Comedy, On the Rocks

Comedian/actress Sasheer Zamata has a sketch in which she’s walking down a New York City street when a male stranger comes up to her, asks to walk her home (she says no and keeps walking). He then pulls out his junk and says “Hey Miss, this is for you!” Hilarity ensues as Zamata tries to see the interaction from the exposed man’s perspective, and even praises his polite directness.

“It was like a date with a lot of stuff missing out the middle,” says Zamata. “It was short and sweet. Everyone was honest with their feelings. It was probably the best date I’ve ever had actually.”

As hysterical as it is, the sketch addresses the more serious issue of society not openly talking about and taking proper action against sexual harassment. It’s something Zamata discussed over the phone last week while answering questions about her upcoming Sacramento stand-up show, her dream-come-true career as a Saturday Night Live cast member and coming up with new material.

“Everyone probably has some sort of uncomfortable sexual, weird moment with a guy, which sucks,” she says. “It’s shitty to think it’s just inevitable that something terrible like that will come across your path in life. I do like talking about that on and off stage so people know they’re not the only one and it’s not your fault, that it’s more common than we think.”

Zamata says she admired the Columbia University student who carried her mattress around campus after she was assaulted, forcing people to have that conversation.

“Even in my neighborhood now—I live in Brooklyn, and it’s a safe part of Brooklyn—I have gotten followed walking home and my guy friends are like, ‘No, how is that possible?’ but it doesn’t matter where you are, it’s possible,” she adds. “So if the conversation includes men more, maybe they can check each other on that like, ‘Hey man, maybe don’t be an asshole to this girl or don’t push her too hard at the party.’”

Zamata says she talks about what’s going on in the news with friends and coworkers when figuring out the best execution for serious topics.

“Some things are better as a sketch or a joke or a short film and I just write everything down and think about what I want to say, and sometimes I just get on stage and talk about it,” she says. “Lately, because a lot of the news has been intense, it’s more talk and not necessarily jokes, but I work out how I feel about the situation and people in the audience are with me, they get it.”

It’s not easy to address racial issues or tragedies, or conversations society has been avoiding, but Zamata says she sees it as a comedian’s job to shine a light on these things in society, reflect on them and be a mirror.

“That’s what I try to do and it’s been getting a good response,” she says.

If you’re getting worried Zamata’s shows on July 11, 2015, at the Comedy Spot are going to be Debbie Downers, they won’t. The improv extraordinaire has been working on new material that most fans have not yet seen, unless they’ve caught her in late-night action around NYC.

The shows are part of her first major cross-country tour, Whiskey on the Rocks. And yes, that is her drink of choice for those of you who’ll be attending or catching up with Zamata at a bar after the show.

The 29-year-old has had a whirlwind year-and-a-half after joining the cast of SNL, and has won over viewers with her on-point impressions of Michelle Obama, Rihanna and other prominent black women in society, who, for the last eight years, were mostly being played by SNL male cast members, if played at all.

“We have a lot of black people on the show who want to shake things up and want to talk about things that may be uncomfortable, but we want to talk about it so we try to put it into the most digestible package,” Zamata says. “It’s hard because we aren’t like this new punk show just starting out; we are a show with a long tradition and have to appeal to our longtime fans.”

Zamata is free to perform as she pleases in her own live shows, but has realized that since starting her new job, audience members sometimes expect to “see SNL” at her performances.

“Older people would be like, I was a fan since the 1970s and I was really hoping you would do Michelle Obama,” she laughs.

Her love of performing started at a young age, and not in improv but in show choir (she notes that ever since the SNL team found out she could sing, she has had regular singing sketches on the show). It wasn’t until middle school that a volleyball coach with a love for ComedySportz introduced Zamata to competitive short-form improv by taking the team to a show at the end of a season.

“The first time I went I thought, what is this magical thing, and I was so enamored,” Zamata says. She forced her parents to take her to more of the shows and in high school, she joined an improv team for a week before realizing it conflicted with her show choir schedule.

“So I’d just watch Whose Line Is It Anyway all the time and was still an improv fan,” she says.

After graduating from University of Virginia with a drama degree, Zamata moved to New York and joined the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), whose ranks include hundreds of famous comedians and improv artists like Amy Poehler, Matt Besser and Ian Roberts.

“I started doing improv because I liked improv,” Zamata says about her switch from choir and musical theater. “It was the same with sketch and stand-up. I barreled into it and figured I’d stop when it stopped being fun but it has never stopped being fun.”

When Zamata joined UCB in 2009, she was the only black female. Since then, several more have joined the group and even more women are in leading roles in comedy than Zamata ever remembers.

“I think it’s all about representation; seeing someone on stage or on screen who looks like you is a huge help,” she says. “Donald Glover was performing here [at UCB] and even though I’m not a guy, he was someone I could relate to and that was a huge help for me. It helps to have a relation to someone that you’re watching. If all you see is one kind of person, it may seem hard to get into it.”

Zamata says she noticed during UCB’s annual Del Close Marathon—a three-day improv event in NYC—that improv students of color were taking pictures of her and saying they couldn’t wait to show their friends and families that people who look like them are doing this work too.

“I feel proud that I was able to be at UCB for so long and now there are more people who look like me there,” she says, but adds that comedy, and especially improv with its expensive classes, can still be hard to reach for many young people because of socioeconomic issues or because they don’t have the exposure in their schools or towns.

“But I think it is changing and the more exposure UCB and the form has to people the more diverse it’ll become,” she says. “This is a good time for women in comedy and I feel excited to be in the mix of it.”

To get Sasheer Zamata that whiskey at Comedy Spot on July 11, go to Saccomedyspot.com/sasheer-zamata for tickets. She has two shows: 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and tickets are only $20.

Neal Morgan’s Impulsive New Record a Raw Delight

You’re likely at least a little familiar with Neal Morgan, even if the name doesn’t quite ring a bell right away. Fans of Joanna Newsom or Bill Callahan will recognize the name as belonging to the drummer responsible for holding down percussive duties on their respective tours the last few years, as well as on record–notably Newsom’s Have One on Me, and Callahan’s Apocalypse. But Neal Morgan, the solo artist, is something of an anomalous alter-ego to the drummer heard on those recordings. His 2009 debut solo record, To the Breathing World, premiered a symbiosis of voice-and-drums-only compositions, created largely from first impulses to a cassette boom box in his Portland, Ore., garage. The result was a unique, primal offering of polyphonic voice melodies cooing over sometimes-frantic, sometimes-structured drumming. For his newest album, In the Yard, Morgan has also added a spoken word element, a new passion he hopes his work evolves naturally toward.

The self-released In the Yard is out Jan. 24, 2012, with distribution help by Drag City. Morgan is returning to the Sacramento area on the heels of the release, and took some time to speak with Submerge regarding his muses, his music and his hatred of poetry.

Is there anything special about getting into the mindset of making a solo record for you, as opposed to your more regular gig of drumming for other people and being part of a unit?
Well, everything I do is based on first impulses. So even arrangements I’ve made for Bill’s music or Joanna’s music start as first impulses and then it goes from there. But those first impulses when I’m arranging for someone’s record are based on some amount of conversation in advance–what they might be hearing for a particular piece and talking about the piece itself, and then arranging for that. I guess having a blank slate is the major difference.

What draws you to want to create on that impulse, and to have the final product be a really improvisational vibe?
For my own artistic enjoyment, it’s most fun to just be playing and just to do it without thinking too much and editing while I’m working. I tend to like listening to records where it was clearly the first pass that someone made at something. I always love my friends’ demos more than their records, for example. Really early on, I didn’t know how to make music of my own. I thought, “Well you make some demos and then you make a record.” Why make demos? Just make it. Get in the garage and just start and end up in something. Not always, but most of the time I love the thing that happens first, when I wasn’t thinking, the fresh impulse. But after a certain point, I’m a heavy, heavy editor. I spend 20 percent of the time tracking and then 80 percent editing. It definitely flips; it goes from being this impulsive thing into this heavy cerebral experience.

Of the songs that aren’t improvised like “Father’s Day” or “The Evidence,” how do you reconcile getting into the mindset of arranging or composing those songs that are more structured?
Sometimes the first thing you did is just exactly what it needs to be. Sometimes that’s just what happens. There’s a need for further tracking and re-recording of initial impulses. There are a few moments like that on this album, like “Father’s Day” happened fairly quickly. Those initial impulses really just kind of happened. But there are a couple songs on the second side, one in particular–“Thinking Big”–I’d had that drum beat kicking around for a really long time. I decided I wanted to make a highly structured composition. But then the two spoken word pieces [“On Tour,” “I Stand on a Roof”] happened after I thought the record was done. I went away [on the summer 2011 Bill Callahan tour] and came back, and [the record] was very clearly not done with fresh ears. I recorded those in 20 or 30 minutes. It was exactly what the record needed, and I finished it right then.

Sometimes you have to take a step back and give it space…
Yeah. Do you know the painter Philip Guston at all? There’s a response on the record to him, and his painting is on the cover. I think about him a lot and read a lot of his writings and interviews. He talks about being led during the course of painting, and I think that happens. As these things start to show themselves, they kind of tell you which way to go.

What is your recording process like? I read you recorded some of the album on a boom box.
I have a cassette eight-track, and an old boom box that has a microphone. I have a digital program, but I’m not good at any of that stuff. I just wanna hit record and play. Side A [of In the Yard] is really a foreshadowing of what the next record is going to be. Side B is really a wrapping up, I think, of a lot of the ideas that started with the first album. The next one’s gonna be spoken word.

You mentioned you hadn’t really done any spoken word before. How did you get into that?
[I was] in Atlanta [with Bill Callahan], and I was opening the show there. I had just written something that I really liked, but I didn’t really have a melody or anything like that to sing it. I decided just to say it. I just tried it and I loved it.

Was it liberating? It takes a lot of confidence to release music that’s based on first impulses, but also to speak naked words that aren’t under the veil of a melody and just saying it.
Yes, it did feel that way. I think that maybe that’s what continues to draw me to spoken pieces. The next record will be that, because you’re right–it’s the barest of the bare. That show, for me, was an incredible show. My shows are almost always improv. I’ll just decide to play a song at the drum kit one night, or instead I’ll just sing that song. This was a night where I did four or five really new things that I’d never done.

What topics interest you most to write lyrics or spoken word pieces about? Is that also coming from an impulsive source?
I have a notebook, and I’m often writing. You write when an idea comes or something happens that you think is interesting, or you come upon a way to express something that you’ve been curious about. I do a lot of writing and no editing as I’m writing. Zero. I think that’s so important. Then I will look at it some time later, and sometimes nothing resonates for me so I don’t act on any of it. But sometimes pieces of it will resonate and will connect to other ideas I have at the moment. Maybe drum ideas, or they’ll connect to other things I’ve written. Now my process includes speaking those written words in the editing process, because I’m now thinking that way for live and for the next record–hearing how it sounds and seeing how it feels to speak particular lines and then making editing adjustments based on that.

Like working on cadence and intonation?
Yeah, which is all stuff that I’d never really explored before. But it’s all very rewarding for me right now. I also don’t have a lot of frames of reference necessarily, and I want to stay that way.

In terms of spoken word artists?
Yeah, and just for the written word. I don’t have a lot of writers who are heroes of mine in that form. I’m kind of limited in that way.

You haven’t gravitated toward spoken word artists, now that you really enjoy it artistically for yourself?
No, I haven’t done that. I’ve read some more poetry in the past year, but I like so little of it. It’s really wild. But I also don’t devour it. If I read a lot more, I’m sure I would find a lot more I would like. But I really hate a lot of what friends have given me and said, “Oh yeah, this is a great poet, a great book.” I just don’t like it, like 90 percent of it [laughs]. When I’m working on music, I tend to not want to hear much at all. I just want to keep those first impulses what they are without having other ideas flying around.

Neal Morgan performs at the Milk Gallery in Sacramento, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. The show is all-ages and has a $5 cover. Show starts at 8 p.m. Morgan will also play at the Haven Underground in Nevada City Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012 (also a $5 cover). For more info, go to Havenunderground.org. Both shows feature Aaron Ross opening.

Standup comedian and general pop culture humorist, Natasha Leggero

Although convincing in her roles portraying strippers, sozzled skanks and “housewives” on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Reno 911, Natasha Leggero is no high-class hooker. She is a comedian.

Leggero spoke with Submerge about doing standup, Snooki and why it’s so natural for her to act obliterated.

How long have you been doing standup?
Nine years.

Do you remember the particular club or city where you started your standup career?
I was in Los Angeles at the Comedy Store in the Belly Room, which is a room that was actually designed in the ‘70s for women comedians, and it’s just a great, easy room for comedy. It’s a great place to start out. I think they call it the Belly Room because it’s kind of like a womb. There are no distractions. It’s this small, dark room with low ceilings and no bar in the back. It’s a really kind room for comedy.

No big mistakes that first time?
I’m still trying to get a set as good as the first time I was onstage. It was a great set, and then I was so shocked that everyone was laughing. Yeah, it was just this amazing experience. The laughter just felt like waves coming over me. But now that I think about that story, I remember someone had given me a Xanax, and I had had some wine, so it might have been the drugs doing that.

You’ve portrayed quite a few characters. Which is your favorite character that you’ve acted out at this point?
Anything I do with the people from Reno 911 is my favorite, because they’re all just such amazing improvisers that somehow they make you funnier by just being so generous and funny themselves. They really know how to set you up for the jokes.

I worked with Tom Lennon and Ben Garant from Reno 911. I did Reno four times and I did their movie. I just did a pilot for them for NBC, which didn’t get picked up. Now we’re doing one for FX, which is a white trash, futuristic version of Reno 911; it’s set in space. It’s called Alabama, and I’m going to be playing a sex robot. I’m a sex robot in the future, who’s on the spaceship and everybody is tired of fucking.

So you become a defunct sex robot.
Exactly. I think at one point they order me a new vagina. But it’s all improv.

You’re pretty obviously obliterated in that role on Reno 911. Was it very difficult to act very trashed?
It was sort of an impediment when I was in acting school. We’d be doing Chekov and they’d say, “Stop moving around so much, you seem like you’re drunk.”

And it’s just a physicality that I just naturally do, that, um, seems like I’m drunk. Especially when I’m onstage. I’ve always liked to fall. I always have been good at it. I would always pretend to fall for my friends. I mastered that art of pratfalls, and I’d always have comedy bruises all over myself. It’s something I always knew how to do and it goes well with being wasted.

You are a consistent guest on Chelsea Lately. How many times have you been on that show?
I think I lost count at 70… Last time I did it, Snooki was there, whom you may know from her work on the Jersey Shore. I had my dog with me, who’s a little Chihuahua, and we were backstage. I have a little “service dog” vest for it so I can take it into restaurants, and Snooki was like, “Can I see yoor dwaag?” So I said sure and showed her my dog. She was like, “Why ya got this vest?” I was like, “I have epilepsy,” as a joke, and she said, “What’s epilepsy?” I thought that was pretty phenomenal that word has escaped her, her whole life.

What are your thoughts on reality TV?
I just don’t understand why we’re calling them “stars” when it’s the first thing they’ve ever done… In general it’s pretty silly, but it’s definitely there for us to make fun of, I feel like. It’s a good time to be a comedian.

You joke about not wanting kids, but there’s a picture of you and a baby on your Twitter page.
I can’t believe my friend let me breastfeed her baby! Actually, she let me put a pacifier in the baby’s mouth, and then I pressed it up against my boob. So, that’s not my child. I should re-do that picture with my dog.

When doing jokes about hip-hop songs, you actually sing, and your voice sounds really good. Do you have any plans on adding “singer” to your entertainment resume?
I would love to sing more. My voice is not that trained. I definitely think I could do a lounge act.

If you did put out an album, what kind of music do you think you would do?
I would probably lay on a piano and belt out some old standards. Or maybe write some new standards about toilet babies.

Do you have any favorite type of audience?
I like people who are a little savvier, hip, stylish. They get where I’m going with everything. They are not afraid to laugh at things that can be slightly mean.

Have you had any run-ins of the obsessed fan sort?
This one guy brought a picture of me on Chelsea… and he took the screen shot right when I was in the middle of crossing my legs and you could see the smallest bit of my underwear and he wanted me to sign it.

What did you say to him?
I said, “That’s disgusting,” and then I signed it.