Episode 15: Lucas Copp Crushing on Kill Tony

In this episode of the Funny Truth podcast, comedian Lucas Copp joins us to discuss his set and experience crushing on Kill Tony in front of Shane Gillis. 

Lucas and I started comedy around the same time in the same city of Portland, Oregon. We discuss our experiences in the comedy scene in our hometown and the different comedy scenes we've encountered while traveling. 

We discuss open mics, local politics, and the challenges of being a comedian. Lucas and I share funny stories about our experiences both shared and in different cities. We also discuss various aspects of comedy, including writing jokes, the importance of practice, and the challenges of performing at open mics. 

We also touch on the differences between small towns and big cities in terms of comedy scenes, the experience of traveling as a comedian, and the value of surrounding oneself with supportive and like-minded individuals. The conversation provides insights into the comedy industry and the journey of a comedian.

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Instagram: @lucasgcopp73
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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Background
• 3:16 Lucas' Set and Interview on Kill Tony
• 6:17 Doing Shows on The Road
• 9:18 Comedy Friends and Funny Insults
• 13:05 The Difference Between Comedians and Open Mic'ers
• 22:13 Writing Jokes and Different Observations Traveling
• 23:48 Building An Hour of Material
• 24:55 Navigating Sensitive Topics in Comedy
• 26:23 Dealing with Hecklers and Controversial Reactions
• 27:50 Writing Jokes Using Different Substances
• 29:26 The Evolution of a Comedian's Writing Style
• 30:26 Navigating Open Mics and Longer Sets
• 31:02 Commanding The Room
• 32:25 The Challenges and Productivity of Open Mics
• 34:04 The Value of a Supportive Comedy Community
• 35:37 The Appeal of Performing in Small Towns
• 36:02 The Potential of Corporate and Church Shows
• 37:18 Building a Fan Base in Smaller Venues
• 38:11 Adapting To Different Comedy Scenes

Transcript

0:00

This episode of the Funny Truth podcast, my guest is comedian Lucas Cop. Lucas is someone that I met when I first started doing comedy in Portland, Oregon, which is where we're both from. And he's been traveling all around the West coast and he just got done with his Kill Tony set the night before and said, Hey, I'm going to be in Phoenix today. And I said, Hey, want to be on the podcast? Literally the day before he was on Kill Tony, chosen out of the bucket. And turns out he had a pretty good set. He got the big joke book. And if you're not familiar with Kill Tony, getting a big joke book is best thing you can get other than a golden ticket. So that episode with Lucas should be dropping soon. maybe in the next week or two from the release date of this podcast. And I really enjoyed having Lucas song. We talked about Portland. We talked about just comedy, different comedy scenes and kind of what he's been up to recently. Please remember to subscribe to the funny truth podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review. Hope you guys enjoy this episode. This is the funny truth podcast and I'm Adam J. That is the funny truth. having like those good little habits when you don't have as much time. It's good. You're grinding in different avenues. I like this bear living room. Sure. Women love this. Hey, don't don't tell them how the sausage is made. This looks like a place to murder a woman at and take pictures of it. This looks good. You should have seen my first apartment in scarier than this. Always the one I had a air mattress and a desk. for my laptop and that was like two dishes, like two of each, you know, two plates, two forks. I think I went in your fridge and it was just a pack of water. Like not even, it's still in like the plastic wrap. Yeah. This is good. So that's all I needed. Would you ever want to move from Phoenix or you'd love Phoenix right now? It's just a good, I mean, spot. I have a good setup here right now, but really the game of comedy is on the road. So like I don't give a fuck about. local scene, local politics. And that's like back to Austin, back to the point of that, it's like way more saturated. There's so much. And it's similar to LA where everyone's just, they just see what they can get out of you almost, at least. And also there's the differentiation. You're either in the mix or you're grinding at these shitty open mics. It feels like there's no hope. It's more like that. But... You're set last night. You got a joke book, right? Yeah, I got the big joke book. Did you bring it with you? It's in my car right now. Really? Yeah. I want to see it later. I've seen him before, but when I was down there, my first time I was down there, my buddy got called up. I want to say every time I've been there, someone I know has gotten called up. Sally got called up the second time I was there. really? So I don't know. Have you signed up a few times? Mm -hmm. I've been there, I think I signed up like three or four times. Did you guys sign up for the mothership mic? Yeah, Juan got on the mothership mic and I got on the Killtoni. That's that's good. It was a perfect day. Yeah. Yeah got both got something Yeah when I signed up for the you always get on not always but the first time you sign up is always the best Best luck. It's like that at the helium. Let's see this new guy house Yeah, cuz every time I've got on the mothership the very first time and then the next like seven times I signed up because you Sunday and Monday Nothing. Damn. I'd love to see you on kill tone. You got the same like crazy eyes Tony Hinchcliffe has You've like the devil in your eyes You had the same thing. I was God damn it. He's scary. I don't know what the fuck he's thinking about What were you like? What were you thought as you're like walking up when I first walked up? I was like I'm not looking to the left because I thought I heard Shane Gillis his voice and I was like I'm not I don't care what pretended isn't him and I just didn't look at the table just went straight to the mic and did three jokes in a minute didn't even care we're just gonna tell these jokes I murdered the minute and then I was like, all right, and then I looked over and then I got nervous like how the how the interview go there if you want pretty good we talked about Portland I was wearing a Mavericks jersey was kind of a mistake because they I got made fun of for my Mavericks jersey and my LA hat. They said I was confused. I said maybe I'm gay. I'm from Portland. Ooh, that's a banger. Yeah, the Portland stuff was funny. Yeah, it was good. It's just crazy because you get to go up there and like try to riff with like Shane Gillis. It was some of the best. It's amazing. Yeah, it's a podcast. It is. live podcast. How was the room? Like, obviously it's sold out, but I've never been up on that big stage. So it was probably like 400 or 500 people. Really? Yeah, it looks like it. It looks like what is it like the stage? It's like it almost seems like there's like a barrier. Mm hmm. Well, I mean, there's a person right here. The audience starts there and goes all the way back. Jesus Christ. My game plan was like, I'm not going to sit here and scan. I'm not taking shit. I'm telling these jokes. Yeah. And I'm just going to be like, I'm not going to get overwhelmed by shit. Do they read the Live on the show. I wasn't at the show. You know, you get pulled right right right? They just bring you to the back you give them all your shit You get patted down. Yeah, you just wait and I went up first and I went right after they have a new regular and I was just sitting there Listen, this dude murder. He was crushing was it Casey rocket? It wasn't Casey rocket. It was another dude He's like this big autistic war veteran. drew Nickens He was very funny and I was sitting behind the curtain listening to him like causal ruckus like a sound like shit was falling down the dude that would get we got to me he was like Yeah, yeah, he's no he's he's he's an interesting like I met him The few times I was out there. It was like I knew if like didn't remember my name within like five minutes He introduced himself again But yeah, he's it's funny because kill Tony's such a big popular thing like I never watched it My girlfriend loves it and I started watching it because of her and then when I go down there and anyway She was with with me too. Like you see all these people like I see him on this show I see people put it in their Instagram bio even when they had a shitty set Like Kill Tony hashtag 575. It becomes a credit. It's kind of a credit. Yeah, people use that as a credit. I've seen a comedian from here, Celia. She moved out there, but she, yeah, she, I don't know if you saw that episode, Roseanne. Yeah, that was like a huge viral clip. Yeah. She's been getting consistent work. We saw her a lot. She's very busy. She's doing everything. So maybe that'll be your fate. You know, I'm excited. It's good, dude. You took a chance finally because you didn't really have a lot booked. Did you leaving? We had probably three shows and then on the way we ended up like we ended up kind of securing venues along the way. Like we have a mic and And we would just walk into venues and say can we do a show for whoever's here right now you really yeah? We did it three times and we did it four times work three times We did like three hours at a weed store. We went to a random bar did it there It was incredible how well it was working just gorilla marketing anybody anybody anybody give you tips or anything. no, no I think that was the beauty of what we did. Yeah, yeah, we would just do we have a wireless mic Then we would just wheel like we went to San Diego. We just do comedy on the streets I was just really roast people really I was roasting people Wal -Mart was spreading love, Milo was telling one -liners, and we just wheeled our way through downtown San Diego. That's awesome. If we can't find a company, we made company. We ended up doing comedy for the Laugh Factory in San Diego. I think coming from Portland will turn you into that. Yeah, psycho. Basically crackheads yell at people. By any means necessary. Yeah, I'm like a clever crackhead. It's fun. Well, you're... Yeah, you... You're born and raised in Portland too, so you've seen the whole development of it. And where you grew up too is always kind of like that anyways. Like no one has good things to say about Franklin. No, it feels good to leave. I think I have like that hometown. I've been, I'm 25, I've been there my whole life. It's like, it feels like it's time to go hit the road. Let's go play. Don't do it for sure, man. Yeah. Yeah. Even just leaving there was so liberating. How old were you when you moved? 20. This was 2021. So that was 27. And you had been there the whole time at that point? No, I'd lived in Canada. Okay. Like I tried, did shit for basketball, but nothing, nothing crazy, nothing over a year. But it's good to get out. Phoenix. It's like you flourished in Phoenix. we just gave you a chance to cause like, how many clubs do we have here? Like seven. Yeah. It's crazy. HLC, TANF live mic drop now. And then just the various power shows Tempy Improv, Stand Up Live, Desert Ridge Improv JP's mic drop stir crazy house of comb. So you got seven and seven and then there's one two hours away in Tucson That's probably my favorite. we were just there. It's an amazing club, dude It's one of those clubs that sells out doesn't matter who the headliner is. It's just the fuck you're gonna do in Tucson It like sells out that's amazing. It's probably yeah and seats probably like 200 That's the place I've seen people consistently tip to mm -hmm You can sell, you can move a lot of merch at laughs. What's your merch? What do you sell in this merch? I just had stickers. I said it was donation. And then. But some people give me like 20 bucks. What's the sticker? Is it just like your evil eyes? It's just a QR code. Just your piercing cap villain eyes. Colored eyes are always the most evil. They are. Right? It's just untrustworthy. He looks like he knows the nuclear launch codes. The mustache doesn't help either. No, I got a similar mustache though. Yeah, colored eyes are evil, but you can't say colored people are evil. No, there's a big difference. Man imagine that I don't know and who you try with who's it who you got here I got one Denmark and Milo Lozano these are two of my best comedy friends I wouldn't have did this with anyone else. That's dope. That's funny. Yeah, I haven't met you but you probably how long you been doing comedy Milo? Okay, two and a half years. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that's why I didn't meet, but I think you'd the one and Lucas were like two of the very few people that I actually like approach was like, what's up, bro? Cause yeah, vibes were off. Yeah. A lot of places. I did a show there. you remember when I came back for the contest? huh. I do. So funny. That was amazing. It was very funny. But I did that show, is it The Good Foot or one that Hewitt does? Yeah, yeah, life basement. Yeah, crushing. I know you crushed that shit, I heard about that. It's like people were confused, like, he's good. What do you think this was? He's not just drunk. But there were definitely still the Portland lesbian type of women just fucking folding their arms for the first 10 minutes I'm up there. And finally, like, OK, that's funny. I shifted my material. I was like, OK, we won't go as offensive. We'll do a little bit do a little bit lighter And I was in your second round I remember that shit made me nervous that I was fine I'm just happy to be here. Yeah, I remember like I saw all the most angry Portland comics in the back with their arms crossed They're all here to just like bomb his voting. Yeah, I was like collectively shaking their head. That's it. Stress me out I didn't even want to do it anywhere. I was having fun Between them people who probably brought their people and then all the people that came from me that show was sold out. It was a basic show. Weren't they turning your parents away? Yeah. They turned my dad away. My dad is such a dick, he got his way in anyway. He's pushed that gut through the door. You can't stop him. I mean, what was it on a Tuesday night or something? Tuesday night is the worst night for anything, especially comedy. So to have a sold out thing for a local event was great. You didn't sign up again? No. I wonder why now I think that I think the jig is up there on to you. Yeah, but I mean technically still an Oregon resident Yeah, I mean Technically, yeah, I've never changed my address and then If you look at it man, the years I've spent living there have to count for something. Mm -hmm Versus all the people that were saying I'm not from there. When'd you move here? Yeah, everybody's a transplant. Yeah, you were born and crush them. Yeah, well and the other thing is they also suck at comedy. Mm -hmm. That's why they're mad Yeah, like that Facebook group was going crazy. that was so good. Do you guys do you are you part of that Facebook group? No, you sent me screenshots. Are you still part of it? I would never was damn People just sent me screenshots and I was like, this is amazing. And then I just used it and people were like, dude, I gotta come to the next show. I know you used as a promo. Yeah. That was clever. Perfect. it's so different. I know comics are a part of that group all over the country. Just watch it for the drama. That's what we were doing last day. The headliner, the headliner, Ben Roy from Denver. He was like, yeah, I just follow the Seattle and Portland comedy groups just for the, he's like, I, those are the two scenes that, just, cannibalize themselves. It's madly entertaining. It's really good. It's like reality TV. I hate how much I love it. At some point, there was one point in the scene where I was just refreshing every day and there was something new and exciting. yeah, well, cause man, as a whole, comics, there's a difference between a comedian and an open mic 'er. huh. Open mic or everybody has problems, but the open mic errs have a lot of problems and then they're not good at comedy No, so now they're like they're so invested in Whatever it is that they're invested in and that's what I'm finding like Leaving and being on the road all the local drama of all the scenes you pass by has nothing to do with you I'm here to kill my said and leave pretty much leaving tonight, right? And then yeah when you stay in one place the local scene can have an impact on you getting booked and all that kind of stuff in the politics and Doesn't really matter. Yeah, usually women don't like me. What? Yeah, crazy. So you're villainous beard? One of my favorite insults someone told me I look like I'd tie a damsel to the trimate tracks. That's pretty funny. That's one of the best things I've ever heard. That's amazing. God damn it. And you got the same beard, so I think it would apply to you. I get a... Don't ever stop me. I get Waluigi. Yeah. You look like you write jokes like this. Excellent. Except for Pong. Up for line paper. This is going to really upset them. You got a clown horn too, that's dope. yeah, but you got everything There we go You know who told me to get that was was autumn. He's like dude. You should have a clown horn.-huh I was like, I think we just saw a piece of Austin right now. He's probably the one who told you about the she's in Austin he I don't know. No, he was trying to get, I remember he was like, yeah, I think I'm gonna get tits. I was like, why bro? He lives the bit. I've never met anyone like that. He'll get tits and a Trump hat just to confuse everybody. Yeah, he told me he started out in Portland dressing up as a trans black woman. He was crushing, saying whatever he wanted to and then he went to his sets as himself. He got banned from everywhere. They're like absolutely not. He's a walking joke. It's crazy. He lives comedy. Did I live I stay with him for like 10 days when I was in Austin? What do you mean? It must be a wild stay Man 10 days is way too long. yeah, you leave a little piece of your sanity with him. I feel like He's a fun guy. I love it. no, he's great. Yeah, but Legally on paper he is retarded. Yeah That's funny. Yeah. That's hella funny. It's perfect. But he's also like an avid chess player and he's actually really highly ranked. I bet he's good. But like, hmm. You know what I was thinking is like, what if a Special Olympian actually breaks the Olympic record in the Special Olympics? Does it count as a world record? I feel like it's its own record. Is it? Wait, if he breaks like the actual actual record. Yeah, like if some dude just runs faster than Usain Bolt, he doesn't tell if when he doing it. Maybe not, though. They pay attention to detail. I mean, some of yeah, like there's a comedian telling me a story about how in high school they were like, because I asked him the same question and he's like, well, when I was in high school. they were like, Hey, do you want to help out in special Olympics? And him as well, you're like, okay, sure. And they, they ended up doing like the, I think the four by 100 or the, I don't know, relay race. And they made them run it too. And he's like, bro, when those dudes took off, like, like they were smoking everybody faster than everybody else. And, yeah. And he said like, they had it, like, they took a picture at the end, like the in first place. And then it was like all over the newspapers and stuff. He's like, he's like, girls would be like, I didn't know you were. No, no, no. Try to do something good. I feel like when they win the record, it's the same as anyone else winning a record. They just give harder hugs afterwards. It just really squeeze people after their victory. You're saying that record's special?-huh. Yeah. Special place in our hearts. Always. Yeah, dude. So yeah, that's interesting. Like, why wouldn't they just be in the regular Olympics then, at that point? Imagine losing to a special Olympian. Have you ever played basketball against the special ed teams? No, but I... You look like you'd love to do that. I played baseball against a girl when I was younger and she struck me out like three times in that game. I was so mad. She struck our whole team out though. She was pitching gas. Some were cold. I remember when I wrestled in like the second grade and my first match was against a girl and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I was supposed to fight her or not. So I just kind of stood there and she eventually took me down and pinned me. I had to drive. My dad drove me home while I cried. Yeah. And now it's not scary me still had a boner. Yeah, I was fully roused my first direction. I almost came but I peed instead Dude, it was a hard day fucking I bet it was not for the same That's the thing though, girls mature faster. Like I remember girls being taller than me. Even though I was taller than most people, there were still girls that were taller than me when I was younger. My sister used to beat me up till like a certain age just cause they're fully developed. You have older sisters? I just have one. Older sisters are evil usually. Yeah. You know, love my sister, but she beat the shit out of me. yeah. Yeah. What are you going to do about it? I'm going to have to punch her in her pregnant belly. It's the only way to get revenge. That's yeah, it's pro -choice. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. We're in Portland. Yeah, I'm helping So our abortion is illegal now Nationwide is that still like Texas in Texas? They are in Texas. What horn hub is a horn? How does illegal? Did you try to check it? I didn't check. That's tough, dude. I load you check What did it say? It just these couldn't go there. Yeah did for For you to put in your ID. I hate that that these I hate that these I These places that are... These screenshotted? Whoa. Okay. It says, Dear user, as you may know, your elected officials in Texas are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you to access our website. Wait, you just have to verify your age? Yeah. That's crazy. What? I think other states are like that. I think Arizona's like that. That's a lot, I know Arizona. It's like a whole statement. Yeah, Arizona's like that. You just use a different website. There's a lot of websites. But you just have to agree being 18. Yeah, it's pretty easy. Well, yeah, I mean, but that seems a little much. What do you take? You think all children should have access? I mean, I think we should all have access. I mean, I just think we grew up in a golden era where we had it when we were under 18. I don't think children should have access. Just like our parents, like most of our parents like to drink at age 18. But you've seen some fucking reels that are just like fucking out of control. You do? Yeah. You see where it's just like some girl like pretending to get fucked, but not like - Really? Or will be like - Yeah. I never see those. Juan showed me this one where it's like the girl will have a baby doll and she'll have her titty out and she can pretend she's pregnant. I've heard of that. Suzy told me about it popped up on my phone. I was like, this is disgusting I've seen I've seen crackheads do that out here But like it's a fake baby and they're asking for change like trying to make it look like it's a real baby Not working. I'm not doing a good job at it. But no we'll still look like my god Yeah, it wasn't a fetish. It was like maybe this will work.-huh. It does works really well actually Yeah, I mean, it's just shock value. It is. you talking about for porn. What do you mean? We talked about holding a baby to the tit. That's a fake baby. Either way how you do it, it's just shock value. Yeah, no matter what. It's just the algorithm. Sure. Yeah, that's one thing. My porn and my algorithm is separate. It's a good thing they don't track over it. They tracked over your cookies from the porn websites too. It'd be a game over. My Explorer pages like all dog shit and like villainous plans and how to poison the water well It's pretty PG how to block the Sun He's funny I like it a lot. yeah. Yeah, it grows on you on my exes. Yeah, but yeah, so Texas, no weed, no porn, no gambling. I did a bit about that. Like on stage, I was like, for a state that's pro -life, let me live. You know? That's it. It was funny there. I feel like you kind of want to write more when you're on the road I feel like we're gonna all of us were writing a lot of jokes as being around each other and being in different scenes Well, yeah, and you can do stuff that's local to there too. And then local stuff always works. It just only works locally Yeah, so when you see the same shit over again, though, it's like, okay I've already kind of seen that I get it you kind of know do it but you go to like Texas you know, these people are fucking weird They are but then you but people that go to Portland are like, this place is fucking weird Yeah, but you're so numb to it that you're used to it. You can't really see the idiosyncrasies of it. Everything's different but the same. You know what I mean? Exactly. Comedy is the same everywhere I go sometimes. It's still a shitty open mic, there's some shows, there's some people that are the big dogs. It's the same structure everywhere you go. Yeah, that's why. It's weird who... Different places you go who they hoist up as their yeah, here's your Messiah. Yeah people were chosen yeah, dude, I can yeah, Portland. You got to be a beta male if you're white Gay or trans if you if you're white you got to do something you gotta have a disability Mm -hmm. Got it. You can't be just fucking a normal person Normal person like you yeah, you're fucking psycho. Yeah, I love you though. You're dumb He's not a normal person, but on the outside he looks like it. I feel like that like brings him down. I love that. I love the way he thinks about comedy. He's always thinking about comedy. He's always thinking about it. He's always running a bit. I remember sometimes he'll call me, he'll be like, dude, I'm like, is this a bit or is this like a real thing? Like I always preface it that way. And he'll just be like, he'll just keep talking. Yeah. So then like you got to warm up his five minutes normal conversation. You got to get him ready for the joke. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just kind of just, it's all about masking it. Yeah. Everybody's an open mic. Pretty much. Yeah, I don't even look at it that way though. I just have built the habit now like that's funny I'm great that down. That's good shit though. Yes. It's like yeah, cuz that's that's where all the material comes from Mm -hmm. How much time do you have? How many how much material you think you've made? Did I've never put everything all together? I've done an hour before mm -hmm, but I've never put everything together was a smooth hour ago I only walked five people. That's not bad. No. Well, the dude running it was like, I was the headliner, but the dude running it was like, fuck, someone didn't show up and we're supposed to run this till nine. Like, can you just? So I just went up and did. I think I went like five minutes past nine o 'clock. And so. and a couple of people left from that. But there was definitely a couple that was like, the city I was doing it was in Prescott. It's like, what is that? Is that Northern Arizona? Yeah, that's Northern Arizona. Yeah. So it's actually a lot like Portland. It was like pouring down rain up there and shit. I was like, I know a heroin city when I see one. But they, It was like all these older white people, very conservative, some dropping jokes about Jesus and the military and stuff. And it's just like his husband and wife just got up and left. And I just made it funnier. One of my favorite things for me is when you did it. It was this one open mic, you did a 9 -11 joke and there was a comic that was a veteran and stood up and yelled at you. The blind guy? The blind guy. Yeah. That was one of my favorite Adam Jay memories. Yeah, fuck that guy. That's when I realized, I was like, damn, Adam's hilarious. And you stood there looking at him like, let me finish the joke. It's funny. I swear I think you said something like that like just get a joke. It is it was the bullet one Yeah, the bullet was really good even let him get to the end It helped me make that joke better though It's always really tense when you tell that I like I get nervous when you do that joke because it you can feel the tension in the room and it's like it teeters the line you definitely cleaned it up since like you first told it to me, but Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's that's what I usually will close on if I'm doing a big set It takes like a minute and a half to do two minutes sometimes, but I know now exactly where it's gonna be like and then pick back up. Yeah, so it's you have certain jokes you don't It's it's hard to have as much like freedom or like leeway with cuz you're like if I fuck this up It's not gonna be a good look. Hopefully no one's filming you know type of thing and then So getting them right. I think another thing I learned too is like saying it without saying it too like I never say nine 11 in that joke. The implication makes it funny. Right. Right. And I never said it. You're the one who's thinking is, you know, that's, I can be talking about a different tragedy. That's on you. Yeah. Planes flying into a skyscraper all the time. Yeah. Completely different thing. Yeah. That's clever. Somebody yelled at you. You talking about in Portland? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's this, there's this blind guy. And he was just like, stop, stop. Once you said 9 -11, would you have these trigger words? Was he looking in the right direction? He did. There's a controversy. He may not be blind. But 9 -11 activated him like the Winter Soldier. He was like under a rage. He was crazy. And I think that same night, bro, he was like hammered and knocked the speaker off the counter or something, dude. Yeah, he was just going towards the sound. Yeah. I'm blind. I'm blind. He found you pretty easy though. He echo located your ass. He looks like the guy in the Adam Sandler movie where they throw a tennis ball at him in court. I don't think he's blind. He probably catch it. I know he catch it. It's like Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder had hot wives. Why are your wives attractive, Stevie? He knew. Somebody said they saw him driving. No, I've never heard that. You've never heard that one? No. Have you heard that one? my god, somebody said, Stevie like pulled off on him. He was like, hey, what's up? And just pulled out. No wonder. Yeah. And then like somebody was in there. I think Shaq said he was in the elevator and he's like, hey, what's up Shaq? And he's like, how did you know? Like he didn't say anything. He just like hopped, he just walked in the elevator. He's like, what's up Shaq? And I was like, what? We never want to believe the blind. You should never believe the blind. Yeah. And then I did see one of him like stopping a microphone from hitting him. Whereas like sliding down he was like, well, yeah, but I mean daredevil had you know, you go daredevil. He probably just had great instincts. Yeah, he could smell it coming. He could feel shit. I like how daredevil was blind and then his superpower was like just seeing. Yeah, like, like, like, like night vision. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I'm blind, but my superpower, I can see much better. Imagine pitching that dude. He's blind, but his superpowers, he can actually see what no one else can. Fuck. genius. And they're like, yeah, I love it. Damn. I need to do cocaine and write more. It's brilliant. What's your favorite drug to write jokes with? weed for sure. But the writing process is creative and then comes back to, all right, what did I write here? Sift through all the bullshit and then like, yeah, fucking energy drink or Adderall, both. Zen for sure. Yeah, to like focus and polish it up. Yeah, that's a dude like weed is great for if you don't need to focus. That's where my mind can really just think of this abstract stuff. Just write bullshit down and then go through it sober or something. Yeah. And I speak when I write, I use like a transcribing app and it just like, and so I can just like comb through and be like, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good premise. And I think the way you write kind of changes as you get more developed, I guess, cause like now it's like, I should just be adding onto these. Bits that already have that are working really well and just add like a couple more things into it and make it better rather than trying If you just keep doing all these one -liners like it's really hard when you start doing longer sets to make it flow Yeah together because you got to remember everything and and you can't you don't want to open up on a cum joke and then do a fucking Family -friendly joke and halfway through your so you gotta open up with a 9 -eleven joke then do family friendly. Yeah But I don't know, you know, everyone's style's different. You gotta be able to command the room. And then you got to have practice too. Like I don't, I don't even, that's why I don't like doing a lot of open mics. Cause I don't find it helps me prepare for what I'm trying to do. It's not productive. Yeah. Like people that just do open mics that are at places where people don't give a fuck. They're so used to like, they're being noise and people talking that like when they're in a club, the silence is fucking, which wasn't make the silence make the people in the crowd uncomfortable. But it makes you uncomfortable. They're paying attention. They go shit. Yeah. Like, you'll know, like they run up and grab the mic and they're like, I'll just... They're there, yeah. So, I think you'll see that, so... I've heard that from a lot of comics though, it's just like when you go to like, like they do theater shows or they do like, you know, it's just like being comfortable in the silence. Yeah. Cause the silence is really quiet. Yeah. You know, the pops are great, but it's just like when it stops, it's just like, shit, now I gotta keep going. I was like, I find that in Phoenix. Like if even the Phoenix open mics, it's like these crowds are kind of listening at a lot of these places. It's like, shit. Well, if you're going to try and do well at like an open mic or a bar show, you got to find the people that are actually paying attention and start with them. Yeah. Like that I've done show where I killed in front of it was all comedians in like two people in the front row and that was it Yeah, but you still couldn't hear any laughs. Yeah, but like the dude gave me money afterwards. I was like oddly satisfying Yeah, I mean as a pet peeve my when there's hella audience or hella comics in the crowd not comics are just talking to the comics like there's audience members here talk to those too Yeah, and you see a lot of that Where they'll laugh at their friends, but that's not helping you get better because like they're just laughing high -fiving themselves Pretty much, yeah. I don't want to do stuff in front of comedians. I'll do that before I do the joke. But even then, you know, I've ran stuff by you and you're like, I don't know about that. And I went up and just murdered with it. It's like, there's only one way to find out. There is. It's the goddamn stage. Pretty much, dude. And I find that a paying audience is like a movie theater where you got to, I talk about this all the time, you got to. If you go to movies and you pay money, you're supposed to shut the fuck up. And people get annoyed with someone who's not shutting the fuck up versus the opposite. So I don't know, you practice how you play. But I think the downside that is disappointing for me is I don't get on stage nearly as much as I used to when I started. So I feel like when I get booked somewhere, the first show I'll do for a weekend is not as sharp. And then afterwards, I fucked up at laughs a couple of weekends ago. Doing fine the whole set and then got into the closer the the 9 -eleven bit and there's a callback in there and I realized halfway through the joke that I didn't mention the part that's like the closing part and I was like fuck Mm -hmm ran through the joke. Anyways did the punchline dude and that plays really easy to get laughs. It was crickets. I was like fuck life's blanking its shins. I mean that's kind of my philosophy. I just like being on stage as much as possible. Even if I'm doing it to an empty room, maybe I'll just have a little manic episode. It'd be fun. Yeah. Or maybe I'll just talk to somebody. I'll just do something. Yeah. Yeah. So if your intention is set for that, then you just got to know that that's what you're doing. People are so obsessed with like, how'd I do? How'd I do? It's like, look at it. Look at it in perspective. What, what, what are you trying to get out of this? Cause if you go do like, Jokes that could be really good. No one's laughing like you might think they suck, but that's not the case. Yeah. that, yeah, that open mic will just make you feel bad about your jokes sometimes. Yeah. Or they'll crush somewhere like a club and they'll like, I have to get to this open mic to, to humble myself. Blah, blah. I was like, I don't, you don't have to. I do. Yeah. I went straight to the worst open mic right after. I was like, I went to the creek in the cave. Fucking ass. I didn't even get up. I was on the third page of the list, but I was there I had the full intention of doing terrible. Did you go to the mic that they do on Sundays at Creek? Yeah, we went to every mic we could. The heckle mic? Yeah, that's we didn't get up. We really - the banana phone? That's really wanted to do that. That's my favorite. That's my favorite mic I've ever been to. That was so good. Did you get up there? No, dude, Autumn pushed. He like, yeah, he pushed for me to get up there. There's another dude that used to live in Phoenix. lives in Vegas, but he was there too. And he got up there and crushed Ray Earl. And then... I get like they're like, all right, this is the last person and I was like, well not going up. So I left and I used to call my name after Dan. I was like, why'd you say that was the last one? And I would have definitely done it. You would have to great too. Cause a lot of people were getting up there and just being like crucified. They were just standing there on the mic just being, I saw some dude get roasted. Like they didn't stop. It was 10 minutes straight, dude. He just sat there on the stool. Like, I hate that. Say something, fight back. He couldn't, he couldn't bro. He couldn't cause he can't get your spot, bro. Everybody had something just being, being, being, He's just like he couldn't do they did because he looked like a nickelback band member and they just kept singing like that genre of music as Like changing the lyrics to be in a pedophile. my god, dude, he couldn't fucking so what's the setup for this? They set it up kind of like kill Tony you go up there's there's like a panel of people like their local comedians and they have a microphone and then there's you go up and you do a minute uninterrupted and then afterwards I they can start roasting and you can heckle from the audience. The audience is heckling. The audience has hella comics in it too. So it's not like, they're pretty clever. Like they're not idiots. Yeah, like I'm great at heckling when it's just me heckling. It's hard to even get your thing in cause someone's always, and if you say something that's dog shit, they'll boo you. I was trying to heckle, I was sitting there like, when do I? It was like jump rope. Yeah. You got to pick your spots. That's another weird skill that you probably don't need to develop. The heckler skill? Yeah, you don't. Unless it's for that specific occasion, which is like it's only that. Killing from it as a heckler is pretty funny though. yeah, dude. Yeah. Sometimes hecklers cook sometimes. Yeah. The others, I mean, there's always, it's always tough getting started in comedy because you're learning shit, but there's some people that do it for a long time and still fucking suck. And then like. They get up there and they just get their shit tossed at you. So funny, like, maybe you should look at doing something else. I don't know. How do you feel when you meet the 10 year comics that you feel are not very good at all? Man, I stay away from them. It's bad, juju? Yeah, dude, yeah. It's not in a disrespectful way, just like, I don't know, I just have, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of like staying away from the people that aren't gonna. be a benefit to me. Not in a way that I'm going to use them, but in a way that's like, there's no value here. You're just trying to suck up my time with some shit. And I fucking hate talking about comedy at open mics. Like, dude, I have a dude just coked down like, yeah, dude, I need to start doing this and this and this. I mean, what do you think? I was like, sounds like you got all the answers, bro. You figured it out. Maybe you should go do it then. I don't know. It's fucking, it's a lot of that. I don't know. It's more, I guess, Uneasy feeling for me to do an open mic like that then it would be to do like a club Mm -hmm, but they like the opposite like it's weird because it's still public speaking Which is a huge fear of a ton of people and so you got all these fucking introverted fucking weirdos I think it's a good idea to get a microphone in their hand start doing shit I don't know why they do it. I love open mics. I love watching psychos up there just having breakdowns. yeah, that's a lot. I like going to open mics. Yeah, they're so funny to me. They're great. There's a comedian here that the only time he's funny is when he like gets mad. And so like whenever I met a mic with him, I'll sit in the back and heckle him. And he starts like, who said that? Who said that? Shut the fuck up. And then he starts crushing. It's killing, absolutely killing. I'm like. Maybe he just needs you with him. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. He doesn't like that about himself too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing. He's like, that's not me. I don't want to do that. He's like Jekyll and Hyde. You should make him your opener. Just be a monster to him. That's another thing. Open mic 'ers maybe that separates them is like some are really funny. They just don't know why they're funny. They want you to laugh at the things they want you to laugh at, but they don't know why. People are laughing at them. There's no self -awareness self-awareness. I think is what all great comedians across the board have Mm -hmm. I would agree like you're able to see reality and fucking make it relatable We can know yourself talk about your flaws. It's like kind of a It's a philosophy type of thing too. I think the traveling thing we've been doing is helping me understand. Like you learn what you look like. yeah. Well you've been in it. You learn how you fit in to all these different scenes. You guys have been in it long enough now. Like yeah, there's a business side to it. Like learning the skill of like how to get booked while you're on the road is a really important skill. Learning how to keep your schedule full is super important. Like it's a whole other job. Like branding yourself, making sure you're staying booked, talking with people. It's like, that's why people have managers and agents at a certain point. But comedy is like probably the least. paying art like if you want to make money in the arts comedies probably not no you don't get you know none of us get in this for the money we each got paid $20 for a show we spent all of our money at Waffle House here today yeah yeah it goes quick man that sucks we slap that $20 bill down I did 15 minutes for that usually hit in and out afterwards yeah I lost everything from the whole tour yeah the tour the two three shows do you follow that one guy's page that just does like open mic memes. yes, Kurt. Kurt. Kurt Ryan comedy. He's great. Dude. He's a genius. It's like man it's such a such a niche though that not people aren't gonna get it but I find what other scenes is similar like DJing. DJs are similar. Musicians too. It's a similar kind of thing like the the things that go on amongst it and so funny dude. Mom dad, can you give me a ride to the open mic? I have a new joke about cum. I get this butt -eating joke out. It's an ass -eating joke. Right. They need it. Yeah, he asked me, he said one of the funniest things, when Adam Dominguez was on the podcast. yeah. Adam was like, if you had like a bitches be like, but would comics be like, I'm important. Yeah. And it was. I've seen that clip. That's my favorite clip you've ever produced. Really? That's a good clip. That's a good, yeah. I didn't, I didn't hit me till like later. How do you even catch it? Like Adam lost it. He's like, you've been around comedians enough. He's like, what, what is your, what if you had to say comedians as a general ally? I was like, well comedians be like, I'm important. And then Adam like try to gloss over it, but Adam was losing it. That was some good shit. Yeah, that was genius. That's my favorite clip. It's a good ass clip. Cause I, cause I don't do comedy. I mean, I've done open mice before and shit like that, but I don't like. actually do comedy but I've been a videographer for comedians like a lot. It's cool. Yeah so like I know comedy. Have you watched this show Baby Reindeer? Yeah. Dude so good. Yeah it was. I was fucked up. I binged it the whole yeah. I couldn't even have sex after that show. I would watch that show and I was like I'm not fucking today. I put my wine I was drinking wine my stomach started to hurt. I was probably drugged or something. I mean it's good for it's good for it's a good show for anybody but it's like it's especially as a Like you're like man you relate to a lot of the stuff in there and then it makes you mad It makes you like relieved at times makes you hate some people makes you love the the one person you love is the trans person Fucking great. It was good. So good. Did you see the lady that was the stalker do Piers Morgan? Mm -hmm. She did Piers Morgan The stalker from the show, the real stalker. Yeah. Something to watch. the real life stalker. The real life stalker did Pierce Morgan. Yeah. And like talked about how it was all bullshit or whatever. You could see how crazy she is when she talks about it. Just delusional. Yeah. It's scary. Like have you tried to open mic? Yeah. The idea of having an audience member follow you to every open mic, like, okay, it's not the worst. Right. She loves this. I think it also shows too, like, you know, did. people have shit that they're going through and you're like, why is this guy fucking like this? They was a reason. Yeah, you have no clue. So like always remembering to keep that in because we don't always do that. We just, we're all judgy, but like remembering that like, man, you don't know. Now I'm like, man, he definitely got touched. Yeah. You can tell this guy's having a breakdown. It's a little funny, but no. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. Comedy. For real, yeah, yeah, the open mic thing is a completely different set of comedy, but yeah, you have to You have to distance yourself. It's important and I think crucial to your development to start that way, especially if you don't have public speaking skills. And like, yeah, but you want to move away from that. I feel like I'm in the phase, I'm flickering out of it. Like I'm bashing my head against the open mic ceiling and I'm getting out every now and then. Well, you get, I truly believe that you are who you surround yourself with. So like if you're spending time at those environments all the time, you're not at a certain point, man, you have to break free from that because it's a... God, there's so dude, I can't even go to most open mice without drinking. yeah. I can't do it sober. It gives me a physical headache. Yeah. You have to drink. Yeah. We were talking about it. We were like, I can't even watch. It's hard for me to watch good comedy sometimes, but just to see bad comedies. Holy shit. It's like, give me a drink. I'm buying a bottle. It's gonna be in my trunk. It's gonna be in my car and I'm gonna take a lot of breaks. I'm gonna take laps. And I will get through this open mic. You're gonna see a different person every time I walk back into this bar. I'm excited now. This bar is killing. Part of my recovery and sobriety is stop going to open mics. Yeah, that'll help. Yeah, fucking, it's a necessary evil. Yeah, no, I have a fear. Like, so many people get stuck in the open mic phase. It is hard to get out. Like, it's like this bog that you just get stuck knee -dipping deep. Yeah, yeah, I don't ever remember having much fun. Yeah any of those when I was in Portland I wasn't drinking when I was doing comedy and I didn't talk to anybody I said I talked to you guys but that was about it you guys and Imani that was it and now I didn't talk to nobody I was like I get a feeling these people don't like me Just because of how I look maybe that's me being you know sensitive, but I kind of felt that way They do hate some people. I try to like everybody I try to be nice to everybody and just do these goddamn open mic. I'm just gonna do everything I just want to do everything I'm do every show right I want you to not like me because of something else other than what I look like yeah, you know Wow, that's not fair. Yeah, you really understand black people don't you? You have a deep empathy. Yeah, that's beautiful Hahaha! Outlaw of all. Yeah, he is an ally. So where else are you? Were you guys traveling to? We're on our way We're gonna do two open mics after this and then I got a show at the laugh Factory tomorrow in LA. How'd you get on that? I ran my open mic in LA comic I just every time visiting comics go to my open mic. I just bump them up to the top Yeah, and then it just pays off later. He's a really cool guy. Yeah, that's a big benefit of produce I've never produced a show but hosting a show or a mic is always like you see producers book each other all the time I'm necessarily a fan of that because a lot of times not out of talent or anything. It's just like... But it is a big benefit. It is. I was like, it was like months ago. I was like, because I have my open mics pretty poppin. I probably have the better one. It's fun. We get an audience. It's not like, like I work hard to promote it and make it feel like a show and I run it like a show. I host it. Like I hate a sad open mic host. Yeah. Yeah. Like I try, I'll do this like three hours long and I maintain the energy the whole time. And I do that. And I'd like, so if visiting comics come up, you're getting bumped up. And yeah, he did it when he saw I was going to LA, hit me up, put me on it. That's good, dude. And then Juan's got a show in Sacramento the day after that. And then we're going to go. We have like a run of shows to finish it out. Yeah, I saw you. So just California's left? Yeah. Make a run through California and then we're home. He's doing that show with Eric, my roommate. yeah. Yeah, pretty exciting. Spanglish? Spanglish. Yeah. Yeah. Dope. Are you the one white guy on there? Yeah. There he is. At first I was like, shit, do they think I'm Mexican? dude. It's gray being like the one white guy. It's the facial hair. It is. It is. I started going through the posters. I was looking for white guys on all the posters. I swear to God. You don't have to bring people either. I brought these two. Okay. Yeah, there you go. I got three people coming. I've done that one. I've cause that's super LA thing is most shows, especially the clubs. You got to bring people. The first thing I was you asked me, do you bring anybody that always always man? yeah. Like when I've made trips down there, brought other comedians, like it works. That's not even got my three. Yeah, I did get my three. They're all comics, but they're great. They'll laugh. Yeah. LA is fuck. I hate LA so much. It's just that same reason I don't like Portland or Austin, just because it's dirty. It's very, Portland is not necessarily like, well it is because if you look at it from the economical standpoint, there's one comedy club. And then how much stage time can you get in that city? At the club as a local? You're not getting that any almost. You're not getting booked, bro. No. No. No. That's why I even put my open mic on the same day as the helium open mic, because it's like, I'm not going to bake them. So in a sense, it's kind of like that in those cities where it's like, yeah, you're not getting on. Yeah. There is a process that you can get through though. Like you can go to the Laugh Factory. I've done it a couple of times. where you stand in line and you can get on their open mic and you can do two minutes of G -rated material. That's funny. And the one person that they choose gets to move on to the next round of auditions. And you get to do six minutes. And if you pass that, then you can be a regular. So at least that's a fair way to do it. They might already know who they're picking, maybe. But at least you get that chance. It was funny because. You don't understand how hard it is to do clean comedy if you've never I started doing comedy writing clean even if they're fucked up jobs Always there's no cuss words or anything, but it is hard though. You get paid more. Yeah, and have you done any corporate shows? No, I've done church shows though. Yeah church show. Mm -hmm Wow, that was paid. I even think you were able to walk in those Thought he burst into flame. Yeah, I implied it I got a Bible verse on my shirt It wasn't Jesus was like a gangster though. He was he had a gang of disciples. Yeah, you know, don't get it twisted. Yeah, you know, but You have done some church shows a couple times you went to him. You know that one time. That's dope. It was interesting. Yeah, there's no alcohol. There's like really interesting looking running around. Yeah But damn, they pay better than most clubs. Of course they do. Yeah. With the club faith, I see the clubs coming. I think I want to do a run of this. I want to do bars and little venues all across America for like a year and just like literally build a little fan base out of these rowdy rooms, shake hands and just learn to kill killing in silence, killing when no one watches. You know, I think that's cool. And then by the time I get to these clubs, I'm amazing. That's what I want. Like I want to kill in these little places. Yeah. You want to do a Ty Rivera talk about doing that. He's to do shit like that. just go into these little bars, because you could say whatever. Yeah. And I want to book my own. I think I want to be like my own manager for a little bit, call these places and convince them like me and my friends are coming through, we can put on a one night show in your little like 5 ,000 people town. Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest things I learned from comedy as far as like producing shows and stuff like that. The producer gets paid the money. Yeah. He just bring the people. Yeah. And like you just say, I'm running an open mic or I'm running a show like this. It's like you get to do the money. Everybody else is just for stage time. Yeah, and it's just like you can make a lot of money like that. Yeah I think I think me and my buddies can do that. yeah. This is little towns like Beaver Nothing like nothing else going on. Yeah, that's that's kind of why laughs and Tucson does so well It's just like because there's nothing else. Yeah, yeah little towns are and it's even in Oregon like once you get out of the metro area There's a lot of there's a lot like a red bin band Yeah, even I'm doing a show in Eugene July But it's like a smaller Portland. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah. But yeah, well, there's like the countryside too. Redmond and Bend are kind of like, I guess Redmond's a little more, but Bend is like another Portland as well. Redmond is not. No. Hell. And then like Madras, if you want to get out to school. Yeah, you start seeing cowboy hats. It's different. It's cool. Yeah, yeah. It's like what maybe somebody that doesn't live in the West Coast or has been there would think of Oregon as. It's like you'd think of Arizona as like Tucson's really the more real Arizona. Yeah. And then, yeah, I've done some shows in some small towns here too. It's the same thing. Yeah, there's nothing else to do, so they pack out. Yeah, it's cool. It's weird. I've never lived in a small town like imagine living three hours from an airport. I'm not doing that shit. Never wanted to do that. Did you guys drive from Portland or did you fly here and get a rental? We drove from Portland. Really? We drove all the way down to California, through Arizona, through New Mexico, to Texas. You should try... Got the American experience. It was. So, I was going to say, another good one to try if you can get on, if you go back through Salt Lake, is the Wise Guys. You just got to email them, tell them you're a traveling comedian, and you're passing through. We'll hit them up. We want to do a second loop, going through like, you know, the mountainous whites up here. That's what I, when I moved here, I did... My halfway point was Salt Lake City and I emailed them and got on there. That's a great club, Salt Lake. The Wise Guys, phenomenal club. The one in Vegas is cool too, but the one in Salt Lake is dope. Yeah, I want to spend a lot of time in Vegas too. I like the clubs. Have you done shows where the club has actual clock instead of just the light? Yeah, we've seen a couple of clubs. Savage Henry and Eureka has that. There's another place. Mothership has it. Yeah, that's nice to have that. Yeah. Okay. A couple open mics for the boys. Gatsby, where are we at on time? We're close to an hour. You guys got somewhere to be at like seven or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's six on nine, so I don't know. Yeah, that'll be time for us to go. Yeah. Yeah, appreciate you having me on. Yeah, dude. It's good to see you. Stopping by, catching you on this leg of the tour. Yeah, no, we're glad to do it. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, I'll make sure I put all your stuff in the show notes and we'll have clips and stuff, so come out. That's it. We're done. Here we go. People know what's happening. Thank you. This episode of the Funny Truth podcast, my guest is comedian Lucas Cop. Lucas is someone that I met when I first started doing comedy in Portland, Oregon, which is where we're both from. And he's been traveling all around the West coast and he just got done with his Kill Tony set the night before and said, Hey, I'm going to be in Phoenix today. And I said, Hey, want to be on the podcast? Literally the day before he was on Kill Tony, chosen out of the bucket. And turns out he had a pretty good set. He got the big joke book. And if you're not familiar with Kill Tony, getting a big joke book is best thing you can get other than a golden ticket. So that episode with Lucas should be dropping soon. maybe in the next week or two from the release date of this podcast. And I really enjoyed having Lucas song. We talked about Portland. We talked about just comedy, different comedy scenes and kind of what he's been up to recently. Please remember to subscribe to the funny truth podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review. Hope you guys enjoy this episode. This is the funny truth podcast and I'm Adam J. That is the funny truth.