Todd Barry: Quiet Confidence

by Dylan P. Gadino

Comedian Todd Barry doesn’t need to yell to get his points across. His jokes serve him just fine, thank you.

By Dylan P. Gadino

Veteran stand-up comedian Todd Barry has a habit of slowly seeping into comedy fans’ subconscious. Maybe it’s his trademark voice. You know the one— that smooth, NPR-esque even register that dares you to doze, but – alas! – you don’t. You know better.

You know damn well you’d miss the next well-paced barrage of incredibly brilliant and wholly hilarious musings about how B.B. King’s an asshole, the optimal speed at which hand jobs should be performed or even how someone once complained to a comedy club manager “that my voice was too monotone.”

If it’s not his voice – understated, and quite honestly, a little monotone (not that that’s a bad thing) – that helps slowly burn him into the unsuspecting happy part of our brains, maybe it’s the way he sneaks into popular culture. Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen him on Sex and the City, Spin City, and yes, even Sesame Street.

The real reason Barry’s the type of comic that dedicated stand-up fans and casual comedy observers alike always come back to him time and again, is that he’s simply funny. He’s a master of the economical joke, using as few words as possible to rip the greatest number of laughs from a crowd. He’s both absurd and observational— some times even the same joke. Plainly put, he’s a craftsman.

If you’re still not convinced, you’ll soon have plenty of chances to grab yourself some Barry. The New York City based comic recently recorded his third live album for Comedy Central Records, due out in January. He’ll also be popping up on the Sept. 2 season finale of HBO’s recently renewed Flight of the Conchords, the Sept. 9 premiere of Cartoon Network’s Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil and will play the title role in the Super Deluxe show Sexus, which he co-created with Erik Richter.

To top it off, Barry will be touring nationally — Punchline Magazine is sponsoring his Lakeshore Theater show — with the likes of Louis CK and Sarah Silverman and is even heading to Sweden for seven shows with one of that country’s pop stars Jens Lekman.

Punchline Magazine recently caught up with Barry to talk about his ever evolving comedy, the state of stand-up and the joy of dealing with rude a-holes.

You’ve been playing a lot of bigger venues as of late. What kind of differences do you see between traditional comedy clubs and the larger or alternative rooms?
I’m not really big enough to fill big places. Lakeshore [Theater in Chicago] is a good size for me. There’s something sort of extra exciting about playing even bigger places, when two thousand people or a thousand people watch you as opposed to a few hundred. The crowd’s focus is definitely on the show. It’s a different experience. It’s a little less conducive to flying off the handle or straying from the script.

You mean you flying off the handle?
Well, I don’t mean literally, like going bananas. A theater show just usually ends up being a little more presentational.

When you say people are more focused, what do you mean?
Well, they’re in their chairs and they’re not being served drinks; they’re not eating food. And that’s generally a better thing.

I was at one of your shows a while back at Carolines in New York where you got some people tossed from the place.
Yeah, they were acting like they were on a date at a restaurant, only they were at my show. It was fun. I still think about that and talk about it.

You’ve got to get some sort of satisfaction out of that.
Yeah, I do. That was fun because of the timing of the whole thing. They were actually fighting me, saying that I couldn’t get them thrown out. And then this huge guy walks over perfectly timed and throws them out.

Do you find you get a lot of clueless audience members at your shows?
It happens from time to time. I don’t know that it happens to me more than other comics. I mean, those people would’ve been rude to anyone. They just didn’t know how to act.

Do you ever go into club show looking for that kind of crowd behavior?
I just got an e-mail from a guy that said something like I had some guy thrown out of a show recently. And he was like, ‘I like that stuff better.’ And it’s like, ‘That’s nice that you like it better.’ But no, I’m not looking for a fight.

But you’d admit that you’re good at dealing with shitty crowds.
Yeah, I mean if I have to deal with it, I’ll deal with it. But I’m not going, ‘I hope some drunk couple shows up and won’t shut the fuck up while I’m on stage.’

Because I’ve seen some comics do a terrible job at handling a rude crowd.
I try to ignore it as much as possible. I try not to give them any sort of illusion that they’re helping me out. That’s sort of a common misconception people have. I’ve seen comics when someone in the crowd is on a cell phone, they’ll say, ‘Give me that cell phone.’ And that always bothers me, because then the audience member leaves thinking, ‘I wasn’t rude because he got something out of it.’

Right, and that might indirectly encourage other people to act that way at some other show.
Right, so I’d rather just think that the behavior is not acceptable. I mean if I could be funny about it obviously I’ll talk to the crowd.

You recently recorded your third album for Comedy Central in Cambridge, MA. Why did you choose that location?
I’ve done that room [The Comedy Studio] before and it’s a good room. It’s small and it’s very easy to be loose and it holds maybe a hundred people. For an album, I just want to be loose and I also want to play a place that I could definitely fill a few times as opposed to some huge club. It’s sort of easier to riff at a place like that. I wanted to get some of that on the album. And I think I probably did succeed in that a little bit.

So that’s important to you for an album— that you get that organic feel?
Yeah, maybe if I have two brand new hours of material, I wouldn’t but that’s kind of the way I work anyway. I don’t want to record a show where it’s like you had to be there, but at the same time if I get something that’s organic and still translates, that could be a good thing.

Do you typically retire the material on an album?
I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that lately. It used to be before you had albums out and before you had specials on TV you could just do the same act for years— not that you want to do that. You could go do a show and 90 percent of the crowd hasn’t heard any of it and they’re fine with anything you do. Then there’s 10 percent who are like, ‘I just drove half an hour or an hour and I’ve heard like 80 percent of this shit.’ And they’re the ones that have blogs.

It’s legitimate for them to want to see something new, especially if they’ve seen you years ago. It’s weird because there are some people who want to hear the old stuff and will say, ‘Why didn’t you do the old stuff?’ And then there’s people who are like, ‘How come you repeated jokes?’ Then there’s some people who can’t believe you repeat a joke ever— which is just naïve.

Those are the same people that believe every time they see a comic, it’s all off the cuff.
Right. Ultimately it’s never going to be a bad thing if you write more new material. If you have new material, there’s no one who could complain that you did new material. But they can complain if you do old material.

Yeah, it’s funny. When you see a band, it’s the opposite. People don’t like hearing songs that aren’t on an album.
Yeah, people get bummed out that bands do new songs. But their old songs were new songs at some point.

Do you have a strict writing regiment?
No, not at all. The best thing about doing this album was that it got me to write. When we set the date for the recording I was pretty sure I didn’t have enough material. And hopefully I’ll find out I did when we start editing it. I sometimes need artificial deadlines like that to force me to write. But I don’t really write in a sit- down-and-write sort of way.

How do you write then?
I think of an idea and then work it out on stage generally. I’ll occasionally sit somewhere, at a café, but I don’t often write it out like a short story or something.

You’re understated delivery is a big part of your act. Do you feel that’s evolved over the last decade?
Yeah, I think you get more confident. You get a little more original and you’re a little less doing an impression of a comic. You find your own voice.

Are people surprised at all that you’re pretty much the same off stage?
I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about that. There’s always people that are disappointed that you’re boring off stage.

Do you think you’re boring off stage?
No, I don’t. There’s just people who are expecting the classic, ‘Tell me a joke’ type of person. And you can’t please them.

Yeah, you don’t seem like you’d be that type of person.
Most comics aren’t. There are some comics that fill that stereotype, that sort of off-stage wacky person. And I definitely joke around a lot but I could also be very quiet.

A lot of your jokes seem to have absurd premises. Is it crucial that joke premises be believable or is it more important that they’re just funny? Your joke about seeing a guy masturbating at an ATM machine, for example, is a pretty unbelievable premise.
That one is actually true.

Really?
Yeah. I don’t think I would’ve thought of it if it wasn’t true. I might have thought of it if I was writing a script or something. If the bank machine joke wasn’t true I think that it would lose something.

Do you feel the state of comedy is in a good place right now?
I think it’s good. Especially since more places like the Lakeshore are opening. There’s certain things that need to change. The comedy club model is not ideal all the time. It depends on the club. There’s a lot of great clubs. The Punchline in San Fransisco is a great club.

There’s a few really good ones. But a lot of clubs do things the same way. They treat every comic like they’re the same comic— dropping checks in the middle of a show and shit like that. Someone really has to stop and say there’s got to be a better way to present comedy.

It’s good that there are places that people can go on stage and do comedy. And it’s good, especially if you’re starting out. For people just starting out in comedy, you shouldn’t be so selective anyway. You should get on stage anywhere like I did and still do to a certain extent. Any place you go on – unless it’s vicious – is probably going to help you. And there are a lot of rooms that fall outside the mainstream that are both good and bad for comedy.

You’re a musician as well, right?
Sort of. It’s sort of an insult to musicians to call me a musician. I guess I could be a bad musician. I fuck around on the drums. I’m not skilled by any stretch. I’m just better than you think I might be. But definitely not good.

Have you ever thought about incorporating music into your act?
I have thought about starting an actual band and play rock clubs. I did this thing called Matter of Trust [a band featuring Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew and comedian friends Jon Glaser, Tom Shillue and Jon Benjamin]. And that was super fun. I feel like I know enough people in that business where we could get gigs. If I had an idea for a band, it’d be great. But you have to work with other people and that’s rough to schedule practices. That kind of shit.

What music are you listening to these days?
New Pornographers, Mates of State, the Long Blondes, Belle and Sebastian, Clash, Elvis Costello.

To you, what defines a hack comic?
A performer who just does stuff that’s tired. If you’re watching someone and you’re saying to yourself, ‘I’ve seen all these premises jokes.’ Anything that’s just tired and not surprising.

Do hacks hurt stand-up comedy?
They hurt if I show up at a club and I follow them. I’ve had that a lot of times, where [the club owners] have never seen me work and that’s who you put it front of me because you have no idea what I do?

There’s been comics recently where people are ganging up on other comics and I’m not going to mention any names. But that becomes tiresome. People single out one comic and say that guy’s the problem with comedy today and it’s like, ‘Not really.’ There’s always going to be people you don’t like. Who gives a fuck?

They’re only a problem if they’re working and affecting what I do at the same show. And if a club just books them because they don’t know better, it gives people a bad education.

But if someone hacky goes on before you, doesn’t that make you look that much better?
I’ve done shows an entire week where a hack has gone on before me. And he’ll do well and then I’ll go on and do well. People aren’t educated in comedy necessarily which is fine. They just want to go out and have a good time. So they’re going there predisposed to having a good time. Not everyone knows what hack comedy is— because they have jobs and kids and shit to think about besides comedy all day long.

But it is upsetting when they’re laughing at that guy and your sick to your stomach. And you try hard not to lose respect for the audience that’s laughing at what you do. But it just shows you that people who like you don’t necessarily like things that you like.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Not really. I usually just go to the bathroom like five times. I pace around and try not to talk to a whole lot of people.

Todd Barry will perform at a Punchline Magazine-sponsored show at Lakeshore Theater in Chicago on Saturday, Sept. 8. Click here to buy tickets. For more information, check out www.toddbarry.com or his official MySpace site.

Bob Saget: That Ain’t Right

by Dylan P. Gadino

If someone told you that stand-up comedy was something Bob Saget just kind of fell into after his King of Family-friendly Television reign ran its course, you wouldn’t be surprised, correct? Even after watching his HBO special That Ain’t Right (premiering Aug. 25; in stores Aug. 28), it’s actually still pretty easy to believe.

The truth is, the former Full House star was doing stand-up long before Danny Tanner co-hosted Wake up, San Francisco and even longer before Saget hosted America’s Funniest Home Videos for eight years. That it’s hard to believe he’s a veteran stand-up doesn’t mean Saget isn’t funny or that his special isn’t worth an hour of your time; in fact, it’s damn entertaining, if for no other reason than to see the lanky, former kindly TV dad joke about how he pinky fucked Kimmy Gibbler in her ass while high on NyQuil.

But you’d have to admit. It’s a cheap joke written – or barely written – to get cheap laughs. And that’s Saget’s specialty—cheap jokes. As a bulk of his material are stories revolving around being Bob Saget – that is, the celebrity; not the private person – there’s very few actual jokes in his repertoire and thus an unenviable amount of true stand-up craftsmanship.

Ultimately, this all sets up a string of easy-out jokes for Saget. Most comics don’t have a career’s worth of highly contrasting highlights that they could just push through the irreverent filter of stand-up comedy. Most comics need to find a voice, write proper jokes, shave and shape them, toil and suffer. Saget’s free to coast easily.

If Florence Henderson started touring theaters armed with jokes about how she would go down on Maureen McCormick during Brady Bunch rehearsals, you bet your ass she, too, would get butts in the seats.

But regardless of his resume and of the subject matter he chooses to expound upon, Saget has great control of his audience. He knows when to pick on the crowd, when to laugh at himself and when to call back punch lines. He delivers aggressively but not angrily. He’s got an upbeat cadence, is animated, and conveys a sense of urgency that leaves the crowd hanging on his words, no matter how inconsequential.

One of the great things about his style is that while there may not be much substance to his material, he’s never in danger of falling into the hack trap.

In the end, the most engaging aspects of Saget’s stand-up is his willingness to embrace his name and his history and the fact that he’s got balls big enough to talk shit about the shows America loves, while somehow remaining completely likeable.

John Heffron: Walking the line

by Noah Gardenswartz

Comedian John Heffron, season two winner of Last Comic Standing, isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s navigating the waters of Internet comedy, psychoanalyzing hecklers, and whether he likes it or not, cranking out new material as quick as his active mind will allow.

By Noah Gardenswartz

Stand-up comedian John Heffron’s career is at a crossroads. Four years removed from winning NBC’s Last Comic Standing and after the release of his third comedy album, The Better Half, Heffron has to balance keeping his old fans satisfied and appeal to an entirely new demographic.

The Detroit native initially made his name in comedy by appealing to college crowds, but with every appearance on Comedy Central, his target audience ages. Over the years, a more mature Heffron – now a husband and father – has altered his material from covering topics like college drinking and Pop Rocks, to talking about weekly trips to Home Depot or the doctor’s office.

“I always talk about what’s going on in my life at the time, so that’s why I’m doing a lot more marriage and family material now,” Heffron says. “I wouldn’t say I’ve abandoned my other material, but I’m just too old to just be loud and hop around on stage screaming stuff like ‘where are my pot smokers… who in here likes Shakira?”

And just as his ideal audience has changed, so too has the medium through which comedy is experienced. Heffron has needed to adjust. Long gone are the days when stand-up comedy could only be seen and heard by going to a club; Heffron, like all of today’s other working comics, now operate in world very conducive to viral comedy.

With the uncontrollable popularity of sites like YouTube and MySpace, comedy is never more than a click of the mouse away, which Heffron feels has both helped and hindered his progress as a comedian.

“I think it’s great that comedians have so many new ways to gain exposure, and the Internet has certainly helped with that,” he says. “But because of things like YouTube, I’m constantly having to retire good material just because it becomes old so fast, and after a certain level of success all of your material has to be “A” material. Having to constantly write new stuff is challenging because at this point I can’t put out “B” or “C” material for the world to see.”

He reveals that his management has pressured him about creating a bigger web presence but at the end of the day, his job is to write truly hilarious material, which in turn, should direct plenty of traffic to his official site.

After 18 years in the entertainment business, Heffron obviously expected that the industry’s operating procedures would change. But the one constant in his career has been his genuine love for the art form.

From growing up memorizing Eddie Murphy’s records, to performing at his first open-mic in the summer of 1989, Heffron has always had a passion for humor.

While he admits that it gets both tough and boring, mentally, Heffron has never taken a significant break from the stage since he started. However, since starting a family he’s taken on a lot more corporate gigs since the pay is better and the time and travel less demanding.

But make no mistake: Heffron is a tough, tested road comic. He still appreciates getting out and playing to cities all over, big and small.

“I love being in big cities like New York or Chicago, but Boise, Idaho is just as cool to me,” he says. “I like to observe and learn from everywhere I go, so it doesn’t really make a difference to me.”

No doubt Heffron’s college years helps fuel his passion for observation. “Being a psychology major has helped kind of propel me to keep going and find out why people do what they do,” Heffron says. “I like to get inside people’s heads and figure them out. If I’m getting heckled I don’t want to shut some guy up with a hack line that’s been used against hecklers a dozen times.”

“I’ll stop and talk to the guy and try to figure out what’s going on to make him heckle,” he continues. “Is it because I’m getting a few looks from his girl and he’s insecure, or maybe he always wanted to be a comic but never made it? That’s the kind of stuff I like to figure out on stage.”

AN INDIFFERENT OVERACHIEVER
Lately, Heffron’s been walking the line somewhere between complacency and over-achievement; he’s not exactly resting on his laurels, nor is he quite striving for the pinnacle of comedic success, whatever that may be.

“I’ve lapped myself and accomplished all the goals I set for myself,” he admits. “I’ve done everything that any starting comic would want. But as I’ve reached success, I’ve realized it’s harder and harder at every level, like a video game.”

When asked if the next level is a sitcom or a movie role, Heffron replies, “Sure, it’d be nice to have a sitcom. I always think, ‘When I was on the road, I should’ve been in LA more’ [looking for a tv deal] but when you’re getting good money, it’s hard to pass up to go sit on some executive’s leather couch with a water bottle and talk about how I feel and what I think.”

Heffron’s biggest strength – indifference – is also his weakness. He’s not jaded or egotistical enough to worry about why he’s not the biggest name in comedy; that just may be the same thing keeping him from becoming that. With all of his accolades, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be an internationally household name.

On the other hand, he still has tons of fans, a successful career doing what he loves and a beautiful family at home; as any psychologist would tell you, that should be more than enough.

For more information, check out www.johnheffron.com.

Pablo Francisco: Voices of a new comedy generation

by Alana Grelyak

With a new DVD about to go international and thousands of fans across the country hanging on his every word – and voice(s) – stand-up comedian Pablo Francisco is living large. He’s got the hot tub to prove it.








Interview and photos by Alana Grelyak

Talking with Pablo Francisco is like having a discussion with three people. Being a man of many voices, one never knows which character is going to answer a question next. Enjoying the success of his recently released DVD, Ouch!, Francisco is touring comedy clubs across the U.S and beyond. He took some time to tell Punchline Magazine, among other things, about where his career is headed, installing a bigger hot tub and about skateboarding while drunk.

I watched your DVD, Ouch! How did this one compare in popularity to your last one?
It went over pretty well. The thing is, with the Internet, everyone gets it free before it’s even out. It went alright. Sales went pretty good. But it’s going international in September so we’ll see how things go. The first one [Bits and Pieces] was a little bit more fast paced. I slowed this one down a little bit because I had more time to do.

What countries is it going to?
It’s going to England, Sweden, Norway, Poland.

Is it getting translated or staying in English?
It’s going to be in English. They all understand it.

About the extras on Ouch! Do you really have a hidden hot tub and is that your real house?
That’s my real house. And, yes it’s my hot tub. Since then I got a bigger one. I put it in there because the other one only sat like five people. This one now sits eight. I also got a better looking couch.

Do you actually skateboard?
I skateboard a lot. I get a few beers in me and I go skateboarding. Once you get a few beers in you, you don’t want to push your own board. So you’ve got to get an electric one and let it just take you all the way down.

That sounds dangerous.
[Laughing]. Well, yeah it’s a little fun. It depends, you have to go really slow.

So you were recently on David Spade’s Showbiz Show. Is that a regular gig?
No, we did that a few times. I did some voiceovers for that. Sometimes when they’re making fun of movies they’ll give me a buzz and I’ll go in there and I’ll goof off with them and we’ll make fun of a trailer or something.

If the movie guy that does all those trailer voiceovers retires or dies, do you think they’ll want to hire you to take his place?
They’re already using me for some previews. I’ve been doing commercials like crazy. So it’s been working out pretty well. I’ve talked with the movie previews guy, Don LaFontaine, and he’s been really supportive. If it happens, it happens. We’re getting a studio built inside the house so it’s all going to work out.

Inside your house?
Yeah, it costs like $20,000; it’s going to look pretty sharp.

Do you think LaFontaine is angry you’re taking away some of his business?
Not at all. There’s like five other guys who do the same voice but a little different. There’re different guys, different inflections and stuff. Don is really easy. He goes, [in movie guy voice] ‘Well you know, Pablo there’s a lot of ways of doing this. You can do action or you can do scary movies.’ So I basically do all the scary movies because I can’t really have that uppity voice that he does.

What about when you do the voices of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves or Aaron Neville and all that. Have any of them ever said anything to you?
Not Keanu Reeves or Arnold Schwarzenegger yet. Aaron Neville came up to me after a show. I was walking to the parking lot and his tour bus was hanging outside and I asked him for his autograph and I did a little bit of the Aaron Neville. He looked at me really funny and gave me a strange look. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad.

Did you look at the “chorizo” on his face?
I think he shops at Baby Gap. He has some really tight clothes.

I kept looking it up and everyone has different ideas, but where are your parents from?
My parents are from Santiago, Chile. I was born in Tucson, Arizona. I was born and raised there and just really enjoyed it. I never went to Chile. Actually, I think I went there one time when I was a kid. And the United States is my home and I’m American. That’s what I am. I just have a Latino name.

I think Wikipedia said your parents are from Puerto Rico.
Chile!

Do you ever get any odd requests from your fans?
No, not really. They’ve all been pretty cool. It gets crazy sometimes and people will yell things out during a show so I’ll just turn into the comedy juke box. You have to make sure the timing’s right and then I’ll do it. But as long as you don’t talk during the show, I’m fine. I’m all good.

So you’re still not married, right?
No. I’m kind of seeing some girl right now. Kinda sorta. She’s pretty cool but I’m too busy on the road so I don’t really want to get into too heavy of a relationship with anybody. But so far so good. Everything’s cool. My relationship’s with the audience right now. I’m rockin’ and rollin.’

If money and time were no objects, what would be your perfect date?
Go out go-cart riding? I haven’t been on a date in awhile. I don’t really go on dates. My perfect date would be to get boozed up in Vegas.

How much of your comedy comes from reality?
Eighty to 90 percent of that is all true. Except for the boyfriend and girlfriend stuff because I’m not a jealous boyfriend and I don’t deal with jealous girlfriends.

Are you telling me that Rosa, the Mexican girlfriend, doesn’t really exist?
Oh yeah, of course! I had to change her name. Her name was Diana.

So she does exist!
Oh, absolutely.

What kind of audience do you attract?
Right now I’m attracting a lot of young ones. I swear to God! I’ve got 13-year-old kids trying to get into my shows. It’s hilarious. So, I would say the demographic would be like 13 to 20 years old.

Are most of your shows usually 18 or 21 and up?
Yeah, usually. Sometimes the parents will be really cool and will be able to go to the club and somehow they get the kids in but they put them in the back so I can’t see them. When I see them I can’t do my act. I feel like I’ve got to cut things out. I usually find out when I’m done.

How would you describe your time on MadTV?
I filled in for Artie Lange. He was going into movies and I went and did a guest spot, and then filled in for some episodes for him, who’s now on the Howard Stern Show. It was a fun experience. There were a lot of stars that came in from Ike Turner to Ray Romano.

Do you think that had a lot to do with the success you have today?
No, I would say that the comedy clubs and the Internet helped me more with my success. Because I didn’t really do television, you know? I did a few voices on Family Guy here and there but the only thing I didn’t really pursue was the television thing. And yeah, basically, I would say it’s all viral, through the Internet. That’s what really made me very successful.

So if the Internet was part of your success, does it really bother you that people are watching your DVDs without having to buy them?
You know, it doesn’ t matter. I don’t care. I have enough money. The money doesn’t make any difference to me. If the kids want them, and they want to see it on the Internet, they can see it on the Internet. If it’s in stores and you want to check it out you can check out the whole entirety at stores.

You can come to a show and I’ll sign it for you. But now the Internet is dominating everything. So, you can make some money off CD’s but the record business should be wiped out soon in about five years.

Tell me one thing your fans don’t know about you.
I don’t really like to drink.

You don’t really like to drink?
I don’t really like the taste of alcohol.

For more info, check out www.pablofrancisco.com.

Andi Smith: ‘I hope Paris Hilton dies’

by Dylan P. Gadino

Sometimes this crazy world doesn’t make much sense— war, disease, St. Louis-based stand-up comedian Andi Smith getting voted off this season of Last Comic Standing. Fret not, sweet babies. Punchline Magazine is here to sing you a lullaby and help make sense of it all.*

by Dylan P. Gadino
watch Andi at RooftopComedy

Quickly look and listen to stand-up comedian Andi Smith on stage and you’ll conclude that she’s not the most dynamic of performers. Often times, her left arm finds its way across her waist; she dangles the mic lazily beneath her lips, tilts her head and delivers her jokes like she’s kind of annoyed.
All of this would traditionally translate into the persona adopted by a detached, hipster comic— an act whom would not only embrace the “alt comedy” label but would also wear it as a badge of honor.

Smith, however, deftly uses these affects to draw her audience close. It makes her wholly relatable— not only as a comic but as a real person. In fact, she does so little clichéd comic posturing that you barely realize she’s performing material.

Though she was voted off NBC’s Last Comic Standing on July 25 – that’s pretty early in the season for those of you not following the show – the 31-year-old St Louis comedian has an incredibly bright future— dare we say much brighter than most, if not all, of the remaining Last Comic Standing contestants.

Punchline Magazine recently called Andi to chat about, well, nothing in particular. We didn’t even tell her when we’d call. In the end, she was kind enough to spend 11 minutes and 19 seconds on the horn. Enjoy.

What are you doing now?
I’m actually on my way to go get a Greek salad.

Wow, a Greek salad.
Yeah.

Are you walking or driving?
I’m driving. I’m sick of the food in my own neighborhood.

And where do you live exactly?
I live in Dogtown in St. Louis. It’s a little neighborhood with a couple of bars that I stumble home from every once in a while. There’s a good Mexican place too.

Why is it called ‘Dogtown?’
There’s a lot of stories running around the neighborhood about that.

Really?
I was told by the 90-year-old Dogtown historian, who doesn’t have a car and rides past my house on his little bike every once in awhile, that it was named that because it’s built over a bunch of clay mines. They used to call clay miners ‘doggies,’— hence the name ‘Dogtown.’ Anyway, my favorite story is about how during the World’s Fair, the Cambodians came and ate all the dogs.

Seems your town has a very rich history or at least a very rich set of urban legends.
Yeah, yeah, it would make a good coffee table book or something.

Yeah, you should maybe think about pitching that.
Or I’ll just do what I do with the rest of my ideas, which is write them down on a piece of paper and lose them.

Right, that’s productive. Is that how you write your jokes?
Yeah, that’s usually what happens. I write them down on some stupid piece of paper or an envelope or something and then I lose them and then I’m like, ‘How’d that joke go? Shit.’ And then I have to redo it.

It’s cool to actually talk to you. Never before this year – and I don’t know if this makes me sound uninformed – have I paid attention to Last Comic Standing…
Me too, me too.

And so I’ve heard nothing but horrible things about Last Comic Standing. So I thought to myself, the only way I’m going to get through this season is if I have someone to root for. I wasn’t familiar with your work before the show and from the first episode I really liked what I saw.
So you rooted for me? That’s awesome.

We totally rooted for you. And then you got voted off so I’m not sure who to cheer for now.
You can root for LaVell Crawford or Doug Benson. They’re funny.

So LaVell? I should be rooting for him?
Yeah, I think LaVell is like a really funny guy and I think Doug Benson’s a really funny guy.

I got to be honest with you. I’m really not into LaVell Crawford.
Yeah, you know, I think maybe it was just that I was hanging out with him and so maybe like when he tells his jokes, they’re just so much like his own personality. He’s just a crazy person. Doug Benson is a really funny dude, too.

I like Doug.
Everybody was really cool. The only one that I found ultimately annoying was that one girl that kind of looked like a skinny Big Bird. You know who I’m talking about?

A skinny Big Bird?
She has a really pointy nose and she was in the Broadway musical Cats.

A blonde from New York?
Yeah.

Lori Chase?
Yeah, at one point she jumped up and down and screamed, ‘I’m so glad I’m on Last Comic Standing.’ And I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’’

Do female stand-up comics typically annoy you ?
I tend to be a little critical of girls who are like, ‘My boyfriend said,’ and ‘Then my boyfriend, my boyfriend…’ I get a little angry at that.

I think it’s just me being selfish and arrogant. But you know I don’t like when some woman has easy-out jokes, a joke that anybody could write. And they get a ton of attention just for being young and cute. So rather than the jokes getting the attention, it’s like, ‘Oh, she had a great rack.’ This is comedy; cheerleaders aren’t allowed in comedy. It’s the one place they’re not allowed— comedy and wrestling.

I think the point that makes me so mad is there are really funny girls and sometimes they don’t get the attention they deserve because some cute girl gets shot with a soft lens and all of a sudden everyone falls in love.

I think the percentage of funny girls and funny guys is completely equal— it’s just that there’s so many more guy comedians that people tend to say girls aren’t funny.
Yeah, exactly. I think women have the opportunity to talk about really cool stuff and they choose not to. When they choose not to, they kind of suck. I’m not a genius or anything. But I just don’t like it— like when you end a joke with, ‘And then he fucked me.’ I’m like, ‘OK, all right, we’re done here.’

This reminds me. You have to promise me that before you get off the phone, you’ll say something inflammatory about someone.
Before I get off the phone, I will say something mean about someone that you can print.

Isn’t it difficult to get a good idea of somebody’s comedy on network television?
Yeah, and I have to stop Googling myself because every blog I go to, it’s like, ‘Andi Smith sucks ass, blah, blah.’

Oh really?
Yeah, there’s one guy that I’m convinced hates me in real life and he’s just posing as somebody who watched the show. He talks about how I did some show in Ohio and I was mean and angry and blah, blah. And I was like, what? Did I set your house on fire or something? Did I steal your boyfriend? What happened?

That’s interesting.
Yeah, so you’ll have to go there. There’s tons of bad stuff on me, but whatever.

I love that there’s bad stuff out there about you.
What else do you want to know?

The thing I didn’t know is that you were involved in creating Rooftop Comedy.
Yeah, I am. We actually work with Punchline Magazine quite a bit.

Right.
I think I sent you guys a few e-mails about that. Three of us started it together and those two [Will Rogers and Tom Hill] basically made it happen. I’ve been working with them for a while now. I might have to let you go because I have to talk to them about some stuff.

That’s bullshit, We’re the press. All right, fine. So who do you want to talk shit about?
I don’t want to talk shit about anybody.

You can’t say something inflammatory about an A-list celebrity?
Oh OK, all right. I hope Lindsay Lohan gets pelvic inflammatory disease. I think that would be a good one.

Yeah that’s good.
How about I just hope Paris Hilton dies so we can all get back to what we were doing?

OK so the headline could be ‘Andi Smith: I hope Paris Hilton dies.’
Sure, that’s a good one.

That should get you some attention. And then you can spend the next six months defending yourself.
I would have no problem doing that.

For more info, check out www.snowflakehead.com and RooftopComedy.

*not really