#7 Spitting Image with Ricky Glore

Announcer 0:00

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:17

Gaddy, thank you. For the show, man. thank you enough. Here we are episode seven. That's right this year first episode, you got six more to catch up on. Because we're on episode seven.

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All right, as always support our sponsor. That's what keeps the lights on? Well, what can I say I was twittering, this past week new feature on Twitter, you can now add voice to the tweet via the Twitter interface. Now I don't think this is on every account yet because one of mine has it and the other ones don't. But basically, you type in the text and you hit a button. And you just add your voice. And they put it over an image of your account picture. And it just plays. I don't love it. To be honest. No editing tools didn't seem to have want to redo this. No way to play it to see how it actually sounds. So give it a two out of 10. It's a nice effort. But let's see if they take it anywhere.

I have a great interview coming up with comedian Ricky Glore, he has a new album out called spitting image, I think you're gonna really enjoy the interview. It's all about the process, it took over a very long time to hone the material and get it to the point where it is now on the album. And I think it's relevant and a really great case study for anyone trying to build towards anything. I think the story can be extrapolated and the points and the bullets to how to get there. How to follow your dream how to reach your end goal. It's all here. It's all in this interview. That's a huge lead up. And here we go. Hey, everybody, we're here with Ricky galore. famous comedian. Fake.

Ricky Glore 2:43

Like, Lee's Chicken famous. He's

Jeff Dwoskin 2:48

just as famous. Chicken places you pass. Exactly. Yeah, you

Ricky Glore 2:51

put famous in the title. It's got to be true, right?

Jeff Dwoskin 2:53

Of course. This morning, I had the world's greatest cup of coffee.

Ricky Glore 2:58

How did it match up against all the others that came before that didn't have that moniker?

Jeff Dwoskin 3:03

Not as good not as good?

Ricky Glore 3:07

Or so high? When you go show like that? Like you judge it from the moment it just like caresses the tip of your tongue. And you're just like, Nope, not the greatest. Not this one. Not this one. It spoke to me that it is there is 100% there doesn't happen often. But when it hits it hits, right. Yeah. So you got a new album out. That's exciting. This is your first album. This is my first album and it couldn't have dropped at more of a perfect time when all of my live shows have been cancelled. So I have zero opportunity to move the CDs and albums at shows

Jeff Dwoskin 3:47

Ricky has an entire room full of CDs or just once the governors open up all the state so you have that to look forward to audience look forward to that. How long is that

Ricky Glore 3:59

it's a it's a headliner said it was done in Pittsburgh, at burning bridges Comedy Club, which I would say max holds about 80 people it's a little bit of a smaller room. It's It's pretty cool. There's a bar right next to called ham bones, which is kind of a fun jazzy dive bar. And then there's a room and a kitchen then the comedy club is right next to it. So a lot of people go for drinks beforehand and they get some dinner at the comedy club and they watch the show. It's kind of intimate like set a jazz kind of feel. We did the show there. We did. I did two shows. The first show is sold out. It was great. That's what the album is because the second show, maybe like 50 people and they were awful. And I have no qualms saying sometimes an audience can be bad.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:49

The years that I did stand up, I would only purposely bring my wife to certain gigs because there's only certain gigs that you do that are like the gold shows. You know where that's a real question. It's not the back of the alley. You know you're doing it nobody even knows is a comedy show going?

Ricky Glore 5:08

Oh, those are great when you're hijacking a bar. Luckily now with the advent of yc. Now, I mean, for the pandemic, with breweries and wineries, they've kind of become the new modern day coffee house. And I learned about two years ago that they are hungry for live entertainment. And what's cool is that people who come there, unlike a bar, they come there for a night out kind of like a date night, just not a stop through like, sometimes bars are where there'll be a revolving door of people. So yeah, the breweries and wineries have actually been really cool when it's, um, they've been really good audiences. Now, to your point, a lot of them aren't set up for stand up. But luckily, even under the worst conditions, all you need is a microphone, you can do stand up anywhere. That's the beauty of it. So Alright, so you had two great sets of the same thing. huge audience and a smaller audience. That's great. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 6:03

one good one, guys. But I'm sure yeah, well, but sometimes this sometimes, right? Don't you think like when you do one, and it's just so perfect. And then you do another show right after? It's hard because the other show is still in your head. And it never really matches up to the expectations because you get this invisible bar in your head that you've set

Ricky Glore 6:24

in there should have been a sense of relief, which I think there was of like, Oh, I think that first show was good enough. Granted, I'm always like, oh, maybe the next one will be even better. And then on lock doors have these huge laughs and maybe some impromptu things that'll happen. That'll be amazing. That will capture, you know, the magic of capturing a live show. And that didn't happen. I slept at the end of the night was like, I hope we got that first. I hope everything we needed was on that show. I said one weird. One thing wrong. Am I set? Or I'm supposed to say emaciated? The first show I said emancipated. And I asked the producer, I was like, Is there any way you can have the editor? just swap out the words? Because I know I said it right. The second show. I was like, I don't need the whole bit. Just the one word and he's like, we'll see. I was like, please, otherwise, I sound like an idiot. He was he was gonna do

Jeff Dwoskin 7:21

it's the worst when you just you're there and you mess up a joke. And you know you did? Well, you didn't even if you didn't know it, but like, with the times that you do it on the fly, just kind of do it again, or reconstruct the joke just to try and get through it to say face.

Ricky Glore 7:37

Yeah, you like want to go Sorry, I messed that one up. Like if you say the wrong wrong word, then that might connect to whatever your your punch line is at the end. And then it's like, if you still have more of a bit like why No, I didn't say that correctly. So then there's no way they're gonna laugh at the end of this. And I still have a minute and a half of

Jeff Dwoskin 7:56

this bit to get through. The mental anguish of being onstage now album is called spitting image. It just recently was released. So anyone who's listening, you can pick up his album now talk talk about like the process of building this headliner set that is now on on the album.

Ricky Glore 8:15

Yeah, for for two years, I have been doing clubs. bars, like we said before, pretty much anywhere where they'll let you put up a microphone stand. I recommend this to any comedian, even if you're an open mic. Or if you're an open mic, or that doesn't have any more than 10 minutes, find two other comedians that you think are maybe better than you or better than you and have more time, and you do the grunt work to book out of state or out of city shows somewhere, like promote that you're going to give them a good show. And then it's going to be a certain amount of time, it's gonna be like an hour show. And even if they're not going to pay a ton at least get gas fair or a little bit of scratch to throw the other comedians, and start pushing yourself to do out of state shows. That's what I did. Two years ago, I started a thing called the brew crew comedy tour, where we did a lot of breweries and wineries. And it was always myself and two other comedians. And every weekend when we had shows, or even during the week, we would rotate who was in the MC who was in the feature spot, and who was in the headliner. So that forced us to have to really work and hone in doing each one of those positions really well, because I think you can get complacent if you're just a feature being like, Oh, well at least I don't have to deal with the worries that that an emcee has to deal with or if you're always headlining, you're like well, I don't have to do the groundwork of a of an emcee. A lot of people say that features the sweetest spot, but I did that for about a year. And then when I knew that my 45 minutes my headliner set was shaping more into what I wanted it to be. I got a little selfish, which I thought was fine because I knew the goal I had in mind. And I said to the the comics that I had been taken with me on the road For this next year, I'm going to headline every show like unless it's a place that I've already done, and they, I'm going to headline every time. And so I'm going to bring along a feature and emcee which I'll rotate. But so then for a year, I did that every show we did and like, like I said, Unless I had already headline there, I just worked on that 45 minutes set, putting in new stuff, taking out stuff, rearranging it, then, within that year, I also recorded my dry bar comedy special, which was great, because I knew they were only going to do 25 minutes. But they let you record two shows and let you change up your stuff each show to give them a nice array of things to choose from. But because I knew I was going to do that, I was like, Ooh, this is great. I can really focus on my first 1015. And then I can really focus on my last 1015. And put those together to make it that dry bar set. They're pretty stringent on what you can do, even though they don't give you guidelines, you know, they want clean comics, when I was first booked to do it. In September. I was like, Oh, do woman write down my set or send you a video of what I plan on doing. So you can tell me what what you want what you don't want. And they're like, No, no, we trust you. This is like cool. I talked to Jeff Jenna, who's another comedian who's on dry bar. And Erica Rhodes, who's a friend of mine who did a great dry bar as well and was on bringing the funny on NBC. She's an awesome comic, as well, as Jeff, who taught me in my first stand up class in 2005, and has been kind of my mentor throughout my whole career. I said, can I send you my set that I plan on doing for dry bar? And Mark? Anything you think is questionable, because I've heard horror stories about comics doing jokes. That were their closers and they were like a sexual innuendo. And it Nick's their whole special from ever coming out. I didn't want that to happen. So they went through it and like one piece of my Kentucky material that's on the album that I didn't do because I knew they wouldn't be cool with was talking about the creationist Museum in Kentucky, even though it doesn't really like persecute or hold creationists to a fire or really like go after them. I was like, Huh, it happens early on to my set, and I just worry of even saying anything about it that that's just going to clench buttholes and just like ruin it all. Sounds like there's no reason to talk about it. I got enough other Kentucky stuff. And one bit that I didn't think of though, was my Burt Reynolds bit the story about my dad stealing Burt Reynolds face from his museum. I did the bit. Both shows. And none of the producers said anything. When I got the first edit of the special dadbod it was gone. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. Like, it's such a unique story. It's not like there's a bevy of other comedians telling their how their dad stole Burt Reynolds face joke or story. I was like, Huh, I wonder why they took it out. And my brother who was with me when my dad stole bertels face, people listening, you're like stole Burt Reynolds face. I gotta buy the album, you got to find out what I'm talking about who he was with me when my dad did it in Florida. He's like, I bet you dry bar cut it out, because it's about stealing. And I was like, oh my like, you're probably right. It's about stealing. I would have never thought of that. But so that that was the that was a long way to answer that for two years. I just shaped this show. In one tool that I used was I had a pocket in the middle of my show called napkin thoughts, which I actually put together a little coffee table book in napkin thoughts that bit allowed me to the setup was the setup is if I do it again, a lot of people have tiny computers that they carry around with them daily napkin thoughts where I carry around a tiny computer. But I still like to write my thoughts down on napkins. Here are some of my napkin thoughts. And a lot of them were non sequiturs that I had, or one liners that really didn't fit anywhere and a narrative of kind of the set I was building. But I would try them out. And if they worked, or if more jokes formed around them or came up, that all kind of fit a similar narrative, then I would make them a bit and I would take them out of the napkin thoughts and put them somewhere else in my act. So like that is something that I had throughout the two years, which was great is I can always go to napkin thoughts. And then as the two years went on, and the set in the headliner set evolved, I could make bigger bits out of the smaller jokes, which the first year doing MC and feature work great because those two slots, you don't have a lot of time to tell long stories. So telling kinda like one liner jokes. were great to work that muscle. It's awesome. Yeah, it is. I think we People don't understand was I think you clearly articulate is what's such a process to get to 45 minutes, so much time and editing and retooling goes into it to get that perfect thing that when they finally hear an album, so when I was first emceeing in the mid tooth in, like 2005 2006, I was a house emcee at the new funnybone in Kentucky, like shopping mall, you know, or like a lot of comedy clubs are. And I was definitely I was a much different comic than I am now. But the one thing that I learned was watching other headliners perform. And I was really fortunate. I'm a huge SNL fan. So anytime anyone remotely that touched SNL, I would call dibs and try to work with them. And watching the stamina that it took to do multiple performances in one night of a headliner set in knowing where those jokes in the energy need to be, to also to be able to hold the audience. I did impressions back then, and I used to do them at the beginning of my show, because for some reason I hated being known. When people left the show is being the guy who could look or sound like Chris Farley, which is what I used to do. And I would always get, so I'm like, I'm not gonna do impressions at the end of my show anymore. That's all people remember. That's not a stand up. That's a hack thing, which I don't know why I grew out of that. Because now my stand up is I do songs, I do impressions. I do long stories like, I like vaudeville performers, I like giving a performance I think stand up has a many different definition. All valid. Anybody who sits on a high horse is like, oh, who stand up is just up there leaning up against a microphone stand pontificating, like you're thinking of it on the spot. I'm like, that sounds like rehearsal, I think you should work on your set a little bit more. You're there for an audience, that audience gives you more than you give them by just being there. So I think every stand ups intent should be to perform and entertain. I'm not saying to pander, do what makes you laugh and what you think is funny and expresses your artistic creativity. But know that you're there to provide a service, which is to entertain, and be prepared as much as you can. So then, when I got older was doing stand up, I'm like, No, people love impressions. Doesn't matter when I do on my show. That's the thing they remember. So I'm gonna finish with them. And I'm gonna like doing them. So I'm gonna do the impressions that I like, I'm not gonna do just, I'm not gonna do Christopher Walken. Even though I do Sean Connery. Everyone does Sean Connery. It's that Sean Connery makes me laugh.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:58

I thought your impressions were really great actually. Yeah, and fine. The way you did on it is really, I really enjoyed it. Well, it was been great talking to you. This is this is a lot of fun. It was great to get to know you. I do want to encourage everyone to check out Ricky's album called spitting image you can find out the whole story behind Burt Reynolds face. See if you would have deleted that bid from the dry power special had you been in charge of dry bar and it's available on circus trapeze records. It's available now you can go right now. Stop, hit pause, just go get the album. Ricky tell people how they can find

Ricky Glore 18:38

you can find me on Twitter at Ricky Glore. That's Ricky Glore. I'm on Instagram at glore Ricky or you can follow me on Facebook at Ricky Glore comedy. You can go to circus trapeze.com slash Ricky Glore for the album or you can go to iTunes by and leave a review and take a picture of you holding like your phone with my album and tweet me. Let me know that you got it

Jeff Dwoskin 19:06

or what you think. All right. Well, thank you, Ricky. It's been a pleasure, everyone, check out his album. We'll see you again. All right, that was my interview with Ricky Glore. Check out his album now. Great, great story and how that came to be put the time in. Be true to yourself, and never give up. All right.

I know we're all stuck at home. Hashtag Roundup. Check that out. Download the app. Lots of fun hashtags you can play throughout the day. I read a lot of them on the show here. Here's one recently young at heart tags did on hashtag roundup hashtag homeschool bumper stickers. All the parents working it out with their kids at home with no school to send them to here's some homeschool bumper stickers. siddik blonde, homeschool dropout onboard. Oh, that's embarrassing, explaining The neighbors right? My kid got an A plus in video games. All right, Jelly Bean. Good for your kid. Somebody's got to be setting the curve and video games. Here's a good one from Sherry B homeschool bumper sticker. Just Google it. Who's not doing that? Yeah, that'd be a great bumper sticker. Here's a good one from flechita. Teacher. Honk if you understand Common Core. I bet those are quiet streets. Ah, lots of fun stuff going on. Alright, well check that out. Check out our geek Laura's album. Check out all the other episodes of the Jeff Dwoskin job if you haven't yet, and we'll see you next time.

Announcer 20:46

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show comm or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

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