I Black Out / Nathan Brannon INTERVIEW

We previously spoke with Portland-based comedian Nathan Brannon during the Bridgetown Comedy Festival. Brannon is an ultra-talented comic who has opened for big-timers like Dave Chappelle and Dave Attell. He was crowned the winner of Helium Comedy Club’s “Portland’s Funniest Person Comedy Competition” in 2012 and seems to be on a trajectory and path of success similar to such (former) Portland stand-ups as Ron Funches and Ian Karmel. He’s a comic who puts in a hefty amount of work, honing his craft, while holding his Portland comedy brethren and family with high regard.

Satellite Superslice contributor/frustrated comedian/artist/general wit, Alex Combs, recently caught up with the budding comedian after the live recording of his, raucously funny and epic, hour-long set at Portland’s Funhouse Lounge, on June 11th. Brannon flawlessly performed an hour of material which he spent the last few years of his career fine-tuning. This set is to be produced into his first live comedy album titled, I Black Out. A successful Kickstarter campaign was launched to promote and finance the album as his pledged goal was recently met.

Keep an eye on this hilarious and humble dude. Brannon’s talent and tenacity cannot be denied.

–@teemunny

(photography by Alex Combs)

 

INTERVIEW

ALEX COMBS: Did you enjoy your night?

NATHAN BRANNON: Yeah, Man, this is amazing. It was a lot of fun.

AC: I was definitely impressed. This was a huge turnout, even for a 2012 Portland Funniest Person.

NB: [laughing] Even for a consolation prize.

AC: As I don’t know your back story, how you got into doing comedy. How long have you been doing it?

NB: Ah, in terms of how far back. The first time I actually stepped on stage…it was at a coffee open mic and I had some fraternity brothers who were in a band. They donated their last 5 minutes to me without telling me. They told the host, but they didn’t tell me. I was in the front ’cause it was them and I was supporting them. Then everyone was, like, “You gotta do it,” and so I did it. It wasn’t the greatest set, but it was so…

AC: It was good enough.

NB: I was instantly hooked, Then I moved up here (Portland) in 2006. The summer of 2006. I didn’t even know there was a comedy scene here.

AC: I don’t think many people did.

NB: Yeah, especially then.

AC: It was like Harvey’s?

NB: My friend’s went to the comedy club and they invited me. Then when they announced the feature act, he was from here. So, after the show, I went and talked to him and was like, “How the hell do you comedy in a city that doesn’t have comedy?” He goes, “Oh,there IS comedy,” he gave me a list of the open mics. If he hadn’t have given me that list of the open mics, I would never have started.

AC: You wouldn’t have been here today.

NB: Yeah, the next day, I was out. I went to my first open mic here. It was great.

AC: So where did you grow up?

NB: I grew up here (Portland).

AC: Okay.

NB: I went to Salem for college.

AC: Okay, I thought maybe you were in Cali or something.

NB: Yeah, yeah, [laughing] no I didn’t move that far away.

AC: So you went to… West Salem College, no, you went to… Oregon State.

NB: Willamette

AC: Look at me, U of O idiot, everything that is not in Eugene, is in Salem.

NB: U of O! We used to go down there to party with those guys until they burned a couch and put it in the stream down there. And I was like, well, this is getting too…

AC: I believe it is called the Millrace [laughing]. Which fraternity were you in?

NB: Beta Theta Pi.

AC: Nice

NB: I am actually, one of my brothers…two of them are getting married in September.Well, one of them, I am actually in the wedding. I am definitely going to be at both.

AC: Well, you know what that is like, as you are married now.

NB: Yeah, it is pretty great.

AC: So, have you got the opportunity to go out and actually hunt a bear or a cougar yet?

NB: Uh, no, well, I’ve had the opportunity but I haven’t taken advantage of it. NO. Look , l don’t…it’s weird. First of all, ’cause I found out I hadn’t even started talking about that, but you kill the animal and then you’ve gotta drag that shit out of the woods.

AC: Yeah, by the way it weighs as much as that animal weighs.

NB: Yeah. And they’re like, if it’s too big we’re gonna have to cut it into quarters and then carry the pieces out one at a time. And I was like, I’m not that hungry, You know what I mean?

AC: You know 7-Eleven does have hot dogs.

NB: Not for antlers, I don’t think so. Yeah, but one day I will. I’m really –I’m actually getting into bow hunting. I really dig that. Long before Hunger Games came out, I was diggin’ it.

AC: [laughing] Long before Hunger Games came out.

NB: Yeah, ’cause then it became all this cool thing but I was already seriously into it ’cause they have -he has those really big ones with the pullies and stuff.

AC: Compound bows.

NB: Compound bows, yeah. Oh, those are so sweet.

AC: I only know from YMCA camp, and all I remember is rotating the inside of my arm off, it felt like. My buddy’s like, “Oh you’ve gotta cock your elbow this way.” I was not good at it.

NB: And, it’s so nuts. I went out and looked at all the accessories –all the things you can buy for it. And it’s…

AC: I’m sure there’s carbon fiber pullies.

NB: Yeah. Just the arrowheads are amazing. Like I had one…

AC: “These ones let him bleed out faster.”

NB: Yeah, and they have, like, they have a diagram of how much damage it does. There was one, the package, just said the name of the arrowhead was Total Devastation or some shit. Like, why wouldn’t I want total devastation?

AC: Give me a third.

NB: Yeah, when you go to buy a gun, it’s like, “Uh, let me get those .38s.” Let me get a pack of Total Devastations.

AC: That would be awesome.

NB: That’s so much better to me.

AC: So you got pulled into comedy from a fraternity brother band party at a bar. Where was that?

NB: Yeah. It was actually on campus. It was like a little coffee shop I used to do stand up. And I think I did it probably three or four times and then…because it was once every couple of months, I think, they would have something. And you couldn’t get on every one cause there was so many people trying –it was a liberal arts school so everybody was an artist.

[both laugh]

NB: Yeah, it was nice, I just thought of it as an extracurricular activity and stuff like that and didn’t really think much of it before I got done with college. And then I was expecting to just not ever be able to do it again ’cause I didn’t know where you start. I didn’t know what…and really, to call it stand-up, what I did, was completely inaccurate.

AC: You were standing.

NB: Yeah I was standing when I was hunched over. So I wasn’t even doing that very well, and then just talkin’.

AC: Actually watching some of your stuff –I was interested in, oh, ’10 and ’11 –that was some of the earliest stuff I found of your work. Was that kind of when you were really pushing it?

NB: Yeah, that’s, well, yeah. I’d been a feature for probably about a year or so. And so, that was right after I lost my colon and things like that. And I made a decision, once I –because it happened so fast. It was a span of two days, I think, between going to the hospital and having that major surgery. And then I was in the hospital for another four days and I made a decision that if I’m going to do this I’m going to do it, fucking, balls out.

AC: Yeah, for real.

NB: Yeah, ever since I got out of that hospital and got better, I hit everything hard, got as much stage time as I could and really wanted to –I think back then I really wanted to prove a lot that I could do this on a bigger scale than just going to open mics and stuff like that. And then back then too it was really hard, I would get rejected for a lot of auditions and a lot of competitions and stuff, so I was really focused.

AC: Yeah, you’ve gotta zero in on it. Everybody I’ve ever talked to that was successful at anything was like, “I worked at it harder than anybody else I knew.”

NB: It was –just to get to this point. Like, me, I’m not famous or anything. You know, but just to get to this point was hard. Like everything I told about that like going –you go to a shitty mic, you have a bad set, you come home, somebody tells you should quit, and then you have to go home and you have to sleep on that and muster enough to get up and go do it all over again the next day. And do that months on end, years on end, and it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. I think a lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to do something you love in the face of opposition, especially if it’s not like a standard.

AC: Yeah, if you have some kind of groundswell going with you, it’s like you own a small business and you’re there 120 hours a week –you gotta do it.

NB: Yeah, yup. I drove to South Dakota and back.

AC: What?

NB: Yeah. For no time at all.

AC: So you went to The Flatlands?

NB: I drove once when I was trying to…yeah, I was trying to audition for a competition and I drove all the way down to San Francisco for five minutes of stage time and drove back as soon as I was done with my set. Yeah, it was 12 hours, I think, one way. And didn’t get the audition.

AC: Ah, that’s brutal. That’s so brutal.

NB: But it’s stuff like that make nights like this and everything that much sweeter because all the times you don’t really talk about it because you don’t want to focus on it. You want to just focus on the future. So you don’t really talk about…so a lot of people don’t know all the times you get rejected.

AC: Yeah, the muck you went through.

NB: Yeah.

AC: It’s a one for ten.

NB: Yeah, yeah.

AC: One for a hundredth. So the thing I want to talk to you about actually, amongst other things that are kind of correlations between you and some of your sets –I’ve had a colonoscopy.

NB: Yeah, I have.

AC: So, let me just say that, looking for people to cheer when you’re like, “Anybody had a colonoscopy?”

NB: Well, okay, like –

AC: I mean I get it.

NB: Yeah, I feel like people should talk. Yeah, if you’ve had one, I think…. like a lot of people that have ‘em.

AC: Like, at our age, they’re not recommending them.

NB: Yeah. So it’s a big deal. It’s the same, “Hey, I was in a car wreck.” “Oh, me too!” It’s like, “Oh yeah, I lost my whatever,” yeah, it’s so nuts how many…I’m going to be an advocate for colonoscopies.

AC: It’s funny because then you were talking about how they put the lights down and then they pull out this device where you’re like, “Wait, what the?”

NB: Yeah, and they kept me awake. And they’re talking to you, “So, yeah, so what you…”

AC: Oh yeah, yeah, I was awake

NB: Yeah, and that’s the… and they are talking to you, “So, what do you do? You’re a comedian?”

AC: Filling you full of air

NB: And then, yeah, [laughing] I didn’t even talk about that. ‘Cause it comes out and they are like, “Yeah, you are going to pass gas as we are doing this” They fill you up and as they move around the air comes out. So you are just like, [fart noise] and they are trying to have a conversation with you. “Oh you do comedy? [fart noise] “Yeah I do a lit’ [fart noise] ‘tle comedy.” This is unbearable. You keep apologizing even though you know it isn’t you doing it. They’re doing it, they are making you do it.

AC: That is the best, that you are apologizing to a proctologist for farting.

NB: [laughing]

AC: I never knew this was going to happen in my profession.

NB: This is too much.

AC: It is really funny though, your description of how they dim the lights and it is like, “Oh, Jesus”.

NB: [laughing] This is the one where a bunch of people run out of the room, “I can’t take it. Call me when he is done with that joke”

AC: Oh, Man. So you grew up in Portland, yeah?

NB: Yeah.

AC: You were talking about being the only black kid. Maybe not the ONLY, but, I have a friend who I grew up with too and he was adopted by Irish parents. His parents were from New Jersey. You he grew up with all these white kids and he was the only person of ethnicity for a long while.

NB: Yeah, it’s weird. You grow up and you don’t think you’re super diff’… You notice differences with different ethnicities that are around you, “Ah that is weird”. You know you just kind of brush it off. I didn’t really realize it until I went to college and it was… it was nuts. Just the difference, the gaps between. There were a lot of rich kids too, that I went to school with. Not only were they different ethnicity, but they were also on a totally different social scale as well. I think that is when I first started being like, “Ah, okay, so there IS a White America.” Yeah, when I was little, people used to call me Oreo, ’cause I used to listen to everything. I still listen to everything. I got Björk and everything.

AC: [laughing] I like your Bjork stuff.

NB: The last time I was in L.A., I was walking through this park that everyone told me not to walk through. It was twelve at night or something, and I had my headphones on. I always take one bud out whenever there is someone around ’cause, you never know, someone could come up. I took it out and they were all these cholos hanging out in the park, “Whatchu listenin’ to?” I told them Björk ’cause I was high. All they did was go, “Oh,” and that was it. So, I like to think in my head that later on they went and checked out Björk and I got a whole bunch of Cholos into Bjork.

AC: “Have you heard this Human Behavior man? It’s crazy.”

NB: “Yo, this shit is on another level,” [laughing] I should have been killed that night actually, “Björk? Skin this muthafucker.”

AC: It is like Final Destination. It is you walking through the park and there is some guy juggling razors and you die ’cause you are listening to Bjork.

NB: [laughing]

AC: So I noticed in one of your sets you had a Socceroos jersey on (Australian National Team soccer jersey). Are you a soccer fan?

NB: No, I’m not. That shirt was free, like most of my shirts. It was from family friends of my wife. They live in Australia and that was a gift. I have been trying to follow, I am not a big soccer fan.

AC: It is hard to watch enough, plus also, it is soccer.

NB: I mean, it is a good shirt, man. It is breathable, it hides the sweat and the titties

AC: [laughs]

NB: And it is a quality shirt. Everybody always asks me that. “Are you into soccer, are you into rugby?” “No, I just don’t have enough of my own clothes”

AC: That’s funny, I thought maybe, you were a big… ’cause it was like, Southern Hemisphere national soccer team. Have you been down to Australia?

NB: I want to go so bad, but that’s another thing, my OCD and their water conservation is huge down there. So they are like, “You have to take showers like this” [pantomiming tiny amount of water] and it is like [sigh] I think I might pass.

AC: I didn’t notice it, when I went there, I was pouring water all over me.

NB: Yeah, I want to get as rich and famous enough to where I can use as much water as I want [laughing] That way…

AC: On your rider it just says: “Water”

NB: Nathan requires 350 gallons of water a day.

AC: 300 gallons of water [laughing].

NB: Fresh water [laughing]. None of that sea snake shit.

AC: You’re pretty close with your family, obviously.

NB: Oh yeah.

AC: They are all still in Portland.

NB: They are all I got, really. Well, my wife and my family.

AC: Your mom and your sister are here tonight. Your dad is still in town as well?

NB: Yeah, yeah. It is kind of hard for him to get around. He comes when he wants to.

AC: You try and call him? “Come on, Dad!”

NB: [laughing] Yeah, he is…he’s too busy breakdancing. That’s my favorite joke.

AC: Did you have a Christmas stolen from you? Did your dad actually do your, you know, have the ‘Christmas on a Budget‘?

NB: Oooh, yeah. Oooh, well, it was kinda…not necessarily along those…

AC: He didn’t perpetrate that. He didn’t use your stolen box and book.

NB: Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to catch on, but yeah, my mom would wrap boxes, empty boxes up just to make the tree look good for when people would come over.

AC: My mom has done that.

NB: It is the worst. We used to play games, which one? ’cause we couldn’t touch them. So you had to pick which ones had shit in them and which ones…

AC: Blow on them.

NB: Yeah.

AC: “That one moved!”

NB: Save up money so we can get an x-ray machine.

AC: So, ah, you have the Kickstarter going too. When is the end of the Kickstarter?

NB: The end of it is June 30th, I believe it is like 6:30 PM. It is a weird time for that. I think it might be off the East Coast.

AC: Half the hour.

NB: I put it at the exact amount that I would need. Just because Kickstarter is one of those things that if you don’t get it all, then nothing happens. So I would rather have something where I can at least do the bare minimum of the album. At least have the album produced, even if it’s not the best. Just so I can actually do something.

AC: What is your goal?

NB: The Kickstarter goal is $515. If we could get $900, that would be so perfect. Then I could do it how I really want to do it and also pay all the people who are involved. Those are all comedians who recorded the show. All the comedians that opened and also did a lot of other stuff. Andie Main, who did the last set, she painted the album cover. So I am using everybody in house. Anything over that is going to go to them. Like tonight, it was all free, because I want people to hear it. I don’t care about all that…

AC: So are you doing digital distribution and CD?

NB: Yep, digital distribution and then a bundle of CDs for when I hit the road.

AC: 8 tracks or…

NB: Yeah [laughing]. This is my first album and I just want people to hear it. I mean, especially being an obscure comedian… where most of your career people don’t give a shit about what you have to say. For people to listen to you and to really feel what you are saying, I think that is worth its weight in gold. You know, the money will come later. I just want people to recognize the work that goes into all of it.

AC: Yeah, it is a lot of work. So, would you cite someone or some things as comedic influences as you were growing up?

NB: Yeah, I watched a lot of Sinbad growing up. My mom was a huge fan of Richard Pryor. She had a lot of clips and stuff like that of him. Which was awesome, ’cause the first time that I really, really bombed the first time in my career, I thought, “Oh this is… I suck,” I told her about it and she played for me -he was trying to do an HBO taping or something like that -it was just the audio. It was jokes that I had heard before and killed in an auditorium or something. He was in a nightclub doing it for, it was probably an all white crowd I think he said. They didn’t, there was no reaction, so it was crickets. She was like, “If he can have a night like that…” Ever since I started and way before that, he has always been one of the barometers of quality stand-up. “So, if he can have nights like that and your an open mic’er. How are you getting bent out of shape? Just get out and do it more. Don’t make that happen again. It happens, but you can’t be like, “Oh I’m quitting, I give up. No one liked me that night.” Then it gets to the point where you do multiple sets a night. Like, you’ll do a show, literally go across the street and do another show. Bomb the first set and then get a standing ovation the second set. If it is that fickle, that quick, it doesn’t bother you to have a bad set. Well, it does bother you, but you get over it faster the more that you get used to it.

AC: Especially if you go and use that material again and you’re like, “Alright, it was the state of the night just didn’t go well.”

NB: Yeah, there are sometimes you just win. I am slowly…it is hard for me to accept that a lot of the times, but there are sometimes…it doesn’t happen all the time, but you’re screwed before you get on stage.

AC: [laughing] You just know it, it’s just not going to go well.

NB: I had a show the night after Obama got re-elected, in Lewiston, Idaho. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that I could say that was going to make them…I told that joke about hunting bears while they are hibernating and someone screamed out from the back, “That’s cheating”. That was the only reaction to the whole joke.

AC: [laughs] They are just a literal crowd.

NB: Yeah, they hated me. Which is understandable, Obama gets back in office and the first show they go to is this black dude like, “Hey! So I kill bears unfairly, I guess.”

AC: That’s tough, that’s really tough. I am a huge Richard Pryor fan too. Have you listened to his really, really early stuff too? When he talks about living with his mom?

NB: I love how he is so honest too. It gave me a lot of…when I was writing all that stuff about my colon. I took a long time. I literally just started, actually, writing that stuff in early 2012, because I was so self conscious about it. I thought that people would get grossed out to where they wouldn’t want to laugh at it. It took a long time just…

AC: They just don’t want to laugh when they remember their own colonoscopy [laughs].

NB: [laughs] Yeah, just to dip my toe into the water was really, really hard.

AC: No, that is awesome, Man. I am actually really impressed by your ability to draw from your reality. Pulling on your colon issue, your sister and your dad. It is all super funny. I mean, your stuff about the poplocking with your dad and the Muppet. You have gold in there, I think.

NB: Yeah, I figure it’s stuff that I’m really, really…like most of my stuff now, are things that are close to me. Sometimes, there are observations and stuff like that. I think a lot of my new stuff will be…

AC: “Did you ever notice?”

NB: Yeah, but like it is always going to be my family or something like that is a big chunk of it because that is what I am comfortable about. Then if I tell the joke and somebody gets offended, you know, that’s real life. If you getting offended at life, so I’m okay with that.

AC: You gotta have a lot of trust from the family.

NB: Uh, yeah. I think they have all given me license.

AC: They trust you.

NB: They just say, “As long as it’s funny” If you notice, even though I was making fun of my sister…

AC: You could feel the love.

NB: Yeah, I will never tear anybody in my family down. The only reason I started about Tourette’s, was to get awareness out. Everyone, every time they heard about Tourette’s, all they would hear is, “Fuck!”

AC: That is what everyone thinks Tourette’s is but that is, like, one percent of Tourette’s individuals?

NB: Yeah, yeah.

AC: It is so not the, “Fuck, shit, damn!”

NB: It’s not even that. She doesn’t even have that.

AC: I just so love the “twerking in line” [laughs]. You just can’t stop. That is awesome!

NB: It is a lot of fun.

AC: I hope you successfully do this Kickstarter and get your shit rolling. What is on the horizon for you?

NB: I’d like to spread this album around. Short term goal, I want to get it out there to people in other places. I can’t go everywhere, physically, you know. I would think a lot of those jokes aren’t specific to a certain region. I think everybody can dig all that stuff. That is my first goal. I would just like to get more people… like my name out there more. No one knows who I am and it’s really, really hard to have a lot of creative freedom in a lot of situations. If you’re just a support and no one is there to see you. Plus, I have a lot of good stuff to say.

AC: I agree. I can definitely… I think that you have a creative bent beyond comedy, well, not beyond comedy necessarily, but just that creativity. Given the videos that you have made.

NB: I feel like that too.

AC: You’ve got that face for tv. Face for Netflix, how’s that? That’s the modern age.

NB: I love that, I can do it. As long as they shoot me from the neck up. It’s a mess down there.

AC: [laughs] I dunno, they are going to miss all the sweet gesticulations you drop.

NB: Photoshop on the fly.

AC: Animating is really hard in real time

NB: Your FX skills better be crazy.

AC: I really appreciate the time.

NB: Thank you, I appreciate all you guys taking interest. I was telling everybody, I didn’t know this many people were interested in my stand-up.

AC: You shouldn’t be surprised, you are definitely, definitely good, in my humble opinion.

NB: Thanks a lot, Man.

AC: And, I dunno, a hundred plus people’s opinions this evening. I was really impressed by a bunch of your stuff. [laughing] I was listening to recently, the bit you had about the guy dying in the tuna factory, getting cooked. Oh it was brutal, but you managed to turn it into dolphins and how the tuna was still dolphin safe.

NB: Yeah, oh yeah. That was the Hamsterville. That is a show, a separate show, that I produce and I always bring on other comedians, like a panel. That was a lot of fun.

AC: There was a lot of audience participation on that one.

NB: Yeah, that is what I like. I like the crowd being into it. I try not to do everything exactly the same every time. Just ’cause, you don’t want people to think that they are watching a TV show or a movie.

AC: Yeah, “Oh, I heard the album so I don’t need to go to the show,” I don’t think you have that problem. I have heard it delivered, appropriately, every time.

NB: That is the hard thing about recording stuff, you want to improv so much. You want to play off…

AC: Stay on target

NB: Yeah, it’s hard. You have to have that in the back of your head. You’re trying to actually showcase yourself, it’s not just playing around.

AC: Besides bow hunting, what else does Nathan do in his free time?

NB: It’s funny, my wife just asked me that. She was like, “What do you do?” And I don’t know. I listen to a lot of music. That is kind of my radius.

AC: Björk and, uh, The Sugarcubes?

NB: You should see my playlist for a lot of things is so nuts. It’s wide, a wide open range. I love how that any emotion you can find a song for it somewhere. So I always try to keep that… It is how I let loose a lot. I draw. Other than that… ’cause this is my full time job.

AC: Oh it is?

NB: Yeah.

AC: So you are not… this isn’t just after hours moonlighting?

NB: Yeah, during the day, I am whoring myself out 24/7. You’re writing emails trying to figure out stuff. Trying to figure out how to get your name out there during the day. As soon as the sun goes down, it is time for a mic or it’s time for a show. Go and do that ’til midnight or whatever and then get up and do it again. It is literally a full time job. It is great.

AC: It is definitely that.

NB: I like the idea of whatever success or failure that you have it all rests on you, you know. If you don’t get a raise or if you don’t make more money… It is not an asshole boss, who has something against you. It’s you did something. You’re not working hard enough. It gives you control of your destiny, so to speak. Not completely, but as much as you can control. You can determine how hard you work. So, I like that a lot.

AC: Do you go on the road a lot as well?

NB: Yeah.

AC: How often do you spend on the road?

NB: It is increasing, little by little. Actually, next week, I am going to Indianapolis.

AC: Wow, nice, too bad the Pacers didn’t make the Finals.

NB: Yeah, just talk shit the whole time. Get chased out of town.

AC: Man…that’s a…are you driving?

NB: No, no. I fly everywhere now.

AC: It is actually probably cheaper.

NB: That time, being less time consuming, is worth it’s weight in gold too.

AC: So are you self-represented?

NB: Yeah. I think that was a big deal for tonight too. I was talking to a lot of people. When I was first thinking about this, there were a lot of comedians too who were telling me, “Well, you can’t do it. You don’t have a publicist, you don’t have whatever.” I got emails, I have promoted shows before. This is me, I am selling myself as a package. I don’t need somebody to validate me, to tell me that I am funny, for me to do what I want to do.

AC: Is there anything that you would like to get out that I may not have touched on?

NB: I hope that people don’t stop here. You know what I mean? That was great, the album was great. I hope that this is to punctuate transitioning to something else. I am putting away that stuff to do other material. So, I would hope that if they like this album or this material or any material that I have done up to this point, that I get more followers out of that. More people checking me out. Now it is to where I can get more creative with what I want to do. People are giving me more leeway.

AC: Do you tweet?

NB: Yeah, it is @nathanbrannon.

AC: And Facebook, I am assuming?

NB: Yeah.

AC: Do you have, there is the real Nathan and then the Nathan comedian Facebook page?

NB: No, it’s just me.

AC: So it is all… you get the “Full Nathan”.

NB: Yeah, yeah, every time I am pissed off in traffic, you are gonna hear about it. [laughs]

AC: I definitely think you are a funny cat. I want to see you around more. Portland is such an incestuous… this strip (S.E. 11th) now makes this trifecta (Helium Portland, Funhouse Lounge, The Firkin Tavern) of comedy. Literally, during the nights when people are doing stuff there (Firkin), people are, like, “I am gonna run down to Funhouse real quick or I am going to Helium and I’ll be back.”

NB: I love that, ’cause when I started here, it was three nights a week was comedy. Then everywhere else you there wasn’t anything to do. Now every night, pretty much, there is somewhere to go.

AC: Nathan, thank you so much. It has been awesome. I really appreciate the opportunity. Tonight’s set was, I thought, was one of the funnier things that I have experienced in the last few years.

NB: Thank you!

AC: Having had the opportunity to watch a bunch of your stuff and clips and whatnot that is on the web. Seeing you coalesce that all into an epic show. You didn’t even break a sweat.

NB: [laughs] Nah, I definitely…underneath.

AC: Underneath it all?

NB: Yeah, it was conscious decision to wear black. I have learned.

AC: You didn’t even break a sweat!

NB: [smiling] I mean, yeah! Not even a single drop.

AC: I definitely hope to see you again and thank you.