When someone like Jay Leno calls you “the future of comedy,” you know you’re doing something right. Los Angeles-based writer, actor and comedian Cameron Esposito has received so much praise over the last year or so that we’re starting to wonder if maybe she paid off all the press. Either way, it’s pretty rad that someone whose latest album (titled Same Sex Symbol, released in fall of 2014) debuted at #1 on the iTunes comedy charts and was also named the Best of 2014 comedy album by The AV Club, Consequence of Sound, The Laugh Button and Paste Magazine, is making her way to little ‘ol Sacramento for one night only on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015. Esposito will perform two intimate shows at Sacramento Comedy Spot, located at 1050 20th Street, Suite 130 (at the MARRS Building). Tickets are a steal at just $20, the early show is at 8 p.m. and the late show starts at 10 p.m. Come see why Esposito has been invited to appear on shows like Late Late with Craig Ferguson, @midnight, Last Call with Carson Daly and many others. Hit up Saccomedyspot.com for more info and to buy tickets ahead of time (which is strongly encouraged, as these shows will likely sell out!). For more on the comedian herself, visit Cameronesposito.com

Rising Local Comedian Johnny Taylor on How Life Informs His Comedy and Why Sacramento Doesn’t Suck as Much as It Thinks It Does

Last Christmas, comedian Johnny Taylor woke up to receive one of the best presents of his life. It wasn’t a big screen TV or a new car, but a record deal. During the wee hours of Christmas morning he received a text message from Dan Schlissel, the president of Stand Up! Records that read, “I’m about 20 minutes into your album and I want to release it.”

“So he faxed me a record contract, I signed, and I was like fucking Merry Christmas,” explained the stand-up comedian.

At first Taylor’s only reason to even record a comedy album was to have merchandise and make some extra cash after his stand-up gigs. But after taking a chance and sending the president of a huge record company his raw comedy recording he thought, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Taylor has now turned his small chance into a huge opportunity. His debut album, Tangled Up in Plaid can now be heard worldwide on iTunes, Spotify and Rhapsody.

Taylor turns what should be mundane observations in his life into hilarious comedy bits. His new album is full of his life stories that are brilliantly turned into jokes. At times you can even call it dark comedy, but it will still make you laugh. On the album, he pokes fun at his lazy eye, finding his mom’s sex toys as a kid and hating his day job.

After performing in the Sacramento comedy scene for five years, Taylor has a lot of love for this town. Not only did he record his live album at Punch Line, but he will be holding his album debut party at The Sacramento Comedy Spot on Nov. 15, 2014.

Submerge caught up with Johnny outside of The Mill to talk about his new album, the hipster lifestyle and spreading the wealth of Sacramento’s underappreciated art scene.

Tell me about your new album, Tangled Up in Plaid.
It’s a live recording of my stand-up comedy as it was a year ago. It took longer than I thought it was going to come out, but it’s because I wasn’t anticipating being signed by a label, which is great. I signed a three-record deal with Stand Up! Records. But they had a lot more important people to get out than me, so it took a while for it to come out. Understandably, they had bigger fish to fry, but I’m really happy with how it turned out and proud of it.

Why did you name it Tangled Up in Plaid?
Tangled Up in Plaid is a side effect of living in any sort of hipster-ish part of town. People talk about Midtown Sac having this hipster culture but there is a Midtown Sac in every single town that you go to in America. And that’s where the people wear plaid shirts and skinny jeans, they drink cold brew coffee…you know what I mean? So it’s a matter of being surrounded by that part of the culture. People call me a hipster and a lot of my friends are… Keith Lowell Jensen is the prototypical aging hipster. It’s just about being in the middle of kind of that hipsterocracy. But it’s also a take on Bob Dylan’s, Tangled Up in Blue.

Where do you fit in in the whole hipster scene?
Just like the older uncle. Hipsters are called hipsters because they like what’s cool before anybody else does, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. So if people want to call me a hipster, that’s fine. I don’t claim to be one. I think I’m too old to claim that. If being cool is being a hipster, then fuck yeah I want to be hipster because I think I’m pretty fucking cool.

On the live recording of the album, it sounded like the audience was really enjoying your comedy.
Yeah I lucked out, it would have sucked to do my album recording and the audience just be flat but they weren’t. They were totally into from the get-go. I knew when I was watching the openers, I knew this was going to be good. So the only factor was me performing well. It was the perfect coming together, I had a good set and the crowd was hot. And it turned out being a really good record.

It seems like your comedy is based on your personal life stories, is that where you get a lot of your material from?
That’s where I get all of it from. Most of it are things that have happened or things that I was directly or indirectly involved in or just a thought I had. Anything involving work or my personal relationships, it’s not secret. I get a lot of material out of the fact that I have been married and divorced, more than I’d like to admit. But all of it is real personal. I think that’s the only way I know how to write. A lot of people are very good joke crafters and one-liner comics but mine are basically, “This is my life story.” I try to make it as entertaining as possible but they are based on things I would probably tell at a party. When it’s personal there is a passion behind telling it because it happened to them.

Is it ever nerve-wracking revealing yourself to a group of strangers?
It’s weird in general just doing stand-up. But having it recorded on a record that is now being consumed by people that I don’t know, in other parts of the world. I have a Twitter following and I get these weird replies from material from my record and I’m like, “Oh, that’s weird some dude in New Zealand listened to a story about me shitting on a steam cleaner.” It’s hard to wrap your fucking head around it. So yeah, it’s weird.

Did you start performing comedy in Sacramento?
Yeah, I think Sacramento is a good place to start. Sac has such a great art scene and people don’t appreciate it, they have amazing bands and really incredible comics. I can name five right off the bat that I would put up against everybody.

When I think of the Sacramento comedy scene, I think of everyone on it being a big family.
It’s very much like a family. We fight just like a family, but I think you have that in every scene. When my record went no. 7 on iTunes, I was getting messages from people I haven’t talked to in two years. They were like, “Anything you do that brings up Sacramento comedy is a win for all of us.” And that’s so true. I want all of my friends to succeed because I want people to go, “Oh man Sacramento has a good art scene.” I think it’s important and people don’t realize it, then they come here and go, “I didn’t know you guys were so great.” The logo should be, “Sacramento you don’t suck as much as I thought you did.”

Where is your favorite place to perform in Sac?
I have a weekly show [The Infirmary] with five friends of mine. It’s at the Ooley Theatre. And that’s like home base. Its every Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Ooley. It’s a small theater that only seats 40 people. It can be weird and uncomfortable; some of the best comics are trying out new material, playing ideas. It’s the ultimate workout room. But certain nights you go there, it can be magic and somebody will have a brand new story that they have never told before and it’s just incredible. It creates a whole energy in the room. That’s what I’m about right now… I think part of it is people don’t know about it. You can only flyer and talk about it on podcasts so many times and try to promote it with social media. I think once the word fully gets out that we are doing it, it’s going to be packed and it should be because they are really great shows.

Describe some of the relationships you have with other comedians in town.
There are people that are your best friends, there are people that you work with and get along with and there are people that you don’t really like that much. Some of my best friends I talk to every day, whether it’s bouncing a joke idea or asking, “How’s your day been?” Once you become a comedian you end up hanging out with all these comedians, which can be good and can be bad. Because I think if you hang about too many comedians too much, your whole life revolves around talking with comedians and doing sets, and doing as many sets as possible. And you become so obsessed with it that you stop living a life worth commenting on. What are you going to write about? So I try and hang out with non-comedians a lot, try and do non-comedy-related stuff. I need stuff to happen in my life so I can write jokes about it.

Check out Johnny Taylor live at the Sacramento Comedy Spot on Nov. 15, 2014, and help him celebrate the release of his CD, Tangled Up in Plaid. Tickets are just $8, and the show starts at 10:30 p.m. You can purchase Taylor’s album through his website, Johnnyisntfunny.com.

Author, actor, comedian, father: Jim Gaffigan wears many hats and does so quite well

Jim Gaffigan called 15 minutes late for his interview with Submerge. This isn’t a rare occurrence for us. When you’re in the business of talking to creative people, you’re often at the mercy of their whims and schedules. Sometimes, the sheer number of interviews a subject may have scheduled for a day is the cause for the delay. Sometimes they just simply forget (creative folks aren’t always the best at keeping time, after all). Gaffigan had a different reason, though, for calling late. He had to pick up his kids from soccer practice.

It’s this sort of regular-guy quality that makes Gaffigan’s comedy so accessible. Working mostly clean and steering clear of sexually charged or controversial topics, Gaffigan is wholly relatable. He’s sort of a breath of fresh air in a time when making a name for yourself in the world of entertainment follows how far you can push the envelope. Gaffigan is just a regular guy, the kind you might bump into at your local grocery store, children in tow. The difference here, though, is that he’s outrageously funny.

Gaffigan’s quiet style and measured way of speaking (he calls himself a “slow-talking Midwesterner”) belies his razor-sharp wit. His latest special, Mr. Universe, which was released on his website on April 11, features the comedian riffing on topics from parenthood to his difficulties with staying in shape to fast food restaurants. Though his topics may seem ordinary, he has the uncanny ability to find the hilarious in the mundane.

In May, he released his first book, Dad is Fat, a rumination on his life as a father of five children. He says he began writing the book because he didn’t want his “whole standup act to be me talking about my kids.”

“As an observational comedian, I’ve been given four opportunities to go through pregnancy, the delivery and just living with a baby, so I should probably think about doing a book,” he says. “It took me a while to figure out with what type of book. I knew my point of view—what it would be—but figuring out the whole idea of the book, which is I have no idea what I’m doing.”

In the following interview, Gaffigan talked a bit about parenting and also about his search for creative fulfillment, including his appearance on Broadway in That Championship Season in March 2011.

In your Mr. Universe special, you were saying you had four children, but now you have five, right?
My wife was pregnant when we were shooting Mr. Universe, and then the baby came. We released it on my website, and I thought, OK, I’ve done that “I’m overwhelmed with too many kids thing,” and then my wife got pregnant again. It just made it a little bit more absurd.

You said the book is about you not knowing what you’re doing. Now that you’ve had five, has it gotten easier, or is it even more difficult because of the sheer multitude of children?
I would say that my skills have improved, but because of the number of children we have, it’s much harder.

In one passage in Dad Is Fat, you wrote that you found yourself clapping your hands really loud like your dad used to do, which you always hated. Now that you’re a father yourself, do you find yourself becoming more like your own father?
You’re very aware of what your parents did, and you gain an empathy for why they parented the way they did, but you also are hypersensitive that you don’t want to recreate some of that. I think my dad is more of a result of his generation, but I’m definitely much more involved in my kids’ lives. It’s never the perfect amount, and I think I’m focused on having more fun with my kids, whereas my dad was more focused on ensuring that I didn’t become a hobo.

As a comedian you do a lot of traveling, but you’re kind of your own boss in a way, so you can make your own time. Is it a juggling act in that regard?
It’s great. Look, I’m lucky that I get to do what I want, but I’m also lucky because I’m in a position to do theater shows, and I’m in a position to bring my kids with me. I’m bringing my kids with me on this West Coast bus tour.

How is it to bring everyone Partridge Family-style across the country together?
There’s certain chaos. There’s not a lot of sleep. I do a show every night, and we drive at night, and then we have to get up and do things with kids, because we want to do things with the kids. And then there’s the travel pressure. We don’t succumb to it constantly, but if you’re in San Diego and you have a bunch of kids, you should go to the zoo. Like, we’re going to see the Redwoods and stuff like that…

There’s plenty of reasons why it’s great to have kids, but you feel inspired to go see these things. You want to share them with your kids. If I was alone, I don’t know if I’d stop to see the Redwoods. I don’t know if I’d stop and see the San Diego Zoo.

It’s interesting to hear you talk about your family and how you bring them out on the road. I think there’s a stereotype of standup comedians as heavy drinkers…
Degenerates.

Was that ever part of your life as a standup comedian?
Being a standup comedian is a nocturnal existence. Now with five kids, it’s not even an option to go and hang out, which is good, but standup can get you in trouble, because when you’re done with your day of work at midnight or two in the morning, people are never making the best decisions at two in the morning.

Do your peers act differently around you? Do you hang out with other comedians?
Yeah I do. There’s a bit of a stereotype that they’re all hard partiers. There are the cautionary tales, but you can’t keep up being productive with a reckless lifestyle. It’s not good news for people hearing that a lot of comedians are drinking chamomile tea backstage. I get done with a show, and I’ll have a beer, but only my wife’s there. I’m not interested in, you know, but it’s an ongoing thing. It’s weird. The entertainment industry is a strange thing where you can buy the hype, and that’s just kind of silly.

I thought it’s really cool that you work clean. I also liked that you seem to heckle yourself on stage. Like, at one point in Mr. Universe, you were joking about shoes, and then you shot yourself down by saying, “Oh, what’s he going to do, make jokes about socks next?” before going into a bit about socks. Is that something you’ve developed over time?
Talking for the audience, or talking for someone else, I remember doing that as a teenager. It’s just an effective way to disarm someone… There’s a confessional quality to it.

Was it born out of nervousness or stage fright or something like that?
It’s really kind of counter-intuitive for a comedian to criticize his own act. It was much more of a taboo when I started doing it, because what that tells the audience is that, if they misinterpret it, you don’t have confidence in the jokes. If you don’t have confidence in the jokes, then they can go after the jokes, if you get what I’m saying.

Why do you think you’re able to make that work then? Is there something about your demeanor that makes that work really well?
I don’t know. It’s weird. You can overthink it, but I think there is an everyman quality, or maybe that I’m a goofy looking pale guy. I don’t know. I think people are attracted to a sense of vulnerability on stage. So often—I always say this—comedians get credit or criticism for the type of comedy they would do anyway. I did have some curse words occasionally. It wasn’t a big sacrifice for me to get rid of them, so then there are people who think it’s great that he’s clean, or some people who think it’s horrible that he’s clean. I’d love to take credit for it, but I really had nothing to do with it. If you’re talking about bacon, it’s probably not necessary to curse.

Before, you were talking about doing shows on Broadway. What was that experience like for you? Was that something you always wanted to do?
I never expected I’d have the opportunity to do it, to be honest. I loved it. It’s exhausting, and you’re really doing it for the right reasons, because the likelihood of doing a play changing your life is pretty slim in this day and age. It was really rewarding. I’d love to do another play if I was in the position to get the same opportunity, meaning an amazing role.

Standup, to me just being a fan, would be the most nerve-wracking thing to do because you’re up there all by yourself. Acting in a play would be second, because you have to remember all those lines. Do you think doing standup gave you a leg up on acting for the stage?
I think they’re two pretty different skills, but I love acting. I love being a cog in the wheel of the scene. There’s the fourth wall when you’re doing a play where people are observing it. Standup is much more of a conversation. It’s fun to do the different things.

Is there any role in any play that you’d love to take on?
There’s the Paddy Chayefsky play, Marty. I’d love to play Marty.

Any particular reason why?
I just like that story. I haven’t seen the movie in forever. I might have to see it again. I just love the simplicity of the story, this regular guy who’s trying to find his way.

You’ve done stage acting and been on television and in movies. You’ve written a book. Is there anything in entertainment that you haven’t done yet that you’d like to do?
It sounds corny, but I just want to find creative fulfillment. There was something creatively fulfilling about writing a book. In the end, I held a book and it was something I wrote with my wife. It’s weird. I think when I started, I didn’t see myself doing theater, so I’m just keeping an open mind. There’s nothing in particular.

You talk about creative fulfillment, is that why you try a lot of different things? Is that what you’re really striving for in all of your work?
Yeah, I think you have to create your own opportunity. I know that the book is something I could do, but if I was like, “I want to be the lead of a serious dramatic movie,” that’s not something I have control over.

See Jim Gaffigan live when he comes to the Sacramento Community Center Theater on July 15, 2013. The show starts at 7 p.m., and tickets start at $36.75. They can be purchased through his website, Jimgaffigan.com. You can also download a DRM-free version of his latest special, Mr. Universe, on the site for just $5, $1 of which will go to benefit The Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps veterans and their families.

By day, local stand-up comedian on the rise Daniel Humbarger is an attorney, but at night he tells jokes about his girlfriend buying a “max-iPad” and “poop jokes that make you think.” “Dropping a few timely, witty jokes in the courtroom is always exciting,” Humbarger recently joked with Submerge, “Assuming they go over well with the judge.”

Just a year-and-a-half into his craft, Humbarger has a ton of shows under his belt and he feels like he is finally finding his “own voice” as a comedian. “I’ve still got a long way to go,’ he admits. “It’s been weird, awesome, embarrassing and incredibly rewarding. But mostly it’s just been really fun. I’m having a great time with it.”

Humbarger hosts his “Thursday Night Jive at Shine” every first and third Thursday of the month at the cozy little coffee shop, eatery, gallery and performance space located at 1400 E Street in downtown Sacramento. On any given night he’s got four to six featured comedians, both local and touring, as well as a couple slots that he keeps open for other comics who show up.

“I’ve always liked the space and thought it lends itself well to comedy,” Humbarger said of his choice to host the reoccurring comedy night at Shine. “But mostly it’s because it’s close enough that I can stumble home afterwards.”

The next installment of Thursday Night Jive goes down on June 7, 2012 when Humbarger will welcome three San Francisco comics who regularly get on stage at Punch Line, Caitlin Gill, Ivan Hernandez and Ben Feldman. Locals Johnny Taylor, Michael O’Connell and Ben Rice will also perform. On June 21, 2012 catch Clare O’Kane and David Gborie, both from San Francisco, along with locals Ray Molina and A.J. De Guzman. Humbarger hosts all of the shows rather than doing a proper full-length set. He attempts to get the crowd worked up and introduces each comic.

“It’s good for me. It teaches me how to warm up a cold crowd and as a host, you learn the show isn’t really about you at all,” he said. “It’s about setting up the crowd for the comedians coming up next. But, it’s also nice for me, because I can try new stuff and take risks I couldn’t otherwise.” Learn more about Humbarger at http://www.danielhumbarger.com/ and to view videos of his stand-up visit http://www.youtube.com/DanielHumbarger. Learn more about Shine and view upcoming concerts, poetry readings and more at http://shinesacramento.com/

Comedian Doug Benson Returns to Punch Line

Humoredian Doug Benson has it made. While you and I sit at home angered by celebrity antics, cursing the television, while we watch movies and comment to our friends on merits, while we get stoned and laugh at silly nonsense, Benson has signed some deal in blood to get paid for these slacker pastimes.

Benson is currently on tour, so I called him at a Hampton Inn in St. Louis (proving he is not too famous for our little publication). He had just finished an appearance on the Great Day St. Louis morning show and returned to his room to escape the “hella hot” Midwest forecast. Upon hearing a familiar, often abused, Northern California slang term, I asked Doug if he was from our territory. “I just hear a bunch of words and repeat them,” he replied. “It’s not habit.”

This August, Benson will be at Sacramento’s Punch Line, a venue he has played before. He was particularly intrigued with the strip mall location of the Punch Line, which probably looks a little different now. “It’s the strangest comedy club positioning I’ve ever seen,” he said. “There [was] like a foam store, a TJ Maxx and a mattress store. It’s like a one-stop shopping center for a pimp. He’d be able to get all his shit there.”

Those still unfamiliar with Doug Benson might need to take a morning or two off from wake-and-baking. In 2006, High Times named Benson Stoner of the Year, aka your hero. His film, Super High Me, took the premise of Super Size Me and exchanged it with pot. He is the co-creator/writer/star of The Marijuana-logues, which is self-explanatory. He once saw a vagina smoking a joint.

Along with his pot-related accolades, he is a talking head on Best Week Ever, finished top six on Last Comic Standing, has a podcast called I Love Movies, a comedy album called Professional Humoredian—and he said I was a good interviewer.

Most comedians, or people for that matter, are forced to keep their personal habits ambiguous—possibly telling pot jokes or laughing at pot jokes, but not too frequently so they don’t arouse suspicion. Benson has managed to become a renowned toker, yet makes appearances on local morning shows without network hesitation. “They keep it clean and family-style, but it’s also live,” Benson said. “Sometimes when I’m talking, I can see in the eyes of the host that I’m being too risqué for morning television.”

He admits he does not mind the interviews that dodge his pot humor, since he has plenty to talk about beyond marijuana. Yet, his core fans remain a faded following. On Twitter the night prior to our interview, he thanked a St. Louis kid, whose name he could not remember, for smoking him up in his car. I asked Benson if it was bothersome to be loved by a group of people so eager to share their budding wealth. “It’s an exciting thing to have in my life if I am just wandering around and someone offers to smoke me up,” he said. “At shows I get so many offers I can’t say yes to everybody. People get bummed out, which is kind of a drag. I’d be happy to smoke with everybody; unfortunately I’ve got things to do. I certainly didn’t start telling jokes about pot to get free pot, but it’s been an amazing side benefit.”

Benson began his stand-up career on a dare from a friend, while working as a stand-in and extra in Los Angeles. That was 23 years ago. Benson made new friends through comedy by becoming part of the Comedians of Comedy, a group he has toured with extensively. In Super High Me, several of his comedian friends smoke weed on camera, specifically Sarah Silverman and Brian Posehn. Benson has admitted that he did not smoke weed until age 27 when he started working with Bay Area comedians who toke after every show. Now, Benson can’t be seen in public without accusations of being blunted beyond belief; even followers on Twitter that day accused him of being high on a morning show, to which he attested, “No I just woke up and did a show. I’m not one to set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier so I can wake and bake before a show.”

“I do have naturally squinty eyes,” he said. “And I do smoke a lot of pot. So I don’t blame them for thinking I’m high. I can make jokes even when I’m not high. I’m that good at it.”

Truly Benson is capable of entertaining beyond cannabis conversations. His I Love Movies podcast, which he records at Los Angeles’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, has a simple premise. Benson and his comedian friends record their rants on movies in front of a studio audience and play the Leonard Maltin game or the Name That Tune game show’s Bid-A-Note round, but with movies.

A fan of the summer blockbuster push, he said he is disappointed with this season thus far. “Terminator was disappointing, Wolverine was disappointing,” he said. “I watched five minutes of Angels and Demons, then got up and left. I was like ‘I can see Star Trek again.'”

Still he found Star Trek was not a perfect movie beyond criticism. In fact, Benson raises an interesting point regarding the story. “I didn’t have the excitement over it that I hoped to have,” Benson said. “It did a good job reinventing all the characters.” Benson immediately broke into a rant with possible spoiler alerts, “Why do they always have to bring time travel into it? Now that they’ve introduced time travel and old Spock tells young Kirk what to do, why can’t old Spock just show up all the time when there’s a problem.” He went on to compare it to Superman spinning the world backwards to turn back time.

Benson included The Hangover in the short list of summer movies he’s enjoyed so far. Show stealer Zach Galifianakis is a member of the Comedians of Comedy and makes an appearance in Super High Me as Benson’s friend. “Well, I take a lot of credit for breaking Zach’s movie career with his appearance in Super High Me,” he said. “Things have been going great for him ever since. I look forward to riding his coattails.” Benson expressed his own interest in pushing into feature films, but admitted he is not prepared to do the full frontal nudity that Galifianakis bared. “I’m a little shy when it comes to public nudity,” he said.

Benson’s current tour is in preparation for his new comedy album, Unbalanced Load, on Comedy Central Records. He is performing an “evolving set” that includes new material. “Certainly anyone who saw me when I was last in Sacramento can expect a lot of new material,” he said. “I will be doing a lot of material from the record that week.” Benson said he usually reserves some time near the end of his set for requests from the audience outside of “more jokes about pot.” He just encourages enthusiasts to shout their favorite bits without tampering with the joke. “The best way to ask for a joke during the show is to not yell out the punch line of the joke,” he said. “Where do I go from there?”