Matt Braunger’s latest hour of comedy, Finally Live in Portland, is inescapably relatable.
Much like his other stand-up contemporaries who have commanded a niche as storytellers, his ace is in the spin and delivery – smart, accessible, and nuanced by his point-of-view that feels familiar and comfortable, but unique to the point that you want to invest.
You’ll want to get to know him.
A Chicagoan by birth, Braunger’s new set returns him to his beloved Oregon hometown, where he lived for most of his young life. He earned a theatre degree from Manhattanville Colllege in New York, and returned to the Windy City to pursue his comedy career. He studied improvisation under industry stalwarts Susan Messing and Del Close, and also began performing stand-up professionally in the early 2000s. In 2008, he joined the cast of FOX’s MADtv in its fourteenth and final season, honing a wide range of characters from The Honeymooners’ William Frawley to William Shatner. He appeared in numerous guest spots on the small screen, including Carpoolers, iCarly, Pushing Daisies, United States of Tara, and Blue Mountain State before landing the recurring role of Gene Martin in the Lorne Michaels-produced sitcom Up All Night alongside Christina Applegate, Maya Rudoplh, and Will Arnett.
After successfully conquering the comedy festival circuit in the late 2000s, Braunger co-founded Portland’s annual Bridgetown Comedy Festival. His first comedy album, Soak Up the Night, was released on Comedy Central Records in the summer of 2009. He continued to be featured on a lengthy list of television series, including Happy Endings, @midnight, Garfunkel & Oates, and Agent Carter.
In addition to his ongoing stand-up work, Braunger is the host of the acclaimed podcast Advice from a Dipshit with Matt Braunger, on which he’s hosted fellow comedians Bert Kreischer, Rhea Butcher, Jo Koy, Fortune Feimster, Andrew Santino, and Jason and Randy Sklar.
Thursday night, Braunger will bring his stand-up show to Columbus for a one-night-only engagement at the Funny Bone.
“I’ve always wanted to go back to that club. I think I’ve done it once before, but it was so many years ago,” he explains during our phone interview a few weeks ago. “I’m psyched to come back, and I hope people can take a little bit of time out of their schedule and come have fun with us. It’s not even, ‘Oh, it’s the big weekend thing!’ Nope! It’s not. It’s a night – in and out. Let it kick off your weekend!’
What initially made you connect with comedy in a visceral way? Was that primary connection with a show, a personality, or a character?
“I think, you know, it’s hard to say. I remember watching Saturday Night Live when I was really, really young – like, sneaking downstairs to watch it. My parents are very, very, funny and it was just kind of noticing when they’d say something funny and people would laugh. But, I think when I was ten years old, I was in a play where I was a villain with a top hat. And I said something and the whole audience laughed. That’s when I first thought, ‘oh, this is great!’ In early adulthood, I got into theatre and some improv, and when I did stand-up that was when it just clicked, where it’s kind of, like, ‘this is kind of what I’ve been wanting to do all along.’
It’s one of those things where it’s just hard to nail down exactly who I was the biggest fan of. My parents had a copy of George Carlin’s Class Clown when I was kid, and I loved that because it was all these really detailed, great stories – it was so fun to listen to him animate them just from the audio. Just listening to them. I loved that connection a person could have with an audience.”
You started doing stand-up while you were at Manhattanville. Do you remember your first set?
“The first time I ever did stand-up, I was going to see a friend do stand-up, and I was going to pay to get in, and the person who was booking the show said that my friend told her that I was really funny and they were missing a person – and if I wanted to go up, I could, and I would get free drinks. And I was, like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I wrote a quick thing. I was a little heavier then, and I had a goatee and long hair. And, so, my joke was: ‘I know what you’re thinking. Christ the Lord really let himself go. But it’s not my fault – I eat one loaf of bread and it becomes five.’ That was the first joke I ever did.
It’s one of those things where I don’t write jokes, so, to even have one like that…I always say that the worst thing that could’ve ever happened to me happened to me, where I killed the first time going up. And it was, like, ‘Oh, this is easy!’ And then I just ate it over and over, like most people do. That is just the worst thing that can happen, because it’s just not natural. But, I stuck with it, and my friends all did it, and we had a friendly rivalry. It was great.”
What I love about Finally Live in Portland is that you aren’t doing bits, but you’re telling stories with this amazing level of detail and color that makes the things you’ve seen and experienced almost tactile. It’s so much fun to listen to. Would you consider yourself a storyteller first and foremost?
“Thanks! Well, it’s always, like, ‘Oh, you’re a comedian – what are your jokes like?’ I just say it’s story-based. That covers it in the most general sense possible. Sometimes it’s observational when it’s got absolutely nothing to do with my life directly, but those are generally kind of rare.”
I’ve talked to several comedians who were alumni of Saturday Night Live, but you’re the first cast member of MADtv I’ve interviewed. I was an avid watcher and always appreciated that show for the risks it took, and it cultivated so much great talent over the years. What was your time on that series like?
“Well, you know, I was only on it for the final half a season. They only picked it up for half a season, and then I got hired. They cancelled the show on my day off, which I was always grateful for because I didn’t have to be in the room with everybody. I loved it, and it was one of things where anytime you’d be joking with your friends about something – imagine doing that and a producer walked by and said, ‘that’s a great idea for a sketch. Write it up.’ And you would pitch it.
The heartbreaking thing that I found about MADtv was that they had so many amazing writers and performers, but they were hamstrung by this need to do mostly pop culture reference stuff where people would go, ‘oh, you’re making fun of that celebrity,’ or ‘oh, that’s just like that song!’ I mean, there’s a place for that, but that took up eighty percent of it. And then there’d be what you’d call ‘sketchy sketches,’ which are just sketches that are funny by themselves – and everyone had ones they’d pitch. I remember that the biggest laughs at the table read wouldn’t get in, because they’d have to make room for ‘Oh! Britney Spears almost microwaved her baby when she was high!’ Or whatever, you know? Not that that’s one – I just thought of that now. [laughs]
But, in essence, it was a joy. I was working with these incredible people like Katie Dippold and Keegan Michael Key, and all of these other amazing writers and performers. To perform with these people who were in the top echelon of comedic minds – even for six or seven months – was a blast.
It’s interesting, it’s the shortest job I’ve had, but if you go to my Wikipedia page, it takes up most of the page. [laughs] Someone made a list of characters I did, or my impressions, or whatever. Eric Price and I were the only two white males in the whole cast. We had to cover a lot of ground. I remember doing morning radio once to promote a show, and they said ‘oh, we’re excited to hear all your impressions!’ And I said, ‘I don’t do any.’ And they were, like, ‘well, it says right here in Wikipedia!’ I said, ‘look man…’ I told the guy what I just told you, and he got furious.”
Wow. Really?
“Yeah, I guess maybe he’d been hyping it. The thing is, you do those shows and they generally don’t know who you are. And I don’t blame them – I’m not Kevin Hart. I’m not Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah, I get it. But, it’s really weird for someone who doesn’t know you from Adam to be, like, ‘ahh, we all love this guy! We all know him from his impressions. His Charlie Sheen, of course…’ And I’m, like, ‘what are you talking about?!’ It’s so weird. [laughs] To be fair, that is very rare.”
Yeah, I’ve seen that play out on stage as well. I’ve gone to see Dave Koechner the last few times he’s been here –his stand-up is so smart and engaging – and he has to essentially pause mid-show to riff as Champ Kind before he can continue with his other material because, otherwise, people yell over him through his whole set. And maybe he wants to do that and he’s okay with the banter, but I can imagine for many comedians it can be difficult when you get sort of pigeon-holed like that.
”Yeah, it’s tough. I have a few friends like that, where they’re, like, ‘yeah, I’ve got to trot this thing out or else they won’t stop yelling.’
I mean, I think it’s because I’m such an avid consumer of comedy and I know so much about it. Who knows – if I worked a nine-to-five…a lot of people are, like, ‘ahh, I don’t care about music or comedy.’ They’ll enjoy it, they just don’t know any of it. Then they’ll show up and they’ll think ‘oh, I know them! That’s Champ Kind! Champ! Whammy!’ They’ll start yelling for it. I won’t say that’s an indicator of our age, necessarily, but we’re in atime where you could have anything you want, right now. You can pull something up on the internet and look at it and watch anything you want. You can order food over your phone and it’ll just show up. We think people are like that, too.
I always think of Homer in The Simpsons episode where he’s watching Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and they’re playing and he yells out ‘’Takin’ Care of Business’!’ And the guy’s, like, ‘we just did that!’ And Homer goes, ‘do it again!’ And then they go into it, and he yells, ‘skip to the chorus!’ And they do, and he goes, ‘whoooooo!’ That’s what people want: ‘I don’t care about you! Do that thing!’ That’s not everybody, and it’s not even the majority – but there’s always one.”
Always. The last time I was at a comedy show, a family fight broke out at my table mid-set. I don’t think it even registered with the comedian on stage – or if it did, they didn’t let on – but it was just unbelievable. I’ve never understood why you’d pay good money to go see a comedian, and then disrupt them.
“It’s so funny, I’m in Colorado right now for the Telluride Comedy Festival, which is extremely small and it’s out of this tiny theatre called the Sheridan Opera House. It’s a little cowboy theatre, like the one in Tombstone. It’s just like it. It’s Jason Mantzoukas, and Brian Huskey, and some other very funny improvisers. And Nick Kroll is coming, and he and I and Rebecca Kohler, who’s so funny, are going to do stand-up. Last night was the locals-only show, and Jason was, like, ‘it’s gonna be rowdy.’ And we did this kind of, like, fake town hall where each of us went up as a character that lives here and has a complaint.
So, it was fun, but I couldn’t believe how hammered people were. To the point where there was a guy who was barely looking at the stage – he was blurry-eyed. And he would just yell something. We’d say something back to him, but he’d just raise his glass and yell ‘cheers!’ No! We weren’t agreeing with you! And a woman tried to climb up on stage, and it was funny because it is like a little prospector cowboy theatre – and that stage was raised just high enough that no-one could get on it. But, she tried to throw her leg up on the rail and pull herself up and she couldn’t. And finally, the bookers came and escorted her out. It wasn’t angry – she just wanted to come up and play – but she couldn’t. And I said, ‘well, now, this is cowboy technology. This is how you build a stage so that an angry prospector cannot get up on stage and punch you. It was kind of amazing.”
In Finally Live In Portland, you talk about how you’d prefer to die on “Last Words”. On the converse, what would be the worst possible way you think you could go?
“[laughs] Well, I think I’d really…if I’m honest, I think it’d be something terrible, like drowning in an underground cave, or being lit on fire, or something. I just really hope I don’t die doing something dumb. My wife is always, like, ‘c’mon, ding-dong! What did you do?’ It’s never anything that big – it’s ‘oh, we went to an outdoor sun-drenched concert and I didn’t bring my sunglasses,’ or ‘we got all the way to the storage locker and I forgot my key at home.’ Stuff like that. I just hope I don’t have the thing of when I say, ‘okay – the coast is clear!’ and then a train runs me over. And then people say, ‘why didn’t he wait?!’
I don’t want to leave the people I love saying, ‘oh, my God. C’mon, dude!’”
You also have this great take about the generational assault on Millennials. You and I are both Gen X-ers, and I was listening I was having a really hard time coming up with what we’ll be remembered for in the annals of history. What do you think might be our contribution?
“I think the ‘greatest generation’ won a war, and so they always have this amazing mantle…as Rob Delaney so brilliantly put it: ‘the ‘greatest generation’ sure said the ‘n’-word a lot.’ I think we could’ve learned more from our parents, from the Boomers, in how so many of them…my parents didn’t, but so many of them kind of abandoned ‘the dream’ of helping others and the revolution of the 60s. We dump on hippies a lot, but they basically pushed what we call environmentalism more than anyone – and sustainability, and things like that. So many of them in the 80s just flipped and went full-on yuppie: ‘fuck everything – I want money!’
Maybe we didn’t learn enough from them. I don’t know, I think our name, Generation X, is pretty apt because we’re kind of undefinable, as far as I can tell.”
I’ve seen the quote ‘learn from your idiocy’ pop up in press you’ve been doing lately, and I like that you balance your observation of human follies with the perspective that we’re sort of all these big blobs of flesh just bumping around and trying to navigate earth and there’s some need for understanding and compassion. What have you learned most about yourself in that respect?
“Well, it’s kind of a blanket statement, but it’s kind of ‘don’t beat yourself up.’ We are all made of our mistakes. I’ve spent a lot of time – call it Catholic guilt, or call it whatever you want – with this mentality that any time you try to make yourself happy, you should kind of feel bad about it because you’re not helping someone else. And you can definitely do both – and you can also take a breath and go, ‘well, that was a dumb thing I did. Let’s never do that again,’ and go from there.
But, yeah, I think you nailed it – we’re just blobs of flesh bouncing along, and we tend to…it means don’t be too hard on yourself, but also don’t be too hard on other people, too. We’re in an era now where the minute someone does something bad, we all hop on. And, you know, maybe sometimes they deserve it, but it’s also, ‘why are you doing that?’ You’re doing it to make yourself feel superior. Because it’s easy…life is not Star Wars. There’s no Death Star that we get to blow up to make ourselves feel better. The devil isn’t going to show up so you can shoot him and you’ll to be the champion and solve all the world’s problems. It’s just not going to happen. So much of what we’re angry about, we’re angry about ourselves.
And, so, there’s no real big message – I’m just here to let the steam out. When I watch a good comedy special, it’s nice if there’s a higher truth or something that brings us all together. But, it’s really just about laughing, having a good time, and just, to quote What About Bob? – ‘Taking a vacation from your problems.’ That’s really what it is. It’s why I watch comedy – for the fun, and the excitement, and being in the moment with this person.”
Matt Braunger takes the stage at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, Feb. 28), at the Columbus Funny Bone, 145 Easton Town Center. Tickets are $12, plus applicable taxes and fees. To learn more about Matt, visit his official website, or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can listen to his podcast, “Advice from a Dipshit with Matt Braunger,” via iTunes.