I sat down in the back room of Piano's on the Lower East Side recently with Baron Vaughn before a show. We were interrupted several times by the steady stream of fellow comics on the bill that night, like Kyle Cease & Nick Kroll. At one point, an unstable woman walked in to ask us when the show would start and why there weren't more people out and about this evening. Over the loud speaker, a solid set of tunes were piped in including Ring of Fire and Walking with the Ghost. At one point, Baron received his payment for the evening, an envelope filled with candy and pogs acting as drink tickets. Another writer was also there waiting to conduct an interview with Baron. A lot of people want to speak with him and it's easy to see why. He's a charismatic performer on a career path accelerating in an upward direction and has a lot to say.

If you visit Baron Vaughn's page on MySpace and scroll down, you'll find the Richard Pryor-Chevy Chase Racist Word Association Sketch from SNL where Pryor is interviewing for a janitorial position. I asked Baron why we don't see stuff like that anymore. His answer was blunt. "Most comedians have lost their balls."

"The game has changed. People say there was a comedy boom in the 80's. Then there were clubs springing up all over the country and comedy became mainstream. There were less people doing it and more room to fail and experiment; to get to that more interesting stuff. Now, it's more of a business than it's ever been. Not even more of a business, it's more of an established business. With Comedy Central and all these sorts of clubs, everybody knows comedy is lucrative now. So, more people try to veer their acts toward getting a TV show. So, a lot more comics play it safer because they just want to make it. But, a lot of comics, they play it safe, they make it, then they change up what they're doing. Example: Chris Rock. He might say that Bigger and Blacker was when he arrived. Before, he was doing more chummy stuff, less biting. Greg Giraldo, his early stuff was, 'My wife's like this and my kids are like this.' He got big and switched it around. Some biting, dark, political stuff that I love. He's one of my faves."

To see a young comic make the strides that he has in such a short time is not unusual. To do it with his gutsy, challenging material is. Not that it's always gone smoothly. 'New Jersey, two hour drive. I did a show with this comic I met in a club. I wasn't really ready. I've only been doing this for four years. At that time, only two. I've grown so much in the last two years, because I get so much stage time and I keep company with people whose work I really admire and learn from a lot. I was supposed to do 15 and host. I ended up rambling for 35 minutes at this restaurant. Everybody was eating. They looked at me like I was disturbing their meals. I didn't know how to handle it then. I was used to New York audiences, but the road is a different thing. You can do smart stuff on the road, but most of my stuff was skewed toward New York audiences. After the show, audience members would come up and congratulate the other comics and just stare at me and walk away. I knew I didn't do that well."

'There was another time, in Brooklyn, at what used to be an all-black room. It was three urban chitlin circuit comics, then some alternative comics. Everyone did well, except me. I was last on a lineup of eight. Roz, from Last Comic Standing, destroyed. Most of the time, if the audience is all one race, they don't like me."

"I love and hate the black audience. I'm black and those are my people. That's who I want to entertain and I think they deserve intelligent entertainment. But, they've been fed so much crap over the years, they expect crap, and when you aren't crap they don't know what to do with you. I don't want to say that about every black comic, because it's not true. And it's not true about all black audiences. It's just that they seem to expect a certain thing and I'm not that thing. It's an ongoing thing with black people in general, that I am not black enough. So, they dislike me the moment I walk up on stage because I don't talk or look exactly like they do."

"Certain black comics will hate and despise me and not think I'm funny no matter what I do. There are others who like me and respect and like that I'm doing something different. It's connected to matter of race, because it always is, when you're black."

"I talk about race. That's part of my life. It doesn't define me. I define it. It's not the only aspect of me. I am a black person. I deal with issues of race. I get comparisons to Chris Rock a lot. People like to compare what they're seeing to what they've seen. Sometimes it's easier to process you if they can liken you to someone they've seen. I get a lot of comments like, 'He's a young, black comic like Rock or Dave Chappelle,' who I think I'm nothing like. People think I look like him (Chappelle). I disagree. He's just the most visible black person they've seen."

Regarding his material and approach to dealing with race, Baron went on to say, "Depending on the issue, it's mostly through satire. I try to take an absurdist twist on it sometimes. It's one of those things that are there, but no one likes to talk about it."

"He's a fresh voice. He is extremely energetic and gets the crowd going in a way that a lot of comics can't, while maintaining his sensibility. He doesn't compromise the integrity of his material. He does HIS stuff and brings the audience to him in an amazing way. He energizes them. He reads the audience, though still maintains his alternative sensibility. He's one of my very favorite comics in New York."
- Abe Smith, comedian

Things are going well for Baron. The evening before we were set to meet, I was going over some notes at home in front of the TV, talking with my wife. And there he was; on my TV in Coca Cola spot. It was like that scene in The Shining where Jack Nicholson is alone in the bar, lifts his head, says, "Hi, Lloyd" and a ghostly image of Lloyd the bartender responds.

"I haven't had a day job for about a year, year and a half. Since I started doing commercials, I get by on the money from that and playing colleges and the random acting or voiceover gig here or there."

With all the hustling it takes to make it in this biz, he's admitted to the need to make adjustments in keeping up with the details. "I'm horribly bad with that stuff. I'm one of those people who can't commit to putting stuff in a planner. It's hard for me to write shit down. I'm amazingly scatterbrained. I've become bad at returning phone calls and emails because I'm running around. A lot of the shows I do, there's no pay. I just get on stage and do it. It's like this show. I like the place. I like the comics. I like the people. I like the area. Yeah, I like to do it. There are places I haven't done because they don't know who I am. It's going to take something different to get them to know who I am. Every booking I get, I put it in my calendar. On any given day I'll have two auditions for something different. Then I'll have shows every night. I go home, check MySpace and leave the next day. At home, I just chill. I really don't do anything because I know I'm going to be running around for the rest of the day. I'm trying to get better at it."

"I have a legit agent (for television and film) and a commercial agent that I got out of theatre school. Everything involving comedy is me. I started working with a college agent, Sophie Kay, which has worked out really well. When I got to New York, I did bringer shows at Gotham and Stand-Up New York, because I thought that was all there was. I killed at Gotham when Jim Gaffigan was the pro at that show. There were a bunch of people there shooting a documentary and Lisa Leingang (formerly of NBC) was there. She called me the next day and we developed a relationship. Then I got a call to audition for Aspen at the Improv. I went up, did six minutes, and killed. Got a callback at Stand-Up New York and heard from Lisa. She suggested I try some different material. I didn't feel that comfortable. I just bombed. I thought they were done with me."

"The next year, I heard people were auditioning for Aspen again. I figured I would be forever in their memory as the guy who fuckin' bombed. I went back to the Improv. I had more experience, had been playing more underground rooms. I had more material and was feeling more confident. I got a call from Kirsten Ames of the HBO Aspen Fesitval. She gave me a few notes and told me change some things up. I got another callback. Then another callback. Then I got it; which was really cool. I was one of only three from New York. It was a year-long process."

Baron came to New York following his college days in Boston after growing up in Las Vegas. "In Vegas, you can't do anything if you're underage. I don't know how many times I walked into a casino and found that if you stand in one spot for five seconds, three security guards will come up to you and ask where your parents are. That's an age thing. It's kind of a boring place. There's so much to do, that there's nothing to do. But, at the same time, all the stuff that tourists come to do, you can't do if you're under 18. It's hot. It's a driving culture. It's always growing. I went to a performing arts high school. I got serious about theatre, did a lot of plays. I was pretty much the class clown. That's really when I started doing stand-up, in high school, because I used to watch it all the time. I'd come to school quoting jokes, always giving credit. I used to watch The A-list and Dr. Katz. The first time I did stand-up, it was a one-act festival that I directed and also acted as stage manager and light design. Before each show, I got up and did some stand-up. I did four jokes by other people: Emo Philips, Marc Maron, Anthony Clark and Eddie Izzard."

"I never experienced a lot of racial problems in Boston because I was in college there. In college there's tolerance and diversity and blah, blah, blah. When I go back, I'll experience it in certain neighborhoods. Recently, I was trying to get a cab and five cabs pulled over, then when I put my hand on the handle, they literally pulled away. Now that kind of thing happens all over, it happens in New York. But in this one incident, it happened five times. I was very angry because I was late and I missed my show. Boston's a bit more segregated. New York's the most ethnically desegregated place in the world."

"After theatre school, I went to the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Nancy Piccione, the casting director at Manhattan Theatre Club, came and I was invited to come to New York and audition for Drowning Crow. It was an all-black adaptation of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. I auditioned for Marion McClinton, a legendary director who directed a lot of August Wilson's plays. I hand to prove I could rap and dance. I got the part. It was a small part, but it was huge. It starred Alfre Woodard and Anthony Mackie, who's becoming huge."

I haven't met a lot of comics like Baron. He quotes Chekhov and performs rap tunes about Chicken Marsala. He's constantly in motion. His sound effects pump life and energy into all his riffs, including a particularly chilling one involving television ads for the U.S. Armed Forces (which goes back to making the audience slightly uncomfortable).

He's a very young man who majored in theatre and has had significant initial success. To say he is very confident of his abilities would be an understatement. He's brash. Cocky. Whatever. People who have known him longer or better can attest to that or rebuke me if they wish. There's a common expression you hear in entertainment that states, "It's not bragging if you can back it up." I've found that more typically describes a path toward becoming an asshole than successful. However, in stand-up, the audience feeds off that confidence. It needs to know you can pull it off. Baron uses his bravado to his benefit. An example of this would be the show he did at Piano's that evening. This was not Baron Vaughn at his best. Taking into account the small crowd and nature of a small club showcase, he was working on a lot of new stuff. Some of it went great. Some didn't. He took longer pauses in between riffs. While making small talk with the crowd he tugged repeatedly at his trademark knit hat and rubbed his forehead as he tried to decide whether to do this bit or that. I wouldn't call it nerves. I would call it work. Sometimes it's seemless and other times it's not. Even with that, he had the most consistently funny set of the program.

"I'll continue to audition. I want to write movies. I'm working on some scripts with my friends. I want get on a late night show or get on TV and do comedy as myself. I messed up my relationship with Comedy Central, which is a long story, but, I want to do something to say I've taken another step as a comedian. Aspen was a big deal. It gives me another piece of legitimacy. I'd like to do more road work. I'd like to do more clubs where I get paid. On television. Here's my name. Here's my face. Here's my material."

"Most of my material comes out of the air. Like a lot of comics I write on stage. I'll have an idea. I play around with it on stage until it's interesting to me and it works. Sometimes, I'll sit down and look at those ideas. I don't write a lot. That's a problem. A lot of it is in my head. I'll look at it and ponder, play with it in my head, imagine how the audience reacts, imagine what I will say, and try that out. Then I keep replaying it in my head, always think about it when I'm walking down the street or on the train."

"I'm hopeful of my personal future. I'm cynical of our future as a society. I'm a little afraid of success. I'm a little afraid of making it. Then, I know there are expectations. The higher you get, the higher you fall. Part of me is comfortable with being obscure. I've got some buzz in New York. For me, it's an eventuality. I just have to stay consistent and stay in-touch. It's really easy for a comedian, when he gets big, to lose touch; when their fans approve of their stuff so much, they can't tell if it's funny anymore or not. Everything they say to their fans is gold, so they think that. It's hard to get a real gauge."

His material does not work for everybody. I'm sure his physical bit about impregnating wives of Republican senators would not play in parts of our nation's heartland. But, New York's not the heartland. "New York audiences, I think are the hardest audiences. They've got that, 'Oh, we've seen it all' attitude. New York is just full of sensory overload. So much distraction, so it's hard to get someone's attention. In Boston, it's such a great place to start out. People still go out to shows. There's a lot more room for comics to fail; trial and error, the way comics are supposed to. Not so much in New York. There's a lot more comics. There are more rooms, but not a lot of them are legit. On the road, it's like, 'A comedy show? I'll go.' Like it's an event to them. Whereas, in New York, people couldn't be less bothered and when they come they're harder to win over. Makes me more intelligent as a comedian, more biting sometimes."

When I asked Baron about his family, his face lit up with quiet pride. "My family loves it. My parents totally get it. My mom is the first person I run a new idea by." As a parent I have to say I find that sentiment refreshing.

"I listen to other people's acts and memorize the hell out of it. I study their structure. I love comedy and I also like not repeating people. Some comics don't like to see other comics. I have to, because I don't want to say the same kind of stuff. They're really supportive. They (his parents) call and say, "I saw you on this, or I saw you on that."

"Harold Pinter, my favorite playwright. People call it the Comedy of Menace because they're really dark comedies and dank. They make audiences be with the show and themselves. A lot of people go to shows who just want to escape. I don't agree with that. I am sitting in this seat AND watching this play. I don't know if I consciously bring that in, some of it seeps in. I have a lot of ideas of ideas about the audience and participation."

"It's (stand-up) a means of expression. It is an art. Comics are artists and most artists are messed up because they have a need to express. There's always a beast that needs to get out, to be creating. There's actually a line in The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. This writer, Trigorin, an old writer who's been around, used to be innovative, now just settled into things that are successful, kind of feels that he wants to be young and artistic again. But, he's good. There's a line about what it means to be a writer, "I'm a cannibal consuming my own life." Everything he sees, is always going into that filter of trying to make a story out of it. With most comics, everything that happens to them, they're always trying to turn it into something for the stage. Not necessarily to joke. People say, 'Oh, you joke. You kid. You're trying to escape. You disconnect.' That's not it for me. For me, it's more a thing to connect, to address problems in the world and within myself; my own experience. I don't think that's crazy or messed up. It's more normal than what most people do which is like never to speak up or say anything. They just hold that stuff in. They work jobs they don't feel fulfilled in."

"Coming from a theatre background, I'm really, really interested in forcing the audience to look within themselves as opposed to doing a crazy show and distracting them. That's why I like Pinter. He undoes your expectations about what a performance is supposed to be. Someone like Pryor, he was never afraid. Period. He was not afraid to be vulnerable, to say, 'This is what I know and what I don't know.' He revealed himself and made people see things in a different way. They entertained viewpoints outside their own. With humor, it lasts longer. Laughter makes it go into your long term memory. That's something I aspire to be; somebody who can transcend and talk about anything. Pryor made his heart attack hilarious, drug use hilarious, setting himself on fire. In Prior's sketch show, he did this bit where he goes into a gun shop and every gun he goes by has a different voice and they talk to him. It's not funny, it's just deep. There's a rifle that talks in a Southern voice and a pistol with a German voice. Every time he touches one, it tells the story of what it is. It's really dark and disturbing and makes you say, 'Oh, shit.'"

"I have a joke about working for a black boss that hated me, 'Roscoe P. Lazycoon'. I love that joke because the ending always gets silence. Mentions lynching. I'm not sure it does exactly what I want it to do. But I'm glad it does something. I still want people to laugh and get what I'm saying. You can't make people SO uncomfortable. The comics who do it so well, can talk about any issue. Like a Hicks or Stanhope, Louis CK. They can literally talk about anything and still have the audience on their side. Even if they say, 'I disagree with that, but it's fucking hilarious.'"

"Audiences may be in a bad mood. A lot of the time, if I walk into a room and there are five people, I think it is not going to go well. I've been asked to do comedy at music shows, in between bands, and I think it's going to go horribly and it always does. There are times, when the audience is hot and I don't do well. That's when I blame myself. There's no excuse. I'll bail out on my own stuff. If I don't hit it in the beginning, you can see my confidence dwindle. I feel like the audience picks that up too. They don't go with me. They feel bad for me and wanted to laugh."

"A lot of people say, 'Oh, you should crack a joke about this. You didn't talk enough about that. They give you notes.' I did a show at The Improv. I did really well. I could tell I was affecting them. A woman came up to me afterwards and said, 'You have a lot of potential. You should drop the racial stuff.' I just pointed at my skin and said, 'Oh, it happens.'"

"Where does she get off to give me a note? In the Seinfeld episode where a woman heckles him and he goes to her office and heckles her; every comic wants to do that."

To learn more about Baron and see where he's performing, visit baronvaughn.com or myspace.com/baronvaughn