Josh Blue is experiencing that phenomenon known as TV fame in the wake of his win this summer on the fourth edition of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Had him on the phone the other day, fresh off a gig in Charlotte, N.C. — Blue is in town this weekend at the Comedy Connection with fellow LCS finalists Michele Balan and Kristin Key (in a couple of weeks, Chris Porter and Roz will be here, too).
“It’s a whole new game,” Blue told me. How so? “I don’t really need to explain myself anymore. Before I had to explain who I was and make myself comfortable with it. But now, they know who I am. I can go basically into what I want.”
And what’s that these days? “Just I talk about the show a lot.”
How do you decide how much to talk about your cerebral palsy? “I don’t know if I’ve ever decided enough is enough,” he said. “I just tell the jokes I have. Might tell the new jokes, too. I don’t know. To a certain point, you don’t want to beat it into the ground. It depends on what the audience wants, too. If they’re getting bored about that subject, I try to steer away from it.”
Blue went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a place all Seattle comedians know as a carefree institution where the students really care for the evergreen, if you know what I mean. How did Evergreen influence Blue’s comedy? “It was huge. That’s where I first started doing it. I studied stand-up comedy my senior year.” His first gig was at 7 Cities in Tacoma. “I also had my own Josh Blue Comedy Hour at a coffee shop,” he said. What did that entail? “It was me doing terrible comedy. I was doing a whole new hour every week. I don’t think I could even do an hour now!”
What’s the relationship like between you and Chris Fonseca, another stand-up comedian with CP who has made it big? “I studied him in college,” Blue said. He acknowledged that LCS has resulted in “a little bit of a falling out” between the two comics. “It really bums me out because I really look up to that guy.”
Blue was supposed to perform last year during the Boston Comedy Festival’s contest. “And then Carlos Mencia offered me a spot on his show, so I didn’t perform,” Blue said.
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