Stand-up comedian Robert Kelly covered a lot of ground in Part I of our interview. Part II is just as funny and informative, and a lot dirtier.
Enjoy the interview(s), go see Kelly at Raleigh’s Goodnights Comedy Club this week and don’t forget The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes at the end.
Tony Castleberry: Your comedy is partially described as “abrasive yet vulnerable” on your website. Do you think that description fits you off stage as well?
RK: Yeah, absolutely. I like to be honest and that word, vulnerable…I come from Boston, Massachusetts. I grew up with five uncles, Irish-Catholic. Every guy was alpha-alpha. I try to be as vulnerable as I can on stage and talk about stuff that maybe a guy like me wouldn’t (normally) talk about.
Now, it’s so many comics, so many comedy clubs, so much saturation in this business. You have to go deeper. The only way to set yourself apart is to go deeper. I’m not the greatest writer in the world. I don’t sit down like Seinfeld for five hours a day and write stuff out and I don’t have a team of people watching me do sets like some of these assholes have. I try to say stuff and people come up to me, “Is that true?” Yeah, it’s true. It happened. Can I swear on this thing?
TC: Yeah.
RK: I can be dirty on this too, right?
TC: Totally. Go for it.
RK: I have a new joke that I’m working on about how when I was young, I used to love getting my ass eaten. [interviewer laughs] As soon as I say that, some of the guys in the audience are like, (in a tough guy voice), “What are you talking about? What are you, gay?” No. If you don’t get your butt licked in your life, you’re gay. That’s gay to me. That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not saying you have to get into it as much as I did, but I’m saying you should at least try it.
I remember I touched a guy gently, by accident, a bouncer in front of a club. The back of my hand touched his (genitals). Every guy has touched a guy gently, by accident. Your hand, your knee, you’re in a canoe. [Kelly, interviewer laugh] And when it happens, you get fucked up. You’re like, “Oh no, he’s gonna think I wanna blow him.” You’re panicking and you say sorry and he’s denying it, but it’s like, “So what? I just touched you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fuck you! You know what I’m talking about! You felt it!”
Then you’re just making out in a canoe.
TC: I like this canoe scenario.
RK: [laughs] It’s funny because everybody’s been in a canoe. It’s very small quarters.
I love my wife. I’m a dad. I’ve got a 3 year old, but when you bring up that shit, I love it because guys are immediately like, “What the fuck?” but by the end of the joke they’re like, “I get you, you piece of shit.”
TC: I’ve interviewed Gary Gulman a couple of times. I interviewed (Dave) Attell, people who have been in it for a long time like you, and they get off on doing stuff where the audience thinks you’re going right, and you go left. Don’t you enjoy that?
RK: I do. As soon as I walk on stage with my accent and bald head and my torso, people who don’t know me are sizing me up and assuming what I’m gonna talk about. So when you start talking about stuff like that, the women are like, “Oh my god, he’s not so bad” and the guys are like, “Ah, this fuckin’ guy.” You know what I mean? I think it’s good to throw them a curveball in your act. I’m not saying your whole act has to be “Oh my god, I didn’t know he was gonna say that” but some of it, absolutely you have to do that.
Some guys just go up and they are what they are. That’s what you get. It’s almost like a character they’re doing. If you’re really being you…there’s different music that you like. Different things have happened to you. You have different points of view on different topics. I think it’s your job as a comic to go up there and express those things so that people can be surprised when they see you.
Right now, comedy, a lot of it is the same shit. It’s a setup-punch(line)-tag. Get five topics and you can get any comic to sit there, give him two hours, and he’ll come up with five jokes and I’ll guarantee you they’re all gonna be the same fucking joke. It’ll be the same thing, kind of, in a different way and you’re gonna laugh. You’re not gonna know any better. … But if one of those guys added some personal shit to it, you’d go, “Oh, that is different.”
I love when people talk about their lives. Gary Gulman is the perfect example of a joke writer who will squeeze every ounce out of a joke. He’ll take you on a 10-minute ride and you went to 20 different places. Gary Gulman’s act is like riding the bus. It’s not, “Hey, we’re starting in New York and going right to Boston.” You’re gonna stop in Hartford, Connecticut. You’re gonna stop in Westbury. You’re gonna stop in Newton. You’re gonna stop in a million different places along the way to Boston, and by the time you get to Boston, you’re like, “What the fuck was that?” [interviewer laughs]
Attell, you just don’t know what the hell is going to come out of his mouth. You have no idea. He’s constantly writing. You know his style, but you don’t know his take on things.
TC: The first time I saw Gulman, he got on stage and said, “I’m gonna tell you two stories tonight” and he did an hour and 10 minutes telling two stories with a thousand jokes worked in there. It was brilliant. Making it personal or doing it differently resonates more, you know?
RK: I’m in the middle of my new hour now. I have my old hour on Netflix and with this new hour, I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna try to stay away from the weight stuff,” but all of a sudden, my life is full of fat, chubby people shit and I’m like, “I can’t.” It’s my life and shit happens and that’s just the way it is. I think I have 20 minutes on kids. The last album, it was about having a kid. Now, it’s about being a dad and being a husband. It’s where you’re at in your life. I think comedy should be almost a history of where you’re at right now and you should make that relatable from a 15 year old to an 80 year old. That’s the sign of a good comic, when every race and everybody in between age wise is getting what the fuck you’re doing.
TC: Have crowds seemed different since Trump was elected?
RK: I’ve noticed a difference in crowds in the last couple of years to be honest with you. I’m not really a political guy. I have a 3 year old. I never had a dad so I could give a shit who the president is. I’m trying not to hit or yell at a 3 year old. [interviewer laughs] If you told me John Goodman became president, I’d be like, “Good.” I have a wife that literally wants nothing to do with me sexually right now and I don’t blame her. I have a dead toenail. I’d want nothing to do with me either.
When I go on stage, yes, (the crowd is) a little more PC, but it depends on where you are. … If you’re talking about right wing stuff, the liberals should laugh at your shit because it’s funny. If you’re talking about liberal, left wing stuff, the right wing should laugh at your shit if it’s funny. Funny’s funny. It doesn’t matter. You can say stuff and everybody should kind of get it. Sure, there are going to be the lunatics that treat politics like religion, but you can’t do anything about that.
It’s too saturated. It used to be the one comedy club in each state and that’s where you had to go. Now, there’s fucking 17 shows in one town, Monday through Friday. “We’re going down to the Lickey Spoon. It’s a diner and there’s eight seats, but there’s a show there. You tell a story, but you have to wear a hat that represents…” What happened to stand-up?!? Why is stand-up no good anymore? Because there’s a million people doing it. There’s a 14 year old doing stand-up on weekends.
You gotta make ‘em laugh. Funny always wins. It doesn’t matter what crowd is there. Dude, I’ve walked into situations where I’ve been like, “These people are gonna hate me.” Literally every head in the crowd is gray and I’m like, “I’m dead” and they loved me. I didn’t change anything. I don’t have a B plan. I don’t have another set I can do. I don’t have the 20-minute cruise ship set for when the kids are there. I have what the fuck I say, and that’s it.
I just did a show in Florida, and there’s three guys in front of me that are used to doing clean sets, and they kill. They crushed and it was fine, but I’ve gotta go up with my horrendous shit. My first joke is about wanting my friend’s kids dead, because they’re sucky kids.
TC: [laughs] What an opener!
RK: It took me a couple of minutes, but all of sudden, I look over and I’ve got that old lady. Now, I’ve got you. You assholes are actually living in reality right now. I got you over to thinking about your own life and how much you do hate your friends and your family and how much they suck. How your friends bring their creepy kid over and that dumb little son of a bitch twat sits in your chair. She’s a 7 year old. She has no respect. I went and bought that chair and had it reupholstered! That’s my chair! I sit in it. Get the fuck up outta the chair, you son of a bitch! Your dumb parents don’t say anything.
So, anyway, (the crowd is) on my side at the end of it. If you get offended at a comedy show, good. You should be like, “Fuck him,” but don’t take yourself too serious. It’s about comedy.
Here it is, The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes:
I don't have kids, but I do have to ask my chocolate lab what's in her mouth about every 5 seconds.
— Spence
