This post was originally published on this site
Guy Branum isn’t a comedian you know from a specific thing; he’s a comedian you know from everything. If you watch good TV (Hacks, Platonic), listen to funny podcasts (Lovett or Leave It, Las Culturistas), or are otherwise dialed into what is happening in fun/gay/cool pop culture, Branum is a person whose name you hear and go: Oh yay, he’s in this!
Branum is on so many shows that it’s easy to forget he’s also a stand-up, but he’s currently touring an approximately 90-minute work called Be Fruitful up the West Coast. Ahead of his appearance at Mississippi Studios, we talked with Branum about his new show, Portland gays, and what it’s like to be an authority on the zeitgeist while also being in the zeitgeist.
I should note that I was cruelly limited in how much of the interview I could share for this piece, and Guy said many additional thoughtful and hilarious things that I couldn’t include. And thus, this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So, your new show is called Be Fruitful. What makes this a show-show and not just a stand-up show?
GUY BRANUM: Generally when I’ve toured before, it was straight stand-up, which is always pretty personal for me. But my stand-up is just an assembly of the jokes that I wrote most recently, whereas this is a coherent show about a singular idea. It started from me having thought a lot about the fact that, like, as a gay person, I’m kind of failing at evolution.
Oh, no!
And then also, as a very fat person, I’m defined as somebody who is not attractive or an interesting or viable partner for most people. Beyond health or scientific approaches, there is a larger moral condemnation of what it means to be fat. So thinking about the fact that these two things that really define me are things that people aren’t supposed to be. It’s me trying to figure out a meaning of life by figuring out if there’s a practical purpose for my life. The idea of “be fruitful and multiply”—that is not a thing that I can do. So what does it mean that I’m living this life outside of those terms?
But comedy?
But comedy. Jokes, good times, punchlines. I mean, I’m not really a storyteller, and usually the solo show is the domain of storytellers.
One of the big ideas I’m confronting with this show is that we kind of don’t know how to tell queer stories because all of our stories have centered around this romanticization of heterosexuality and reproduction. One of the reasons I don’t tell stories is that I don’t know that I can trust an audience can consume a story from me—without seeing it through the lens of my gayness and my fatness.
I listened to your audiobook [My Life as a Goddess], and you seem like a pretty good storyteller to me.
Thank you so much for listening to my book.
The Powell’s close to my house didn’t have the physical book in stock, so instead of driving 20 minutes to another Powell’s, I spent nine hours listening to the book.
I do think it is better consumed as an audiobook. I read three-quarters of Tiger Mom at the downtown Powell’s.
Oh, yeah? Was it good?
Um, no. But I like there being a bookstore where it is a safe space and good place to just order a coffee and read three quarters of a book you’re not going to buy.
One of my first times in Portland, I got mad that there wasn’t a neighborhood where all of the gay people live. And I wanted to just have a place where I could go and know that most of the people I was seeing were queer people—to feel comfortable in that way. Everyone was like: ‘This is just an integrated queer community.’ I didn’t understand the virtue of it until I went to a Starbucks in Pioneer Courthouse Square that was entirely staffed by dirty twinks. And then I was like… I got Portland.
Accurate.
Can I tell you another distinctly Portland story? I, who have identified myself as a bad storyteller?
Yes, please.
One time I was at the Ace Hotel in Portland, and I was hanging out with like this group of seven to nine little gay twentysomethings. We were drinking in my hotel room, and then I, as a joke, said: All right, now everyone show me where Gus Van Sant touched you. And everyone just started telling their real stories.
Oh, that’s on the nose.
It was a wonderful and beautiful story that was not about exploitation, but beautiful journeys of self-discovery and community. It can be affirmational. But the point is, Portland is a vibe, and I deeply respect that vibe.
You had to reschedule this show from May to October to write for the fifth season of Hacks. Will we be getting something different now than we would have back in May?
Yes. I’ve been really lucky to get to perform it a bunch. Some comedians I love and respect gave me their thoughts and advice. There’s a bunch of personal stuff in it now that wasn’t there at the beginning. There’s a subsection about dinosaurs not being able to get fat. That had not been there until very recently.
Now I really want to know what is going to happen with the dinosaurs. Can they not get fat?
To our understanding, dinosaurs didn’t form subcutaneous fat. They carried all of their fat in their tail and—to some extent—their legs. That was one of the reasons that mammals were able to survive after the meteor hit. Because they had subcutaneous fat that could help them regulate their temperature when the planet got really cold.
That’s interesting; in the TV show Dinosaurs, the dad dinosaur was built with a body like John Goodman.
That’s a really interesting point. We did not have realistic body types for the dinosaurs on Dinosaurs.
You’re on basically every podcast that I’ve ever listened to, you’re in writing rooms, and you’re also acting. In complete sincerity, how do you have time to do all that stuff and still pay attention to what’s happening in politics and pop culture?
By being thoroughly mediocre at all of these endeavors.
No.
To some extent, I’m not the stand-up comic that I wish I were. There are other people who have writing careers that I really respect and envy. I’m still not certain that I’m a good actor—that’s just a joke. It is really nice to have a career like mine where I get to try different things and explore different things, but I’m also only doing a mediocre job of keeping track of pop culture.
Working with so many famous people—and also being a famous person—do you get information the way normies do, or do you go to other sources?
It’s simultaneous. You have a little more sympathy, when you know the people or you understand what it’s like to be talked about in that way, which is hard because I love celebrity gossip. I grew up loving Joan Rivers making fun of the ladies on the red carpet for being too full of themselves. I loved working for Joan on Fashion Police, but also now I understand that differently.
I just re-listened to your appearances on Las Culturistas, and I noticed that in 2017 there was plenty of naming names and talking shit. But when you appeared in 2022, which was right after the Don’t Worry Darling drama, you said something like: I’ll have to talk to you guys about this one offline. What changed there?
It is really hard because I think candor is one of the things that we love in celebrities. Kathy Griffin, back in the 2000s, walked such a difficult line, and she fell off of it so many times—of both being inside of the celebrity world and talking shit at the celebrity world. There are comics who talk shit about my friends, and I would never say… but I love so much that this person is talking the shit that they do. I definitely still talk shit about people when I think it’s appropriate. I just became more circumspect as I became more part of the institution.
I always try to remember what it was to be an angry, young gay guy who imagined that that world would never have a space for me and just how sharp my claws were. And so when sharp claws come for me, I try to have that kind of sympathy.
We’re almost out of time, so here’s a big question about art, humor, comedy, and community: Do celebrities still smoke cigarettes?
Oh, what a great question. I personally believe that smoking is deadly and dangerous, but I also think someone willingly choosing to die a little bit is a bold choice. I have a couple of dear friends who smoke very clandestinely, and only in the most beautiful and vulnerable of situations. And I love it every time I get exposed to it.
See Guy Branum at Here-After Fri Oct 24, 7 pm and 9 pm, 21+.
This story was originally published in Portland Mercury.
