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Erica Switzer: Rep your hood. Keep it real. Be kind when all else fails.
84 Plays2 years ago
How do you keep it together when everything goes crazy? Erica Switzer has the Chicago upbringing, the stand up comedy reps, the COVID survival stories to prove she is an expert in turning pain, challenge, and trauma into joy, art, and beauty.
Content Warning: bullying, sexual abuse, gang violence, suicidality, explicit language.
Check out Erica’s website: ericaswitzer.com
Subscribe to Erica’s YouTube page: youtube.com/@ericaswitzer
(un)common good with pauli reese is produced in Southwest Philadelphia, on the unceded land of the Lenni Lenape tribe and the Black Bottom Community.
Check us out on Instagram and TikTok: @uncommongoodpod
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@uncommongoodpod
we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity.
We are creating community that builds relationships across difference by inviting dialogue about the squishy and vulnerable bits of life.
thanks for joining us on the journey of (un)common good!
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Transcript
Compassion Over Self-Importance
00:00:00
Speaker
My first instinct is to ask somebody how I can make their day better or to give somebody encouragement. And I know that's not automatic for others, but I just want to do what I can for my part in the world to maybe help somebody think, maybe I need to think of them first. Maybe I need to not insert myself and let them say what they need, reach out, make it warm and open for them to be able to do that to me.
Introduction to Erika Switzer
00:00:36
Speaker
It's Uncommon Good, a podcast where we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity. I'm Pauli Rees. Fam, we got a big one for ya. I bring you Erika Switzer. She is an educator, a stand-up comic, a native Chicagoan.
00:00:52
Speaker
I had the distinct privilege of meeting her while doing comedy on Zoom during the earlier parts of the lockdowns. I hope we get to meet in person someday. I do need to caution
Sensitive Topics: Bullying and Gang Violence
00:01:05
Speaker
you. We've got a big content warning for this one. We get into bullying, sexual abuse, gang violence, suicidality, and there is some explicit language in this episode.
00:01:16
Speaker
So as always, if these things are not right for you to listen to, please feel free, switch this one off, and we will catch you in the next one. Moving on from there, we talk about so many different things. We talk about what it was like to do comedy abroad, in person, in mainland China, and on the internet on Zoom. The differences and lessons learned. What it was like for her to teach English in mainland China.
Erika's Comedy Journey and Teaching Experiences
00:01:44
Speaker
The Art of the Roast Battle, one of her signature stylings of comedy. Her takes on mentoring, what it was like to grow up in Chicago, and most importantly, the persistent determination of her creative spirit. Erica is amazing. I am so grateful that she carved out time to chat to us on the podcast. Please enjoy my chat. To Erica Switzer.
00:02:15
Speaker
So I was catching up with your social media presence and was delighted to read about your time spent in like third culture teaching English to French kids in China. And as a person who also has roots in that culture but has barely spent any time in East Asia, could you tell me a little bit about what East Asia was like for you?
00:02:46
Speaker
It was an amazing experience. To be fair, I had traveled to Shanghai and parts of Thailand in 2008. So right when United started offering that nonstop direct flight to Shanghai, I was like, son. Yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
And it was a, it was a real eye-opening experience because then 2008, there was so a lot of buses in the street. There were still people there and like four rooms deep on the sidewalk going to work about their day. And it was a lot more industrious looking, speaking the streets. And then by the time I got there in 2016, it was like New York on steroids.
00:03:33
Speaker
And I had always loved the fact that like the locals and a lot of the expats that I would meet were so down to earth that I kind of felt like it was like Chicago, you know, so that's why I used to make the joke I call Chicago, you know, Shanghai Junior Junior. Because we got a third of all the stuff that Shanghai's.
00:03:53
Speaker
China's been so closed off to most of the Western world for ages, and it's just opened their borders within the past 30 years, 40 years. To have the rapid development they had and to be able to see it with my own eyes and span of eight years was so cool.
00:04:11
Speaker
And then to travel around and just experience Thailand, Indonesia, Mongolia, just amazing. I had just the best time. Have you noticed any lingering changes in either the content of your standup or the delivery from spending time over there?
Challenges of International Comedy
00:04:36
Speaker
If anything, I always stayed true to me, trying to speak as close to my natural languages I would speak and my cadence. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. I have to slow down and just really focus on the words, but starting my comedy career there forced me to have to deal with international craft. At any given time, we could have an audience that would be half local,
00:05:04
Speaker
three guys from the UK, four girls from Germany, I have for the Russian folks. Speaking English to a common denominator and try to hit that middle. That was a great experience for me to get down to the funny and just enjoy being able to make cultural specific jokes and stuff like that. Really cool.
00:05:26
Speaker
I wouldn't change anything. Of course, I cuss more and I'm raw here. I can't do a whole bunch of sex as a common denominator for the whole world. So make sex jokes over there, but not nearly as out there as I am.
00:05:45
Speaker
There was, so one of my favorite internet clips of you is you doing roast work. And I know that you're heading to a roast, you have another roast tonight. One of the comments that was made is that you have the delivery of just a very slow, gentle, like composed Maya Angelou doing a roast.
00:06:18
Speaker
Is that pacing and it's not just it's not just your rose pacing but it is your standup to like your standup is very patient Can you tell me a little bit more about how that delivery technique of standup has been cultivated for you
00:06:37
Speaker
Growing up in Maywood, Illinois, mostly black town, west of Chicago, growing up poor. I was a nerd. We didn't have nothing, but we had encyclopedias. We had dictionaries and we had medical books and stuff, and I read those like crazy.
00:06:59
Speaker
I didn't care that I had a nintendo when it came out. I didn't care. I had that target Let me know what the bomb radius is for a hydrogen bomb blast if it really does in chicago Like I was deep in looks so I couldn't help Standing out in school standing out with my teachers and it just being that kid So this is just the way that I talk and the way that I carry myself and I that's
00:07:25
Speaker
me being pretty authentic just you know that's this is it this is erica i'm not gonna yeah dumb it down too much if i don't have to and i'm not gonna tackle her folks heads um as far as the roasting thing goes for me
00:07:42
Speaker
Part of the whole roast thing should be, you shouldn't want to cut their necks off completely. If you want to have a little bit of clasm, but now I shouldn't there, and I like staying poised and just say, hey, I'm going to say this person's name for every joke. I'm going to respectfully call them by their name, and then go ahead and demolish them. That's just how I present, and I really appreciate how Keith Carey called me.
00:08:10
Speaker
uh my edge is a little rusty yeah um no Keith was great um there
00:08:20
Speaker
There's a certain brutality to, at least I've not had the privilege of doing roast work yet, but there's a certain brutality to it when you can just sort of stand there, deliver joke, and then like watch the energy of the other person just sort of
00:08:46
Speaker
Deflate or or my favorite when it comes to like that hyper masculine energy when people start talking even faster Because they are they are
00:09:00
Speaker
because they're just a little bit like decentered and you've struck just the right amount of nerve to where like they're either like rewriting a joke in their head and trying to improvise or you've gone even like the one step further and you've struck that perfect amount of nerve.
00:09:26
Speaker
Is there a way that joke writing for roasting feels different than joke writing for a conventional stand-up set to you?
Roast Battle Style and Influences
00:09:34
Speaker
Or is it mostly the same process?
00:09:38
Speaker
Again, growing up in Baywood, Illinois, roasting is a second language. It is a necessary life skill. So my whole life I've been working on, now how am I going to address this person? Am I going to hit him up nicely? Am I going to hit him up meanly? I am trying to almost ether someone's soul in a row.
00:10:01
Speaker
I don't want to fully vanquish my opponent. They're still a human being. I still got to perform shows with him. And the Roastigan probably see me recently. Those are my buddies. Yeah. Well, that was hard. Like the Roastigan's Jeff. I'm like, Oh, this is my brother. He's going to pick me up in a couple of hours.
00:10:19
Speaker
I need to ride back. I can't fully eat through this bank. You know, Kelvin, Kelvin is an amazing, Kelvin's that guy, Gregory, is an amazing, you know, here he's a badass. He gave me probably my toughest competition. Yes. But it was so fun and didn't fight. It was still didn't fight for me. Even when he got me off guard, I'm like, ooh, Jeffrey, let's go. Yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
So I just went in for the fun. For me, it's kind of fun. Even if I got to be mean and nasty, I still want to be fun. So that's that's where I draw the line. Yeah. And it kind of applies to what I do and stand up. I'm working on being even rawr and near vulnerable on my stand up. But that enables me to get on a row state and just be like, I'm Teflon. You know?
00:11:10
Speaker
Tell me more about Maywood, would you? Are there any memories that stand out as formative?
Formative Years in Maywood, Illinois
00:11:20
Speaker
I did a little bit of research. I could tell that you're really close to Forest Park, so you have some green space. I know that there's a little bit of Frank Lloyd Wright culture around there, but please tell me more.
00:11:35
Speaker
I may have would may what may have what we're known for a Loyola Medical Center, Loyola University Medical Center, which is a great medical center in the Chicago area, we're known for provides at least high school. Great basketball teams year after year, Shannon Brown, Dee Brown, all those great stars, Michael Finley, Doug Rivers,
00:12:00
Speaker
You know, and then there's me and I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to come out swinging. Uh, the only other non-basketball famous people from Maywood I could think of would be John Prine, the folk singer who passed away.
00:12:15
Speaker
years ago, he went to provide a lease with my dad. It's awesome. And I always forget her name, but she was one of the co-founders of BET. So knowing that these people came from Maywood, coming from a poor, mostly black impoverished area,
00:12:38
Speaker
It was difficult. It's like, here's Maywood. Here's River Forest, which is old money. Beautiful old money, and that's probably where there's some of the Frank Lloyd between River Forest and Oak Park, and then Chicago. So Grummel's like an extension of the west side of Chicago.
00:12:56
Speaker
Just set apart by a few suburbs. Um, it's always hard. I was bullied a lot because of being smart I wound up going to gifted programs And kind of finding my tribe there and then going to provides at least I was back to being bullied So and you can that's where the roasting and knowing how to fend for yourself verbally before anything gets deeper Was necessary for me. So
00:13:22
Speaker
I was determined to not let my upbringing and my surroundings determine who I was because I never, I didn't, there were a lot of times where I didn't feel like I belonged.
00:13:35
Speaker
I would wake up on Saturday mornings and watch Shut Your Heart with my mom, the Bollywood video clip show. And we'd watch Shumo Wrestling and we'd watch Korean slope operas. And so I have a very, music videos were still hot in the late eighties, early nineties. I watched all them joints. Every Madonna video when it came out, every Prince video, even though my mom tried to cover my eyes. Um,
00:14:03
Speaker
every Michael Jackson video back in the day when they had to preempt the Simpsons because it was that big Michael was the stuff. That was me. I love that. And then I needed to be around kids that love that too. And I got a chance to do that by going to an accelerated high school.
00:14:21
Speaker
Um, so as much as I love Maywood, I'm, I mean, I'm from there. I was born at Loyola Medical Center. If you can't take that away from me, but I want to represent it on the scale that people haven't seen before and be able to get on stages in New York, gone on stage in LA and talked about me from Maywood. I'm, I'm here to represent. There, there's a piece in that, that, um,
00:14:47
Speaker
that is such a resonance among a lot of our past and present guests of the show that the choice to
00:15:01
Speaker
The choice to end the patterns of violence and trauma and things, choosing to interrupt that cycle. I'm just so...
00:15:19
Speaker
I'm so grateful, number one, that that is a choice that you made. And grateful to get to have experienced your comedy.
00:15:37
Speaker
And what little... I've had the privilege of connecting with you as a person from the pandemic. We're Zoom pandemic comedy friends. So first, I'll just say thanks.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, what is the, is there, I'm wondering if we can sort of like dig into this notion of like ending the cycle a little bit more. Because this is something that is like a project of this podcast.
Choosing Art and Beauty Despite Challenges
00:16:16
Speaker
And you turned it into art, into comedy, into education as well.
00:16:25
Speaker
Are there on the micro level, are there particular like daily choices or
00:16:38
Speaker
tricks of just the sort of like daily decision of this is a decision that I'm making. I'm choosing art and vitality and beauty over the cynicism of brute violence. The boring things of making that decision, are there things that come to mind that help you
00:17:04
Speaker
move in that direction as opposed to that cycle, yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
By the time I was 14, 15 and nerding out and stuck with going to provides OE's before going to the atcillary at high school, in spite of being in honors classes and looking at the roll call of students and being second out of like 640 kids.
00:17:35
Speaker
There was still the good possibility that I was going to be jumped or raped into a gang. There is still the possibility of, I'm hanging around this kid that knows this kid and that's trouble. There was this world time I got beat down by a girl from around the block, gang affiliated and all that had a knot on my head fighting over a boy.
00:17:59
Speaker
I was not going to continue down that path. It was threatening me physically. It was threatening me so, you know, mentally. It was threatening me emotionally. I got to the point where, you know, even though we had honors classes, we had a mixed class and health class. So I'm here with some of the, you know, the truant students. The students that only show up once every quarter to mess with me and the other boy in class who was my close friend.
00:18:28
Speaker
And I got to a point, they bullied me so bad. The movie Congo was out. The movie Congo was out and we sure played it. And there was a girl and her whole crew behind me the entire time throwing coins and candy at me and the other guy and say, hey, look, that's you on screen. You know, and it was devastating. And I
00:18:55
Speaker
Unfortunately, or fortunately, tried to take a half a bottle of aspirin because I couldn't take any.
00:19:07
Speaker
I thought, I'm getting great grades. I'm on the math team. There's still this little boy that wants to sneak me behind the bleachers for lunch, but something's got to give. I can't live like this. And so I was able to thank God for being intelligent enough and then taking all the tests and getting the recommendations from my teachers. And we're like, oh, please go. This place is not free.
00:19:35
Speaker
And I'm here, thank God. And so, you know, the choice, I mean, when you already have physical, mental, emotional threats,
00:19:54
Speaker
from all sides and you don't feel protected or you're telling your parents, Hey, this stuff's going on and I don't like it here. And they're like, Oh, we're sorry, baby. We just wanted you to go for that first year and experience it. And it's like, but I had the opportunity to not, and I'm suffering. So I've been able to, to take, I'm still working on a way to
00:20:18
Speaker
Take a lot of pain and suffering and put it into material. Would being gone in China for four years, before that I was married for five, living in Colorado. So I've been gone from here for a long time. But when I came back, I started visiting some of those places. Ram Pass, Joe Pass, my old house. Oh, what pass provides a lease in some of those places. And some of those memories and feelings started coming back.
00:20:46
Speaker
So even though it was jarring, I'm armored, you know, with my knowledge now, with my peace of mind now, with centering myself and taking care of myself in spite of, you know, divorce and travel and everything, and just looking back and saying, I'm going to take something and make it beautiful. And I'm going to share it with the world because they need to know. There were kids I had in Shanghai, they were being bullied.
00:21:17
Speaker
Moroccan kids that didn't look like everybody else. Be saying, oh, they called me a terrorist and all this other stuff. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna have that. I'm gonna, which one, which one told you that? That one? All right, I'll be right back. Took that kid out to the hallway and said, we're not doing that. How would you feel if you were in her shoes? You know, I wanna do what I can to inspire
00:21:44
Speaker
not just young people, but people to really think about things like that and have more compassion and be more empathetic.
Empathy, Compassion, and Human Connection
00:21:53
Speaker
There's a thing there that compassion, empathy is not the first instinct, right? The first instinct is, here's a thing I've seen that I probably know is not true about this person.
00:22:11
Speaker
that I certainly know is not true about, broadly speaking, this identity. But I don't choose the thing of compassion and empathy when I could. I have the opportunity to make a conscious decision to not choose compassion and empathy. Ponder with me a little bit. What do you think, why do you think people
00:22:39
Speaker
choose the opposite of compassion and empathy. There's part of me that wants to say that's the period we're in. That's the way the world looks for everybody. Everybody's first concern is themselves.
00:22:56
Speaker
getting themselves through the day, taking care of themselves, and then hopefully next step is taking care of their family. But there should also be a hat. I mean, in spite of this rush-wish world where people's focuses are tested and all these things are available, it's like, hey, think about this other person next to you. This is another human being. Well, hopes and dreams and goals and fears just like you. And we don't know what people are going through.
00:23:24
Speaker
Sometimes my resting bitch face is on heavy, but I'm deep in thought. I'm happy as hell on the inside. I'm beaming, I'm joyful, I'm woke up, bills is paid, clothes on my back, shoes on my feet. But you know, I always try to, if I see somebody else that's also looking like that, hey, I have a heart.
00:23:44
Speaker
I want to investigate. Hey, how you doing? What can I do to help? My first instinct is to ask somebody how I can make their day better or to give somebody encouragement. And I know that's not automatic for others, but I just want to do what I can for my part in the world to maybe help somebody think, maybe I need to think of them first.
00:24:05
Speaker
Maybe I need to not insert myself and let them say what they need, reach out, make it warm and open for them to be able to do that to me. Because I think in this world where everybody's so glued to these things, and sometimes we're getting out of function in life without them, we're also forgetting how to function as human beings while they're human beings. And being over in Shanghai reminded me of that so heavily
00:24:35
Speaker
because first of all, you're thrust into the middle kingdom. 1.4 billion Chinese, you don't look like them. You don't sound like them. Didn't come from similar situations. You're living there.
00:24:57
Speaker
So of course, to automatic reach out to the other ex-pass, hey, how you doing? Hey, nice to see you, all right? If, you know, there's an avenue for that. But obviously, other black folks in Asia, because we're there, people, we're there. At what point there is at least 300,000 Africans in Guangzhou alone. And they're mostly there for education. And I'll let everybody else who's watching and listening go do their own Google research to find out.
00:25:27
Speaker
But when we see each other over there, it's the automatic nods. The automatic nod, the nod and smile for the most part, because it's like, hey, we out here, how you doing? But just even just greeting somebody. Like we don't even do that. So let's bring it back, reaching out to other people. It's anything the pandemic has taught us in the past three years, plus we need each other.
00:25:52
Speaker
We have the pleasure of being on the call today because of our perspectives being changed from doing Zoom and Zoom comedy and Zoom gaming, etc., communications.
00:26:09
Speaker
the thing that strikes me, both of us have, it's a Sunday, it's a 3D weekend, both of us have a solid show slate today. You have more gigs, I have more gigs. I'm struck by the fact that how we were forced to slow down
00:26:38
Speaker
And now, I don't know. I certainly feel the attention to get back into things as quickly as possible, or whatever normal life might be. I don't have a question.
Efficiency vs. Speed in Work
00:26:53
Speaker
It's just something I notice from what you're identifying. I wonder if, I wonder if in this case,
00:27:07
Speaker
Speed is the enemy of the good? Is that possible? Being in China taught me a lot about efficiency. Be speeding, but be efficient. Be competent, know what you're doing. Get it on quickly. Otherwise, speed kills. So, I mean, there's a lot of things
00:27:36
Speaker
in 2023, that a normal cultural critic can sit back and say, I know we're screwing up. We're not doing this thing right anymore. And speed would be one of those factors. Rushing out to produce something. Rushing, you know, don't rush. Speed is, speed isn't always good. Quality is always going to beat out speed. Always.
00:28:05
Speaker
And we can tell. Consumers, you know, audiences, we can tell. So even though the world is saying rush, rush, rush, take your time. Let that thang cook. To that end, how many iterations of a joke do you tend to work through before you get to the point where you're like, yeah, this is probably good. This feels, feels like it's ready. It's ready to be in its mostly final form.
00:28:34
Speaker
I'm one of those comics that's always thinking about ways to tag and present older material.
Iterating Comedy Material
00:28:42
Speaker
So even though I put more clips out recently, partially that was because I was sitting on two years worth of material and not caring to go back and watch me listen to myself, in spite of having to do that repeatedly with voiceovers and podcasts and stuff. But it's also material that's older than I'm looking to either workshop and expand, or it's kind of evergreen for me.
00:29:04
Speaker
Those are jokes that I've been working on for three, four years. In China, wow, come over here and they get extra iterations. The finna joke becomes finna and goofy because we're in Chicago, so fuel goofy. And I'm teaching the kids, go. So, you know, stuff like that.
00:29:28
Speaker
at least three or four iterations before I even put it on stage. And then from there, it could grow. Because one of the things that I'm finding myself doing a lot more since I've been performing regularly in Chicago and all over the place for the past couple of years is letting that magic happen, having to save in some room for the audience magic.
00:29:53
Speaker
You know, cause I'm there for that audience. I'm there for reactions and responses. And if this worker likes that joke a little bit too much, we talk. And that might come up in the next bit. I just started doing a newer bit about taking it back to being six and talking about video stores and, um, a guy.
00:30:16
Speaker
Then the audience came up to me after the show and say, you know what? Your set was so great. I kind of think that the video store guy in Berkeley is my dad.
00:30:27
Speaker
So that's what I'm about. I'm not so married to the material. I love the material, but I want to see how it flourishes room to room and play with it in half long. What are the crowds like these days? We're taping in mid-January, 2023, as things are reopening. How do they tend to feel? I think crowds in Chicago are so excited. Yeah.
00:30:54
Speaker
crowds at the Lincoln Lodge at laugh factory are ready to laugh. They come in ready. Um, and people missed not being able to have it. Cause we had so many pause and unpause moments, you know, while the pandemic was happening and like, Hey, let's do some open mics. Oh no. County survey got a close in the tournament. Oh no, we can do some work. Hey, we got a close. So,
00:31:21
Speaker
In that wait, it was like, yo, what's going to happen? But the crowds have been so responsive and so happy to be there. And when I did the Black Women in Comedy Laugh Fest in New York, last summer, the crowds were just magnificent. Everybody was there to laugh and pack it out and have a great time.
00:31:43
Speaker
It feels like we're almost in a wild west again, like theater, comedy, wise. Yes, I would say that the crowds that I've done in Philly are similar. People really want to be out, really want to be seeing shows.
00:31:59
Speaker
So if you got to try out your weirdest, dumbest, wildest idea, a thing that you thought, pre-pandemic, this could never possibly work. Pre-the weirdness of adapting to internet comedy, which you still do and do well,
00:32:23
Speaker
What is that one thing? My thought is there are these periods in art when people are just dying for art so much, and it feels like there's some sort of collective existential threat. We see it in music history, we see it in visual art, we see it in movement and theater, broadly speaking, that as soon as we all emerge from some sort of collective existential
00:32:52
Speaker
dread, trauma, world conflict, that the world is willing to just give more things a try. Certainly in Philly, there's lots of weird shit happening right now that
00:33:09
Speaker
would not have happened in like 2015 because all of the things that were there worked like that was um gosh the era of um like very conventional like things on the the the improv side like things looked like Boozeline is anyway and looked like looked like um most every improv special that has worked um things in stand-up looked
00:33:38
Speaker
very much stool stand and water bottle. Before alt comedy started to explode in New York in 2017 as, I think, a reaction to Trump and
00:34:03
Speaker
some of the some of the scandals around like UCB and things like something happened and then suddenly people are more open to trying things do you do you have that one like idea in the back of your head that you're like let's give that a shot or that'll never work but now feels like the right time
00:34:24
Speaker
I feel what you're saying about the landscape being a Wild Wild West Lake, but that's to the other point that you said. People have been bold and experimenting and daring and going there. There's something to be said for that. I think the pandemic forced people to really look at their lives. We'll start there because of how many people designed it. Now it's really time to shit or get off the pot.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I'm going to try comedy. I'm going to try improv. I'm going to try acting. And now people are finally giving it a chance and being bold. So you may be hearing some new voices and some may resonate stronger than others. Some may be lasting. Some may not. And that's okay. At least we're all out here trying.
00:35:07
Speaker
And I think that's the best part. You're right about the alt comedy explosion because I used to, done ironically and not always, watch Tim and Eric. All the shows, all the shows. And then to see all of a sudden people are saying their influences. I'm like, yo.
00:35:33
Speaker
There's room for this. And all of a sudden you look up on SNL and here's Sarah Sherman. It's like, oh, body word comedy? Yeah.
00:35:42
Speaker
So I love the bold steps that people are taking. And I think, you know, when music kind of get decentralized from the big companies, the big record labels not having so much control over artists and their masters and they're feeling more independent. I think comedy is doing that in a huge way. Look at Andrew Schultz and his special he put out on YouTube because Netflix said it was too controversial. Wow. Look at what earthquake did this year. Thanks to Dave Chappelle on Netflix.
00:36:11
Speaker
Finally, talk about somebody who's been consistently super funny for 30 plus years. Phenomenal special. Ali Sadiq on YouTube, same thing. Phenomenal special. So for comedy, comedians, the bigger names to have the raise, to have the skill and the stories and the pool are able to corner this, to have their own market, to be more independent. And I think that's where
00:36:40
Speaker
I think that's where things are going to stay. I don't think there's ever going to be some other big company that's going to come out and say, Hey, all you guys get under our umbrella. I don't think everybody is just rushing to be like, Oh, I want to drive our, Oh, I want a comedy central. You can have it, but it's how you're going to get there.
00:36:57
Speaker
You know, it's a fun, I think it's a fun landscape and I see more opportunities for things to happen and grow and new ideas and things to be fresh than anything else. I think that opens any of the cons.
00:37:12
Speaker
I will acknowledge I did not know his work until I saw the special and I was like, this is incredible. I think one of the things that we forget is that this is now just finally this person's time and the start of that, but it represents only one point in time in the timeline of all of the craft that they've been doing for so long.
00:37:37
Speaker
One of the things that those formats don't have the time to teach us is that all of the hours and days and weeks, months, years of craft
00:37:55
Speaker
I hadn't been writing for three weeks or so, and that's bad on me, bad Erica. But I had a whole bunch of voiceover stuff going on, so I couldn't work a day job to be voiceover, so go to sleep.
00:38:11
Speaker
So I didn't have the time to devote to it, but I just turned on earthquake compilation, and it had so many hits from him doing so many topical jokes from back the tsunami in 2004, talking about stuff in 2001, talking about the Obama election in 2008.
Lifelong Learning in Comedy
00:38:29
Speaker
And I'm sitting here thinking, this man had a whole tie.
00:38:33
Speaker
It was beyond, I got memories of watching comic view with my mom as a teenager and just loving it. And there was a joke that he made that I'll never forget because I think it's on the horizon when he said, I want to put my air in my momma's name.
00:38:49
Speaker
Just knowing how punchy he is, how just a tag monster he is. His special these ain't jokes was one of the only times me and my ex-husband agreed on who's very funny.
00:39:04
Speaker
It's just, it's just a piece with it. He's a piece with it. And even that it's sitting there trying to watch me like, yeah, he tagged that. He did that. He did that 38 times. Okay. All right. You have notes, but it's just like watch the man in session that just enjoy it. It was awesome. So awesome.
00:39:22
Speaker
Um, I want to pivot a little bit. Um, I want to talk a little bit more about internet comedy. Um, cause that was how we met. Um, we, um, worked on a little project called off Mike comedy school. So many, well, it feels like so many years ago. Um, what was internet comedy like for you?
Adapting to Internet Comedy
00:39:49
Speaker
I'll rephrase because you still do internet comedy and there are many of the alumni of that project who are still doing internet comedy and doing it well. Others translating and some of them also translating to the stage as you identified. But tell me what those of us who did transition towards internet comedy
00:40:17
Speaker
What was that experience like for you as someone who already was doing comedy and then made the decision to at least give it a try?
00:40:26
Speaker
The very first time I tried internet comedy was March of 2020 when I had just returned to Shanghai from spending a month in Chicago. As teachers, we were getting let go for Chinese New Year and we were told by one of the administrators, be prepared to come back online when we start back up. So we knew something was gonna happen. Within those two weeks, my great aunt had died
00:40:55
Speaker
and they had a funeral, Kobe had died, and then we found out that it was a real thing. That doctor was not making stuff up. The doctor that died from it, he was, yeah, all of a sudden he was a martyr, and I am chain-smoking orange coffee-flavored Korean cigarettes out my window. Not caring if it's airport or not, but I'm like, ain't no way ahead, I'm gonna be a soup duck and train my China. I gotta get home.
00:41:24
Speaker
Am I going to do that? So it costs $450 for the first one way ticket over there. It was going to cost me $3,600 to go one way. And I said, okay, no, we're not going to do this.
00:41:39
Speaker
spent about a week and a half coasting through every emotion under the moon every day, driving to my boyfriend on messenger. And I came home on Valentine's Day of 2020, surprise him. When I came back just after St. Patrick's Day,
00:41:55
Speaker
Uh, I was immediately placed into quarantine. I had to get off of the plane, go to a testing center, get tested, sit there for six to eight hours and then go on a bus back place and immediately get ushered upstairs by a nurse who put us in.
00:42:12
Speaker
since you're on your door and say hey i'm coming by every day to check your temperature uh that forced me to do virtual comedy for the first time i had set something up where i was hosting an open mic my hey now comedy open mic from my apartment in shanghai my buddies were down at the location in shanghai and then we had a few comedy buddies in chicago join us and do some sets so even then i was like what
00:42:39
Speaker
do this i was planning on doing that already but i had to do it from my apartment and that was that was my first introduction to and i said yeah this is this is what's gonna be happening i loved it when i came home and you know started working with off mic because off mic as soon as i even got online started doing virtual comedy off off mic was one of the first things and i'm so grateful that that that you guys said hey let's get this funny lady on team i'm like all right
00:43:09
Speaker
I started opening up even more doors. I did all of the Flappers Super Bowl, Flappers Uncle Clyde's contest. I won the Super Bowl in October 2020, sitting on boxes in my old apartment.
00:43:27
Speaker
When you come back from all that and you gotta start over, baby, you gotta start somehow on this laptop sitting on the box, cutting, telling them jokes. So like, it just really opened up a whole new world to me and helped me connect and network with so many cool comedians from all over the country, let alone the world. And it's been a great experience. So even though there's those folks that say, oh, it's not the same, it's not the same, we know it's not the same, but I've been able to do some sets
00:43:56
Speaker
where it felt the same, where I had the crowd loving it, where it's been a hundred people when the bromine enjoyed it. I'm seeing advanced super pro comedians had me almost pee, sit and watching them do a virtual show. It's there. It's a very viable medium. I don't think it's going any, people just got an embrace.
00:44:17
Speaker
One of the things that just occurred to me to you saying that, it represents a further democratization of comedy, because now you're talking about people who, for whatever reason, choose or are prevented from getting into the club, from working the crawl of the open mics, and it's a wild west again.
00:44:45
Speaker
I'm thinking of a couple of our colleagues. I'm thinking of Kyra Veron, who talks a lot about accessibility and comedy. I'm thinking about He Huang, who talks about doing comedy in a non-native language. Yeah.
00:45:10
Speaker
And once again, the opportunity for comedy to do new things because more people can access it.
00:45:23
Speaker
Absolutely. And I got to say, Pho is one of my favorite people in life because we met in Shanghai and Pho did my open mic and we met and I was like, oh, yay. And we kept in touch and then we met again through off mic and I was like, so happy for her and all the cool stuff that she's got.
00:45:44
Speaker
It's my attention slowly to get all of our great alumni. I was just chatting with actually Che today. But I'm assuming since you're taping with me now, you haven't secretly recorded a viral audition on America's Got Talent, have you?
00:46:13
Speaker
Because when her and I recorded, she had already taped Australia's Got Talent and kept it stone cold, stone face the entire time and said nothing. So you haven't just spent 10 minutes with Simon and Howie and Heidi and Mel B have you? I wish.
00:46:42
Speaker
Always next year, I guess. Maybe one day. Still a little iffy about that. I mean, I love me some Simon. I think we get along fabulous. I've agreed with 99% of his choices throughout the year. Who are the 1% that you were like, uh-uh, or no way?
00:47:07
Speaker
I was not a Carrie Underwood thing. I thought both bodies should have won now. Constantine should have been third place. That's just my opinion. And boy, yes, star power. That's why he solved on Broadway after all that. That was the Melinda Doolittle season. If I'm not mistaken, Melinda. Simon was big on Melinda and I hated that, you know, she didn't win. But yes, I love Simon. Hi, Simon.
00:47:35
Speaker
There was the tiniest fleeting moment where I was like, I was entertaining the idea of like a bus trip to LA to go audition for the show and to just like sit in like the walk online and be like Korean Frank Sinatra or something to that effect.
00:47:51
Speaker
I could go get them with the dulcet tomes. Something like that. But I'll settle for the occasional, this is NPR. We're just about at the end of our time. I want to cover just a couple more things that are very near and dear to me.
Daily Routine and Self-Care
00:48:12
Speaker
What is your morning routine? Is there coffee, a lot of coffee involved?
00:48:22
Speaker
I, you know, college helped me grow a really bad addiction to coffee. Really bad, like, doing a whole, was in a whole pot for mid-teller, and it just, it was not healthy. I was skinnier back then, I had a lot of momentum, I was a little hot, tight-bodied, something cute, but I was not,
00:48:47
Speaker
I did not need to be sitting with a resting heartbeat. Like I just ran a 5K. So I cycle myself on and off coffee. I typically actually don't even touch it until after 11 a.m. My routine is when I wake up in the morning, unfortunately I grab this thing and I need to stop. Yeah.
00:49:09
Speaker
I'd like to wean myself off of not reaching for it until the first hour of the day. But when I start my day, I give thanks, a lot of gratitude, I pray, I meditate, I think what I gotta do to get myself right, set my intentions for the day. And I stay busy, so there's always a little notepad by me, not just for the jokes that come to mind every so often. Right? My apartment is covered with notebooks.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah. But I just, you know, write three things I got to get done today to feel productive and feel like I've done something or they are important. And then I just kind of let my day happen. Nice. I work a lot, which is why I have to let my day happen. But yeah, unfortunately for me, I got to a point where I'd been doing so many shows and just really hadn't had any considerable time off, I think.
00:50:03
Speaker
December before last, yeah, last December I only had like two shows and I was like, okay, cool, I'm chilling. Literally taking the last week off and doing nothing but edibles. But this time I had a few shows and then half of them got canceled. And I was like, look, I got all this, I got the voiceover's going on, I got to do the me time. So I try to make sure at least once or twice a week there is
00:50:32
Speaker
Erika time there is self-care time there is run the belt run the bubble bath turn on selection Get them good beats in your ear that little funk that jazz lights and candles won't just Don't do anything. Just don't move forget the phone forget everything. Just just be my mind is crazy I spend most of my days in there. Is this anything? Is this anything? Is this any no, it's not stop. Oh
00:50:59
Speaker
turn it off, the comedy will happen, just relax and be. So that's where I'm at these days. You're funny. Like, but like, I don't, I don't say that on the fan space, but it's like, those of us that have been doing comedy for a long time, it's like, we wouldn't keep doing it, like, if we weren't actually funny, right? Like,
00:51:22
Speaker
that space of what I think I hear you saying is like at some point you have to learn to trust yourself and to trust your voice so that you can just move the fuck on and get down to the real writing and the real work of doing it.
00:51:44
Speaker
There to give you an example that I've been on my own case so hard and up my own blood about why did you write? Why did you write? Why did you? Stop. Stop. And I got to the Black Women in Comedy Laugh Fest. I did my usual bits for the first couple of shows. And then we had a late night Saturday night show. Hotels. So you know what was going to go down.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I said, I'm not gonna sit here and drive myself crazy about what I'm gonna do. There's a story that I just told at Lincoln Lodge a couple months ago. I got my notes and then it's gone wet. And then I went ahead and I did that and I had them in stitches. And I had the headliner say, you a beast, you this thing, thank you. But I was so shook after one, finally trusting myself in a high state situation, a midnight Saturday at New York comedy club,
00:52:39
Speaker
winging it when I was in the moment. And like we said, I just let it happen naturally. I experienced the thing. I remember those emotions and most feelings. I took them there. Lady of Promise laughing super hard with my boss sister. Let's talk. You know, I mentioned dimming the lights, lighting the candles, putting the mood music on. That D'Angelo and his one brother was like, that's your jam mate. How does it feel? How does it feel?
00:53:09
Speaker
And that was the tape that I submitted for the fest again, so I'm pulling back in June. So that was me trusting myself, getting rid of the noise, getting rid of the clutter, because when you're out here and you got a social media following, you wanna be seen, not everybody's kind to you. Not everybody's nice to you. Not everybody thinks you're funny. And then when you get, I'm here in this community, Chicago and the suburbs have just an awesome comedy community. I couldn't ask to be around a better group of people.
00:53:38
Speaker
But there's always a hater or two. Yeah. Tell these other thousands of people that they got it. There it is. Keep it to yourself. Thank you for your seat, but I'm gonna keep doing it. There it is. Quick speed round. Any thoughts about the relaunching-ish of Second City and IO? Do you feel any of the ripple of that?
00:54:03
Speaker
, and
00:54:32
Speaker
to come do the art in such a supportive system. So I'm excited for them and what they got going on. Rachel Mason is over there killing it. She's incredible. Yeah, yeah. So I'm excited about what they got going on and what's gonna come out. Lou Malnati's or Giordano's or none of the above? Giordano's. I gotta get it good and goopy with the cheese. They do it right. They do it right. Lou Malnati's?
00:55:03
Speaker
It's the bite don't feel right to me, the bite ain't. I need to feel my teeth go through the crust, just a doughy, buttery, good crust, and cheer down all the celebrities. Is intelligentsia everything that it's hyped to be, or is it a little overrated? The coffee? Yeah. Overhyped? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of other. I mean, that's good.
00:55:30
Speaker
There was another brand I just had. It was Dragon Tears. It was the brand or something. I forget. But I'll have to find it and link it to you. It was amazing. We had a lot of cool coffee shops around. Yeah. We have one last question for you. Same question we ask everybody as we're finishing up. And that is, what do you want the world to look like when you're done with it?
Vision for a Compassionate World
00:55:56
Speaker
I want the world to look like a more compassionate, more empathetic place. And even if people don't have the wiry to be, that we know sometimes some people don't have the biology, they're for them. The chemicals ain't going to let it happen. And that's okay. But just to just think about, you know, that person probably doesn't look like all their experiences. Give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them as a person.
00:56:26
Speaker
That's the thing I want to leave with people. Just be good to each other. It's not a bad way. Erica, so good to see you. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for having me, Polly. So good to see you reconnect.
00:56:41
Speaker
My thanks to my guest Erica Switzer. Check out her website ericaswitzer.com and follow her on YouTube at ericaswitzer. Thank you for tuning in to Uncommon Good with Polly Rees. This program is produced in southwest Philadelphia on the unceded land of the Lenny Lenape Tribe and the Black Bottom Community.
00:56:59
Speaker
Our associate producer for this episode was Willa Jaffe. If you enjoyed listening to the show, please support us by leaving us a five-star review and a comment and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help people find us. Uncommon Good is also available on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at uncommongoodpod. Follow us there for closed captioned video content and more goodies.
00:57:22
Speaker
We do love questions and feedback. You can send us a DM on social media or an email at uncommongoodpod at gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, wishing you every uncommon good to do your uncommon good, to be the uncommon good.