Jason Rodriguez: Not Boring Anymore

Come­di­an Jason Rodriguez insists he’s kind of timid and bor­ing, but I’m not real­ly buy­ing it. When you move 1000+ miles away from home to pur­sue com­e­dy and make a name for your­self in an entire­ly new city like Jason has, you kind of have to relin­quish your title as a dull dude. ​“Timid” feels incon­gru­ent for some­one so con­sis­tent­ly booked and con­sis­tent­ly hilar­i­ous. ​“Bor­ing” feels mis­matched for some­one so uni­ver­sal­ly liked with­in the scene. 

But this is my assess­ment against Jason’s, so let’s look at his com­e­dy career objec­tive­ly: With­out know­ing any­one in Austin (thus with­out the friends and fam­i­ly vote bump) he was a semi­fi­nal­ist in Cap City Com­e­dy Club​’s 2022 Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin con­test and a final­ist in​the inau­gur­al Austin Com­e­dy Com­pe­ti­tion. Back in his home state of Cal­i­for­nia, he was a door­man and fre­quent guest spot­ter at The Rec Room com­e­dy club, where he per­formed (and seat­ed) two sold out Kyle Kinane shows. More recent­ly, Jason host­ed his first show at Cap City, a result of being rec­og­nized for his suc­cess in their com­pe­ti­tion. And final­ly, after years of lis­ten­ing and sub­mit­ting his name, Jason got picked and sur­vived (the often bru­tal wrath of) the infa­mous Kill Tony pod­cast crowd and pan­el. Tru­ly, not even a show ded­i­cat­ed to roast­ing come­di­ans could find any­thing neg­a­tive to say about Jason Rodriguez. And with his suc­cess in the Austin com­e­dy scene so far, that seems to be the con­sen­sus across the board.

As point­ed out by Valerie, plac­ing in two com­e­dy com­pe­ti­tions with total­ly dif­fer­ent audi­ences, espe­cial­ly when you’re new in town, is indeed a big deal. It means he can per­form under pres­sure, but more impor­tant­ly that he has mass appeal. Jason can crush with a wide vari­ety of audi­ences – whether it be a clas­sic com­e­dy club crowd at Cap, art­sy Zoomers at The Ball­room at Spi­der House, or what­ev­er var­i­ous 6^th Street com­e­dy-con­sum­ing crea­tures fre­quent Vul­can Gas Com­pa­ny and The Creek and the Cave. That isn’t some­thing every come­di­an can do, and Austin’s recent com­e­dy com­pe­ti­tions are proof of that. Jason’s motives for com­pet­ing were not nec­es­sar­i­ly to win, but rather to prove him­self and use the expo­sure to get booked in the future. ​“I got far in both [com­pe­ti­tions], but I did­n’t think much of it, hon­est­ly… I knew I was not going to win, but if I can get a host­ing event, get any kind of work, that’s all I want. That’s win­ning to me.” 

When it comes to his favorite parts of per­form­ing, Jason can­did­ly cites atten­tion and val­i­da­tion from both the audi­ence and his com­e­dy peers. ​“I think comics want to say, ​‘Oh, I like mak­ing peo­ple laugh.’ Nah, I like peo­ple telling me I’m good at some­thing.” Iron­i­cal­ly though, he doesn’t out­ward­ly appear to be seek­ing much of either, which I think is part of his appeal. Where some comics seem des­per­ate for that val­i­da­tion and atten­tion, Jason’s calm, dead­pan deliv­ery both on and off stage make him seem con­fi­dent, unboth­ered. He con­tin­ues. ​“I like the val­i­da­tion from both ends, because I nev­er real­ly did any­thing… This is the first thing I actu­al­ly tried and want­ed to do more of, [the only thing] I failed [at] and want­ed to keep doing.” And we’re glad he has. When asked by Valerie to describe his future, Jason gave a com­i­cal ​“not bor­ing any­more.” With his grow­ing accom­plish­ments with­in the Austin scene after mov­ing across the coun­try to be here, I’d say ​“not bor­ing” applies to his present as well. 

Fol­low Jason

• Web­site — jason​s​may​tion​.com
• Twit­ter — @jason_smaytion
  
• Insta­gram — @jason_smaytion
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​j​a​s​o​n​.​s​m​a​ytion
• Tik­Tok — @jason_smaytion
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​Jason Smaytion

Jason can be seen and heard:

• Per­form­ing around Austin
• The William Mont­gomery Show Ep 21 — youtube