By Isaac Hamlet
From the moment he first heard the phrase “standup comic” uttered from his friend’s lips when he was 10, Shane Mauss has wanted to be a comedian.
“I didn’t know what that meant at the time,” Mauss said. “He told me it was a person who made strangers laugh, and I was like, ‘Oh, cool. I’d like to do that.’ ”
Mauss has appeared on “Conan” and has his own Netflix special, Mating Season.
He will next appear at the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St., at 9 p.m. today. His show will be a departure from more typical subjects, revolving around psychedelics.
Though some of his other standup performances have touched on the experience of psychedelics, Mauss discovered that after more than a few minutes, he started to lose the audience.
“A regular comedy club needs to have more accessible stuff,” he said. “You’re going to have people who are there for drinking or for a bachelor party, so they tend to have shorter attention spans. With these smaller shows, you have audiences with a longer attention span, and you can do more intelligent stuff.”
Most of the material used in this show comes from jokes that have built up in Mauss’ back pocket. After an appearance on Pete Holmes’ podcast and an impromptu show in Houston because of a snow storm, the material was given a chance to breathe.
“This is the only show I’ve done that hasn’t once failed,” he said. “People have come up and talked to me after the show, and they’ve been really enthusiastic about it.”
Part of his aim is informing people about psychedelics. As Mauss put it, he’s found “people are more willing to go along with bigger ideas if they’re couched in these crazy, weird, psychedelic ideas.”
In his podcast Here We Are, Mauss interviews professionals across various academics. It’s the facts he picks up here, and others similar to them, that he likes to sprinkle into his material.
“I don’t think my job as a comedian is to say something important or try to make a change in the world,” Mauss said. “Comedians should pursue what they’re interested in. If there’s a comic who loves cars but isn’t doing anything about cars, that’s a shame. This is stuff that intrigues me; there’s this kind of inescapable self-indulgence.”
WORDS
Event: Shane Mauss, standup comedy
When: 9 p.m. today
Where: Mill, 120 Burlington
Admission: $12-$15
