One of my absolute favourite things in the world is comedy. When I was growing up, stand-up comedy was hard to find. A friend might have had a Steve Martin or George Carlin record, but it wasn’t like it is now - where you can listen to comedy anywhere, any time. There are many comedy channels out there - youtube, sirius xm, podcasts - the list goes on. I used to have to wait until Sunday nights at 10:00 to listen to the Sunday Funnies on Chum-fm. I would sit a tape-recorder beside the radio and record the entire show (and theatre of the mind right after it with the old time radio shows like suspense, bold venture, x-minus one) and I would listen to those tapes endlessly. I think that listening to comedy like that did a lot of great things for me - it gave me a sense of timing that I find very useful when telling a story, talking to large groups of people or even presenting in a boardroom. You would be amazed how many people in business are terrible presenters. With all that, it never occurred to me to even try stand-up comedy. I don’t think I have the guts to do it even as I sit here thinking about it right now… But, I do think it seems like an interesting career. I go to see a lot of comedy shows and the headliners always make it look easy - even though I know it’s not. This series of “career podcasts” is meant to inspire you to have discussions with your own kids about interesting career options so you can hear what it’s like from people that really do that for a living.
Today, we are very fortunate to have comedian Glen Foster with us. You might know him as “That Canadian Guy”
Glen has been one of the top headliners in Canada for over three decades.
As his bio says, he didn't just work the road, he's one of the guys who helped to build it.
He had his first one hour comedy special in 2000 and, since then, has gone on to perform at:
Just for Laughs (8 times)
The Winnipeg Comedy Festival
The Halifax Comedy Festival
The Comedy Network
He has been a frequent guest on CBC Radio’s “The Debaters”
And he has a radio show on Funny 820 in Hamilton
And he performs regularly in comedy clubs in southern Ontario
I was fortunate enough to meet Glen a number of years ago when I worked at a company I will refer to as “Fraud Co”. The reason for that is an entire episode on its own, but suffice it to say that it was an awful company. Many great people worked there, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. One of the best things they did to try and raise morale was to bring Glen in to entertain us one day. At first, I thought - this is going to be challenging for him. More than half the company were not from here and English was not their first language. But Glen got up there and immediately had everyone laughing hysterically. It was an incredible thing to witness - and I remember thinking about the professionalism it took to pull that off. After that, I brought Glen in on as many projects as I could at Fraud Co - we had many great chats and I was always in awe of his creativity and of course his humour.
Please visit www.mynotflixspecial.com and check out Glen’s show “Prickly - Live at the Rose”. It’s a fantastic deal at just $3.99 to stream it. I have watched it and it’s fantastic. You can get an even better deal if you join his email list - then you can see the show for just $1.99.
Glen’s main website is www.thatcanadianguy.com and you can find lots of great clips on YouTube when you search for him. Thank you again to Glen for being on the show.
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Thank you for listening!
Credits
Uberdad is written, produced and hosted by Rick Brown
Segments from “Prickly - Live at the Rose” courtesy of Glen Foster. Copyright Glen Foster - all rights reserved.