It would be surprising to find a college student who has never read a Cracked.com article.
The website’s comedic lists, like “5 Adorable Behaviors That Mean Your Dog Hates You,” and “6 Unshakable Beliefs You Develop Growing Up a Redneck,” have made Cracked one of the most popular comedy sites on the net. And now some of the site’s contributors are coming to Albuquerque.
“The Unpopular Opinion World Tour of One City in the Southwest United States” will feature four comedians performing at two shows at the Guild Theater tonight and Tuesday night.
Adam Tod Brown is a Cracked writer and editor and the host of the Unpopular Opinion podcast, which was the inspiration for the one-city tour. Brown will be joined by friends and comedians Jeff May, Maria Shehata and Cat Rhinehart.
“We don’t get to do much in the way of stand-up on the podcast, so we just wanted to go out and do that side of what we do and bring it to a live audience,” Brown said. “It’s an opportunity to get to do something we don’t normally get to do at Cracked, for an audience that we already connect with.”
The podcast is based on Brown’s popular column, The People vs. Adam Tod Brown, in which he relates his strong opinions on a wide variety of issues. On the podcast, Brown gathers friends and fellow comedians to take him on, usually disagreeing with his views, with hilarious results, he said.
“It’s always really funny,” Brown said. “The comics who are going to be with me in Albuquerque are regulars and favorites of the show.”
May was a guest on the podcast’s first episode, and is no stranger to the Duke City, he said.
Last summer May also performed at the Albuquerque Comic Expo and made lasting friendships with many locals, he said.
“I always seem to find myself in Albuquerque, and I always have an awesome experience,” May said. “I’ve already got people asking me to bring back Rebel Donuts to L.A. I’ve always left Albuquerque with a good taste in my mouth.”
Before diving headfirst into a career in stand-up, May taught eighth-grade history for 10 years – a job he said was good training for comedy, as he was familiar with trying to entertain an often hostile audience for an hour.
“I decided to get into stand-up comedy because I was unhappy with my life and I wanted to live on my own terms,” May said. “It was basically just, sink or swim, this is what I’m going to do.”
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He moved to Los Angeles in 2012, where he quickly met and befriended Brown, he said. Since then he has become a regular guest on the podcast.
While his true love continues to be live stand-up, May said that working on the podcast has been incredibly fun, although knowing that 20,000 people are listening to his voice can be a strange feeling.
“More than anything, entertaining people and making people laugh has always been a drug to me, and I want to find a way to make a living doing that,” May said. “I don’t care about being rich, I just want to make people laugh, whatever medium I do that in.”
Shehata is another regular guest on the podcast, and although she has never been to New Mexico, she is no stranger to touring, she said.
She has been on three military tours, performing for soldiers all over the world, and she recently did shows in Palestine and Qatar, she said.
“I’m not sure what to expect; I’ve never been to New Mexico or the Southwest, so I’m excited to see what the crowds are like,” Shehata said. “I feel like it’s going to be a lot fun. Hopefully, a lot of students come out.”
Shehata produces a web series called My Super-Overactive Imagination, along with the tour’s fourth comedian, Rhinehart. The series was recently named Best Comedy at the 2014 Miami Web Fest.
She said online platforms like podcasts and web series make it possible to create something much more cheaply and easily, but that it is also harder to get noticed in the sea of other voices. But that isn’t stopping her – she has big plans in the world of comedy, she said.
“I’m hoping with the mix of stand-up and the web series, I’ll eventually be able to have my own show,” Shehata said. “I want to write and star in my own show, that’s my big goal.”
Her brand of personal, brutally honest comedy is what sets Shehata apart and helps her connect to fans in a meaningful way, she said.
“I’ve always liked comedy, being able to watch something and relate to someone else and think ‘I’m not alone in this.’ I’ve always liked that connection,” she said. “If you boil it down, that’s basically it: I want to connect.”
Brown said the shows in Albuquerque are a test run, and if they go well it could lead to a larger national tour.
May is excited to reconnect with old friends and make new ones in a town that has already shown him so much love, he said.
“I love performing,” he said. “I’m in love with it, and I want it to love me back.”
Jonathan Baca is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com, or on Twitter @JonGabrielB.
