Eating Pizza With a Cool Person
Volume Six - Noah Watson
Noah Watson is a standup comedian who grew up in Northern California (where he was a Gilman kid, which unfortunately we talked all about while I was still in the process of setting up my audio), then found his way up the coast to Portland for a few years before eventually landing in Chicago in the spring of 2023.
I saw Noah open for Kyle Kinane at last year’s Kinanesgiving where he hit a dead center bullseye on my comedy Venn diagram by being wildly inappropriate, irreverant, and incredibly clever.
I met Noah at his favorite pizza place, Pizza Lobo in Logan Square, which became one of his go-to spots in part because they’re open until midnight so he can grab a slice on his way back home from a night of doing shows.
Noah and I got some pizza and talked about how he ended up in Portland, what it was like to start his career in comedy, what prompted his move here, how he still gets nervous before every show, who some of his favorite local comedians are, why the Lincoln Lodge is the best place to see comedy in Chicago, how he has zero tolerance for cool guy bullshit, and he even told me a few of his favorite jokes.
CPN: Where did you grow up?
Noah: Bay Area. Right around San Francisco in Marin County. It’s the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
CPN: How long did you live there?
Noah: I moved up to Portland when I was 19.
CPN: Did you move for comedy, or was it something else?
Noah: I dropped out of my senior year of high school because my parents were moving to Southern California, like San Bernardino area, and I didn’t want to move. So I just stopped going to school, started working full-time at Starbucks, and got an apartment in Marin County. But then my housing situation imploded, my roommate literally lost his mind, and I ended up having to move in with my ex-girlfriend’s parents for a few months. Then I was just like, fuck it, I’m moving to Portland.
CPN: How’d you end up in Chicago?
Noah: I was in Portland for six years and didn’t want to be there anymore. I came out here and visited in April of last year (2023), and it seemed cool. I knew the comedy was great, so I moved out here with my girlfriend and my best friend.
CPN: Did you have a favorite pizza place in San Francisco?
Noah: I don’t remember what it was called, but there was one that was right on the edge between the Tenderloin and Nob Hill, that area they call the TenderNob or whatever, I used to go there with my buddy a lot. But it was mainly burritos when I was in San Francisco.
CPN: Mission-style?
Noah: Yeah. Mission is the spot.
CPN: Do you remember your first time coming to Pizza Lobo?
Noah: I came with my girlfriend in the middle of the day and I got the same slice that I got now, the Borgata.
CPN: You also said you like to come by after shows?
Noah: I’ll do shows at Lincoln Lodge down the street, and a lot of times we’ll end up here after because it’s open late.
CPN: What do you like about it? Why is it your favorite?
Noah: The pizza is really good. I like thin crust. And I like that I can just sit out on the patio and smoke or just talk a lot. I just associate it with hanging out with my friends.
CPN: It’s almost like sitting in someone’s backyard.
Noah: Totally like a backyard.
CPN: What do you love about Chicago?
Noah: I like the people a lot. It’s by far the friendliest city I’ve been in. There’s a lot of cool guy bullshit in major cities most of the time, and it feels like a lot less of that here. People are just willing to talk to you at face value instead of sizing you up, which I’m a big fan of. I love the train. I like public transportation. It’s cheaper in some ways than Portland, which I like too. One of the reasons I moved out here is the whole Midwest circuit. You’ve got cool cities like Minneapolis and Madison that are close. If I ever need to do road work, I can drive an hour and a half and be in a different city, or a different state.
CPN: What do you think could make Chicago better? Or maybe even, is there something you’d take from one of the other cities you’ve lived in to bring here?
Noah: Some of the worst fucking drivers on the planet live here. I hate driving in the city. It’s crazy that lanes and stop lights are just suggestions, and you kind of get to make up whatever you want. I’m a nervous driver, so I’ve been doing the public transportation thing for the most part out here. That’s the only thing that’s legit bothered me since I got here. I was getting road rage like crazy, and I’m not a road rage kind of guy. It would ruin my day. But other than that, you guys are killing it.
CPN: So how did you first get into comedy?
Noah: My roommate Ben Levy is also a comic. I moved up to Portland, and I was doing music stuff for a while, but then all my shit broke, and I didn’t have money to fix it. Me and Ben had been talking about it for a little while, and there was an open mic down the street from my house at like 6 p.m. on Mondays, but it was in a bar, and I wasn’t 21 yet, so I snuck in and signed up.
CPN: Did you have anything prepared?
Noah: I wrote out probably five pages of a script that I said on stage, and it was terrible. It was gross. I know you saw me back in November, I say some pretty wild stuff on stage. I like saying inappropriate things. But I hadn’t figured out that it has to be funny too. I think I made the bartender uncomfortable enough that he laughed a little bit.
CPN: Is there someone or something you point to that had a huge effect on building your sense of humor?
Noah: A lot of my friends growing up were just really funny people, and a lot of that 14-year-old brain didn’t go away, as far as what I think is funny. Then after I started comedy things like, Norm Macdonald was big for me, as far as figuring things out. I’m not a fast talker, and I have a stutter that I’ve learned how to talk around a bit, so hearing Norm and his cadence helped me out with that. And then my people in Portland are all killers. They’re so good. He lives in New York now, but I got a buddy named Jake Silberman who I look up to a lot. I took a lot of his advice about how he did comedy and applied it to myself. Tory Ward, who lives here now, is another one of my favorites. Bryan Bixby lives here now. There’s a lot of good comics.
CPN: Do you get nervous? Did you ever get nervous?
Noah: Every time. I throw up before shows sometimes. I know some people are just fine, but it never went away for me at all. I have like, full panic attacks until I get home after the show. Then I’m good.
CPN: Are there degrees depending on the size of the show? Or is it all just the same type of nervous?
Noah: It’s all the same, but for different reasons. If it’s a really big show, and I fuck up, then that’s a lot more people who see it. But then a small show, it’s harder to get a response out of a small crowd because they all have to agree. So that makes me nervous because I know how hard I’m gonna have to work.
CPN: There are so many different ways to tell jokes and different types of comedians, how did you figure out what your style is?
Noah: By failing over and over and over again. The process of bombing is really good at making you aware of what’s wrong with you, and what you’re not good at. It’s a scary, weird, and borderline stupid thing to do, to just like, flip a coin on publicly humiliating yourself every night. You have to figure out pretty fast why you’re getting embarrassed. Why you’re bombing. What’s wrong with you. I had a friend in Portland point out to me, I was so defensive on stage for a long time, and he was like, “Dude, you know people like you, right? You don’t have to be that way.” That helped me a lot in realizing what feeling I wanted to have when I was talking to an audience. And how I could let them see me. I wanted to feel like we were all getting along.
CPN: Did that help with the nervousness? Just changing your mindset.
Noah: A little bit. It felt a lot less like I was fighting, and more like I was being diplomatic, if that makes sense. So that helped me with the anxiety. Because when you’re ready to fight, that’s a bad energy.
CPN: How would you describe your style?
Noah: I say really inappropriate stuff. And I talk a little slow. I don’t know what else to say other than that? I like the act of talking to people and making people laugh.
CPN: You didn’t necessarily seem like you were an improvisational guy, or like a crowd work guy…
Noah: I can be sometimes. I do like doing that stuff in a situation when you’re not interacting with the crowd that much, there’s too many of them, or they’re too far away from you, and you can’t really see anybody. I think you need to be able to do both. You need to have jokes and also be able to adapt to situations when they change. You gotta be present.
CPN: Are those are two different skills?
Noah: I think so. I see people all the time that are really good at one, but bad at the other. But it’s all part of the same mechanism. A lot of things that I write down are how they happened when I was on stage. So it’s the same part of your brain, you’re just using it at a different time. Or you’re using it under pressure. That’s the difference.
CPN: I know you mentioned Norm Macdonald, did you have any other favorite comedians growing up?
Noah: Billy Cosby and Louis CK. I know that’s a tough sentence, but they were the kings when I was growing up. My dad played Bill Cosby on the radio and in the car constantly. I had the VHS where he talks about the dentist, and me and my brother would just play that on repeat. That was a big one for me.
CPN: Can you still listen to him now?
Noah: I don’t. But it’s not just because of all that stuff. I don’t listen to a lot of comedy outside of comedy shows anymore. I mainly just watch other comics at open mics, or shows. I do not condone his behavior at all though. I’m not a fan of it. It was really awful.
CPN: So what’s the Chicago comedy scene like? What’s different here from other places?
Noah: Most people here on a base level understand how comedy functions. How joke writing functions. Which seems like something you should know in the first place before starting comedy, but a lot of people don’t, and it takes them a long time to figure it out. It’s a very supportive scene. All the comics watch each others’ sets, which is not normal compared to other cities. Usually the comics are outside smoking, and maybe they’ll go back in if someone they idolize gets on stage. So it’s a pretty special thing that all the comics pay attention to each other, and laugh at each others’ sets which, again, is not a normal thing. I don’t know the exact number, but there’s like ten clubs in the city, which is also crazy. I came from a town where we had one club, and everything else is at a bar. So the audiences are actually there for comedy, instead of like, you’re just showing up at a restaurant to ruin somebody’s night. That makes it easier to go deeper with your writing. A lot of times if it’s just the random population, you have to start by shocking them to get them to pay attention. There’s less pressure with comedy audiences. They give you the benfit of the doubt.
CPN: Who are some of your favorite Chicago comedians to do shows with?
Noah: Jon Diaz is a fiend of mine and I like that dude a lot. AJ Leidig is another guy I really like. Harry Jensen. Kristen Toomey. Nick San Miguel is a killer, he does a lot of really weird stuff I don’t see other people doing. There’s a lot of really funny comedians in Chicago.
CPN: What are the best places to see them?
Noah: Lincoln Lodge rules. You’ll see a ton of different comics, it’s cheap, and it’s independently run. When I moved here I talked to my buddy about what clubs are like in other cities, and he talked about finding the heart of the scene. Lincoln Lodge is the heart of the scene. Everybody is there, all the time.
CPN: Do you have a favorite show you’ve done?
Noah: I loved the Kinane show. I featured at Zanies for a weekend with Shane Torres, and that was really cool. My buddy Jon Diaz runs this show called Fuck Fest, and it’s a riff based show where he asks you questions about your sex life. That was a Lincoln Lodge show, and it was super fun. And Jon is fearless when he’s asking questions, so he’ll ask you some wild stuff.
CPN: What’s the best way for people to keep track of you and all the things you’re doing?
Noah: Instagram is the best spot.
CPN: Any advice you have for people who are interested in doing comedy?
Noah: Don’t start drama. Don’t be there to make friends. Work really hard, and don’t feel like you’re entitled to anything. It’s a social thing, and if you force your way in and try to struggle for power, everyone is gonna hate you. I know a lot of really good comics with garbage attitudes that nobody likes to be around. I also know a lot of mid comics that are dope to hang out with and destroy in their careers. They do so well. People make entire careers in comedy off just by being a kinda cool dude to be around. Mind your business. Because it’s a lot of insane people. Like the bottom of the barrel, socially.
CPN: Anything you’re working on or any projects you’d like to talk about?
Noah: I just started a podcast with my roommate Ben, and Nik Oldershaw, who is another really funny, dope comedian in Chicago. It’s called Trophy Wives and it’s up on everything.
CPN: Last one, do you have a favorite joke?
Noah: One I think about a lot, and Norm has got a million, but his bit about hanging yourself is so good. Nate Bargatze has a joke where he talks about how he thought he saw a dead horse on the way up to Mount Rainier, that’s another one. And Nick San Miguel, who I talked about earlier, he’s got one where he talks about when his mom would say, “I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it.” And he says, “Well, I came out of your vagina and I can go right back in!”
