Anna Valenzuela Listens to the Universe

December 13, 2020

Photo Credit

John Michael Bond

Interview

Valerie Lopez

Article

Valerie Lopez

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There once was a girl with tiny hands, who grew up to be Anna Valen­zuela, her tiny plas­tic hands accom­pa­ny­ing her on her many online shows since the pan­dem­ic. How did we get from a young Anna to the Anna we know today? Let us take you on a jour­ney. Grow­ing up, Anna had no inten­tions of becom­ing a com­ic. While she was sur­round­ed by com­e­dy through her fam­i­ly hilar­i­ty and her mom’s love of standup, she did­n’t do her first open mic until she was in her 30s. Her humor fre­quent­ly prompt­ed peo­ple to ask whether she was a com­ic (we lost count at the num­ber of peo­ple that asked her are you a com­ic”), one of her last straws was – as she puts it – My ther­a­pist, my own ther­a­pist was like, have you ever thought of doing stand up?’ And I’m like, Oh, wow.” And with sup­port from a cowork­er – who found the Com­e­dy Bureaus list­ing of near­by open mics – she set her mind to it.

My therapist, my own therapist was like, 'have you ever thought of doing stand up?' And I'm like, Oh, wow.
Anna Valenzuela

If you’ve seen Requiem for a Dream’s visu­al sequence of the injec­tion of hero­in, to the mad rush of adren­a­line, this is how Anna might describe how she approached com­e­dy in that first year. From the first open mic, she was addict­ed. And I say this with def­er­ence to her own admit­ted­ly addic­tive per­son­al­i­ty. She pur­sued com­e­dy to the detri­ment of her sleep and even­tu­al­ly her work, reach­ing peak exhaus­tion until final­ly she real­ized some­thing had to change.

That change was a move to Los Ange­les, where she could pur­sue – with the same relent­less enthu­si­asm she’s notable for – the vaunt­ed halls and fish­bowl stage (one of them at least) of The Com­e­dy Store. Then an oppor­tu­ni­ty land­ed on her lap. 

Com­e­dy Cen­tral’s Roast Bat­tle was promi­nent in the scene and Anna found her­self observ­ing that per­form­ing fo that show cor­re­lat­ed to comics increas­ing their skill lev­els. What I knew about those come­di­ans is I want­ed what they had, I want­ed the comedic skill that they had. And this was a thing that they used to hone it.” This” being the abil­i­ty to roast. As a fan of the super nice and super kind Anna per­son, I was stunned that Anna had a turn spit­ting fire not only at the Com­e­dy Cen­tral Roast Bat­tle (we lis­tened to a clip dur­ing our inter­view), but that she would go on to host (and still does) the Com­e­dy Store’s week­ly roast show. My sweet Anna could­n’t pos­si­bly be a vicious attack­er, could she??’. Valen­zuela put my mind at ease by con­fess­ing if you love a roast, what you love is the alge­bra of com­e­dy.” And so, with my mind at ease, I under­stood that what Anna was gift­ed at was­n’t being mean, but under­stand­ing the for­mu­la behind roast­ing a fel­low com­ic. And she said Algebra…we all know how I feel about algebra.

After anoth­er intense phase of roast bat­tling, Valen­zuela took her foot off the gas ped­al to address severe health issues, while watch­ing some of her peers land writ­ing jobs on shows or become reg­u­lar head­lin­ers. But she was­n’t jeal­ous or angry. In fact, she shared a lev­el of intro­spec­tion that explains why I first con­nect­ed with Anna at Out of Bounds Fes­ti­val years ago. She says, when the uni­verse puts some­thing in your lap, just accept it. Just accept it, just explore it. If it’s not for you, you don’t have to do it.”


There is no greater truth, espe­cial­ly in the com­e­dy world where every­one has to carve a dif­fer­ent road. There is no guide book, there is no instruc­tion man­u­al (sure peo­ple have writ­ten many, many books, but what works for one, may not work for anoth­er), and so you just try. You put your­self out there and try, and Anna did plen­ty, and the rewards start­ed to roll in. Every­thing from book­ings across the world, to record­ing a debut album, to buy­ing the plane tick­ets and book­ing shows for her first road tour. The uni­verse whose gifts she had accept­ed was show­ing her the way forward.

When the universe puts something in your lap, just accept it. Just accept it, just explore it. If it's not for you, you don't have to do it.
Anna Valenzuela

Then the pan­dem­ic hit, and she used her trade­mark intro­spec­tion to guide her through this chal­lenge as well. The pan­dem­ic did­n’t hap­pen to you, it did­n’t hap­pen to your career, it did­n’t hap­pen to your hot five new min­utes, or the album you want­ed to record or the tours that you had booked and the plane tick­ets that you bought. The pan­dem­ic hap­pened to all of us. And you can sit around being sad about it, or you can help anoth­er per­son and maybe take some time to help yourself.” 

She’s done all of that, tak­en online class­es, and jumped into per­form­ing on online shows. She is a record hold­er for the Com­e­dy Wham Iso­la­tion Com­e­dy show at 6 appear­ances, all bril­liant. She applied her phi­los­o­phy of what the uni­verse has to offer. Stuck at home? Take an online karate class, accept a book­ing for an online show (bring tiny plas­tic hands to said online show and bring us to tears from laugh­ing so hard), it is all part of try­ing what the uni­verse has to offer. And that includes reded­i­cat­ing her­self to her on-again-off-again pod­cast 12 Ques­tions. Inspired by the notion of the 12 step orga­ni­za­tions, it brings Anna and her cur­rent co-host, Dave Yates, both com­mit­ted to their own sobri­ety, togeth­er with a guest who is asked 12 explorato­ry questions.

As the new year approach­es, we can choose to remain in the mis­ery of all we lost out on dur­ing 2020, or we can adopt some of Anna’s phi­los­o­phy’s. Accept what the uni­verse drops in your lap, say yes, but also say no when you’re run­ning your­self ragged, just keep digest­ing and work­ing on your­self. And even­tu­al­ly, the uni­verse will reward you. That’s the les­son we learned from Anna and we hope you’ll enjoy our con­ver­sa­tion with her. And don’t wor­ry, we also talk about but­t­holes, so it’s not all peach­es and roses.

Anna can be seen and heard:

  • Her pod­cast 12 Questions
  • Roast Bat­tle — Anna Valen­zuela with Kei­th Carey


Fol­low Anna -

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Anna Valenzuela