Meet Brendan Jay | Stand-up Comedian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brendan Jay and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brendan, what inspires you?
It’s inspiring to see funny people who don’t really take themselves too seriously. I wanna know how those people came to be, and try to emulate that. But a lot of things are inspirational in a lot of ways to me. Good music sticks out the most. And by good music, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, I can’t play an instrument and suck at karaoke. But if I find a song I like, I’ll listen to it on repeat again, again and again until I know every word and annoy everyone around me. Not sure why, but I’ve always done that since I had a Walkman cassette. I don’t come by music I really like too often so when I hear that song, I go alright, I’ll listen to this day after day until I hate it, but why not? I think it’s the lyrics. Over time, good song writing lyrics rub off on me and my general attitude. I’m a pretty positive guy generally speaking, I have a lot of faith that things will work out in the long run. I just do. As far as comedy goes, I find inspiration in the greats. I listen to enough of their interviews, and really pay attention to their outlook. I’m talking about all the big names – Seinfeld, Bill Burr, Chappelle, Chris Rock, Larry David on and on… My favorite comedian of all time passed away last year – Norm MacDonald. Besides being absolutely hilarious, he always had this smile on his face that let him really get away with saying so much; David Letterman called it a “twinkle in his eye”. I thought all the outpouring after he passed speaks for itself, but the most inspiring part was the fact that he had cancer for nine years and never told anybody…it’s like, yea he’s a comedian and his job is to make people happy, not bring you down with that sad fact. The fact that he kept the cancer private and prioritized his craft and perception of it was pretty damn inspiring.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Well the impressions and characters I do on stage definitely set me apart from most other stand-ups as far as my act goes. For whatever reason, not a lot of comedians do impressions these days, which is great for me I guess. But it’s only about half of my act and I’ve gotta have punchlines for all the impressions. Doing voices just for the sake of doing a voice can come off as hacky to a lot of people, and I try to avoid that while trying to get the voice and cadence spot on. And it’s actually hard. It takes a lot of work to do a good impression and by work mean talking to myself and getting dirty looks from strangers walking down the street. I go out walking my dog talking to myself like Matthew McConaughey and people walk by like, “how’d that transient drug addict get such a cute dog?” It actually took me about two years to get a good McConaughey impression down. It used to sound like Bill Clinton chain smoking Marlboro Reds. But I just kept practicing. Listen to enough Texas folk wisdom from Matty Mc trying to sell you a Lincoln and you’ll get it down and plenty material to go with it. It also gives you motivation to practice other voices. So I’m pretty proud when you see the look on the audience’s face like, ‘yea that is Matthew MConaughey,’ then dig the joke. It’s not easy. Some people just think you can wake up and do impressions but no, it takes a long time to get a character down well.

Any challenge I’ve overcome just comes from getting up and embarrassing myself as much as possible over time and eventually someone, somewhere is gonna be like, “oh he’s kinda funny, I’ll have him on my show.’ Get enough of those and eventually you’re a famous comedian, unfortunately I’m still kind of doing the first part. The biggest lesson I learned was just be funny on stage and friendly off, nothing crazy. I’m learning to put more videos on social media. It’s pretty important to have an online presence.  A lot of people look at it like a resume. I wish I came to that realization earlier.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
First off, I don’t have a best friend…I’ve had a series of best friends during different years of my life. Lost most of them to their new best friends…they’re apparently called wives now. Seriously, my best friends all call their wives their “best friend” now. I think it might be under duress, the duress of a Facebook post caption or something. I don’t know when this trend started but I blame Facebook. So if my best friend like Winnie the Pooh came to San Diego, I wouldn’t take him to the zoo because he’d get scared of what real bears from the Chilean Andes actually look like. But San Diego has so much freaking beer and different types of beer, I’d find the brewery with Honey beer then he, Piglet and I would go drink beer there while the suns out because when the sun goes down in this city, it gets insanely cold. I’m convinced Stone Brewing runs San Diego by the way. You need the strong ABV of an IPA to warm you up here at night it’s so chilly. Their logo is a demon gargoyle too…maybe there’s some devil worshiping cult secretly pulling the strings with everything that’s happening here. But I like Stone, I’m a huge fan of the Hazy IPA. In all seriousness, if a friend that’s still single comes to San Diego, we’re definitely going to Prohibition Lounge – a speakeasy on 5th Ave. Prohibition is hands down the best spot in the Gas Lamp. It’s a speakeasy with incredible cocktails and live music every night. These are good, professional musicians by the way. Not to mention, the staff is really friendly. It kind of feels like family there. Prohibition also do these amazing comedy shows there on select dates that are great. I hear the feature act / producer of that show is hilarious by the way, ‘wink’, ‘wink’. We sell the tickets on Eventbrite. Obviously, all the comedy clubs are great and book incredible acts whether downtown or at the Comedy Store in La Jolla. Besides that, I like Balboa park…it’s like Central Park in New York City but a real park with a real view and plenty of parking. I think it’s my favorite park in the country, something about it being up on that hill is pleasant.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?

I’d dedicate it to the best support network in the country – all my navy / military / intelligence community friends I’ve had throughout the years. Military friends, past and present, have supported the hell out of me from day one in four different cities and I honestly couldn’t have asked for better friends and coworkers who feel like family. Whether it’s coming out to see a show or talking smack about how NOT funny I am. I love all of it. I can get away with trying a lot of jokes in the military that other workplaces might not allow for, ya know. There’s a lot of smack talk in the service and as a guy from Philly, it’s refreshing. The same people that talk the most trash, also support the most and I can’t thank them enough. It’s not easy balancing the day job and stand-up life but they definitely make it easier. So yea, this Shoutout is also a shoutout to them.

Website: brendanjay.com

Instagram: @brendan.jay.ig

Linkedin: Brendan Jay

Twitter: @brendan_jay1

Facebook: Brendan Jay

Youtube: Brendan Jay

Other: Tiktok: brendan.jay.tt

Image Credits
Davide De Pas