My latest in the interview series is my friend Dan who I’ve known for about let’s say twelve or so years. I have no idea. I am sure we met sometime in college when we went to the same college church group. It sure feels like a lifetime ago. I used to hang out with Dan and his brother-they are two really funny guys. Some of my best memories of them are wandering around Magic Mountain. And telling pickle jokes. More on that later.
JM: Tell us a little about yourself.
DH: Name: Daniel Ryan Hunt
Age: 33 years
Hair: Reddish-brown, short
Eyes: Blue, two
Ears: Yes
Height: 5′ 10″
Weight: Plenty
Distinguishing features: Large sideburns, glasses, sardonic wit
Likes: Martial arts movies, video games, reading, writing, making people laugh, the spotlight, listing vague things like ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ as things I like to sound smart and/or creative
Dislikes: Unsolicited career advice, listing my previous work history, the word ‘douchebag,’ when Wikipedia is seen as a valid source of information
Favorite breakfast cereal: Cracklin’ Oat Bran
Outlook: Stoic, mostly
Demeanor: Pretty middle of the road
Marital status: Married to Sarah Hunt, going on 4 years
Highest education level: Some college
Current occupational status: Fledging stand-up comic, cab driver
I have been diagnosed with: schizoid personality, gout, 1 cavity
People think I have: Asperger’s syndrome, a sadistic streak, encyclopedic knowledge of computers and GPS-level knowledge of the Phoenix area, including locations of every building, everywhere
JM: So…you can’t just drop a completely unknown (relatively huge) fact like you have been diagnosed with schizoid personality on me without any details.
Can I ask you about it “on the record”?
Can you explain what it is?
When did you get diagnosed with it?
Did the diagnoses come with any emotions or a sense of clarity?
DH: You never knew…? I coulda swore… Okay.
From my understanding, being schizoid is where a person (me) levels out their emotional experiences. Lower highs, higher lows. The affected also have difficulty expressing emotions, having meaningful relationships, and other social awkwardnesses. I was diagnosed with this in my early to mid 20’s when I went to a therapist to seek help for depression I was going through. Well, it was the result of this test I took, SAT style, complete with bubble fill in sheet and #2 pencil.
When it comes to things like being schizoid, or depressed, or anti-social, or even things like possibly having Asperger’s Syndrome, I shrug it off. I’m okay with me, and I’m at a point where I realize all the crap that happened so far was for a reason. I am the person I am, and I can not, will not, nor want to be anyone else. I feel that there’s a certain beauty in sadness, when you think about how bad a thing (whatever) is, you realize there is another thing (whatever) that is, to quote Teen Girl Squad, SO GOOD that not only does it make up for the sadness you feel, it surpasses that sadness, and all the other sadnesses that you’ve had or will have. I get sad. It happens. I also get happy. Sometimes the sadness in my life outweighs the happiness in quantity, it never comes close to it in quality. I guess the ultimate question here is, where does that happiness come from? How can it be better? One word: Christ. Knowing that all this (living life in this world) leads to something greater (eternity with Christ) nullifies all the crap this life can throw at me. Sometimes I forget that for a while, but I always come back to the security I have in Christ and the Father. The Spirit, too, even if I have a hard time understanding It.
That, and the Keebler Elves released a line of cookies that are versions of the Girl Scout’s Samoas that are available all year round. How can that NOT make someone happy?
JM: Thanks-you saved a lot of people from looking that up on wikipedia. Speaking of happy, tell us a pickle joke, and give us the background on pickle jokes in your family.
DH: Who’s green, Egyptian, and married Marc Anthony? Cleo-pickle. Who’s green and was shot nine times? Pickle Cent. What’s green and hangs above a baby’s crib? A mo-pickle.
I come from two large families. Mom had five brothers and sisters, Dad has six. The vast majorities of these large families lived far away from where I grew up, mostly in Portland, Oregon and various parts of Oklahoma. A lot of childhood memories I have involve riding in cars on long road trips for family reunions. Going to see the extended family was always a treat for my brother and I. Well, when you’re ten hours into a 20-hour road trip with no stops, people get tired, and random things get hilarious. Pickle jokes were born out of these late night/early morning drives, and they are part of those random things that get hilarious.
JM: Why do you find yourself drawn to stand up?
DH: I like laughing and I like making people laugh. I was doing improv, which qualifies, but I think I’m drawn to stand-up now because I get to control everything that comes out of my mouth (in theory). So if it’s funny, it’s funny that came from me and wasn’t dependent on something or someone else. That’s not to say that I’ll never do improv again, but now is the season for stand-up (again).
My foray into stand-up started a lot earlier than I realized, when I stop to think about it. Back in the fifth grade, I asked my teacher if I could tell jokes in front of the class during lunch. She let me, and I proceeded to bomb day after day for pretty much the entire school year. Fast forward about three years, and while I was attending middle school, I was put in the gifted/accelerated class with the other nerds. One of the things we did every year was a career assignment, where we would pick something that we were interested in doing when we were older, then we would be paired with someone who did that for a living, and we’d spend time with them as they did their job. I selected to do stand up one year, and I was paired with a comic whose name I no longer remember. I tagged along while he did a corporate gig. He gave me a video from one of his open mic nights that he hosted, and I remember all the comics either being filthy or extremely bad. To wrap that assignment up, we had a ‘career night’ where we had presentations of what we learned. I did about three minutes of material that I ripped out of a joke book. I remember everyone was polite about it. Since then, my desire to get on stage and make people laugh has manifested itself in various ways, like being the ‘announcement guy’ at VI, or doing improv at a theater in Scottsdale. Around the end of September last year I happened upon a class for stand-up comedy taught by one Tony Vicich, comedian who was prolific during the stand-up boom of the 80’s. I took the introductory and the advanced classes, and was in two showcases, one at Dave and Busters up in North Phoenix, and one at the Tempe Improv. Currently, I have an open-mic night coming up on the 30th in Scottsdale, and a set at ToSo’s up in North Phoenix on the 4th. Maybe it’s the 5th. I should probably find out. I’ve been told that I’m ‘edgy’ for whatever that’s worth.
JM: What would be the ideal comic “job” for you?
DH: As fun as it would be to be a touring comic, I think that would take me away from my wife and soon-to-be daughter too much. I’d be perfectly content to work a singular city like Vegas, LA or New York if I could provide for my family doing it. I also wouldn’t argue with acting, voice acting, or directing. But not producing. Maybe gaffing. That’s a ways off, though, I’m still working my way into the shallow end of the comedy pool.
JM: Who are you influenced by comically?
DH: I am influenced by any comic that can make a room full of people laugh without resorting to excessive swearing or crude/sexual/scatalogical/racial material. It’s a mistake to think that doing clean comedy is talking about rainbows and kittens and peaches. I actually pulled off a joke in which there is a baby that is on fire. You can be dark and edgy without dropping an f-bomb. Or an s-bomb. Want examples of who I am inspired by? Sure! In no particular order:
Demitri Martin
Brian Regan
Eddie Izzard (I said excessive swearing)
Jim Gaffigan
Ken Kaz
Donald Glover
Christopher Titus
Steven Wright
Ritch Shydner
I’ve also had the joy of being able to learn from good comics, both veteran and not-as-veteran. Tony Vicich, like I mentioned before, along with Emily Galati, Kevin Odea, Joleen Lunzer, Mike Gillerman, Dave Thurston, Jim Bambrough, Mike Bengoeceha… lots of people named Mike, all said and done.
JM: Would you like to share an internet link?
DH: As much as I think that the internet is nothing more than 99.99% filler and a horrible time suck, here are a couple things I like looking at:
www.basicinstructions.net – One of the two funniest non-episodic webcomics ever.
www.xkcd.com – The other funniest non-episodic webcomic.
If you’re curious to see what I’ve done in stand up:
Shameless plug, I know.
And if you’re curious about stand-up classes, you can go here for more information:
Thanks Dan for participating in my interview series! Feel free to ask him any questions you have in the comment section below!