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  • I'd like to invite my good friend Ron Funches in to talk about his first set on our show.

  • Hi, Rod.

  • I J p.

  • I like that you're podcasting.

  • Voice is slightly different from your regular voice.

  • Really?

  • This is how you think I'm putting on putting on airs.

  • You're putting on here because you're not completely comfortable yet.

  • This is like Episode six.

  • Give me some time.

  • I am.

  • I'm telling you what I hear.

  • I'm giving you all the time in the world.

  • You watch Queen Latifah's first episode of Fresh Prince.

  • That is not her voice.

  • Then you watch living single.

  • She's more comfortable.

  • And then you get to Chicago when it's just off the charts.

  • She Yeah, she is fully realized.

  • A lot of work goes into a short late night state upset.

  • Join me, J.

  • P.

  • Buck.

  • As I spotlight the comedians who came up with some of my favorite coin sets, this'd is a set up.

  • Please welcome the very funny Ron Funches.

  • Would you say your voice has changed since this debut?

  • I think I'm more confident and calmer and myself and have more of a I'm a better performer now than I was then.

  • That just seems natural to be true.

  • You would hope so.

  • I would hope so.

  • Chicago is an extremely rough place to grow up in, especially if you're the Onley brother on the block.

  • That's in the bump in Atlantis.

  • Morrissette.

  • So you auto know I moved toe Oregon.

  • One thing I really like when I watched it was that I was always telling a truth about myself.

  • Like, I think that's something that I love to do in my comedy.

  • I don't really like to, like lie unless I unless it's fun to me.

  • I generally like to tell what my real life is about, and sometimes you don't do that when you're scared.

  • You have really become so much more able to use the various tools of your voice and your rhythms and the toe nation, and it really does give you a bigger toolbox.

  • Well, when you're on stage, no, absolutely.

  • Just learn to be more you.

  • You know that?

  • That's I think the biggest lesson I've learned through everything is not like to try to amass this outside knowledge as if it's, you know it's all within me.

  • It's more unlocking who I truly am through through life experience to experience on stage to just gaining more confidence in putting myself outside my comfort zone.

  • Right now, you know, I'm taking a lot of singing lessons because I wanna do a Christmas show and I want to sing a couple Christmas songs and I don't wanna be bad at it.

  • So, um, and I just love singing.

  • I sing around the house all the time, but I never do.

  • And I don't plan to be like, Oh, throw it in my act.

  • But like, if I can have a new tool set that like people don't even know I have, it's really fun.

  • Remember that the second guessed was a kid from, Ah, horror movie Andi that he hey was really cute, but he didn't seem to have any stories at all.

  • And so I was like I was backstage freaking out, going like this kid bombing it for me.

  • A.

  • He's digging a hole.

  • You're not alone.

  • I can't tell you how many comics I've had to talk off ledges.

  • One of the things about my stand up is that is kind of different enough and kind of personal enough that, like anytime I follow anyone is kind of like a reset.

  • So I have to, like, just reset the room temperature to what I need and what I'm about.

  • So in that way, you Noah's long as it's not, like hate speech or something like it.

  • I can kind of follow anything.

  • You making your debut?

  • I figured.

  • Okay, there's gotta be some motivational, you know, support I could give.

  • I could provide Tehran.

  • And so I remember clearly in my mind and these the words that came back to bite and I had to change my advice after this.

  • So this is 2011.

  • I'm walking to the stage with Ron Funches in my last 2 to 3 words Where take your time and Ron, I take my 66 a half minutes later, you're finished with your five minutes set.

  • Yeah, that's only a minute and a half over.

  • That's not too much longer.

  • Very unprofessional in our business.

  • That mean that like you go 55 minutes, 10 seconds.

  • Five minutes, 20 seconds.

  • Five minutes, 30 seconds maybe, but a whole minute.

  • And then another half a minute over.

  • I was concerned that I was going to get some things cut out.

  • However, I was keenly aware that I had crushed it so well, They're not gonna be too mad way.

  • Always have a post meeting where the producers and the writers and Conan all come together.

  • We discuss what things get pulled or what Things worked, and we sort of make a little tight little.

  • And it's like, you know, we usually about a minute or two, most out of a show.

  • Uh, so they all look at me, They're like, Well, the comic would have been a half long and I'm sitting there like, Okay, what?

  • How do you respond and then all I mean, before I even had a chance.

  • Conan said, You're not touching that set.

  • He goes pulling my monologue jokes.

  • I mean, you could just cut that kid that kids interview, really, of how I felt about it.

  • If you it's always someone that tries to make you feel bad about what you enjoy, I call these people my parents alone.

  • We have a weird relationship.

  • I kind of treat them like a Wal Mart, which I'll explain.

  • It means I really don't like going to them for anything.

  • I'd prefer it if they stay out of my town.

  • But I get a strange satisfaction from stealing from them.

  • E mostly because they believe I need a really job.

  • I like this job because it was just completely again when things I love when I watched my comedy is that is true, like all of it is so 100% true.

  • Like they didn't like that I was a comedian.

  • They didn't.

  • You know, the main sentence I heard every week was like, You need to know how the real world works.

  • You need to figure out how the real world works.

  • You don't know what you're you're destroying your life of your family.

  • And and I hated Walmarts very much.

  • Still, still do.

  • If you ever get an interview, they always want to know so much about you like the soundtrack of your life or what type of tree you would be.

  • And I'm a Bonzai.

  • But that's my damn business.

  • It's so silly and fun, but also that it paints a picture that's true.

  • This delicate little tree that needs a lot of maintenance needs a lot, also needs a lot of maintenance and care and love, like bond size.

  • Don't grow this in the wild.

  • Yeah, and you can see it in my hair.

  • And my my style at the time were like he needs some pruning and some taking care of.

  • And if you get past that, there's a drug test that's never fair.

  • One time they tried to give me a mouth swab drug test, which is where they take a piece of cotton.

  • Run the inside of your cheek to get your DNA, and that's how they find out what you like to do that against everything I believe in, because there's no way I'm gonna let you take something that you made my people pick 200 years ago and then turn around to use it to deny me a job.

  • You've built up to this because I think what's what's nice?

  • They don't see this coming.

  • There's social commentary in this joke that you haven't done up into this point.

  • Really, This joke, the Walmart joke.

  • There's a lot of like anti.

  • Um, I guess I wouldn't say necessary truly anti capitalism, but just more humanistic, I guess just seeing some of the negative and in the in the structure of things and the structure of the things that that had to do to get a job in order to get a job that I did not want in order to try to take care of my son.

  • You know, like, I don't mean.

  • I think this may be a little bit ego again there, but I just like I don't even want this.

  • I don't even want this.

  • I'm trying to do this, to be responsible, and you're throwing up every barrier.

  • Would you still from us if you saw someone stealing?

  • Would you snitch or would you not snitch?

  • And what type of tree would you be?

  • I like these were like the rial questions on this thing Where the designer where they're gonna give me a job.

  • I was like, What does this have to do with anything?

  • You know?

  • Just give me the job or not?

  • E knew that's how you treated your employees.

  • I would have never have taken the time to duct tape This Cheetos backfilling your into my leg, right?

  • That was a waste of mine and my son's day.

  • What I love is this You make your point here, and you then move on like you're not hitting them over the head with it.

  • You make it, you move on.

  • And then you you have this fun, really silly, illuminating tag that tops everything.

  • But have you ever not done the type of a joke ever existed before without it?

  • No.

  • No, that this joke was originally just a semi true story about how I had Thio use my son's paid toe get this job at Wachovia Bank.

  • So that part was always the end of it.

  • Um, if anything, I think the cotton picking thing came in a little bit later.

  • And originally I was kind of afraid to do it because I thought it was a little bit base level commentary as faras like, um, like, to me, that's easy to get to.

  • But then when I said it every time I said that people sometimes people would grown.

  • But every time it got a reaction, So I was like, Oh, there's like, there's something here What I love about seeing you to come together.

  • It's the first time he's met you.

  • It's almost like a when Harry met Sally because he loves you so much like it's like a little bit of a romance comedy.

  • It's nice in that moment when it first started the best moment of that set that I remember like Aiken almost travel back in time to that moment, was doing a joke and then hearing the audience laugh and then just hearing on my right ear Conan laugh.

  • And I was like, Okay, I'm good at comedy If I could make him laugh, I'm good at this job.

  • I don't think I would be the comedian.

  • Then I am.

  • If if it wasn't further work that you guys have done, you guys, um, kind of let me know like you are at least showed me a way to just do weird fun comedy.

  • Um, that doesn't necessarily pick on.

  • People are try to be like or doesn't like.

  • Try to be in the zeitgeist all the time, doesn't try to be so political.

  • And so like, what does everyone else talking about?

  • Like you guys kind of do your own thing, and that's something that I've always gravitated towards.

  • Someone told me, Don't be happy to be here.

  • Don't think about all the people who said who excited for you to be here who said, Oh, you made it.

  • We knew you would made it.

  • Think about all the people who told you you would never get here and show them wrong and show them why they were wrong and that really help.

  • Help me out a lot.

  • You were talking about getting into that sort of Zen place sometimes before a big set, doing my mantra, which is which is that is not from me or within me that these abilities flow but through me that I need to go out there and just work within the best of my abilities that I will make mistake's.

  • And I need to just under go with that and lean into it and go out there and have fun.

  • That's that's pretty much well, thanks, but I really appreciate this.