Marcus Wilson Loves Everyone

Wel­come to Part 1 of the ​“Com­e­dy Wham Presents 4 Year Anniver­sary” cel­e­bra­tion! (Part 2 will come next month.) We could­n’t pos­si­bly choose one sin­gle com­ic to mark the 4 year anniver­sary of the release of our first pod­cast inter­view episode, so to make my life eas­i­er, I chose some­one that I knew was emi­nent­ly qual­i­fied to geek out over the Austin com­e­dy scene with me. 

Mar­cus Wil­son is every­where. Near­ly every night, he’s watch­ing shows at The Velvee­ta Room (full dis­clo­sure, he has a drink named after him, epony­mous­ly labeled ​“The Mar­cus”), Fall­out The­ater, Spi­der­house Ball­room, or one or the oth­er of our favorite venues for watch­ing com­e­dy. He’s nev­er been on stage, but he takes great pains to sup­port all of you who step on stage to make us laugh. 

We both heap a large help­ing of praise on The Velv, Fall­out The­ater, and our friends, our dear, dear friends Bren­dan K. O’Grady and Dun­can Car­son at Sure Thing Records. Of the Fall­out’s thriv­ing cal­en­dar of events and the ded­i­ca­tion of the own­ers who invest­ed emo­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly in tak­ing over the venue from its con­tro­ver­sial pre­de­ces­sor, Wil­son says ​“that’s real­ly the kind of proof that not only do peo­ple like com­e­dy, but peo­ple are will­ing to sup­port it, and the arts are impor­tant to peo­ple.” And at the time of the release of this episode, The Fall­out is on the heels of its 2 year cel­e­bra­tion week­end; we can’t rec­om­mend the stacked line­up enough!

Ever inter­est­ed in explor­ing both sides of a coin, I tried to lure Wil­son into talk­ing dra­ma in the Austin com­e­dy scene. What you dis­cov­er from lis­ten­ing to this por­tion of our con­ver­sa­tion (about whether Austin is ready for a paid open mic) is that Wil­son is very, very, very care­ful and con­sci­en­tious about not play­ing favorites. It pains him lat­er to pick his favorite ​“comics to watch” or ​“shows to see” in 2020, because he repeat­ed­ly reminds me that he does not want any­one to feel exclud­ed just because he names one per­son or show but not anoth­er. It’s a painstak­ing atten­tion and ded­i­ca­tion to lov­ing every­one that is pre­cise­ly why Mar­cus is so beloved by the Austin com­e­dy scene; a scene always buoyed by see­ing him in the audience. 

Since this is an anniver­sary episode, Wil­son joins me in talk­ing about the changes that Com­e­dy Wham has seen over the last 4 years. From a pod­cast only project 4 years ago, to adding album reviews, live shows, and – as of Decem­ber 2019 – a robust cal­en­dar of live com­e­dy events at your fin­ger­tips, Com­e­dy Wham has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly. We’ll con­tin­ue to grow as the Austin com­e­dy scene con­tin­ues to grow. New fea­tures, more con­tent, and a broad­er reach of cov­er­age are all on the hori­zon. We’ll con­tin­ue cov­er­ing the com­e­dy fes­ti­vals in town and con­tin­ue cov­er­ing the Austin-based comics that make the Austin com­e­dy scene vibrant and ever­more diverse. 

Among the many peo­ple named in this episode, one that does­n’t get near­ly enough cred­it for the growth of Com­e­dy Wham is Richard Good­win; the mas­ter­mind behind the scenes, he has built a vibrant, well-designed web­site with oodles of fea­tures and with­out Richard, we could nev­er have tak­en on the task of absorb­ing the Last Gas cal­en­dar. Many thanks to Cari­na Mag­yar for hand­ing us the keys, but with­out Richard, we’d be a heap of met­al and rub­ber on the side of the road to nowhere. 

And huge thanks to the comics who have embraced the cal­en­dar and have been sub­mit­ting their shows! It shows you trust us and that means a lot when you are work­ing so hard to pro­duce great shows and know that peo­ple are com­ing to the site to see your shows on our cal­en­dar. All of this while I get to con­tin­ue see­ing live com­e­dy around town and tap­ping comics on the shoul­der ask­ing ​“can you do my pod­cast?”. It’s amaz­ing to me that, after 4 years, I’m still just as thrilled as ever to find new faces will­ing to share their lives with me and the Com­e­dy Wham listeners…listeners that span the globe – it’s true!

Return­ing to Wil­son, and bring­ing this to a close, we think his love match­es our love of the Austin com­e­dy scene. There’s so much good (and admit­ted­ly, a grow­ing scene will have some bad, too) in the scene and we’re grate­ful to get to watch every­one chase their dreams. We think Wil­son said it best when he said ​“the Austin scene is great. It’s just so vibrant, and there’s so much going on.” We’re so lucky to be here to watch you all do what you do. And much like Wil­son, we love every­one, too.

Fol­low Marcus:

• Twit­ter — @craniumslows
• Insta­gram — @craniumslows
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​c​r​a​n​i​u​m​slows
  
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​c​r​a​n​i​u​m​slows