Sean Reilly - Making Time for Comedy

You would­n’t know it from the delight­ful chaos rep­re­sent­ed from this pod­cast episode, our longest on record, but Sean Reil­ly was a goody-two shoes grow­ing up. As a STEM kid, he will con­firm that he does typ­i­cal­ly wear two shoes and that life was good for him grow­ing up in Sil­i­con Val­ley.

This con­ver­sa­tion became a per­fect cap­stone to wrap up 299 pod­cast episodes since the incep­tion of Com­e­dy Wham Presents. We’ve cov­ered a lot of ground in our 299 inter­views with comics from around the world, most­ly Austin, with no top­ic left untouched. Or so we thought before sit­ting down with Reil­ly, who brought us such var­ied top­ics as read­ing about becom­ing a slum­lord, the risks of over caf­feina­tion, Mid­dle East­ern gov­ern­ments (this episode was record­ed pri­or to the Hamas attacks on Israel), the ethics of open­ing for prob­lem­at­ic big-name comics, and the excel­lence of John Mulaney’s lat­est spe­cial.

One nev­er knows if a comic’s sto­ry­telling on stage is based on truth, but Reil­ly’s comedic ref­er­ences to his alleged engi­neer­ing chops seem accu­rate, as we learn that after a suc­cess­ful high school career, Reil­ly head­ed to the Cal­i­for­nia Poly­tech­nic State Uni­ver­si­ty in San Luis Obis­po to major in aero­space engi­neer­ing. His suc­cess in acad­e­mia was short-lived, he read­i­ly admits, shar­ing with us his abysmal­ly low GPA…which I will not reveal here (you’ll have to lis­ten to the episode). His lack of suc­cess in the class­room was over­shad­owed by a new inter­est: comedy. 

Reil­ly threw him­self so much into his new hob­by that he became the even­tu­al pres­i­dent of the Cal Poly Com­e­dy Club. Between learn­ing about com­e­dy, per­form­ing com­e­dy, and book­ing com­e­dy acts for the club, Reil­ly real­ized that he was will­ing to throw away his aca­d­e­m­ic career – and aspi­ra­tions to work for NASA (due to afore­men­tioned GPA) – for com­e­dy. As he says it, ​“Com­e­dy was the only thing I always made time for.“

Much like anoth­er well-known Cal­i­for­nia trans­plant with an epony­mous pod­cast, Reil­ly has achieved great lev­els of suc­cess (though decid­ed­ly the Joe Rogan Expe­ri­ence has slight­ly high­er view­er num­bers) with his brand of free-flow­ing top­ics, sar­casm, and pseu­do-spon­sor­ships with rogue gov­ern­ments. For Reil­ly, the over­lap between sar­casm, irony, and being pas­sive-aggres­sive has helped him fig­ure out what an audi­ence likes.

But, as much as we enjoyed the mean­der­ing con­ver­sa­tion with Reil­ly, we also want­ed to know what brought a kid from Cal­i­for­nia to the stages of Austin, Texas. It turns out Rogan did play a role in the move, as Reil­ly was at the time a lis­ten­er (but has since eased off due to polit­i­cal dif­fer­ences) to The Joe Rogan Expe­ri­ence pod­cast. After the mega-suc­cess­ful pod­cast­er announced his move to Austin, Reil­ly fig­ured that since he was­n’t cut for engi­neer­ing, and his career in finance left him dis­en­chant­ed, a move to a city with a promise of plen­ti­ful stage time seemed like a log­i­cal next step.

Things were going well for Reil­ly as he took advan­tage of the stage time to become bet­ter and bet­ter. So much so that he land­ed in the finals of the 2022 Cap City Com­e­dy Club Fun­ni­est Per­son in Austin con­test. Com­e­dy can be cru­el though and self-doubts, com­par­i­son to oth­ers, and lack of progress became frus­tra­tions that Reil­ly could­n’t move past. Until he lit­er­al­ly became his own savior.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with pro­lif­ic pod­cast pro­duc­er and com­ic Josh Cabaza, Reil­ly found that hav­ing his own pod­cast was a way to achieve his goals, which includ­ed being ​“angry goofy. That’s what I’m going for. I want to get more ranty.” And this is def­i­nite­ly what you get on Sean’s Show, a name, Reil­ly con­fess­es took him way too long to land upon. The pod­cast is freely avail­able on Youtube and Spo­ti­fy, but also includes a Patre­on com­po­nent where Reil­ly inter­views guests with the ground rules of 1) no road sto­ries, and 2) no dis­cus­sion of the Austin com­e­dy scene. 

Reil­ly is excit­ed that Sean’s Show reached the 10 episode mile­stone (we’d like to inter­ject we feel just as excit­ed for our 299^th episode) because past pod­casts he’s done did­n’t have the stay­ing pow­er he thinks this one has. Also, when you’re the name on the show, you can’t real­ly blame any­one else for a busy sched­ule or for los­ing the record­ing. Also also, Cabaza is an incred­i­bly strong producer. 

We spoke to Reil­ly the week fol­low­ing the loss of fel­low Austin com­ic Nick Roche to sui­cide: a painful time that decid­ed­ly affect­ed Reil­ly, and those from the Austin com­e­dy scene that knew Roche. We remem­ber Nick for post­ing the start of a new open mic on Sun­days, the San Jac Open Mic which con­tin­ues to this day. 

The sur­prise around the Austin com­e­dy scene that Roche would take his own life serves as a reminder that you nev­er know what some­one might be going through secret­ly. It is a tragedy that Roche felt alone. It would be a tragedy for any­one else to feel this way. If you or some­one you know is expe­ri­enc­ing a men­tal health cri­sis, call the nation­al cri­sis hot­line at 9−8−8.

Where do we go from here? To change the tone, Reil­ly shares his music rec­om­men­da­tions, most­ly in the rap and hip-hop genre. I could­n’t help but quick­ly respond with my adu­la­tion for Post Mal­one (a jux­ta­po­si­tion that nev­er fails to amuse my CW part­ner). Mal­one was recent­ly fea­tured in an Esquire arti­cle attempt­ing to dis­sect his pop­u­lar­i­ty across all demo­graph­ic cross-sec­tions (includ­ing mid­dle-aged moms like myself). 

Analy­sis is a fan­tas­tic exer­cise, no doubt about it, but try­ing to dis­sect why you like a come­di­an is much like try­ing to fig­ure out why you like Post Mal­one. If you’re a nice per­son, if you make us smile, and if you’re com­fort­able with your goofi­ness, isn’t that all it takes? It’s up to you, dear read­er, to fig­ure out if I’m still talk­ing about Post Mal­one or if I’m real­ly describ­ing Sean Reilly.

Fol­low Sean

• Web­site — www​.sean​reil​ly​com​e​dy​.com
• Beacons.ai- bea​cons​.ai/​s​e​a​n​r​eilly
  
• Insta­gram — @seanreillycomedy
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​s​e​a​n​r​e​i​l​l​y​c​omedy
• Tik­Tok — @seanreillycomedy
• Youtube — youtube​.com/​@​S​e​a​n​R​e​i​l​l​y​C​omedy
• Twit­ter — @seandoesjokes
• Spo­ti­fy — spo​ti​fy​.com/​S​e​a​n​sShow

Sean can be seen and heard:

• Sean’s Show on Youtube and Spotify
• Head­lin­ing at LOL San Anto­nio — Sun­day Nov 12, 2023