Joe Faina:Failed Slacker, Dedicated Comedian

May 18, 2016

Joe Faina’s comedic career has been on a steady course, ham­pered only by the fact that he is real­ly, real­ly good at school. Faina com­plet­ed his Phd in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin in 2014. With his new-found free time, he’s explor­ing new show ideas and host­ing Not a Fan podcast.

In part one of his inter­view, Joe Faina talks about grow­ing up in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia, just a stone’s throw from the west coast com­e­dy epi­cen­ter of Los Ange­les. While he dipped his toe in com­e­dy while liv­ing in the Simi Val­ley, he focused on his edu­ca­tion (he calls him­self a failed slack­er”) until his arrival in Austin sev­en years ago. Faina shares his ear­ly comedic influ­ences and deft­ly demon­strates why he can take one ques­tion and answer sev­en more with­out me prompt­ing him. Click the link to listen:

Joe Faina Part 1: The Past

In part two of his inter­view, Faina gets intro­spec­tive about his time in Austin as a com­ic. From lessons learned about host­ing shows to com­pet­ing in the Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin con­test, Faina thinks met­rics don’t tell the whole sto­ry of what a comic’s poten­tial can be.

Joe Faina Part 2: Current

Faina’s Pass the Mic is cur­rent­ly on hia­tus, but he’s tin­ker­ing with new show ideas. In the mean­time, watch for him on the Sure Thing line­up this sum­mer Austin Java.

Deets

You can find Faina on Twit­ter, Insta­gram and Tum­blr by search­ing for @faination. You can also catch his pod­cast, Not a Fan, on your favorite pod­cast player.