Today we’d like to introduce you to John L. Brown.
John, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
One night back in 2008, I went with a friend to a local comedy club to see Pauly Shore but he got food poisoning so instead, I met another great Dallas comedian Paul Varghese that night just by chance because he filled in that night as a headliner and crushed it. I was like man. I wish I could do that too. We talked after the show and he told me sort of how he started and I began to come out to watch him at his shows at times and eventually was thinking I wanted to give it a shot. He told me about how he started with open mics right here in Dallas and so I went to them and left many times too scared to go up. Finally, four years later in 2012, I made that first leap and it was not too hard to decide from there that this is what I wanted to do with my life. So many terrible sets it many different places and a few good sets later I’m doing alright, I think, especially with all that’s happening. I mean regardless, Comedy is a long hard road and many people quit early or some later in the game even but it can really beat you down and most of us are mentally suffering in some way so it’s like, REAL hard lol.
But it’s been about 6-7 actual hard-working years of pushing myself every minute of every day for this to be my career and in 2017 (tidbit: my car was repossessed just hours before I was supposed to be at the comedy club to open for, of course, Pauly Shore Lol weird how the universe works) but I made it and hosted the show thank goodness and it was so awesome. I, for sure, would call it a huge milestone but it really was a huge moment for me, especially at that time in my career. I mean, it was so surreal just to even talk to him like on one about just what I needed to say for like five mins but I savored every second of it. I was really doing it. I was a real comedian. It turns out I still had lots to learn lol, but I was on my way. Comedy honestly isn’t always fun, sometimes not at all for a long time. I mean, I live in a bus with my also comic girlfriend (Sydney Carson) but we have a good partnership as well as a relationship.
But like I’m writing this right now inside a bus I converted and I consider this success! Lol but seriously for anyone thinking about doing it I say go for it just try it once but if you are gonna try to be a comic for living no way around it just being a lot of work and dedication. I mean like it really usually is just work a lot for a long time and then have a good cool show than like more work a lot for a long time and another cool show. However, the “cool opportunities” come more frequently the longer I do it so I have to really keep myself focused to not want to quit or slow down and like still to this day and at any moment, I’ll want to throw my hands up and be done but I know I could never really quit. My father was never really around growing up but the man I call Dad is just a great person and he really stepped up. However I still have struggled with issues from my youth and I have had several bad phases just dealing with Bipolar 2 disorder and well, I’ll just say it, several substance abuse issues that I got mostly under control (lol), but life will always be a struggle you know. But I always managed to get it together each time and not totally flush it down the drain.
I had a chance to be on Comedy Central in I think was 2018 for a show Kevin Hart produces and created and I felt I blew it because I wasn’t sober enough and messed up just a little. In hindsight, the people selected to be on the filming of the actual show were all great comics that deserved it and it was just a decision that wasn’t at all based on what I thought and I probably didn’t ruin it like I thought I did but it sure felt like it. Now I barely ever get the time to hang out and drink too much or do any drugs like I might have before but moreover, I have so much more to lose now, I think. I’m working with a great comic that is really taking off and is a veteran that is teaching me so much about the industry and performing like everything involved. It’s priceless knowledge. I have slipped up and not been responsible enough a couple of times even in the more recent year or two but it just clicked one day. It hit me that I need to learn to grow up and still be good at this lol. I remember specifically a moment that changed me and made me get serious was in December of 2019 during the “Funniest Comic In Texas” competition.
I had what was, and still is, the best set of my life and it was at the very same club in Dallas that I watched Pauly Shore perform at that night back in 2008. I’m talking about that same night when I was thinking I could never do it and never would have thought I would have ever had the guts to even step onstage. Probably halfway through my set, for like half of a second, I suddenly glanced over at the same seat I was sitting in that night back in 2008 when I had no clue I would ever even try it and I just felt the chills run down my spine when I realized that I was really doing it. It was a clear comparison to how far I had come. It’s an experience I wish everyone could have and it can’t quite be explained in words. It’s just amazing. Like I was really making my dreams come true. It was incredible. That is my favorite half a second of the entire seven years of doing it.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not at all been a long, smooth road but it has been super rough and really smooth at different times. I moved to Denver for like 6-7 months and just did comedy and slept in my van. I hardly had any friends and honestly cried myself to sleep many nights in the same Walmart parking lot. I’d wake up and brush my teeth in this really smelly Carl’s Jr. bathroom and got cool Philly Cheesesteaks for a few hours, do like 15-20 open mins during the weeknights, then work at the Denver Improv as a doorman and I also worked at a hotel on the weekends. I came back, lost my car, had to give mom back the van lol, and developed a pretty bad cocaine habit for about six months. I wound up in an ambulance after freaking out in the Denver airport and then finally got away from it enough to actually be me again.
I would still often and still do have to watch myself not to drink too much or hang where I know there might be drugs because they are fun but they kill you like somehow slowly and quickly at the same time lol. But no matter what your struggle is, you just have to adapt, recover, and overcome. Can’t quit if you want it. That’s no matter what anyone thinks, including yourself. I can really be a hater to myself when the bipolar gets to acting up so I just have to use my art to express things like that. People should know that others are having these same thoughts and struggles too. Also they should see that they can be funny, so next time you are depressed and you think of my bipolar jokes, maybe you laugh, or maybe I make things worse lol.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I guess I would say I’m a comedian or that I do comedy, but really I just love to entertain lots of ppl at once and brighten their lives. But also I like the attention as well lol.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I won this really close wrestling match in high school and won the city championship. I barely beat the guy with nine seconds left and the whole place went nuts. My dad was there to watch, it was awesome. But it was so charged up that a huge fight broke out and the cops came and sent us all home. It was great lol. Plus, one time when I was maybe like five, my uncle drove up in a dump truck to our house and just dumped a big load of dirt in our front yard for me to play in lol.
Contact Info:
- Website: HAHAJOHNBROWN.COM
- Email: johnbrownthecomedian@gmail.com
- Instagram: @hahajohnbrown
- Facebook: @hahajohnlbrown
- Twitter: @hahajohnbrown
Image Credit:
Tony Casillas, Diego Morales, Robert Jenkins, Morgan Whatley
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