RSS
Home
What's a science comedian?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Brian Malow, science comedian
Recently, my friend Brian Malow, a comedian of many years, has begun performing at... non-traditional venues, for scientists! Brian will be at The Punch Line Comedy Club this Monday, August 11, at 8 pm.
I've been curious about how the science comedy has been going, so I asked him a few questions.
Dattner: Deep down, have you always been a science comedian?
Malow: I didn't always call myself a science comedian but, from the very beginning, my comedy was laced with science language and references. Not by design (intelligent or otherwise) - it just emerged naturally. And my favorite punchlines tended to be the ones with obscure science references that only my old high school friends would get. I discovered that I often did really well - and had the most fun - at private events for tech companies, when the audience was full of engineers and science geeks, because we have similar sensibilities. I have always been a science and science fiction enthusiast, so it was perfectly natural for me to speak and write that way. My world-view has always been very rational and scientific, hence the title of my new show, "Rational Comedy for an Irrational Planet." (Monday night, Punch Line, 8pm :)
Dattner: What's your favorite thing about doing standup in San Francisco?
Malow: Smart audiences. People in San Francisco are more arts and culture-oriented than people in most cities, or at least most U.S. cities. They are interested and knowledgeable and also open to a certain amount of weirdness (like my old stomping ground, Austin, TX). They'll let you take chances. When I first visited SF, before moving here, I was delighted to find that my brand of comedy worked really well here - so well that I was compelled to move here. I guess it sounds like I'm defining "smart audiences" as audiences that appreciate my sense of humor.
Dattner: Who's your comedy hero?
Malow: I don't have a single comedy hero but there are quite a few comedians that I place on pedestals: I grew up listening to George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin (and Monty Python). Ultimately, I came to respect Woody Allen and Bill Hicks (quite different from each other) above most others. Most recently - along with falling for Carlin all over again - I think Louis CK, Paul F. Tompkins, Brian Regan, and Emo Philips are amazing.
But Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Larry Niven probably had a greater influence on me than any comedian.
Dattner: Did you start doing standup in SF? What was the comedy scene like when you started?
Malow: I started doing comedy in Austin, TX, and I was lucky in that the more experienced comics I fell in with had high comedy standards - they strove to be as original as possible. It was more important to them to speak from the heart and be true to themselves than to simply get laughs, for instance, with hackneyed or less risky material. Don't get me wrong - they got laughs. But they wouldn't resort to cheap tricks and easy jokes. They had good comedy ethics. And that was certainly true of the SF comedy scene when I got here at the end of the last century.
Dattner: Why comedy, Brian?
Malow: I don't think I had much choice. It was either a comedy career or a science career. Maybe I took the path of least resistance.
Dattner: Do you know the game Cliff? I give you three people and you have to decide which you'd marry, which you'd sleep with, and which you'd have to push off a cliff. So, let's play Science Cliff: Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, and Werner Von Braun.
I'd marry Richard Feynman because it would mean a lifetime of laughing and learning.
I'd sleep with Stephen Hawking because I'm curious what he would type out during foreplay.
And I'd fire Werner von Braun off a cliff with one of his V-2 rockets because that would be cool.
More About:
San Francisco Comedy ·
Alicia Dattner ·
Stephen Hawking ·
Nasa ·
standup comedy ·
science
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
.jpg)
I feel it's my duty to speak to the David Letterman affair. "Hello David Letterman affair. How are you? Tired? I thought so." Are we …
So, I'm about to premiere my second one-woman-show! It's about my solo trip to India, and it's going to be at the San Francisco Fringe Festival …
