Ben Kronberg

I was nervous about interviewing Ben Kronberg, a touring road comic.  If any of you know Ben personally, you know how silly it sounds to ever be worried about a conversation with him but I have never interviewed another comic and it felt strange forcing a conversation for work.  We agreed to meet at the Improv before one of his shows, and as I walked up to Ben and his friends, I quickly said hello and introduced myself to those who I didn’t know to deflect any suspicions of predetermination.  And it worked:  Ben went along with the “just here to see Ben,” line I gave the group and I was saved from irrational anxiety.  Once the group cleared, Ben and I headed inside to grab a drink from Eddie at the bar and have a seat.  I made one obvious reporter move in that I used my iPhone to record our conversation but Ben was cool with it.  I think I spent most of the time bullshitting, thinking of topics off the top of my head and luckily Ben went along until we got to something pertinent:  a party he might miss.
            
“I might be missing out on the fuck of my lifetime, but I’ve already had the fuck of my lifetime.”
             
“What is the fuck of your lifetime?”
             
“Comedy.  I don’t want to fuck every night but I want to tell jokes every night.  I can’t wait to get done fucking so I can tell the girl I’m fucking the new ideas I have for jokes.”
             
Ben somehow linked his primal need for comedy to discuss his imminent move to New York from LA because he felt that New York offers a more consistent environment free from bringer shows and necessary parlay.
            
“Something about New York comedy, it’s sexier.  It’s not about what you’ve been on or what else you’re doing, but your act itself.”
             
He also revealed something startling and honest to which I could relate: 
             
“When I’m at the Improv, everyone is all ‘fuck Comedy Store,’ and when I’m at the Comedy Store, everyone is all ‘fuck Improv,’ and when I’m at UCB, everyone is all ‘fuck mainstream.’  It’s like I have to be friends with everyone yet loyal to no one.”
             
The LA comedy scene almost forces a distain for all other clubs except the one you’re performing at the moment.  As a newbie comedian sort of forcing myself into these shows as opposed to the other way around, sometimes I can feel the indoctrination from one venue to another.
             
Then Ben went into a piece of material he wanted to use, a funny line he wanted to represent with a variety of accents to give the line new meaning each time it was uttered.  I won’t ruin his joke by sharing it but we fired back and forth about how bits like these need review through friends because a joke needs to gestate, sometimes sort of flow through different minds and different lungs before it can grow from a “fetus into a small child, which we can then put to work in the factory, until someone says that’s not your baby, you stole that baby!” 

Even Ben has been accused of stealing a joke.  We all have, and the worst is when you can prove you wrote it first but it doesn’t matter because you told your joke in a club, and the A-List movie star used it on screen.
            
“I argue that it’s all circumstantial and it’s not the same.  This girl at a club came up to me and said one joke of mine that I’ve used since Denver, where I grew up.  It’s a very simple joke, clean joke, it’s the same as in this movie, and she said she was in the scene as an actress.  I’ve never seen the movie but what are the odds that someone in the scene recognized this joke I’ve been doing forever?  So that’s an executive decision that I have to make, is it going to matter if I say that joke at a college right now or on the road?  Do I feel like I’m doing something really bad because we just so happen to come up with the same joke?  I don’t care:  I gotta do my own hustle.  I do my own version of the moonwalk.”
             
Ben admitted to me the joke in question descends from a guilty pleasure of his:  word play.
             
“Sometimes I do word play jokes and I get groans or like ‘Ugh, pun!’  It’s like a fine line but sometimes that’s all I can think of because it’s my favorite thing.  I want to stick with it and I don’t want to let it go.”
             
As obvious and lame as it is, I asked my next question without a shred of transition.
             
“How did you put yourself into a position where you could do standup everyday?”
             
“I first started out thinking, ‘I want to do this every week,’ then I thought ‘I want to do this as much as I can during the week,’ then it went to ‘I want to do this everyday.’  My free time, my night time, that’s what I would do.  I started when I was 26 so going out was easy, being able to drink and go to shows helps.’”
             
We soon lost our direction, probably for the better.  Ben was going up in his show first and probably needed to focus on something that put his mind at ease.
             
“There’s this place in Denver called the Rio Grande, it’s an in-state franchise, they have a three margarita limit. There bar is only open until ten because their drinks are so strong that people would get DUIs or die if they finished their night there.  They have the best chips and salsa; the salsa is made fresh.  The chips are fresh made from corn tortilla.  It’s the best combo:  those margaritas with the chips and salsa are the best.”
             
Soon after, it was time for Ben to perform.  He was up in the late show that was booked by a Tonight Show standup booker.  Unfortunately, the show did not draw the raucous crowd that the early one did.  Sometimes, we all face crowds that just don’t want to laugh, but whose fault is it?  It’s not like this is a bringer, this a professional show booked by a professional promoter featuring professional comedians.  Whatever the case, the promoter was not happy with what he saw, and soon left just a few acts into the show.  Ben went first and performed admirably against the cold crowd, but we are all our own harshest judges.
             
“Well, I’m not going to be on the Tonight Show.”
             
I disagree.  If any of you get the pleasure of seeing Ben perform, you will too.  After the show, we left the club and walked to our cars to call it a night and I asked him the question I think I’ll ask everyone throughout my pursuit of funny.
             
“Do you think comedians should seek other means of vocation, like acting or writing, or should they concentrate on standup?”
             
“There are plenty of careers in standup.  Stick with it.  Even if you don’t perform forever, there are guys out there who are on salary, not per minute or per joke, but are on salary for big time touring comedians who are there for a support system.  There are plenty of opportunities in the standup world as long as you keep doing it.  There are other things other than standup to do to make money, and you can keep doing standup while you do them because they’re involved in this business.”
             
That’s all I needed to hear.