For many comics, a steady gig is the light at the end of a very long tunnel. A job as a TV host can be the final frontier, after countless club shows and hundreds of hours on the road. Not the case with Chris Fairbanks. After serving his time as a personality and writer on Fuel TV, he’s just getting started. Chris, a regular on the comedy fesitval and late night circuit, is starting a self-described “grassroots” initiative to re-energize his comedy pursuits. We recently chatted with Chris before his SF Sketchfest show to talk how speech impediments can be motivational (and hilarious), balancing skating with comedy, and why we shouldn’t expect his “cat video” to drop any time soon.

ROOFTOP: You’ve racked up some considerable festival creds at Montreal’s Just For Laughs, Aspen, SF Sketchfest among others. How do all of these events affect your style as a performer?

CHRIS FAIRBANKS: I think that when I first did festivals like Montreal, there used to be more of an expectation as far as what they would do for your career: trying to get management or trying to get someone to see you. But the game has changed so much now because of the internet and people being able to put themselves out there. They don’t really need festivals, which is bittersweet. I like that. So now, festivals have become the thing, like Sketchfest and even smaller ones like Bridgetown, where they’re just about having fun. There’s no pressure. I was so scared when I did Montreal in the past. Now the bad part is there isn’t necessarily industry watching you, but I don’t think you need festivals for that anymore, which is awesome. There are other people getting recognition because their YouTube video has a cat in it or something. They get exposure without paying their dues in stand-up and then they end up doing stand-up. There’s people I know that headline the Improv seven months after one of their videos got 4 million hits and they end up getting management and they’re thrown in a comedy club. So that’s the downside of the internet serving what festivals used to do.

RT: So we’re still waiting on that Chris Fairbanks’ cat video?

CF: Yeah, I got to get a cat video together. I have a cat, but he’s far from entertaining. He’s right here in front of me. If I had a camera right now, no one would watch me.

RT: Just in case, I’ll get a release form to you right away.

CF: For the cat. You got to take advantage of the cat.

RT: What are you looking forward to this year in your career?

CF: For the last year and a half, I was working on a TV show, writing, sitting at a desk—which I never wanted. In my whole life, I was doing everything I could to not have a job like our dads had. It’s kind of funny that that’s what stand-up led to. The show was a Fuel TV show that covered action sports and had me go out and interviewing athletes and actors and going to press junkets and writing a live variety interview show. That was an everyday job and then it got cancelled. I wasn’t doing stand-up for a living. I would do it around LA occasionally like a lot of comics here. It felt weird to not feel like a professional comic. I was doing it less. If you work 55 hours a week, I was getting real lazy. I would not do stand-up for a whole month. Now, I’m just looking forward to doing stand-up again, but it is nice to make regular income. I’m already missing that a lot, but it just feels better to be on stage. On the other side, having a bad set is the worst. It’s a weird love hate relationship, so I just want to get to where I’m usually having good sets. Then I’ll be happy, right?

RT: How did you get attracted to action sports?

CF: That was something I got into when I was fourteen. I’ve been skateboarding for some 20 years. That was already happening. It was kind of cool that it intersected with my comedy career. It’s neat when they all intertwine because, usually, stand-up is separate from skateboarding and so is my art. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to do the comedy and art together. I guess I have to do a comic book or try to pitch a cartoon or something—which I’m actually working on right now. I have a meeting coming up and I’m totally unprepared.

RT: Just show up on a skateboard and you’ll be fine.

CF: Yeah, “Look at three things I do half-assed!” That’s the thing. For a long time I was doing stand-up and artwork for a living. I also had a regular thing with Thrasher. You stop and you wonder, “Should I commit 100% to this?” I’m not a super-motivated person that can live the professional life of barely one person, much less try and be a professional full-time artist. If you have your foot just part-way into a couple doors…

RT: On stage, you have these moments when you almost trip over your words. It comes across as wonderfully spontaneous and also gives the sense you’re really enjoying yourself up there.

CF: That’s where I think comics are actors also. Most of the time, I’m acting like something is happening right then or that there’s even a mistake so that I can have the freedom of riffing right then. If you do that and you do plan a few of those moments, then that allows you to do more truly improvised moments. It’s a 50/50 thing where some of them are planned and I know they’ll get a response, so then I’m free to riff on something else that’s happened—usually not with the audience, just with myself. People don’t heckle anymore, so I’m kind of heckling myself I guess. Some of them are planned and I’m pretending to say Champell’s Canky instead of Campbell’s Chunky, but it’s planned because it happened organically once. I learned that early. All these mistakes that would happen do happen because of my legitimate inability to speak. I have a messed up speech impediment. I used to have to suck on buttons on a string and they’d put a cage in the roof of my mouth to poke my tongue, so I would quit thrusting my tongue toward my teeth. I’ve always been real conscious of that.

RT: What else do you have coming up?

CF: I’m going to work the road a bit. I’m illustrating a children’s book with my sister.

RT: Is focusing on stand-up making you cut back on your other passions like skating?

CF: Totally—it’s just like with the art thing. Every time I go skating, I’m like “Why am I doing this?” It’s not even necessarily something that brings me joy. When I’m skateboarding, I’m just complaining, but I just can’t quit. Even though girls are like, “What? You’re 36? How old are you? You still skateboard?” That’s when I stop talking. I know that right now all I need to be doing is doing stand-up. My whole career, something comes from stand-up. That’s how I got the Fuel job. As long as you stay good at that, you don’t have to worry about any of this Hollywood crap.

–

Follow Chris on Twitter @chrisfairbanks. Chris’ album, Fairbanks!, is available through iTunes, Amazon, and the Rooftop store.

Rooftop Comedy Productions is proud to welcome the newest member of the family: Chris Killian. Chris is a comic from the Nashville area, who spends his time touring clubs and college campuses, bringing his energetic mix of comedy and original songs (including “Bieber Fever”, pictured above). We recently chatted with Chris online to talk about his comedy heroes, Justin Bieber’s comedic chops, and why he’s still waiting to hear back from Jay-Z. Chris’ new album, The Not Black Album comes out tomorrow and we hope you’ll check it out.

How long have you been doing comedy?

Well I hate to brag, but you know that night we recorded the album? That was like my fourth time on stage I think. What is that—three months now? I dunno. My stand-up comedy career so far has just been a haze of drug and sex-induced bravado. Let’s just say two and a half years.

Who are your comedy idols?

Well if I don’t mention classics like the Carlins and the Pryors and the Hicks, comedy nerds might castrate me. Those guys, obviously, and really, I love anyone willing to take risks. Steve Martin is a genius. I know it sounds weird and cliché saying this because he died, but Greg Giraldo was my comedy hero. He was the first stand-up comic I ever watched live, and a few years later I got to open for him a few months before he died and the guy was just great. I still have text messages from him where we’re busting each other’s balls.

You hail from the Nashville area. What’s that comedy scene like?

It’s pretty rural. It’s a lot like LA except most of the guys are related. We love tractor jokes in Nashville.

You incorporate music into your act quite a lot and write original songs. Who do you identify as your equivalent in the music world?

I would hate to insult any musical legends by identifying them as equal to me. But probably John Lennon.

Who are your musical inspirations?

Inspired is probably a strong word. Let’s take Prince for example. I’m a HUGE Prince fan. What he really did was inspire me not to pursue real music because I’m just not that talented. Instead, artists like Prince and The Beatles and Tone Loc taught me that, like all great things, if I cut it down and make fun of it, I can pretend like it’s not that hard to do.

Have you always played music as part of your comedy?

The songs actually led me to stand-up comedy. Originally in college, I would just try to entertain my friends or pick up chicks, so I’d be like “Listen to this song I wrote about homeless people or statutory rape or necrophilia” and eventually, people would tell me I should try to perform those on stage. But from the get-go I knew I only wanted the music to be a small part to my show. The album actually has a lot more music than I usually perform. One reason is because I want the good songs I’ve written to have a longer shelf life so I don’t have to write more. But the MAIN reason is because I want the show to be diverse and break up the monotony a bit.

On the flip side, while we’re on the subject of music in comedy, I have ran into this elitist attitude from some stand-up comics, or purists, and there’s a certain backlash sometimes that comes from having music in my act. I have literally walked into clubs with a guitar and seen other comics roll their eyes and say something like, “Guitar comics are shitty. It’s just a crutch”. Well sure, I agree, some guitar comics are shitty and use it as a crutch. But just to assume that, without seeing them, because someone has a guitar, they’re automatically shitty, well that’s stupid. I know a lot of guys who don’t play music in their act who suck, but that doesn’t mean I think all monologists are terrible. I watch them before I judge.

But to answer your question, yeah, pretty much.

Has Jay-Z formally welcomed you to the “The ______ Album” club?

Not formally, but he’s got like 101 problems now instead of 99, what with Beyoncé and Blue Ivy, so I’m sure it’s on his to-do list. I did get an e-mail from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich welcoming me, but he’s usually a dick so I didn’t respond.

What are you looking forward to this year in your comedy career?

I am looking forward to the sales of this album sky-rocketing me and catapulting me into the comedy heavens. Realistically, I’m happy to have a busy year on the books and can hopefully just keep writing and performing.

You’re a proud Justin Bieber “belieber”. Do you think he has any comedy chops?

Yeah, I do. Actually, I just read earlier today that the Biebs just bought the rights to the movie FEAR, where Mark Wahlberg played a psychotic stalker. Remember? The article said Biebs wants to re-make that movie and play the Marky Mark character, which I find hilarious. If there’s one word that doesn’t describe Justin Bieber, it’s intimidating.

–

Chris will headline Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville February 1-2 and Sidesplitters (Knoxville) on February 5. To see Chris’ full tour schedule, follow him on Facebook and Twitter. The Not Black Album will be available January 31 on iTunes, Amazon, and RooftopComedy.com.

Patton Oswalt sat down on the Conan couch last night to promote his new film, Young Adult. The conversation, though, didn’t just focus on the Jason Reitman-directed film that looks awfully good and the logical perplexities of Patton adding a love scene with Charlize Theron to his resume. Naturally, the holiday season came up and Patton wants to know the Little Drummer Boy’s secret to soothing babies (Jesus or otherwise). Watch his full interview:

Las Vegas doesn’t immediately jump to mind when people think of comedy hotbeds. For Bryan Bruner, though, that’s where he got his first gigs and where he jumped the first hurdle of stealing people’s attention from the slot machines. Since then, Bryan has only been improving, crafting his own style that’s a blast to listen to on his debut album, Welcome to Djibouti. We recently sat down with Bryan to talk about some intense (and violent) heckling, Kal Penn’s relationship with cheetahs, and the comedic muse that is Florida’s swingers’ community.

Rooftop Comedy: What was it like to get your comedy start in the Vegas scene?

Bryan Bruner: It was tough because it still is a very young, tiny scene. It’s not like New York, where there’s six generations of comics and an established way of doing things. In Vegas, it’s starting. It’s creating itself. You’re doing video poker bars. People’s attentions are everywhere but being geared up for comedy. People are figuring it out though. They’re figuring out how to set up the room and how to give comedy a fighting chance. Coming from Vegas definitely gave me the chops to have the fighting chance to survive in New York.

RT: So how about that one time a Marine attacked you while you were performing onstage?

BB: I think I was doing stand-up for six months and I was hosting this show and it was in the back of the bar. I’m dying on stage. I’m getting nowhere. My mom’s in the audience. My grandma is there. It’s her 80^th birthday. I’m eating so much dick. I’m getting no laughs and one of the jokes tanks and I turn and I repeated the punch line at this guy or whatnot. Out of the blue, he comes out of nowhere and spears me from the side, knocks me into the TV and into the wall. Just a few minutes earlier, his buddy had heckled me and I made fun of him. It wasn’t anything mean. It was kind of a shitty comeback. Anyway, his buddy heckled me and I went back into the bit and then after that bit is when he just charged me onstage. It was a weird thing where I got stuck in the wall and I had to unplug my ass out of the wall. After that, I think I quit doing stand-up for quite a long time. [Ed. note: you can watch the incident on YouTube]

RT: How was it going on a U.S. Army tour overseas?

BB: We were in Djibouti and our tour—we were just a bunch of no-name comics—but there was also a USO tour called the Hollywood Handshake tour. It was Christian Slater, Kal Penn, Zachary Levi, and Joel David Moore. So their tour meets our tour and we’re in Djibouti and they take us to this cheetah refuge. Some of them are contained behind a fence and there was one cheetah that was actually domesticated and you could pet the cheetah. I’m a little stand-off-ish about this and I’m sitting next to Kal Penn and some military officer was like, “Hey Kal, don’t try to ride this cheetah”, because in Harold and Kumar, they have to ride a cheetah back to White Castle. So they start fucking with Kal Penn and Kal Penn for a second was like, “Dude, I don’t think you guys understand. I really fucking hate cheetahs. When we were filming the movie, they purposefully didn’t feed the cheetah, so it would come across meaner”. So when Kal Penn wouldn’t go into the cheetah refuge, these military guys would just give him shit the whole time. I’m glad I’m not a movie star.

RT: Your album features a few stand-out long-form stories, including one about your introduction to the swingers’ community in Florida. Are these bits pretty polished at this point, or do you continue to develop the delivery?

BB: Yes and no. It’s got to change and it’s got to evolve. I can’t do the same thing every time. My problem that I have is sometimes I load it too much with detail and it loses focus. I’ll know I have a good story, if I feel like I’ll be embarrassed to tell it. If I’m like, “I don’t even know if I should be telling you about this”, well then that’s a story everyone wants to hear. For me, the hardest part is just getting out there and saying it. The more I say it, the more comfortable I become talking about it. What I’ll do is I’ll just go to some open mic and I’ll take my five minutes or whatever I’m allotted and I will just tell the story. I don’t care if it works or if it doesn’t. I just need to get the beats down. I’ve always been a storyteller for my friends and whatnot. Honestly, though, it was something I just started getting into before we recorded that record.

RT: You also produce the Sorta Secret Comedy Show. How did you decide to host a comedy show in your New York-sized apartment?

BB: Obviously, like everyone in New York, I have two roommates and they’re stand-ups. I wanted to do a show in a parking garage or in an auto shop and I started coming up with all these weird places I wanted to do it. We wanted to do one in our living room, but our landlord is a dick. We have a really big place. We kind of looked at each other and were like, “That’s so crazy of an idea that it just might work”. We started taking tape measurements of the room and started figuring out how we could line up couches and where we could get chairs. We charged $10 to get in the door and then it’s free beer—all you can drink. I think at our first show we had 45 people. The biggest show in our living room we had 55 people. Now, we’re taking it elsewhere. We’re working on getting into a laundromat. We just did the top of a hotel. Brown Paper Tickets totally sponsored us and rented us a sick as rock star suite at the top of a Holiday Inn. We really want to get into a Planned Parenthood.

–

Keep up with Bryan on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. Welcome to Djibouti is available now on iTunes, Amazon, and the Rooftop Comedy shop.

Rooftop Comedy Productions is proud to release Christina Pazsitzky’s It’s Hard Being a Person. Christina’s debut comedy album shows off her style of comedy that’s taken her everywhere from Last Comic Standing to Chelsea Lately. Christina’s not afraid to wear her “Going Out” sweatpants to someplace fancy like Applebee’s or talk about her thing for fat guys, including her very funny husband Tom Segura. We recently chatted with Christina right before Thanksgiving to discuss this generation’s Brett Butler, her personal identification with sausage, and comedy in old Hungary.

Rooftop Comedy: Are you doing any traveling for Thanksgiving?

Christina Pazsitzky: No. Thankfully, my relatives are here in Los Angeles. My husband and I are hosting this year to get our drink on.

RT: You’ve expressed your intense dislike for the term “girl comic”. Do you think there’s still a degree of pressure on funny female stand-ups to be cutesy?

CP: I think the pressure is always there for girls to be agreeable and attractive, comic or not. The culture is starving for a female voice that doesn’t reinforce the norm.  It’s all well and good to be girly—I’m not taking a dump on the girls that do that—but I think the culture is ripe for somebody like Roseanne or Brett Butler to kind of be that other voice. There needs to be balance in the comedy universe.

RT: Just this week, GQ magazine named Kristen Wiig “Bro of the Year”.

CP: Like Kristen’s so funny, she’s guy funny? It’s odd to have Comedians in GQ at all. Gone are the days when you could just have a personality and have a career. I’m trying to think…who’s that guy? Marty Feldman? He had one wonky eye and that guy was in a bunch of movies in the ‘80s. Well that culture is gone. I think it’s because of people like— not to knock him or his comedy—but Dane Cook, who was the first of that, “Oh my god. You’re so attractive and you’re funny?” Dane can sell tickets to guys and the girls who think he’s hot. But as far as posing for lad mags…I don’t see myself doing it, unless it’s the way Sarah Silverman did. She posed in a gorilla costume, which is great.

RT: So you were born in Hungary.

CP: Actually, no. For storytelling purposes, I condensed the details a bit. That popped out of my mouth in a Chardonnay haze during recording. My parents escaped from Hungary in ’69, fleeing the Communist regime, and they were put in a camp in Italy for a year and then the Catholic Church sponsored them to go to Canada. I was born in Canada, in Windsor, Ontario, across from Detroit.  My father worked at a car factory in Detroit and we moved to Los Angeles when I was four. I grew up in a working class immigrant household. My parents never told me I was a “little princess” or any nonsense like that.  On the outside, I look like a white blonde girl, but I’m made of sausage. I’m made of Hungarian kolbasz.

RT: Speaking of, sausage seems to be a common theme on It’s Hard Being a Person.

CP: I think it’s such an unconscious thing for me, because I really have a love for all processed meats. It’s just part of my upbringing. If you opened my father’s fridge right now, you would find at least 4 links. To me, sausage really speaks to what class you’re from, because it’s all the meat you’re not supposed to eat, but if it’s flavored just right, you can make it really good. But you can’t think about it. It is kind of a metaphor for life. You’re given these nasty bits and you try to put it together and make it palatable and tasty.

RT: What’s the comedy scene like in Hungary?

CP:  I don’t know what exists now, I’m assuming they get our movies and stand-up. Stand-up is a really American art form, with some Brits and Australians thrown in, too. The only Hungarian stand up I ever knew of was a guy named Hofi Géza and he was a stand-up comedian during the Communist regime. Hofi was one of the very few subversive elements allowed during the regime, because he would make jokes about stuff that you knew had a double meaning.  He was taking jabs at what was going on, but it was permitted because everyone loved Hofi.  I’d listen to my dad’s records  of Hofi when I was a little girl. I’d pick up on stuff here and there. I didn’t understand all the humor.

RT: When you were on MTV’s Road Rules, was there any pressure from the producers to be the funny blonde woman?

CP: I was actually, for many years, goth and punk growing up. I was very angry and very depressed. When I did Road Rules, I was studying philosophy in college and took myself very seriously. At best, I was snarky and sarcastic. They didn’t cast me because I was funny. They casted me because I was—I don’t know why. I was dumb, that’s for sure. I just wanted to see the world. I know my humor comes from being an angry, 14 year-old punk. I love that fiery, conscious, action-driven, DIY ethic. I’m proud though, to have been on Road Rules and in a time when they didn’t vote people off or set them on fire. Nobody even hooked up on my season. We were just a bunch of douche bags in a Winnebago having fun—good clean, honest, drunk fun. I’m still very close to a couple of my cast mates, they’re like family.

RT: What factors went into your decision to release an album now?

CP:  It was time and I was finally a full-time comic. The title, It’s Hard Being a Person, came from a promise I made to myself when I was working in telemarketing years ago. I was so miserable. It was one of those jobs where you just call people every day and just get shit on—rightly so, because you’re calling people at home and offering them a survey on eggs. This guy David I worked with was so funny. One day, I just slammed down the phone and was like, “Man, I fucking hate this job”. He goes, “Yeah, well, it’s hard being a person” and I thought “Ah! That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard”. The most existential—it is hard being a person. I swore that when I became a full-time comic, I’d name my album that. The time came and I did.

RT: Do you like working the rooms in LA more than touring all over?

CP: I love LA. Because I grew up here, I understand the crowds better. I like to develop new jokes here. I do the Comedy Store a lot when I’m home. Bits are born in LA and then taken on the road to be honed. I see no value in being a comedian that only five people get. Your job as a communicator is to make your ideas understandable to a large audience. I’ve really started to enjoy the Midwest a lot. At first, I didn’t know what to expect, because I grew up in LA and had no idea how the rest of the country lived.  But they’re down to earth people. They care about family and the neighborhood. And they love hot dogs. I can respect that.

–

Christina will be headlining at Crackers Comedy Club in Indianapolis Dec 14-17. Her podcast “Your Mom’s House” is available for download on iTunes. It’s Hard Being a Person is available now on iTunes, Amazon, and the Rooftop Comedy Shop.

Pete O’Neil likes to think big. The Managing Director of the Sebastian Comedy Society and the brand new Ft. Lauderdale Comedy Club has every intention to bring the Ft. Lauderdale Comedy Retreat to the next level. He wants the annual event to become the Sundance of the comedy world, where the next big comics of tomorrow, migrate south to participate in networking events, seminars, showcases, and the ever-popular fishing tournament. Rooftop recently chatted with Pete about the Florida comedy scene, what separates the Ft. Lauderdale Comedy Retreat from other big comedy events, and why Shanghai needs a new comedy venue.

Rooftop Comedy: What new events and programs can people expect at this year’s Comic Retreat?

Pete O’Neil: We’re doing the first two showcases, the first two nights at our new home, the Ft. Lauderdale Comedy Club, but the third night, we’re doing it at the War Memorial, which is a big auditorium down here. It’s a landmark. For comedy, it’s gonna seat 2,100. Jose Sarduy is gonna be our comic who’s going to be performing at that showcase—the headliner. Then we’ll take the best from the showcase shows the days prior and put them in as part of the show. So you may have a new young comic, who’s just started out, then comes down, does a showcase at our show, and then on that Wednesday, he’ll be performing in front of 2,100 people, which is a pretty big room.

Of course, the fishing tournament is always a big thing every year, because we’re in Florida and there’s boats. We call it a fishing tournament, but it’s just a bunch of wild guys out on the boat and the locals are invited to go be part of it. This year, we’ll make a rule up that you’re not allowed to go cheat and buy frozen fish like last year. This year, you cannot come on board with a frozen fish and win the tournament. The other thing—bowling is real fun, as strange as that sounds. A lot of the comics love to bowl, everybody local likes to bowl. That’s an event that locally, everybody really likes. It gives locals a chance to hang out with up and coming comics and spend some time with them.

RT: With the new club opening up, what kind of comedy is Ft. Lauderdale looking for?

PO: I think it’s different genres. When we do a 6:30 early bird show, those are seniors, so they’re looking for a clean show with clean humor. The good thing is 20 years ago when I started out helping promote clubs, if you told a comic, “No F-word or dirty language”, they’d be insulted. Nowadays, I notice most young comics are cool with that because they understand and they have two different sets. What I think is important about Comic Retreat is that we make it part of the community and now we’re in an even bigger market, Ft. Lauderdale, which likes to party. What we think is great about Comic Retreat is it’s really a celebration of the art form of stand-up comedy. We didn’t want to build another festival, because there’s so many festivals, and a lot of the time they’re just—no disrespect to festivals—but young comics show up and perform for free. We don’t do that. Any show that the comic performs at, they get a piece of the door, and the other thing is we think it’s important that the comics, no matter where they are in their career, that they can take a couple days off every year and they can take stock of their career: where they’re going, maybe they need a booking agent. This year, we have Joel Pace from Heffron Comedy, who’s going to be giving a seminar about how you get signed with a major agency. We’re not there yet. We’re probably two or three years off from where we want to be, but we want to be what Sundance Film Festival is for emerging filmmakers, we want to become that platform for emerging comics—where they can come together once a year, they can party, they can have a good time, do workshops, do showcases, fish, and sit by the pool. We’re kind of excited now, because Ft. Lauderdale has totally embraced it. We think this is somewhat like their Sundance Film Festival every year.

RT: What do you think the breakdown this year will be in terms of new comics and more seasoned comics?

PO: It’s 50 percent of comics who’ve been doing it less than three to five years. Then we do get some old road dogs that show up and they have fun. It’s funny—there’s a percentage of comics that hate each other and don’t want to hang out, but for the ones that like to commune, it’s a good opportunity. I’d say 50-60 percent are young comics that are new and have picked it as a career. The other thing that we found last year, is kids who’ve graduated with degrees and they can’t get jobs. You have kids graduating with an engineering degree or a doctorate and they can’t get a job, but they can become great stand-up comics. They have a knack for it, but then they need to look at the business aspect of it. We’re seeing a whole new school of comics, who I won’t say are more sophisticated, but they come into a different opportunity, where they actually can’t get jobs. I think they come in with a really sophisticated view of performing. So we’re about two years off from where I want to be with this event. Every event takes a few years to improve. Moving to Ft. Lauderdale, we’ve been getting a lot of support from Nicki Grossman, who’s the head of the Greater Ft. Lauderdale tourist board. They have a lot of events to choose from, but we were one of the few events they went out and recruited down. We’re having all the workshops at the B Ocean, which is gorgeous. It’s right on the beach—every room has a view of the ocean. A number of our comics come from the northeast, so the good thing is that in January, you don’t have to convince somebody in Detroit or Boston to get out of the cold for a few days. It’s just a celebration of the art of comedy and we’re trying to build it to become kind of like the Sundance Film Festival, but for emerging comics. We encourage people, if people have an idea for an event or a workshop we can add, we consider ourselves an open platform. So if somebody comes to us and says, “Hey, I’d love to put on a workshop”, we’re totally open to that. We truly just want to make it a meeting place for everybody.

RT: How did the Sebastian Comedy Society, the group that produces the Comic Retreat, come together?

PO: My partner and I worked for 12 years up in New York City and we had, of all things, a pet grooming business. I had a stroke a couple years ago, so I moved down to Florida. So when I was in Indian River, I was like, “I’ll get back into promoting comedy clubs”, because I’ve done it, off and on, for that past 22-plus years. And when I was up in Indian River, at a place called Sebastian, we started Sebastian Comedy Society—sort of like “The Little Ladies Bird Watching Society”. I tell people, just like you have a good mechanic, or a doctor, or a pharmacist, in every community, you need to have a good comedy club. That’s sort of how Sebastian Comedy Society started up. In the past couple of years I’ve migrated back to comedy, just because it’s always something that makes people feel good. What we’re looking to do next year, if my investors back me, we want to put a Comedy Zone over in Shanghai, China next year. That’s next year. This year, I think it’s important that we build Comic Retreat. The biggest move is that we put it in a bigger market. This is a cheaper market for people to get to. It’s sort of a party town. It fits nicely into our future plans.

–

Click here for more info on registering for the Ft. Lauderdale Comedy Retreat (deadline Dec 20th).

Rooftop Comedy Productions is proud to release Everything’s the Best!, the debut album from Josh Gondelman. Josh established himself in the Boston comedy scene, winning over crowds—preschool students and club crowds alike—with his musings on dating, children, his years as a teacher, and more. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a comic as grounded in his awkward dorkiness as Josh, but that just makes him that much funnier. Rooftop recently chatted with Josh to discuss performing for preschool teachers, channeling insecurities into a confident, hilarious act, and sharing the stage with carrying the Boston comedy mantle to New York.

Rooftop Comedy: You recorded Everything’s the Best! in Boston at Mottley’s, right before you made the move to New York.

Josh Gondelman: I did. I wanted to have all my creative stuff to do with it done by the time I left Boston.

RT: Was it a packed club with all your loyal friends and family?

JG: Yeah it was great. It was really nice. I had some childhood friends who came and a lot of comedians— the Boston scene is really supportive of our own. So I felt it was a really warm send-off. And my family was there. It was great! We had two sold out shows, even during the Stanley Cup finals.

RT: Oh wow—not exactly the easiest act to share the stage with.

JG: In Boston, sports can ruin comedy. It’s really nuts. When the Red Sox won the first World Series, everyone was really psyched. Then in 2007, it was like “Oh, this is really great”, but at the same time, the longer they string this along, the more shows will get cancelled because no one is leaving the house.

RT: I imagine the Boston comedy community as one big, loving family, with Joe List and Kelly MacFarland cheering you along at your show.

JG: It’s really great. Kelly and Joe both recorded with Rooftop, so I called them both to be like, “Hey, would you recommend this? Also, do you think I should do this?” They were both like, “Yeah, man. Go for it. Rooftop’s great; you’re great”, which is very sweet of them to say. When I got to New York, there was a really nice nest of Boston people that I know through generations, like Myq Kaplan, Dan Hirshon, Joe List, Gary Gulman, Jon Fisch, Micah Sherman, so many from the improv and sketch world. It was so nice and comforting to come and in my first week, I ran into a lot of people that I knew, but probably four or five people that I knew that were Boston comics. We live in New York. We do comedy in New York, but we came up in Boston. It’s a lot of loyalty and a lot of pride.

RT: Your comedy draws a lot from your personal life and experiences as a preschool teacher. Do you like to blend these various circles and bring them to your shows?

JG: The preschool teachers, actually, that I used to work with were the best crowds when they would come. They love the preschool material and it was almost like when a group of moms go out or a group of people that don’t get out much together all go out together and so they would just be out of their mind with excitement, just cheering for everyone on the show. [Other comics] would be like, “Who’s this whole row of 28-year old women?” And I’d be like, “Oh, that’s my co-workers back when I used to teach”. They’re super nice and my old co-teacher called me, because I used to write the holiday play for the kids every year and she was like, “I know you don’t work here, but will you still write the holiday play and come watch us do it?” I would always direct it and I would be the guy onstage, telling the kids where to go, but this year they’re going to do it without me, but they still asked me to write it, which is really sweet and funny. I hope they don’t screw it up. I kind of have a reputation.

RT: Do you miss your preschool students?

JG: I do. I’m really happy to have more flexibility in my day and be able to travel more and write more, but I miss having something that I got to do every day that made me feel like a valuable member of society. I would always leave school and be like, “Man, that was a rough day. One kid was crying because his dad was out of town. Another kid pooped on the floor, but I feel like I made someone’s life better today”. I miss that. It’s a very delightful way—even when I come back to visit, because I go back to Boston, if I have time, I’ll drop in and just say hello to my old boss and the little kids. There are kids there that I know from when they were babies and they always go crazy and it’s super sweet.

RT: On stage, you mix self-deprecation, warmth, and wit. Has this always been your comedic inkling or did it evolve overtime?

JG: When I started, the self-deprecation was a lot more down. It was a lot more “Aww”. Now, I’m a very comfortable person in general. I’m kind of a weirdo, but I’m very comfortable with it. I’m very at ease most of the time. I’m not anxious, socially. I feel comfortable on stage. It’s easier to just kind of be a person and write about who I am as a person. There are things that I say that are kind of self-deprecating, but I feel like they’re not in a way like, “I suck”. I always try to do it in a way like, “I’m not good at this. I wish I were better at this. I don’t understand this. I’m fascinated by this because it goes over my head”. When the jokes are good, and I hope they are, it keeps the audience more on your side. I started when I was young. I started when I was 19 and I wasn’t as confident as I am now. So even though I’m still kind of a dork, I’m a very comfortable, at-ease dork. I feel like that puts the audience at ease.

RT: It’s also easy to relate to.

JG: Thank you. It’s not like the heavy Richard Lewis anxiety and sense of discomfort. It’s not like Louis C.K. self-loathing. Things in my life are very happy and very fortunate and where there are little creases or little wrinkles, I try to dig into those and find the little weird things that are relatable to other people.

RT: Anything else you want people to know about Everything’s the Best!?

JG: I’m just really excited for the album to be out and to have this hour of comedy out for people to hear. I have my hard copy CDs and I’ve just been handing them to people I see and been like, “I hope you like it!” Then I run away. Obviously, there’s the idea of selling a CD to make money on the road, and I’m planning on doing that, but I’m just very hopeful that people enjoy it. I don’t think this project is going to catapult me to superstardom, but I’m just really excited to have people react to it and hopefully to have it be something that they enjoy.
–
Everything’s the Best! is now available on iTunes, Amazon, and the Rooftop Comedy shop (where you can listen to a free sample track!). Josh will be performing at the Afterlife Comedy Show, Nov 18th at the Sidewalk Café in NYC.

If you ever see Andrés du Bouchet perform live, you’re in for a treat. With Andrés comes a host of hilarious, captivating characters, making for a night of comedy that’s truly unique. There’s Danny Yeahyeah, a warm-up comic whose idea of crowd work is unlike anything you’ve ever heard; or Karl Management, who’s as passionate about managing talent as he is about pitching genius reality shows (Men With Terrible Gaydar House). Andrés, who spends his days as a writer for Conan, brings Karl, Danny, and others to his new album, Naked Trampoline Hamlet, recorded earlier this year at Bar Lubitsch in LA. Rooftop recently chatted with Andrés about his writing style, Conan O’Brien’s grip on U.S. history, marketing strategies from an unlikely source, and more.

Rooftop: Tell me about how your character Karl Management—a slick Hollywood suit who’s never short on new reality show ideas—came to be.

Andrés du Bouchet: Well I think, if I’m not mistaken, the character and the shows were two different things initially. It was another example of me re-assigning material to a different character. Those shows might have just been a blog post at first or something I wrote. The Karl Management character—do you remember, several years ago, there was this movie called The Aristocrats?

RT: Yes.

ADB: In the movie, all these comics tell their variation of that joke and then I participated in a show at the Peoples Improv Theater in New York where the whole point of the show was just for all the comics to do their version of “The Aristocrats”. So I decided I would tell it from the point of view of the talent manager of who these people were coming to. In most variations of that joke, you’re telling it from a third person perspective, where it’s just like “Here’s what happened. The manager is sitting there and he says blah, blah, blah”. So I just decided I’d tell it as a first person point of view story of the guy and these freaks came into his office. I’m always a big fan of making characters as—like calling a manager Karl Management. That just tickles me. Talking that way is just fun for me. It’s sort of like a style of speaking that’s like, one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Pepitone and my friend Michael Reisman who’s one of the guys I did a lot of comedy with in New York. It’s not the way he normally speaks, but sometimes, to make a point, he’d talk like that. He’s probably my favorite guy to appear as. It’s just very easy to talk like that and mundane things seem funny to me.

RT: As Karl Management, you build this great energy as you list more and more reality show pitches. Is that list framework your creative sweet spot as a writer?

ADB: I think any comedy writer would tell you that the format of the list is one of the most fun things to write. It’s not necessarily easy, but the fact that you have this structure in place makes it easier than normal. The order you put things in can help you decide which ones are going to be more elaborate and which ones are going to be quicker and simpler. You build off of previous items on the list, because certain things are already on the list, you can have a callback joke later that is sort of building off that. Anytime there’s a structure in place, it just makes writing more easy and fun. It gives you something to build on. I love listing off stupid things—who doesn’t? I like quiz formats. Those are another example—a lot of the bits I write here at work sometimes are these quizzes Conan and Andy do back and forth. Those are fun because it’s the same sort of thing: you build off of previous questions and you’ve got this structure to work with.

RT: Can you give an example of that kind of quiz segment?

ADB: They do this recurring bit I came up with where, because the premise is “Some people think Americans shouldn’t be allowed to vote unless they are educated enough in American history that they can pass the same test immigrants need to pass to become citizens”. That was some news story on CNN.com at some point last year. I was like, “Why don’t we just have Conan say ‘I agree with that! I’m going to take the citizenship test right now on camera’. Andy’s like, ‘Are you sure? These questions are pretty hard’. Conan’s like ‘I know my stuff. Let’s do it’. So obviously you can already see what’s going to happen. The first couple questions are real and then they get…and the way we do it is Conan is always right, even if his answer seems ridiculous. So I make up the questions and all the stupid answers and it’s fun to put them in a certain order that builds in ridiculousness or the momentum shifts from all these fast ones to, all of the sudden, a round where it’s a more elaborate thing with “Finish the phrase” or “Fill in the blank” or whatever and then it gets more and more ridiculous and then the last big question, Conan suddenly answers accurately in a long-winded, dry explanation. Like, “Explain what the Teapot Dome scandal was” and he’ll give a big paragraph of a completely accurate explanation. Those are always fun for me to write because there’s that structure in place.

RT: You just had an album release party in LA. How was that?

ADB: It was a lot of fun. It was at this place called the Steve Allen Theater. Two of the other Conan writers were co-hosts and co-hosted as these characters who were supposedly a company hired by Rooftop to do the marketing for the album. They called themselves—the two guys who did this were Dan Cronin and Todd Levin—their marketing firm was called Human Centipede. They were like, “We had our name way before that stupid movie came out and they refused to change it”. They had this whole really funny riff about how their company name and their slogans and stuff are just very unfortunate matches to stuff from The Human Centipede movie. Their logo looked like three guys sewn together. It was really funny. They did a slideshow of where they were going to advertise my album and it was all these very inappropriate places—Photoshop-ed billboards of the album in very inappropriate places, like at the bottom of the reflecting pool at the 9/11 memorial. We had a bunch of other comedians do spots and we had a great musical act. We had another bit where these two record execs approach the musical act at the end of her set and offer her a record deal. It was a lot of fun, a good crowd. I gave everyone in the crowd a CD.

RT: Next week you’re off to New York with some of the other Conan writers for a show at Upright Citizens Brigade?

ADB: I’ll do stuff that’s similar to what you heard on the CD. On Friday, I’ll avoid doing things that are already on the CD now that I’m working on other material. I’ll do some sort of character bit or whatever.

RT: Anything else about Naked Trampoline Hamlet we didn’t cover?

ADB: I’m just happy to get it out there. I think it’s the kind of thing that people will get more out of if they listen to it a couple times. At least, I like to think that I’ve peppered it with a lot of little, weird nuggets. There are a couple callbacks. There’s something that I did on purpose which is—you know how there’s a lot of fake names I use? There’s one name I use twice in two different bits. I just want to see if people can pinpoint what that is. It’s a fun little Easter egg.

–

Naked Trampoline Hamlet is available for purchase through the Rooftop Comedy shop and Amazon.

Sean Keane:  First of all, congratulations on Free Agents. Were you a fan of the British show before you started doing this one?

Mo Mandel: I actually never saw it, because I don’t live in England, and I get American television. They gave it to us before we shot the pilot, but I didn’t want it to affect how I viewed the show and how I approached my character. But since then I’ve seen it and I think it’s really good.

SK: Do you watch the show when it’s on?

MM: Definitely. I’m a huge narcissist. I Tivo it, and it plays on a constant loop. Also, my roommate is an actor, and I’m a comedian, so I like to have it on in the apartment to make him feel horrible about himself.

SK: Is it exciting to work with Hank Azaria, and is it difficult to not just ask him questions about The Simpsons all the time?

MM: It’s very hard not to talk about The Simpsons, and I’ve had to accept the fact that I’m just going to do that. I’ve actually got him to record different Simpsons voices as my voice message machine. Currently I have Comic Book Guy telling people that my real name is Mohahn and then saying “Worst name ever.”

You should probably ask Hank Azaria if it’s difficult working with an aggressive burly Jew who is obsessed with The Simpsons. For me, it’s really not that hard, because I figure I’m an obnoxious guy, so I’m going to do it, but it probably annoys the hell out of him.

SK: You’re also working with Al Madrigal. Did you know him at all from your San Francisco comedy days?

MM: When I started comedy in SF, Al Madrigal was a name thrown around by SF comics as an example of how you could come out of San Francisco and really make it in Hollywood. Because of where he was at when I moved down here, I hadn’t had a chance to perform with him much. So this has been a real treat to work with him, he’s such a funny guy, and the same thing is true for Natasha Leggero.

SK: What you and Al seem to have in common is a really strong work ethic. You write a lot, you produce a lot of stuff. Was that something you’ve always had, or did you develop that after you got into comedy?

MM: I had a terrible work ethic in many other aspects of my life. Every job I’ve ever had I’ve been a complete slacker at. Because I love what I get to do now – writing, acting, and standup – other people have hobbies, my hobbies happen to also be my job. I love doing it more than any other stuff. But I was probably the worst person to work at Peet’s Coffee in the history of San Francisco.

SK: That was your job when you got into stand-up?

MM: I used to work the 5:15 AM to 1 PM shift every day, six days a week, and then do open mics every night. I didn’t have a car, so I had to bus around, it was a nightmare. I remember one day when I was feeling really low, just bombing at the open mics, and then I had to walk to work at five in the morning. It had rained the night before, and I didn’t realize I had holes in the bottom of my shoes. I was like a Dickens character. I got to work and realized my socks and shoes were soaking wet, and I didn’t have time to go home and change. So I took off my shoes and socks, put plastic bags around my feet, and then stuck my feet back into my wet shoes, and worked a seven-and-a-half-hour shift, serving lattes to yuppies. I remember thinking, if I don’t make it in comedy, I’m gonna blow my fucking head off.

SK: When did you decide to make the move to Los Angeles?

MM: It was when I won “Open Mic Fight” for Comedy Central. I was bartending on a Saturday, working a brunch shift, and I got a call from Comedy Central at 10 AM. I told my boss I had to go to the bathroom, checked my voice mail in the bathroom, and a woman told me I’d won, which meant $10,000. And then I had to go back downstairs and make Bloody Marys for the next six hours, while thinking, I’m getting the fuck out of here as soon as possible. I moved three weeks later.

SK: Was Reality Bites Back part of the Open Mic Fight prize?

MM: That was completely different. The price for Open Mic Fight was you got to be on Live At Gotham and you won some money. But through that I got to do the Miami Comedy Festival, where Comedy Central executives got to see me do more stand-up, and when they were casting the show, my name came up. And now we’re going into SEASON NINE on Reality Bites Back!

SK: The residuals just keep pouring in.

MM: As I look around my giant mansion, it’s ALL Reality Bites Back money. It’s me and Theo Von, living together in a huge, huge mansion in the hills.

SK: That’s the American dream.

MM: Let me tell you one story about that show. This is when I really got the sense that you have to be on TV a lot for anyone to know who the hell you are. One time after we’d shot Reality Bites Back – and it was currently airing – I was hanging out at a bar with Theo Von and a friend of his who had won Big Brother the year before. A guy comes up to us and says, I’m a big fan of seeing you guys on TV, I love your work, you guys are awesome. Then he walked off, without saying anything to me. I turned to the other guys and said, I guess we know no one is watching me on TV. And then the guy immediately popped back in, as if he were in a multi-cam sitcom, and said to me, “Listen, I just realized I didn’t even acknowledge you. Just because you’re not on TV doesn’t mean you’re not a human being. That was really rude of me.” And then he left. It was fucking ridiculous. It was as if someone had written the scene in order to crush my ego at a bar.

SK: When did you begin to focus on acting as well as stand-up? Do you think it helped that you were filming sketches and man-on-the-street pieces before things started really happening?

MM: It’s funny because, you do these little videos, and you think they never matter. I remember, I shot this little piece when the iPhone came out. Not a lot of people saw it, but I always thought it was kind of funny. And then after Reality Bites Back, I booked a co-hosting gig on a VH-1 game show pilot that never went to air, but we shot it. The producer told me that one of the reasons he booked me was that he’d looked me up on YouTube, he’d seen that video I’d made, and he decided, OK, this guy’s fast on his feet. So you never fucking know. You’ve got this resume online, and it really doesn’t matter how many people have seen it, as long as the right people are looking at you. If you think you have talent, you should find a way to showcase that, because it’s the only thing under your control. Who watches it is not in your control.

SK: Speaking of showcasing yourself, how much do you focus on Twitter? (Twitter: @momandel)

MM: Somewhat? I definitely enjoy doing it. I don’t know if you know this. I was just picked as one of the Top Ten Sexiest Men of the new fall television lineup by Cosmo.

SK: Congratulations.

MM: They wrote, “According to the pilot, Mo’s as funny on the show as he is on Twitter.” I don’t have a lot of Twitter followers, so obviously someone looked me up on Twitter. The fact that I’m one of the sexiest men on TV should tell all the women in the world that these magazines are absolutely ridiculous and you should not take your information from that.

SK: You ARE very strong.

MM: I don’t know. I think when you make one of these lists you have to have a Jew on it.

SK: If nothing else, you are the sexiest new Jew on television.

MM: Even that seems like a stretch. But I’ll take it.

SK: What’s your favorite thing that you’ve written that’s never been produced?

MM: I wrote a pilot for NBC last year about two guys working in a think tank trying to come up with ways to stop a giant meteor from destroying the Earth in five years. There was no solution, so everyone in the think tank basically fucked around and got into mischief every week. I thought it was a real interesting funny idea. It got a lot of buzz from executives, but ultimately wasn’t enough to get made. But the response I got from people who read the pilot has been very very good. It may have been a good thing that they passed, since getting to know NBC executives probably got me Free Agents, so you never know what’s going to lead to what.

SK: You do Chelsea Lately a lot. Have you noticed a boost from those appearances?

MM: Absolutely. You can tell because a lot more women will come to the shows, and a lot more hot chicks. Especially if they plug the date on an episode of Chelsea, it’s quite a boost – in fact, way more than anything else. It’s not so much how many people watch the show as it is how many people love the show. And people who watch Chelsea Lately fucking love it, so they really embrace people who are on there.

SK: Add that to the Cosmo thing, your audiences are really going to change. What can fans expect from The M Word, your new album that comes out November 8^th?

MM: They can expect a very uncensored, hopefully very funny high-energy comedy album, that is completely offensive – and also hilarious – to all. I recorded it at my favorite club, Comedy Works in Denver. I’m really proud of it, it’s an honor to have an album out on Comedy Central Records, and I think the cover’s pretty dope. Anyone who is doubting the top sexiest thing, they can look at the cover and shut the fuck up, because it speaks for itself.

Follow Mo on Twitter.

Follow Sean Keane on Twitter.