stand up comedy being
Speaker 1: Ai prove Jay said, you know, it's the one form
Speaker 1: of entertainment that's not changed, with the exception of the
Speaker 1: invention of the microphone. It's been the same since the
Speaker 1: thirteenth century. You stand in the town square, you just
Speaker 1: yell and say things, or do physical comedy, juggle or
Speaker 1: do something. But it really hasn't changed at all. And
Speaker 1: I find a lot more made of political correctness. Funny's funny,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have something you know. Nicki Glazer
Speaker 1: is a good example. Couldn't be filthier but hilarious, and
Speaker 1: the stuff is so funny you have to laugh. She
Speaker 1: was the best that that Tom Brady roast. Everybody else
Speaker 1: was just using obscenities. I'm thinking, I'm getting bored of this,
Speaker 1: and then she came out and I laughed really out loud.
Speaker 1: It was really really good jokes. So that's the case
Speaker 1: of if you're funny, all bets are off. Eleno and
Speaker 1: Corolla were asked about a comedy renaissance. Corola said, we're there,
Speaker 1: Leno said, A young comic said to me and Seinfeld,
Speaker 1: you guys are lucky you started when comedy was easy.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy. It's always been exactly the same. Here's
Speaker 1: how old I am. You remember cabaret cards, Corola says, No,
Speaker 1: Leno says, in New York that's how they got Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 1: You had a license to perform in New York City.
Speaker 1: If you're on stage and you say the F word
Speaker 1: or something, a cop can come up and tear up
Speaker 1: your license, and boom, you don't work. When the Warren
Speaker 1: Cord came out in sixty eight or sixty nine, boy
Speaker 1: Jay is old, all that went out the windows. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: pornography was legal, comedy was interpretive, but all that was
Speaker 1: against the law. If you said obscenity, a cop would
Speaker 1: put the cuffs on you and take you to jail.
Speaker 1: And people think, oh, it's so terrible now, it was
Speaker 1: way worse back then. The thing is now is actually
Speaker 1: better for comics because music is expensive to do. You
Speaker 1: have teams to load in, load out, put up a stage,
Speaker 1: set up the sound system. A comedian. You just show up,
Speaker 1: Corolla said, every time I play a theater and see
Speaker 1: the posters like Santana was here eight years ago in
Speaker 1: the percussion section is fourteen dudes, and you look at
Speaker 1: it and you go, well, I just sold out a
Speaker 1: show and they sold out a show. How is this
Speaker 1: working here? The thing that's funny, though, is that the
Speaker 1: theater wants to know if you want to come by
Speaker 1: that afternoon for a mic check, like you're in Santana
Speaker 1: new topic, Leno said. People say to me, oh, I
Speaker 1: bet you wish you were doing the Tonight Show when
Speaker 1: Trump was president. No, I don't, because when you really
Speaker 1: don't like a guy, it's worse. I had a fondness
Speaker 1: for Bush. He then pantomimed set up for a joke.
Speaker 1: I don't think President Bush quite understands and people would
Speaker 1: giggle him laugh. But if I really hate it him,
Speaker 1: I mean, you see how polarizing it gets. Now. I
Speaker 1: sort of blamed Trump for all that because at the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show we used to make fun of both sides,
Speaker 1: and people couldn't really figure out your politics, so you
Speaker 1: got the whole audience. Now you either get the Trump
Speaker 1: people like Gutfeld, or you get the anti Trump people
Speaker 1: like Kimmel, which to me, I'll take everybody's money, thank you.
Speaker 1: I play both crowds. Brandy Denise is one of vultures
Speaker 1: and comedians you should and will know, Vulture asked at
Speaker 1: Brandy Denise, how you've ended up becoming a comedian, Brandy said,
Speaker 1: gering up, I discovered some of Adam Sandler's old comedy songs,
Speaker 1: Randy said, I never knew I was listening to a
Speaker 1: form of comedy, but I love them. Yeah. Right, she's
Speaker 1: saying it right there. She was listening to it and
Speaker 1: not realizing it was comedy because they're terrible. I remember
Speaker 1: after that, I kept a notebook where I began to
Speaker 1: write my own comedy parodies. I think it was then
Speaker 1: when I first began my journey with enjoying being funny.
Speaker 1: Whose career would you like to follow? Want of psychs.
Speaker 1: She's had her own TV shows, she's hosted, she pushed
Speaker 1: us out banging specials. And Adam Sandler he does what
Speaker 1: he wants. He's transitioned from comedy to drama effortlessly and
Speaker 1: works with his friends. That's the goal with my people.
Speaker 1: Johnny Mack does like dramatic actor Adam Sandler. I've said
Speaker 1: that before. He's not funny at all, but he's a
Speaker 1: decent traumatic actor and he should just give up comedy
Speaker 1: and just do dramatic movies. In my opinion, biggest financial
Speaker 1: hurdle you've encountered since being a comedian, being broke is easy,
Speaker 1: but making a nice six figures for the first time
Speaker 1: after being broke for so long as a learning curve.
Speaker 1: I learned how to spend money quickly, but after that
Speaker 1: I realized investing in saving are just as important and
Speaker 1: you start making money. Some years are better than others,
Speaker 1: but as long as you learn to budget early, you
Speaker 1: should be good. Best comedy advice, worst comedy advice. Best,
Speaker 1: you're already fun. Make sure your spirit is right and
Speaker 1: you know yourself, and stay grounded. Worst. A lame ass
Speaker 1: stool banging comic in Atlanta told me not to move
Speaker 1: to LA because it wasn't ready. Well, i'd say his name,
Speaker 1: but you've never heard of him. Like I said, can't
Speaker 1: rock this boat, baby, I do what I want. It's
Speaker 1: tattooed on the back of my neck, and I mean
Speaker 1: that in the most disrespectful way possible. And that is
Speaker 1: your comedy news for today. If you enjoy the program,
Speaker 1: tell a friend about it too. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: show without commercial interruption, click the link in the show
Speaker 1: notes and I'll see you tomorrow.