Joe Matarese
written by Ken Carlson
“On stage I’ve been trying to make these people see a theme. I’m got to find what that theme is, try to say something different,” says comedian Joe Matarese. “I’m sure a lot of married guys say their wives want them to change. One thing I have going for me that’s a little different is I agree with my wife. I do need to change and I’m trying to. It’s not like, ‘Fuck you. Here is how I am. Deal with it.’ Most comedians go with that angle.”
For most people, life is a struggle. For some it’s fighting with the crowd at the Apollo in Harlem. For others it’s fighting Apollo Creed in Philly.
Enter Joe Matarese; a talented headliner with his own Comedy Central Presents special and appearances on Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel. His act is a clever blend of dueling the audience like a matador and reaching out for help. Robert Kelly, fellow comedian and friend says of Matarese, “He needs a 24 hour live-in therapist.” This, Matarese has attended to by marrying a woman with a PhD in Psychology.
I sat down with Joe between sets at Joker’s Wild, a recently opened club in New Haven’s Little Italy, an area famous for brick oven pizza. The parking was limited to the number of cars you can fit in a typical car wash and the open air bar area corralled chatty people who seemed to be holding family reunions during the show.
But the club has a nice cozy feel. The staff was friendly, and the management went out of their way to make Matarese feel comfortable, a point not lost on Joe. “Sometimes I can tell,” he says, “in about a minute, whether an owner will like me or not. You know when you meet certain people, you can tell? Certain owners give you a vibe and they don’t care if you’re funny or not. I can just tell at those times, I’m not getting booked back. I’ll get feedback that they weren’t a fan of my comedy. Really? The worst is when they say that after the show went really well. ‘Yeah, he really didn’t like you.’ Well what show was he watching, the Tuesday night in front of 4 people?”
Matarese is just getting over the flu. He’s lost a lot of weight, with a look wavering between Manhattan Chic and New Jersey Gaunt. He tries to keep down his first meal in four days, recounting his recent itinerary of sleeping all day every day just to find the energy to do shows at night. His wife has him on bitters and soda, a homespun remedy to keep him going, ready to face what will be a more raucous house for the second Saturday night slot.
For a while on the road he had a lot of people coming up to him saying they recognized him from Last Comic Standing, something that surprised Matarese, admitting that he was only on for about a minute and a half. “It’s amazing how many people watch that,” says Matarese. “I open for Artie Lange. A lot of people know me from that too. They’ll come up to me and ask ‘How’s he doing? How’s Artie?’ Plus, I was on Howard Stern once but I was on as Artie’s friend, talking about how hard it is to be Artie’s friend. That resonated with a lot of people. But if your half hour special is on a million times, people only think of that after seeing your set. People don’t come because they saw that.”
20 years in and plenty of television time on his resume, Matarese is still running out ground balls and hustling after his show. He’s selling CD’s afterwards, doing what it takes to make a buck and spread the word. “At clubs you have to,” says Matarese, “unless you can find someone to be a lackey. I’m handing out business cards, having people sign up for my email list. I never used to do that. I slam Lisa Lampanelli on stage, but she was amazing at it, the business end. She always had two or three people out there selling them and probably had someone else sending out the emails for her. It makes a difference. There’s a reason why some people make it and some people don’t. These days, the guys who make it are really good at marketing and computer stuff; or coming up with weird YouTube videos, something to stand out. It’s not because they’re funnier.”
Matarese knows how to get laughs on stage, something he has worked at since he was a kid. At the same time, he’s striving for something different, even if it means distancing himself from that scene.
“I want to act, believe it or not,” says Matarese. “I started studying acting again. This is going to sound weird because I’ve been doing stand-up so long, but I don’t want to be funny in my acting. I want to be the guy who’s good at stand-up, but you see him doing drama. That’s the stuff I’m good at. I might try to do a one-man show again. Stand-up is hard because you can’t say anything moving or thought-provoking. It’s always jokes, jokes, jokes. But I could never make them say, ‘Wow’, or make them think, maybe tear up. It never happens. I would like to do a show where I can do all that. You can probably tell I’m not funny off stage, within two minutes of this interview. Once you have kids (Matarese have a son), you can’t suck anymore, because he’ll end up being a comedian if you do. He’ll be on the front cover of your magazine. If your kid wants to do stand-up, you’re failing as a parent because comedy is almost like therapy, filling all those voids that your parents messed up.”
Aside from a bout of the flu, Matarese is dragging from dealing with meeting would-be agents and managers, trying to separate the king makers from the clowns. Joe’s last prospective agent opened a meeting saying, “We’ve got to find a way to launch you and get you to the next level!” Matarese called a comic friend and said, “‘You think? You don’t think I’ve been thinking about that every minute for the last twenty years?’ The right agent makes a humongous difference. I’ve always felt a lot of my struggles were because I never had the right agent or a great manager. I want one, but it’s impossible. There are so many bad ones that don’t work hard. There are a few good ones with a million connections and a lot of little shitty ones. Certain ones can take your idea, open the door and set up the right meetings to make it happen.”
“All the best comedians, Jim Norton said this once, and I agree with it,” says Matarese, “Every comedian he likes has something that’s really fucked up. One thing. There’s something about that that fascinates me. I’ve always felt better about myself on stage. Most comedians feel that way. There’s something about having that microphone in your hand turns you into a different personality. I can probably be more honest on stage than off stage. Now, I’m not as introverted as some comedians, where they can’t even look you in the eye when they’re talking to you they’re so weird. That’s why they’re drawn to comedy. Stand-up feels therapeutic. They just talk about what’s bothering them and people laugh. It’s powerful and people are addicted to it. My objective and what I got from tonight’s show; if you’re married or single, if I could get you to forget your problems for a few minutes, anything in your life that sucks – that’s when I love comedy the most. I love it when somebody comes up to me and says, ‘My dad died a month ago and I haven’t laughed. You made me forget about it for a moment and I had a great time.’ Wow, that’s when I actually feel like it’s a great job. But if I just have drunk people yelling at me on stage, I think, what am I doing here?”
Matarese notes that since he started in the business, the styles of stand-up have changed. It’s a lot more personal now, less jokey, more honest. He had a development deal that didn’t go anywhere; noting that times have changed and reality shows have nixed investment in newcomers’ sitcoms. He tried owning a comedy club and hated it. Now as he looks at dramatic roles and a one man show, being married and raising a son, his reach seems more personal as well, more honest.
“The opportunities aren’t there anymore,” says Matarese, “If you go on Letterman now, it doesn’t matter. It’s like it didn’t happen. Twenty years ago, if you did Letterman, you’d be making a lot more money. The next week you’d be booked all over the place. But I’ve realized why I’m happier lately. I don’t even need the big thing to be happy. I almost think I only need the possibility [of a surge to the big time] to be happy; to be trying makes me happy. I was getting a bad reputation for a while; snapping and getting mad, bringing my life with me on stage. I could just tell because I wasn’t getting as much work. But now, hey, I’m a little happier, got a little medication and therapy. Going on stage now seems so relaxing, as opposed to being home where my 2 year-old son is smashing shit left and right. I’m trying to put our house on the market, could you stop dropping the value every minute and a half? He’s just ruining the house, swinging golf clubs off the floor! It’s hilarious!”
The cornerstone of Joe’s act is the problems of his life. His fans, unlike some who ride the laughs without taking notice of the content, seem to pick up on the message. “Lately,” says Matarese. “I’ve been getting from a lot of single people, ‘Dude you confirmed it! I’m never getting married!’ But also, I get a lot married people who say, ‘You nailed it! That’s our life!’ I feel better when it’s married people saying it. It’s hard to make the happy moments in marriage sound funny when you’re on stage.”
When a Comedian Attacks, Matarese’s second CD, seems to redefine and compartmentalize hecklers, whether they’re hapless drunks who want to be part of the show, or mean-spirited tools bent on tearing the performer down with criticism. While most performers, are their harshest critic, it’s that second category of heckler that brings out the darker reaction from Matarese.
“Bill Hicks, on one of his CD’s,” says Matarese, “put a whole bad review on the CD’s jacket. That was really cool. He took this guy’s negative reviews, that was supposed to upset him, and put it right on his album. If you go to my website, a lot of it is about Joe being a guy with issues. I’ve had some hecklers go to my website and write in nasty emails, that I’ve got problems. No shit! That’s what the whole fuckin’ thing is about, idiot!”
The first track from the Attacks CD seems to encapsulate what Joe’s working life is all about. It’s taken from a show in New Brunswick, New Jersey at one in the morning when a construction worker throws out a wisecrack, interrupting the show. Matarese makes a point in saying he can’t ignore hecklers and in this case calls as much attention to this schmuck as possible, inviting him to come up on stage and trade places, letting him know, “I have to make you feel like shit, that’s my job,” Matarese continued, “Did it make you feel good to hurt my feelings? Do you have any idea how hard it is to stand up here and make people laugh for an hour? Have you ever been on a plane that you thought was going to crash and have to stare out a fuckin’ window 9 hours for a four hour flight? Have you ever followed a dream? I doubt it’s construction!”
For more on Joe and to purchase copies of his CD’s visit joematarese.com.