#200 - From Punchlines to Parenthood: Adam Bush on the Art of Comedy and Balancing Family Life

Ever wonder what it's like to juggle punchlines and parenthood? Tune in as my hilarious friend, Adam Bush, unpacks the path from TV writer to stand-up comedy stardom. Our chat takes a twist through the corridors of Adam's forthcoming Dry Bar special, and his new special "Who Brought The Kid",  sprinkled with tales of touring with the electrifying Preacher Lawson and mentoring fledgling comics at Tulsa's Looney Bin. Adam's mantra of timing and tenacity gives us a peek behind the curtain of comedy's rigorous demands and riotous rewards.

As Adam and I swap stories, we unravel the artistry of crowd work — that unpredictable dance between comic and spectator that can spiral into an evening's showstopper. We muse over familial foundations that bolster a comic's leap of faith into full-time folly and the delicate balance of nurturing personal relationships amidst the call of the spotlight. Our conversation meanders from Adam's early days crafting kids' TV to current escapades, revealing the tightrope walk of creative ambition and domestic dedication.

Capping off our session, Adam shines a light on the poignant threads woven into his narrative comedy special, a mosaic of humor and heartache forged from personal tribulations and triumphs, all slated to hit YouTube. Dive into the power of autobiographical hilarity and catch a glimpse of Adam's special soon to grace the Dry Bar app and the special, Who Brought The Kid, on YouTube, May 17th. 

Adam Bush contact info:  https:///www.heyadambush.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Comedy Career and Crowd Work Mastery
• 8:03 Stand-Up Comedy and Family Support
• 12:02 Comedian's Life on the Road
• 21:26 Autobiographical Storytelling With Comedy Influence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Scott Townsend Show brought to you by Pizza man Productions.

Speaker 2: 0:07

Hey, this is Scott Townsend. Welcome back to the Scott Townsend Show. And today I have with me stand-up comedian, all-around great guy, personal friend of mine, Adam.

Speaker 3: 0:16

Bush Super nice.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Hi Adam.

Speaker 3: 0:18

Hi Scott, how are you? I'm doing great and you I'm doing great. Man, I'm having a great time time. I'm off the road today, so just hanging out with the fam.

Speaker 2: 0:26

So we're we're doing great, great you, you've got uh, you're a busy, you're a busy little boy right now. You've got a special coming out next month. I do uh, dry bar special coming out next month I know two specials in one month.

Speaker 3: 0:41

I no one should do that, but they were filmed two years apart. So you know, that's just. I don't know. That's kind of how it works, I guess.

Speaker 2: 0:50

You've gone into full-time standup.

Speaker 3: 0:53

I have. So I still write on a couple of television shows, which has been a big passion of mine. But yeah, I'm especially busy with standup right now, touring with Preacher Lawson. We, yeah, I'm especially busy with stand-up right now, um, touring with preacher lawson. We've. This is month seven and I just got dates through the rest of the summer. So you know, soon will be a whole year. So you know big, big goal and dream of a stand-up and I'm really honored, really thankful on the road.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Two specials coming out, full-time stand-up position uh and teaching comedy a little bit that.

Speaker 3: 1:30

that one was kind of a byproduct. I you know I. So every comic wants to have a home club, a place where they can walk in the door and be able to get on stage just about any time, especially if they're working on some sort of submission. I've been very blessed to have a great relationship with the Looney Bin which is here in Tulsa, which is a solid club, and Mason, over there the owner, has been incredibly supportive of my career.

Speaker 3: 1:57

But as I got busier, I'm their house comic, which means they call me a lot but I've been on the road a lot, and so he asked me could you take a lot? But I've been on the road a lot? And so he asked me could you take some of what you've been learning, give it to some of the other comics so that we can have, you know, a new group of people who can mc and feature and, you know, do that sort of thing? And it's been great for me because I've I'm getting to kind of look through what it is that I've been blessed to learn for a while now and so can you really teach somebody to be funny?

Speaker 3: 2:31

Well, I would say that's probably up for debate. I'm probably the wrong guy to ask for ask that question. I don't, I don't really know, but what I do think you can teach, and what the class is predominantly focused on, is how to be a professional. And so when you get into comedy, my experience has been that there are a lot of people who are funny or have the potential to be funnier, but they lose a lot of opportunities because they just don't carry themselves in a way that would be expected in any sort of organization. Because it's kind of a funny job, people do things that you would never would never fly at like a regular corporate job or any other sort of job, like you can't work at starbucks and be be drunk. Yet there are comics professionals too, like who are wildly successful, who get on stage and are inebriated yeah, so uh yeah, so a lot of what we're talking about.

Speaker 3: 3:29

in fact, I was working on the syllabus today. A lot of what we're talking about today is just how to um, uh, what was what? One of my points is, uh, how to not be a nuisance, because no club owner wants to book someone who's annoying, and um. So a lot of what we're talking about is just, you know, networking and um, you know how how to do the job, cause it's a job, it's fun, but it's a lot of work.

Speaker 3: 3:57

Yeah, how to show up, how to you'd be surprised at how like how many people lose the gig because they don't show up on time.

Speaker 2: 4:03

It's insanity wow, yeah, I was looking at your uh uh, one of your uh video clips. Uh, with uh I don't know who this was. You were in pittsburgh and talking about crowd work. Just for a second, you, uh, you had this guy. Uh was, this wasn't a setup, was it? I mean, it was this legit guy You're talking about the guy who robbed yeah, robbed yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:32

No, it was not a setup. No, not at all. Yeah, so to give everybody context, we were at the Pittsburgh Improv. I was with Preacher Lawson and during my stay I just regularly ask people has anybody in this room ever been to jail or prison? And most of the time I got a bunch of clips like this. Most of the time people are like yeah, I went to jail for a hot check, like one time this lady was like I was like what did you write the check for? And she's like some pizza and like it's silly stuff, like that's a ridiculous thing. You know to go to jail jail for for her to do and to go to jail for. But I, I asked him, this one guy yelled that he went for robbery, which is, I mean, this is a legit crime, I mean that's prison. And uh, I asked him how long he'd been.

Speaker 2: 5:16

He was there 21 years let me see if I can share this. Okay, we're gonna let it roll here we go here. Here's Adam Bush, pittsburgh dealing with pretty. This was pretty hilarious.

Speaker 1: 5:32

What'd you go to prison for. Robbery.

Speaker 3: 5:38

I've never been more excited, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Wait, wait, hold on. Okay, no listen, I'm going to give you time Wait hold on, okay?

Speaker 3: 5:44

no listen, I'm going to give you time, you don't worry.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Don't give me time, I give enough time. Oh, all right.

Speaker 3: 5:57

We're going to have that guy close the show after Preacher. Come on now. Yeah, can you just tell me what the who? I don't know how do you? What was? What were the details of the robbery, sir?

Speaker 1: 6:12

You standing on the corner you selling drugs. I'm gonna get you.

Speaker 3: 6:19

All right. Couple things I need you to know. Number one we might let you leave first tonight. How long are you in 21 years? A couple things I need you to know. Number one we might let you leave first tonight. How long are you in 21 years?

Speaker 1: 6:30

Oh, I got a lot of people, but I mean we good now, or Maybe I'm here for my 61st birthday. Come on All right?

Speaker 3: 6:52

Yeah, this is probably going to be one of the better ones, sir, is what I'm going to do? Yeah, all right. I got to get out of here for several reasons.

Speaker 2: 7:01

Yeah, that was really great. I really love that. You know, crowd work has got to be its own, just its own uh uh thing. You know thinking on your feet, being able to, you know, ride along with them as they're, as you guys are, going back and forth.

Speaker 3: 7:19

Yeah, I there's. Listen, I'm not the master of crowd work by any means. Um, there are incredible. I mean there are whole specials of people who do an hour's worth of crowd work and I will say, any comic worth their salt is going to watch that clip and they're going to be like that clip is about that guy.

Speaker 3: 7:37

That is less about me being a good stand up, me being a good standup, Um, but uh, I I think what it does maybe showcase, at least for me, is that I have been given a lot of opportunities lately, which have been I'm very thankful for, and with that just becomes the hours, the 10,000 hours of being a comedian and being able to interact in those situations. I, uh, I there there does seem to be a formula for a lot of crowd work and I watch that and there's a couple of things that I see in there that I am following suit. A lot of times it's about allowing that person just to talk and just giving them sort of the floor and not interrupting them, and I think I'm probably pretty good at that.

Speaker 3: 8:29

Yes, generous, you know that's really generous what I think is what I, what I where I do think I could grow is there are guys that are just wittier than me, and there was like a good example is somebody comment that video went crazy on TikTok? And somebody just said that that guy stole the show? And I was so mad at myself for not saying that on stage because that's just so funny to me and anyway, so, yeah, so I, you know, and you know I experienced that moment and I just thought, more than even like being awesome for me, like that's just awesome experience for anybody to have. Like there were people that commented on it. They're like I was there, that was an awesome moment and it was. That guy is incredible and so, yeah, so.

Speaker 3: 9:25

And then you know it's a free clip because you're not burning material and you know I'm not going to put that in a special, obviously. So, yeah, that's that is my most viewed clip to date. It's at like over a quarter of a million views right now on tiktok and and so, yeah, so I'm glad I was, I'm glad I was in the room for it you know, somebody asked jack benny why?

Speaker 2: 9:42

uh, somebody asked Jack Benny why he gave away all his best jokes to his supporting cast and he said well, it's because they're on my show and you're watching the Jack Benny show, right? Yeah, that's good, very generous, but he also had a method to his madness, oh yeah. Yeah, what's life like on the road. Let me back up. You know, when you first announced that you were going to be a full-time stand-up, I'm I'm being a little facetious when I say I'm sure your wife was ecstatic um, yeah, she was incredibly supportive.

Speaker 3: 10:26

I'll say that, yeah, and I I'm not saying that like it's not, that's not tongue-in-cheek I uh, years ago wanted to write a television show for kids and, uh, worked on it for six years, crowdfunded part of it. It's called Pete and Penelope it's very Sesame street esque and she was really supportive and I've I've made this joke so many times that she just said, hey, as long as you pay our mortgage, that's fine, which I always make the joke Like. She didn't even say the electric or the water bill, so like which I feel like she would have not liked it if I didn't pay those um and uh and you know we were no kids, two incomes, like we had more money to spare, and I did, and I worked on it for six years and uh and I, I sold it and and we made a whole season and and and more and we'll we'll make another season and it streams on prime now. I think that gave her a lot of confidence in me saying that I wanted to do something and actually putting in the work, because there are a lot of people like I'd love to run a television show and they just don't do it, you know, for whatever reason there's. A lot of people say I want to be a professional stand-up comedian and they just don't do it. And that gave me a lot of clout with her. And again she just said, however, in her own way, do it. But, um, you know, you're you know and I know this, but our family comes first. We got two kids now and, yeah, you know more, I think our budget every month is triple what it was back then. Um, it did help.

Speaker 3: 12:02

I, after I sold Pete and Penelope, I got another television show. So I worked at a church which you know for 15 years and it was just coming to an end and right as I was leaving I got signed on to another television show from an independent studio for about a year and a half. So I've been a full-time standup and writer for two years. So I had that for a year and a half. So if standup was doing nothing, I was working on that and so it really was, you know, tremendous favor. And now I'm at the point where I do still write for a lot of working on another television show right now Somebody else is and I do a lot of stuff like that, but thankfully also the standup is significant enough that I you know I don't have to.

Speaker 3: 12:54

I mean I say have to, I don't have to. I'm not working a job that I don't want to work. And I'm not against that, if, if look, this is seasonal. I don't know what the summer is going to look like. I'll I'll throw newspapers if I have to, but thankfully right now I don't have to, so all right, yeah you're also busy with uh.

Speaker 2: 13:12

You mentioned your kid child, uh, dad and lucio. Is that a ongoing? Is that going to be ongoing or is this?

Speaker 3: 13:22

I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 13:23

You know, when I got up and when I got into standup, we me and my my pal, chris Munch, who's been on your podcast, he's also an actor he, uh, we did a podcast for a year called risk it for the biscuit and it was all about just our journey. Starting out, he was, he got, he blew up on tiktok and then I was doing stand-up and uh, and and after we did that for about a year, which is what we set out to do I was like we, the third, not just me, the three of us were like you know what? I think our, our efforts right now would be better suited in writing, and so we stepped back from that. But luna would see, luna's five. She's my five-year-old daughter. She's incredibly extroverted and she was so just enthralled with just the cameras and the audio. She's always quote, unquote, making podcasts on her iPad, teaching people. She likes to teach how to do things. And she just asked. She said, dad, could we do a podcast? And I was like you got it, girl, and so just asked. She said Dad, could we, could we do a podcast? And I was like you got it, girl. And so we did one episode.

Speaker 3: 14:25

I let her pick the. Let her pick the theme. She wanted to talk about brains the first week, and then the second week she wanted to talk about school and she's got another. She wants to do two more. She wants to do one on jokes and she wants to do two more. She wants to do one on jokes and she wants to do one on doctors and nurses, and so I'm not.

Speaker 3: 14:45

I don't. We don't do it every wednesday, yeah, or anything. It's just like like this week's a little crazy because she's got swimming lessons. But, uh, you know, probably when I get back into town after this weekend I'll be like you want to do it, and if she wants to do it, great, I, I do it because I love her and I some. I do so much material about her on the road that it is nice that when people ask me about her, um, I'll say hey, I currently just running on the risk it for the biscuit page on on wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah, um, but you know, if she wants to keep doing it, we'll move it over and you know, if she doesn't want to do it, I'll stop it.

Speaker 3: 15:21

It's right up to her. My dad was 51 when he died. It was. It was unexpected. People would ask how did he pass away? My brother would just look him in the eye and very solemnly go. Well, he exploded.

Speaker 2: 15:51

My brother's humor is very dark. So, life on the road man. What does a comedian do all day? You're, you're full-time, you're working in the evenings? Um, I imagine, yeah. And the day when you sleep all day, what does a comedian do all day? Sleep well I will.

Speaker 3: 16:13

I will say, uh, where I'm at, so I'm a feature. So, um, people who a little inside baseball if you, if you are kind of following a comedian's journey comedians start out as host or an mc. That's the bottom of the barrel, um, and then you become a middle, which is feature. So if you're in a club, the first person that comes out generally there are lots of different ways the show goes, but generally the first person will do 10 or 15 minutes. They're also in in charge of, like, house rules, like, uh, you know who's up, that sort of thing at the club the middle is the sweet spot. They call it the sweet spot because it's about 25 to 20 to 30 minutes, so it's a significant amount of time. But I wasn't in charge of selling tickets, like, no one's coming to see me, they're coming to see the headliner, and then the headliner will do 45 minutes to an hour.

Speaker 3: 17:13

And I did a gig in Tulsa at another club with Preacher Lawson, who got famous on America's Got Talent. I don't know how many years ago seven years ago or so, I think it was like 2017. And he just blew up and he is so funny, so funny, and he's, for the most part clean. I would say he's a clean comic, um, and anyway he after after I did five shows with him, uh, I thought I'd never see him again. But then his manager called a couple of weeks later and said, hey, we're looking for somebody to go out on the road with us. And I was like I'd love to. So I've been out on the road with him and so I say all that to say what you do during the day in my position is largely I'm on his time. I mean he's the one paying me and so I and he is a go getter. It is exhausting. We get up in the morning, we go to, we go work out. I have never worked out until I got on the road with him.

Speaker 3: 18:12

We work out, we shoot videos during the day regularly. He'll have an idea for, like, hey, I want to make these funny videos about relationship advice because he's not in a relationship, so that's funny. Or you know, I want to do a faux date kind of thing, and so you know, I have a video background, so I shoot all my shows, I shoot all his shows, I cut all his clips, I cut my clips and then I do like extra video work for him. So yeah, and then we could I mean, we go back, get ready. And then I got to be at the club at somewhere, depending on the day, between four and six, to set up our cameras for the night. And if we have a show at seven, we got to be ready to roll. And so I do my set, I make sure that the cameras are good for him. I'll film a little bit of crowd work for him, like if, if he's talking to somebody in the crowd, I'll grab my camera and shoot the person. And then there's a merch table and I sell merch and he sells merch, and so I typically have my camera and my merch and so I'm like checking people out and then I like reach over and like shoot an interaction with him with a, with a, you know, with a fan, that sort of thing.

Speaker 3: 19:23

And then we back up at midnight because we do two shows a night and go back, get to bed at one, get back up at seven or eight and I have a family, so I get up an hour or two earlier so that I can have face time with them when I'm out on the road. So it's so tiring. It's he. I told you this, but he said something the first or second time we were out. He's like what are you talking about? We go to work at six and I'm like we yeah, it is a job and that is something that, um, and I just wasn't, it wasn't on my radar. I thought when I go out, you know we're going to go, it's at 10, 15 at night, and I'm like, is it canceled, which it never is? Can we go to bed?

Speaker 3: 20:28

and you know it's a first world problem, but it is time. And I'll say, one big thing about it is the travel because, like I got it easy this weekend I'm we're in kansas city, so I'm gonna drive to Kansas City. That's a piece of cake, yeah, but last week we did Kansas City or Kansas and then down to Waco.

Speaker 2: 20:52

And so like my hometown.

Speaker 3: 20:53

Oh, Waco is your hometown.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:55

I went down there and did a thing for the eclipse. So flights and they're canceled and, like you, travel so much, so much, yeah, and it's awesome, and it's. You know that that's one of the he's one of the reasons we work out. As he said, if we're going to be on the road, we got to eat, right, yeah, and we got to work out, otherwise we'll we'll destroy ourselves and it's true yeah, so let's talk about your uh special uh.

Speaker 2: 21:21

Who brought the kid? Uh, yeah, what's this all about? What uh?

Speaker 3: 21:26

when I got into comedy, I knew I wanted to do more than jokes. I love jokes, but I wanted to tell a story. I'm a huge mike berbiglia fan. Uh, he is the reason I'm even a comedian to this day. Um, in fact, I got to uh see him perform last night and we spent some time together. I was just thanking him for, you know, even helping me get set down this path. But he tells stories. He's not the only one.

Speaker 3: 21:54

There's a lot of comics that do like linear stories, but I wanted to do a narrative. It was always my goal and big insecurity I've always had in my life is this time that someone, when I was in high school, just said I walked in the door and they just said who brought the kid? And just this very demeaning kind of you know response to my presence, and that I've watched. That insecurity just just follow me in different moments of my life, including like when I was writing the television show and different things that I wanted to do and I, every time I years. I worked on crafting this almost hour long narrative and when it was, when I felt like it was ready, I filmed it at the Chimera Ballroom, which is downtown Tulsa, which is a very special spot to me, means a lot to my family, and took us a while to dial it in and get it. Get it ready, but it's ready. And so on May 17th it'll premiere on YouTube and you'll be able to see it on my website, heyadambushcom, and there'll be tons of clips on my social media, which is at heyadambush. But but yeah, it's just my first step into the, this kind of um, autobiographical storytelling and um, yeah, that's what it's about. It does I.

Speaker 3: 23:33

I tell people it's about insecurities, death and comedy and, uh, you know it's a big, a big part of it is about my father, who passed away 14 years ago and, um, the difference in the way that he was encouraging very versus the discouragement that I felt in different settings. So I think my hope is that a lot of people connect with it, especially if they've lost somebody that they love. I miss my dad a ton. It's been 13 years, like to the point that I have. You know I've romanticized the dad Like my mom who's sitting right there. She was just as big a part of Thank you for her. My mom was just as big a part of my life, you know, as my dad was. But you know I wrote this special about my dad.

Speaker 2: 24:24

So, mom, if you want your own special, you got the dry, and then there's Dry Bar, which I think a lot of people know about now. Clean Axe.

Speaker 3: 24:40

Yep.

Speaker 2: 24:41

Does it seem like there's a lot of older guys on that?

Speaker 3: 24:44

there are. Yeah, there are a lot of old guys. I think that, um, I think a lot of older. I think it's for two reasons. I think that a lot of older guys they're just the comics. They just typically are a little cleaner. But the second thing is a lot of the acts, the comics that are on dry bar, aren't? They don't work clean 100 of the time like I do. Um, there's a few. Leanne morgan, obviously, is probably be at the top of that list. She's completely clean and she has a dry bar. But brian bates, who's on the nataline podcast but the older guys have been doing it for a while have 25 minutes of clean material. So a lot of times that's they're just drivers just looking for, like, who can work clean for 25 minutes, and it's just not a lot of people. And so people who are a little bit, who've been doing it a little longer, like I think I can put 25 minutes together. So, yeah, that's what you get, yeah it's awesome.

Speaker 2: 25:41

So if anybody wanted more information about you you've mentioned it earlier uh, they, you've got the who brought the kid coming out may 7th, may, 17th, may 17th on youtube. Yeah, dry bar special. Where's, where do we, where do you go to see?

Speaker 3: 25:56

yeah, so, yeah, so you'll. You can see it on the dry bar app, it'llbar app. It's May 9th is when it will premiere, and you can get a free trial to Drybar, you know, to the app, so you can watch that for free. And then, if you follow me, they give me a code that I'll post in a couple of weeks that you can use, I think even for a free trial, but you'll see clips as well. And then, after like a year or so, they released the whole thing on YouTube for free for everybody to watch. But yep, that's where it's going to be. And then eventually it'll be on Peacock, which cause, cause? Peacock just picked up all the dry bar seasons, and so I don't know when that'll be a probably be a while, but that'll be great.

Speaker 2: 26:38

That's awesome. Good luck with all of that. I know you're, you've put in, uh, you put in the time, uh, we're trying major chops and uh you're, you're really kicking it right now. It's kind of fun to watch from the sidelines, and so I appreciate it well, thank you, and you've been such a big support the whole time.

Speaker 3: 26:57

This is the third time, I think, I've been on the pod and so yeah yeah, so I'm so appreciative of of that and uh, yeah, we're just gonna, you know, just keep going, be on the lookout, go to my, go to my website, sign up for my email list. You'll get like links to everything, as well as, like, when I'm in your town, uh, whether it's with preacher or me headlining a gig like you'll be one of the first to know cool, cool.

Speaker 2: 27:20

Well, for Adam Bush, this is Scott Townsend. Thanks for watching and listening to the Scott Townsend Show. Have a great day, everything's going to be all right and we'll talk to you later.

Speaker 1: 27:32

The Scott Townsend Show is a Deetso man production. For more episodes, visit the Scott Townsend Show YouTube channel. Listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.