RALEIGH, N.C. — At this point, Ryan Brown might be best described as a New York City comedian.
He’s been living and performing in NYC for almost four years, which is longer than many transplants make it there, and carving out a life in that city while pursuing your creative passion means you’ve earned the right to say you’re a New York comic if you’re so inclined.
However, Brown hasn’t forgotten his Raleigh roots and he’ll be back in his hometown this week to do shows at the
first-ever Oak City Comedy Festival, which started Tuesday and continues through Saturday at several venues in Raleigh.
Brown’s connection to the City of Oaks remains strong. He first did stand-up comedy at Raleigh’s Goodnights Comedy Club when he was 17 years old and was a fixture on the local scene before deciding to give it a go in New York City. He has returned to Raleigh for shows several times since the move and said during a Wednesday afternoon phone interview he is thrilled to perform at the festival.
We also discussed what he misses about home, how tough it was to get stage time after moving to New York, an unforgettable line in a joke I heard him tell years ago and more.
Enjoy the interview,
follow Brown on Twitter and don’t forget The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes at the end.
Tony Castleberry: You’re living in arguably the greatest city in the world, but do you miss anything about Raleigh?
Ryan Brown: Oh, definitely. I miss Goodnights for one. It’s just such a great club. I’m back there a lot performing still. I miss the food. I’m excited to go The Pit and get some good barbecue while I’m down there. I miss driving too. ... I didn’t think I would. I was all excited like, “Ah, I don’t have to worry about putting gas in it” and there’s supposed to be this sense of freedom that comes with getting rid of your car. There’s a little bit of that but, I don’t know, when you’re packed into the subway on your commute in the morning, you miss having that personal space where you can just put your music on and just kind of chill.
TC: Yeah, not to mention the fact that, I’ve been on New York subways and there are things you see there that you can’t unsee, Ryan, as I’m sure you know.
RB: That’s true although, I don’t know. That’s almost the good part.
TC: The entertainment part, right?
RB: Yeah. The bad part is you’re sometimes late getting where you need to be, but the redeeming factor is what you see (on the subway). It’s only $2.75 to swipe into the subway and you get a hell of a show for $2.75 sometimes.
TC: [laughs] Was it difficult to get stage time right after you made the move?
RB: It’s very difficult. That’s the hardest part of going from a smaller scene to a place like New York. I knew that I was going to be starting over in a sense, but you just can’t brace yourself enough for the difficulty of kind of starting from scratch again.
If I had moved from Raleigh to like, Atlanta, it’s still a small enough scene that if you show up and you’re fairly competent on stage, you’ll get to network a little bit and you’ll get on some shows.
In a place like New York, there are just so many comedians, and so many good comedians, that just being good isn’t really enough on its own. The networking side of it is so much more important. You can’t just show up at an open mic, have a decent set and then people are gonna ask you to be on their show. You’ve got to be a lot more proactive in a place like New York to try to carve out your niche and find places to get on stage.
TC: You’ve navigated that path and found some stage time and are doing shows regularly. How did you do it? Was it just a matter of continuing to work at it?
RB: You keep working at it and don’t be afraid to reach out to people, anybody that you even kind of know. It’s not like you hit them up, “Hey, is there anywhere you know I can get on stage?” You just try to form some relationships and if you know other comics that have some shows, if you can just tag along and get to know people. You just can’t be afraid to ask for things. That’s something Raleigh didn’t force me to do too much.
TC: Are you excited about coming back for the Oak City festival?
RB: I’m very excited. I’m doing The Dangling Loafer on Friday. I was on The Dangling Loafer back when it was still at Morning Times, the coffee shop, before it was even at King’s. It was really one of the first independent shows in Raleigh when Adam Cohen and Shane Smith started it. It’s really cool to watch that grow and I’ve since done it a bunch of times and a couple of times since it’s been at King’s. I’m really excited to be on that.
I’m actually not on any Goodnights shows for the festival, but I’ll definitely be hanging out there.
TC: There’s one line in a joke I heard you tell probably four or five years ago that I’ve never forgotten. The joke is about older folks looking down on younger people for always looking at their phones and never making eye contact. The line is “It wasn’t like there was an eye contact buffet 20 years ago” or something like that. Eye contact buffet is such a great phrase. Do you still tell that joke?
RB: [laughs] No, I haven’t done that in a while, but I remember it. Thanks, man! That’s one of those bits that I remember fondly. Over time, you just kind of rotate stuff out, but that’s awesome. I come at stand-up from a writing perspective. I love a nice turn of phrase and I love when people remember specific phrasing like that. There are specials I loved from comics that I watched coming up that have wording I’ll never forget.
TC: Absolutely and yeah, the eye contact buffet is still with me to this day.
Here it is, The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes:
