Mike Cannon

Today I am interviewing Mike Cannon, a comedian born in New York, NY who has been doing comedy for two and a half years. To find out more about Mike, please visit his website. (Photo by Mandy Stewart Hambly)

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

I grew up in a family that was really big into musical theater. My father was an actor, my mother sang, my older sister went to college for music and is currently an actress, and my younger sister is a singer/song writer/actress and so forth. My parents used to make me sing Aladdin's "A Whole New World" with my older sister every time company would come over. I basically grew up in gay camp. Naturally, this made me play sports growing up. I played Basketball in particular all the way through my first two years of college. An injury, and the realization that at 20 years old my body was rapidly decomposing into a middle aged Leper's, made me re-evaluate what I wanted to do with the rest of college and my life. After weeks of drinking, I came to the conclusion that a lot of the reason I enjoyed sports and particularly Basketball was for the crowd reaction. When you're playing at the park or a packed gym and you bust someone's ass, there's always a ton of people yelling and/or talking shit about it. It's one of the best feelings in the world. When I got hurt, I tried to find another outlet where I could experience a loud primal response to something I did or created. I figured all of my black teammates thought I was a real hoot in the showers, so why not try to be funny full time.

Do you have a favorite topic in your comedy and what makes it your favorite?

In terms of humor, I'm probably one of the most immature people on the planet. My jokes have the versatility of Terry Shiavo. I basically tackle all the real thinkers, like sex - both straight and gay as well as consenting or normal, drinking/drugs, basic disabilities and of course poop. You write what you know I guess, and I have my shit doctorate.

What is your writing process like?

My writing process is pretty scatter brained. It's a mixture of check points with some fixed terminology as well. I have a severe case of ADD or rapid boredom, however you wanna look at it, so I can't sit down and write. I usually text a few things to myself during the day - mostly premises or even punches that I think would work well with a tag I had previously written. I basically obsess about it in my mind for a few hours, days, weeks, whatever and then go on stage to see if I have anything. It's weird. I actually started out writing long dialogue but everything came out sounding way too scripted. I definitely don't think what I do is necessarily correct or the best way, but it works for me (so far.) I guess I'm not a good enough actor to make something seem fresh even though I've said it and rehearsed it 500 times before. I think having to improv and riff in moderation is a good exercise and keeps your interest as well as the audiences. In my experiences, many carefully written jokes will not hit as hard as something spontaneous and honest, so I try to keep that in mind each set I do. And when all else fails, I cross my eyes, breathe heavily out of my nose and say I'm retarded.