Guy Branum - Live at The Lyric Hyperion

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:16)
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

**Jesse Thorn** (0:26)
Hey gang, it is Jesse, happy Friday. I have a little extra special treat for you in the feed this week. Earlier this year, as a thank you to the many folks who are members of MaximumFun and support this show, the Bullseye team and I did something really silly and fun. We crashed an open mic with our public radio show. We showed up at the Lyric Hyperion Theater here in Los Angeles. We asked the open mic night's host, we asked the host of the open mic, Brenna Campbell, who is a friend of the show, if we could do a little interview in the middle of all of the comedy and music. And she said yes.
So we did that and we recorded it. My interview guest was Guy Branum. Guy's also of course a friend of the show. He has occasionally filled in for me in the host chair on this program. He hosted the Max Fun Show Pop Rocket. Lately, he has been traveling the country with his incredible solo show Be Fruitful. And he has become a social media star with Instagram videos that he calls Stories from an Old Gay.
We'll get in to Be Fruitful and lots more in the interview, which you are about to hear right now. Hit it, Chewy.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:34)
We have some very special guests today.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:36)
I'm so excited.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:38)
You are in for a treat.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:40)
Give it up for NPR's Bullseye with Jesse Thorn.

**Jesse Thorn** (1:52)
Let's hear for Brenna Campbell, huh?
I know what all of you were thinking when you came here today. I hope that they bring me a little something from a regional art center lecture series to the open mic stage. So here's the story. I host a public radio program called Bullseye. We have an annual pledge drive. And because we did well in the annual pledge drive, my producers had challenged the audience. If we got to a certain number, I would do an interview at an open mic where the people did not know that they were going to see an interview. So my apologies to all of you on behalf of my producers, who are the real bad guys.
But yeah, I am very lucky to have a guest here with me today who I think is one of the most brilliant people in comedy today. He's an amazing stand-up comic. He is a wonderful writer for the television program Hacks, among many other venues. He is an author. And he also has a brand new solo show called Be Fruitful, that as it happens, literally coincidentally, is running in like two hours here at The Lyric Hyperion.

**Guy Branum** (3:09)
Stick around.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:11)
Guy Branum.

**Guy Branum** (3:15)
Yes. Jesse, I think that there is an implicit apology at every comedy open mic for what you are subjecting the people in front of you to, because you have to see what sticks to the wall.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:27)
You know what? I was sitting in the audience watching everyone perform, and I just thought, I wonder what it's like to have talent or skill.

**Guy Branum** (3:36)
Well, like, there's something so lovely about watching people, particularly songwriters, people who have, like, an emotional relationship with the thing that they are performing, because, like, Brinna, like, so many of you brought a level of intensity and sincerity to a performance that was just like, what if comedians did that once? You know?
What if they believed and felt in the thing that they had written the way that Brinna feels about that river?

**Jesse Thorn** (4:02)
Guy, one time 15 years ago on my comedy podcast, I talked about my dog dying and cried. I got a nice e-mail from Ira Glass, and I decided to wrap it up there.
No more sincerity forever.

**Guy Branum** (4:17)
Yes, but there is also, like, I do think there is something really fun about watching different kinds of performance because your relationship to your audience is different and, like, what you are bringing to the table, like, personally, like, Avi made the segue from the, like, most charming, like, take the stage possible. Like, when he was taking the stage, I was like, we're going to get some fun musical comedy here. And then, like, dark, depressing works that come from a different part of who you are. But it's fun to see that because they are just colors that, like, people generally aren't playing with in comedy spaces.