The Tapestry of Ellis Aych
July 7, 2024
Errich Peterson
This week’s guest has been with us in Austin since 2000, but we’ve been criminally negligent in getting Ellis Aych (sounds like “H”) on the podcast until just this year. Even though the episode clocks in at a near-record 90 minutes, trust us, it’ll feel like it flew by in an instant.
Armed with a smooth drawl that very much speaks to growing up in Louisiana, then Elgin, Texas, before landing in Austin, Aych has no shortage of projects, history, and philosophical observations to lay on Valerie. One recurring theme: expounding on how he “loves individuals, [but] can’t stand people”. “Individuals are rich people with a full life, and a tapestry of memories,” Aych notes, a perspective that aligns perfectly with how he immerses himself in a given topic (be it person, place, or thing).
High school theater gave Aych his first taste of sharing those perspectives to an audience, and acting has been a theme — and source of pride — for him ever since. His first on-screen role came from a friend who was director a small-town horror flick called Bloody Homecoming.
The “intentionally bad” film (Aych jokes “it hurts so good” how bad it is) cemented his desire to get in front of the camera, leading to several completed and upcoming roles. He suggests you check out his role in 2020’s The Good Hearts Club, which is very much available on Amazon Prime at this very minute. Several other projects are in the works, but, on this, he’s uncharacteristically tight lipped, as details can’t be shared just yet.
Beyond acting, Aych didn’t really engage the comedy scene until fairly recently, doing his first open mic in 2016. Hot off a performance where Aych swears he “killed”, it took a mere two (checks notes) years to hit the stage again. When he says he’s “big on preparation”, clearly we have to take him seriously.
For that second outing, host Symply Courtney asked Aych for a 20 minute set. A typical open mic set is 4 – 5 minutes, so that kind of ask, with only 5 days’ notice, could have been a disaster in the making. Aych didn’t even break a sweat.
“[I was] flooded with ideas, a cacophony,” Aych recalls, noting that his “best ideas come under pressure, when it’s crunch time”. A scant 6 months later, he performed in a comedy competition, and we’re happy to say that his appearances have become quite a bit more regular.
How regular? Aych has performed on the renowned Kill Tony show 8 times (so far); for a show based on names drawn from a hat, it’s a killer streak, though he admits that if he “didn’t get picked [the first night]” he might never have gone back.
The conjoined interests of acting and comedy seem to suit Aych perfectly, with opportunities for rich exploration and barbed rejoinders on both sides. “Acting and comedy [are] two women that I love dearly,” he says, with “acting being by my side since we started out together” and comedy bringing that razor’s edge of unpredictability: “I don’t know what she’s going to do; she might stab me”.
It’s a viscerally funny juxtaposition, and Aych has no shortage of them. He jokes about not being a lawyer due to the “amount of punctuation you have to know”, saying “I don’t know what the fuck a semicolon is!” Not even a breath passes before he follows up: “Don’t they conjoin two independent clauses?”
Aych’s ability to take a rich and nuanced look at the world, then have you breaking out with snort-laughs, made me an instant fan. When talk turns to what could have been a purely poignant story about the death of a beloved uncle, Aych walks you right into the unexpected, describing a time when they’d hang out “eating ribs and watching porn at 10am”. Your thoughts on porn (or ribs) aside, it’s hard to imagine a better story opening to take you out of your seat and put you right in the memory.
“[I’ve always been] an individual who can entertain and captivate an audience,” Aych says, then joking “and I’m entitled to my opinion”. He admits that may sound “pompous, or arrogant”, but insists it’s just the stage persona. It does bite you in the end, Aych says, talking about the “hang”: that after-show time where the comics network, or — as we say in the biz — drink. Aych sees the importance, but has to prioritize: “I know I got work at, like, eight in the morning. I did my set. I’m gonna go home.”
Beyond a day job, acting, and doing comedy, there’s no shortage of other projects taking up Aych’s time, and indeed the day has only so many hours. He’s been producing shows, sometimes up to 5 at once; one week where he had shows going in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas at the same time.
It’s a lot, and that’s not counting Aych’s own stage time. “By the grace of God, I’ve been getting shows every week,” he says, and teases a big opportunity he doesn’t want to risk talking about just yet for fear of cosmic retribution: “I’m a negative personality masquerading as a positive personality.”
I’m going to get real for just a second here, and tell you go to listen to the episode if you haven’t. If we tried to cram in everything Aych shared, this article would end up being a novel, or a philosophies thesis, maybe an encyclopedia set unto itself. This is a man that, in the same conversation, dropped: Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Edison, astrology, identity theft, interior decorating, and at least two mentions of “titties”. That’s not even close to a complete list, so do yourself the favor and immerse for an hour and a half.
The one thing perhaps more important than the “hang” in comedy, is something I’ll call the “jolt”. That moment where your brain skips a beat because someone marries two wildly disparate concepts or linguistic styles in a way that breaks you. It’s fleeting, a flash of cerebral lightning lasting no more than a handful of milliseconds, but it’s the kind of thing that makes an entire set. From our time with Ellis Aych, it’s clear he’s a master of them, ensuring it’s well worth your time to get out and see his acting and comedy. That’s our opinion, and we’re entitled to it.
Follow Ellis
- Linktree — linktr.ee/Ellisaych
- Instagram — @ellis_aych
- TikTok — @ellisaych
- Youtube — youtube.com/channel/EllisAych
- Facebook — facebook.com/ellis.aych
Ellis can be seen and heard:
- The Comedy Station (SAN ANTONIO, TX) 7⁄12 buy tickets
- Cap City FPIA (AUSTIN, TX) 7⁄16 buy tickets
- Lucy’s Comedy Club (NEW BRAUNFELS, TX) 7⁄20
Valerie Lopez
Richard Goodwin