JT Habersaat (Vol. 2): Kill That Pizza

This week we wel­come back one of our favorite guests, a man of many pur­suits, and all-around hell of a nice guy, JT Haber­saat. It’s in your best inter­ests to jump back and listen+read our first vol­ume with him, because there’s an amaz­ing­ly rich past to dis­cov­er, and heaps of good advice for per­form­ers, and life in general. 

The top­ic of advice was on the table right away when Valerie Lopez asked where life had tak­en Haber­saat in the past year. It’s been a busy one, with a new­ly released EP and the fin­ish­ing touch­es put on a new book as well. Keep­ing up that pace requires a tena­cious work eth­ic, and the advice about time man­age­ment that hit home with Valerie last time has con­tin­ued to pay off for Haber­saat. Para­phrased, he says that, like pip­ing piz­za pie, you can con­sid­er split­ting your time and tasks into 8, or 16, or 32 ​“slices”, but ​“at the end of the day, you’ve still got­ta kill that piz­za”. In oth­er words, some­times the best task man­age­ment advice is not to fol­low some­one else’s approach. Pick the method that brings you joy and suc­cess; there’s no use adapt­ing or com­par­ing to some­one else’s strat­e­gy if it isn’t what works best for you. Speak­ing of exe­cut­ing on strate­gies, how is Haber­saat doing on the ​“5 year plan” he men­tioned the last time we cir­cled the sun? He jokes that it’s ​“out the win­dow”, which in Haber­saat-speak sim­ply means he’s still going full speed with main­stays like Alter­ca­tion Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, but stay­ing open to new expe­ri­ences and oppor­tu­ni­ties. The fes­ti­val remains near and dear to him, with a focused and devot­ed fol­low­ing that comes to Austin from all over the world to catch comics big and small in an inti­mate venue, Kick­butt Cof­fee, over the course of a week­end. ​“Alter­ca­tion has curat­ed an audi­ence that is so damned cool,” Haber­saat raves, and that gen­er­al­ly the worst thing he has to deal with is some­one being over­ly enthusiastic. 

“Alter­ca­tion has curat­ed an audi­ence that is so damned cool” Jt Haber­saat

With 70+ acts over 4 days, plus the return of the ​“Holy Brunch” (fea­tur­ing The McCue­wans) and live pod­casts (includ­ing Arielle Nor­man and Ava Smartt’s Gen­der Flu­ids) on the sched­ule, the $45 4‑day Alter­ca­tion Com­e­dy 2019 pass­es remain an obscene­ly good deal. Among the acts, there’s a host of oth­er names you’ll rec­og­nize, from a heap­ing hand­ful of past CW guests like Jas­mine Ellis, Jake Flo­res, and Bil­lie Wayne Davis, to vir­tu­al com­e­dy icons like Joe DeRosa and Eddie Pepi­tone. (Take a look at the – always killer–show poster to see the full list; there are far too many great per­form­ers to do jus­tice here.) Also new this year is an install­ment his new project Mon­ster Movie Mock­ery, where Haber­saat pairs with Eng­lish Matt to riff through a mem­o­rably awful hor­ror flick. If that’s not enough Eddie Pepi­tone for you (is there such a thing?), we were excit­ed to learn Haber­saat will be tour­ing with him lat­er this year. The two have become good friends, and it’s sure to be a series of pow­er­house shows, no doubt accom­pa­nied by Habersaat’s con­tin­u­ing trav­el tales on his pod­cast The Road. The for­tu­itous pair­ing is yet anoth­er exam­ple of the kind of rela­tion­ships he builds, with acts and per­form­ers he sin­cere­ly admires and loves to bring to new and return­ing audi­ences. Some­how between all the tour­ing, Haber­saat man­aged to release the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned vinyl EP, Mish­ka Shubaly vs Jt Haber­saat: Into the Wilder­ness. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing­ly unique con­cept: one side is Haber­saat telling 20 minute sto­ry about tour­ing Alas­ka, and the oth­er is 3 songs from tour part­ner and musician/​writer Shubaly. (The pair also col­lab­o­rat­ed on the book Killing For A Liv­ing, that had not quite dropped last July when we pre­vi­ous­ly spoke with Haber­saat.) Catch­ing up with Haber­saat is always a plea­sure, and we high­ly rec­om­mend you take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get out and see him, and invest in the well-earned cult-like expe­ri­ence that is Alter­ca­tion Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. Stay up to date with all of Jt Habersaat’s com­ings and goings, includ­ing tour dates, pod­cast appear­ances, and more, at jtcom​e​dy​.com.

—

• Alter­ca­tion Fes­ti­val — https://​www​.alter​ca​tion​com​e​dyfes​ti​val​.com
• • Head­lin­ers include Jen­ny Zigri­no, Eddie Pepi­tone, Joe Derosa, Car­men Morales, and Bil­ly Wayne Davis
  • Fea­tur­ing Jas­mine Ellis, Mish­ka Shubaly, Kris­tine Levine, David Rodriguez, and Jake Flores
  • New Pro­gram­ming includes Mon­ster Movie Mock­ery and live podcasts!
• Look­out Com­e­dy Fest — https://​www​.look​out​com​e​dyfes​ti​val​.com — Octo­ber 17, 2019 Chat­tanooga, TN
• Fest Com­e­dy — Novem­ber 2 – 3, 2019 — Gainesville, FL
• The Road Pod­cast — his pod­cast record­ed while on the road
• Tour­ing with Eddie Pepi­tone — For The Mass­es tour 2019 – 2020

Twit­ter

Jt Haber­saat

Valerie Lopez Richard Good­win Com­e­dy Wham