Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Please welcome Matthew Broussard. Hello sir, Hello, good morning. How are
you here? I am awake.The that's a good step, enlivened by
the smell of sushi. You knowwhat, do you want to move that
out of the way? I know, horrible. Eat as much of it
as you want. But it's literallyon top of you, and it's so
full. No one's touched it.It's a full party tray. The man
(00:22):
I do intermittent fasting. I'm justgoing to enjoy the smell of it.
That's going to be my tree.Wait are you bit? You're a huge
intermittent faster guy. About a year? Yeah, sixteen hours off and then
eat for eight eight hours when there'swhen's your eight hour window? I can
eat at noon? Are you serious? Yeah? Do you like normal day?
(00:42):
Do you get up at like elevenfifty nine? Yes? Yeah,
that's the tea to it. Yeah. I sleep until ten, So I'm
just like, well, just drinkmy coffee real slow. Wait a minute,
so you only you will only eatfrom noon until eight noon to eight.
It's like, yeah, usually whatI go for. But I I
almost feel like your job like thatworks easily, Like I don't better.
(01:03):
I don't know that it's Is itthat hard? No, it's not that
bad. No, And then Istopped. The hard part is stopping getting
at eight. And if once Igo to sleep, it's not so bad
right now because you don't have toget up early. If you weren't coming
in here today, what would bea normal like when you're on the road
nine ten. Yeah, I tryto sleep till nine or ten. Okay,
(01:23):
so it's not that you know whatit seems like it would be hard.
And you tell me is after ashow not eating? Yeah, well,
the show revs you up. Sothe nice part is like, if
I wasn't doing comedy nights, i'dprobably just be like bumming around my apartment
snacking, right, It is comedykind of keeps me alert, and I
do that and then as long asI just go straight to sleep after my
(01:44):
show, that's not so bad.And I know some comics who are like
real dirt bags who do like intermittent, like they don't eat till three because
they wait in the afternoon. Yeah, oh, so they can eat till
eleven and that's still like an earlycap right, but no, so,
but like forget being at home whereyou're snacking. But I would assume like
you're on the road, you're doingyour thing, you know, whether whether
(02:05):
it's your opener or you're opening forsomebody. But now it's like, what
eleven o'clock you're done? Like tome, that's prime, Like let's go
grab like, let's grab some Chineseand eat. So I just feel such
like such a boring answer, butI'm so excited to talk about it.
I'm so bad dressed. So forme, if I can just make sure
I eat a big dinner, likethere is that thing where it's eight o'clock,
(02:28):
like I didn't eat enough, that'sa problem. And then I'll just
eat more until I'm full and thenpush the window by whatever thirty sixty minutes
and just eat a little later thenext day. But I started tracking my
sleep, and eating late is asbad for my sleep as drinking. It's
a pretty remarkable effect. If youeat right before, how are you tracking
your sleep? I do the whoop? Do you really? Yeah? I
track my heart rate and I canreally see, like what makes my sleep.
(02:50):
But I'm just so bad at sleepingand I need so much of it.
You're so bad at sleeping. Ifeel like feel like you just said
you sleep for twelve hours a day. No, I'm in bed for a
nine hours a lot of that's likeup and back down. And yeah,
I just really like Calvin Coolidge deservesmore of respect. I mean, he's
really one of my heroes that hecould be president and sleep twelve hours a
day, Like, that's a disability. I need that. Sleep is a
(03:13):
disability. And you don't get towear that as a badge. You can't
say I'm differently abled. I needmore sleep than you. But I need
more sleep than most people. AndI'm not going to be very successful in
life because are you super healthy?I try to be as healthy as I
can. I'm I'm I'm pretty onit. I don't have the worst vices,
right, Yeah, Like what islike what like what would you consider
(03:34):
like a horrible vice that you have? I mean, but that's a new
thing. Well I'll tell you what. Matthew is really healthy minus that,
minus special K He's awesome. Isthat really? That's your that's your vice?
I like it? We wait,do you do it? It's a
new thing for me. Honestly,I was like, I'll have a couple
(04:00):
of beers. No, go hard, I go hard. It's like I'm
weirdly, I'm like Mormon. Upuntil a point, I'm like, I
need one thing. I got reallyadd to the Zen's are about I'm almost
a year I think, Oh,on Saturday, I'll be a year off
of zen. How'd you kick Zen's. I'm not on it, but I
know so many people that are.It took me so many tries. Really,
(04:20):
it took me. A lot ofpeople are like, oh, I
quit cold Turkey. I'm like,nah, it took me. It took
me quitting enough time to realize thatthere was because you always make those deals
stuff like I'll come back to it. I'll do it again, but I'll
just do it a little more casually. I'm like, I don't have that
control, right zens. The thenicotine, yeah, which, I never
smoked cigarettes. I just went straightin. So much better for you,
(04:43):
better for your social life, somuch better. It makes you look cool.
You never smoked cigarettes. You neversmoked a cigarette ever? Never.
I have some in the office.Do you want at smoker? Yeah?
It seems awesome, so cool,it's the best. It's the best.
I'm telling that. You're like,no, I do ketmine, so like,
what a big deal? Ye,it kicks Zins walking up the heroin
(05:08):
addicts. I know the show.This isn't crazy. You can just do
it all The problem zens is youjust do it all the time. It
right, exactly, kiss my fianceon the mouth. How long how long
had you been? How long wereyou doing doing Zens? It makes not
like a drug. So you're doingketmy two or three years on Zen's.
I think it was. That's notbad. Yeah that's started, but it
(05:30):
was it just took over. Yeah, really it was my whole day.
It was, Oh you met foryou? I thought you met Zins in
general? Oh that too. Yeah, it really is. They've done it.
I mean I could. I don'tknow who your sponsors are. I
could go on this emapiracy thing they'redoing a yeah, I'll say, and
if I if, I if,I'm free to criticize a brand. If
you don't mind, you could criticizeiHeart, I don't give a crat.
(05:51):
They just Zen's are like their marketing. They I believe they're neither food nor
a drugs. It's like the CamelJoe play but book Marbor catalog again and
they use the colors and ads.And I walked up to like a gas
station that had three different ads forz In on the front of the store.
So they're really trying to get ita problem with kids, and you
know what, it's working. It'sworking great. Oh yeah, no,
(06:13):
huge, it's huge. So wait, so back up for a second.
How did you At what point didMatthew Brussard go, you know what,
I'm good on me. I stoppeddoing Zen's for a year. I really
don't have any vices. How'd youstart to? But are you like,
are you bag of it? Idon't think that was fun? More of
that. So you're not doing liketherapy ketamine? No, no, no,
(06:36):
no, no, no, isit I've never done ketamine? Is
it trippy? Uh no, it'sjust relaxing. It's just it's just an
hour of being like sleepy, andthen when it goes away, you're not
like crash or anything. Right.Don't you hallucinate? Though you can if
you take a lot of it.Yeah, you can take this story.
No, I haven't done that.I like uh, I like hallosen gins.
I like LSD. And also someonegave me a bag of an edible
(06:59):
mush the other week and I tookone every day for til I was done.
Run bad impulse control, mine iseating apparently. I'm just I'll tell
you what. I am strict.I'm stet put any powder in my hand,
and I just love that. It'sjust some random gave it to you
(07:19):
and you're like, yeah, whowould do anything? This is good,
does a good job. It wouldn'thave me something. It works with numbers
and stuff. Because prior to allthat, I was going to say when
you were talking about like like likenot really having fights, like you look
like you're in good shape. Iswim, I like, yeah, I
(07:41):
like swimming a lot. So doyou still swim regularly? Yes? Yeah,
I swim a bit. That's beenmy thing. I did all sorts
of I swam for years at chathlon, and then I spent years doing like
jam and weights and now weight startedhurting. So I'm just back at the
pool. Just back to swimming.Yeah, so back back up for a
second. The the do you figureout is home is home Texas? Is
(08:03):
home Atlanta or his home back toTexas. Oh it's both. That's so.
I yeah, people, I lived. I grew up in Corpus Christy
until it's thirteen, and then Iwent to high school in Atlanta and then
I went back to Texas to Houstonfor college. Okay, so that's where
I keep because I did middle schoolin high school in Houston. Great city.
(08:24):
Yeah, oh yeah, no itis. It is fun the but
I guess I thought it was allHouston and that a little bit there.
I didn't realize Corpus Christy was partof it. Okay, so you like
you grew up going to the beach. It's not a nice beach. No
it's not, but that's all youknow. It was all I know is
windy and sludgy. Yeah, it'sthe very inland of the Gulf. Yeah,
(08:45):
Corpus is. It's a place.It's a medium size and you know,
like anytime it's like such a tropein a city that you can go.
Man, this place has really changedCorpus, not at all. Three
hundred thousand people. I went backand it's like, am I allowed to
touch things? Is this a preserve? Is this like a national park?
It's so it's so kind of stuckin its ways. Corpus. I guess
(09:07):
Corpus and Padre would at least beknown by people not who don't know the
areas like spring break time, yes, but not but not like, oh,
hey, we's all saved up.We're going to Lake Havasu or you
know, we're going to Miami.It was like, well, like,
we don't do that. Well,we're just going to go to pie very
state school budget spring break very much. So yevery very much. And then
(09:31):
Corpus itself wasn't even the spot MustangIsland was. But Corpus itself is not
like a vacation. It's not likea spring break spot. No. No.
Not fishing though, is what Ihear, Really good fishing in the
base. So how did you Howdid you end up leaving there to go
to Atlanta? So my well youwere thirteen. It's probably your family.
Yeah, you know, I said, dad, mom, you come with
me. My dad retired and mymom wanted to live anywhere but Corpus h
(09:54):
So Atlanta. We had some familythere. And yeah, it's been to
Atlanta. That was nice. It'sgreat city. Uh So you liked so
no problems living in Atlanta. Youliked Atlanta. I didn't like where I
lived in Atlanta. I lived inthe suburbs, and I didn't realize how
how much I didn't live in Atlantauntil I kind of came back as an
(10:15):
adult because you know, I likelisten like ludicrous and like outcast, and
I was like, oh, it'sgonna be a cool place. And I
was just I was so in thesuburbs, just cull the sacks and I
went to like I went to aprivate school that was very like kind of
old, you know, like douchey. Yeah, and that just real like
the real stereotype. Yeah, itwas. It was. My high school
(10:37):
was listed in the Preppy Handbook asone of the preppiest day schools in the
country. Yeah, were there anydid you go to school? I also
feel like that kind of school wouldbe either like like the real like the
real wealthier to do families would likesend their kid there. Would anybody famous
come out of there? No?Uh not really, There's not much entertainment
(10:58):
in Entertained. There wasn't guess interms of like film and television, there
wasn't that. Right at Helms cameout of our rival school. Oh that's
cool. Yeah, that's kind ofcool. Yeah, but love it hasn't
had well. Now we have akid named Eric Nahm who is in the
class below me, who was likehe's a K pop star who crosses over
to American culture as well. Hewas like on the cover of Korean Vogue.
(11:20):
He GQ's like Man of the Year, his outstanding career, he had
super famous. And then the greatabove me was a kid named Wes.
I think it's Hudson, and helike has designed dresses for Michelle Obama and
Lady Gag. He's like a fashionguy. So Matthew Brisard is the most
famous person to come out of yourhigh school stand up comedian. Sure,
Ericam's beaten me by a good man. And then we have one sitcom actor,
(11:43):
I'm sorry, soap opera actor acouple of years before me. Yeah,
so I'm sticking with it. Matthewthe most famous one out of that.
And then and then Corbus Christie isSelena than me, Selena Fara Faucet,
the the woman from Desperate Housewives.It was crazy because in Corpus,
I went to a magnet school wherethey it was a public school, but
(12:03):
they put you they took the highestscoring kids on this little test and they
put it into the lowest scoring schoolto bolster the grades right. And we
went to a like it was apretty ghetto middle school, and then it
was a very breakneck transition to goto like a private Atlanta high school after
that, because I had seen alittle bit different. Yeah, there was
like knife fights and teen pregnancy atmy middle school, and then I went
(12:24):
to a place that was they didn'tthey didn't know how good they had it.
So what was the How did youend up at Rice University? Though
I wanted to go back to Texas, it was a good school. I
also was just like, this isa fantastic school. Yeah, I was.
I was very happy to get in. I felt very lucky to get
in. I just thought it wasa big deal that it was one syllable,
Like all the one syllable schools arelike good. I was like Duke
Yale Unri. I was just likename a bad school. That's only four
(12:50):
legs. So I was like,it must be a good place to go,
a good engineering and that was whatI wanted to do. But that
I was going to say, thepath of being a stand up comic wasn't
wasn't really your path? Not aconsideration. My parents were really gung ho
dad. My dad was a chemist, my mom was a microbiologist, And
it was like so beat into me, you were going to make a career
(13:13):
with those types of skills. Withyour education, you do not have the
skills to be anything else, right, And education was very, very important
for the Bruce sard faces a bigdeal. Yeah yeah, like that.
We were not messing around with thatat all. Yeah, because it was
my dad was My dad grew uplike real poor Cajun family and he just
cool story about he just kind ofa it was a good test taker.
He read a lot. Weird kid, didn't have a lot of friends,
(13:37):
like lived out on the farm,so we just read a lot and was
pretty gifted at school as parents pushedit, but they barely. I mean
I think English was their second language. And he it was like the last
period of the day on a Friday, and the teacher said, hey,
there's this thing called a PSA T. If you go sign up for it
right now, I'll let you cutclass early today. So he goes,
okay, sure, So he goesand signs up for it, ends up
National Merit Scholar and got full tocollege. Wow. Yeah, So like
(14:03):
that was like the you know thatgot his whole family out of that poverty.
That's awesome, what a great story. That's great, but you so
but like but that was you.You were the very bright kid, very
smart kid who was and that wasthe path Like when but when did and
you became a like a financial guyand a numbers whiz and and still love
(14:24):
all that stuff very much? Butwhen when did the comedy bug hit you?
Though? I I I think like, was it college? Was it
right? You're out of college?I did do like a even going all
the way through Rice. You weren'tnot a consideration. No, And I
never did anything really with theater orno, nothing, you're out of college.
(14:45):
I just saw it was Donald GloverLive, and I was like,
that's really cool. And also Icould technically it was is that feeling you
get when you watch the standard belike technically I could do that. Like
you see someone play guitar, youlike, my fingers don't do that.
You see someone dancer acting like Idon't have that the physical ability to that.
When you watch someone just tell jokeslike, there's no logistically, there's
no reason I couldn't do that.It looks really fun. I'd like to
try that. So yeah, butthen there's the whole like I understand what
(15:09):
you're saying, Like all I haveto do is stand there and talk.
But there's that whole part of likeentertaining people along with it and being funny
that goes with it. But ifthat had never even like crossed your mind,
did you, like in the backof your head after seeing Glover go
I'm funny. No, I wasn'tfunny. I don't think I was funny
growing up. I tried to befunny. I was pretty It was pretty
painful, right, No. Ijust felt kind of lucky that I was
(15:33):
also too stupid to recognize all thethings you're talking about and just kind of
as the bullheaded twenty three year oldjust said, I I'm going to be
good at this. But when yousaid like you never even did theater,
I read something about you where youwere talking about like like you were so
heavy into the mathematics and like theschool part of it is like at one
(15:54):
point you had to make a choice. And I don't know if this is
in high school or in college,where it was like there was a math
class and there was a theater classand you were like, well, it's
all math class for me, goodresearch there. Yeah, middle school,
seventh grade there was the there wasa theater class that I really wanted to
take, and it overlap with thehonors math class, and I would have
(16:15):
liked I did like theater was veryfun to me that because when you're in
middle school, like you don't haveyou're not self conscious yet, so you're
willing to go up there and embarrassyourself, which is the thing I was
willing to do at that age.And then when I got to high school,
all the insecurity set in and Iwasn't that person anymore who could just
go up there and be silly andnot think about the consequences. But I
remember I auditioned for there was likea like a Cinderella play, and I
(16:37):
auditioned for The Ugly step Sister,which as a seventh As a seventh grader
in Corpus Christy, Texas, whichis a place where that doesn't really fly
as well, I thought that wasa pretty funny move. No one else
thought to none of the other guysthought to do. I'm like, what
a funnier, what a funnier renditionof that to have a man play it.
But I mean I might have gonethere. I could have seen myself
having done like plays and stuff likethat. But again my parents were like,
(17:00):
well, focused on the grades.And then when I got to high
school, I really had trouble fittingin. I didn't make a good friend
group, I didn't get invited toparties. So I realized, after failing
for a couple semesters of to makeany inroads socially, I was like,
well, grades is one place whereI have some ability or at school,
I have these abilities there and theteachers like me if I work hard,
and my parents are happy. SoI kind of found validation through just I
(17:23):
guess the academic portion of that,right, And so at Rise you are
heavily into, heavily into learning.I was a terrible student once I got
to college. That's a trick inlife. This is the thing that I
wish I could tell young people,like, just work hard enough to get
into a good college and then coastbecause all they look at is the name
of your college on your like,it doesn't really matter your GPA. Mine
(17:44):
was not good, but really finished. Yeah. I was so distract because
then once I got to college,and then I got invited to parties and
I could go out with girls andI had friends. I had no interest
in the academics because I had thatsocial life that I had not been gifted
in high school. Right, Yeah, so is that I got by but
the that But that's also where,like you had mentioned swimming, that's where
(18:07):
you got heavy into swimming. Yeah, I was just obsessed with it.
Yeah. I wasn't on the teamor anything. I worked for the women's
team, but I just swam onmy own, just endlessly. Were you
part of a club team for swimming? I was part of a master's team,
So I'm sorry, what is amaster's Yes, I say club team.
You found an interview where I sayclub team. To simplify, a
master's team is eighteen and up,so it's mostly fifty year olds. So
(18:30):
I would swim for an hour daywith doctors and lawyers who were in very
good shape. I was not.I was twenty and they were faster than
me. So my friends in collegewere like lawyers with disposable income who liked
spending too much money on swimsters.For my best friends, doctor Cohne,
Carlos Rick, he was a fundraiser. These are my bottoms. These are
(18:55):
my best friends from college, Danciasaki, he is an engineer. He was
going that much older than me.But yeah, that was that was the
team, and it was very rare. Someone was under thirty on that team
that had our practices every day atthe at the Universal, and I was
allowed a working so I worked forthe swim team, so I was technically
a coach and I got to swimwith them for free. That was the
(19:15):
best part of college for me,the highlight of my life, those those
workouts. Because I and you're right, I did see where it said club
and in my head it's all hardto explain, very much so but so
much better, so much better,No, because I know what club sports
are, and I was like,I didn't even know there was club swimming.
There is college, not at mynot at right Rice was too small
(19:36):
for that. Some schools have goodsclub teams, but right, but no,
there it was just all your oldbuddies and sixties old. Yeah.
Wait, so I still haven't gottento the part. So you're twenty three
years old, you graduate from collegeor you're done with college. You go
see Glover and you're like, ohmy god, he's pretty good. I
bet I could do this. Didyou just like at that point, just
start I mean, I'm assuming atthat point the the path kind of becomes
(20:00):
I don't want to say the sameas everybody else. But it's like you
finally work up the sack to goto an open mic and it probably was
not great, but it was goodenough to go back and do it again,
and do it again and do itagain. Yeah. Close. It
was seeing that show and then itkind of started rat That started the idea
(20:21):
rattling around in my mind, andit didn't take form for a couple of
weeks, and then I saw aflyer for an open mic and I said,
Okay, not this week, notMonday. I'll give myself a full
week to prepare. But I thinkwithin nine days I was on stage doing
it, and first two sets wentvery well. Just magic. What did
you like? Did you just spendnine days? You didn't go up there
and just wing it? Like?Did you try to work on a sea?
(20:42):
I wrote down all my jokes andpracticed them, and I think I
think I even went short my firsttime. I think it was a four
minute set and I did three.But it went well, so I got
off stage. But wait so andthen I bombed for months and then it
was all bad from there, andthen finally it turned around again. But
did you did you have any Youwent home and in nine days you wrote
(21:03):
a well three minute set I did. Yeah, it wasn't great, but
no, but that's impressive, dude, I mean, yeah, I would.
It would pain me to hear it. It was also like any joke
I'd ever written in like all thoselittle errand lines from conversations like stuff I
would just say jokes i'd written beforeI was actually doing comedy, right,
But still that takes a set togo up and do that. I don't
(21:26):
mean a set like you, butyeah, to just go up and do
that, Like, that's impressive.Again, I think it's just young young
white man confidence of just like thisprobably won't be hard, and then it
was really hard, and then itwas very Uh, it's just a hard
press that that starting out thing isso hard because you have to learn the
(21:47):
only way you can learn to doit is on stage right, and you're
mostly going to be failing, andit's going to be publicly embarrassing and it's
going to be it's just such ablack eye for your self esteem. So
many more nights than not for thefirst good while. So when you talk
about like so the first two setswere good, like you were happy with
them, and then it was bombCity. Yes, how hard is that
to go do every week. Itwas hard, and part of why I
(22:11):
got better at it was it wasMonday. Monday was the good show in
Houston. That was the big onethat everyone comes out to and the crowd's
good. The open mic. Oh, I thought you were going to say
a journal I was like, Iused to go to comedy shows in Houston.
I never went on a Monday night. Yeah, it was a great
open mic. And I just realized, Oh, if I bomb, I
have a bad week. So eitherI don't do this or I find a
(22:33):
way to get on stage again onTuesday, so I can at least erase
the bomb, right, at leastI don't have to sit in this.
So then I was like, oh, I got to find a place Tuesday
in case Monday doesn't go well.And I was like, well, I
should maybe do it Wednesday too,in case Tuesday doesn't go well. And
I justized, if you do itevery night, you can just reset.
You can just avoid those painful nightsand at least have a chance. Okay,
in twenty four hours, I havea chance to redeem myself. So
(22:55):
then I just I think after acouple months stage every night of the week.
Yeah, I think it was.I started in June and by September
I was like, I'm doing.My goal is to do more set than
anyone else in the city. Ican't control if I'm funny or not.
That's obviously going to be up tothe crowd and up to my skill levels.
But I can I can be theperson who performs the most. So
I'm made of my goals to justdo every every stage I could do.
(23:15):
And on weekends I would go hangout at the club, and the clubs
saw me hanging out every weekend,they started with them a guest spots,
and so you kind of became likethe club rat who was like, I'll
do if there's an opening, I'lltake it. If there's anything, I'll
get up on stage. Yeah,did you do you feel like? I'm
like, I don't know who wouldhave been coming up out of Houston at
that time. I mean, like, when I think of Houston comics,
(23:37):
I mean Hicks is way before you. Hicks and Kennison and well Kennison Ralphie,
Like, so even Ralphie would havebeen before you. I would say
the black scene has a lot oftalent more recently and and just historically in
Houston. Yes, but it's Houstonhas been in somewhat of a dry spell
for a good little time. Sorryfor the disrespect of my peers, but
(23:57):
it hasn't had like a superstar sinceRalphie Kennison and Hicks and Bruce Art.
Ralphie. Ralfie is a great,great guy. Oh, Ralphie was also
he started, Uh, he kindof didn't have a father growing up,
and he came out of I thinkAlabama, Arkansas and came to this club
in Houston run by Danny Martinez,and Danny Martinez more or less became his
(24:19):
adoptive father, right, And Dannywas the guy who ran the club when
I was there, and he gaveme all these spots. So I considered,
You tell me, Dad, whenyou were living in Houston, did
you spend any time in a Leaf? I know the name. I can't
remember if they did. Oh yeah, that's home. Yeah. No,
it's horrible, Okay, no,no, no. What you saw at
your school with all the stabbings andthe team pregnancy, that's yeah, oh
(24:42):
worse, worse, worse, yeah, one hundred percent. All right,
let me do this, let metake a quick break. Matthew Brusard is
with us the Comedy Loft of DCTonight through Saturday. Dccomedyloft dot com for
tickets, Quick break More with MatthewBrussard, Next Elliott in the mor Matthew
Broussard is with us the Comedy Loftthe DC Tonight through Saturday, dccomedyloft dot
(25:07):
com to get your tickets. Allright, I want to go back to
one more old thing real quick.One more old thing. So you're you,
you graduate from school, you havesome financial job that you're doing,
like as a financial analyst or something. You're you're doing your your comedy thing
in Houston and all of that.Who who were you working for at that
time? I worked for a Ispent a like nine months at an education
(25:32):
nonprofit and then I had just switchedover to working. I just sold my
soul for actually the same amount ofmoney. It was literally the same salary.
Uh. Just a private wealth manager, okay, So a guy who
just invested money for rich people,right. And then I was a spreadsheet
jockey. I was a secretary.It would call for your spreadsheets or whatever
they needed. I never really likemade any big financial decisions, but that
(25:52):
was the job you had when everythingstarted taking off for you comedy wise.
I want to know the story.Uh, Like at one point you you
you got a late night spot.Yeah, and flew to Los Angeles to
do it. Keep in mind you'restill like an office guy, you're the
spreadsheet jockey. Yeah. Did everybodyin the office go like, seriously,
you're gonna go be on TV?It was just two other people at the
(26:15):
company. They knew I was doingit, but that was a pretty cool
moment to be like, yeah,I'm gonna go be on Comedy Central and
they're like, oh, I don'tknow if they believe. My boss finally
saw I didn't let my boss comesee it, and he finally saw me,
and he was I was like inmy fire and he was like,
that was great. You're I thinkyou're gonna I think you're gonna do great
with this. So he was likereally supportive of that, And Yeah,
(26:37):
I took vacation dates to go filmmy first Comedy Central set, and then
I was kind of on the wayout, trying to hold onto the job,
trying to We worked at a dealwhere I was gonna work remote and
then I really screwed up something andended up having to resign. What did
you screw up? I God,I've talked about it way too much publicly,
but my work computer was stolen andthat's not good. That's really not
(27:03):
good. Okay, but you didn'tdo anything wrong. Yeah, Why did
you just leave it someplace that youweren't supposed to? It was in the
backpack in my car that got brokeninto. Oh okay, well that big
deal. It's not like you justlike left it at a car club.
Yeah. But yeah. The specificsof this industry are if if all of
his clients, which were then requiredto tell all of our clients, oh,
(27:27):
what happened? It's legally we cannotsay if there if information has potentially
compromised, we have to tell allthem that, and they go, well,
fire that guy. Well, whydo you have that guy around?
He's already screwed up a couple ofemails to me, why would we keep
him around? So then, andI was trying to hold on that.
My dream was, my goal wasto do that job as long as possibly,
(27:49):
Like, oh, when you're gonnago full time comedian? To me,
it was so fun to see howlong I could have a job and
just be a comedian on the side, because everything I achieved in comedy up
to that point was just pure profit, right. I hadn't invested in that
job yet, so any money Imade, any success I had was but
that's not even my job. Ihad business cards, there were pictures of
me doing comedy, said Matthew Bursard, financial analyst, hand him out of
(28:11):
his shows. Because I was veryproud of the fact that I had a
job. All my parents wanted forme was to have a stable job,
right, and to lose it waspretty heartbreaking. And then I think I
was like making a living off ofcomedy like two months later, so really
not that tragic of a story.I was just like, oh no,
what am I going to do?And then I booked a bunch of colleges
like, oh, do it goodfor you? That's awesome, really awesome.
And at that point, like thingsare going like you're not getting out
(28:33):
to do Comedy Central without like beinggood and doing that. So all of
that I'm going to worked very veryhard every single day had finally paid off.
Yeah, So fast forward, howdid you hook up with our buddy
Burt because you've been out on theroad with him. Yeah, So I
was twenty fourteen. I was doinga bunch of colleges. I had some
colleges around the southeast. My momis in Atlanta, so I was like,
(28:55):
oh, go see my mom,stay with her for the week.
And I just looked at the club. I saw Bert was Feech was headlining
in Atlanta that weekend, and Iasked if I could feature. I got
to feature for him. So thatwas my first time working with him,
and it was a great weekend ofshows. He just started taking off his
shirt and I was I was prettyhappy with my sets that weekend. And
at the end of it last show, my mom comes out to see the
(29:18):
show. I have a good set, and then Bert starts talking to me
from the audience and then he makesme bring my mom on stage. Oh
boy, me my mom and himon stage to take a shot. And
I remember he goes, so andyou're proud of your son's comedy. She
was like, you know, good, he's doing it. She goes,
(29:40):
you do you wish he still workedin finance? She goes, yes,
He goes, do you think he'sgonna make it in comedy? She goes,
I don't know. He goes,I think he is. Let's take
a shot. So pretty pretty greatmoment for me. One of the nicest
things anyone's ever done for me wasto tell my mom that he believes in
me in front of a crowd ofpeople. That's awesome. And then I
didn't talk to him really again foreight years, and then I got a
(30:02):
random Instagram message being like, hey, I want to come open for me.
And so I've been on the roadwith him a couple of times.
Now. So is that where becauseTyler saw you in Atlanta and that was
at the like that was at thatwas at the arena. That was the
arena. Yeah, I seen coldPlay there, I've seen who was stank
in that room. It's crazy toget to perform on that stage opening for
Bert. Yeah, but that was, like we were just talking. That
(30:22):
was a huge weekend because like Messiwas playing there that weekend supposed to right
then he didn't play Bert Music Midtownwas there? Your mom was back at
that at that show of getting togo see you at the arena. She
yelled at Burt after the show,she goes, why aren't you on ozempic?
That was what my mom got madat. She was like, if
you're so serious about losing weight,take oz empic. He was like,
(30:45):
I don't know. She's like,come in she that was your mom to
Bert. Yes, she's just likechiding him. I sold arena. Yeah,
it doesn't do his impic, buthe does sins is kind of I
don't love him. Allowed to saythat about him? No, No,
(31:07):
because I had just talked about mykid. Just saw him at Tennessee.
Uh huh. The plate he rippedfour zen's out of his mouth. The
place went nuts in Clarksville, No, in Knoxville. In Knoxville, Yes,
I was with him this weekend andin Flexvil. Yeah, but he
ripped four zen's out of his mouth. The arena wet nuts, dude,
as a recovering zen attic. Thatbus is filed like it looks like an
a seven eleven with the amount ofzen in there. Where was this weekend?
(31:32):
His his his assistant Peters awesome,dude, Uh I was. We
were sitting at the table, Peter'son his laptop, working, working,
working, and there's a zen tennisin on the table and I just jokingly
just reached out to touch it,and without looking, he grabbed my wrists
like Jason Bourne. And he goes, not even as a joke, not
even as a bit, you don'ttouch it, and he took it like
(31:53):
that's a good dude right there.Now true or false? Bert told me
this about you. Oh, isthat like after a show, like when
you guys were on the bus together. After the show, everybody gets back
on the bus and everybody kind ofdoes like whatever, they're gonna do that
that Matthew Brusard will tutor kids inmath while on the bus. Yeah,
(32:15):
do you really? Yeah? Ithink it's the sweetest thing in the world.
I asked Bert if he also doesthat on the bus. Zero chance,
but he said it's great, likelike like Matthew, Like, everybody
will get back on the bus andwe'll start going and then Matthew will rip
out his laptop and like tutor somekids in math while we're just driving.
(32:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I'll do iton tour. Sometimes we'll have to tutor,
so I get I have weird hoursfor it. Sometimes I'll just like
want to work at late late hours, which is pretty convenient for me,
And yeah, I'll end up tutoringwhile I'm there. Dude, that is
the nicest sweetest thing. Ah,thank you. I've always wanted Bert to
like walk by the background. I'mnot supposed to. Like this has been
like like a bunch of confidentiality oflike, you know, they can't see
(32:57):
the students, but I'd love forBirch to just because none of the kids
I tutor know what I do.Oh, they really ever figured it out.
They've never asked. They just assumethat's what I do. Yeah,
yeah, So was I like,we did one of these shows and I'll
go and do a tutor and I'llgo back. I'm like, I kind
of wish my students knew what theywere between. It would probably be really
fun for them to know. Yeah, I was on with mister Brusard and
(33:20):
there was some guy with no shirtswalking behind him. Sorry, that's my
boss the guy. Also a weirdthing with liquid Death is I was drinking
a liquid Death while tutoring, andthe student thought it was a beer because
it looks someone's like yeah right,Like yeah, buddy, linear algebra loose.
(33:43):
He also told me that you taughthim how to play wordle yes and
that you have a very unique wayof playing it that you do. God,
I can't remember, so I dowordle I just do audio, which
is a good one. I startwith audio, but there's one we play
called there's quordal and there's set ofChordal, which is the same thing.
Those are all It's quordal is fourat the same time, and then set
(34:06):
a Quordal is sixteen at the sametime, So you want to do.
The strategy with those is start withthree different words to just knock out fifteen
letters and then start going I thinkit was crane what was it, crane
stern. No, I can't rememberwhat they were, three different words,
but you run that many whortles ata time, yeah, but you yeah,
(34:27):
and you try to work through it. The more challenging way to do
it is to go sixteen and gothem in order. You can do them
all at the same time and thenlook for which one's best. But it's
really fun to start and see ifyou can get there. You have like
twenty one tries or something like that. I am willing to bet that Bert
does just regular wordle. Yeah,yeah, that's correct. Yeah. But
(34:49):
I get him a nightmare once becauseI was explaining like some physics thing right
to someone on the bus and thenhe had a dream that night that it
was like he was with the pornstar and she was like, hey,
Bert want to come back to myplace and learned the pythagoria. But dude,
I feel like you're on you're ona really good run right now.
(35:13):
You you you recently taped a specialyes, and what am I may is
when that will come out? May? Maybe June? Right, Okay,
So you are going slow in theediting process. It's very painful, right,
well, it's all the ketamine ye, so, but special touring all
over the place. You recently gotengaged. Like, dude, you're like,
you're in the middle of a goodpart of your life right now.
(35:36):
Good year, Yeah, it's beena good year. That's a great year.
Can I ask you this? Though? She proposed to you correct in
Thailand and Thailand and she bizarrely she'salso a stand up comic. Yes,
but didn't come out of that world. No, she's like a world class
swimmer. Yeah, she was apro swimmer and then she was she was
(35:58):
a pro swimmering mat she retired.And then did you meet her at Rice?
No, no, I would wait. So did you meet her while
you were out like swimming with yourfifty year old Oh no, no,
no, through she was a shewas a like famous in the swimming world.
So I message her on Instagram didyou really? Yeah? Did you
really? So you just literally dm'd her? Yeah? The okay,
(36:20):
the long now you're marrying the theworld champion swimmer. Yeah. The long
story is that I followed her andshe had followed me independently via I guess
a friend of a friend because Ido know that swimming world right. And
then I was in LA and Iknew she lives in Austin, and I
(36:43):
opened up bumble right and I sawher show up and huh, took a
screenshot, swiped right and then didn'tmatch immediately and thought, well, this
is silly. Why should I wait? If she's in LA, let's just
send her a message on Instagram whereshe she'll see it. So I sent
her that screenshot and said, hey, are you in La? And she
goes, no, I already gotback to Austin, but you know,
(37:05):
let me know if you ever haveshows in Texas. We started chatting LA,
and then a couple of years later, a couple of months later,
I was someone asked how we met, and I said, bumble. She
was what are you talking about?Bumble? I like, well, I
saw you in Bublish. She goes, what and what I learned was when
I sent that screenshot, it croppedthe top and the bottom of the photo
where it says bumble right, Soit looked like I just sent her a
picture of herself and knowledge of herlocation. So I'm shocked and disappointed that
(37:31):
she responded. And that's how itstarted. And now she does comedy she
started four years ago. How didshe? How did how did she transition
to that world? But it's verybizarre to me. It's very bizarre that
both of you were heading down successfulpass I mean no disrespect, she was
(37:51):
way down a very successful path.How did she was she like, well,
I watched Matthew do it. Iguess anybody could do it a little
bit of that. So she wasdoing improblem we met. Oh, she
actually has a background in it.But with swimming, there was absolutely her
workouts were what five forty five amright, I'm sure you understand morning schedules.
There's a lot of night stuff youcan't do. Sure, So it
(38:12):
was never a thought for her totry comedy. And then once she quit
swimming, she was working her job, she had a you know, she
moved to cybersecurity, and it wasa couple of years before she had the
kind of everything sets where she couldstart doing comedy as well. Did you
know? So I don't. Idon't know what the trip was and it
doesn't matter. But you guys wereoverseas together, no idea, no idea
she was going to propose if Iwere asking, Yeah, no, that
(38:34):
is that's exactly what I was goingto ask. You had so you guys
are in Thailand on the beach,and you had no idea she was going
to drop down on one knee andpropose. No. The weird part is
I should have known. She hadsaid before that she was going to propose
to me. She had mentioned thatplenty of times. But I thought that
was done. I thought that hadcome off the table because now then I
was starting to feel pressure to propose. We had gone to Italy and I
(38:57):
think she had wanted me to doit then, and then we had a
trip. I was gonna to doit on our trip to Israel that we
have planned, but that that triphas been postponed. Yeah, and even
that day I should have I shouldhave guessed it where she uh she was
just like you know, as Iwoke up, I like, I'm in
a bad mood today. She waslike no. I was like, I
(39:19):
just woke up feeling. She's like, you don't get to do that.
I'm like, why are you madat me for being upset? She's like
no, it's like okay, there'sa good day. And then we were
going out to like eat, andI was like, oh, can I
wear shorts? She's like, don'twear shorts? Like why can I wear
shorts? You're suffocating me as wonerswear shorts and stands. She's like no,
we're like a nice shirt and likewhy, well, you're still controlling
(39:42):
the and then oh, and thenwe walked on the beach and she was
like, I want to get agood picture of us. That was whole
thing. I want to get agood picture of us. So she sets
up her tripod and puts her camerathere, and then she walks over to
me and oh, she waits fora while. She sets up the tripod
and she waits and waits and waitslike five minutes for people walking by,
Like are you doing She was like, I want to get a clear shot.
Okay, she walks over to meand then she looks at me and
(40:05):
I go, what the hell areyou doing? It's a ten second time
we're on the came, we're goingto miss the picture. We're gonna have
to do this whole thing again.And then she gets down on one day.
I was like, oh that allclicks now, But no, no
clue it was coming. No cluewas coming. But now, but you
had said you would you wo hadjust said that you were going to like
I was going to propose to herin Italy or Israel or wherever it is.
(40:29):
Had you had you bought a ringand everything? No, not at
all. So you were you weregonna propose. I was going to propose,
but you weren't that far down theroad. Yeah, did she?
Did she talk to you? Saidyour mom's name was Anne. Did she
talk to Anne about proposing? No, didn't get permission. I don't know
any I don't know if she toldanyone that she was doing it. Maybe
kaya, But yeah, she mighthave kept it a secret. That's awesome,
(40:52):
though. Do we know when we'regetting married? Uh? Probably twenty
maybe twenty twenty six. All right, good for you, that's awesome.
I'm telling you are on such afantastic run. You are on the greatest
run right here. You're a reallygood time. If I died if I
die right now, people are likenice in terms of dramatic impacts, excellent
(41:14):
timing, crash on the way Home'sinterviewer. And then the last thing I
wanted to ask you about because Ithink it's very smart and maybe you liked
it, maybe you didn't. Thethe I know it's it's Trevor Noah's deal.
The Fortnite thing. Yeah, that'sreally really And again I don't know
(41:35):
if you like doing it or ifyou didn't, or if you could see
the payoff from it, but doinglike stand up in Fortnite is really smart
to me. It was a greatbusiness idea. I know it's a really
I don't have an appreciation for thefervor of that fandom. I know people
who love it love it and it'sthere are like Matteo Lane is an amazing
comedian whose career and talent I amvery jealous of. And I remember he's
(41:58):
like, you're on Fortnite? How'dyou get that? Like? He was
like genuinely, it's he was jealousfor that opportunity for how how like how
big of a world that Isn't itwas an offer I got kind of randomly.
I think it was based on someprevious work I'd done with that producer
on another project. What was reallyfun about doing it was that what I
look like didn't come into play becauseI had that skin on. I was
(42:20):
like, I think I was likea flamingo astronaut or something something weird,
some weird skin I put on mycharacter and the motion captured me doing stand
up, so it was just myvoice. I was like, oh,
I can't do any jokes about whatI look like. We also had some
pretty strict limitations on what we couldtalk about because it's very kid friendly.
I was just like, I havea bunch of one liners. I've always
wanted to be a one liner comic. That was my dream, But crowds
don't want that. They need morefrom me in terms of species personality.
(42:45):
Yeah, so it's like, oh, I can just go up there and
do one liners. So that's whatI did on it, which was very
fun. But it is like Ihad no idea that it existed, right
and I saw I was like,this is this, this will reach a
whole like it's genius. It reallyis that reaches a whole different world that
may never be exposed to stand upcomedy. It really is smart no,
(43:06):
that was I saw that. Iwas like, oh my god, that
is genius. That's really really good, dude. I'm telling you, I
hope you have the car accident.You are on such a run right now.
I appreciate that. Thank you,all right. Matthew Bruce Stard will
be at the Comedy Loft of DCtonight through Saturday. Dccomedyloft dot com to
(43:28):
get your tickets. Dude, thankyou so much for coming in. You
Please welcome Matthew Broussard. Hello sir, Hello, good morning. How are
you here? I am awake.The that's a good step, enlivened by
the smell of sushi. You knowwhat, do you want to move that
out of the way? I know, horrible. Eat as much of it
as you want. But it's literallyon top of you, and it's so
full. No one's touched it.It's a full party tray. The man
(00:22):
I do intermittent fasting. I'm justgoing to enjoy the smell of it.
That's going to be my tree.Wait are you bit? You're a huge
intermittent faster guy. About a year? Yeah, sixteen hours off and then
eat for eight eight hours when there'swhen's your eight hour window? I can
eat at noon? Are you serious? Yeah? Do you like normal day?
(00:42):
Do you get up at like elevenfifty nine? Yes? Yeah,
that's the tea to it. Yeah. I sleep until ten, So I'm
just like, well, just drinkmy coffee real slow. Wait a minute,
so you only you will only eatfrom noon until eight noon to eight.
It's like, yeah, usually whatI go for. But I I
almost feel like your job like thatworks easily, Like I don't better.
(01:03):
I don't know that it's Is itthat hard? No, it's not that
bad. No, And then Istopped. The hard part is stopping getting
at eight. And if once Igo to sleep, it's not so bad
right now because you don't have toget up early. If you weren't coming
in here today, what would bea normal like when you're on the road
nine ten. Yeah, I tryto sleep till nine or ten. Okay,
(01:23):
so it's not that you know whatit seems like it would be hard.
And you tell me is after ashow not eating? Yeah, well,
the show revs you up. Sothe nice part is like, if
I wasn't doing comedy nights, i'dprobably just be like bumming around my apartment
snacking, right, It is comedykind of keeps me alert, and I
do that and then as long asI just go straight to sleep after my
(01:44):
show, that's not so bad.And I know some comics who are like
real dirt bags who do like intermittent, like they don't eat till three because
they wait in the afternoon. Yeah, oh, so they can eat till
eleven and that's still like an earlycap right, but no, so,
but like forget being at home whereyou're snacking. But I would assume like
you're on the road, you're doingyour thing, you know, whether whether
(02:05):
it's your opener or you're opening forsomebody. But now it's like, what
eleven o'clock you're done? Like tome, that's prime, Like let's go
grab like, let's grab some Chineseand eat. So I just feel such
like such a boring answer, butI'm so excited to talk about it.
I'm so bad dressed. So forme, if I can just make sure
I eat a big dinner, likethere is that thing where it's eight o'clock,
(02:28):
like I didn't eat enough, that'sa problem. And then I'll just
eat more until I'm full and thenpush the window by whatever thirty sixty minutes
and just eat a little later thenext day. But I started tracking my
sleep, and eating late is asbad for my sleep as drinking. It's
a pretty remarkable effect. If youeat right before, how are you tracking
your sleep? I do the whoop? Do you really? Yeah? I
track my heart rate and I canreally see, like what makes my sleep.
(02:50):
But I'm just so bad at sleepingand I need so much of it.
You're so bad at sleeping. Ifeel like feel like you just said
you sleep for twelve hours a day. No, I'm in bed for a
nine hours a lot of that's likeup and back down. And yeah,
I just really like Calvin Coolidge deservesmore of respect. I mean, he's
really one of my heroes that hecould be president and sleep twelve hours a
day, Like, that's a disability. I need that. Sleep is a
(03:13):
disability. And you don't get towear that as a badge. You can't
say I'm differently abled. I needmore sleep than you. But I need
more sleep than most people. AndI'm not going to be very successful in
life because are you super healthy?I try to be as healthy as I
can. I'm I'm I'm pretty onit. I don't have the worst vices,
right, Yeah, Like what islike what like what would you consider
(03:34):
like a horrible vice that you have? I mean, but that's a new
thing. Well I'll tell you what. Matthew is really healthy minus that,
minus special K He's awesome. Isthat really? That's your that's your vice?
I like it? We wait,do you do it? It's a
new thing for me. Honestly,I was like, I'll have a couple
(04:00):
of beers. No, go hard, I go hard. It's like I'm
weirdly, I'm like Mormon. Upuntil a point, I'm like, I
need one thing. I got reallyadd to the Zen's are about I'm almost
a year I think, Oh,on Saturday, I'll be a year off
of zen. How'd you kick Zen's. I'm not on it, but I
know so many people that are.It took me so many tries. Really,
(04:20):
it took me. A lot ofpeople are like, oh, I
quit cold Turkey. I'm like,nah, it took me. It took
me quitting enough time to realize thatthere was because you always make those deals
stuff like I'll come back to it. I'll do it again, but I'll
just do it a little more casually. I'm like, I don't have that
control, right zens. The thenicotine, yeah, which, I never
smoked cigarettes. I just went straightin. So much better for you,
(04:43):
better for your social life, somuch better. It makes you look cool.
You never smoked cigarettes. You neversmoked a cigarette ever? Never.
I have some in the office.Do you want at smoker? Yeah?
It seems awesome, so cool,it's the best. It's the best.
I'm telling that. You're like,no, I do ketmine, so like,
what a big deal? Ye,it kicks Zins walking up the heroin
(05:08):
addicts. I know the show.This isn't crazy. You can just do
it all The problem zens is youjust do it all the time. It
right, exactly, kiss my fianceon the mouth. How long how long
had you been? How long wereyou doing doing Zens? It makes not
like a drug. So you're doingketmy two or three years on Zen's.
I think it was. That's notbad. Yeah that's started, but it
(05:30):
was it just took over. Yeah, really it was my whole day.
It was, Oh you met foryou? I thought you met Zins in
general? Oh that too. Yeah, it really is. They've done it.
I mean I could. I don'tknow who your sponsors are. I
could go on this emapiracy thing they'redoing a yeah, I'll say, and
if I if, I if,I'm free to criticize a brand. If
you don't mind, you could criticizeiHeart, I don't give a crat.
(05:51):
They just Zen's are like their marketing. They I believe they're neither food nor
a drugs. It's like the CamelJoe play but book Marbor catalog again and
they use the colors and ads.And I walked up to like a gas
station that had three different ads forz In on the front of the store.
So they're really trying to get ita problem with kids, and you
know what, it's working. It'sworking great. Oh yeah, no,
(06:13):
huge, it's huge. So wait, so back up for a second.
How did you At what point didMatthew Brussard go, you know what,
I'm good on me. I stoppeddoing Zen's for a year. I really
don't have any vices. How'd youstart to? But are you like,
are you bag of it? Idon't think that was fun? More of
that. So you're not doing liketherapy ketamine? No, no, no,
(06:36):
no, no, no, isit I've never done ketamine? Is
it trippy? Uh no, it'sjust relaxing. It's just it's just an
hour of being like sleepy, andthen when it goes away, you're not
like crash or anything. Right.Don't you hallucinate? Though you can if
you take a lot of it.Yeah, you can take this story.
No, I haven't done that.I like uh, I like hallosen gins.
I like LSD. And also someonegave me a bag of an edible
(06:59):
mush the other week and I tookone every day for til I was done.
Run bad impulse control, mine iseating apparently. I'm just I'll tell
you what. I am strict.I'm stet put any powder in my hand,
and I just love that. It'sjust some random gave it to you
(07:19):
and you're like, yeah, whowould do anything? This is good,
does a good job. It wouldn'thave me something. It works with numbers
and stuff. Because prior to allthat, I was going to say when
you were talking about like like likenot really having fights, like you look
like you're in good shape. Iswim, I like, yeah, I
(07:41):
like swimming a lot. So doyou still swim regularly? Yes? Yeah,
I swim a bit. That's beenmy thing. I did all sorts
of I swam for years at chathlon, and then I spent years doing like
jam and weights and now weight startedhurting. So I'm just back at the
pool. Just back to swimming.Yeah, so back back up for a
second. The the do you figureout is home is home Texas? Is
(08:03):
home Atlanta or his home back toTexas. Oh it's both. That's so.
I yeah, people, I lived. I grew up in Corpus Christy
until it's thirteen, and then Iwent to high school in Atlanta and then
I went back to Texas to Houstonfor college. Okay, so that's where
I keep because I did middle schoolin high school in Houston. Great city.
(08:24):
Yeah, oh yeah, no itis. It is fun the but
I guess I thought it was allHouston and that a little bit there.
I didn't realize Corpus Christy was partof it. Okay, so you like
you grew up going to the beach. It's not a nice beach. No
it's not, but that's all youknow. It was all I know is
windy and sludgy. Yeah, it'sthe very inland of the Gulf. Yeah,
(08:45):
Corpus is. It's a place.It's a medium size and you know,
like anytime it's like such a tropein a city that you can go.
Man, this place has really changedCorpus, not at all. Three
hundred thousand people. I went backand it's like, am I allowed to
touch things? Is this a preserve? Is this like a national park?
It's so it's so kind of stuckin its ways. Corpus. I guess
(09:07):
Corpus and Padre would at least beknown by people not who don't know the
areas like spring break time, yes, but not but not like, oh,
hey, we's all saved up.We're going to Lake Havasu or you
know, we're going to Miami.It was like, well, like,
we don't do that. Well,we're just going to go to pie very
state school budget spring break very much. So yevery very much. And then
(09:31):
Corpus itself wasn't even the spot MustangIsland was. But Corpus itself is not
like a vacation. It's not likea spring break spot. No. No.
Not fishing though, is what Ihear, Really good fishing in the
base. So how did you Howdid you end up leaving there to go
to Atlanta? So my well youwere thirteen. It's probably your family.
Yeah, you know, I said, dad, mom, you come with
me. My dad retired and mymom wanted to live anywhere but Corpus h
(09:54):
So Atlanta. We had some familythere. And yeah, it's been to
Atlanta. That was nice. It'sgreat city. Uh So you liked so
no problems living in Atlanta. Youliked Atlanta. I didn't like where I
lived in Atlanta. I lived inthe suburbs, and I didn't realize how
how much I didn't live in Atlantauntil I kind of came back as an
(10:15):
adult because you know, I likelisten like ludicrous and like outcast, and
I was like, oh, it'sgonna be a cool place. And I
was just I was so in thesuburbs, just cull the sacks and I
went to like I went to aprivate school that was very like kind of
old, you know, like douchey. Yeah, and that just real like
the real stereotype. Yeah, itwas. It was. My high school
(10:37):
was listed in the Preppy Handbook asone of the preppiest day schools in the
country. Yeah, were there anydid you go to school? I also
feel like that kind of school wouldbe either like like the real like the
real wealthier to do families would likesend their kid there. Would anybody famous
come out of there? No?Uh not really, There's not much entertainment
(10:58):
in Entertained. There wasn't guess interms of like film and television, there
wasn't that. Right at Helms cameout of our rival school. Oh that's
cool. Yeah, that's kind ofcool. Yeah, but love it hasn't
had well. Now we have akid named Eric Nahm who is in the
class below me, who was likehe's a K pop star who crosses over
to American culture as well. Hewas like on the cover of Korean Vogue.
(11:20):
He GQ's like Man of the Year, his outstanding career, he had
super famous. And then the greatabove me was a kid named Wes.
I think it's Hudson, and helike has designed dresses for Michelle Obama and
Lady Gag. He's like a fashionguy. So Matthew Brisard is the most
famous person to come out of yourhigh school stand up comedian. Sure,
Ericam's beaten me by a good man. And then we have one sitcom actor,
(11:43):
I'm sorry, soap opera actor acouple of years before me. Yeah,
so I'm sticking with it. Matthewthe most famous one out of that.
And then and then Corbus Christie isSelena than me, Selena Fara Faucet,
the the woman from Desperate Housewives.It was crazy because in Corpus,
I went to a magnet school wherethey it was a public school, but
(12:03):
they put you they took the highestscoring kids on this little test and they
put it into the lowest scoring schoolto bolster the grades right. And we
went to a like it was apretty ghetto middle school, and then it
was a very breakneck transition to goto like a private Atlanta high school after
that, because I had seen alittle bit different. Yeah, there was
like knife fights and teen pregnancy atmy middle school, and then I went
(12:24):
to a place that was they didn'tthey didn't know how good they had it.
So what was the How did youend up at Rice University? Though
I wanted to go back to Texas, it was a good school. I
also was just like, this isa fantastic school. Yeah, I was.
I was very happy to get in. I felt very lucky to get
in. I just thought it wasa big deal that it was one syllable,
Like all the one syllable schools arelike good. I was like Duke
Yale Unri. I was just likename a bad school. That's only four
(12:50):
legs. So I was like,it must be a good place to go,
a good engineering and that was whatI wanted to do. But that
I was going to say, thepath of being a stand up comic wasn't
wasn't really your path? Not aconsideration. My parents were really gung ho
dad. My dad was a chemist, my mom was a microbiologist, And
it was like so beat into me, you were going to make a career
(13:13):
with those types of skills. Withyour education, you do not have the
skills to be anything else, right, And education was very, very important
for the Bruce sard faces a bigdeal. Yeah yeah, like that.
We were not messing around with thatat all. Yeah, because it was
my dad was My dad grew uplike real poor Cajun family and he just
cool story about he just kind ofa it was a good test taker.
He read a lot. Weird kid, didn't have a lot of friends,
(13:37):
like lived out on the farm,so we just read a lot and was
pretty gifted at school as parents pushedit, but they barely. I mean
I think English was their second language. And he it was like the last
period of the day on a Friday, and the teacher said, hey,
there's this thing called a PSA T. If you go sign up for it
right now, I'll let you cutclass early today. So he goes,
okay, sure, So he goesand signs up for it, ends up
National Merit Scholar and got full tocollege. Wow. Yeah, So like
(14:03):
that was like the you know thatgot his whole family out of that poverty.
That's awesome, what a great story. That's great, but you so
but like but that was you.You were the very bright kid, very
smart kid who was and that wasthe path Like when but when did and
you became a like a financial guyand a numbers whiz and and still love
(14:24):
all that stuff very much? Butwhen when did the comedy bug hit you?
Though? I I I think like, was it college? Was it
right? You're out of college?I did do like a even going all
the way through Rice. You weren'tnot a consideration. No, And I
never did anything really with theater orno, nothing, you're out of college.
(14:45):
I just saw it was Donald GloverLive, and I was like,
that's really cool. And also Icould technically it was is that feeling you
get when you watch the standard belike technically I could do that. Like
you see someone play guitar, youlike, my fingers don't do that.
You see someone dancer acting like Idon't have that the physical ability to that.
When you watch someone just tell jokeslike, there's no logistically, there's
no reason I couldn't do that.It looks really fun. I'd like to
try that. So yeah, butthen there's the whole like I understand what
(15:09):
you're saying, Like all I haveto do is stand there and talk.
But there's that whole part of likeentertaining people along with it and being funny
that goes with it. But ifthat had never even like crossed your mind,
did you, like in the backof your head after seeing Glover go
I'm funny. No, I wasn'tfunny. I don't think I was funny
growing up. I tried to befunny. I was pretty It was pretty
painful, right, No. Ijust felt kind of lucky that I was
(15:33):
also too stupid to recognize all thethings you're talking about and just kind of
as the bullheaded twenty three year oldjust said, I I'm going to be
good at this. But when yousaid like you never even did theater,
I read something about you where youwere talking about like like you were so
heavy into the mathematics and like theschool part of it is like at one
(15:54):
point you had to make a choice. And I don't know if this is
in high school or in college,where it was like there was a math
class and there was a theater classand you were like, well, it's
all math class for me, goodresearch there. Yeah, middle school,
seventh grade there was the there wasa theater class that I really wanted to
take, and it overlap with thehonors math class, and I would have
(16:15):
liked I did like theater was veryfun to me that because when you're in
middle school, like you don't haveyou're not self conscious yet, so you're
willing to go up there and embarrassyourself, which is the thing I was
willing to do at that age.And then when I got to high school,
all the insecurity set in and Iwasn't that person anymore who could just
go up there and be silly andnot think about the consequences. But I
remember I auditioned for there was likea like a Cinderella play, and I
(16:37):
auditioned for The Ugly step Sister,which as a seventh As a seventh grader
in Corpus Christy, Texas, whichis a place where that doesn't really fly
as well, I thought that wasa pretty funny move. No one else
thought to none of the other guysthought to do. I'm like, what
a funnier, what a funnier renditionof that to have a man play it.
But I mean I might have gonethere. I could have seen myself
having done like plays and stuff likethat. But again my parents were like,
(17:00):
well, focused on the grades.And then when I got to high
school, I really had trouble fittingin. I didn't make a good friend
group, I didn't get invited toparties. So I realized, after failing
for a couple semesters of to makeany inroads socially, I was like,
well, grades is one place whereI have some ability or at school,
I have these abilities there and theteachers like me if I work hard,
and my parents are happy. SoI kind of found validation through just I
(17:23):
guess the academic portion of that,right, And so at Rise you are
heavily into, heavily into learning.I was a terrible student once I got
to college. That's a trick inlife. This is the thing that I
wish I could tell young people,like, just work hard enough to get
into a good college and then coastbecause all they look at is the name
of your college on your like,it doesn't really matter your GPA. Mine
(17:44):
was not good, but really finished. Yeah. I was so distract because
then once I got to college,and then I got invited to parties and
I could go out with girls andI had friends. I had no interest
in the academics because I had thatsocial life that I had not been gifted
in high school. Right, Yeah, so is that I got by but
the that But that's also where,like you had mentioned swimming, that's where
(18:07):
you got heavy into swimming. Yeah, I was just obsessed with it.
Yeah. I wasn't on the teamor anything. I worked for the women's
team, but I just swam onmy own, just endlessly. Were you
part of a club team for swimming? I was part of a master's team,
So I'm sorry, what is amaster's Yes, I say club team.
You found an interview where I sayclub team. To simplify, a
master's team is eighteen and up,so it's mostly fifty year olds. So
(18:30):
I would swim for an hour daywith doctors and lawyers who were in very
good shape. I was not.I was twenty and they were faster than
me. So my friends in collegewere like lawyers with disposable income who liked
spending too much money on swimsters.For my best friends, doctor Cohne,
Carlos Rick, he was a fundraiser. These are my bottoms. These are
(18:55):
my best friends from college, Danciasaki, he is an engineer. He was
going that much older than me.But yeah, that was that was the
team, and it was very rare. Someone was under thirty on that team
that had our practices every day atthe at the Universal, and I was
allowed a working so I worked forthe swim team, so I was technically
a coach and I got to swimwith them for free. That was the
(19:15):
best part of college for me,the highlight of my life, those those
workouts. Because I and you're right, I did see where it said club
and in my head it's all hardto explain, very much so but so
much better, so much better,No, because I know what club sports
are, and I was like,I didn't even know there was club swimming.
There is college, not at mynot at right Rice was too small
(19:36):
for that. Some schools have goodsclub teams, but right, but no,
there it was just all your oldbuddies and sixties old. Yeah.
Wait, so I still haven't gottento the part. So you're twenty three
years old, you graduate from collegeor you're done with college. You go
see Glover and you're like, ohmy god, he's pretty good. I
bet I could do this. Didyou just like at that point, just
start I mean, I'm assuming atthat point the the path kind of becomes
(20:00):
I don't want to say the sameas everybody else. But it's like you
finally work up the sack to goto an open mic and it probably was
not great, but it was goodenough to go back and do it again,
and do it again and do itagain. Yeah. Close. It
was seeing that show and then itkind of started rat That started the idea
(20:21):
rattling around in my mind, andit didn't take form for a couple of
weeks, and then I saw aflyer for an open mic and I said,
Okay, not this week, notMonday. I'll give myself a full
week to prepare. But I thinkwithin nine days I was on stage doing
it, and first two sets wentvery well. Just magic. What did
you like? Did you just spendnine days? You didn't go up there
and just wing it? Like?Did you try to work on a sea?
(20:42):
I wrote down all my jokes andpracticed them, and I think I
think I even went short my firsttime. I think it was a four
minute set and I did three.But it went well, so I got
off stage. But wait so andthen I bombed for months and then it
was all bad from there, andthen finally it turned around again. But
did you did you have any Youwent home and in nine days you wrote
(21:03):
a well three minute set I did. Yeah, it wasn't great, but
no, but that's impressive, dude, I mean, yeah, I would.
It would pain me to hear it. It was also like any joke
I'd ever written in like all thoselittle errand lines from conversations like stuff I
would just say jokes i'd written beforeI was actually doing comedy, right,
But still that takes a set togo up and do that. I don't
(21:26):
mean a set like you, butyeah, to just go up and do
that, Like, that's impressive.Again, I think it's just young young
white man confidence of just like thisprobably won't be hard, and then it
was really hard, and then itwas very Uh, it's just a hard
press that that starting out thing isso hard because you have to learn the
(21:47):
only way you can learn to doit is on stage right, and you're
mostly going to be failing, andit's going to be publicly embarrassing and it's
going to be it's just such ablack eye for your self esteem. So
many more nights than not for thefirst good while. So when you talk
about like so the first two setswere good, like you were happy with
them, and then it was bombCity. Yes, how hard is that
to go do every week. Itwas hard, and part of why I
(22:11):
got better at it was it wasMonday. Monday was the good show in
Houston. That was the big onethat everyone comes out to and the crowd's
good. The open mic. Oh, I thought you were going to say
a journal I was like, Iused to go to comedy shows in Houston.
I never went on a Monday night. Yeah, it was a great
open mic. And I just realized, Oh, if I bomb, I
have a bad week. So eitherI don't do this or I find a
(22:33):
way to get on stage again onTuesday, so I can at least erase
the bomb, right, at leastI don't have to sit in this.
So then I was like, oh, I got to find a place Tuesday
in case Monday doesn't go well.And I was like, well, I
should maybe do it Wednesday too,in case Tuesday doesn't go well. And
I justized, if you do itevery night, you can just reset.
You can just avoid those painful nightsand at least have a chance. Okay,
in twenty four hours, I havea chance to redeem myself. So
(22:55):
then I just I think after acouple months stage every night of the week.
Yeah, I think it was.I started in June and by September
I was like, I'm doing.My goal is to do more set than
anyone else in the city. Ican't control if I'm funny or not.
That's obviously going to be up tothe crowd and up to my skill levels.
But I can I can be theperson who performs the most. So
I'm made of my goals to justdo every every stage I could do.
(23:15):
And on weekends I would go hangout at the club, and the clubs
saw me hanging out every weekend,they started with them a guest spots,
and so you kind of became likethe club rat who was like, I'll
do if there's an opening, I'lltake it. If there's anything, I'll
get up on stage. Yeah,did you do you feel like? I'm
like, I don't know who wouldhave been coming up out of Houston at
that time. I mean, like, when I think of Houston comics,
(23:37):
I mean Hicks is way before you. Hicks and Kennison and well Kennison Ralphie,
Like, so even Ralphie would havebeen before you. I would say
the black scene has a lot oftalent more recently and and just historically in
Houston. Yes, but it's Houstonhas been in somewhat of a dry spell
for a good little time. Sorryfor the disrespect of my peers, but
(23:57):
it hasn't had like a superstar sinceRalphie Kennison and Hicks and Bruce Art.
Ralphie. Ralfie is a great,great guy. Oh, Ralphie was also
he started, Uh, he kindof didn't have a father growing up,
and he came out of I thinkAlabama, Arkansas and came to this club
in Houston run by Danny Martinez,and Danny Martinez more or less became his
(24:19):
adoptive father, right, And Dannywas the guy who ran the club when
I was there, and he gaveme all these spots. So I considered,
You tell me, Dad, whenyou were living in Houston, did
you spend any time in a Leaf? I know the name. I can't
remember if they did. Oh yeah, that's home. Yeah. No,
it's horrible, Okay, no,no, no. What you saw at
your school with all the stabbings andthe team pregnancy, that's yeah, oh
(24:42):
worse, worse, worse, yeah, one hundred percent. All right,
let me do this, let metake a quick break. Matthew Brusard is
with us the Comedy Loft of DCTonight through Saturday. Dccomedyloft dot com for
tickets, Quick break More with MatthewBrussard, Next Elliott in the mor Matthew
Broussard is with us the Comedy Loftthe DC Tonight through Saturday, dccomedyloft dot
(25:07):
com to get your tickets. Allright, I want to go back to
one more old thing real quick.One more old thing. So you're you,
you graduate from school, you havesome financial job that you're doing,
like as a financial analyst or something. You're you're doing your your comedy thing
in Houston and all of that.Who who were you working for at that
time? I worked for a Ispent a like nine months at an education
(25:32):
nonprofit and then I had just switchedover to working. I just sold my
soul for actually the same amount ofmoney. It was literally the same salary.
Uh. Just a private wealth manager, okay, So a guy who
just invested money for rich people,right. And then I was a spreadsheet
jockey. I was a secretary.It would call for your spreadsheets or whatever
they needed. I never really likemade any big financial decisions, but that
(25:52):
was the job you had when everythingstarted taking off for you comedy wise.
I want to know the story.Uh, Like at one point you you
you got a late night spot.Yeah, and flew to Los Angeles to
do it. Keep in mind you'restill like an office guy, you're the
spreadsheet jockey. Yeah. Did everybodyin the office go like, seriously,
you're gonna go be on TV?It was just two other people at the
(26:15):
company. They knew I was doingit, but that was a pretty cool
moment to be like, yeah,I'm gonna go be on Comedy Central and
they're like, oh, I don'tknow if they believe. My boss finally
saw I didn't let my boss comesee it, and he finally saw me,
and he was I was like inmy fire and he was like,
that was great. You're I thinkyou're gonna I think you're gonna do great
with this. So he was likereally supportive of that, And Yeah,
(26:37):
I took vacation dates to go filmmy first Comedy Central set, and then
I was kind of on the wayout, trying to hold onto the job,
trying to We worked at a dealwhere I was gonna work remote and
then I really screwed up something andended up having to resign. What did
you screw up? I God,I've talked about it way too much publicly,
but my work computer was stolen andthat's not good. That's really not
(27:03):
good. Okay, but you didn'tdo anything wrong. Yeah, Why did
you just leave it someplace that youweren't supposed to? It was in the
backpack in my car that got brokeninto. Oh okay, well that big
deal. It's not like you justlike left it at a car club.
Yeah. But yeah. The specificsof this industry are if if all of
his clients, which were then requiredto tell all of our clients, oh,
(27:27):
what happened? It's legally we cannotsay if there if information has potentially
compromised, we have to tell allthem that, and they go, well,
fire that guy. Well, whydo you have that guy around?
He's already screwed up a couple ofemails to me, why would we keep
him around? So then, andI was trying to hold on that.
My dream was, my goal wasto do that job as long as possibly,
(27:49):
Like, oh, when you're gonnago full time comedian? To me,
it was so fun to see howlong I could have a job and
just be a comedian on the side, because everything I achieved in comedy up
to that point was just pure profit, right. I hadn't invested in that
job yet, so any money Imade, any success I had was but
that's not even my job. Ihad business cards, there were pictures of
me doing comedy, said Matthew Bursard, financial analyst, hand him out of
(28:11):
his shows. Because I was veryproud of the fact that I had a
job. All my parents wanted forme was to have a stable job,
right, and to lose it waspretty heartbreaking. And then I think I
was like making a living off ofcomedy like two months later, so really
not that tragic of a story.I was just like, oh no,
what am I going to do?And then I booked a bunch of colleges
like, oh, do it goodfor you? That's awesome, really awesome.
And at that point, like thingsare going like you're not getting out
(28:33):
to do Comedy Central without like beinggood and doing that. So all of
that I'm going to worked very veryhard every single day had finally paid off.
Yeah, So fast forward, howdid you hook up with our buddy
Burt because you've been out on theroad with him. Yeah, So I
was twenty fourteen. I was doinga bunch of colleges. I had some
colleges around the southeast. My momis in Atlanta, so I was like,
(28:55):
oh, go see my mom,stay with her for the week.
And I just looked at the club. I saw Bert was Feech was headlining
in Atlanta that weekend, and Iasked if I could feature. I got
to feature for him. So thatwas my first time working with him,
and it was a great weekend ofshows. He just started taking off his
shirt and I was I was prettyhappy with my sets that weekend. And
at the end of it last show, my mom comes out to see the
(29:18):
show. I have a good set, and then Bert starts talking to me
from the audience and then he makesme bring my mom on stage. Oh
boy, me my mom and himon stage to take a shot. And
I remember he goes, so andyou're proud of your son's comedy. She
was like, you know, good, he's doing it. She goes,
(29:40):
you do you wish he still workedin finance? She goes, yes,
He goes, do you think he'sgonna make it in comedy? She goes,
I don't know. He goes,I think he is. Let's take
a shot. So pretty pretty greatmoment for me. One of the nicest
things anyone's ever done for me wasto tell my mom that he believes in
me in front of a crowd ofpeople. That's awesome. And then I
didn't talk to him really again foreight years, and then I got a
(30:02):
random Instagram message being like, hey, I want to come open for me.
And so I've been on the roadwith him a couple of times.
Now. So is that where becauseTyler saw you in Atlanta and that was
at the like that was at thatwas at the arena. That was the
arena. Yeah, I seen coldPlay there, I've seen who was stank
in that room. It's crazy toget to perform on that stage opening for
Bert. Yeah, but that was, like we were just talking. That
(30:22):
was a huge weekend because like Messiwas playing there that weekend supposed to right
then he didn't play Bert Music Midtownwas there? Your mom was back at
that at that show of getting togo see you at the arena. She
yelled at Burt after the show,she goes, why aren't you on ozempic?
That was what my mom got madat. She was like, if
you're so serious about losing weight,take oz empic. He was like,
(30:45):
I don't know. She's like,come in she that was your mom to
Bert. Yes, she's just likechiding him. I sold arena. Yeah,
it doesn't do his impic, buthe does sins is kind of I
don't love him. Allowed to saythat about him? No, No,
(31:07):
because I had just talked about mykid. Just saw him at Tennessee.
Uh huh. The plate he rippedfour zen's out of his mouth. The
place went nuts in Clarksville, No, in Knoxville. In Knoxville, Yes,
I was with him this weekend andin Flexvil. Yeah, but he
ripped four zen's out of his mouth. The arena wet nuts, dude,
as a recovering zen attic. Thatbus is filed like it looks like an
a seven eleven with the amount ofzen in there. Where was this weekend?
(31:32):
His his his assistant Peters awesome,dude, Uh I was. We
were sitting at the table, Peter'son his laptop, working, working,
working, and there's a zen tennisin on the table and I just jokingly
just reached out to touch it,and without looking, he grabbed my wrists
like Jason Bourne. And he goes, not even as a joke, not
even as a bit, you don'ttouch it, and he took it like
(31:53):
that's a good dude right there.Now true or false? Bert told me
this about you. Oh, isthat like after a show, like when
you guys were on the bus together. After the show, everybody gets back
on the bus and everybody kind ofdoes like whatever, they're gonna do that
that Matthew Brusard will tutor kids inmath while on the bus. Yeah,
(32:15):
do you really? Yeah? Ithink it's the sweetest thing in the world.
I asked Bert if he also doesthat on the bus. Zero chance,
but he said it's great, likelike like Matthew, Like, everybody
will get back on the bus andwe'll start going and then Matthew will rip
out his laptop and like tutor somekids in math while we're just driving.
(32:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I'll do iton tour. Sometimes we'll have to tutor,
so I get I have weird hoursfor it. Sometimes I'll just like
want to work at late late hours, which is pretty convenient for me,
And yeah, I'll end up tutoringwhile I'm there. Dude, that is
the nicest sweetest thing. Ah,thank you. I've always wanted Bert to
like walk by the background. I'mnot supposed to. Like this has been
like like a bunch of confidentiality oflike, you know, they can't see
(32:57):
the students, but I'd love forBirch to just because none of the kids
I tutor know what I do.Oh, they really ever figured it out.
They've never asked. They just assumethat's what I do. Yeah,
yeah, So was I like,we did one of these shows and I'll
go and do a tutor and I'llgo back. I'm like, I kind
of wish my students knew what theywere between. It would probably be really
fun for them to know. Yeah, I was on with mister Brusard and
(33:20):
there was some guy with no shirtswalking behind him. Sorry, that's my
boss the guy. Also a weirdthing with liquid Death is I was drinking
a liquid Death while tutoring, andthe student thought it was a beer because
it looks someone's like yeah right,Like yeah, buddy, linear algebra loose.
(33:43):
He also told me that you taughthim how to play wordle yes and
that you have a very unique wayof playing it that you do. God,
I can't remember, so I dowordle I just do audio, which
is a good one. I startwith audio, but there's one we play
called there's quordal and there's set ofChordal, which is the same thing.
Those are all It's quordal is fourat the same time, and then set
(34:06):
a Quordal is sixteen at the sametime, So you want to do.
The strategy with those is start withthree different words to just knock out fifteen
letters and then start going I thinkit was crane what was it, crane
stern. No, I can't rememberwhat they were, three different words,
but you run that many whortles ata time, yeah, but you yeah,
(34:27):
and you try to work through it. The more challenging way to do
it is to go sixteen and gothem in order. You can do them
all at the same time and thenlook for which one's best. But it's
really fun to start and see ifyou can get there. You have like
twenty one tries or something like that. I am willing to bet that Bert
does just regular wordle. Yeah,yeah, that's correct. Yeah. But
(34:49):
I get him a nightmare once becauseI was explaining like some physics thing right
to someone on the bus and thenhe had a dream that night that it
was like he was with the pornstar and she was like, hey,
Bert want to come back to myplace and learned the pythagoria. But dude,
I feel like you're on you're ona really good run right now.
(35:13):
You you you recently taped a specialyes, and what am I may is
when that will come out? May? Maybe June? Right, Okay,
So you are going slow in theediting process. It's very painful, right,
well, it's all the ketamine ye, so, but special touring all
over the place. You recently gotengaged. Like, dude, you're like,
you're in the middle of a goodpart of your life right now.
(35:36):
Good year, Yeah, it's beena good year. That's a great year.
Can I ask you this? Though? She proposed to you correct in
Thailand and Thailand and she bizarrely she'salso a stand up comic. Yes,
but didn't come out of that world. No, she's like a world class
swimmer. Yeah, she was apro swimmer and then she was she was
(35:58):
a pro swimmering mat she retired.And then did you meet her at Rice?
No, no, I would wait. So did you meet her while
you were out like swimming with yourfifty year old Oh no, no,
no, through she was a shewas a like famous in the swimming world.
So I message her on Instagram didyou really? Yeah? Did you
really? So you just literally dm'd her? Yeah? The okay,
(36:20):
the long now you're marrying the theworld champion swimmer. Yeah. The long
story is that I followed her andshe had followed me independently via I guess
a friend of a friend because Ido know that swimming world right. And
then I was in LA and Iknew she lives in Austin, and I
(36:43):
opened up bumble right and I sawher show up and huh, took a
screenshot, swiped right and then didn'tmatch immediately and thought, well, this
is silly. Why should I wait? If she's in LA, let's just
send her a message on Instagram whereshe she'll see it. So I sent
her that screenshot and said, hey, are you in La? And she
goes, no, I already gotback to Austin, but you know,
(37:05):
let me know if you ever haveshows in Texas. We started chatting LA,
and then a couple of years later, a couple of months later,
I was someone asked how we met, and I said, bumble. She
was what are you talking about?Bumble? I like, well, I
saw you in Bublish. She goes, what and what I learned was when
I sent that screenshot, it croppedthe top and the bottom of the photo
where it says bumble right, Soit looked like I just sent her a
picture of herself and knowledge of herlocation. So I'm shocked and disappointed that
(37:31):
she responded. And that's how itstarted. And now she does comedy she
started four years ago. How didshe? How did how did she transition
to that world? But it's verybizarre to me. It's very bizarre that
both of you were heading down successfulpass I mean no disrespect, she was
(37:51):
way down a very successful path.How did she was she like, well,
I watched Matthew do it. Iguess anybody could do it a little
bit of that. So she wasdoing improblem we met. Oh, she
actually has a background in it.But with swimming, there was absolutely her
workouts were what five forty five amright, I'm sure you understand morning schedules.
There's a lot of night stuff youcan't do. Sure, So it
(38:12):
was never a thought for her totry comedy. And then once she quit
swimming, she was working her job, she had a you know, she
moved to cybersecurity, and it wasa couple of years before she had the
kind of everything sets where she couldstart doing comedy as well. Did you
know? So I don't. Idon't know what the trip was and it
doesn't matter. But you guys wereoverseas together, no idea, no idea
she was going to propose if Iwere asking, Yeah, no, that
(38:34):
is that's exactly what I was goingto ask. You had so you guys
are in Thailand on the beach,and you had no idea she was going
to drop down on one knee andpropose. No. The weird part is
I should have known. She hadsaid before that she was going to propose
to me. She had mentioned thatplenty of times. But I thought that
was done. I thought that hadcome off the table because now then I
was starting to feel pressure to propose. We had gone to Italy and I
(38:57):
think she had wanted me to doit then, and then we had a
trip. I was gonna to doit on our trip to Israel that we
have planned, but that that triphas been postponed. Yeah, and even
that day I should have I shouldhave guessed it where she uh she was
just like you know, as Iwoke up, I like, I'm in
a bad mood today. She waslike no. I was like, I
(39:19):
just woke up feeling. She's like, you don't get to do that.
I'm like, why are you madat me for being upset? She's like
no, it's like okay, there'sa good day. And then we were
going out to like eat, andI was like, oh, can I
wear shorts? She's like, don'twear shorts? Like why can I wear
shorts? You're suffocating me as wonerswear shorts and stands. She's like no,
we're like a nice shirt and likewhy, well, you're still controlling
(39:42):
the and then oh, and thenwe walked on the beach and she was
like, I want to get agood picture of us. That was whole
thing. I want to get agood picture of us. So she sets
up her tripod and puts her camerathere, and then she walks over to
me and oh, she waits fora while. She sets up the tripod
and she waits and waits and waitslike five minutes for people walking by,
Like are you doing She was like, I want to get a clear shot.
Okay, she walks over to meand then she looks at me and
(40:05):
I go, what the hell areyou doing? It's a ten second time
we're on the came, we're goingto miss the picture. We're gonna have
to do this whole thing again.And then she gets down on one day.
I was like, oh that allclicks now, But no, no
clue it was coming. No cluewas coming. But now, but you
had said you would you wo hadjust said that you were going to like
I was going to propose to herin Italy or Israel or wherever it is.
(40:29):
Had you had you bought a ringand everything? No, not at
all. So you were you weregonna propose. I was going to propose,
but you weren't that far down theroad. Yeah, did she?
Did she talk to you? Saidyour mom's name was Anne. Did she
talk to Anne about proposing? No, didn't get permission. I don't know
any I don't know if she toldanyone that she was doing it. Maybe
kaya, But yeah, she mighthave kept it a secret. That's awesome,
(40:52):
though. Do we know when we'regetting married? Uh? Probably twenty
maybe twenty twenty six. All right, good for you, that's awesome.
I'm telling you are on such afantastic run. You are on the greatest
run right here. You're a reallygood time. If I died if I
die right now, people are likenice in terms of dramatic impacts, excellent
(41:14):
timing, crash on the way Home'sinterviewer. And then the last thing I
wanted to ask you about because Ithink it's very smart and maybe you liked
it, maybe you didn't. Thethe I know it's it's Trevor Noah's deal.
The Fortnite thing. Yeah, that'sreally really And again I don't know
(41:35):
if you like doing it or ifyou didn't, or if you could see
the payoff from it, but doinglike stand up in Fortnite is really smart
to me. It was a greatbusiness idea. I know it's a really
I don't have an appreciation for thefervor of that fandom. I know people
who love it love it and it'sthere are like Matteo Lane is an amazing
comedian whose career and talent I amvery jealous of. And I remember he's
(41:58):
like, you're on Fortnite? How'dyou get that? Like? He was
like genuinely, it's he was jealousfor that opportunity for how how like how
big of a world that Isn't itwas an offer I got kind of randomly.
I think it was based on someprevious work I'd done with that producer
on another project. What was reallyfun about doing it was that what I
look like didn't come into play becauseI had that skin on. I was
(42:20):
like, I think I was likea flamingo astronaut or something something weird,
some weird skin I put on mycharacter and the motion captured me doing stand
up, so it was just myvoice. I was like, oh,
I can't do any jokes about whatI look like. We also had some
pretty strict limitations on what we couldtalk about because it's very kid friendly.
I was just like, I havea bunch of one liners. I've always
wanted to be a one liner comic. That was my dream, But crowds
don't want that. They need morefrom me in terms of species personality.
(42:45):
Yeah, so it's like, oh, I can just go up there and
do one liners. So that's whatI did on it, which was very
fun. But it is like Ihad no idea that it existed, right
and I saw I was like,this is this, this will reach a
whole like it's genius. It reallyis that reaches a whole different world that
may never be exposed to stand upcomedy. It really is smart no,
(43:06):
that was I saw that. Iwas like, oh my god, that
is genius. That's really really good, dude. I'm telling you, I
hope you have the car accident.You are on such a run right now.
I appreciate that. Thank you,all right. Matthew Bruce Stard will
be at the Comedy Loft of DCtonight through Saturday. Dccomedyloft dot com to
(43:28):
get your tickets. Dude, thankyou so much for coming in. You
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