NYCF: Interview with Brian Regan, "The ______ of Stand-Up"

The comedy of Brian Regan may be deceptively simple, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been noticed by legions of comedy fans, as well as a good number of comedians. For instance, a healthy portion of the up-and-coming comedians who performed at Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham" named Brian as one of their main influences. And only a couple months ago as reported here on the Insider, comedian Patton Oswalt wrote an adoring and eloquent post on his Myspace blog about Brian Regan. "BECOME AN EXCELLENT COMEDIAN IN JUST ONE HOUR" the post is titled.

Brian performed Sunday night at Lincoln Center as part of the final evening of the New York Comedy Festival. Brian's brother Dennis got the crowd going with his own stand-up routine, featuring bits about Payless Shoes (the store which, by midday, looks "like the Three Stooges had a shoe fight"), the appropriately-named Country Crock and a Civil War-era style letter written in the present day.

He then brought on Brian, mentioning that his brother recently had his 20th appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.

For someone who claimed his goal was "trying to get through life without looking stupid," he had no shortage of topics. After opening by brushing on well-known New York metropolitan cultural activities — parties, art, the ballet — he continued to turn the mundane into comedy gold: watching an episode of NOVA on the topic of String Theory ("I started watching at 8:00. At 8:03 my brain exploded."), writing jokes while on steroids, the interminable stories of lottery ticket buyers and whether or not lobsters are aware of how delicious they are.

After performing for just over an hour, Brian left and then came back out on stage for an all-request encore featuring some favorite routines the crowd bombarded him with, including "Pop Tarts" and "Show Horses."

Brian sat down for a post-show interview with us backstage at Avery Fisher Hall, where he was humble, gracious and, of course, funny.

Here is the interview, complete with Brian's stream-of-consciousness tangents in parentheses:

Comedy Central Insider: There were a lot of requests at the end.

Brian Regan: Yeah, I go out front at the beginning and I hand out little slips of paper: "Here — you yell this, you yell this…" No, it's very flattering that's for sure.

CC Insider: Do you get that a lot?

BR: Well, since I started doing these one-night theater things, there's an opportunity to go back out after the show and it's just become a thing. When I was doing comedy clubs it was over and done: old is old, you never do 'em again. And now, they're still fun to do but I like to make a clear delineation between my regular act and stuff that's… old.

CC Insider: You were on a Comedy Central tour for over a year?

BR: It was about a two-year thing and they were very supportive. It was Comedy Central Presents "Me." (I should know what my name is… Do some research, you can plug that part in… I know the Comedy Central part, the name I'm not that good with…) Yeah, it was very flattering and they also promo'd me on the network and the web page and they took ads out in local markets and stuff like that, so it was very good.

CC Insider: But you're on the road a lot normally?

BR: Yeah. It's weird because bands go out for three months or four months but comedians go out and tour and they never go home again — they're on tour forever. I've been out a long time. But I actually do every other week [now] because I've got a wife and kids at home. I would go out on the road and come home and my wife goes, "Your son knows how to juggle," and I'm like, "I missed that — really?" I'm home more than I'm away — I've got to prioritize.

CC Insider: You live in Las Vegas — do you play there a lot?

BR: No. Maybe I'm not the brightest guy, but I don't like to work where I live. It'd be an easier commute if I did. (The ultimate commute: I have to take a car in traffic to the airport, fly to another city, get out, get in a car, go through more traffic and that's where I work. You mean people work like, crosstown? I should look into that…)

I used to work in Las Vegas before I lived there, but now that I live there I don't like to. I like to separate.

CC Insider: So there's no possibility of a Celine Dion or Prince-style extended run?

BR: Maybe at some point. I do think about that down the road. Right now, I love going to all these different cities. But who knows, maybe if ten years down the road there might be something where I'm like: "I'm feeble, my hips hurt." I don't want to go across the country any more. But I'm not feeble yet.

CC Insider: Did you see what Patton Oswalt wrote on his blog about you?

BR: I had come across that, and I was absolutely blown away. Incredibly flattered. I know this is going to sound corny, but to get that from another comedian, it brought tears to my eyes when I read it. I was like "Wow man," somebody that you respect. Anybody in the industry — if they happen to like what I do — it's just… wow. It meant a lot to me and I called him personally to thank him.

CC Insider: Do you ever worry about running out of material?

BR: That was it — tonight's show was it. I came to a brick wall at the end and there's no more… Nah, I don't worry about that so much, but I do think about the kind of material that I do, because it always changes. I find myself wanting to do a different kind of comedy, and it's beginning to work its way into my act — like the sandwich joke… "Top Ten Sandwiches." I want to do the kind of comedy apparently that audiences don't understand. [Brian told a new joke about posting a list of his Top Ten Sandwiches on a tree, which was met coolly by the audience.]

I want it to be where there's a joke and then audience has to have a thought and then they laugh. I like what I do now, I'm proud of it, but if you're not growing you may as well just get off whatever you're doing. I love what I do and hopefully everything just keeps changing a little bit.

CC Insider: Do you find stand-up to be the form you're most comfortable in or do you want to try other forms besides stand-up: writing, television, etc.?

BR: Maybe writing and maybe TV, I just haven't hit on exactly the exact right opportunity yet, but I want it to be… if it is a TV show I want it to be about my comedy. I'm not really interested in being some guy in a sitcom or something like that… I want it to be about my comedy, I want to be one of the people sitting around at a table going "let's do this, let's do that." Otherwise, I'm not really interested in somebody just saying, "Here's your lines, go memorize them you know." That would be cool for some people but not something that really jazzes me… until somebody tells me how much money they make. "How much? I can memorize! I can memorize words!"

CC Insider: Do you ever have a joke where the delivery is crucial to the joke, or do you find the joke tells itself?

BR: Most of my jokes are actually vignettes, they're a brief set-up and then it's usually two characters — they're like little plays that last about a minute long. I probably shouldn't say this, but the reality is I'm just the world's laziest playwright. I can't write a play that last longer than a minute — I don't know how to cast the other actors so I play both parts, and I string all these little plays together and I call it a comedy show. I've got the ultimate scam going. I don't think I even know if I realized that until I tried to start scripting my stuff — oh there's me as a character and then there's the other character. Sometimes the other character is an exaggerated version of me, maybe I'm feeling uncomfortable or awkward, but it's like a little play.

CC Insider: Fill this in: Brian Regan is the (blank) of stand-up.

BR: I think "blank" is the perfect word. That should be what the next tour is called: "The Blank of Stand-Up: Coming to a Theater Near You."

I don't want to say anything self-serving or pat myself on the back anyway, so… no response. Great question, lousy answer.