🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
The Shark Deck. Jenny Mack with Your Daily Comedy News. The New York Times did a long profile of Matt Rife, and they wrote, after eleven years and clubs, Matt Rife was selling around seventy tickets per show. He wasn’t even a big enough name last summer to get an invitation to just for laughs in Montreal. He decided to go anyway.
He said, last July, I was in Montreal for a festival I wasn’t invited to. I had to fly myself out, put myself up for no pay. I was sitting there at dinner with my friend and my manager, and I was going to post a video of crowd work. I was watching it and I was like, this is so stupid. What am I even doing this?
The video in question was Matt in Phoenix going back and forth with a female audience member who said she had broken up with her boyfriend because, as she put it, he didn’t do anything when he came home from his job. During the exchange, we find out the woman’s ex was an emergency room worker, and Matt said, oh, I’m sorry you broke up with a hero. That got a lot of laughs. Rife posted the video it got twenty million views in two or three days. Matt says it became this massive chain reaction and explosion of an audience.
From then on, every video I posted went viral. He announced his problematic world tour last month. He sold out two hundred and sixty dates in North America, Europe and Australian forty eight hours, six hundred thousand tickets in all wow, some resale tickets going for five hundred dollars two Taylor Swift Times ran right at it, though, and wrote despite the countless hours he spent at the mike, his popularity may have as much to do with his cheekbones as his comedic chops. Tall and strikingly handsome, with blue eyes at chills of jawline and full lips, Rife is something rare in the comedy world. A heart throb, he has played his looks to his advantage.
A black and white, glossy photograph on his website shows him shirtless and tattooed and a bad boy pose. His hair is always artfully tasseled, like that of a boy band member. He wears rolled of t shirts on stage that show off his tone biceps. His fans tend to be young and female. I asked my daughter as if they knew who he was, they knew who he was.
The Time says his club dates are often more Magic Mike than Comedy Central presents. He titled his first YouTube special Only Fans because people were searching Matt Rife Only Fans on the internet. That show got eight and a half million views. Rife said his sex appeal, like his career surge, is relatively new. He describes himself as a late bloomerd.
Photos from me a few years ago show a gangly looking youth whose strong jaw, high cheekbones, and jaggersesque lips had yet to coalesce into a pleasing hole. Rights The Times, Rife said, I was luckily for so long. I spent the first twenty two years of my life building a personality for what you think I need to be Funny now sounds a cool guy. He’s self aware. That’s nice.
Nimesh Patel talked to High Times, your home for comedy. He was about bombing. Nimesh said bombing knights are often talked about because they teach you a lot, but killing it on stage could be just as informative. When you’re in the zone and everything’s clicking. It gives you a surge of confidence.
You learn how to capture that momentum and use it to your advantage, like during a new tags or tweaking jokes on the spot. It’s about harnessing that energy and being able to replicate it even on nights when you’re not killing. Having the confidence to try new things, explore different angles comes from those successful moments on stage. So there are valuable lessons to be learned from both bombing and killing. Harry Conabolo was on with John Marcos Serresi on his podcast, and I found this fascinating.
I gotta get Horry on because Harry and I both grew up in the same neighborhood and Queens. I’d just find him very interesting. He said, I’ve never smoked weed. I’ve never wow. I’m a square, old school square to me.
That’s fascinating for comedian. Harry said, I felt I was always a quote unquote good boy, you know, but at the same time, just the idea of losing control in any way always made me feel uncomfortable. And I don’t think I ever had friends with the type that would be adventurous. I made a TV pilot, where I do things I’ve never done before for the first time. The other episodes were going to be swimming and driving.
I haven’t done a lot of things. I can’t swim, I can’t drive. I’ve never been on a roller coaster. I’ve never done yoga. I’ve never been to a strip club.
I’ve never smoked weed. Stand up is one of the few things I know how to do, to be perfectly honest. The Harold Scotland asked some comedians performing at the Edinburgh Fringe about cancel culture. Alison Spittle said culture wars are for people too much time on their hands and grifters. Comics wine about free speech because they can’t use slurs without being called out.
I don’t believe in culture war. People want tolerance, some want nothing to change. What are they protecting top gear using the word gay negatively? It’s passe society changes. Sachen Kumarandran says, I was recently booked for a rugby club dinner armed with zingers.
I look forward to in good humor roasting the sport. One audience member elected to on stage grabbed me and threatened to throw me out. Fortunately de escalated. There’s some old proverb about a single snowflake causing an avalanche. This one could have people objecting to me.
Saying anything is incredibly rare. When it has occurred, it’s predominantly middle aged men. So comedy demonstrates the representations of culture war, populist archetypes of who’s offended often aren’t true. In my experience, making fun of rugby is statistically the most offensive topic. Comedian Finjiwe said comedy is best friends with tragedy.
When used right, it’s the greatest tool for progressive change. Humor challenges people to address social issues. Coming from South Africa, comedy played a big role in addressing issues politics failed to address my comedy. Rule number one, if you can’t say it in front of the person you’re talking about, don’t say it. Rule two.
If it’s not your lived experience, don’t decide how people who lived it should feel. Your comedians not judges. When a parteid censorship ended, South African freedom of speech turned to new leaf, comedy is one of the main things uniting us. Where Rich and Port laughed together, Comedy is cheaper than therapy, but as the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine, except when you have diarrhea. Good news for the Fringe Fest.
Of all the Gordian reports. They were under some financial worries. Their previous sponsor, a TV channel Dave, pulled out, but they have new backers, Sky TV and DLT Entertainment, and the Victoria Wood Foundation wrote some checks. They’ll sponsor Best Show, Best Newcomer and Panel Prize awards. Nika Burns is the director of the Fringe It says I cannot thank them enough for responding so swiftly and decisively in the true spirit of Fringe.
Burns has been running the awards since nineteen eighty four, when Obscure California called the Brass Band one and We’re never heard of again. The BBC announced some news shows to air on Radio four. These will air Fridays at six thirty, which in the States would be just an awful time to air anything. Maybe these will also live on the BBC APP. I imagine, I assume, I hope They’ll air on Friday evenings from July twenty eight to September one.
BBC suit says these specials will be broadcast in Radio force, popular Friday night comedy slot between the series of Dead Ringers and the news Quiz. Here are the shows. First up, the Newsmakers Rachel Paris will deliver her views on the new week’s news and then talk to the people at the center of those stories, all of whom are fictional and played by comedians. Number two, What Are You Talking About? Host Reyes James is joined by a gaggle of comedy’s fastest rising stars.
They’ll look at the news and ask why, how come and why though. Number three is Dom Jolly Breaks the News. Dom will host a mashup of Frank calls, interviews, and features. Tom is serious about tackling the act news of the week. He just wonders whether approaching it from a slightly different angle might give us some orange staying answer.
Fourth, the United Nations of News Rhea Lena leads up a crack team of comics from around the globe. Parts of the globe include Malawi, Spain, and Australia. Katherine Bohart show is called tl DRS in Too Long, Didn’t Read. She and her team will be digging deep into one big story that’s making the news that sounds little. John oliver Ish and The Naked Week host Andrew Hunter Murray strips away the filmsy covering in Jeer and not only the big stories, but also the way in which the news itself is packaged and presented.
And that is your comedy news for today. Follow the show for free on Apple, podcast, Spotify, YouTube, smash like button. Follow the shows. Do all that tell a friend See tomorrow