Garrett Buss is Mr Tuesdays

At the final Sand­box show, beloved (among fans of Ital­ian del­i­ca­cy per­for­mance art) char­ac­ter Tony Can­no­li had a fall from grace, lit­er­al­ly tum­bling into the bowl of spaghet­ti he car­ried — and spilled — onto the stage. Cue an injured tail­bone, with a slight sprain to the pride, but we are hap­py to say Gar­rett Buss (née Mr Can­no­li) sur­vived, and returns this week to tell us about his recent and ongo­ing adven­tures.

Fans of our pan­dem­ic-era online Iso­la­tion Com­e­dy series may remem­ber Buss’s 5‑minute live per­for­mance, where­in he attempt­ed to teach him­self to do a ​“death drop”, aid­ed by minor padding and alco­holic lubri­ca­tion. (Did we have per­form­ers sign dis­claimers back then? Let’s say we did.) It turns out COVID held dan­gers we couldn’t ever have expected.

For Buss, the virus-dri­ven shut­down of live shows meant find­ing new out­lets — beyond death drops, of course — lead­ing to a for­ay into script­ed radio pieces. Lest you wor­ry that mov­ing to a mass medi­um would suf­fo­cate his cre­ativ­i­ty, shows like Roscoe Tay­lor: The Tal­la­has­see Tween, Pork Walks at Mid­night, (noir, nat­u­ral­ly), and Lance Vibrat­to: Astro­naut Attor­ney would quick­ly con­vince you oth­er­wise. Yes, the dan­ger-quo­tient is low­er, but that suits Buss’s pro­gres­sion in life, not­ing pre­vi­ous­ly ​“I was much more will­ing to just injure myself for jokes”.

Men­tion­ing Vibrat­to—which just wrapped sea­son 2 a few months ago — dove­tails nice­ly into cov­er­ing more of Buss’s ongo­ing projects. As fans (and pro­duc­ers) of pod­casts are inti­mate­ly famil­iar, envi­ron­ment makes all the dif­fer­ence in the pro­duc­tion and audio qual­i­ty of a show. Hav­ing for­mer­ly record­ed next to a fire sta­tion (oh the hor­ror), Buss’s cur­rent project — build­ing and offer­ing a record­ing-booth-as-a-ser­vice at the famous Fall­out The­ater — pro­vides not only the venue he dreamed of using him­self, but allows him to offer the loca­tion to aspir­ing cre­ators across town. ​“What­ev­er the idea with the pod­cast room, it had to be more appe­tiz­ing than what peo­ple already have,” Buss notes, posit­ing that the sam­ple rate of $25 an hour is a sol­id deal (which it absolute­ly is), and you can add-on tech ser­vices (or get train­ing) if you’re not com­fort­able work­ing the dials and switch­es your­self.

Also at Fall­out The­ater, Buss con­tin­ues to host the long-run­ning Explo­rapho­ria (for­mer­ly Explorato­ri­um, because…lawyers, and for­mer­ly-for­mer­ly Sand­box), an exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy show that pur­ports to be “ an expe­ri­ence unlike any oth­er”. Buss describes it as a ​“free to fail good show” where he ​“nev­er says no”, and peo­ple are wel­comed to do acts they couldn’t do on any oth­er show. (One hard rule: no ​“typ­i­cal” standup.)

Not con­tent with a sin­gle Tues­day show, Buss also co-hosts Laugh Tracks, with comics run­ning on tread­mills while per­form­ing. It’s a unique con­cept that deliv­ers in unex­pect­ed ways. ​“It’s a quick way to get past [the nerves of the comics or the audi­ence], because when you’re run­ning and telling jokes, you’re so vul­ner­a­ble,” he notes of the expe­ri­ence: ​“any­thing you say at 7 miles per hour is fun­ny”. Who­ev­er keeps mov­ing and per­form­ing longest takes the award for the night.

The suc­cess of Explo­rapho­ria also result­ed in a serendip­i­tous spill-over thanks to a very spe­cif­ic kind of act that kept show­ing up on stage: ​“Pow­er­Point” pre­sen­ta­tions. It’s become the short­hand medi­um for the office and increas­ing­ly for the stage, but Explo­rapho­bia is designed to be full of vari­ety. Hence the birth of Smart Brain Sem­i­nars, a send-up of pre­sen­ta­tions and TED Talk-style seg­ments, where slides are not only allowed, but the order of the day.

So what’s up next for the (for­mer?) self-described ​“Bad Boy of San Mar­cus Comedy”?

When not being the ​“Tues­day guy” at Fall­out, Buss is work­ing full time as a show man­ag­er at Para­mount The­atre. With recent acts like Demetri Mar­tin and Jim­my O Yang com­ing through, and the upcom­ing Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy fes­ti­val, Buss is lov­ing it, and — while not divulging any secrets — notes that this year’s Moon­tow­er is ​“excit­ing. It’s so excit­ing. It’s so excit­ing.” (That’s 3 ​“exciting”‘s, if you’re count­ing, which is a high mark indeed from some­one with a cre­ative mind like Buss.)

There’s also the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned pod­cast stu­dio project, and Buss wel­comes any and all to reach out and take advan­tage. ​“If you want to record a pod­cast, com­e­dy or otherwise…any kind of pod­cast you’d like to do,” he says of the offer. Beyond using the stu­dio for record­ing, there’s also oppor­tu­ni­ties for a tech-savvy folks who want to make a sol­id $25 per hour han­dling the off-mic respon­si­bil­i­ties for the on-mic tal­ent.

And if you didn’t catch Buss on the small (Zoom) screen dur­ing COVID, you may have since caught him on the big screen, as he’s had appear­ances in three movies: Apol­lo Ten and a Half from Richard Lin­klater, Look Both Ways on Net­flix, and the upcom­ing Rearview Mir­rors. Does that mean the stage might bid farewell to Buss soon, in favor of the cin­e­ma? Not a chance, he says: ​“I like to act, but com­e­dy is my main.” (But he’s def­i­nite­ly con­tin­u­ing to act on the side.)

With Gar­rett Buss, the one thing you can be cer­tain of, is the next thing you see is like­ly to be the last thing you expect. Get out and catch ​“Mr. Tues­days” at Fall­out on…well, I think you know what day to be there.

Fol­low Garrett

• Web­site — gar​ret​tbuss​.com
• Twit­ter — @GmightbeD
• Insta­gram — @mynamesgarrettbuss
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​G​a​r​r​e​t​tBuss
• Tik­Tok — @garrett.might.be.dead
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​@​g​a​r​r​e​t​tbuss

Gar­rett can be seen and heard:

• Lance Vibrat­to: Astro­naut Attor­ney — a live com­e­dy radio show avail­able wher­ev­er you lis­ten to podcasts
• He’s Mr. Tues­day — every Tues­day at 9:30pm, Gar­rett hosts a com­e­dy show at Fall­out Theater
  • Explo­rapho­ria — An exper­i­men­tal vari­ety show on 1^st and 3^rd Tuesdays
  • Buck­et List — Per­form­ers exper­i­ment with a buck­et filled with audi­ence sug­ges­tions on 2^nd Tuesdays
  • Laugh Track — A car­dio com­e­dy com­pe­ti­tion where audi­ences get to watch comics tell their jokes while run­ning on a tread­mill on 4^th Tuesdays

Inquiries for the Fall­out The­ater pod­cast stu­dio should be sent to Falloutpodcaststudio@​gmail.​com