Gabe Pacheco

Today I am interviewing Gabe Pacheco, a comedian born in Oakland, CA who has been doing comedy for four and a half years. To find out more about Gabe, please visit his website.

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

I started in earnest in 2004 with my first bringer show at the New York Comedy Club. I'd been living a respectable life as a public school teacher up to that point. I was living with my girlfriend. I had earned a master's degree; I was getting a steady paycheck, and gaining weight. It was totally boring. Uninspired and disillusioned with public service, I focused my talents on public self-exploration.

I have always been attracted to stand-up comedy. Stand-ups are shamans with microphones. Comedians are like momma birds, flying around eating stuff and partially digesting it, then regurgitating breakfast for the hatchlings. When I’m on stage, nutritious Gods and Demons fly out of my mouth. They are chock-full of thiamin and riboflavin. I feed the kids wisdom. That’s my take on it.

When I think of why I started comedy I think of coral polyps. We spend our days as coral polyps; building and adding little houses to the communal reef. We end up trapped in our shells, entombed in the reef. Never knowing what we built. A stand-up comedian is like a corral polyp that floats above the reef and can see what other polyps have collectively built. And then he makes fun of it. He’s got a microphone so he can be loud. He wakes up the sleeping polyps. He’s the polyp that describes of the reef’s collective unconscious.

For all readers who think I’m making the same point twice, please reread the last two paragraphs again.

What was your first time performing comedy like?

I was baptized into this lifestyle back in 1989. My first set was for an audience of mentally challenged picnic-goers receiving welfare services from the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. My dad booked that gig. I took a little break after that. I decided to focus my energies matriculating into middle school instead.

In late 2004 I got back in the game. My comedy was cringe worthy. I was not a natural performer. A few things helped me work through the growing pains of the first few years. Most important were nurturing these three elements: humility, historical perspective, and determination.

My sign is Capricorn. I’m like those mountain goats you find living in the Grand Tetons. I like climbing.

When I started I repeated little aphorisms to myself in the mirror like that Al Franken character from SNL.
They were:
“I’m disciplined.”
“I’m can learn.”
“Everybody bombs. (Sometimes for years.)”

What kind of advice do you usually get from other comedians?

Three things that comics have said to me that matter in my every day comedy practice are:

1."The writing is there. Now commit to the material." Dan Shaki said this to me once at Otto’s Shrunken Head after a bleak set at a desolate open mic. What I got from that was: “focus on your emotional state.” The wording gets easier to remember and deliver if I concentrate on the emotion. Once I have the right emotional state, it doesn't matter who’s in the room with me, four people or four hundred.

2. "Why do you care about the topic?"
Jason Quarles, co-producer of the JOY show asks me this question when I’m throwing jokes around. What it means to me is “where is my heart when I think about this joke?” I go on a soul-searching expedition to figure out why I care about a topic. If the audience can tell that this is important to me, and I can convey why I think it’s important to me, then they'll pay attention, even if it's a long-winded joke about HMO's. Personal investment in the bit is what sells it.

3. "When a joke hits find the formula and mine it.” Dan Mahoney, co-producer of Haiku, told me that at a Starbucks. What it meant to me was: “jokes have internal logic to them.” If something always kills, that means it reflects the audience’s perception of your personality. You are simply a reflection of your audience’s perceptions. A good one-liner can be a window into your very essence. Come up with a formula to generate more lines that follow the same line of reasoning.