Photo credit: Paris Visone
Matt Kona, the current Comic-in-Residence at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, does shows all over the city and runs a podcast called “Comics Coming Up.”
He also has a beard.
How did you get started doing standup comedy?
I started comedy after being on tour with the band Foreign Objects and meeting England’s The Shitty Limits on the road for a few shows and trying to make them laugh. It worked and then I was writing some jokes/premises/ideas on the road home. That was a Tuesday and there was an open mike at the Middle East that night so I committed to going. That was August 4th, 2009.
I have made it a point to get on stage as much as possible and try for at least 7 times a week.
There’s not always something that I can get on Friday or Saturday so I try to make up with that by hitting up multiple open mikes to even it out, but I don’t always double up. I did 454 sets in 2010 and one thing it taught me was to work “smarter not harder” to borrow a cliché.
So what’s with the beard? Why do you keep it that way?
I’ve thought about taming it. And I could trim it. Like, I have to move it aside to zip my jacket. I like having the beard, not just for the “being homeless” joke, but I don’t like to shave. I feel like people with beards in standup get a bad rap, like, “Oh you’re one of those alt-y beard-y guys.”
No, dude. I just have a beard. I tell regular jokes.
I also like it because it helps me stand out a little bit more because there’s already so many white guys who do standup anyway. I went through long stretches of not telling the homeless joke but it’s kind of doing me a disservice because once I bring it up, and it’s usually the first thing out of my mouth, people are set at ease because they’re thinking about it. So if I’m just up there talking about dating or something they’re kind of like “Eh, this guy, this guy has got to say something about this.”
What does your “homeless joke” entail?
This joke was the first breakthrough moment for me in standup.
The hook of the joke is that this homeless guy starts yelling on the T about how he has to go to Cohasset Beach because that’s where the Kennedys went. The homeless guy was singing, “They shot him down, they shot him down in California!” And I was silent because I was on the train. And he yelled out about how John F. Kennedy was assassinated in California, and I reply, “No! It was in Dallas!” and then everyone looked at me and then I realized that I looked like a crazy homeless guy yelling at another crazy homeless guy. And I don’t tell it in the joke because it’s anticlimactic but he says, “Oh, that’s right, it was in Dallas.”
It was one of my comedic eureka moments.
Are you an extrovert or an introvert?
Before I started doing comedy I was a little bit more introverted. I mean the Internet is great—if we were having a conversation, and you asked me a question, and I paused for four minutes, and then responded? It would be pretty awkward. But online you can be like, “Oh I was just doing something, I was making some photocopies…”
Based on the material I’ve seen, standup comedians seem to suck at dating and relationships. Where do you fall on that spectrum?
I don’t think I’m terrible at dating but I do think that standup comedy has taken a front seat to dating in terms of if I do date a girl she’ll have to know that this comes first, kind of? Not in a way where I’ll be neglected, I’ll neglect you, or be a dick.
It’s more of a “This is what I do, this is what I have to do to keep myself sane.”
And I don’t mind taking a night off to go out on a date and to be whatever but I’m actively trying to be somewhere else on a Friday or Saturday which is an official date night. Those are the nights I’m striving for to be busy. I think Monday would be the best date night because that’s the night that comedy is the hardest for me. I can always find something but it’s never anything great. It’s funny when people think of comedy as a way to meet girls or something. And I guess it makes sense if you’re a traditionally handsome, confident guy and you’re working on the weekends where single girls might go out and strike up a conversation. Since I’ve been doing comedy I’ve had short relationships with girls and some of them were more tumultuous than others and some were just never really a thing.
MATT KONA
EVERY TUE-SUN IN NOVEMBER
THE COMEDY STUDIO
1238 MASS. AVE.
CAMBRIDGE
8PM/18+/$8-$12
@MATTKONA
THECOMEDYSTUDIO.COM