Duncan Trussell Family Hour - BRENDON WALSH AND JOHNNY PEMBERTON ARE THE CRAFTSMEN

Episode Date: July 10, 2013

Brendon Walsh, Johnny Pemberton, and Duncan Trussell discuss the art and craft of Stand Up Comedy.

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. I'm dirty a little angel. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to The Craftsmen, formerly known as the Duncan Trestle Family Hour,

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Don't act like an idiot at the bar. Just do not drink and be quiet. If you have a warm personality and come from a positive place, you will do great. But don't be a comedian. As in, you stand on stage and do stand-up comedy and make fun of Islam and Muslims. Welcome to The Craftsmen,

a podcast dedicated to teaching young performers the art and craft of stand-up comedy. The Craftsmen with comedians Brendan Walsh from Chelsea Lately and Johnny Pemberton from Chelsea Lately. And me, DuncanTrestle, your host who has not been on Chelsea Lately. Hello, everybody.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the podcast, formerly known as the DuncanTrestle Family Hour Podcast. I've decided to take a turn with the theme of the podcast, as much as I would love to talk about philosophy and spirituality and politics and the various things that I've spoken about on this podcast with so many wonderful guests.

I feel that it's time for a change. I was recently at a comedy club and I can't really think of a nice way to say this. It just seems like a lot of the younger comics have gotten off course with the craft of stand-up comedy, which is why I decided to rename my podcast, The Craftsmen, and to make the theme of the podcast, the craft of stand-up comedy,

the importance of learning the craft of stand-up comedy and to join me on this podcast. I now have two regular guests, Brendan Walsh. Hi, everybody. Brendanwalshcomedy.net, and you can follow me on Twitter, Brendan underscore Walsh comedian on Twitter. Your followers have been zooming up, Brendan.

I've noticed that, and congratulations to you. Thanks, it's all business. It's a matter of doing consistent tweets, and also you can purchase followers as well. Absolutely, and that's a great move too. Let's get into Twitter in a second. I want to introduce our other co-host of this show, Johnny Pemberton.

Hey, hey, Duncan, great to be here. Love The Crafts. I may be a little bit newer to the game than you guys, but I just love being here talking about, I mean, talking about my favorite subject, so. It's pretty great. It's about time somebody started a podcast. Totally.

Well, and Johnny Pemberton, if you want to get real, and I'll hit you back up with an hour play, no problem. We learn when we teach, I think Gandhi said that, and it can be applied to stand-up comedy, and I think that it is the job and the duty of all comedians who've been honing their craft for many, many years to kind of be the judge and jury when it comes to what comics out there are doing,

and if what they're doing is on the right track, or if what they're doing has gotten off course a little bit. Oh yeah. I see a lot of laziness in the comedians today. It doesn't seem like people are working on their craft. They don't know how to craft a joke. They don't know how to sell a joke. I'll say it right now.

This is what I'm seeing a lot of. They just don't get it. These kids, they just don't get it. They don't get what you're talking about. They don't get that it's work. They don't get that it's a craft. They just don't get it. Well, I blame the internet for a lot of it.

Oh, totally. Cell phones. Well, I think what's happened is that a lot of comedians have gotten caught up in sort of the lazy habit that can happen to a comic who wants to perform. A lot of times a comic will, instead of spending time working on a joke, you know, when I have a piece that I'm working on,

then what I do is I take that piece and I have three different phases where I'll first write it in my notebook that I carry around me in my pocket at all times. A little story I can remember, I was at a cafe and I was talking to someone who was, as many people often do, proclaiming that they were a stand-up comedian and I said to them,

oh, and really, what kind of notebook do you use? Yeah, it's moleskin. They said what? No, they didn't, exactly, they said no. They use a phone, probably, or like they don't even write notes, no notes. No notes. There wasn't a notebook in his pocket,

there wasn't a notebook in his shirt, and that's not a comic. If you right now, if you're listening to this and you have been saying that you're a stand-up comedian and there is not a moleskin notebook in your pocket. Heavily worn too, I mean, unless it's fresh off the shelf, those things. Well, they all start off new, but.

They do, but I'm taking that thing out of my pocket probably 16 times the first day. It shouldn't stay new for long. If you wanna be a serious comedian, step number one, spend at least four to five hours a day writing. Absolutely. Oh, minimum.

You get a day's pay for a day's work, and if you're one of these comics who has somehow gotten into their head that all you have to do is from time to time sit down with your waterbong and scrawl some of your whatever is down on your crap pad. Do some drugs and write down some swear words and then saying them into a microphone

is not stand-up comedy. Or just, yeah, or I've got an idea. I'm gonna get stoned on my medicinal marijuana and write jokes that appeal to rape culture. Yeah, I'll tell you what alternative comedy is. It's an alternative to funny. Well, yeah. Have you heard that before?

Yeah, well, that's a good one. And I blame that alternative boom of the 90s for a lot of the laziness. You see everybody wearing their sneakers on stage. They have a notebook. You're on stage. It's a show. Put on dress up.

If you're good, don't dress like the audience. You don't want people to think that a busboy wandered on the stage and then started saying swear words in the microphone. Especially if you have these bigger clubs. If you're in a bigger club, they will just laugh. Well, if you're working in a room. If you're working in a room, yeah.

Even a B-room, they may even, they used to be, they'd laugh you out the door. A B-room will laugh you out the door. I mean, when I say laugh, I mean like get out of here. What are you doing? People pay it. Yeah. One of my favorite things to see in the world

of stand-up comedy is so often some of these imposter comedians will somehow manage to make it to the feature level at a B-room. And you see them walk on stage. They have this confidence that they've gotten from working these alternative rooms. Well, just from not knowing. And FYI for the listener, alternative rooms means

the back, like the storage area of a record store or a coffee shop where it's just an open mic. Any place without a drink minimum is, I mean, good luck. Good luck finding anything funny there, you know what I mean? Exactly. These are alternative rooms. A good comedy club is a place that will go out there

and do the work to bring the crowd in. And the crowd isn't a group of 15 people wearing black bifocals who like to listen to vinyl records when they're not working at their cafeteria jobs. These are tourists, these are people because a good comedy club will do what's called paper. They get a cross-section of the public to commit. Yeah.

Good people. Good people who have been brought there because somebody from that club is working the street and is giving out free passes to the show and getting people in there who are there for free, who haven't paid and who are just there because they want to challenge you to make them laugh. They want to see some funny.

And if you go up there wasting their time with whatever crap, like you said, scrawled on your crap pad or something, that just, that does not compute in my book. And that doesn't. Well, a lot of these rooms, when they do the papering, giving away free, they give people a block of tickets on their birthday.

If you sign up for their mailing list, then that person's going to come with upwards of 15 people on their birthday. And if you're just up there talking about some indie band and smoking marijuana and saying a bunch of swear words. I mean, good luck appealing to that crowd. Yeah. You just ruined someone's birthday

and you're not getting booked in any more A rooms. And you're definitely not killing. And not killing. Here's one thing's for certain. And you young comics out there are listening to this. You must know that these bookers at A rooms, they talk to each other. They talk to each other.

Yeah, people act like they don't, yeah, everyone's got a cell phone. They stay in touch and they're like, hey, Jimbo, Jim over here, kind of went up there and you could tell he- Drank all the Coors Light, went up, set a bunch of swears. Was stoned.

Probably was stoned. And that's another thing. If you're going to bring drugs into an A room, that's illegal. And if you have it on their property, they have every right to call the authority. Every right. And they should.

They should really. Because it's illegal for reasons. You gotta clean up this ref rap. I know you mentioned younger comics, but you know what I'm seeing a lot of actually is older comics who are new comics. And that is where you get some real weird stuff happening. You get these guys who are new to the game

and they're older, so they've got this life experience, but they just don't get it. They are, oh man. Here's the bottom line. And then I think we should move on when it comes to- I gotta go to my audition here. I'm late for an audition. Yeah, I'm running late for an audition as well.

Brendan, I think you're testing for something. I'm testing. I don't think I told you guys. Well, I don't know if you checked my blog, but I am testing for, blog is brendanwalshcomedy.net. Zed from the real world Miami has his own sitcom and I'm testing to play his brother slash neighbor.

That's huge. That's huge. No, that's huge. That's like a thing. I'm testing for the untitled Kevin Jackson project, which I think is gonna be called Dynamite Bimbos, is what they're going with. Wow, I've read great things about that.

Is that FX or Fox? I don't really know. I can't remember. I think they're shopping it still. They're doing like a backdoor pilot action thing. Maybe FX, it's something like that, but it's Kevin Jackson, so you know it's some pretty heavy hitters in there.

Is that on the Sony lot? It's gonna be probably a Sony Paramount or something like that. I'm real excited because I am right now in the running and from what I hear, I'm very, very close to getting the part of a producer in a lifetime channel movie about the making of the Chelsea Handler show.

Oh, I've heard about this. Oh, yeah. It's great. Have you read her book? Yeah. It's great. Her books. You should see my book.

Well, the one that talks about her. I mean, I've read all her books. Hello, vodka, it's me, God, it's dog-eared. Whatever it is, it's hilarious. The one thing that, that's one of the problem with having Chelsea books around is it doesn't give me the time to work on my pilot auditions because I'm always reading.

It's so easy to get sucked into it. Yeah, and how are you gonna, and that's the thing, it's so easy to get sucked into anything. You can get sucked into relationships. This is another thing. I was recently, I was talking to another young comedian and this young comedian was saying this,

he was thinking about asking his girl to marry him. Oh. You know? Do you know this guy's name? If I don't know his name. I'm not putting it out, I'm not putting it out there, but. Mistake. Here's the thing, guys.

Here's what it is. Hollywood is a place that we come to what? To work. And to succeed. Yeah. Do we come? Do we get married and have kids and have a white picket fence?

Move to Iowa. That's fine. It's fine. Nobody's judging you. We're trying to get to our auditions. We're trying to get to meetings with our agents and managers and you're driving to get flowers

for someone that you love. Well, the thing is, we're not saying don't get married, but ask yourself, number one, can this person help my career? Yes. Number two, is this person well liked in the entertainment business?

Yes. Do they have connections with like a old-style producer or someone from like Cheers-era? Like that's what you want. Oh yeah, any kind of, look, any kind of producer and this is the thing, so many times there's this thing where people will look down their nose at you

because they see that you are networking, but I'm not here to go to parties for fun. I'm not here to hang out with people for fun. I'm here to work on my craft, to develop my stand-up comedy so that I can get on, maybe get on the panel of Chelsea or get on a pant and if she's listening.

Byron Allen's comics Unleashed, that's a huge stepping stone. Get on Byron Allen, Byron is so funny and comics on that show are so natural and funny. It's great. Get on a celebrity panel-themed show and I'm not gonna do that by going on dates. Yeah.

Here's the thing, you know, I like to say that I punched in the clock about nine years ago and haven't punched out, okay? No, you're always working. You're like 47365. If you're a stand-up comedian, you're always working. You're always looking at things that go, hmm, is there an interesting take I can have on that?

And guys, let's speak into that. Let's go ahead and do a quick text break. Let's go ahead and check our text. I've been tweeting every 15 minutes now. Hold on. Oh, that's good. Oh, man. I set up auto-tweeter.

I have a timer. Yeah, that's- You know what I'm gonna do? I think I'm gonna go ahead and do a quick Instagram of this. Well, if you re-tag me, I'll make a vine of the Instagraming and then we can, I got this new bot, this guy made this bot where it'll take previous tweets you've made

and rewrite them and post them without why you're sleeping. Let's do this. Oh, that's great. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna take an Instagram of YouTube fellas and then while I'm doing that, why don't you vine this Instagram and you vine Johnny? Or you could do the video function on Instagram.

Are you ready? Yeah, hold on. Let me put my vapor pin down. Okay, hold on. Yeah, I gotta put my vape down too. These e-sigs are great. Yeah, I love these e-sigs. They're amazing.

Yeah, I love it. Oh, crap. I have a branding meeting. You have a branding meeting? After the audition. That's what I love about your name, branding is so close to branding. And you're so good at that.

Well, I just want to do a little nightcap here on this vine. I want to make sure this goes viral. Okay, here we go. Are you ready to vine? Yeah, I'm gonna do one, two, three. I'll get you burnt. I'll get you.

One, two, three. All right. Great. Let's just check out this vine, make sure it works. That's great, man. It's great. Great. Wonderful.

I said comedy in there. I say it without smiling because it's not a funny business. Serious business. Well, look, guys, all of us have had a great year and I hope that the people listening to this right now don't think that we're rubbing it into their face. No.

You know, Brendan, you, I've seen you on a couple episodes of Chelsea. Johnny, you've been on Chelsea. I'm working on getting on Chelsea. You'll get on. I've put in a good word for you. Thank you. Yeah, I'd really appreciate that.

And I know that you guys have, I'm gonna say, you guys have put in a little bit, you put a little more work into it than I have, but... It's a lot of luck, a lot of hard work, and it's just being prepared. You just have to, you have to have the chops when they call you because it's not, they don't just usher you right into that show.

This is what happens. You get seen three years later what you were working on three years before, that's when you get it. Yeah. Okay. So you gotta have, it's like preparing for a tornado.

And Brendan, I wanna bring up this amazing idea that you have, you were telling me about, and I think this is a wonderful podcast to announce your idea. Well, this is the idea. You just pointed out that Johnny and I have both been on Chelsea. Yes.

Well, that's just one of one panel. That's, yeah, exactly. Many things, that's one of many things that we've done. And I've decided because I just, it was just a holiday weekend, I don't know when you're gonna release this, but I went to a lot of parties over the weekend. You got, you have to.

Yeah, you have to, you gotta get in there, you gotta network, it's not just for having beers and barbecue. Can you talk about some of the premier comics you ran into at some of these parties? I don't really wanna name drop. Gabriel Iglesias told me that's tacky. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's full of advice. He is, he knows what he's doing. He's like brimming with advice. Yeah, right, you're right. Okay, well, I'm not gonna ask you to name drop, but I imagine that, can you- There were some good ones. Ralphie May?

There was some, Rob Schneider was at a party. Ralphie May, actually, this was a barbecue. Now, this was a good one, because it was, there was, this is the kind of party I wanna go to in Los Angeles. It was all industry, so it was like a lot of networking, and Ralphie actually gave a speech during the party

about success in comedy, and the steps you have to take. And here's, this brings me to the idea that you mentioned. Yes. You spend a lot of time when you're at these parties or at social events, and you'll be networking with somebody, but you don't really know their credits,

you don't know what they've done. Yes. And Johnny and I were talking about this in the ride, on the ride over, was wouldn't it be great if we had medals that we could wear for each achievement that you had in show business? You could wear a medal,

kind of like a merit badge for Boy Scouts or something, but that way you can see- Exactly. What the person you're talking to is accomplished, and also it gets right to, because a lot of times when I'm having a conversation with someone, there's a lot of back and forth of just kind of small, you're feeling it out.

That takes time away from me writing. Well, and it takes time away from me, because I want to get to telling them what I've done. Yeah, exactly. And so then- Like this is a frustrating thing, but because even before you get in the conversation, to me it's like, when I walk into a club,

I don't want to have to wait for somebody to come up and ask me what I've been up to to tell them all my credits. I want to be able for them to see my credits on my shirt. They can see you have three Chelsea Handler medals, and then they'll say, oh, you've done it three times. What's the most successful organization in America?

Comedy Central. Right, the largest most successful organization is the military. The military. And what is the military? And you gotta support the troops. You gotta, you have to. I saw commentary day not supporting the troops,

making a sort of, I don't know if it was sarcastic, or whatever, a joke about military. Whoa, buy your chicken home, buddy. That's not a comic book. Whatever that is is not a comic. No, you should, I think you should be arrested for saying things like that. Especially in this post-9-11 world we're living in.

I mean, this is the thing that is so shocking to me, and I think we're getting a little off course, because I love your idea, but this thing that is so very shocking to me is that there's been a debate about whether or not comics can do rape jokes on stage. Okay, yeah, do all the rape jokes you want. Have fun getting booked at a corporate gig.

Yeah, good luck working for a Fortune 500 company making the, I mean. Are you not gonna get a good write-up on the ATV club? No. I mean, you maybe will, but you're not. The real money is these corporate gigs, man. That's what these kids just don't get.

Well, you gotta work clean, you gotta work hard, and you gotta work clean, and you gotta be clean, Brendan. There has never been a successful comedian that's smoked marijuana. That is so true. Maybe they're like, you might be a marijuana smoker. Listening to this right now and thinking to yourself, some of my favorite comedians are marijuana smokers,

but you know what? The only person who knows about them are you and other marijuana smokers, and it's a very small group of people. And also, next time you go to one of the marijuana smoker comedian shows, enjoy having your stereo stolen out of your car while you're in the show.

Yeah, one of those old rooms there, and good luck seeing one of them in a voting booth ever. Oh yeah, why don't you ride your marijuana smoke to Illinois to one of your, an A-list club, because you're lit. You know what, people who smoke marijuana think they're gonna be successful comedians. I say, that's a pipe dream.

That's a good one. That's great. Can I use that? Yeah, that's a little good. No, no, no, you can use that. You can use that. But back to the medals. Now, here's a twist on it, because I do have,

I'm developing my own show for its epics. It's a new channel. Oh yeah, they're doing a lot of great stuff. They've got some big producers. But here's the thing, so on your left breast, you wear the medals of achievement. The shows you've been on, the Ferguson's, the Handlers, the Parks and Recs.

The Comedy Central specials. The specials, the. The length of the special too, it's important. So you have those medals on the left side of your jacket or shirt. On the right side are pending medals. So it has the meetings that you're going to. It has the script readings, the table reads

that you're doing. It has even, and you can even have medals for if you're doing a web series. With some web series is that's, well, it's a good launching pad. Hear me out. Here's what I think about it. Here's what I think about web series.

It's a networking party that has a camera. It's a networking party with a camera, but also it's a great way to get your resume credits up because I just did a web series and I was the writer, the producer, the director and the star. That's, there are four huge credits to have on your resume.

It's a great way to meet. It'll get your, maybe, I mean, I see some of these things on IMDb and guys, I get it, but you know, a lot of these people out there, they go around and talk about how important it is to do a podcast, for example. And this is fun.

I do this for fun. I'm not doing this for anything more. Get your name out there. It gets, yeah, but it's like, the real move is to get on TV. To quote Jay Leno, and he said this directly to me. Man, that's so cool.

And somebody, Comedy Magic Club Sunday nights. Yes, he said this directly to me. That's how you do it. If you're not on TV, you're not winning. Yep. That is so true, yeah. That is so true.

Can't argue with that. Yeah, because it's the medium of the people. I love TV. There's so much good programming right now, especially today. There's so much good programming and A lot of good cable shows. A lot of great network shows.

Great network shows. And it's like, for a comedian, not on TV, it's like taking a polar bear out of the snow. I would say it's like- That's a great analogy. A comedian not on TV is like a forest that has no trees. Do you have an analogy? Comedian not on TV is a person who didn't go to bed early

and decided to rise too late and miss the boat to Sony Studios. Yes. By boat, he mean affordable car that's really dependable. Comedian not on TV is somebody at Sizzler who forgot their dentures. I just want to say one thing about web series though. I want to cut you off.

But the thing about web series is great. And this sounds shallow, but it's true. It's a great way to meet women who aren't looking for any type of a commitment. So, cause they know that you're a working comic. You don't have time for a relationship. Well, here's the other thing. Everybody-

Just in it for a quick thing. Cause she knows that you just get you going and that's it. That's the kind of stuff you probably don't want to talk about on the pot. You can talk about this. I'm just saying- Because your personal life is, it should just be instead of talking about the BJ.

Yeah. Is be seen in public with the actress and insinuate- That's what I mean, you know, essentially. This is, the last thing I want to do is lecture you and the last thing I want to do is lecture anybody, but what you, here's two things. Number one, no commitments.

You don't even need to say that cause people listening to this know we're professionals so they know that's not our thing. Some of them they never know. Have you seen my new bumper sticker on the back of my car? I haven't seen it. Co-exist one?

No, no, that's old. But yeah, I love that. I love the irony in that. I didn't come to Hollywood to get married. That's great. Well, I agree with you completely though. It's such a great bumper sticker. It's hilarious.

Yeah, but that's, so that's, that's number one. Number two, we're not up, we're not out, we're not here to, people don't want to know about your personal life. People want to feel when they see a celebrity, when they hear a celebrity, they want to feel that the celebrity is on a higher level than them.

They don't want to know about your sexual habits or any kind of personal intimate details about your life. Well, you put that, you put that away, you do not talk about that at all. Because that totally is, it's distracting. It's distracting. It's like a thing that's not, it's so far from the craft.

It's so removed from the community. Well, you don't want to give it, it's like the Wizard of Oz. You don't want to give them that peak behind the curtain. Yeah, it sullies, it sullies the whole experience. And you're, you're talking about these things. You don't hear Jerry Seinfeld talking about

his doctor's appointment. No, you do not. We're going to, I'm going to, I'm going to cut to a quick vape pen commercial. And then when I get back, I want to talk about meet and greets and the politics of meet and greets. Great.

It's the craftsman. Negative one. I'm tired of being a walking asterisk. Negative two. I'm tired of feeling guilty every time I want to light up. I'm Stephen Dorff. I've been a smoker for 20 years. And I just found the smarter alternative.

Blue E6. Blue lets me enjoy smoking without it affecting the people around me. Because it's vapor, not tobacco smoke. That means no ash. And best of all, no offensive odor. With blue, you can smoke in a basketball game if you want to.

And how about not having to go outside every 10 minutes when you're in a bar with your friends? The point is, you can smoke blue virtually anywhere. Oh. Oh. We're all adults here. It's time we take our freedom back. Come on guys, rise from the ashes.

It's the craftsman. And we're back. For those of you just tuning in, you are listening to The Craftsman, a podcast about the art and craft of stand-up comedy. And one, there's a lot of different ways that you can bring in money when you're out there

on the road. I think one really easy way to do that in a place where a lot of comedians fall short is the meet and greet. Because a lot of times a comic will, after a show, come out and say hello to everyone. After a show, go mingle with the fans, go and talk. Right?

I just don't think this is an appropriate thing to do. I think that you're devaluing yourself and that the best move to make after a show out on the road is to charge an extra $20, $15 to $20 for VIP tickets and let the real fans come backstage and have a chance to shake your hand and take a picture. What do you guys think? I think if you're not monetizing something

that you can monetize, you're not winning the game. Well, when you're starting out, you should have, do the meet and greet, but have some merch. Have some merchandise to be selling. It doesn't have to be one of your albums. Although I do recommend t-shirts are the best. That's hands down.

You put one of your jokes on a t-shirt and... You don't even need to put one of your jokes on a t-shirt. You can just have a t-shirt with a funny image on it. Like I have this one that I've been doing for a while. I've been selling it. It's an image of Mount Rushmore and all the presidents are wearing like those googly eyeglasses.

Bingo. That's great. That's like it's public domain. Everyone aware. Everyone gets it older, young. It's American. It's got, you know, I can never be, I can't tell you how much that wins across the board.

Well, it works on a lot of levels. It's like, because that guy, he goes and sees you. I should have just got money for saying that. So, seriously. Talks speaking of the, yeah. But somebody goes to see you and they wear that shirt to work or to a birthday party.

Softball game. Or a softball game. Everyone's like, where did you get that shirt? And they're like, and then it's got your website on the back. JohnnyPembertonComedy.net. Yeah. That's really good.

And also, you know, another great thing you can do is you can have, you know, bring cards that you put out on the tables that have your. Mailing list. Your mailing list, your website, your. Get people to sign the mailing list. Just have a notebook out there on the merch table.

A nice notebook. With a big sign that says sign up for my mailing list. And then I can let you know what I'm going to be in your town. Yeah. It's also an opportunity to be kind of funny or clever. Sign up to find out what I'm checking into your zip code again. Yeah.

Something clever. Something that gets people on your side like, oh, okay, this guy's like me. He's one of me. Because people love to immediately identify. And that gives them an eight chance you get to allow someone to get on your ship. Yes.

So to speak, your comedy ship. Yeah. You want to have a band wagon. Yes. And yeah, here's the thing. This brings us to the next topic of The Craftsman, which is such an important aspect of stand-up comedy that I think so many comedians have just forgotten to do,

which is the look. Oh, you've got to have a look. A look. You've got to have a look. You can't just wear a t-shirt. Don't wear your street clothes on stage. No. Here's the thing.

It's also, this is the thing that just pisses me off, is the thing where people think they've got a look. But actually, it's a look that is distancing themselves from the audience. It's creating a chasm because it makes you look like, oh, oh, intellectual, oh, rich person. You know, I've got to disagree. I think that it's not, I mean, look,

if you want to do the very lucrative blue collar comedy route and come out there with maybe a lawn mower and a backpack filled with leaves, that's a great look. But if you want to go the other way, because then this is a great thing to do, here's the bottom line. You, you, and me.

We could have just as easily been real estate agents or stock. And made a lot of money too. Well, yeah, when we're all making money now, we could have been stock brokers. We could have just as easily been worked in PR firms, regional managers. We've got those kinds of minds. So when we put on our look, it's not

as though this is a reflection of who we really are. This is just a camouflage that we're using to hunt that green dragon that we call money, which is why if you're not that smart, there's nothing wrong with putting on the clothes that make you seem like you're an intellectual. No, we put it this way. I think we agree here, actually.

You don't see Superman flying around in his street clothes. No, you do not. You don't see Batman just putting on his comfortable shoes and going out to fight crime. This is, we are superheroes. We're modern day superheroes. We say what everybody's thinking and are afraid to say. If you want to look, look around.

See what's popular. Times change. You don't, yeah, maybe blue jeans and t-shirts are popular one day. Wear that. But then- Gel your hair. So your hair.

Do something with your hair. I'm gonna give a free pro tip right now. This is a classic look. Anyone can adopt this. Maybe it's not for you, but anyone, if you're in a pinch, this is a classic look for a comedian, okay? Jeans, a normal cut of jeans. Iron your jeans before you go on stage.

But a normal cut. You gotta iron everything. Don't do this skinny jean crap. I don't want to see that. And don't do this baggy crap unless you're an African-American performer. It's different because it's a totally different thing, but I'm not talking about that right now.

Jeans, black t-shirt, clean, no lint on it. Hawaiian shirt that is open. Do not button it. Hawaiian or bowling shirt. Hawaiian or bowling shirt. Instantly, instantly that is gonna give you a look, the people get right away. They're like, okay, I can identify this guy.

As soon as you hit that stage. It's casual, people get it, and they are on board. I would party with that guy. Spin the baseball cap to the back. Free tip, free tip, there you go. If you wanna upsell it with that baseball cap move, that is, you're on it, Duncan. Yeah, but we got, here's basically

three categories of comedians. Here's what they are. Smart comedian? Mm-hmm. General, the general guy in the world comedian. Like a joker. The dad, the dad, the joking dad. You're office buddy.

You're on a fella. Office buddy. And then urban. And it's like, pick which, where do you fall? You fall into one of those. Figure it out. And if you're gonna do smart, don't really be smart. Talk about it.

You don't want to intimidate. Yo, yeah, I talk about not selling anything after a show. You're gonna sabotage your little meat. Look at politics. Every night, every night you're on stage. That's a general election. Yeah. And you want people to vote for you.

That is a great alliance. And you're not gonna win, in politics alike. You go up there with your expensive eyeglasses and your suit and your Harvard college diploma pin near the Pell. Be able to say no thanks. I wanna, I wanna a guy next door. I wanna vote for a guy who I can relate to.

Have a beer with. Exactly. I wanna have a beer with him. I wanna be able to shoot the breeze. I wanna quickly go around and I want you guys to talk about what you're writing for your blog right now. I'll start with you, Brendan. I just had a new blog.

It's about, well, it's some of the stuff we've covered. Branding, keeping it clean, corporate gigs. I can't stress enough. Most comedians that you see out there, our bread and butter is corporate. And if you're gonna do political humor or dirty sex-driven humor, you can kiss that corporate money goodbye.

Adios. But you know what? Good. Here's another thing. By the way, comics, I'm sure by now there's some grubby, unshaved quote, artist comic. And by the way, that makes me wanna puke when a comic starts waving the artist flag or whatever.

It's like, there's the, I guarantee. Go pay me a picture of Van Gogh, get off the stage. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's a clown. And I got news for you. Van Gogh was a fucking loser. You can bleep that, right? And I promise you this, Van Gogh ain't gonna get booked.

No, in a- An A-room? San Francisco. An A-room, no thank you. Maybe you can get in your van and go to an open mic at a coffee shop with the rest of the other hippies. Can I use that? Yeah.

Here's like, hey, who's gonna pay for this pizza? Not that guy, he's a broke. But here's another thing. If you wanna be, here's the fine line. If you wanna be a rebel and like a bad boy on stage, fine, do it, but don't, you see, you can't be, if you wanna be a real rebel, go down to a streetcar named Desire

and hang out with James Dean. Yeah, go down, outdated. What you do is you look at guys like Jim Morrison. Yes. Or James Dean. Yes. You see what made them popular and then you just, you do, you're doing an act.

You're a rebel, but on stage, you're just trying to give people the idea that you do crazy things. You break all the rules. Be a hologram. Yeah. You wanna be a hologram. You don't wanna be, be a, if you're,

Are you gonna be yourself? Oh, everybody's dying to listen to Joe Schmo talk. No, you create a character. It's not therapy. Nobody. Don't get out there and talk about your cancer. Johnny, I wanna talk to you about what blog topics you're working on right now.

Well, I'm working on, a lot of the same stuff Brendan is working on because I'm really trying to hit those corporates hard. Have a new blog post. I'm talking about our t-shirt designs. I talked a little bit about this earlier, but a thing I think is really great is that anyone can do,

is just incorporate an animal design with sunglasses and anything like that, like a simple sort of combination of like things if they wouldn't go together. That's a great t-shirt right there. It's lapping a logo on it. So I've been talking about that. I've also been talking about a lot of alternatives

to swear words because there's a thing where- Can you give us some examples of that? Exactly. I saw- Let's say the S word, for example. Shazam, Shabuki- Just stepped in some Shazam.

Or some Shazam. That's already funnier. And it's funnier than the word. That's what people don't get. Ninja, Ninja's a great one for that word that gets a lot of people in a lot of trouble. And it's fun because everyone looks ninja. Well, I'm not gonna say it obviously,

but Ninja, Ninja's a great one. Ninja please. Yeah, exactly. This is what I love about Brendan, is Brendan just gets it. He's on board. This is what these kids, they don't get it. Brendan gets it.

I graduated myself, well, this is gonna age me. Freaker, freaker. Almost 30. Graduated my first stand-up comedy class back in 2003. And you know what you just said makes me think of the importance of lying about your age, right? Or just divert it, divert it all together. Yeah.

Don't tell them really how old you are. I think that's a really important thing. You know, me, I'm 24. And when I get to be 39, I'll probably start saying I'm 24. Sad to the opposite. Yeah, just bring it down a lot. I'm 36.

Yeah, yeah, but how old are you really Johnny? Exactly. Exact-a-mongo, baby. Exact-a-mongo. We're gonna lie about your age. That's what my blog topic is, is a good scale to show. Nobody wants to listen to one of your dad's friends go up there and tell stories.

They want someone who is on the verge. Yeah. And you got your ear to the street. You know what's going on in pop culture. People love to hear about pop culture. Listen, open up a newspaper, USA Today. That's the only one you need. That is the best.

And here's the thing about USA Today. It's pretty much it. Probably 99% of the hotels I stay at. So no big deal, not hard to get. Let's talk a little bit about the belt buckle. How important is a nice, shiny, beautiful belt buckle on stage? I mean, it's good.

I think it's- Depends what look you're going for. Definitely. I think if you're going for the like that middle range look, I was talking earlier with the Hawaiian shirt open. Belt buckle. I mean, that's a great chance to have something funky you can put in your act.

Like let's say, I mean, this would be a real boon, but if I had, let's say I had the Mount Rushmore. It's easy to get Mount Rushmore things, right? And guess what? You can get Mount Rushmore themed everything. Oh, it takes this little marker or some putty and you put sunglasses on those guys and you got a novelty item here.

Instantly people are like- You should look into selling those. Oh, believe me. Speaking of selling, I want to talk about a new app that I'm developing, which I'm really excited about. It's called NetParty. And what it is is an app that makes it

so that when you run your eVide invites, you can run your Facebook invites through. And what it does is it scans the names in your invite list to see how many times they've been on Chelsea. Oh, yeah. So you can make sure that- Oh, that's such a good idea. Isn't that a good idea?

That's a really good idea. Yeah. Cause you know, you can, I don't want to throw a party or I just don't want to go to a party where I'm not around successful people. And I don't know why so many people look down their nose at that.

That's ridiculous. Why wouldn't I want to be around successful people? If anybody's looking down their nose at that, they're a hater. Yeah. Jealous. There's just, you got to ignore the haters. Right. Some people don't like to work.

Some people like you to clock out so you can lower yourself to them. Well, they're jealous. Yeah. They want to see you fail. Yeah. And so they knock all the things, all the proactive things you're doing to help your career.

Usually it's slackers or irresponsible people who see that you're having a great year and try to drag you down with their cruel words. They can't stand it. They can't stand it. They can't handle it. But it's like, come on. When I'm at work.

Well, that's the artist types. Where they're like, cause they'll see me on stage. Yeah. I wear, I got some cool combat boot looking shoes. I got the tears in my jeans. Great. I got the chain wallet. Yes.

And I, speaking of belt buckles, I always showcase, I always, I wear a different belt buckle every night. That's key. And, but I'll just have the front of my shirt tucked in with the back hanging out. Cause that's, Hi fucking.

It's a cool look. Excuse me. I freaking love that. Freaking. Yeah. Freaking. I'll edit that out. I've actually written about some alternatives.

But people will say, they'll say, Hey man, you know, chain wallet and like tough guy attitude on stage. What do you, that's not who you are. And it's like, hello, it's called a show buddy. You know? Yeah. It's show.

Please guys, don't confuse the person with a persona. Yeah, exactly. Don't do that. Don't make that mistake. Me, I come on stage and I do an Irish character who's got black parents and that's my act, you know. You go to Edinburgh with that? Yeah.

Well, yeah. I've been three times. I do a lot of the international festivals. Your agents got you that? What's that? Your agents get you that? Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did.

I think I'm getting, I just, I got a text from agent just now. Oh, you know what? They've actually just moved up my audition 15 minutes. I guess they're open. Oh, great. They must be seeing a lot of people for this. I mean, well, actually they must not,

must not be seeing a lot of people for it because they must have had someone drop out. I heard that. And by the way, when Johnny goes to look at his phone, I don't get upset about that. If I'm going out to eat with somebody and they want to spend the majority of their time checking their texts or sending Instagrams

or looking at tweets or looking into their phone, that's not going to make me mad because I know they're working all the time. I don't know. This isn't your local grocery store. We don't, we never turn the sign around that says, sorry, we're closed. Yeah, exactly.

Here's a little newsflash. Big bright neon sign, open 24 hours a day. I'm gonna text, if I'm, you know what? I'll tell you, if I'm in bed with you even, I'm gonna text, I'm gonna check my tweets. I'm gonna, if something comes in. But even then it's like, that, I mean, we talked about this earlier

but I really think that I don't sleep with, no one sleeps with me. You gotta sleep alone. You have to sleep alone. Okay. Yeah. And I think that it's really an important thing to- It's rude when people interrupt you when,

because it's like, you know, I was at my grandmother's 90th birthday party and there was a big, there was a huge audition for it was one of the real housewives of Atlanta is gonna be a judge on a fashion show. That's big. And yeah, and I was gonna, I was up for playing the host. What's a huge market?

Huge market. Huge market. A&E and also syndication. It's gonna be on in a bunch of countries. Huge market. And I met my grandmother's birthday party. Hey, it's a photo op right there. You don't think I didn't put that picture

of me and my grandma right on my website front page? Grail. It's like, yeah, everybody loves their families. I'm gonna show I love my family. Absolutely. That's a big thing, totally. But my uncle, it's rude. I was on the, you know, I'm texting headshot.

You know, I'm sending headshots. These are smartphones. Hello, we get emails on them too. I'm signing contracts. I'm sending headshots. And then my uncle tells me that I'm being rude. Oh, please. Well, he doesn't know.

Yeah, well. Well, that's the bummer about hanging out with him. My uncle, yeah, exactly. You don't want to spend too much time with your family. But if you are with him, you got to give them a little. You got to see them enough to have pictures too. Cause even though this is a tricky thing, you don't want to let people too inside.

You're not going to be yourself on stage, but you do want to humanize yourself a bit and show that like, hey, I met a kid. I met a child. Here's a picture of me with a child. Your family child is a wonderful way to show people that you are with a child. Yeah.

And it's all turned off comics. They seem like murderers to me. I got to say. Not on stage. Yeah. Oh, wow. He gets it. He gets it.

That is great, man. And yeah, but I love what you're saying, because it's like, take the opportunity to get pictures that humanize you. Let people see that you're a human being. Let them know that you do have, that you're one of them. And you know, eventually you'll get

into that part of Star Magazine. You know, they're just like us. Us Weekly. I was almost in Us Weekly. And that's the thing. It's like, if you're not, people think you're. I was at the Grove, I knew I should have stood because the Callista Flockhart was there

and they were getting a picture of her shopping. And I knew I should have stepped over to the right. My shoulder is in Us Weekly. That's not even the best part of the Grove to stand in to get recognized. I think you should just circle the family. I write from there. I just keep my eyes peeled.

I'll just sit there with my laptop. And you know, I'm writing, but I'm also scoping it out. I'm not saying if you see any famous faces, maybe, you know, you can take a break. Yeah, put your laptop in your bags. Just kind of, I'm not saying to follow people or stalk people, but any opportunity to get some FaceTime in there

because somebody's gonna be reading Us Weekly and they'll say, hey, there's Callista Flockhart. Oh, is that Brendan Walsh? The bad boy of comedy? Yeah, I love the bad boy of comedy. That's it everybody. Well, that's the cool thing. That picture of me and my grandma,

my chain wall is blazing. My tool, I got my ripped jeans. You know, I did my, I got my hair, did it. You know, it took me a while to get. It's contrast. It's worth it. It's worth it, because if you're someplace and you're not the way you look on stage, why are you there?

Yeah. What's the point of being in public? I go to the Grove every day I can. I try to go whenever I have time, whenever I make time to go to the Grove to do writing like you. If I'm not on the road, I'm at the Grove. Yeah, you have to be someplace like the Grove.

Do you think that's a good place to network, Brendan? The Grove? Oh my God. Is the Pope a great guy to network about Catholicism with? Probably. Santa Monica Pier is underrated though, Santa Monica Pier. Second, Third Street Promenade's pretty great. A lot of commercial casting directors are hanging out there,

which is, you know, it's a sweet place to pick up a good paycheck. I think that our Runyon Canyon is highly underrated for comedians. Yeah. Because you're getting people. I met Rob Reiner there. Oh wow, priceless.

Priceless. Put that in the priceless bucket. What did he like? He was in a hurry, he said, but... He's a great guy. I had enough time, gave him a head shot, gave him a resume and a reel. Wow.

I always have that on you, by the way. Where do you keep that? Because I keep a little pouch on my side that's got my resume. Well, I always have my computer. I always have my shoulder bag with, no, I have my computer. I have my laptop in there.

And then I always have a dozen head shots, resumes and DVDs with my reel. I have a waterproof leg sleeve that's attached to my right leg. That's great. So if you're swimming it, you could even get it when you're swimming. You know, I carry a printer with me.

I have a printer and a laptop and that's in case I do run out of my head shots, I can just plug that thing in and print it. Who makes that? I've never heard of that. Garrington Incorporated. Oh wow, I have to check that out. So you can just print it right up there at the Grove.

You could print out a head shot. You could print it out anywhere, man. I just carry it around in my backpack. And it'd be an eight by 10? Black and white? Oh, you can print out whatever size they want. I'll ask, I'll say, what do you want? So you know, if Rob Reiner's in a hurry,

you know a lot of times if someone is in a hurry as many people are, they'll take the time because they like to see the process of setting up your printer and printing out that shot. That's the thing, you have a cell like that. That is a fish hook for people. Yeah, it's cool. People love technology.

Yeah, and that's a cool looking thing. And actually, if Rob Reiner's listening to this, that email address you gave me didn't work. I must have written it down wrong. This is a problem. This is why you need to be very careful when you're copying down those emails because that happens to me all the time.

I did it right from my phone and said, okay, I'm emailing you now. And he said, yeah, but he had to leave. I went through some for all of last week. I gave him my card. I was, yeah, pretty much, this has happened to me now three times in a row where a network or somebody I could network with

has given me their email and I've written it down wrong or they've given me their phone number and it just doesn't work. Yeah. And I do instant confirmation always. I have a new app. I have a second phone now and I use this phone exclusively for networking.

And what I do is I ping it back and I do an instant confirmation with them. So you call them in the moment? In the moment. That's what you gotta do. But I say it with a smile. I'm like, hey, let's just make sure this is real or some kind of fun joke.

Right, yeah, yeah. And I say, like, you know, what about one of the presidents? Like, what are you, Abe Lincoln? Something, you know, a fun thing like that. And then I give him a pair of these sunglasses and then, you know, because that's what I do.

I give him the sunglasses while I'm doing the check so they have something to think about. Guys, now we gotta close out. We're coming up to an hour now. I wanna go around the table and talk about what topics are off limits right now for comedians to make jokes about. Start with you, Johnny.

I would definitely say NSA, scandal, Snowden. You shouldn't be saying that word. Well, that's politics. Yeah. Right, but specifically, that's like, don't even touch that. If you're touching that, good luck getting anywhere near a place

where they keep money. Yeah. That's off limits. Definitely, I think using certain words, I think are just connotive of topics. Like, connotive. Don't use that word. Yes, I'm sorry.

I think I said that wrong, too. It's confusing and knows what I mean. Well, to say the F word, to say the S word. Yeah, it's lazy. So you're saying don't talk about the NSA, don't curse. Brendan, what are some off-limit topics right now that comedians should avoid talking about on stage? I say anything that's not funny, violence towards women.

Yeah. That's never funny. That's never funny. Violence towards anybody, really. It's not funny. Unless it's like a terrorist, I think. Well, you can make jokes about terrorists, but now you see, I caught wind of this

that an alternative comic was making jokes about 9-11. And I wish I was. Are you serious? Yeah. And if I ever meet the pig who made jokes about that day that changed the world. Yeah. I know a few guys who'd like to have a word

with you in the back alley. Couple of my vet friends. Oh, man. Can we, just because you brought up a really delicate subject, can we just have a quick moment of silence for that event? With pleasure. Yeah.

It's for 9-11 and the victims. 9-11 and the victims. Yeah, just don't end the troops. Text here, one second. No problem, after you check that, we'll do it. You know what? Actually, they're bumping it back. It's gonna be a producer's session.

Wow. Oh, nice. I'm gonna be with Kendall Flanagan and Marcy Poster. Wow, okay. Wow. So that's a big, big deal. Do you want me to run, do you want to run lines before we go?

We should. You know, I just, I kind of like to wing it actually. I feel like that's the, that's the thing a lot of people do. I don't know about that. Well, we'll talk about this later. Marcy Poster, huh? Yeah, Marcy Poster.

She's cast some big films. Do you mind dropping off one of my 2x4s? Oh, totally. Yeah. If you don't mind, can I give you, can you slipper my reel too? Yeah, I'll slipper the reel. Because I have, I just had a bunch with my latest Chelsea.

I do have it on a USB drive, by the way. That's something that people love. That's such a good idea. I have a USB drive that looks like my eyes. That's such a good idea. I do convenient and non-convenient. I leave a briefcase with a bunch of stuff in it with like a, like you said, 2x4, not joking.

You take the picture and actually paste it to a piece of very thick, heavy wood. So they make it physically. Yeah, they can't not notice that when you leave that behind in the room. They're gonna say, well, what's, they'll get a PA. Hey, could you pick that up and they'll say, whoa. Who is this?

Isn't this one of the guys who auditioned and they'll say, wait a minute, let me see that. It should be hard to get out the door. Yeah, exactly. So I think we should just close on what some advice you can give some of the young comics that are listening. Something they can do this week to see,

to take their career to the next level. Johnny? Okay, I'll just say Hollywood is not a playground. That being said, you need to be waking up early. I'm talking about, if you're waking up past 10 a.m., move back to Jacksonville. Sleepy town. Yeah.

Wake up early. Definitely do not, we're talking about don't use drugs. And also you gotta really diversify your packaging materials. Really have like, go to a gas station, see what they're doing with the key to the bathroom and think outside the box with that. Yep.

Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. You wanna have something that sticks out. Yep. Yeah. Flyers. This is something, and now with, because we all have websites, we all have Twitter,

we all have Tumblr, we all have Instagram. You better. Yeah. That goes without saying, you have to have all of that. But back to the basics, what's the number one thing you need when you move to Hollywood? Headshots. You need a good headshot and business cards.

I never met a successful comedian who doesn't have a business card. Ever. I leave them like breadcrumbs everywhere I go. That's what they're there for. And you know what, this is a good thing online. You can get thousands of business cards for very cheap and have fun with it.

I mean, definitely have all of your pertinent, have your Facebook, your MySpace, your Twitter, your Tumblr, you have all that listed on your business card. And you know, and don't limit yourself. Don't just say, I'm a comedian, say, actor, writer, producer, comedian. Life coach.

And throw something, throw a joke in there too, like elephant trainer, you know, like it's an icebreaker. That's a great one. That's such a great one. That's hilarious. Yeah, elephant trainer, ant wrangler. Or if you don't wanna do, if you don't wanna do a joke on if you're more.

Rain of sand counter. Yeah, you throw a joke in there. Or you know, if you're gonna go the more serious route, because you know, like me, I have my business card, has my name, my website, my Facebook, my MySpace, my Twitter, my Tumblr. And then just, and it says actor, writer, producer, comedian, and then it's director.

And then underneath of that, it says a force to be reckoned with. Yes. And that just makes people, they're like, this guy's serious. To my bit of advice, which is when you send an email, there's a function that you can do in most email programs where you could have in the email a saying.

I think that's really important. So my saying is just live the dream, dunk it. Yeah, that's great. So guys, thank you so much. This is Brendan Walsh. Thanks guys, BrendanWalshComedy.net. Follow me on Twitter, Brendan underscore WalshComedian on Twitter.

Comedian, and I'm here, and Johnny, this is Johnny Pemberton, checking the text. Okay, yeah, I'm good here. Yeah, I think they've moved it back a little bit further now and it's gonna be with Wendy Zaksen. I don't know her, but it says, I think I did an IMBB ping. She said she's, was a producer

and a lot of big, big NBC stuff. Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter. It's a super funny, super funny Johnny Ha Ha comedian that's at that, but that's one of them. I have a couple of other ones. Johnny comedy blogspot. I'll just derivation. So I'll just change it in that same word.

So yeah, hit me up and we'll do some shows and it'd be super funny and. I'll be on Chelsea Lately, Thursday night, July 14th. I'll be paneling it's me, Mo Mandel and Angela Johnston. That's great. Cool. Any way I can maybe hang out in the green room with you. Yeah, me too, man.

Maybe I could bring one. I can bring one guest. Okay, well, we can price. We can do like a funny thing together where we're like, act like we didn't know. Or do the thing where he wears a suit. He's like, we're a very tall guy. Well, my agent and my agent will be with me, but.

Oh, but they get in no matter what. Well, whatever, you know, maybe just, you know, when you're there, I'll send you a text and you could say, I'm getting a text from Duncan, you know, loud enough for someone there to hear. Okay, thank you guys so much. You're listening to The Craftsman. You can send any questions regarding the show

to my fan email, which is duncantrustlefunny as can be again and again at gmail.com. Thank you all for listening. At Lowe's, we know you can get the job done faster. If you don't have to stop and come into the store all the time, that's why we've updated our app with your business in mind. With the app, you can build quotes,

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Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer.