Cory Kahaney joins us to share her insights on navigating the comedy business after 30 years in the game.

Key Takeaways:

• Cory emphasizes that being a good comic alone isn't enough for success; self-promotion is key.
• It's crucial for comedians to adapt and evolve with the changing landscape of comedy.
• Networking and building genuine relationships are vital in the comedy industry for growth.
• Stage time is essential; aiming for eleven sets a week can accelerate your progress.
• Creating original content and developing your unique voice will help you stand out.
• Use social media effectively to grow your audience and promote your work.

Follow Cory on IG: https://www.instagram.com/ckahaney/

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What's goody, hot breathiverse?

Welcome back to Hot Breath Live, our weekly livestream where we answer your comedy questions.

Me, comedian Joel Byers with co host comedian Yoshi.

So not on these live streams.

Excuse Yoshi there.

eastern time on our YouTube channel and ask our questions directly to us or to our special guests like we have today, 30 years in the comedy game, just dropped a brand spanking new special with comedy dynamics called Antique Joke Show, Hot Brethren and sister.

And welcome to the hot breath verse, the one and only Corey Kahaney, everyone.

Let's go.

Game on game.

So in the pre show show, for those of you that are watching or listening to this podcast after the fact, because you don't join our live streams for some reason, which you should.

Yeah, Corey already dropped a gym.

She said there is no karma in comedy.

Was those those words?

I believe so.

Please, now that we're officially live, put these kids on game.

What do you mean by that?

Well, I mean, if you think being a good person going to help you in the business, it's not.

Have you learned that the hard way?

Is that what you're saying?

Remember you said when we first met, like, I'm all about helping up and commerce?

Yeah.

There's no, like payback for it.

Just I've.

Maybe I could count on one hand the payback.

I guess it's more.

What I'm trying to say is it's so random.

Who gets touched with the star?

Sure.

Wand, you know, the Harry Potter wand.

And sometimes it just makes absolutely no sense.

Sometimes.

And sometimes people are really crappy people, but they, for whatever, they have a knack of being at the right place at the right time or, you know, they have a vibe about them that people want to get to know.

Being a great comic is not.

Well, I don't have to tell you because you're doing social media and all this stuff.

Being a great comic clearly isn't enough, right?

Yeah.

Sadly, the other side is now true.

Being a crappy comic with all the other stuff is enough.

Now.

How do you feel about that?

I mean, you've seen comedy for the past 30 years and like, at a certain point you work, you get really good at the craft and now it's like, all right, what?

What now?

What else do I have to do?

I got good at my job now what?

You know, I mean, maybe how has it evolved over the years and how are you trying to adapt now?

Well, I think it's always been, it's even from the beginning, self promotion has always been a weak spot for me.

Like, I had this fantasy that if you're funny, they'll find you, and that is no longer really the case.

And I remember I once ran into Dave Hotel on the street, comedian.

And, you know, as most comics, huge fan I am of his.

And I gave him a hug, and immediately, without any prompting, he just started, like, ranting about how he just wasn't really good at going on Facebook.

And I was like, man, I hear you.

And I could just tell it was, it was really hard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is crazy from that guy.

It was about ten years ago, and, you know, I think we were talking about somebody else that was very strong on the social media.

Let's just say that.

Yeah, yeah.

He was comparing despair.

He was comparing himself.

Yeah.

Have you ever considered quitting?

And how close did you get if you did?

I've gone up and down.

I have not.

But I will tell, this is the advice I give people that are on the fence about quitting.

I say, if the phone stops ringing, that's a really good hint that you need to stop doing this.

So if the phone doesn't ring or the text doesn't happen or the email and people don't want to book you, and it's all just an uphill battle after two years, you need to start thinking about it.

Interesting.

That is good perspective.

I think after the pandemic, I just kind of got, I got comfortable at home and was like, oh, man, do I want to be gone?

And I was really, like, I talked to Yoshi about it.

Like, I was kind of like, oh, my gosh.

I kind of worked all these years to get this point.

And then now that I'm back in the rhythm, I was like, oh, yeah, I love comedy.

And the bookings were always there.

It's not like I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs.

It was more of, like, that lifestyle.

And you mention it in your special as well.

Like, traveling is a lot of what we do, so that can become very taxing over the years.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

You know, I'm sure you've had a million comics give you the, you know, the line, we don't get paid to make people laugh.

We get paid to get there to make people.

You may be the first to say it on here, but I have heard that before.

Yeah, for sure.

So with your special.

Right.

So you're 30 years into the game with this special.

What was your process for?

Like, what, what was the idea behind this special.

First of all, great name.

Yes.

Just off the bat, freaking amazing name joke show.

Yeah.

And the premises are just so on point.

Like, big fan.

And one thing I will say, you are, you have speed.

Like your, your cadence is just, like, so fast.

And in watching it at home, my only thought was, oh, my God, you are a killer live.

How does the sort of version of.

Your live show, first of all, vast majority of New York based comics have, you know, sort of an inborn need to machine gun it out.

And part of the reason, part of the reason is, you know, we're all, we're fast walkers.

We're fast talkers to begin with.

But in New York, you don't want Lulz, lulz mean people are going to start talking.

And I don't mean, I don't mean hecklers.

I mean, there's going to be chitchat, and I don't have time for it.

So, you know, you have to pace it.

One of the things Chris Rock says is silence is actually the greatest compliment that an audience can give you because it means they're really listening.

All right?

And that I totally agree with.

They've all worked, and they've already been drinking, you know, all night.

And so if you give them any room for silence, they're going to start.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And how did the special, how did this special come about?

Is this your third or 4th?

4Th.

4Th.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cool.

Sorry to cut you off there.

Yeah, no, no.

You know, the, the old booker for Letterman, Dave.

Sorry.

Eddie Brill.

Yeah, he called me and he said, do you want to do a special?

Yeah.

Okay.

And, but, you know, Eddie, bro doesn't call you unless something is legit.

So it, you know, I was like, okay, yeah.

And it was, it was shortly after the pandemic, you know, or like, like when the world first opened up.

So it was tricky, you know.

Yeah.

What was your process?

I guess, like, when, what was your process in terms of the material that you put into this?

Like, did you think about the title first, or did you have, like, a basis?

Because your special has a through line, has, like, a theme through it, and it's very personal to you, but which is what I love about it.

How did you think about what to put on this special versus what you had in your other specials?

You know, I think I probably just took a joke that I thought was very emblematic of the special and that joke of, you know, you know, they don't make parts for this anymore where I'm sort of just, when this came out, bumpers could still take a hit at 25 miles an hour.

Yeah.

Eggs.

So many.

It's just so many.

And then, you know, I'm going to get it appraised.

I'm going to take the antiques and antiques roadshow.

And it's just, it's a fun moment with the audience.

Yeah.

It's actually not even, it's not even the greatest punchline.

It's just, it's just everybody's on board at that point, so let's just, let's just keep going with this.

And by the way, I don't love jokes like that.

I like jokes that really are, they have the surprise, they have the element of either a switch or, you know, or a callback of some kind.

But this one, it's just, we're all in it together.

It's strange.

It's a strange moment.

It's a nice moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We actually have some questions coming in.

We can get from the hot breath of earth here, but already, already putting us on game.

But like we said, the special is called antique joke show.

She released it through comedy dynamics.

You can get it on like Apple, Amazon.

You can really get it on all the platforms.

So definitely go check it out.

This is a comic 30 years in the game.

She's done all the late nights.

I mean, she's, this is a bonafide killer.

And you're gonna learn a lot just watching the special.

So the question I'm seeing here, as we're on the topic of joke writing, specifically from Adam Vail, asking, once you choose a premise, what techniques do you use to come up with ideas regarding that premise?

Do you use a listing technique?

Yeah.

How do you build out a, most.

Of the time, it's not the premise that is the core of my joke writing.

It's generally a line, you know, a funny line.

And I then built around it.

My process is always the same.

And I think any decent comic has a person in their life that they can go, is this anything?

And they pick up the phone and they say, is anybody doing anything like this?

And then you kind of deliver the line or a very loose interpretation of what you're thinking.

And they say, yeah, keep working on that.

That's something you should do.

And then the next step is, you know, I try it on my husband and I try it on my son, I try it on my daughter, and I try it out, you know, my doorman, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of vetting before I even try it on stage.

Oh, wow.

That's an interesting process because I don't know if there's a lot of people that do that in terms of just vetting everybody in their ecosystem before they do it on stage.

Most, I mean, we've seen some open mics, people do it the first time at the open mic.

You should have said this.

They're lying.

They did it.

I don't, I don't believe that.

I think most of them have tried it on somebody.

I think most people have tried it, even inadvertently, maybe with an Uber driver.

You don't know.

You've just tried it a little bit.

Or someone said, you know, that's funny.

And that's why they went back and they wrote it down.

You know, once, once you have, like, the funny line, how do you then start to build it out into, like we were referencing or, like a bit that's like, tag, tag, tag, tag.

How do you really start to flesh it out?

Other specific techniques or, you know, I.

Also, I don't have any problem with leaning on friends, you know.

Is there something more here?

Like, I'll give an example.

This is something I'm working on.

I'm doing, I'm doing a new joke night tonight in New York, and my husband and I were walking down the street and there was an adverb, an escape room, you know, and we're married, you know, we're together, like 27 years.

And I said, we should do that escape room.

And eternity looked at me and goes, we would never get out of the escape room because we'd be arguing so much.

Ask someone.

Push the button.

I don't know.

It doesn't matter.

And we would be fighting so much.

It was just a very funny idea.

So I'm going to play with that tonight.

I have a couple of thoughts on it.

I'll flesh it out and see.

And what's great about doing a new joke night or in, you know, for other people, I guess it's called an open mic, is you walk over to a comic and you think, you say, was that funny?

And they may give you something I'm very good at.

I always write down things for comics when they're working on material.

Try it.

Have you thought of this, you know, kind of thing as far the person who asked about the list joke?

Let's talk about that for a second.

So a list joke is a very, very specific formula, right?

It's a joke that doesn't actually have a punchline and you're just, you're just saying, you're just saying a lot of random punchlines until the audience just has to give it up.

And if you're so consistent and you give this kind of signal to the crowd that you're not going to stop and you're not invested in their response, that's when they give it to you.

But if you're doing two or three and you're like, wait a minute, nobody's laughing yet.

Oh, this is not quite going where I want it to go.

Not gonna work.

But, I mean, the greatest list joke of all is Dom Herrera is the greatest, you know, list joke, formula, comedian.

You know, I'm talking, I need, I need to watch, I mean, I'm familiar with Dom, but I'm actually, I don't think I've ever actually watched his comedy now that you say that.

Well, he was an unbelievable master and, yeah.

And very much, very much uses the list formula, you know.

Oh, and a lot.

Oh, I thought he had a specific joke about lists.

He, he does it a lot.

That's his style.

Well, definitely not in great health right now, so you may want to really try to go back and see things, you know, from the oughts, if you will.

Okay, great.

Yeah.

For people that aren't aware, that's Dom Herrera.

Dom.

I r r e r a.

Yeah, he's definitely worth someone checking out.

Another.

Just right there.

Yeah.

And then the, you know, I mean, if we're going to look at formulas, you know, with similes, metaphors, you know, I think the king is probably the.

Oh, my God.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Colin Quinn is the greatest for the analogies, similes and whatever.

Colin is phenomenal.

That's, I mean, that's, that's his brand.

I happen to, you know, like it as well.

But, you know, he, he's great at that.

How would you describe your style?

Like, what would, what would be kind of the style that, you know, you've done this for 30 something years.

Like, what's the thing that for you is like, oh, this is Corey style and this is where you've gotten to.

And that's like, you're master of.

Well, I believe, I believe I, my jokes all have to have a punchline.

I'm not interested so much in the, in selling a joke by attitude.

I try to tell people, you know, if you want, like, for example, a joke that is going to be in the middle of your tv set.

Right.

Because in the middle of every tv set, you got to have an applause break.

Just do so.

You know, you almost put the funniest joke in the middle and the second funniest of the clothes.

Almost.

But that middle joke, I think you should be able to lay down on the stage, look up at the ceiling, and say it into a mic, and it would work whether you're selling it or not.

Gotcha.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Basically, just.

Just raw joke.

Just a raw joke.

No attitude attached to it.

You should be saying, I like comedy, and that's the way I, you know, I aspire to.

I won't lie to you.

There's certain jokes that I do sell.

You know, I.

But, you know, look, let's, you know, maniscalco, okay?

Yeah.

He's a seller.

Yep.

He tells the jokes with the attitude and, and, and facial expressions and voices and things like that.

Again, he's, you know, I got nothing.

But here's it.

That, you know, that's, I was going to say something about karma anyway.

Just throwing it.

Karma has nothing to do with it.

Does he have good karma?

Are you.

Do you know something?

What do you know, Cory?

What do you know?

And then this speech from New York City is saying, who is she?

What did I say?

I think he just did a run of five shows at Madison Square Garden.

Who will show you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He is so amazing.

Every family member in my sphere has to say how much they love him.

And do I know him?

And so some of it is that, yes, he's very funny.

Yes.

Very talented, very prolific.

And then you're like, have you seen my special anti joke show?

Now?

Did you ever see funny people with Adam, you know, with Adam Sandler?

Uh huh.

The best for comedians, the best scene in the movie is he's laying by the pool in his Beverly Hills home, and his parents are there.

They've come in from Florida, and something about show business is being discussed.

And his father, just out of nowhere, says, you know, it was funny, Jackie Gleason.

And there's nothing wrong with what the father's saying.

He doesn't, he doesn't even mean it in it to be cruel.

But he there at his Beverly Hills home that has been bought and paid for by comedy.

By comedy.

Yep, yep, yep.

Yeah.

The disrespect is just so next level sometimes.

Yeah.

We have one as we're talking about style as well.

Like, we're talking with a Sebastian.

Zach Newford asks, do you choose a comedic style or does a style choose you.

If you're new, if you're starting out?

I say, try everything.

I mean, it's.

It's the most luxurious thing you've got going.

When you first start out as a comic, you can do, you can do voices, you can do characters, you could do props.

Please don't do props.

But you could.

Tell the episode, you.

Can do poems, you could do stuff with music.

You could try everything.

But ultimately, I think everyone that really is a comic that's meant to be a comic has been funny with their family at Thanksgiving.

Yeah, right.

And everyone has said, oh, my God, you're so funny.

You should be a comedian.

That's who you should be on stage.

How do you know you're on the right track?

Like, how did you start to tap into your and comedic voice?

Was it like a certain joke about a topic?

You're like, ooh, let me do more personal, or let me say them a certain way.

Like, when did you start to tap into yours?

What was that aha moment?

I think I was always doing comedy.

I just wasn't always doing it on stage.

It was, I mean, you know, I worked in food service before I.

I was a comic and I worked in catering, and I had a moniker as the funniest person in food service.

But what you need to remember is nobody is looking for the funniest person in food service.

Yeah.

It was not an asset in any way.

And probably my being funny allowed me to sell more weddings and bar mitzvahs and Sweet 16 parties because I could be funny with customers.

And maybe being funny allowed me to get the waiters to work a little bit harder because they knew that, you know, it was a fun workplace in that regard.

But.

So I was always doing it.

I was always doing comedy.

How it all started for me was I was kind of dating a comedian.

I wasn't kind of.

I was dating a comedian.

And when you date a comedian, you're his audience.

You.

And you bring your friends and, you know, you.

You know, they need to.

They need.

They do bringers.

Yeah.

You know, I did.

I was the audience of a lot of these bringer shows.

And little by little, it was eating away at me that, why am I not doing this?

It's, you know, I am just as funny as that person, as that girl.

You know what I mean?

And when I broke up with him, that's when I started.

You said when you broke up with him?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's something I tell.

Cause I'll get asked a lot.

How do you get on stage for the first time?

And honestly, like, going and watching an open mic will show you how low the bar is, yes.

And, like, you'll be like, oh, well, I can bomb at a coffee shop for three minutes with a homeless guy in the window behind you.

You know, it's like, shout out to urban grind in Atlanta.

But I think that's the best advice because there's, you know, again, I love people taking, like, a class if they want to, you know, because it will sort of hold your hand and give you accountability that you're going to actually, at the end of the six weeks, go do a show, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But are you really, you know, that first show is, is going to be amazing because it was filled with an audience that wanted to be there, that was there to support people and whatnot.

I don't know if you learn as much as you would learn if you just went to that open mic with the homeless guy in the window.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the character building one.

That's how you build character right there.

Yeah.

The classes are.

If you, if you work the class, the class will work.

But some people take a class instead of doing the work, and they think the class will solve that problem.

But it's.

The class can help the learning curve, but you have to go and stand on stage and say your jokes at open mics a lot.

If this is what you want to do, if you want to test it out, you can just go and see how it feels if you really aren't sure if you want to pursue comedy or not.

But the reality repetitions.

Some people take a class in stand up, you know, the same way they would take a class in ceramics.

It's like, I want to do something on Thursday nights, you know what I mean?

But the problem that I see over and over again, I'm sure it's not a surprise to you, is people who take a class and they do that graduation show, and they want that experience to be the next time that they perform.

And it never is because it gets harder and harder to get people to come and, and then when you go to do an open mic, it's so your crest fallen.

They're not laughing at these jokes that the host told them to laugh at at the last show I did.

It's kind of like you're learning to have an orgasm with a vibrator.

I would rather you go and, you know, work for it.

Hump the stage.

Oh, that's the most epic visual that I've heard about, about comedy.

That's hilarious.

That should be the tagline for a class.

Your comedy vibrator.

That should be I'm gonna be on to something here.

Corey.

We could go in on this coming soon.

The comedy vibrator workshop.

Did you say coming soon?

Don't do that.

Oh, I'm a clean, oh, I'm a clean comic.

That's bad for the brand.

I can't.

Yes, and that's an interesting thing.

A lot of times someone will call me to close one of those bringer shows because they need a pro to close the show, and I need the $50 or whatever it is.

Also, why wouldn't I go to a room that's, you know, filled, you know, you know, and it's hot, so I would go to those.

And so often I'm sitting there and I'm watching, you know, I'm watching a male comic, and he's incredibly vulgar, like, to the, you know, everything that he's ever seen.

He's like taking Jeselnik and Jim Norton and Daniel Toshena and Louis CK, and he's mushed it into a show, right?

And then this girl who's really pretty and young and she's quiet and she wants to talk about, you know, her journey from the church to New York City or something like that, and that is really hard to watch.

And that I really, I'll go after the MC on that show and say, when that guy came and came all that all over that stage, what are you talking about?

They told me to hurry.

I don't care.

This guy shocked half the room.

Half the room.

It's all parents, aunts, uncles in the room.

And there's nothing wrong, by the way.

That guy is probably going to be, you know, eventually be a great comic.

But right then, it was, it was jarring to the crowd.

I said, you gotta clean it up before this girl comes out.

And to this day, I once toured the MC, a new one.

And that person is now a cruise director.

No.

And great and very successful.

And she said, you really dressed me down.

And I said, I did.

And she told me the story, and I'm like, but you screwed up.

I mean, you had it coming.

It was a very, you know, she goes, yeah, no, I just didn't know I was new and did it, you know?

Yeah.

How would you, you said, clean like the, to clean up.

How would you recommend a comic clean up a situation like that at a show?

Well, the MC is what I'm talking about.

The MC has to, yeah, that's what I meant.

Like, for people, you have to acknowledge that that was, um, you have to acknowledge that that was what it was.

Something you know, or, you know, that I can't believe that guy's single.

What?

You know, some crappy, dumb thing like that.

Or, you know, I.

My ex husband.

Ladies and gentlemen, acknowledge.

Do a joke or two, maybe go into the audience, if you can, a little bit, just to remind everybody that, you know, that we're.

There's a variety of ways of laughing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're almost talking like a reset.

You're.

You're, you know, you're the sorbet in between the courses.

Nice.

It almost helps to address the elephant in the room.

I mean, like, even Yoshi Yoshi and I did a show, and the.

The feature, she was a little dirty for the room, and I could feel that.

So, like, the first thing I said when I went up there was, I just addressed how, like, oh, I thought this was a clean show, and that kind of broke the ice.

Everyone was like, oh, okay.

Because you could just feel like they were.

They were down for some dirty but not explicit.

And so once I addressed that, it almost kind of was, like, popped the balloon, and people were like, okay, we can relax and laugh.

Everyone was just kind of.

It was a small town in Georgia, so it's.

Those kind of rooms can be a little tricky to just kind of find out where the connection is.

Right.

I would tread cautiously, Joel, with that.

A better way to do it is.

I hope you won't be disappointed.

But I am, like, squeaky clean.

She was hilarious.

Give it up for her.

But you know what?

Fine.

I'm a little bit, you know, I'm a little bit, you know, opie, you.

Know, I said pastor.

I did bring up looking like a youth pastor at the beginning as well, so I did.

I was sure to check that box.

Yeah, you're saying not roast the comic, basically.

And never.

You're right.

Never knock them, you know?

Yeah.

Unless they really died.

Okay.

There is.

There are cases, I think, if they really died, you know, you could do a joke, and if the joke doesn't hit, you could say, I'll bring that guy back.

But if somebody.

If somebody's.

Especially if it's.

Especially if it's a.

If it's a girl, you.

Here's the problem with the sexes here.

So, like, a guy should never really, really trash a girl because the audience could turn on you.

And a girl, it's very complicated.

A girl can't trash a girl either.

It's like, a girl can trash a guy.

A guy can't trash a girl.

And the best thing you could possibly do is to put it all on you.

Always put it on you.

I'm so sorry.

I, you know, I.

My comedy is like, for a four h club.

Is that okay with everybody?

Because we're going to be talking about puppies.

That's the way to do it, is the smart way.

But if somebody really dies, you know, you can't help but not use it, you know?

You don't like that joke.

I'm bringing Matthew back out here.

Right.

I like.

That's a more civil approach.

I've known her for, like, ten years, so I.

It was all in, like, good fun, but I could see that getting misconstrued, especially if a set doesn't go like, we all have these sets as comedians, so afterwards, the last thing you want to hear is a reminder.

So I could definitely.

Yeah.

See a more civil approach to that.

Yeah, yeah.

I think you handled it well.

I think it was.

I was hosting the show and I was just like, all right, good luck, Joel.

You're the professional.

All right.

Come and talk about.

Talk about cleaning it up.

She wasn't off the stage, and he's like, your next comedian, Joel Byers.

Really, Yoshi?

That's how you did it?

That's how I did it.

But here's the thing.

I.

Actually enjoy the darkness of it because I like, I like sort of the contrast.

And I know Joel is going to be the clean version.

Right.

Of whatever was happening.

And so I was like, hey, I actually told him beforehand, I was like, joel, I'm not saying anything in between.

Like, I'm going to literally just bring you up on the laugh that they already gave her for coming on stage.

And it's just going to happen because I want you to sort of do your thing.

Yeah, I told him for sure.

Yeah.

This wasn't like a showcase, and Joel did like 45.

This is a true professional.

It wasn't like someone, I'm just throwing up there, be like, all right, you make it happen.

No, and he did great.

So, yeah, there's not a lot of people who I would.

I would say if I needed to do that, I would have done it, but I didn't need to with Joel.

And that's the difference, you know, there's.

There's nuances and there's.

Yeah, I'm missing.

So that's all, you know, that point.

Of view, though, for sure, Corey.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

Oh, yeah.

It's such a great point.

Yeah.

Is there anything?

Because that is something.

I don't know.

It's like a yemenite.

As a male comic, I don't know.

Is there anything we can do to be better?

It's like, like you said, like, with, like, the sexes and comedy, we're coming up from completely two different worlds.

We can't even fathom all the struggles they're like a female comic is having.

So, like, how, as a male comic, how can we be better?

I don't know if that's a good word.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't.

I just want to be a good person.

I mean, in terms of.

In terms of supporting female comics or terms of having, you know, a difficult female in the crowd, I mean.

Oh, yeah, supporting female comics, I'm making sure.

Yeah.

I was struck by how well Sam Morell gets away with it.

You know, if Sam Morel has a woman in the audience that is, you know, relentless and giving him lip, I mean, he, you know, he is delicate.

He just lets the workout, lets the rope out.

It's poetic.

It is poetic.

Yeah.

When it's that good, I have to give it up.

He does it so well, and the audience is very much on his side.

But I think there's also an underlying thing at the bottom of it, you know, that Sam likes women.

I don't know if that makes sense, but, like, he doesn't inherently hate women.

You can tell that he likes them.

And I don't know how that message comes across, but it does.

As far as, I don't know, supporting female comics, we're all crazy.

It's very tough.

That's so funny.

Your advice is good luck.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, the things that I've seen over, you know, over my 30, 31 years at this point, doing comedy, you know, the, it's more the damage you do, not so much the help.

Like, you know, I remember when I first started doing comedy, you know, a famous comic would bring his female comic girlfriend, and she would feature.

Right.

Well, then the club wouldn't book a woman comic for another nine months because she was socked, wasn't really ready.

And that happened over and over again.

And they can't say no to said famous comic because, you know, he's probably, he's probably even eating her pay.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'll, you know, I'll pay her.

That kind of thing.

Yep.

And so I've had that happen before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been there where the opener for said comedian was so bad.

I mean.

Nope.

Like, when I say two laughs in 30 minutes, two laughs in 30 minutes, and he had to go up afterwards and I was hosting.

I was like, I was doing one of those things.

I was like, oh, my God, that was great.

Wasn't it?

Just, I was, I couldn't find the thing to do.

I was like, I'm just going to force you guys to clap at your headliner.

And that's what I did.

I was just like, let's get excited about this headliner.

It's going to be amazing.

Yeah.

Cause I couldn't, I couldn't do it.

It was just so hard.

But, yes, I've had that situation before by said Khomedin, who brought his girlfriend.

And, you know, the truth is, the club owner is watching, and the club owner sees no laughs from a woman, and so he's gonna be slow to headline a woman.

That's the kind of things I've seen.

What else?

A lot of times, guys give the woman comic on a show the check spot because she really wants a spot, and they're trying to help her out.

And again, I do think you need to do the check spot.

I really do.

It's important because you got to learn how to do it.

But if you want to help, don't give them the checks.

But every so often, don't give them the checks.

But, yeah.

And maybe the intro shouldn't be, are you all ready for a female comedian that could be a good one to not do as well?

100%.

Yeah.

And not only that, but, you know, your disdain for female comics can come through just in the intro you do.

Yeah.

All the shows that tonight show, and, you know, it's all bullshit.

And then, you know, they've discredited them, especially when, you know, when sometimes the woman does have a credit, like a decent one.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I think with, you know, with 600,000 followers on tick tock is a great intro.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would get those.

I do, like, a lot of hood rooms in Atlanta coming up.

I would be the white boy on a lot of shows, and I would always get the intro, like, oh, this next comic, we came up in the streets slinging dope, like, rap song.

It's about him.

They would all, and I would just walk up there, but I would end up, what I would end up doing is, like, the more comfortable I got, I would just start roasting the host until they stopped giving me that intro because, like, it would get a pop, but not my pop.

It's more like, ah, the white boy like it.

It wasn't a laugh I was seeking, so I started to kind of fight back, and then they were like, oh, never mind.

Type deal.

So.

Yeah, you did roast a lot of streets.

It's amazing how thin skinned, uh, the.

The, uh, these hosts can have, you know, like, you know.

Mm hmm.

Yep, yep.

Why you gotta be like that?

Yeah, too far, white boy.

Too far.

Why boy, Joe crazy.

They would say, you stupid.

We, uh, we have it.

What's funny is Yoshi and I are, like, opposite comedians.

Like, I'm more like the black comedian.

Yoshi's more like the white comedian.

And we'll give each other point of view based on that.

All right.

I don't know if that's.

I forget.

I'm too white.

If I just say black people get uncomfortable.

Are you guys both.

Yeah.

Yes.

So it's a pretty vibrant comedy scene there, isn't it?

Very vibrant.

Oh, it's awesome.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah.

Every night in front of different audiences, different races, different backgrounds, different economic status, just driving not that far, you can get a lot of different cross sections for comedy.

It's great.

Yeah.

I like to perform in front of people with 401 ks.

That's, like, my audience.

It's like, oh, you got a job?

Yeah.

How did you start making money in this game, corey?

Because I'm ready, and I'm making money.

Like, I don't want to say I'm not getting booked and all that, but, like, let's get a tax bracket going here.

You know, my wife is ready for that, like, corporate work or how'd you start to be like, all right, let's.

I was going to say when.

When Yoshi said, you know, my target audience has 401k.

My target audience is spending the 401k.

I'm embarrassed to admit the two times I played Atlanta, I was there.

I was either doing an over 55 community, or I was doing, like, a jewish community center.

Or maybe I came down and I did a fundraiser for a synagogue or a temple.

I really had never played any of the clubs there.

Just in my life.

You have.

You've got the chop.

Like, this is your kind of crowd.

Like, I'm literally thinking about clubs here and what I just watched, and, yeah, this.

They would eat you up.

Well, thanks.

This is a tricky thing.

Your question, Joel, how do you start making money?

You know, you know the ways.

You know the ways that people make money, right?

They, you know, they.

They go on the road, and they live on very little, and.

And they, you know, they're making feature money, which, from what I'm seeing, hasn't gone up much since when I did it.

Yeah, it's still the same.

It hasn't changed.

Or you stay local and you do the comedy clubs, and that's even less money, right?

Yeah.

Or you go out and you try to be an actor and try to get acting work, you know, or you, you know, you go to, you go to LA and you try to get, you know, get a commercial agent or a theatrical agent or a legit agent, and you try.

These are all the methods, but it seems to me from where we're perched right now, the only way to make money is to completely develop and produce your very own thing.

That's.

That's where.

That's where they come from.

Let's use.

Let's use Gary Veeder as an example.

Okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

He does that brilliant article, right?

It does.

You know, somebody, well, I don't know who, decided that whatever, he took meetings.

They did the podcast.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

Gary has this podcast, number one.

Right?

So.

But number one, dad.

Okay, what did it do?

Not that it got him more followers.

Of course it did that it got him this really specific audience.

Right?

And that audience, that's the NPR audience.

It's a sports loving audience.

It's dads.

It's.

It's people that are in therapy.

It's a really nice cross section of people.

So he's really building this audience, which is there.

And that's why developing your own thing allows you to build your audience.

I'll give.

Use David tell as another example.

I remember one time I was, I was doing a show with David tell, and, you know, he was doing insomniac at the time, or insomniac just wrapped and everyone in the audience was from insomniac.

And they were drunks and they were loud and they were, they were very annoying.

And, you know, it was, it was painful for him.

He, you know, Dave is a really smart comic.

He wants to go out and challenge, you know, the audience, and.

And he didn't, you know, he wasn't, he didn't appreciate people just screaming out, Dave, we love you.

You know, that wasn't his thing.

So if you can develop something, be yourself, be authentic, and as much as possible, you know, you know, promote it yourself.

And that's where the money comes from.

Okay.

There are other ways you can do corporate.

I mean, you're.

You are clean cut.

You should be able to do corporate work.

Can you.

Have you done.

Have you done corporates?

I have, yeah.

And it's all been more word of mouth.

I didn't know if, like an agent would help scale that up, or.

But I do.

I do corporate work, though.

Yeah.

Every time you do a corporate work, ask them if they wouldn't mind giving you a testimonial.

Okay.

I mean, you got to grab the name of the company and the thing and as much as possible so that when.

When you do approach a corporate agent, you can say, yes.

And I've done, you know, you know, I've done American Express, and I've done.

I've done Coca Cola, and I've done, you know, sailor's, strawberry farm, and, you know, that kind of thing.

So.

Who books that?

Let me get in on that strawberry money.

Listen, you know, the problem with the corporate agents is that, you know, they have everybody on their roster.

So, like, you'll open up a roster, and everybody's listed.

You could get Seinfeld, you could get Daniel Tosh, and you could get Joel Briers.

Right?

Yeah.

All on the same website.

Yeah.

And they're looking at it in terms of, like, you know, in terms of, like, price.

Right.

So this one's going to be in the $200,000 range.

This one's going to be the $2,000 range or the $20,000 range.

So it does take a while, but you can push that forward if you figure out a way to do some public speaking along with it.

Right.

Basically, you're doing right now, which is comics, helping comics do a TED talk on that.

You know, it doesn't have.

Obviously not a Ted made TEDx.

They call it TEDx.

There's things that you do to start doing a talk on it and how you develop this and how you created this, and that puts you into sort of the hybrid.

Hybrid speaking and stand up corporate.

And then if you really are.

Sorry, I didn't realize how loud that would be.

I was just applauding.

And if you really are the past, you know, I mean, there's a huge market for christian comics.

I know I should lean into it more.

I've done a few churches.

Yeah.

It's.

Yeah.

Looking like.

Yeah, a youth pastor.

It can't hurt.

Yeah, that's good.

I like.

Because, you know, our whole mission is helping self cultivate self made comics.

So you even saying, create your own thing.

And who knows if that'll help pay off in a year or in eight years someone finds it, or now's the timing.

Like, creating what you wish existed is now more accessible than ever.

So that seems like a great step one for people as well.

Yeah.

Opportunity.

Create it.

And, like, in your 30 years of doing comedy, what would you say is like the top two, top two or three things that you would tell comedians to focus on.

Closing advice here.

Right now, I would say, you know, grow your social media numbers, grow your followers.

That would be the number one.

And in that vein, get really comfortable with the, you know, with, with the Internet and that how it works.

She's just rubbing her head as she's saying this.

I'm no body, like, expert, but when you're saying that.

It was like hurting.

Yourself, how bad it is.

I don't understand how I'm supposed to interact with the Facebook professional site that I have.

But then I got the Facebook personal side and that's the one, you know, I talked to a lot of people and that, but the, all I know is it wasn't until like three weeks ago that I knew how to take something that somebody posted on their stories and make it my story hilarious.

You know, what's funny is we had a, we interviewed Ian bag not long ago who has just exploded on social media, but he was literally at a point of like, think about getting out of comedy.

And then he, he worked with this social media team that just started blasting his stuff everywhere and then he blew up.

And now he's doing theaters in a lot of places.

But the social media really is, I mean, game changing.

Yeah, that's, that's really the leverage now.

But as far as, as far as the actual craft.

The actual craft, you know, everyone tells you it's the same thing.

It's get as much stage time as humanly possible.

I actually think there's a little bit of a formula, which I'll share with you.

I think when you start doing seven sets a week, you see a lot of progress, but you see a ton of progress.

When you can ratchet it up to eleven sets a week, that's when you really start to change.

And if you, if you can do more than eleven sets a week, it's because, first of all, if you're doing more than eleven sets a week, it's because you're getting so good that people want you on shows and that, that's when you start to really grow as a comic.

It's, you know, it's very much like flying.

You got to have so many hours, you know, behind the cockpit to get your license as a pilot.

And I really think you need that many hours as a comedian to be a pro.

But take it very seriously.

I think it has to be taken very seriously.

Like, I would build in rewards, like, if I didn't do the seven sets.

I couldn't go to the movie if I didn't do the seven sets.

I couldn't get the ice cream but I didn't do.

And then, you know, and then I moved it into eleven sets.

You know you have to be a little bit OCD about it.

You have to be a little bit OCD about it.

And how long I guess what was your path in terms of how long were you doing eleven sets?

Like what was sort of your life choices to make to make sure that you were able to do all that?

Well I, I was doing seven sets for a long time and then I got this crazy opportunity.

I was the opening act for a show on Broadway called Puppetry of the penis.

I know.

Jealous.

Who books that?

Can we get on that?

Do they have a corporate, do they have a corporate line that we can call?

I think they may have a show in Vegas now.

The show ran for a long time but it was these two guys that did, you know, they twisted their penis and it was, they had a camera and it was, I don't even know what it was.

It was Yoshi.

There was a built in audience so it was either or it was gay men so it was, that was, yeah, so get a.

They wanted to open.

Yeah, female comic right?

And they couldn't do more than 40 minutes of the show.

It was first of all it got boring.

You know this is a sailboat and now this is, you know this is, this is, you know this is the camel.

This is the.

I want to know how to make money in comedy.

I think I found it.

I think.

I was doing eight shows, shows a week with that and then I would go you know because I was done, you know I had to open the show so I was done at 830, right?

Yeah.

And then I was already in the city.

I will say this, when I started doing comedy professionally was I had been doing it in my head for so long that by the time I hit the ground I hit the ground running like I was very lucky.

I got a tv, I got a tv set at about just under two years.

I got my second tv set at like two and a half years and you know and again I was a female comic, I was funny.

There weren't as many of me as there were guys.

I will, you know, I admit that but I was lucky.

This is great stuff.

Let's, let's land this plane here.

And real quick, this could be yes or no, but Megan Carroll's a fan.

She said she loves your work.

So I wanted to.

Her question was, if you run your jokes by your family members first, yeah.

They're okay with you saying these things.

Then when the joke is almost there, I run it by my sister who's a lesbian, and she finds nothing funny.

Solid.

And if she gives me a, then I know.

I know.

It's gonna kill.

Yeah.

Well, this has been amazing.

You're really helping the next generation here, Cory.

So we really appreciate your time.

Everyone who found this episode helpful, which we know you did, go watch Corey's new special antique joke show.

It's on Apple.

It's on Amazon.

It's on all the platforms.

So good.

So, so good.

And you want to talk about just last per minute and joke writing.

This is when you have.

Oh, my God.

Yes.

And of course, is there anything else you'd like to promote as well, Cory?

We want to hop breath for follow me on Instagram.

It's, you know, it's any version.

First of all, any version of Corey Kahaney.

There's no other Corey Kaney.

It'll take you.

Instagram.

I have a name like that.

And TikTok.

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Corey Kahaney.

We will definitely follow you there.

Thank you for your time.

And thank you, hot breath, first, for watching live.

If you don't get on these live streams, join our email list.

I'll send you a weekly alert of when we're going live and who we're having on, but we'll be back next Tuesday.

Hop breath of verse.

We love you all.

Good night.

Hot breathe.