The holidays go so fast, but funnyman Mike Cannon has reason to smile: He’s leaving his chilly home for Texas ahead of his two nights with The Riot on December 27-28.
“I think I haven’t been on the road right after Christmas this soon,” he concedes. “But I’m actually excited to leave my family and also be in warm weather and pretend that I miss them.”
The father-of-two shares how his newborn has affected not only his sleep schedule, but his performance style. “All of my stuff lately is more or less family related but not necessarily in the family tone of things,” Cannon explains. “All of my specials are personal based, dark and irreverent, personal experience stuff. I just had a baby three and a half months ago, so I am in that fresh hell. I’m dealing with a five year old and a kid, so I am sleeping max 27 minutes a night. So people can expect a manic performance, but a lot of energy.”
To the new parents in his audience, Cannon commiserates. “It’s relentless, it never ends and congrats you got in this on your own accord,” he jokes, adding: “The good news is while it’s relentless, it’s the best thing on earth.”
While the affable New Yorker just released a special a few months back, he vows that he’s already got a new hour he’s tinkering with full of personal material. “This is all new stuff. I just released a new special in September on Chris Distefano’s YouTube and its called Traumatized Animal. It’s up there now, doing really well and people seem to love it. “
“Now that I’m back on the road, I’ve got a whole brand new set, just fine tuning that. The show now is at is most fun because I am still developing it, while also being completely loose and still excited about it instead of wanting to take my own life from repeating it over and over again.”
For those wondering how different each show can really be, the comic demystifies the process a bit and gives a peak into how he ultimately builds the routine that will eventually be filmed and archived. “It’s not 100 percent different, I still have the beats of each joke,” he explains. “But how I get into it: the way each thing organically comes up. I like to give each show their own individual experience because otherwise, what’s the sense in coming back? Once you’ve seen it, you’ll be like: ‘OK, great – I’ll never do that again.’
“The version of the joke I stick with is the version that does really well, but also the version where I don’t feel like a non-unique hack. If I can keep some sort of internal integrity and will to pursue further creativity, that means I wrote a good joke.“
Cannon has a complicated relationship with his social media: he’s aware of the necessity to the modern comic, but also has a distaste for comparing the experience of watching stand-up online vs. live in-person.
“Look, TikTok and Instagram and all of that stuff, is great for immediate gratification,” he states. “But if you want that shared energy exchange and live performance, there’s nothing better than a comedy show. Social media is where art goes to die. So I’m kinda willing to sacrifice my art a little bit to be the business card to actual performance so whatever I post on social media gets the attention of the audience to come to come and see me live and likes what they see, which in my opinion is a much more fun and authentic experience, then that’s great. All I use it for is to promote. I’m not necessarily into being a digital creator, although I really enjoy making things.”
However, for all those who like and follow, Cannon has seen his profile in stand-up rise thanks in part to his work online. “I would say the majority of my audience comes from podcasts, and social media,” he says. “It’s cool because there’s this short hand that it takes a moment for me to even realize I have with them. You seem like a regular human being, and then you name my pet… Oh you get the reference and then some on this joke, so I can actually go a little deeper and get weirder with it.”
“I think it affords a bit of freedom on stage where you can dive deeper and get weird. I just learned this word, but a para-social relationship, where people have a one-direction relationship with you and they know so much about my life and when I meet them, it’s like I’m not there for that experience. It’s interesting to meet someone who basically has my entire life experience downloaded on their phone.”
So in many ways, the digital content creation is what feeds the desire to get offline and create real moments for laughter in person. It’s comedy’s not-so-new vicious cycle. “I’m really excited about the new hour,” Cannon reaffirms, “That’s the only thing I love focusing on. If I could just do stand up 100 percent of the time, I would. It’s the other things that feed the stand up.”
Cannon’s performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday, December 27 and Saturday, December 28 at The Riot Comedy Club, 2010 Waugh. For more information, call 713-264-8664 or visit theriothtx.com. $20-150
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
