Once upon a time there lived a lover of cinema who embarked upon a career in comedy. On his quest to master the art of stand-up he discovered that a great chasm of misinformation existed in the comedy world. Comedians were missing gigs and there had to be a more reliable system to get comedians and fans to the right venue at the right time. Out of pure necessity The Comedy Bureau was born. This Friday, October 25 The Comedy Bureau celebrates its 3rd anniversary. To mark this momentous milestone there will be a grand comedic celebration at Echoes under Sunset featuring many of your favorite performers. It is quite fitting then that I spent a lovely afternoon of high tea and laughter discovering how The Comedy Bureau’s creator, Jake Kroeger, made the journey to becoming director of the most influential and best curated comedy news and information sites in the Greater Los Angeles area.
Comedy Cake: How is 2013 treating you?
Jake Kroeger: It could do better, but there’s definitely some highlights. While totaling my car wasn’t fantastic, I am dressing nice/not hating myself in the mirror.
Cake: Yes, I noticed the elephant tie clip.
Jake: Yeah! I’m really enjoying it. Maybe its just a thing with me but I tell people I’m dressing up not to cruise for the ladies or anything. I just feel better about myself because I look nice.
Cake: Its nice to look nice.
Jake: Yeah. So like … make a concerted effort to try stuff on and I feel all … I like wearing ties now. I just never thought I’d be … its so weird as kid I’d be “ties, ewww I don’t want to wear a tie and I have to wear a button up shirt (I still wear it untucked) and I have to wear it tucked. I’m like really digging it now. If I had more money I’d waste so much of it on online shopping.
Cake: You’d be the new Paul F Tompkins.
Jake: Well, see, that’s the thing I want to avoid. I’m not gonna wear bowties. I’m not gonna wear full suits.
Cake: No fancy socks.
Jake: No fancy socks. I feel like Paul, Greg Proops, Ryan Stout, and Aziz. They all have the suit game covered. I’m going to hit that like real casual fancy, just right tack in the middle between the hoodie, jeans outfit uniform for comedians and their 3-piece suits. You know, because right now I’m wearing a silk knit tie but I’m also wearing a black denim jacket. So it’s a good mix. And they all fit, which is a problem I’m glad I don’t have any more.
I used to have terrible fashion sense. In junior high I made a promise to myself that I would just wear brown Dickies, graphic t-shirts from breweries, and dark brown toe cap Adidas sneakers.
Cake: Oh wow.
Jake: That’s it. And I thought that was like the coolest thing. And some people thought it was cool and then they would laugh “Oh that’s really cool … So that was junior high as far as fashion. I grew my hair out real long. I have a beard now with my mustache but I used to just have the mustache. So I just looked like this Mexican punk kid that wasn’t into punk.
Cake: {Hearty laugh} Ah, junior high was the downfall for many of us.
Jake: I mean whoever had a… I mean it’s not even an original thought necessarily but whoever had a good time in junior high and high school go F yourself man.
Cake: They are probably penniless on the street right now.
Jake: Yeah, those are the awful experiences that build character. So in summation 2013 is balanced out, sort of…
Cake: Do you have any particular resolutions?
Jake: Not to sound pretentious but I don’t like to think in terms of New Year’s resolutions. Time is just a constant stream and it’s only in a man-made artifice that we develop years and hours and seconds and whatnot. Time just goes. So if you to wait 365 days to just try to be a better person I think that is kind of awful.
Cake: That is awful.
Jake: So I just try to…this whole dress thing is not a 2013 thing. It just happened that I got a very nice hat for Christmas. I’m like, eh, I should probably do better stuff with clothes. But that being said, for the month of December I tried to not eat Mexican food in LA to which plenty of you I’m sure sounds easy enough but if you live here in LA that’s WHAT!? Are you not paying your taxes? Jesus, man, come on! Mexican food is great here but the problem is when you do comedy and you are poor, when you are hungry after a show or after a mic there is pretty much just Mexican food available at 2am. You can get lentil soup at 2am but you are going to have go to a restaurant and tip someone and park. It’s a big affair rather than just going to a taco truck and just spending a buck. And you don’t have to tip.
Cake: Exactly.
Jake: So that turned out to be the problem with weight gain. So I just cut that off and I just lost weight automatically because that was the problem. I eat late at night Mexican food which tastes sooooo good. I wish it was like the healthiest thing so I could just eat it non-stop. But it’s not. Its’ like the opposite. I think that is probably the closest thing to a resolution recently, just trying to live healthier and trying to not daydream about food.
Cake: It’s like “fuck you” to the Mayans.
Jake: Right. That was the tough party. So I made it through the month but I would just daydream about Mexican food just all the time. I’d see carne asada, grease dripping off the meat. Oh, that would be soooo good right now. I’m busy watching a show, which is kind of like work for me. I’d miss out on jokes because I was daydreaming about food. You see all those Looney Toons cartoons where they are starving on a desert island and they look at each other… oh, piece of chicken. That was me for several weeks.
Cake: Ouch.
Jake: I think I’m almost over it.
Cake: I’m glad you survived that ordeal.
Jake: Right. Right.
Cake: {whispering} And on that subject while we sit here having enjoyed our delicious tea and scones and tomato soup.
Jake: Whispering to nobody, Deborah.
Cake: {Laugh} Would you consider yourself a foodie?
Jake: Noooo. If anything I’m probably like a beerie. You know what I mean? I’m really picky about the beer I drink. I’ll tell you this. The first time I had Tecate, the only time I had Tecate, I spat it out. I was at a college party and I came early. I’m a punctual person. If you come on time to a party that means you are 2 hours early. So it was just me and the host and all they had was Tecate. So I took a sip and as I was talking to him I just spat it out. That’s how much I hate Tecate. But as far as food is concerned I wouldn’t call myself a foodie but I don’t eat anything that isn’t on the McDonalds breakfast menu. I don’t eat anything else. I don’t even eat it that often. I enjoy finer things when I can afford them. I don’t have the wallet to be a foodie really.
Cake: Yeah.
Jake: I love to just spend hours at Whole Foods. Oooohh, its salted bacon from the shores of some northern European country. It just sounds really fancy. My dad and mom just went to Portugal and they got some prosciutto that is supposed to go perfect with port. That would be up my alley if it wasn’t $20 a bag. You know what I mean?
So I just try to be as fancy as a poor person can. I’ll make a grilled cheese sandwich and I’ll put pineapple on it. It’s really delicious. Alright guys, I’m not an alcoholic but I experiment with putting different skonches [sic] in my coffee. They are really tasty.
Cake: Tasty.
Jake: In fact my favorite cocktail is a coffee drink, it’s called a café royale. It’s really simple but it’s really delicious. A cup of coffee, 2 tsp sugar and a double of bourbon. It tastes delicious. I don’t get to have that one too often. Anytime I get a free 2 drink minimum, can I get a double of bourbon coffee? They are like…OK.
Cake: I won’t get into my bourbon apple pie story.
Jake: I’m intrigued.
Cake: We will save that for another time.
Jake: You know you can’t say that and not do it. That’s how you tease.
Cake: It’s a great tragedy. Let’s see, where did you grow up?
Jake: I am an army brat. So I’m one of the few people that when I say I grew up everywhere it’s not like a dick answer. I was adopted from the Philippines and then for every 2-3 year of my life ‘til about 7-8 years ago I moved somewhere out of state. I’ve lived in Colorado, Texas, Washington State, here, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio. All over. Which I think is why I feel at home here in LA because nobody else is from here really, and that displaced sense is like a big part of my identity, I feel. So I feel at home where nobody feels at home is what I’m saying. Its been weird living in a place and then not moving, for a while. Like any terrifying experience, if you do it enough you build calluses in a way and you just get used to it. That first day of school experience that everyone is terrified of…imagine having that like 10 times? You just get used to it. But also on the flip side you don’t become that great a friend to anybody. Oh yeah this isn’t going to be permanent and we won’t be friends forever. Even though I use a prepaid phone card to call you, its not going to last. So I would just kind of not commit to stuff as far as like when I would grow up emotionally that much and then I’d settle here in LA because my parents are here. And ever since I got into comedy. I really identify with people that do comedy. I’ve really fostered a sense of myself that I kind of like. And I don’t feel so awful all the time.
I guess the point I’m getting at is that when you move so much of your life you get used to being alone. When you go and a settle a place ”Oh you know you don’t have to be alone because you are just living here. Oh right! OK. Let’s go to a movie with people. We don’t always have to go alone.” I still do that a lot. I wish that answer was funnier. I feel like all these answers should be funny or uplifting and not an invitation to a pity party.
Cake: They don’t always have to be funny. So when you settled down here in Los Angeles you majored in Film Production and Cinema.
Cake: Yes, you are reading my Facebook page correctly. Yeah, I mean, throughout the pantheon of what I wanted to be when I grew up. As a kid I think I started off wanting to be a paleontologist because I loved dinosaurs and I wanted to be a fighter pilot and a bunch of other things. I think at one point I settled on film director and so I wanted to go to the best film school. USC happened to be one of them and I lived in LA. I applied and in film school I had no notions of ever doing comedy, much less performing it. I didn’t want to write it or direct it even though I’d have some fun sometimes just chatting with people and making them laugh. No one would ever call me a class clown or anything like that. When I was in school people thought I had anger management issues.
Cake: Why is that? {chuckle}
Jake: Because I would yell at them for forgetting a tripod or something. That’s a thing that I did but I wanted to be like Chris Nolan in film school. I made a really shitty version of “Inception” way before “Inception” was the thing that involves basically Post-it notes and a security guard.
Cake: Oh wow.
Jake: Just a bunch of dream sequences within dream sequences that have Post-it notes with smiley faces on them and some girl wandering around and a robbery and what not. It was fun to make. I saw “Inception” and, oh man, it’s so much better than what I did. I just wanted to do the film thing. I was doing it the typical way of … like I had written a few projects at school and then I went to writers book camp which I thought was really helpful. I actually hadn’t really finished screenplays although they are grammar and mistake free but they are really raw in terms of showing them to people. But they’re done.
Anyhow, doing internships and going to networking mixers which I HATE so much. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, Deborah, but I think its just such a gross thing that people would have their reel in their pocket. They’d burn DVD copies of their reel just to hand out to anybody. At the time there used to be a sort of video department at American Apparel where they made videos and I got to cut videos of migrant workers making socks to show that they were a responsible company, real exciting stuff. Even just saying that to people they’d say, “here’s my card, man. If you have any work?” I can barely get work! You want ME to give you work. WTF, man. I’m struggling here and you think I’m a power player? That’s how desperate everybody is.
Cake: Yes.
Jake: It’s so delusional. Making short films is such a big gamble that has almost no money at the end of it but the illusion is that you will. I think what I connected with comedy is that everyone is delusional but they know there is no money in this but that’s not why we are doing this. We are doing this because we love it.
Cake: Yes.
Jake: Oh, not to mention a bunch of shitty phone jobs. There was one time where I worked 2 weeks for basically slave wages. I worked 200 hours for 2 weeks and got paid 275 dollars.
Cake: OH!
Jake: By Egyptians! Even knowing all of that I was like “ Hey, I need the money.” Yeah it was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. I’ve paid my dues as far as entertainment, I would say. A lot of people are like “Oh dude, you don’t even know.” Yeah, alright.
Cake: I know a little bit.
Jake: Have you been at a job where your first day you have to serve court papers, ONE. To a 70-year old Persian woman who barely speaks English, TWO. And THREE at the court house, as she is counter-suing your boss. That was day one of the last regular job I had.
Cake: Wow.
Jake: If you’ve never served court papers. Usually, the person you are serving for will give you a line because the person is supposed to legally identify themselves as that person for you to serve them court papers. I think he said something to the effect “Just say, oh I’ve seen you on so and so Street.” That was the line that he fed me. Who says that as an opening line? This is how it went. It was at the Beverly Hills courthouse. She comes out and there is this whole den of people and I just go up as she’s talking to a bunch of people “ Oh, I’ve seen you on uh umm … street, here you go. You’ve been served.” This is how much of a dick my boss was. He was just laughing the whole time.
Cake: Are you serious?
Jake: Yeah, it was just a big joke.
Cake: It sounds like a movie.
Jake: Right. It’s part of a bit that I’m working on. You know that phrase “Hindsight is 20/20.” I think it’s a little bit a misnomer because I think hindsight is 20/10 when it comes to low points because I remember every single detail of all of that. And then the last birthday party I had. I’m like I don’t even know when that is. You know. I don’t remember who was there. It’s just a thing that happened. But with this it was 2:53 in the afternoon and I was very well dressed and I remember that I had to serve 2 sets of court papers that week and I forgot which…. Hindsight is 20/10 when its awful memories and its about 20/100 when its good times.
Cake: I would agree with you. So how do you make the transition between all those crazy intern jobs to being, I would say, probably the master of the most comprehensive comedy blog in the Western hemisphere?
Jake: Oohhhhh, thank you Deborah. I’m not sponsoring Deborah for this statement, Comedy Cake readers. So I did all those crazy jobs and then I took my shitty best friend whose no longer my best friend to open mics and got into comedy and I just loved it so I wanted to go out every night doing it. I would go to more and more different places. I started out in Long Beach but going from Long Beach I would go to Altadena or Santa Monica to do a mic. And then I would try and find more and I found that all the listings sucked. There were a lot of places and I live in LA county but I don’t live in LA. I drive for an hour or two and I’d go to some billiards hall and they’re like “Oh yeah man, the mics been shut down for like 3 years”….Thanks, man. You know when you hear that around 8 o’clock at night. You’re done. It’s too late to do a lot of other mics. So I got really pissed off at that. I was like alright I’m just going to run an accurate open mic listing. This is BS. This city is way too big. There are too many comedians. There should be something more reliable. And even before that I was like “Wouldn’t it be great if someone just put up with all the BS of doing this work. Yeah it would.” And I kind of did it.
And then as I went to more and more mics and I found out more stuff. I started going to shows that were in clubs. And I’m like “This is great. Why aren’t more people writing about this?” So I kind of included that in my posting and all this spiraled into what is now The Comedy Bureau. Using Deborah’s words, not mine, into “the most comprehensive comedy blog in the Western hemisphere.” Updating news, showing funny videos, putting anything that I think is pertinent in comedy in the context of LA or beyond on there. I think now it’s this kind of a thing that binds a community together because people check it to go to shows, both comics and comedy fans. As opposed to a lot of people who would just move here or start in comedy would just stay in Pasadena or stay in the South Bay or whatever. They would know there is a thing called The Improv but they wouldn’t venture near there. And they’d live in the same city. But now it’s all tangible because I try to do as good of a job as I can by keeping everything up to date. People go out. People know each other. And a lot of things are happening. It’s a vibrant, alive scene I would argue isn’t shitty at all.
A lot of people are from out of town have this mentality that Los Angeles is just Hollywood. And it’s not. That’s just a fraction of the city. And even Hollywood itself. Even Hollywood isn’t actually shitty, like that “Entourage” shitty. There’s a lot of stuff that people are doing on their own and because of that we get to do all this DIY comedy that doesn’t have any in-betweens or people approving of stuff. There’s not a lot of red tape. I think that is one of the first tag lines I had for The Comedy Bureau, “getting rid of red tape wherever I can”. It’s great that people are just constantly performing here and inspiring each other and some of the funniest people on the planet are here and you can see them for free. You can see Kyle Kinane A LOT for free when he’s in town or anybody really. You can see Bill Burr for free, at least once a month I think. Because he just randomly does shows here and there and he’s great.
Cake: Fantastic.
Jake: You can hear the passion. I would just go to all these shows and it’d be great. People need to write about this because major publications were doing moderate coverage to none. I mean if Eddie Izzard was doing the Bowl they’d do a feature piece on that. But outside of that it was just listings. I thought that was a shame. So, I just went out more and more.
As dumb and obvious as it sounds, comedy is so therapeutic. I would be so. There be times where I’d be suicidal and I’d go to a comedy show and feel better, legitimately feel better because I saw somebody be hilarious. And I’d be like “alright, maybe things won’t be ok but I’m alright right now.” And I think that is a kind of a beautiful magical thing.
Cake: Comedy is most definitely therapeutic to so many people.
Jake: Oh yeah.
Cake: I don’t think we’d be in this business if it wasn’t.
Jake: No. No. No. No. As a driving force I’ve done it just under for almost 3 years every morning since Oct 25 2010.
Cake: So what is your daily process getting the news?
Jake: On Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and a handful of other things that I check I just go to all my feeds and see what the news is. If there is a funny video from people I like I’ll watch. I kind of compile all of that. I have an editorial meeting in my head. “We are going to run with this. Is this even news? Somebody is in talks to star in a movie? That’s not news. They are going to split this channel in two? That’s news. What’s our top story?” That’s a meeting that I really have in my head. From 6:30, 7:00 o’clock to about 1 in the afternoon I’m just furiously writing and researching and updating and posting and checking on stuff and watching videos and listening to things and reading posts and taking it all in. I’ll watch a bunch of late night clips from the night before because I don’t watch them live. If anything is breaking I have to make the decision to post it, write then and there or should I wait ‘til tomorrow? I have my laptop on my bed. So I’ll wake up and I won’t get out of bed but I’ll be working from my bed. I gradually go through my morning, having coffee or doing some push ups or something while doing all this madness. I’ll write an article, have some coffee, write an article, do some push ups, write another article, make my bed. It’s really insane. And any time I do festivals it seems crazy because I’m just looking for wi-fi. I probably missed a news story. I can’t believe … I don’t know if any of you know this but you can reach the end of your Twitter feed. It cuts you off around 400/500 tweets.
Cake: Wow. I never knew there was an end.
Jake: And I’ve known this for a very long time. There’d be times where I’d get on the border of having a panic attack. We’re gonna lose out on tweets!
Cake: {laughter} There is an end of the Internet!
Jake: Dude, get over yourself. Even with that I still, it won’t be uncommon for me to have reached the end of my Twitter feed for those 500 tweets and then open another tab and wait 2 or 3 hours and reach the end of that. And I’ve gotten to 4 or 5 tabs. And I’ll go through that in a half hour. It looks like I’m reading The Matrix a lot. I’ll just push on the up key and just like…
Cake: There is a Neo!
Jake: For comedy, that is. Yeah and then in the afternoon is when I figure out where I’m going to go. And this is how useful the Comedy Bureau is. I use it. I’m the guy who writes it and I use it. There used to be a time and place where I could actually quote everything to you verbatim from memory. I used to be able to know the address of every venue and who’s on every show but there’s too much.
Cake: Comedy Bureau “Rainman”.
Jake: Well, I’m not mentally handicapped in anyway, that’s the trade-off. I’m a fully functioning person.
Cake: Yes, we’ve established that.
Jake: Anyhow, I figure out where I’m going and if I have other posts I have to write and or lists I have to make for other sets I write more. I do that then. I partake if I’m particularly stressed in one of my hobbies or pastimes that I have. I do origami pretty intensely. I really find that to be therapeutic. I can fold like an eagle or orchid out of a receipt.
Cake: I think you just said “I can fold an eagle.”
Jake: I can fold an orchid or an eagle out of a receipt and that’s a thing I’ll do. It’s very common. That or there are clips that people post online over 8 minutes and I’ll watch them still but I have to reserve time. So I will watch them then while I’m eating whatever lunch I made. Then the end of the afternoon ‘til the evening is spent driving, always. I live in the county but I don’t live in the city. I drive and it’s just a whole bunch of crazy. I’m doing an open mic. I’m going to a show. I’m getting interviewed by an online magazine. It’s one after the other. And I kind of love that. That is a routine in and of itself but its always different. And I’m always meeting new people which is a thing I thought I never say that I enjoyed but I do. It’s going to different places and doing different things. That is another part of why I love LA. There is just so much stuff to do that is so great that you and I can live here a combination of 15 years and I still haven’t seen everything.
Cake: Yes.
Jake: And I know this city like the back of my hand. I know that Lawndale is a place. A lot of people don’t know that. They think its probably near Bakersfield or something. No, it’s in the South Bay.
Cake: I have never been there but I do know it exists.
Jake: A lot of people haven’t had shark tacos in San Pedro. Baja Buds, it’s really great.
Cake: Its sounds delicious.
Jake: There is a lot of really, really fantastic stuff here that just hidden because the city itself is just so huge. And you have to have a car. And you have to have a real sense of adventure. I feel that you are automatically given that sense of adventure in New York if you don’t automatically hate it. It’s really easy to fall into stuff. But here you really have to go out and find it.
Cake: You have to seek out treasure.
Jake: Yeah. Absolutely. I would say that 100%. But I love it for that. I really do. Did that answer whatever question that was?
Cake: Oh yes.
Jake: I feel like I’ve given you more than you asked for.
Cake: It’s uncanny how you are following my outline. Almost to the word.
Jake: Oh look, Deborah planned very well.
Cake: So in the information that you acquire, do you ever get tipped off by your contacts?
Jake: That rarely happens. It does but it rarely happens because I’m usually there experiencing where anybody who would have gotten the tip got the tip. Because I do comedy still. There are a lot of people who write comedy that are not doing it. So they get press releases and whatnot. I mean I’m on a few of those mailing lists but a lot of it is just I go out every night and I see comedy. I have a lot of established relationships face to face with comedians that I’m friends with. I just hear stuff in passing or they tell me about stuff. I get a lot of emails for videos. Hey, I’m doing this album taping or I’m doing this new show. And that’s great I’m gonna post about that. And that has put me in really good standing to get a lot of stuff that otherwise would be passed up. I do have sources but that’s a misnomer because many of them are just comedians. They are all comedians.
Cake: So having built this rapport with your comedians friends, was that the impetus to start your podcast?
Jake: The impetus to start my podcast “This Better Be Funny” was there … was because I do comedy and I write about comedy people are like “Oh you have all this stuff going, why don’t you do a podcast?” I mean I had thought about doing one but I certainly didn’t want to do one about comedy news. People just often had said it could be about comedy news. Do you understand what that would actually entail? I’d have to talk about all the stuff that I write that you’d already read and that I already have a definite opinion on. I mean what else is being expounded upon. All my views on comedy are very clear … snd I’ve written extensively about them. All my takes on a lot of things would be the same. I’d defend free speech for comedians. I’d be against all these racially promoted nights. I think it promotes bad comedy. Oh Kat Williams this and that … Oh I just don’t care anymore. I think it would just become very repetitive and I don’t think it would be all that entertaining for me to listen to. And I think that was the starting point. If I don’t want to listen to this then why would I do it. What do I want to do?
The thing that fascinates me about comedy is how people come up with it. Only ‘til recently I don’t think people as a whole have really caught that very well. I think the documentary comedian with Seinfeld and Orny Adams suggests there is the process that exists but it doesn’t really get to the nitty gritty of how its done. Honestly … Mitch Hedberg did this a lot. A lot of it is like daydreaming. I don’t do daydreaming per se. A lot of it is being self-aware all the time. And a lot of times the easiest way to be self aware in the context of comedy is when talking to other comedians. When you are hanging out at a show and you’re riffing off each other or you’re having coffee or whatever … anywhere … and you’re talking to other comedians riffing off each other that to me is a big catalyst for humor. And that’s what I wanted to capture … a kind of fly on the wall perspective of where all that stuff that seems so out of left field comes from. I’ve had success and there’s been weird ones … essentially you can boil that down to “Oh your podcast is comedians just talking?” It doesn’t have a big listenership but I have enjoyed every episode that I’ve done. Its endlessly fascinating it happened, how you come up with stuff because every comedian thinks differently and when you mix all that stuff together you can just reach those weird points where bits are born. You know? And a lot of people do bits off of conversations we’ve had in our podcast. And there’s a lot of crazy stuff that happens because another big point of it is … yeah, its just comedians talking but we do it in public. We are at this tea room right now. We could have done the podcast here because I use my phone to do it. That brings a certain energy that is absent. Some of the other podcasts I’ve done where its like at someone’s apartment … there’s this very weird energy when you go to someone’s apartment and you have no idea that they were that messy and had cats and they are like “oh do you want some milk?” and you’re like “no man, I don’t want milk. Its 5:00p, its almost dinner time. I don’t want milk.”
Cake: {Lots of laughs}
Jake: I don’t know about you Deborah but I feel very respectful of someone else’s place when I come into it. I’ll find a place that’s been approved for me to sit at and I’ll just sit there. I won’t mess with anything. To me that puts it in a very odd place to comedy and be off the cuff and be funny. To me … we put ourselves in that situation. I tell this to people all the time … one of best episodes was after a show we were doing with Jake Weisman we were recording in his car in Echo Park in a parking lot. It was around 11:00 at night and two drunk girls, as Jake … somehow the conversation got to the point of him defending men as the better gender … two drunk girls come up to his car and piss on it. Just as … like you don’t get that in somebody’s apartment, you know?
Cake: That’s bizarre.
Jake: It waaaaaas great. They were so drunk that apparently their eye line was just to the sidewalk so they didn’t see three guys sat in a car talking as they were pissing on the car. It waaaaas great. Yeah. And we get to capture a lot of stuff like that because we are just outside. I feel like its really unique but its hard get people’s perception away from “Oh, its just comedians talking, right?”
Cake: Its so much more.
Jake: I’m sorry I don’t have a whacky segment… that I don’t want to make this like radio.
Cake: Yes.
Cake: There’s a quite a dichotomy between Jeremy Paul, your co-host and yourself.
Jake: Oh, yeah, yeah in like every respect outside of the fact that we are both comedians.
Cake: Yes. Did you purposefully choose Jeremy as your co-host?
Jake: Oh, yeeaaaah. Yeah, I did. I mean you this. Its kind of like a formula for comedy, two people agreeing isn’t really funny. I had heard once that formula behind Tex Avery’s cartoons was basically locking a dumb guy and an angry guy in a room together and that just made for all his comedy. And I’m not saying that me and Jeremy are either the dumb or/and the angry guy but it certainly makes for this great dynamic, that’s there’s somehow a guy whose more sexually perverted than me AND way more into comic books than I’ll ever be and a comic and kind of like a sinister guy all in one person, and to play opposite of me.
Cake: Yes.
Jake: Yeah, and he’s done comedy way longer than me and he’s done the road. I think its just … he’s like a really great foil. It makes it really entertaining. Because we don’t have segments and we are just riffing the whole time, all of its unplanned. There’s only one thing at the end where we just pitch jokes like literally. I’ll ask someone to pitch something and they’ll pitch something and we’ll go back and forth. All the other times we don’t know how its gonna go really. So at the very least I had to try to be entertaining between me and Jeremy for like … what if the guest is just in a weird … a lot of them are like not that chatty. They just like being kind of passive observers which … I mean its not fine necessarily but its just them. So then all the impetus of the show is put on to me and Jeremy and if him and me are not just organically fighting then its like really boring. So I purposefully picked him. He’s been doing comedy way longer than me. When I started out in Long Beach he used to do all those rooms because he lived there or near there. I mean I’ve just known him for a long time. I think he’s really funny in a way that he’s totally different from me and I just think it’s great.
Cake: Do you recall the first time you met?
Jake: Yes, I do recall the first time we met. It was at that mic where I started, Portfolios. I remember I was talking to somebody about strip clubs. I don’t remember the conversation but it was just strip clubs. Somebody said that and he’s like “Who wants to go to the strip club?” He came into our circle and he had a fan of about 30 VIP cards to different strip clubs located in the Los Angeles area. He’s like “where do you wanna go? Do you wanna go to the Silver Reign man, the Score, Spearmint Rhino, what do you want man?” Alright. This guy’s creepy. This guy’s fucking creepy. And I saw him go up and he was really funny. And Jeremy’s just been really great. He’s one of the few comedians that I think…he hasn’t been on TV but he has had a roast of himself and it’s been deserving and funny.
Cake: I think he’s hilarious.
Jake: Jeremy is fucking great.
Cake: He definitely adds a certain flavor to the podcast that you don’t get with any other podcast.
Jake: Exactly!
Cake: And I’m always … I don’t know if the word is perplexed or astounded at his sexual exploits.
Jake: Right!
Cake: And the wealth of knowledge he has about sex.
Jake: Don’t you think its just funny, that juxstapostion of like … this guy who loves sex… he just loves it…so much so that yeah adultery is fine. Yeah, that’s fine.
Cake: He throws all normal convention, sense of morality out the window.
Jake: To the exact opposite of…”well if you don’t want me to hug you, I won’t hug you. Oh, alright you have a boyfriend, alright, I won’t talk to you anymore. That’s fine, I get the message.” I just think that juxtaposition is so funny. A guy whose been the ringer at orgies versus the guy who stands in the corner in parties.
Cake: I have learned more about prison from Jeremy than anyone I had the pleasure of listening to.
Jake: Haaaaaa! If you’ve never seen him do standup he has a bit where he starts off…there’s some part where he says a large percentage of his family was responsible for the crime in Peoria in the year of 1986 or something.
Cake: I don’t know which episode it was when he was talking about how he is able to go on for so long…
Jake: Because he stays hydrated? Yeah!
Cake: And what juices you should be drinking.
Jake: Yeah that’s so funny. Its funny in and of itself but its also funny because Jeremy is serious. Jeremy, my co-host, he will occasionally do some event that on the horizon is really big. “We’ll have an end of the world orgy or something.” And he’ll post that on Facebook. But he’s like serious. He did get pineapple and carrots to make sure people had a really nice time. I know nice and orgy are words that aren’t supposed to be next to each other but they are next to each other when it comes to Jeremy. It’s really funny for him that I’m so not into sex. I’m just not. And he’s totally right. People that have never heard “This Better Be Funny” before, Jeremy harps on me a lot for obviously having chances, and I’ll even admit, reading that situation, oh I could get laid here and just totally not going for it because I’m not into the girl. “Buuuuut, what? Pussy man!” But I don’t want to wake up next to that man. And it doesn’t compute with him.
Cake: So has he given up at this point trying to get you lady skin?
Jake: Yeah, he gets really aggravated. There’ll be time where we’d be at parties or whatnot. There’s one show in particular where I was at and the girl was offering, because I had too much to drink to drive home at the time. I just had to wait an hour. She was like “oh you can come back to my place.” And Jeremy is like (you can’t see…I’m making facial expressions like I’m cringing) ”Dude! You got to do this man!” And I just, I’m really bad at reading lips as well. I was like “What?” I know that that is kind of a soft invitation to go back to someone’s place and fool around but I just wasn’t into that. I wasn’t into her. In fact, we were friends in sort of a father daughter way and I just thought it was really weird to do anything outside of that and he couldn’t for the life of him understand any of that.
Cake: Oh Jeremy.
Jake. Yeah. I mean…he’s going by porn names now.
Cake: What was that name that he coined himself?
Jake: He does this every so often. He’ll get frustrated with his own name. I’ll go by some porn name that he made up. Right now he’s saying that he’s going by the name Savory Johnson. I’ve yet to hear it because he doesn’t do enough shows where I get to see hosts bringing him up. I’m assuming hosts would mispronounce it. Who would be called Savory Johnson?… “Savouira” Johnson or something like that. He’s kind of all I would want in a co-host.
Cake: He’s the ultimate character.
Jake: It’s a perfect foil for me. Like I said earlier. There’s all that sex stuff. He also geeks out with comic books. Something I’m totally not into and its really funny when he geeks out with somebody else because a lot of comics are into comic books and I’m not. And I’m just totally lost and just trying to find my way.
Cake: How can the Nerdist comedy editor not be into comic books?
Jake: Well, the person covering COMEDY at the Nerdist covers COMEDY and spends all his time covering COMEDY. So, there’s little time for anything else outside of comedy, fashion, and origami.
Cake: This is true.
Jake: If I had more time to do stuff…you know what, graphic novels weren’t a thing at the time when I was a kid. I think is probably what I would have gotten into if I had gotten into like comic book-wise. And I just missed that boat, you know. And I don’t have the time and money to get into it right now.
Cake: Yeah. I don’t think there’s too many people that would knock you for that.
Jake: Folding paper is free, you know? Its pretty much free all the time.
Cake: So who would you say has been your favorite guest so far?
Jake: I don’t have a favorite guest. I have a handful of guests that I love. Sean Patton has been on the podcast three times. One as an unannounced guest which, when we were recording he was like “Oh, don’t say my name! I want to be the mystery guest” which kind of sucked at the time because, we still don’t have a lot of listeners, but we didn’t have a lot at that time. Seeeeeeaaaaan, you are kind of a big deal man. And then three months later I totally reneged on that and I just put him name on the episode. Sean is really great. Jake Weisman’s episode is really great. The Walsh Brothers’ episode is really great. Jackie Kashian’s is really great. Candice Thompson who is a comedian that a lot of people might not know is really funny. We had so much fun in her car (I don’t know if you can hear it in the episode). She played music in her car to set the mood (It was David Gray). It killed the battery in her car we were having so much fun.
The episodes with Scovel and Kinane were really great. The one with Katie Crown was awesome. We were at a pseudo-French restaurant. We were really loud (but there was nobody that we could disturb). That was a really great episode. And the one where me and Jeremy went to Flappers and were hanging out in the green room. That was really great. A lot of it is dictated by my mood. Sometimes Jeremy handles that really weird and other times I’m too depressed for anything. I try not to be such a fucking downer sometimes. There’s so many reasons why I’m down or whatever. That can really change the dynamic especially because we don’t plan anything. We are kind of going with it. It helps if I’m in a sort of state, which isn’t so sad. I think those 10 episodes. I think 10, whatever. Those are my favorites.
Cake: Cool. It was 9 but whose counting?
Jake: I don’t have a single favorite. There was a memorable story which happened within every one.
Cake: Right. Where do you see both The Comedy Bureau and your podcast evolving to?
Jake: Right. Well, the podcast is hard to say. We’ve been getting more listeners as late which I’m happy about. I guess the podcast is getting more solid. We’re at episode 84 right now. So we’ve been doing it over a year. I guess its just getting more listeners. Getting a bigger subscriber base.
I basically cut out four or five hours a week to do this thing. That’s all I have time for … to book somebody, schedule it, have us meet in one place and do it and edit it and put it on line. And that’s the five hours I’ve equated. That’s what I can afford with it not making any money right now. Id like it to build a bigger subscriber-based and, I don’t know, be donation based. Well see. Maybe we’ll join one of them fancy podcast networks.
Cake: There’s quite a few of them.
Jake: I don’t know if that helps or not but hopefully it does. We’ll see about that. For the Comedy Bureau, what I’d like to happen…I’d like there to be branches of the Bureau in cities like NY or Chicago or even places like Seattle, SF, Portland, Denver, Atlanta.
Cake: Austin.
Jake: Yeah, Austin. It’s such a great community gathering thing here and there ‘s a lot of great comedy that I see coming to town and people how are like, “we have our own little scene here.” Yeah, it would be great if there was stuff like covering that. I’m only one person doing it still.
Cake: Amazing that you are able to do so much.
Jake: Also, part of my morning. At like 2 in the morning, I’m still researching and then I go to sleep for a few hours and then I wake up and I do all that. But the thing is I need to have capital to find people that I think would do the same quality of work that I do. And as crazily as I do in whatever other city. And I just don’t have the time and money to do that. I’d like there to be Comedy Bureau content. I don’t know what that means necessarily. Video of some kind, who knows. I’d like there to be more stuff. I’d like it to be a bigger brand, so to speak…but definitely starting off with branching out and having a bigger Comedy Bureau presence. Hopefully, to the point where I could just live.
Cake: Its nice to make a living off of what you love.
Jake: I think a lot of people in the US would not count what I do as a living. I am scraping by…but I think that is where I’d like to take it. All the time people are like “is there an equivalent of it in NY” and I’m like not really. There’s a combination of things that equal what I do, sort of. But there’s not a comprehensive list OF mics and comprehensive list OF show that are to a certain taste AND news. There’s not all one. You have to go to like 10 different sites to find that in New York. I mean, who knows what will happen. I hope I can find the time to find the people. Also, I have a kind of fear I would yell at somebody for re-tweeting the wrong thing. I could have gotten an intern easily, even a year ago. But I don’t want to yell at somebody for messing my Twitter feed up. I don’t wanna be that guy.
Cake: You’re the perfectionist!
Jake: I just want comedy to be better. I think that is my overall mission statement. I want comedy to be better. It’s kind of an absurd statement. This is something my sister said to me, “I don’t like comedy”. You mean you don’t like to laugh? You’re human. You like to laugh. That’s a thing you like to do. You just don’t know what type of comedy you are into. And unfortunately, the way a lot of shows are run, like what I was saying about TV and movies, people have that opinion of comedy. Because they see that. “Oh I went to one stand-up comedy show. I know there are thousands that happen every year but I went to one comedy show and I didn’t enjoy myself so comedy isn’t like that.” That’s just an absurd statement. I try to open people’s perceptions. NO, it’s not THAT. It can be this other thing that isn’t a guy yelling at you in the front row just because you’re in the front row. Men and women are different. “Black people and white people are different. Gay people and straight people are different” or whatever hacky bullshit they come up with that they’re just saying in a certain cadence. And also I feel part of my job description is defending the reputation of LA because a lot of people shit on it unnecessarily.
Cake: We won’t mention the other establishments that have shit all over LA.
Jake: Its so not needed or deserved. You know its only a fraction of it. Anytime there’s a population of 10 million people that live within a 15 mile radius there’s gonna be shitty people. That’s just a thing that happens. If you have a town of 100,000 people that percentage of shitty people is going to be a handful. Literally. Then when you multiply that by 100,000 then yeah, that percentage of shitty people is gonna be way more. It’s a little bit more visible what they are doing.
Cake: Exactly.
Jake: Uggggghhhhhh. So is that the question of where the podcasts and Comedy Bureau was going?
Cake>: Yes, it is. And we’ve come to our final question.
Jake: Is it worth 64 million dollars?
Cake: Sadly, no.
Jake: Dammit! I don’t know why I did this interview, Deborah. I was really hoping for that. Alright, go on. What is it?
Cake: I would like to know what 2014 comedy events you are most looking forward to.
Jake: The Riot LA Festival, Louie coming back to FXx, and so much more stuff that I can’t think of right now. You know what I look forward to most is seeing people do an hour stand-up wise or really anybody, sketch or improv … just do longer sets. Because in LA there are so many comics, there are so many talented comics people that don’t get a lot of time to perform on stage. And it’s just a real treat and delight when somebody gets the time to branch out. And you really get into the stuff they want to get into. A lot of what that is for comedians, no matter what their style is, what they want to get into. They have to have time to get into it because its not easily digestible if you put it into a 5-minute promo friendly segment. You know what I mean? There’s a story I have about having to sparr my mom in Tae Kwon Do because I was forced to. I can’t open with that story. I have to get into it. People have to understand my persona and know a few things before. I think this has only been my interpretation of the story but it could be viewed as forced domestic abuse. You know what I mean? I would describe my comedy (I know this isn’t a question you asked) as big swings and big misses.
Cake: Right.
Jake: I go for big setups and I talk about heavy stuff only by virtue of the fact that its more personal to me. I have problems doing comedy shows at recovery rooms, like AA meetings and NA meetings because I largely have not fucked up my life besides like not making any money. I haven’t done drugs. I haven’t had an abortion when I was 14. I haven’t done a lot of that stuff. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket.
Cake: Probably a good thing.
Jake: Yeah, no. There’s a lot of good things. But it’s really hard to relate to people that spent most of their life fucking off and me trying to be self-deprecating. “I can’t stand that there are pretty girls around all the time … well you know, I killed my brother in a car accident.” Alright man, I’m sorry we’re not gonna be friends.
Cake: I’m out!
Cake: Yeah. Whew! I hope one day I can master that. I go for things that are really in depth. And when I’m not talking about my own life I’m always fascinated by history that’s not extensively written about. I have a bit about the guy who put pockets on pants.
Cake: Pockets on pants?
Jake: Nobody wrote about that guy so you can make up whatever you want. Right?
Cake: That is very true.
Jake: This is probably one of the more dirty things I do. I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia going down Wikipedia holes or just online researching things. There was a whole day where I researched the whole story behind Russian Roulette.
Cake: Oh, wow.
Jake: And actually the current version of Russian Roulette we play might not even be an accurate version of what was played during WWI by the Russians.
Cake: That’s mind-blowing.
Jake: And it was actually based off a pulp fiction writer who wrote a story based on his time in the French foreign legion.
Cake: Seriously?
Jake: Yeah.
Cake: That’s bizarre.
Jake: And that’s even made up. To people’s best account, there was a thing that Russian officers used to do around that time called “cuckoo.” And it was such a depressing time and it seemed all senseless and whatnot. So Russian officers would get really drunk and they’d go into a room and they’d turn off the lights and they would take a loaded gun, a loaded pistol and they’d shoot it until the clip was empty or somebody yelled “cuckoo.”
Cake: Someone’s cuckoo alright!
Jake: Exactly! Right? Which in a weird way is like, don’t censor writers. We’ll censor stuff ourselves. You understand how much more depressing that is than Russian roulette? That version of the game, there’s just nothing pretty about that, whatsoever. At least there’s a little art to the spinning of the revolver and the chamber. And the version that he played in the French foreign legion they actually played with 5 bullets instead of one so it was almost certain you would die.
Cake: That narrows down the probability.
Jake: These are things that are really fascinating to me and I read a lot about.
Cake: Definitely makes the comedy richer.
Jake: Yeah! You know, I’m still researching it right now. So I’ve been wearing a lot of ties. How many people have been assassinated because they wore a really nice tie? One that was well-made, handcrafted? That’s something that I really tried to look up. And I have not found an answer.
Cake: So you have to make one up.
Jake: I just bought the CIA world fact book. There’s all this stuff that is mind-blowing to me and I it just works its way into jokes. Did you know it’s roughly calculated that 4.2 people die per second.
Cake: Wow
Jake: No I’m sorry. 1.8 people die per second. 4.2 people are born per second. And then I just think, goddamn, how great would population control be if we all just didn’t have sex for a day? All 7 billion of us just stopped. People are having sex all the fucking time…and its not just Jeremy.
Cake: Thank the Lord.
Jake: I hope it wasn’t too much of a bummer?
Cake: No absolutely not!
Jake: I used to be called “smiley” all the time because I smiled all the time.
Cake: I’d still say you’re “smiley”.
Jake: Yeah, but there’s a sense of irony behind it. Well, this has been great. I had a lot of fun.
Cake: I too had a lot of fun. We had some great eats.
Jake: Chado tea room.
Cake: We had a multi-location interview.
Jake: Yes!
Cake: And I saw the moon.
Jake: Yes, I saw the moon and stars out tonight. Oh, it’s a little cloudy I guess. And you didn’t get a threat.
Cake: I lived to tell the tale.
Jake: There were no cops. This is such a nice area. So weird. So weird.
Cake: Well, thanks Jake. It’s been fun.
Mentions: Read The Comedy Bureau and check out Jake’s posts at Nerdist. Be sure to listen to the This Better Be Funny podcast weekly. Catch Jake’s stand-up at a comedy venue near you (which you can find on Comedy Bureau, of course). AND OF COURSE do not miss The Comedy Bureau 3rd Anniversary Bash this Friday, Oct 25. Feature image by Megan Baker.