Andrew Clarkston: What Else is He Gonna Do?

• Jan 12 (Fri­day), 11pm: Live Gross Lone­ly Boys pod­cast at The Velv
• Jan 13 (Sat­ur­day), 7pm: Chor­tle Por­tal at Taos Co-op

This week’s guest final­ly let Valerie Lopez cross off one of her major bin­go card desires: inter­view­ing the third of the three mem­bers of the Gross Lone­ly Boys pod­cast. Along with Enzo Pries­nitz and Dan­ny Good­win, Andrew Clark­ston has filled out the trio of one of the most loved pod­casts in Austin host­ed by come­di­ans. (Yes there are are many, and quite good ones at that.) Asked why peo­ple love it, our guest sim­ply respond­ed: ​“Why? It’s not good…” We humbly beg to dif­fer: it’s a high ener­gy affair (like Clark­ston him­self), and brings some of the fun­ni­est peo­ple in Austin as guests to make the boys bet­ter boys.

Grow­ing up near Hous­ton, TX, Clark­ston spent a good many hours glued to the TV. Many kids do, and some build aspi­ra­tions of appear­ing in the glow­ing box, but rarely does an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of self come so ear­ly. Clark­ston spent count­less hours with shows like Cos­by and Sein­feld, and decid­ed pret­ty quick­ly that com­e­dy was going to be his tick­et to fame, or, at the very least, fulfillment.

From a col­lege sketch show with Andrew Dis­mukes (called That’s Awe­some) to his first open mic in 2014, Clark­son quick­ly began learn­ing that com­e­dy is any­thing but the rote deliv­ery of the sit­com world. His pro­gres­sion is clear in his live­ly, high ener­gy stage pres­ence (“Basi­cal­ly I yell,” Clark­ston says), and unique sets. He’s record­ed prac­ti­cal­ly every sin­gle appear­ance on stage since the first, to ana­lyze and diver­si­fy; the count at inter­view time in 2018 was an astound­ing 973, but by the time you read this that num­ber’s no doubt been surpassed.

In addi­tion to Gross Lone­ly Boys, Clark­ston has com­pet­ed in Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin every year since 2015, appeared in and writ­ten for the stage roast show Spite Club, and co-found­ed Chor­tle Por­tal with Andrew Dis­mukes. (That’s 200% the amount of Andrews in one show, if you’re count­ing.) He stays laser focused on com­e­dy (“what else am I gonna do?” he rhetor­i­cal­ly asks), and con­tin­ues to pol­ish his writ­ing skills, a part of the process he par­tic­u­lar­ly relishes.

Clark­ston’s per­spec­tive on how com­e­dy found – and defined – him is fas­ci­nat­ing. Check out the inter­view to hear much more about his back­ground, per­spec­tive, the found­ing of Gross Lone­ly Boys, and where you will (and a few places you prob­a­bly won’t) be able to catch him on stage.