Picture me. Now picture Todd Barry. Now picture me and Todd Barry in Todd’s Denver hotel room. It’s a nice hotel room. It has several, different rooms in it. It has a fireplace and a kitchen. It’s centrally located. Now picture me taking out my handy-dandy H6 recorder and pointing it towards Todd and the two of us talking comedy shop. Can you picture it? You can’t?! Well then you’ll just have to give this episode a listen won’t you?
Then the picture will become much more clear.
I met Todd years ago when I opened for him at the Oriental Theater. I was a big fan of his and I was nervous. I made awkward green-room small talk, I’m sure, did my time, and tried my best not to act like a jackass around a comic I thoroughly respected. I remember Todd gave me an invaluable piece of advice back then. I was going on and on about how cool it was that he was playing this theater, that he was indie and alternative and that he was playing by his own rules and not some comedy club hack and fuck all that. Annoying, holier-than-thou, young comic bullshit. And Todd was like, “Okay. But you have to be able to get laughs anywhere.” He basically stopped me dead in my tracks and was like, “Hey little buddy; love your ethos, but let’s not be too precious about this whole thing. I enjoy playing this cool theater, I’ll be in a club somewhere next week. And I’ll do my best to make them all laugh the same.” Obviously this is not a direct quote but you get the idea. And I always appreciated that bit of advice by Todd. I quote it often. It’s easy to get self-righteous in comedy, to wave this punk-rock, DIY flag for all who will pay attention to you waving it, but Todd very simply reminded me to get laughs wherever you go, to not be “above” any of it. It’s all stand-up comedy, after all.
I often parrot that piece of advice and I appreciate Todd for giving it to me. As a guy who teeters on the edge of pretentious by nature, it was something I needed to hear from someone I absolutely respected at a pivotal time in my growth as a comedian.
So thanks Todd. And thanks for doing my podcast too. It was a ball catch up.
Now picture Todd and I finishing the podcast and going to get pho. We went to Pho 95. It was delicious.
Listen to this episode on iTunes here.