Kyle Fincham

Today I am interviewing Kyle Fincham, a comedian born in Long Beach, CA who has been doing comedy for over five years. To find out more about Kyle, visit his website.

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

While in high school I competed in Speech and Debate, specifically Humorous Interpretation. I think that was my initial gateway into comedy. I started doing stand-up while I was in college. I was studying theater at UCLA. Not long after starting school I found a small improv theater in Westwood and started taking classes and performing on their "College Team". Sometime after Christmas break there was a stand-up show on campus. A buddy told me his friend organized it and that we should check it out. I was inspired. There were four or five comics on the show. They were all Comedy Store regulars, and have since gone on to make numerous TV appearances. The idea of being on stage alone seemed like a lot more fun than depending on other people in improv. It was also more powerful, aggressive. I remember sitting there thinking that this was the most impressive form of performance I'd ever seen. Immediately after the show I was introduced to the student who'd organized, and also hosted, the show. I told him I wanted to do this, and asked where I could get on stage. He ran an open mic. So, just days later I was buying a coffee to cover my five minutes on stage.

What is the worst job you ever had and did it have any effect on your comedy?

I've had so many jobs. Its difficult to think of the worst. The best are easy to think of, but the worst is hard to pinpoint. There were bad parts to all of them. The last two years may have been psychologically the worst. I worked construction and maintenance with people who only spoke Spanish for the most part. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language for that many hours a day, week, year created a sense of solitude. I learned being alone in your head for that long is unhealthy. You can go from happy to sad to angry without one word being said to you. Having that much time to think caused me to dwell and fixate on many aspect of my life and personality. I hated being there so much I became obsessed with getting onstage to better my life. I was getting onstage almost every night until 2:00am, and I had to be at work at 9:00am. I wasn't getting much sleep. My band got wound tight and I developed a short fuse. It may not have been the worst job in terms of the actual work, but the situation may have been the worst on my brain.

Anyway, all those emotions and thoughts I dealt with during that time certainly transcended into my comedy. Sometimes it was good, and sometimes it was very bad. Sometimes the mix of emotions fed my comedy. I often got a lot of emotional truth in the things I was saying. It was bad when the anger and resentment bled into my act.

How do you deal with the fear of someone stealing your material?

I use to worry about someone stealing my material. No one has stolen any of my material, that I'm aware of. It makes me feel like I haven't written anything worth stealing yet. At the moment I don't worry about it. Frankly, the idea of having stuff stolen sounds good. It would force me to work harder on new stuff. I'm sure I'd be a little bummed, but it isn't worth crying about. The kick in the ass to make up for the lost time might help me. I also believe it is less about material and more about persona. Someone can steal my words, but they can't steal me.