Luis Flandes Does the Math

An accoun­tant and an actu­ary step into a Zoom call; stop me if you’ve heard this one. 

There was a time when that sen­tence would have made zero sense, but in 2020, this is how we still do the cru­cial things we must to reach out to peo­ple, includ­ing talk­ing to the come­di­ans that fas­ci­nate us. In this case, the actu­ary is, of course, our own Valerie Lopez, and account­ing is mere­ly the day job for Austin come­di­an Luis Flandes. 

The past year was already notable for Flan­des, appear­ing at Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val and Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin in 2019, and releas­ing his first com­e­dy album, Baby Boy. It’s a jour­ney with, as you might expect from some­one with a focus on num­bers, a very well defined start. He’s also known as the host of Come­di­ans Inter­view­ing Musi­cians.

On July 9, 2012, Flan­des tried his first open mic. I call the date out because it’s quite rare for any­one to remem­ber not only the series of events that start­ed them on the road to com­e­dy, but the actu­al square on the cal­en­dar as well. Recount­ing his ear­ly comedic influ­ences (Car­lin, Chap­pelle), to Shake­speare class­es in mid­dle and high school, it’s clear Flan­des had a taste for per­for­mance that bit ear­ly and stuck with him. ​“I like the idea of being some­one else for a lit­tle while…it makes it less scary,” he says of the experience. 

That quote looms pre­scient, as it was a desire to change his life when, after grad­u­at­ing from St Edwards Uni­ver­si­ty, Flan­des found him­self in the unen­vi­able posi­tion of being arrest­ed for DUI. It was a wake up call that made him real­ize he had to ​“be some­one else”: the come­di­an that had been lurk­ing inside but not being the pri­or­i­ty he felt it needed. 

So, after attend­ing a show fea­tur­ing Mag­gie Maye, Flan­des found his way to that first mic, which led quick­ly to a sec­ond (both attend­ed by fam­i­ly), and thus began his renewed com­mit­ment to per­form­ing. His love of math­e­mat­ics (some­thing Valerie can always moon over), and pre­vi­ous stage expe­ri­ence, serve him well in this new endeavor. 

Com­e­dy is a game of pre­ci­sion: pac­ing, tim­ing, and intri­cate use of lan­guage. Words ver­sus num­bers, but the con­cepts are inti­mate­ly sim­i­lar. Just as an equa­tion must be exe­cut­ed cor­rect­ly to come to the cor­rect solu­tion, a joke or sto­ry must be craft­ed in just such a way to take the audi­ence on the desired jour­ney, and set them up for the premise that sur­pris­es them and gets the most laughs. 

Flan­des read­i­ly notes the sim­i­lar­i­ty, say­ing ​“My joke writ­ing is some­times for­mu­la­ic, or like an equa­tion,” if a bit invert­ed, as he often finds the end­point of his equa­tion first and works back­wards to make the sto­ry lead to the prop­er con­clu­sion. The process finds him feel­ing on some days a writer who per­forms, and oth­ers the exact opposite. 

Flandes’s pro­gres­sion in com­e­dy has fol­lowed a sim­i­lar method­ol­o­gy of pre­ci­sion. While Moon­tow­er was his first fes­ti­val, over 5 years since the begin­ning of his com­e­dy career, it was by choice. He set out the goals and the mea­sure of qual­i­ty in his act, the call to appear at Moon­tow­er came right at the time he felt he’d become ready. But, as we’ve seen, when he has a goal in mind, he also gen­er­al­ly has a plan to get there. 

Baby Boy, released in Jan­u­ary, and named after one of Flandes’s favorite jokes, is a bit of an excep­tion. He didn’t set out to record an album and work his way up to it. Instead, it was born (ahem) of the seed of an idea based on a joke hatched while he was ​“tak­ing a dip” in the pool after a work­out. With char­ac­ter­is­tic detail, he lays out the moment a kid in float­ies swam up to him and, quite inno­cent­ly, dubbed him – you guessed it – a ​“baby boy”. What could have been a crush­ing moment for self esteem – he jokes that the sup­posed baby did in fact have a full beard – instead turned into an oppor­tu­ni­ty to seize the nar­ra­tive and turn the inci­dent into a sto­ry that remains one of his favorite jokes and closers. 

Record­ing the album hap­pened as almost a coin­ci­dence vs a well orches­trat­ed oper­a­tion. Flan­des decid­ed to try expand­ing beyond his nor­mal 15 minute set one night, and was so pleased with the response and qual­i­ty that he felt it was the moment to cap­ture those jokes, and, as is often the case with com­e­dy albums, to con­sid­er retir­ing the mate­r­i­al and mov­ing on to new things. (He’s quick to admit that he still uses some of them, because he loves them and they ​“work”.)

Pan­dem­ic life has been a bump in the road for Flan­des, as with many come­di­ans, robbed of the audi­ences and venues to ply their trade. He’s spend­ing his days nav­i­gat­ing the chal­lenges of doing his day job remote­ly, writ­ing new mate­r­i­al, and, he jokes, drink­ing too much whiskey. (Who among us, right?) When things start to get back to nor­mal, or the new nor­mal, he’s look­ing for­ward to new mile­stones, includ­ing poten­tial­ly tak­ing on host­ing a Fri­day show at Austin East Ciders. 

So, one might say Flan­des is in the mid­dle of a new chap­ter in his sto­ry, and if we’ve learned any­thing, it’s that he’s got the tools and chops to write the script that will take him there. 

Luis Flan­des can be seen:

• On video at his Youtube channel

Fol­low Luis

• Twit­ter — @luisflandes
• Insta­gram — @luisiflandes
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​l​u​i​s​.​f​l​andes
• Do 512 — do512​.com/​a​r​t​i​s​t​s​/​l​u​i​s​-​f​l​andes
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​L​u​i​s​F​l​andes