Interview with Brian Scolaro
After having just listened to his new CD, Sneezes, Farts, and Orgasms, I had no idea what to expect from comedian, Brian Scolaro. After listening to Brian turn average and everyday experiences into side splitting humor that had people giving me dirty looks in the library as I stifled my laughter, I was more than ecstatic to interview him.
Even when he is eating spaghetti on a random Thursday afternoon and talking a quirky writer about his career, Brian Scolaro has a certain presence that manages to transform the ordinary to hilarious without the least bit of effort. Instead of an awkward interview punctuated by uncomfortable silences and accidental mid sentence interruptions, what I got the funniest half hour conversation of my life. I was on the verge of peeing my pants on several occasions… just one more sweet release to add to the tri-fecta on his CD.
For a man who has done stand up, written screen plays, been featured in commercials, and acted in various different capacities, I wondered if there was a revolutionary moment where he realized that he was absolutely positively meant to perform. Brian, being the very self aware youngster that he was, came to the conclusion that he wanted to be a comedian or actor after he got his first laugh from his first grade peers. “The teacher was leaving the room,” he said, and she warned us “I don’t want to hear one word out of this class room not one word and she left.” Brian broke the nervous silence by saying “tomatoes” out loud. “It’s not a great joke,” Brian said, “but it was my first joke and I remember that ever since then I was hooked.” Since that first experience, Brian “was pretty much always the problem in every class [he’s] ever been in. [He] was kicked out of a lot of classes. A lot” he said of his behavior following the career defining episode of the first grade.
After being the self proclaimed “class comedian” throughout high school, Brian did his first show in college ( January 14,1992, he still remembers the exact date) and made the executive decision in 1995 to quit his job as an intern for HBO’s Real Sex and pursue a career in comedy. “I'm just going to quit and dive right into it and either I survive on it or fail,” he said about his decision to make comedy his life plan.
So what does Brian have to say about being a standup comedian? “Comedy is about having a road map of what you’re going to do but knowing it so well that you can alter it, change it, abandon it come back to it. It’s like planned spontaneity,” he says.
When I asked him how he handles criticism from his audiences who might have a problem with his humor, he said: “I really don’t try to ruffle to many peoples feathers… If you make something funny, people forgive you.”
Of audiences that are expecting him to make fun of them, like a group of prisoners he once performed for who were disappointed that he wouldn’t make jokes at their expense, he says “I don’t believe in making fun of the crowd unless they’re jerks first.”
Since Brian has pretty much known that he was going to be a comedian since age six, I asked him what he would do if he absolutely could not under any circumstances be a comedian. In true comedian fashion, he answered, “I'd probably write pornographic novels.” More seriously though, he admitted, “I feel 100 percent comfortable when I'm acting, 50 percent comfortable percent when I'm doing standup and 0 percent comfortable with every other aspect of life.”
His quick humor, warm personality, and willingness to laugh at my terrible jokes have rapidly boosted Brian Scolaro to the position of my favorite comedian. He has a way of making the ordinary absolutely hilarious without even really trying; his comedy is an effortless extension of himself. So, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys laughing about the subtle hilarity of every day experiences, if you have no problem bursting into a fit of laughter that actually makes your abs ache the next day, or if you are just looking for a momentary distraction from the harsh realities of your day ( and considering it’s midterms right now, I certainly do) his , Sneezes, Farts, and Orgasms CD should absolutely, without a doubt, be your next purchase- let’s be real here, whether you’re 12, 20, 34, or 82, fart humor never gets old and for Brian, it’s all about making his comedy universal.