Tom Segura: Making the Magic Happen

written by Bill Kopp

Tom Segura is one busy guy. For 15 year running he has co-hosted Your Mom's House, a weekly podcast with his wife, fellow standup comic Christina Pazsitzky. He also co-hosts the Two Bears One Cave podcast with Bert Kreischer. Segura has written and acted in films, and his book of delightfully curmudgeonly essays, I'd Like to Play Alone, Please was published in 2022. As a standup comic, Segura has released two albums, and has starred in no less than five Netflix specials; the most recent is 2023's Sledgehammer.

In between his various commitments, Segura -- who has two kids at home -- manages to find time for touring; his current Come Together Tour first takes him to nearly two dozen cities across the U.S. From there he heads to the UK for a week-long run, then it's back to the USA -- kicking off at New York City's Madison Square Garden -- for nearly two dozen more dates. On a break between taping podcasts, Tom Segura spoke with me about the art and craft of standup comedy.

How much of your observational standup is recounting actual things that have happened to you, and how much is completely the product of your imagination?

I've always had the mindset of "Just take your real observations." Obviously, you embellish and you exaggerate. But it's really about having an awareness in a moment, because the moments can happen. And if you're not tuned into trying to do it for standup, you lose it. But if your mind goes there, you basically hit "record" in your brain, and then you try to take it to the stage. That's the way that I try to do it.

So is your "antenna" always on?

Well, I wish I could say it was always on. I think there's this natural thing that happens sometimes: You're doing standup for a while and sometimes you get frustrated. Because the lifeline for any standup is new material. And whenever you're frustrated at your lack of new material, it's because your antenna isn't up. So you've gotta be like, "I gotta put myself in the mindset. I can't go through the day without considering it." And whenever it's tuned the right way, that's when [you'll be] really happy with [the material] you're coming up with.

Are there certain subjects that tend to work especially well for you, or is it just anything and everything?

I love the mundane. I love the conversation with the door guy and the security guard, things that you would normally discard as far as being of entertainment value. I love the little nuances to awkward conversation, and then focusing on that and finding the comedy in there. I think that's a great source of standup.

So are interpersonal relationships: You pay attention to what your kids said. Kids are a great source of material, but that also goes for wife, mom, sister, friends. You try to find a perspective to that conversation that is a little off, a little to the left. And then you go, "Oh, there's something here." For me, a source of standup material is having those conversations and then bringing them to the stage and pointing out what lens you saw it through.

I would think that approach yields material that's going to be relatable for people: "Yeah, I've talked to some guy on the street, too."

Exactly. I remember talking about being frustrated at a real conversation where I said "How you doing?" to a guy, and then he told me in detail how he was doing. I was like, "Yeah, that's not what this is, man."

So that exchange in the bank lobby actually happened!?

That was real, man. And it was a great example of the antenna you mentioned. Because I could have just kept going, but it sat with me. And that's what you find in standup: If something sits with you, you owe it to yourself and the audience to talk about it. And that's what happened with that.

Are there any topics that you make a point of avoiding?

Not really. But politics is one where I'm like, "Well, there's so many people that do that well." I've had political jokes at different times, but that's because [something] is sitting with you and your brain's telling you that you want to say this. But I know that's a world that other people do really well.

Has one of your routines ever fallen flat? And if so, how did you deal with it?

Oh, my God. There's so many times that it's hard to pinpoint one.

There's this thing where you can forget to connect. I call it pressing "Play" on your act. If you get on stage and you just go, "I'm going to press 'Play' and do the act," it loses this connection that you need with an audience. And I've fallen into that trap before. You've got to remind yourself that it is all about connecting with an audience. The more you connect with them, the more you can go anywhere with them.

But I've also done things like not read the room well and just went forward on something. Or you can dismiss an audience member: You wanted to shut them down, but it reads the wrong way to them, and then all of a sudden you're the bad guy. It doesn't matter what level you're on as a standup; you still have to earn their respect and trust to go places.

Your wife -- and podcast co-host -- is a comic as well. Do you ever come up with material together and then have to decide who gets it?

That has happened. We've been in conversation and kind of tagging each other's stuff. Someone says something, you say something, then they say something. And then at the same time you both say, "That's mine!"

And how do you resolve that?

She wins.

How has your comedy changed in the years since you started?

It's become more personal. I think it's a natural progression that happens to most comedians. When you start, you don't have the skill set to naturally go, "I'm going to talk about my life." So the way that most comedians start is, "Hey, I watched a TV show..." or versions of standing back and observe the world. It's underdeveloped through the eyes of a seasoned comedian, because only a seasoned comedian can really get up there and be like, "Here's what happened today." New comics -- myself included -- don't really have that skill set. But you're trying.

People say that the goal in standup is for the person you are off stage to be the person you are on stage. And the only way to do that is to do it for a long time. That's why when you see somebody who's in their 50s or 60s -- as we do with standups [who have been working for] 30, 40 years -- that level of comfort they have, you can't manufacture it.

The funniest version of you off stage is the best standup comedian that you are. But you get on stage, you tighten up and you want to make sure there's not a lull. So you do these little maneuvers to get you through that discomfort. But the longer you do it, that discomfort can shed. Then you're really being yourself up there. And that's the ultimate goal.

On the Your Mom's House podcast, how much of what you say and do is storyboarded out ahead of time, and how much of it is you just riffing in the moment?

It's mostly a riff. Sometimes on Your Mom's House, we'll have a pre-show meeting: "Hey, let's make sure we don't forget to talk about this topic, or play this video." So it'll be a bullet point. I have some thoughts on it, but it doesn't really go much further than that until you're actually recording. I think it makes it more fun, makes it more spontaneous.

I know there are people who have fully written out stuff for podcasts -- which I always found odd -- but they're also really detailed joke bits that they want to get in. And there's a way to do that. But for us, it's really just talking points, and then we get into it live. Because that's really where the magic happens: in the moment.

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