Latest / Yeah Buddy! Podcast / Catching Up with Comedian Big Sas: From Boston to the Spotlight

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Catching Up with Comedian Big Sas: From Boston to the Spotlight · Yeah Buddy! Podcast

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  Music.
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  Yes yes yes what's going on world this is your man buddy roaming and
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  we are back at it with another episode of the
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  yeah buddy podcast if this is your first time tuning in
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  thank you for checking us out and if you are a returning friend
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  hey thank y'all for continuing to support the yeah buddy podcast
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  you know how we do like every episode i always try
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  to bring some of my friends in the entertainment industry whether
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  they're actor filmmaker comedian and we
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  just sit down chop it up just see what we all got going on
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  what we've been through this episode is like no other no
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  actually no this episode is different this episode is different we actually got
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  our first returning guest to the yeah buddy podcast he
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  was up here last year but now he's back we've got to catch
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  up with him i know he's been busy doing his thing right now y'all
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  he's a comedian man he host shows all up at tommy t's he
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  was down in boston with uh with tristan johnson doing
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  some stand-up comedy tearing it up over there on the uh the east
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  coast right now y'all i want y'all to make it live and make it loud
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  for my good friend mr big sass what's up
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  what's up what's up the comic zetti you know i'm saying always how
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  you doing man yes sir good to see you my brother i
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  see you still pushing oh that's a good thing my guy i'm pushing that's a good
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  thing that's a good thing i like to see that you know i like to see successful
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  people trying to say you know what i'm saying yeah i appreciate i appreciate
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  it man how you been man it's been a while we last time we had first off thank
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  you for doing my podcast i think he was probably the uh like the second person that i had on.
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  Going through like you've seen obviously that i upgraded stuff
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  we was on zoom and it was that was
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  so messed up that like i couldn't even get like a copy of the
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  video it was just so much trouble trying to download it and stuff like that
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  so that's why i'm glad you hit me hit me up about trying to get on the show
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  we got your personality on camera you know so yeah thrill three weeks yes stepping
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  up the game stepping up the game i like the boston app thank you i tried to
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  me is everything, you know, buddy. Yeah, buddy.
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  Coo-coo-coo. Oh, yeah, Boston, because you wasn't in Boston.
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  I'm from Boston. Oh, you're from Boston? Yeah, that's my own town.
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  East Coast, you know? Okay. So y'all are from the left coast,
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  and I'm from the right coast. Okay.
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  So is that how you, being out in Boston, is that how you...
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  Did the show out there with? Tristan, how did I know about it?
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  So, well, what happened is I have a lot of family and relatives still in Boston,
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  and they're getting up in age, you know, some of them in the 70s, 80s, all that.
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  And I know there's no way they're going to make it out to California to come see any of my shows.
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  Now, some of my sisters and stuff have came out and seen the shows.
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  So I thought when the opportunity came up, someone says, you want to do a show?
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  They do regular shows. This brother's name is Jonathan Gates.
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  He does a lot of shows on the East Coast.
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  And he said, man, you want to do a show out here? So he invited me and I brought
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  Tristan so I could get my family and friends and we packed it out. We sold it out. Yeah.
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  A lot of relatives, like I said, in the 60s, 70s, 80s, probably would never
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  get out of here. They all got to see me live. So that was special.
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  First show I was nervous though. Yeah. You said the first show?
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  First show I was nervous. How many did you do?
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  I did. No, that's the first show I ever did. Oh, that's the first show.
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  It was different because you got to think about it. These are my peers.
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  These are people I grew up with. my friends my college roommates my high
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  school roommates you know family i mean it's it's it
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  was a whole different kind of thing you know even if i
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  i mean i've done big shows the paramount coliseum but
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  you you might have a few friends there but this audience was
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  like all my family and friends it was like kind of different people know
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  all kind of stuff about me you know so it's it's kind of different
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  but we got to go school okay so like coming
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  out coming from boston with seeing
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  all your friends and family did they have that experience because you say i'm going out
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  to california did they have all this expectation of like hollywood
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  and stuff like that so when you come back down to boston like oh
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  california boy look at california boy it was it was funny because they you know
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  some of them follow me or they talk about it i have an auntie that's an old
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  grumpy old thing but she just she's about she had the night of her life she
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  had a great time it was a great show which surprised me you know but it's just
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  like when when they see pictures of me with mike Gibson, Michael Blackston, and Lil Duval,
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  and Monique, and Vegas, and all that. They're like, oh, Hollywood?
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  He's all Hollywood artists. But that's home, and those are my people.
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  So to them, it was like, he's coming home. He's coming to do his thing home. And for me, it's like.
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  Home you know so it was pretty it was pretty it was
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  pretty fun actually it really went well i sold all my
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  merchandise first day everybody bought shirts and rolling trays and i mean it
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  was it was a great experience so i'm not i just it was that time it was that
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  time was that your first time going back to boston since you've been out in
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  california i've been back and forth for different events first time i did comedy
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  for comedy though i've been like weddings you know stuff like that the normal stuff,
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  but that was my first comedy show that I did there.
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  And we sold it out. It was amazing. It was actually amazing.
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  And you were in the city of Boston? Correct.
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  Dorchester, which is like Boston proper. It's like Roxbury, Dorchester,
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  Mattapan is like East Oakland, West Oakland, North Oakland, Hayward,
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  San Leandro, all that's like the same kind of thing.
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  It was Boston proper, correct.
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  What are some of the differences, similarities between being in Boston and then,
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  Being in California, like, difference in culture, taste of food.
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  You know, I think the food in Boston is better. A lot of people go to the East
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  Coast and they realize, they think the food's better, too.
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  I mean, I thought that the produce would be better out here because it's California. Yeah.
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  But we have Florida, Georgia peaches. We got all that sort of produce. Wasn't like I thought.
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  But food, everybody likes East Coast food better.
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  Culture shock, quite a bit. I mean, it was way different.
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  Like everybody's oh man LA you know you're in the wrong part
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  of California go down to LA because I came to Oakland they're like go to LA
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  LA's cracking LA's cracking I go to LA and it's
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  New York style pizza and New York style disco New York style club there's
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  no LA style exactly so I'm from Boston and New York so I'm like that's you know
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  I'll tell you about it's cracking this is you know where I came from so it's
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  you know LA's it's got its own little thing LA be like a rich it's just rich
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  culture vultures it's like they don't really have their old style they just
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  see what everybody else be doing they say let's just do that but just.
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  Make it richer. I just, I just think that what's so funny to me is like California
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  is like, everybody thinks someone's going to pull up in a limo and tell them
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  they're going to make them a star.
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  Yeah. And everybody's waiting for that moment. You know what I'm saying?
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  The reason why I say that it's the culture shock, because I was in the segregation
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  and the busing and stuff when I was in high school in Boston.
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  So they bust us out to the white schools and then we couldn't even play sports
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  because they were like attacking the buses after.
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  So we had to get police test courts out and all that kind of stuff.
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  But the difference between the Boston people and California people is you could
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  drive down the street in California and see five or six white guys beating on
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  a black guy or five or six Mexicans beating on a black guy.
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  But in Boston, since the population of black is only 11% or 16%,
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  they're going to throw their car and park at the light. They're jumping out.
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  They ain't going to let it go down like that.
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  I think the black people back there are less, but they're way tighter.
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  I think the group is tighter.
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  The reason why I say that, when I came to California in 79 and Jack London Square,
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  the restaurant was called Buttercup now. It was called Sambo's when I came here in 79.
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  On the East Coast, they didn't burn that down.
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  They ain't going for no Sambo's. Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
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  they ain't going for no Sambo's in Jack London Square when I came here in 79.
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  It's called Buttercup now, but I'm just saying, man, like I said,
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  there's less, but they're much tighter. It's just To me, I feel like it's tighter.
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  Okay. Yeah, because I went out to East Coast. I went out to Maryland.
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  Boston. Was it? Yeah, Baltimore. I went out to Baltimore and stuff like that.
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  I went out to Fort Coins, Baltimore, Maryland.
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  Yeah. That was kind of the opposite. There was just a lot of black people out
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  there. I was only noticing that.
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  But I wanted to talk about the dynamics between white and black and stuff.
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  Because like I said, I've never been to Boston.
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  The closest I get to that is watching whatever the Boston place,
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  Los Angeles Lakers. You know what I'm saying?
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  Yeah, yeah. The Celtics place. And you hear all the stories about,
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  like, you know, the racial tension and all that type of stuff.
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  How you, is that something you experienced? That's something that.
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  Oh, yeah. See, the difference.
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  I mean, racism in Boston is obviously different. So when I feel racism out here,
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  it's funny to me because I've been through what I've been through in Boston. The rise of 68.
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  I was eight, nine years old. I wasn't one and two. I remember,
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  you know what I'm saying? And I remember it like yesterday.
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  And even the segregation, I remember it like yesterday. But the difference to
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  me is what they call racism out here.
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  It's not the same. It's way more deep rooted in the Boston area.
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  I mean, it's just deep rooted.
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  It's the great grandfathers and all them. They've been racist their whole life.
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  So they just, the thing with being brown skinned, I don't care.
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  You don't have to be black, but any kind of brown skin. If there's a racist
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  person, a white racist person, we'll just say, for instance,
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  as soon as they look at us, they hate us.
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  If you're brown skin and it's embedded in their brain, they hate you no matter what.
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  Right. but us if we see a white person we
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  have to try to figure out if they're cool one or not yeah you know we
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  have to kind of feel them out question them is like is this person cool
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  or not then once you pick up the vibe and they cool with you then
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  they cool with you you know i'm saying but as soon as they see us
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  they hate us so it's like it's it's it's a whole different dynamic
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  you know it's it's kind of a different dynamic out here
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  you might get a white person that that looks at
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  you and is cool with you and respects you and all that stuff you might
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  not have to guess but in boston you got to try to figure it out and
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  hope you get lucky yeah and hope you get lucky right how does
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  that affect the like the comedy that you say out there like the comedy scene
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  in boston i guess you could say because you that being your first time going
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  out there for comedy did you get a chance to soak up the comedy scene i actually
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  did soak up the comedy scene and believe it or not it's it's boston is a college town.
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  Harvard University, MIT, Boston College, and Boston University,
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  they're all within a couple of miles of each other.
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  Matter of fact, MIT and Harvard's on the same street, but just like five miles apart.
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  So the culture, the college culture is who supports the comedy clubs mostly.
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  And most of those people are pretty diverse, you know what I'm saying?
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  So in the comedy clubs, you're going to get a good mixture.
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  The jokes may hit people a little different yeah but the actual dynamic of the
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  comedy club is like it's it's pretty diverse it's pretty diverse so and and
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  like most of the black comics back there that are from boston are pretty educated
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  so they do like an educated comedy that the students and the,
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  people back there will understand you know they don't do us i mean to go do
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  the ratchet hood stuff you have to really look for it out there it's not just
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  like it's it's it's different yeah
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  yeah because like me like that's a community like we're talking about like growing
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  up in different places and stuff like that that that cultural impact and how
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  it affects you as a comedian like when i was a child i grew up in alaska like
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  right right outside of the north pole but i was a child you know no that was
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  a disappointed thing that was that was like going out there at like eight,
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  like seven years old and stuff like that at that time where like right it's like we,
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  you still can kind of believe it but then you know you get to that age to where
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  you like that uh he's not real type of shit like yeah that like it was like
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  right there in my face like we're going to the north pole like Santa no no listen
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  y'all gonna be disappointed right.
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  There's gonna be a lot of snow no Santa you
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  know a lot of darkness a lot of darkness you know but like
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  I said being a comedian like if
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  I lived out there when i was like you know my teenager be
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  able to like actually soak it up and really understand like what environment
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  i was living in like in the tundra like you know like you walk
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  outside and there's just a moose you know and it's like in
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  the window looking out the window i'm like what the hell is
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  going on here you know like from a
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  comedian standpoint like i i could imagine just if
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  i had been able to soak up that experience like as
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  an adult you know teenager all that type of
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  stuff i'd be like yeah so my my thing is you would
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  hope that the people that's going to a comedy show that is
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  going to a comedy show they got to open mind
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  and they're going there to have some comedy and have some fun they're not the
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  one guy that's going to sit in the back the racist guy that's going to echo
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  everything you say just because he's an idiot yeah yeah yeah i don't care what
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  race i'm just saying whoever's you know if they're there just to echo because
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  they're racist but most people that go to the comedy shows are,
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  they're pretty down to earth and I mean even as a comic you have to adjust your
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  jokes though also you know what I'm saying you really have to adjust your jokes like,
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  for an example if I said.
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  A lion would not drive under the influence of alcohol, but a tiger would. Yeah.
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  Tiger would. See, see, everybody, you can't say that to everybody,
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  but the people that think about it, they back up. You know, I do a stuttering salesman joke.
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  It either smashes and it's usually somebody got somebody that stutters in their
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  family because they'll bust out laughing.
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  And some people's like, man, you know, they're talking about some guy stuttering.
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  You know, it's just, it just, it's kind of weird. It's kind of different, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
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  It's kind of different. Do you feel like that's with comedy becoming more mainstream
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  now and people having an influence like a say-so and what comedians should say?
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  Does that affect the way you approach comedy going forward now?
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  Or are you still just kind of like, ah, whatever it is? This is my thing.
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  So I have three groups of jokes in my head.
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  I have clean and then I have medium.
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  Like I did a Christmas party which I took Tristan 400 people and he says medium
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  so we can still curse and do certain stuff and then there's some people some
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  shows they just don't care and you don't care so it is there is different shows
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  for different crowds but,
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  it does make a difference one show I went into and I would come out to this
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  rap song and I was going to come out dancing and doing a rap song and all that
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  stuff and the average age in the crowd was like 55,
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  so I'm like that's not going to make any sense to come out to a rap song,
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  so I had to DJ switch it to Love and Happiness.
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  Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And it was like, oh, that's my song.
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  You know, all the OGs, they loved it. The girls, the other guys,
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  they loved it. So, it does make a difference.
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  That's what that whole read the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where that whole
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  read the room comes from, you know what I'm saying?
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  You understand? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so?
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  No, yeah, no, yeah, I know how it goes. This is more so for people who are watching
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  who kind of want to dive into the minds of comedians is just what that comedy
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  life is like just because we get all those questions all those times. This is my thing though.
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  I know. Comedy is fucked up and fucked up is comedy. So don't come in there.
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  And there is a good possibility you might be offended.
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  I mean, that's how it is. That's what comedy is.
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  Even if you're doing clean comedy, there might be something that bothers somebody.
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  It might be something that bothers somebody. It's like you got to go in there
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  expecting comedy from comics.
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  You know what I'm saying you can't expect a lecture from comedians that's not
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  going to have something that's going to possibly offend you so I mean don't
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  go to a comedy show if you know if you're that tight uptight about stuff just don't go you know.
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  Nice, nice. And then another thing, I don't want to get too much into politics.
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  I don't really want to talk about politics, but I just want to talk about how
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  the political landscape affects comedy now and stuff like that.
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  You see all the protesting that's going on and you see all the stuff that's going on.
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  People kind of need to laugh. They're going to need something to laugh about.
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  They're going to need something to be like, ha ha, things not to take things so serious.
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  So they know that it's going to be okay so i i mean like
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  this show we did christmas they said no politics and no
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  race that's the two things they asked and then i did a show at sunshine saloon
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  in pleasanton which is 99.9 percent white people and it's been like that forever
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  nice club cool people good atmosphere but that's the crowd you're going to get
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  there you can do political comedy without being political like for instance like i do a joke about
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  Donald Trump who wants black people to vote for him he's trying to convince us
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  that orange is the new black you see what I'm saying I'm
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  not talking it's politics I'm not talking politics but I'm
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  talking about a politician but I'm not getting into the politics part of it
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  you know so that's funny I do a thing about I ordered some of Donald Trump's
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  shoes you know he came up with the tennis shoes and I said yeah you guys didn't
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  want to order none because you don't like Donald Trump as soon as I ordered
• 16:59
  it I got an alert on all three credit girls my score went up 100 points each one,
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  not 10 points is the politics part of it, but still talking about.
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  What's up to date and what's in the know, right?
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  Yeah, being able to take a stance on the situation, just give your pay without
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  having to say, hey, fuck this person. Yeah, or vice versa.
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  I mean, I just... And the other thing I say is I get into...
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  I've always respected the position of President of the United States because
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  this is my country and this is where I'm at.