This year’s Mission Creek Festival welcomes one of contemporary comedy’s leading lights — Chicago native Hannibal Buress. With current starring roles in the Eric Andre Show, Broad City and Chozen, and with writing experience on SNL and 30 Rock, the 31-year old’s star is clearly on the rise. His April 2 performance at the Englert Theatre is a can’t-miss opportunity to see Buress on the heels of his second Comedy Central special, set to air this Saturday.
http://youtu.be/zXvJqiyiMqQ
Buress presents himself as a man of simple pleasures — he likes to to chill out and play video games, party with his friends, maybe get laid, and never run out of toothpaste (buy eight of everything, he advises in his stand up). But what makes audiences fall in love with him is that he doesn’t want any of these things if he can’t feel good about it. His early work showcases an uncanny ability to deliver all of the complexity of those small decisions in the space of a single line. In his upcoming hour-long special, he remains observational in style, while proving that he is also capable of holding those notes in longer form.
Although he claims to prefer avoiding politics and heavy topics, we can’t help but look to our comedians for help processing social issues. In his new special, Buress remains subtle, but definitely delivers on this front as well. He is more confident — and hilarious — than ever.
Little Village: First I just want to congratulate you on the special. I got to watch it last night and thought it was amazing.
Hannibal Buress: Thank you. I appreciate that.
LV: The NCAA tournament starts today, are you doing a bracket?
HB: No, no. That’s just a recipe for disappointment.
LV: It seems like you do follow it, though. Is the tournament just too much of a crapshoot?
HB: Yeah, for me, making a bracket — I would want to nail it, and it’s almost impossible. You start out with 64 teams! It’s too variable, and I would just get upset. With an NBA bracket, you can actually nail that because it’s only 16 teams (laughs). But nobody does brackets in the NBA. Anyway, everybody knows it’s going to be the Pacers, barring any injuries, it’s extremely likely to be the Pacers and the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. The West is a little bit more up in the air — OKC, Clippers, Spurs, Warriors, the West is a little more interesting but the East is pretty set.
LV: We’re a Big Ten town here, and it’s a Northwestern player leading the charge nationally to get players recognized as employees of the university. Do you think NCAA athletes are employees and should be treated as such?
HB: NCAA athletes definitely are creating revenue for the university, so, yeah they are. So I think the athletes should be compensated. It’s just a tough thing because there are so many athletes, so then how do you divvy it up? I’m all for athletes getting paid, but then you say, OK, who makes the most money for a certain college? Does the volleyball team get the same stipend as the football team? And for the football team does everybody get the same money? Does the redshirt guy or the second string left guard get the same money as the star quarterback? That’s the thing you get into, you know — for it to be fair, it has to be the same across the board. Maybe they figure out equations, but that’s a real tough issue. People are spending money on apparel and buying tickets to the games and paying for parking and paying for concessions and there are TV deals and all these things where athletes are the driving factor for that revenue — it’s just how do you divvy it up?
LV: Are you involved in the writing for Chozen?
HB: No, sometimes a little improvising, and slightly different wording, but not even that much really.
LV: How did your character for Broad City come together?
HB: Well, I did something — Broad City started as a web series, and they had me on the web series. Then when they put together the pilot, they wanted me in the pilot so we just talked about the character and decided to make him a dentist. He’s just a sweet guy who really wants to settle down and have a relationship with Ilana, and that’s how we play it. He’s a sweet guy and he has a lot of funny and weird lines, so it was good for me, just to have something to play around with, you know.
LV: A lot of people leave Iowa City for Brooklyn. Do you like living there?
HB: I like Brooklyn a lot. Williamsburg has a lot going on with music and comedy shows and a lot of good restaurants. I like just walking around the neighborhood. It’s a good area, it’s really awesome. I plan on staying here for a little while.
LV: As a comedy insider, where would you say is a really good city for a comedian coming of age — what cities are really supporting comedy well right now?
HB: As far as starting out, Chicago is a good place to start just because there are a lot of open mic’s for performing. I can’t really speak on other cities because I’m not really tuned into the local scene, coming in as a headliner. But as far as good cities to perform in, I would say Austin, Texas. Portland I like a lot. San Francisco is awesome. Philly I enjoy. Boston. Those are my favorite cities to perform in.
LV: Who are some of the comedians that you think are really pushing things forward right now?
HB: Pushing things forward… Michael Che, Damon Williams, Sean Patton, Gerard Carmichael out of LA is doing his thing. There’s a lot of great comedians out there.
LV: Is it true the first time you performed it was more or less on a whim? What were you thinking? Do you remember it well?
HB: No, I wouldn’t say it was a whim, because I had decided to do it — the open mic was once a month, I went to the open mic and I decided I wanted to do the open mic the next month. So I prepared a little bit, it was a lot of fun, the jokes went over okay… It was cool, man. I performed and it was fun and I fell in love with it. It was a good time.
LV: I’m sure a lot of things have gotten easier over the years. You’ve refined your craft and improved your game, but is there any way that things have gotten more difficult?
HB: Actually performing stand-up?
LV: Yeah, how has it remained challenging?
HB: It’s not. It’s not really challenging. Well, now, I have to come up with a new hour so that’s challenging, but it will come along fast. The actual performing aspect is easy. The crowds are coming to see me, specifically. I can perform where I want and get on stage wherever I need to, so yeah, the actual performing part has gotten much easier.
LV: Have your goals and what you want out of it changed?
HB: Well, yes, just out of the fact that I’ve accomplished some things, so now it’s just about trying to progress, get better, and do funny stuff. It’s just about that: If you do a thousand seat theatre, come back and do two shows, then come back and do more shows, or do a bigger venue. Those are the goals now, which weren’t even — when I was starting out it was about just trying to work, trying to book an opening gig in Milwaukee. So, yeah, that’s what it is. It’s just about progressing in venues.
LV: There is a lot of continuity between your personality on stage, and your characters on Chozen, Broad City, the Eric Andre Show. You seem really convincing that you are being yourself. Do you enjoy acting? Do you feel like you are putting on a show?
HB: Well, it’s both. Yeah, I’m doing a show, but it’s still — there might be a little bit of exaggeration, but for the most part my set is just the things that happen, the things I’m thinking about. I might, you know, play it up a little bit, but for the most part it’s just really my thoughts. So I enjoy being able to do it, I’m glad people connect with it. But, I’m genuinely interested in business and other things. I joke, but I’m serious, I wonder how do you get into the toilet paper business? How do you make tiny lotions for hotels? That seems like a good business. I think about those things. I do enjoy stand-up, but it is fleeting, so it’d be nice to have other options.
LV: Just last night, after watching your stand-up, I ran out of toothpaste and I looked in the cupboard and found another tube. I felt like a genius.
HB: You felt like a genius?
LV: Well, a little bit. I thought “Damn, I didn’t go to the store today…” I felt like a failure, really, that was how the thought started. I knew I was going to run out of toothpaste and I didn’t make it to the store. But then I looked in the cabinet and there was an extra tube of toothpaste.
HB: Was it a full tube or like a hotel tube?
LV: Full tube. In the box.
HB: Yeah, that’s the thing, man. You gotta have that stuff. Get eight of them. Eight of whatever that thing is.
LV: I noticed on one of your clips you had a Monotonix shirt, then I read that you actually opened for them …
HB: Also, on that tour, the lineup varied, so in some cities, Monotonix opened for me. So let’s just get that clear …
LV: Ah, sorry!
HB: Yeah, I did some crazy shows with them. It was 2008, we did a bunch of dates — Monotonix, Matt and Kim was on that tour for a couple of dates, the Death Set, Team Robespierre, some other comedians. It was a lot of fun. They would put on a crazy show every night. Stuff was getting broken. Sometimes they would lead the entire crowd outside, which, you know, the venue owners probably didn’t enjoy that that much. But that was a fun time. That was probably the only time that I could do something like that with a band because now I can’t just tour with five or six bands on a school bus…
LV: I got hit in the head with a trash can at a Monotonix show. It was the bad part of the trashcan too, like the inside edge of it…
HB: You were at the Iowa show?
LV: I don’t think it was the same tour, it was 2009 or 10…
HB: Oh okay…
LV: I don’t want to offend you but the first time I heard your stand-up I thought your delivery sounded a lot like Mitch Hed —
HB: Yeah Mitch Hedberg, yep…
LV: Does that come up a lot?
HB: Oh yeah…
LV: Really? Oh man, I thought I had an original observation there… Was his work important to you growing up?
HB: Well, I am a big fan of Mitch right now — one of my friends actually heard my stand up — my RA — he heard my stand-up and decided he thought I should hear Mitch, because he thought I sounded like Mitch before I even heard him. Maybe in my earlier stuff it leans more to that style — which, you know, a lot of people have done one liners or short weird bits — but I don’t think the newer stuff is in the same vein.
LV: We’re putting together a set of recommended books from Mission Creek artists to do a giveaway. Is there a book you think everyone should read? One book you’d like to put on everyone’s bookshelf?
HB: I think people should read The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats.
LV: Okay. Why do you recommend that?
HB: Because it’s a good book. It’s a good story. The author is Hesh Kestin. The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats.
LV: OK we’ll put it on the bookshelf.
HB: Cool. Thank you man.
LV: Anything you want to say about the special, any points you want me to put out there?
HB: No, I don’t have any special points, people should just watch it. Or not. If you want to check out some stand-up of mine, it will probably be something like that.
Hannibal Buress’ hour-long special, “Live from Chicago,” will air this Saturday on Comedy Central. His Mission Creek performance is at the Englert Theatre on Wednesday, April 2 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the Englert box office and online.
