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The Shark Deck Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Jokeman, the documentary with Jackie the Jokeman is out today on iTunes and Amazon. Go to chokemanmovie dot com for more information and if you missed it on the July eleventh episode of this podcast, Jackie and I spoke for about forty minutes on today’s podcast an interview with Alonzo Bowden and I really really enjoyed, so we’ll do that in the second half. If you came for Alonso because you saw him in the episode Tunnel, that’ll be at the end of today’s podcast. Maria Bamford’s got a new album.
It’s called Crowd Pleaser. Light spoilers here cracked it tells us. The album kicks off with Maria ingratiating herself to her Chicago comedy club audience, rattling off local references designed into her to the crowd. Hot dog wind, pizza, architecture, improv. Come on, everybody.
It’s a third away bit of goofy meta comedy that deconstructs hackey crowd work, somehow poking fund at both herself in America’s second city. Before she even gets started, A lot of The material likely echo what we’ll find in Sure I’ll Join Your Cult. It’s one of her other albums. There are bits about the rigidity and sometimes ridiculousness of twelve Step programs, several of which she’s been a not so great member. The group’s insistence on anonymity and privacy doesn’t come easily to Bamford.
She jokes, nothing says safety more than secrets. Rain Wilson was on with Bill Maher on his pod and an interesting answer from Rain. He said, when I was in the office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough. I’m realizing now, like I’m on a show, I mean nominated every year, making lots of money, working with Steve Carell and Jenni Fisher and John Krasinski and these amazing writers and incredible directors. I’m on one of the great TV shows.
People love it. I wasn’t enjoying it. I was thinking about why am I not a movie star? Why am I not the next Jack Black or next Will Ferrell? How Come I can’t have a movie career.
Why don’t I have a development deal. When I was on the office, I was clutching and grasping at her. I mean I was making a hundred thousands, I wanted millions, and I was a TV star, but I wanted to be a movie star. Was never enough. Humans have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, and never enough has helped us as a species.
Friday asked Mark Norman if there are any topics that he stays away from. Mark said, not really. I just stay away from being totally mean to a group. It’s still got to be a joke. It’s still gotta be a punchline.
I think you can make jokes with any group, but if it’s just totally negative and hurtful, I don’t think it’s well crafted. It’s not really about the topic. To me, it’s about the way you go about it. Ride asked him about clean material, and Mark Norman said, I think clean material is important because it’s good for work. Some people won’t listen to dirty comics the same way they won’t watch dark R rated movies.
It’s good to have and people say, oh, I’m so funny, and I’m like, are you funny enough to write a clean joke about dogs or Thanksgiving? Because it’s actually really challenging. So even if you don’t like clean material. I’d recommend challenging yourself to try, and it’s really hard and it’s a good exercise. Anybody can make a million Penish jokes, but if you can really get a clean one out there, then that’s just another feather in your cap.
Seinfeld was a really good lesson because he’s a huge hero of mine. He is a certain way he wants a show, and it’s his show and I’m happy to be on it, so you have to adapt to his rules. Friday asked Mark how he connect with Netflix for a Soup to Nuts That’s coming special, and Mark said, ten years of grinding. Then I got a Comedy Central special, and I got a half hour special and an hour then Comedy Central fills it out as technology changes and here comes as Netflix thing, and then it’s the new HBO. So you go, well, I’d love to get to Netflix, but I’m nobody, so you gotta do the YouTube route just to prove yourself.
And then through that I did well. So then Netflix was like, hey, we’ll give you a half hour just to test you again. I did a half hour, which was tough because in the middle of a pandemic, was hard to put it together, but we pulled it off. Then I got the hour. Eventually that half hour did well enough, it helped ticket sales.
So I hit the road like a psycho, like a wild man. I was doing all these weird cities in the middle of the country. Just going out there with nothing in an hour was always like the carrot on the stick, like I don’t want to write today. Well, you might get an hour one day on Netflix, so keep going and suck it up. So there are a bunch of stuff together and pulled it off.
And then when I heard I was getting an hour, I really doubled down. I had to owne it, tweak it, and pull it out. He said, when you get a Netflix show, it’s a little disbelief. It’s one of those weird things, like when you’re seventeen you’re into a girl and your friend goes, hey, she actually likes you back, and you’re like, get out of here. I couldn’t believe it.
The Las Vegas Weekly did a puff piece about Las Vegas comedy. They’d talked to a couple names here, and Jimmy Kimmel, who grew up in Las Vegas, said, you think back to the olden days with Teen Martin and Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Junior and Joey Bishop. This was the place he wanted to be if you wore a comic. Now it is again. Coincidentally, Jimmy Kimmel has his own club in Las Vegas.
Jimmy said, I think there was a stigma attached to performing in Vegas. I don’t know what the reason was, but it doesn’t exist anymore. Comics realize it’s a way to be on the road. When you’re not on the road, you could have an entirely different audience every night Las Vega. And Lindsay Glazier is a stand up comic, and Lindsay agrees, saying, some nights you’ve got twenty cowboys from Montana and the audience with fifty people from New York, a bachelorette party, a wedding party, and four Michael Jackson impersonators.
Apparently Vegas comedies leveled up weekly. Late night’s show The Dirty happened at twelve thirty at the South Point Showroom that just celebrated its tenth anniversary. Don’t Tell Comedy delivers pop up shows around town. Glazier says in Vegas because of the level of comedy here, you have to pretty much do your a material all the time in the clubs. She likes the club Wise guys.
It’s one of the only places that has open mics on Tuesday and Wednesday where you can develop new material in front of real audiences. Glazier says, people are like comics, only have to work one hour day. Says No. We actually write our bits, then we do with social media, and then we send out fifty million booking emails. We do all that and then we go on stage for an hour.
Jeff Sevillico as a new special out on Dry Bar. It’s called Comedy in Action. Speaking in Vegas. He was named Best of Las Vegas by the Las Vegas Review Journal three years in a row, Entertainer of the Year by Vegas Inc. And the Totals Vegas Guide had him on top ten things to Do in Vegas, which is fascinating because think of some of the other nine things you might do.
Comedy in Action is a delightful blend of physical comedy, action, pack stunts, and world class juggling slash balancing. If you want to check it out, go to Dry Bar Comedy Plus Use the promo code to Jeff Sevillico civ I lll I c O and you get a month three. Hi, I’m Mark Francis and host of a new podcast, The Messy Effect. Join us as we take you into the exciting new volde of Agentine soccer phenomenon Lionel Messi and his new life at Into Miami will bring you into the glitz, the glamor, the star studded events, along with the exciting journey to a new world of US soccer and international football with news and stories three times a week. Coming on for the ride as Messy Miami, a major League soccer experience, the journey of a lifetime.
Get the Messy Effect wherever you get you A podcast Just for Last Montreal starts to kick off tonight two shows Just for the Culture at seven o’clock and The Nasty Show at nine thirty. Just for the Culture features a diverse lineup of comedians from various cultural backgrounds and experiences. Your host is Alonso Boden. You’re gonna hear my interview with him in just a second. Just for the Culture an all killer, no filler night of comedy from some of the biggest multi cultural acts in North America.
Here’s Alonso. I wanted to talk to you about Queens. I’m from Jackson Heights. You lived at Saint Alban’s and you went to Aviation High School. Yes, I want to guess on that commute.
Is that a bus to Jamaica, F trainee train transferred seventy fourth or what did you do? That’s a long haul. Yeah, you take the ear DF. You transfer at Roosevelt I think it was Roosevelt Heights where you transferred to the seven. Yeah, seventy four yea, yeah, then you take the seven to thirty third.
So yeah, I was a commuter. Actually, in my senior year a lot of times I rode my bicycle. I rode up up Queens Boulevard from Saint Albans to That’s a hike. I mean the part was an hour fifteen. I’m sure I was one of those bicycle nuts back in the day in New York.
You know, we used to ride through Manhattan with our whistles and stuff like that. Yeah, I was one of those guys. So it would take about I’m trying to remember it. I’ve been a long time ago, but about forty forty five minutes to ride to school. So that’s not a bad ride down Queens Boulevard.
I mean, I mean, now you’ve got proper bike lanes and be a breeze. Yeah, now it would be uh well, I don’t know it was. It was fun. Then you know, you have bike lanes now, but then you have people hating the bike lanes and trying to keep you in the bike lane. So I don’t know which is more dangerous, not having a bike lane and being aware of it or having a bike lane and people want to kill you.
So I like the bike lane. The issue with the bike lane is it pushed the curbside parking out further. So if you’re driving a car, you could pull up to a corner and you have to like stick your neck out and look, you know, way deep. But Montreal they’ve got their bike game together. They’ve got proper bike lanes.
Yeah, because they’re used to it. You know. It’s like, I don’t know, if you ever been to Portland. You have been to Portland, No better watch out when they have green bike lanes. Those bikes don’t stop.
Those bikes will take you out. Because you know, there’s a lot of bike commuters and bike riders and Montreal is the same way. Plus Montreal, they’re they’re Canadians. They’re just nicer. You know.
They don’t wake up saying who can I run over today? In New York, it’s like, all right, I’m gonna get somebody. You know, it’s a different since we jumped over to Montreal. I saw some interview somewhere you quoting on and I agree with you the nice looking ladies in Montreal. The first time I went up there, I noticed that women who were more mature were really taking care of themselves.
There are some nice looking women up if you go walking around Mount Royal, they take care of themselves up there. It’s they are beautiful. The women of Montreal are absolutely beautiful. I used to joke that, you know, everybody wanted to go to strip clubs. I’m like, it’s redundant.
Just walk around, just walk around. There are stunningly beautiful women wearing you know, sexy outfits, and this is that. It’s no, it’s really great. And a friend who lives there, he told me, he said, listen, they’re wearing a coat nine months out of the year, so when they get to take that coat off, they’re going for it. And I like, thank you, Thank you, Montreal.
You’re a beautiful city. That makes sense because I only go there in July. I used to say the same thing. People would tell me how cold Chicago was, and I’d be out there when JFL had the Chicago Fest, which I think was June. I’m like Chicago and June’s pretty great.
Yeah, I’ve been to Chicago in January. I’ve been to Montreal in the winter, but by far the winner is Winnipeg. Winnipeg is so cold that Canadians don’t go to Winnipeg. Canadians like, the hell’s wrong with you? Why would you go there?
The thing I find fascinating with Montreal is it’s this mix of pseudo Europe nineteen seventy six is version of the future, like that’s a good place to shoot your sci fi movie by some of those projects, and then the I don’t care, we’re going to have a porn shop next to a four star restaurant. Well, I always say that, you know, Montreal is a combination of European style, right, nice Canadian people who they’re nice to us. Apparently the French Canadians are not nice to other Canadians, but they’re very nice to us. As visitors and the convenience of the United States. So it’s really just a great city.
Yeah, it does have different parts that look different ways. I love Old Montreal. I could walk around Old Montreal all day, every day and just soak it up. It just feels like you’re in Europe. Yeah, it’s a great city, all right.
So you’re doing Montreal. You’re hosting just for the culture. We’re calling it formally known as the Ethnic Show, and that’s been in the press release for maybe ten fifteen years now, formally known as the Ethnic Show. So like, I get why they wanted to change the name, but then they keep bringing up formally known as the Ethnic Show, and I don’t understand it. I don’t know what just for the culture is.
I get why they’re moving away from it, but what is just for the culture. So, you know, this is what’s really funny, and this is how old time I am. At the festival, Damarera and I were joking about when each culture had its own show. Okay, there was a time at the festival where you had like the Uptown Show was culture and the Wise Guys Show was Italian, and I forget the name, but they had a Jewish we used to each have our own and then they put them all together and they called it the Ethnic Show. And from what I understand, there was some politician that was using the term ethnic derogatory.
He was like, I didn’t get elected because the ethnics voted for this or the ethnic that. And that’s when they said, Okay, we got to change it to for the culture. So now instead of each making fun of each ethnicity, we make fun of each culture, which is much more proper formerly known as but that was always a thing chocolates Sundays or Asian invasions. Yeah, I guess you don’t see as much of that now, but that was always a thing. Yeah, you don’t see it as much, but it still exists and it’s still you know, here’s the thing I love about comics with different cultures.
They make fun of their own culture. That’s what’s great about it. And listen, I’ve learned more about the Jewish culture from Jewish comedians then I ever could any other way, because they make fun of every Jewish holiday and every you know, custom and this and that. It’s apparently now you’re gonna be surprised here this John, but apparently Asian parents did not want their kids to be comics, because Asian comics always remind me of that, you know, And yeah, it’s it’s great though, It’s it’s really fun because everyone has fun with their own culture, and as you know, comedians, we have a ball with it. We laugh at each other, we laugh at ours.
If a comedian’s ever not laughing at you, if we’re not picking on you, then you get nervous. Then you’re like, wow, they really don’t like they didn’t insult me at all. You know. So when you’re up there this year, you’re hosting, it’s a pretty big room, real event. I’m trying to figure out how to phrase this.
I’ll try and use an athlete’s terms. So last year when I was up in New Faces watching Pete Holmes seen Pete a million times, and I felt like he was and I don’t mean this in a negative way, I felt like he was throwing seventy eighty percent, like it was the All Star Game, Like, you know, i could fire back and go one hundred and five, but I’m just gonna hang out a little bit and feel the crowd and use my anus material. Again, I don’t mean that as a dig I just felt like he’s deliberately, deliberately not going to his top. Oh no, I’ll swing for the fences. But when you’re the host, it’s not all about material, like I’m When I do material, I’m gonna do my great material, but I’m gonna welcome them.
I’m gonna joke with people in the crowd. I’m going to try to keep the show moving. So that’s the kind of thing. Where As a host. Jay Leno, who you know, has hosted a show or two for a little while, he told me he said, always remember your guests the star.
That was good advice to me. Your guest is a star. So my part of my job is to set up the comics so that they look good and make it about them. Make it about each comic that I introduce. It’s not all about me.
But when i’m when i’m joking, I’m gonna joke. Not a funny thing. With new faces. Now I’ve hosted it and I’ve been a new face, they’re almost worried that you’ll be too funny. They’re like, wait a minute, I’m a rookie, You’re Pete Holmes.
If you pull out your a material, I’m gonna so you know, so so when you when you host new faces, you’re really trying to be encouraging because they are, you know, various points in their career, but relatively new. Just for the culture. It’s like, ah, you’re good enough, I can make fun of you, all right, Yeah, thanks, that that makes that makes a lot of sense to me. You’re doing I’m trying to keep my eye on you. Nuts scrowed down on my notes.
Here are you doing any of the galas? And I’m a New Yorker I always want to see gala. No, this year, I’m not doing a gala. You know. I’m always on the bench if somebody, you know, breaks a leg, I’m ready to jump in.
But no, this this year is about for the culture.
And then I always pick up a few guest spots on shows while I’m there.
You know, they tell me I’m part of the furniture of Montreal. Now I guess i am. I’ve been to the festival a few times. I was listening to some of your other interviews. I think you were on with George Lopez when this came up, but might have been Papa.
Maybe it was Papa, but the point was, and your interview was from a few months back, but it related to you. I recently watched a special by I’m Not Here to Tear Anyone down, and I was watching it and I’m like, I think the comedian’s body language is pulling the material up a little bit. And I heard you. I can’t remember it was Tom or with George, and you talked about wanting to just strip it down and have a microphone and a stool and let the work speak for itself rather than mugging for the camera using the body work. Can you can you talk to that a little bit?
Yeah, so well that’s Tom style. Actually it’s George. We’re the monologists, right, we stand it to microphone and talk. Other comics have huge energy. They’re jumping around on stage, they’re doing this and that, and the physicality brings more to their material.
There are some comics that without the physicality, the material would be a recital. And I mean Tom. If Tom moves through feet in a one hour show, that’s a long walk for him. Tom would literally just stand at the mic and talk. And I love that.
I love that, And yeah, that’s how that’s kind of how I came up, you know. And the other thing is I’m a big guy, all right, sixty three over two fifty. If I’m jumping around on the stage, the front rows pretty nervous. The front rows like, can you just take it down to not we don’t need you stage diving, you know. So there’s that, but it’s just different styles.
And I came up in the monologist style where you stood there and talk. I mean, Steven Wright. Now you talk about someone who didn’t move, whose words, you know, commanded the room. I mean that was it. So yeah, I’m a big Bob Hope fan, and I know the last twenty five years of Hope’s career get dragged through the mud for some of the NBC specials.
But I go back and listen to that older stuff where he’s just quick and ratitat’s hat and it could be sixty year old material, be like, hey, we’re at the Cleveland Air Force Base. You know, General Johnson is really cheap and they’ll mug a little bit and don’t get a laugh at me. I don’t know who the general was, but it’s just that art of comedy and knowing how to perform and do it. I think it was great. Well, I think you every comic learns their own material and their own style.
You know what I mean, Like if I’m trying to do if I’m trying to do Bobby Lee and ain’t gonna work, ain’t gonna work. Bobby Lee does Bobby Lee. I can’t do Bobby Lee and Bobby Lee’s not gonna do me. You know, it’s so you develop that And yeah, bugging after the joke was part of Bob Hope’s thing, you know. And listen, I love the old Pros.
You know, when people talk about one of the Old Pros not being funny, it’s like, well, you’re judging him or her like they walked out on stage today. I mean you got to understand at that time, that’s what they were doing. That’s what they were talking about. And these people were brilliantly funny.
And then you have the other thing, the cancel culture, which, by the way, if …
So if it’s in any way you can help me get canceled doing this interview, I would appreciate it. But if you’re gonna judge a joke from from you know, nineteen eighty three, like Eddie Murphy said, you know, if he did raw. Today, it wouldn’t be the same language. But in nineteen eighty two, eighty three, whenever that came out, it was brilliant and it was funny. And here’s the thing, everyone knew he didn’t mean it, you know.
It’s it’s like, yeah, oh, Eddie Murphy hates gay people. No he doesn’t. No, Eddie Murphy doesn’t hate anybody. There were jokes jokes at the time, so I don’t buy into all of that judgment on old comics and old pros. And was there some mugging and hamming it up with Jack Benny every joke, Right after every joke, he just stopped and gave you that sarcastic look.
You know, that was part of the joke. Rodney Dangerfield, he never tightened his tie, right, it was always at It was always with the tie. It’s it’s what they do. It’s mannerisms. It’s great.
Any young guys out there these days that might be off my radar sitting here in the basement, that you’re a man, it’s uh. You know, I see a lot of young comics. I don’t remember all the names of everybody. I love Mal Hall, Liz Merely, Liz is fantastic young woman out of New York. But there’s honestly, I couldn’t do justice because I don’t remember names.
But there there’s a lot of young comics and I like what they’re doing. And it’s a different, different generation, right, different vibes. So they’re doing a lot of social media and sketches and stuff like that beyond these besides stand up, so you know, good for them. I mean it’s it’s again, different generation, different vibe. As a veteran, do you lose your mind when you see somebody who’s been doing it for three minutes has three hundred seventy five trillion TikTok views for one joke?
There is you know, you know what it’s become. And you’re old enough to remember the eight John remember one hit wonders, Yeah, there are now there are now one bit wonders that you can do. But it’s one bit one. They have a joke and or a bit or something on YouTube or TikTok or whatever, and you know, a billion people see it and a billion people love it, and then they get on stage and it’s like, okay, there’s a lot of filler until they get to that joke. I don’t really have time to get mad about it, you know, even with me like my I have a social person who helps with social media, and she’ll si, wow, you got two million views on that bit, and I’m like, okay, now get me in an arena and have all two million people show up here.
Right. But you talk about the one hit wonders. You know, somebody like yourself or Georgia Pop or a lot of these people we’ve talked about. I could wake up out of bed and go, hey, don’t worry about why I did you do forty minutes? Right now?
You got it. One of the things on your resume’s last comics standing that was that show came along when I used to run series XM comedy, and you know, people would come up to me and be like, hey, you ought to play so and so they killed on TV last night, and I’d be like, that person has five seconds of material and that’s what they put in the special. And you know, a lot of yourself one of them. You know, people came out of that show and have had really great careers, but there were a lot of people that had one joke two jokes. I teach a college class and I’m not a comedian at all, case you can’t tell, I will illustrate to the students that, you know, I can say something really vulgar about punching someone in a body part, and I’ll get a laugh out of the class.
And I’m like, I didn’t even set that up. I just said something shocking, you know, So I made you laugh for three seconds. But I’m not a comic. Yeah, well, last comic was interested. So the first year, the first season, they had a rule like, you couldn’t have done a comedy special, and I don’t think you couldn’t have done it Tonight Show.
And they had a lot of beginners, and what they found out was, you know, if you’ve been doing comedy too three years, you’re not ready for TV yet. You’re certainly not ready for a sustained act.
And then some of the winners or you know, they went on tour and it was like, …
So when we did it, we were all headliners. We were all veterans. I think the newest comic we had had been doing it for like eight years, so we were ready, you know. And the other thing I learned was you’re always writing. You know, George Wallace was one of my mentors and heroes.
You will never see him without that yellow pad. I explained to him. We use computers and tablets now, but you know, you got he’s an old man. But no, he always had the yellow pad. He was always writing.
The guys who taught me this, they were like, man, you gotta be writing all the time because you want to stay relevant. You don’t want to be you know, it’s twenty twenty three. If you still have a VCR joke, you’re probably not going to get much work. Yeah, yet we know the light flashes twelve. That’s very funny.
So what do you actually use yourself? No pad on a phone. Yeah. I shifted over from notebooks to using notes on my phone and on my tablet, my mini tablet, which I carry all the time. And the reason is writing it out.
Physically writing it imprints it on the memory. So that was always great because it trained my mind to remember the joke. But the nice thing about the digital notes is it’s easy to file, categorize, and find stuff because all you got to do is put in a word, you know, like if I put in jfl and just for last all of my just for last sets come up, so I’m like, oh, okay, I can’t do this. I did that joke or you know, blah blah blah. So that kind of stuff.
That’s why the digital stuff makes it easier for me, because I was never one to listen. Some comics would have index cards and they would file them and they would have their you know, these are my jokes about travel, these are my jokes about being married. These are my And I was like, man, I’m not that I’m not that organized. I’ll just write some new ones. If I got to I can’t be looking at up.
I’ll just write some new ones and let’s hope this works. So do the new ones. They’re in a documents and then you know, at some point, I guess what, you’re pretty sticking together in new set? Are you looking at that and going okay, let me sequence this? This this call back go working now.
I date the sets and then I’ll have like new jokes. I’ll have a thing I call random ideas and stuff like that, and I’ll pull from that.
And then sometimes I’ll be going through sets and I’ll see it a joke from you…
Let me bring that one back, and then I’ll start doing it again, and then it’ll change some doing it now just you know, because it’s running through my mind differently. The funniest thing to me is when a fan remembers a bit that I have no idea what they’re talking about. Wow, I’ll never forget. Somebody said, man, I love your tank bit, and I was like, I have no idea what the tank bit is. If you start it, I’ll remember it.
But now I’m you know, my favorite joke is always the newest one I’m working on. So it’s funny with fans even. You know, in a radio career, you’ll meet a listener and they’ll be like, hey, how’s your cat Fluffy? And you’re like, how do you know what cat’s name is? Fluffy?
And the answer is because you mentioned the cat once in nineteen ninety eight at six in the morning. And fans just latch on the stuff it is. It’s amazing and it’s fantastic. But I do it too. You know, a lot of comics we know each other by material.
We you know, it’s like do you know blah blah blah, And it’s like who and he does the thing about the cat drive in a car and you’re like, oh, yeah, I know that guy. You know, we remember that.
And then the guys who I watched coming up Damarea, George Wallace, George Lop…
Lonzo Bowden, thank you for coming on Daily Comedy News, and that is your comedy news for today. Follow the show for free on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you’re on YouTube, you gotta like ring the bell and smash the like button. Get me more followers over there, as I can monetize a little, you know, I like money. See you tomorrow.
Hi, I’m Mark Francis and host of a new podcast, The Messy Effect. Join us as we take you into the exciting new world of Argentine soccer phenomenon Lionel Messi and his new life at Into Miami. Will bring you into the glitz, the glamor, the star studded events, along with the exciting journey to a new world of US soccer and international football, with news and stories three times a week. Coming on for the ride as Messy Miami and Major League Soccer experience the journey of a lifetime. Get the Messy Effect wherever you get your podcasts.