LOL WITH IT: Q&A with Verizon's cable guy, Matt McCarthy

This week, I had the chance to chat with Matt McCarthy, who you know as the competing cable installer to Verizon's Fios. What you may not know is that he's a knockout stand-up comedian and he's performing at Connie's Ric Rac tonight at 9 p.m.

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LOL WITH IT: Q&A with Verizon's cable guy, Matt McCarthy

POSTED: Friday, April 22, 2011, 12:00 PM

Every Friday, Ryan Carey takes a look at who and what’s giving Philly the giggles …

This week, I had the chance to chat with Matt McCarthy, who you know as the competing cable installer to Verizon’s Fios. What you may not know is that he’s a knockout stand-up comedian and he's performing at Connie’s Ric Rac tonight at 9 p.m. He opened up to be about his best and worst gigs and his stand-up hero Bill Hicks.

City Paper: What was that one gig that made you realize *DING* this is happening; I can get ready to quit my day job?

Matt McCarthy: Probably around the time of my audition for the New York Underground Comedy Festival in '05. That show in particular... you could see who was still trying to work it out, and you could see who was close to being on to something or ready to be doing something. I definitely felt ready. And then New Faces at Montreal ('07). The audition for Montreal — which was an amazing show — was one of those things where my mentality was, “I’m not gonna book it, I just wanna have an amazing set.” And I went up there and destroyed and I wound up getting it. It just felt great.

CP: Worst gig ever?

MM: I hate performing on burlesque shows. I had to follow an act that consisted of a woman who was naked, who had two wine glasses full of wine and she balanced one on her head while she drank the other. Then, she pissed in the empty one, switched them, and was balancing the glass full of piss on her head, while drinking the wine glass. Then she took a baby sip from the piss glass and everybody went ecstatic. I haven’t really had a chance to think about why burlesque audiences are so awful. You know who else I hate performing for, is groups of teachers. I think they see it as their chance to be the obnoxious rowdy ones. Also, whether or not they’re conscious of it, they know that the comedians were the kids who gave them a hard time.

CP: What comedians inspired you as a youth?

MM: Bill Hicks and John Belushi are the two big ones. They transcended from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Also, I think anybody would be lying if they said they didn’t like Gallager when they were a kid. It’s interesting... I really loved Rondell Sheridan. I don’t even think he still does stand-up anymore. If you saw him you’d know his face, he’s the perennial dad on any black sitcom. His stand-up was so fuckin' funny, man. But he was really clean and safe, I think only an older comedian would appreciate the humor that he and Bill Hicks have. And Hicks, how could that not appeal to a 12- or 13-year-old — that visceral sense of rebellion and anger.

CP: Why do you think Hicks never made it as big here as he did in England?

MM: The English just have a better sense of humor. Bill was right. He was right about everything, even today. It’s eerie when you can listen to something that’s 10- to 15-years-old and it sounds like it could have been recorded last night — particularly references to Bush. But having to go to England to be appreciated, that’s what Jimi Hendrix did. Hicks got Rolling Stone's "Comic of the Year" the year he was in England. Mainstream audiences here — I mean really mainstream TV audiences — they don’t want anything challenging or original, they wanna see the same things. They wanna be able to see it coming.

CP: Which of your peers do you love watching?

MM: Jesse Popp, Jared Logan, Vince Averill, Andrea Rosen. There’s a musical duo I just saw called the Reformed Whores. Also, Jess Wood, who is the only white woman ever to perform on Def Comedy Jam.

CP: Do you have any big benchmarks coming up for the next year, or are you content to just sit back and see how it goes?

MM: You gotta have goals; you gotta have shit in front of you. I’ve already achieved my dream of not having a day job; I’m now focusing on writing a new half hour for Comedy Central, and potentially putting that into an album. I’m gonna be on The Whitest Kids You Know [on IFC]. They’re doing a season-long miniseries called The Civil War on Drugs. I’m also gonna be in a film called The Normals, starring Brian Greenberg. I got stuff with Front Page Films, and you never know what [else] is gonna pop up. I’m constantly riding myself and I’m very anxious, and I just wanna keep exploring this medium. I’ve never found anything else like it.

CP: Any words of wisdom to the myriad of young comedians in Philly?

MM: The only way to fail is to quit. It’s all on you. When I started I knew people in med school and law school studying for the bar. I decided that what I was doing was more challenging because there was no curriculum or books, no path. it was all on me. It all comes down to performing as much as you can and writing as much as you can, and everything else comes out of it. Like that Montreal audition at Standup New York. I made a lot of friends that night, and I got booked on a lot of shows downtown that I wasn’t previously booked on. That’s the thing about alt-comedy, it’s a community. And I stumbled onto that scene without really realizing it’s a scene. All you can do is pursue it because it’s so much fun but you gotta work through so much [that's not fun], and then it’ll be fun again and then it won’t be fun again. But it’s a fun ride. That’s the best advice: Don’t give up.

Keep an eye out for The Normals, and visit Matt McCarthy’s sketch video site, frontpagefilms.com. Tickets for his show at Connie’s are $15, for more info, visit coreycohencomedy.com.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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