Jake Flores: Confidently Unconfident

June 9, 2017

Interview

Valerie Lopez

Article

Richard Goodwin

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It’s odd the con­nec­tions you find with peo­ple, and my ten­u­ous link to Jake Flo­res is no dif­fer­ent. Heavy lid­ded eyes, a scruffy style, and a laid back demeanor, often dri­ve peo­ple to draw a cer­tain con­clu­sion about one’s…let’s say recre­ation­al pro­cliv­i­ties.” The truth about both of us is far more mun­dane, but it cer­tain­ly doesn’t hurt your comedic chances when peo­ple are set­up by your image to expect crazy things to come out of your mouth. 

A native of Hous­ton, Flo­res found his foot­ing and call to com­e­dy after mov­ing to Austin. He’s a devo­tee to the iter­a­tive style of comedic refine­ment: fail quick­ly, fix it fast, and keep mov­ing. After find­ing some suc­cess in the Austin scene, he found him­self drawn nat­u­ral­ly to join the teem­ing mass­es stream­ing the streets of New York. 

Among many oth­er endeav­ors, Flo­res has appeared on Roast Bat­tle, writ­ten long form for the New York Times, and Cracked, and is a reg­u­lar colum­nist for the New York Observ­er,. I con­fess, I’ve been read­ing his Home­land episode recaps on the Observ­er reli­gious­ly for some time, not real­iz­ing it was the same com­ic I’d fol­lowed in our own home­town. And that high­lights one key fact about Flo­res: he sees him­self as much a writer as a per­former. His approach to writ­ing as part of the comedic train­ing reg­i­men is almost sci­en­tif­ic in nature: it’s a mus­cle you must flex just as much on stage as off. In Flores’s world, suc­cess comes from the dogged pur­suit of the dual­i­ty, per­form­ing and pub­lish­ing, and bomb­ing is just as pro­duc­tive as blow­ing peo­ple away. 

While many comics we speak with are accom­plished pod­cast­ers, few stray into the realm of the super­nat­ur­al, as Flo­res does with his cre­ation: Mr Cleo. It’s a meta-faux-spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence you don’t want to miss. He also goes viral from time to time (and writes about it) on Twit­ter, and you can keep up with his past and upcom­ing appear­ances and work at fer​aljokes​.com.

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