While the new David Cross comedy tour may be called The Beginning of the End of the Beginning, this tour seems to be more about the journey for the stand-up great.
With only a handful of sessions working this new hour under his belt, Cross describes a different vibe for his new hour, which he’s debuting for Houston at White Oak Music Hall on Tuesday, September 24. “Without giving anything away… I think it’s definitely at this stage, and who knows what will happen in the next few weeks, but it’s less political or topical or just talking about religion than almost all my other sets.”
“A really big chunk of this set is talking about this real experience I had, without giving anything away, but it’s all true and kind of crazy. I talk briefly about going to Peru with Bob Odenkirk and hiked the Incan trail, the Machu Picchu and I use that to thread in some ideas. Then it’s just fun.”
“Going through my set right now in my head,” he says, in his dry giving-nothing-away manner. “It’s more of the same.” Perhaps you can sense the smile.
Its title itself, a familiar almost Mr. Show-esque zig zag saying nothing (but profoundly), is worthy of dissection. “I usually have trouble coming up with the title,” Cross says. “Usually the first 50 things I come up with are too serious or heavy, or just too punny. This one I came up with very quickly, and I don’t remember. I wish I had an interesting pithy answer. I know what it means, but it is open to interpretation. Just think about it for a second, you’ll come to this understanding.”
Without the traditional lightning rods of political deterioration or religious fervor for Cross to lambast, this newer hour may yield more personal revelations that his past specials (2016’s Making America Great Again, 2022’s I’m From The Future and last year’s more reflective Worst Daddy in the World).
“Obviously,” he concedes, ”you don’t want to go to the well too many times and rehash the same idea. I definitely have a couple bits that I’ve been doing for six or seven years, but I didn’t have the room or time for it in the set. But now it kinda fits in there. But also from knowing how I work, when the Houston show is, its going to be a little different because more shit is gonna happen.”
Part of what has allowed Cross to hold true to his enduring edge, is that despite years of success in the comedy world on screen, the comic has little kind words for Hollywood. (No surprise for a writer who co-authored a banger book of unproduced screenplays called Hollywood Said No!)
“I don’t live in Los Angeles, I lived there for as little time as I possibly could and then got out of there. I’ve been in New York for 24 years, so I see things every day. I talk about things extensively that I have happened to me in New York, things I saw in New York or things I experienced in New York, and I am firm believer in that. LA makes you a different person, whether that is better or worse is relative. But it’s certainly not better for me as an artist.”
Just this month, Cross pulled off a coup in his 24-year adopted city by working with Central Park’s performance association to stage a unique heavy hitting line up of fresh comic voices called David Cross and his Super Pals.
“The summer stage thing, they approached me about this big show and said here’s the budget. But I don’t want to, with that chunk of money, and I don’t think I’m at the place where I can do an hour and a half by myself. At least, when I accepted the offer. So I said let’s get some friends together and we’ll divvy up a check. Unfortunately, it got rained out the original date. We lost literally half the line up, but we’ve replaced those guys and its gonna be really strong. Also, there’s a couple new faces that people won’t know of that I think are really great smart interesting comics and I want to give them some exposure too. The line up is fucking sick. We got Eugene Merman, Karli Marulli, Kim Norton, Ilana Glazer, Robby Hoffman, Zach Zucker, Shane Torres and myself.”
For those who get to see Cross in that unusual comedy setting, it’s an acknowledged treat because of the challenges it takes to do comedy outdoors, weather dependent. “It’s not good,” he says, yielding a chuckle. “I’ve done a bunch of outside shows and I think every comic will tell you the exact same thing. You can kind of figure out why. There’s not a lot of time for silence like in a theater, and the focus is on you. It is dark. You can tell a story. You end up telling jokes differently when you’re doing an outdoor show. At least, I do.”
Thankfully for Houston, his show at White Oak will be inside, where Cross will be accompanied by comic and recent break out from the new FX sitcom English Teacher, Sean Patton. “I’m with Sean Patton, who is amazing. I’m on the road with the same opener as last year, who was thankfully able to do most of this tour.”
Camaraderie seems to be a focus for Cross at this moment, as he’s also talking more than ever through his oft-viral podcast Senses Working Overtime, where he’s hosted a line-up including fellow comedian (Marc Maron, Bobby Moynihan), his past cast mates on Arrested Development (Tony Hale, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman) and even members of his family, including wife and actress Amber Tamblyn and silver screen father-in-law Russ Tamblyn.
“I’ve started branching off to people I don’t know and for me, the whole way I presented it is I’m just gonna have a conversation. It should be similar to I meet you at a bar in a strange town I haven’t been in, and start a conversation up with the person next to me. That’s how I approach it. Obviously, a bunch of these people, if I’m not fully aware of them, I know at least you’re a comic. So we have that to talk about. But I have had a lot of people on the show that I didn’t know before, I met them when they walked in the room.”
Cross continues: “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. It certainly doesn’t pay anything, no really, it doesn’t. Maybe it would if I Rogan it up a little bit. We need more conspiracy theories, half assed conspiracy theories would increase my paycheck!”
But between performance gigs (Cross just helped wrap up the successful Netflix series The Umbrella Academy in August), a world-wide stand up tour and a podcast producing episodes weekly, Houston is lucky to get one night of the comic’s attention. He flatters us, saying “You know, Houston is one of my top 100 comics in America I remember I was working there with Nick Swardson like decades ago, and I remember he said the motto for Houston should be, ‘Houston: Don’t Forget Your Gas Money!’”
David Cross’ performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 24 at White Oak Music Hall, 2915 North Main. For information, call 713-237-0370 or visit whiteoakmusichall.com. $49-60
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
