🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. He there, Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Jim Jeffries told Rolling Stone, New Zealand. I’m very interested in doing as many different things in entertainment as possible. I like a challenge, I like doing something new.
I don’t know if there’s a stand up comic from Australia who’s had a more diverse career, you know what I mean. I think of myself like I’m an entertainer more than a comedian. Jim studied musical theater and opera at the West Australian Academy Performing Arts. Who knew He did a couple open Mike’s spots in Western Australia and Sydney, and then decided Australia simply wasn’t equipped to give him the career he envisioned. He wanted more, Jim said, you had, and I’m not kidding, maybe twelve rooms, two purpose built comedy clubs and ten rooms that did comedy occasionally in a country that at that stage was twenty million people.
That’s not enough to make a living. Even to this day. If you’re a big comic on Australia, you’re doing morning radio. I don’t want to wake up in the morning. So in two thousand and one he went to England started getting work and said, I was doing over three hundred IT shows a year for the first few years, and that sounds like a lot more than it is, because I was doing three or four on a Friday, three or four on a Saturday.
But if there was a corner of a room for me to stand up, I was taking the opportunity smile politely. He spoke to Hari Condobolu. They were curious about his pop culture references in his shows, and Harry said, I’ve been waiting for somebody to ask that question my whole career. I’m a full human being, and I felt like at a certain point, looking at my stand up, probably when I was in my mid dely twenties, I realized that I’m doing this job, but I’m not in it, you know what I mean. It’s almost like I’m playing a role and I’m not into it.
To make this material, mind have to be in it. People have to see me as a full human being. So why don’t I talk about the other things I care about to find interesting? A five minute Weezer joke which doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere else, but it’s me. As long as there’s enough for everybody.
I feel like those moments are really special. They’re both something I find funny and also wink to the other people who love those things. It makes me feel part of a community in a weird way, a community of fans. The goal is not to be pandery. The goal is to be like, I’m this too.
When I drop a Pixie’s reference is because I want people to know that I love the Pixies. I think, from a practical perspective, the more you personalize a show, both in terms of a shared moment in this town, in the space of the audience, as well as this is my family, this is my world. These are things I like. When you talk about the heavier stuff, you’re hearing it from somebody you relate to, as opposed to some stranger that shows up and starts yelling at you. The more you can become friends with the audience, connect to the audience, the more they’re willing to listen to things that might be uncomfortable.
This is really smart. The audience is a reflection of me. In a weird way. You look out of the crowd, and you see all these people you could protest with, go to a concert with, talk baseball with, it’s the same people. It makes the audience feel like we’re all friends you just haven’t met yet.
Jim Brewer is out on the Survival with Laughter tour. Al dot Com was curious why that name, and Jim said, it’s pretty simple. It’s gonna be the craziest few weeks probably I’ve seen a long time. Can’t get much crazier than four years ago. So no matter who he feels right, or who you believe in, or what team you’ve joined, ain’t nobody surviving this one unless we unite, and we got to start by funding the laughter and all of it.
As for doing political material, Bruce says, the only way I know is to bring it down to as common street sense as possible, so that no matter what you think, you believe that you’ve learned from the news and all your favorite slow and all the favorite things you like to talk about your opponent, he didn’t create any of that. You’ve been told that. So to find the common sense, I mean, it’s not even political. But if you want to start with Joe Biden, would you allow the CEO of your company to talk the way he does and ramble and not know what he’s doing. You’re gonna let that guy run the biggest company in the world.
Why don’d you allow it in your presidency? So right there, the whole things are ready to choke. What do you get into in your shows these days? Brewer? Usually the first ten to fifteen minutes is please everyone wake up, and then after that we talk about other things, like the way I’ve been hitting other cultures and going to other countries, and then I go into family stuff and where I’m met in life, we all do fast things.
We’re like, oh, let’s have a fast on sugar, Let’s have a fast on food. How about you have a fast on everything you’ve been watching and see how it does. And That’s what I’ve been doing. When I’ve been traveling. I like to go to remote places.
I’ve been in Africa three times this year. Yes, for the SA Far East, but it’s also one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been to because I don’t have to stare at the screen the whole time, and then when I come back, I realize how nutty everything is. David Cross said, I don’t live in Los Angeles. I lived there for as little time as I possibly could, and then get out of there. I’ve been in New York for twenty four years.
I see things every day. I talk about things extensively that have happened to me in New York. Things I see in New York are things I experience in New York. And I’m a firm believer in that LA makes you a different person. Whether that’s better or worse is relative, but it’s certainly not better for me.
As an artist, Cross played Central Park. It was called David Cross in his Superpals. Cross said the summer stage thing. They approached me about this big show and said here’s the budget, and I don’t want it with that chunk of money. And I don’t think I’m at the place where I can do an hour and a half by myself, at least when I accepted the offer.
So I said, let’s get some friends together and we’ll divvy up a check. Unfortunately, I got rained out on the original date. We lost literally half the lineup, but we replaced those guys. Outdoor shows bring a challenge, he says. I’ve done a bunch of outside shows, and I think every comic will say the same thing.
You can kind of figure out why there’s not a lot of time for silence, like in the theater and the focus on you it’s dark. You can tell a story you want up telling jokes differently when you’re doing an outdoor show, at least I do. CNN wrote about Don’t Tell Comedy. I’m only seeing great things about Don’t Tell Comedy. Lea Samson was about to give up comedy and then got booked to do a shit Don’t Tell in La.
Then Don’t Tell Comedy posted her full set on YouTube along with a clip on TikTok. Overnight, her Instagram follower count doubled. The TikTok had four million views. Eight hundred thousand people have seen the full ten minutes set on YouTube. Samson said, I’ve always felt like I’ve been a really good comic, a hard worker, and I just needed people to see me, and Don’t Tell did that for me.
At a recent show in Atlanta, one hundred and forty nine people packed into a basement boxing gym to see seven local comedians perform. Rather than hoping a clip post on TikTok blows up, Don’t Tell gives comedians access to a built in audience on social media. Don’t Tell founder Kyle Kazanjian Amri says, the tough thing in comedy is you’re either living in a multimillion dollar house, so you’re scraping by to pay rent. The pathway to make money as flipped, comedians have to develop and nurture their fan bases through other avenues like a podcast or newsletter, so fans want to buy tickets to see them perform. But the idea of comedians having fans as a relatively new phenomenon, the article points out in the past, sure there was Jerry Seinfeld, but for the most part, comedians were just some name on a Friday night at the comedy club.
Comedian Grace Johnson says Don’t Tell right now stands out as one of the premier places to go for comedy and the way that Comedy Central has been especially as someone who’s been doing it for a shorter time than others, it’s been a really legitimizing thing. Don’t Tell. It doesn’t care how many Instagram followers you have. They just care that you’re funny. Johnson said.
The secret sauce of Don’t Tell is just like is it good? Okay? Sabrina Bryer is one of Vulture’s comedians you should know and will know. Worst show first. Then one that comes to mind is a small show I did in Brooklyn with friends.
I’m pretty sure there were more performers there than audience members. One by one, my friends and I got up on stage four sets and just reacted to the super awkward energy in the room. Do you have any comedy opinion hills that you will die on? She said, I really believe that the innovative creativity of TikTok and other more unconventional platforms and ways of entertaining should be just as valued as the conventional modes. Great comedy can be found anywhere.
Best comedy advice, worst comedy advice, best. In the beginning of my TikTok journey, there were some people who suggest that I step out of my character for video, and I’m so glad I stuck to my gut and didn’t. I’m so grateful for the platform. It’s a totally fictional world for me to play in. Best advice I got from my mom, who told me to keep pursuing comedy because, according to her, you have to be in comedy because you can’t help but be funny.
That’s why I’ve been laughing at you since you were little. That is your comedy needs for today. If you would like the show without commercials, there’s a link in the show notes so to tell you what to do. Or if you’re an Apple podcast, click on that banner four ninety nine a month you get this show and five good news stories and a bunch of other things. Ballot, you get Ballot our political podcast.
You get that the next couple of weeks. All that add free. So click on the banner thirty day free trial. Why wouldn’t you try it out for thirty days? Well, because you have an Android phone.
In that case, you’re gonna have to click the link on the show notes and on the androids. No thirty day free trial. Sorry, Apple hooks it up. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s you tomorrow.