The DMV has played such a huge impact on my stand, up everything from my vernacular, from my fashion I grew up in Silver Spring, MD on Bel Pre Road.

It was everybody: Salvis, white people like John.

the way I even hustle.

everything about its DMV to the point where, the city has embraced me.

When I started comedy, there was not that many rooms so you actually had to be funny because if you're not funny.

You're not performing.

And if you're not performing, you can't get better.

Tinder!

Listen, I tried Tinder, I tried Hinge.

I was like, okay.

Hinge and Tinder, same thing.

Hinge they wear blouses.

A little more classy.

I was terrified of doing stand up comedy, never had the balls to do it until I found out my girl was cheating.

And I didn't know what the fuck to do with my life.

I broke up with her because I feel like she wasnt ambitious.

I need a girl thats moving forward in life.

You can't go from a local comedian, to local DJ.

That's moving laterally.

I won Class Clown in high school, so I was like, okay, this is what they need for me, you know?

I was so broke—you ever been so broke that you think to yourself damn, I shouldn't have put those $2 in the offering basket back in 2012.

Like, you know what I mean?

and then I went to an open mic in Silver Spring, and I had a pretty good set, you know, and the dude from the open mic booked me on a show the next week.

So I was like, yeah, I'm comedy.

That's what I'm going to do.

You know?

I did my first set at Town Tavern and Adams Morgan for Capital Laughs.

They gave me a shot.

I did five and it was okay.

It was okay, wasn't it wasn't terrible, I didn't bomb.

I got some laughs and I felt really good about myself.

now again, this end of 2019.

Little did I know what the fuck was coming up.

Everything is about to shut down 2020. the pandemic was very good for me personally.

It was very good.

I started doing outdoor shows I started doing shows and my friends backyard, and able to do it every week because people didn't really have shit to do.

And so that kind of really got the ball rolling.

Then I was able to go to other places.

It gave me the confidence to say, “Hey, maybe I can do more stuff.” DC is great, you know, but it's smaller, you know, so I feel like that just like for example, there's like three comedy clubs in DC, you know, there's Hot Bed comedy, DC Improv and The Comedy Loft, like, everything after that is like a bar show.

D.C.

is good because it has a clear way to like, progress through the scene.

there's certain rooms that you want to get into.

There's certain producers you want to be on.

There's like all even the bar shows, like there's certain bar shows that's like, man, that's a cool show local comedy scene is sort of like playing a video game where you just kind of like, work your way up you do open mics and then you do better open mics and you do, you know, showcases at Barnes and you do better showcases at bars, and then you do showcases at a club, and then they'll let you work for a headliner it's just, I guess, about just getting better.

Every time you touch the stage and tell a joke.

It has to be fresh.

It has to be in the moment.

It has to be live, because every experience is different.

So if I go into a standup set and I'm trying to deliver a joke the way that I did it in the past, that's not honoring my audience now.

Turns out I wasnt in Virginia after all.

I was just in a newly gentrified neighborhood in D.C.

Yeah, that one stinks.

kind of feel like you're working all the time because I have a full time job, and then after my job, then I have to like, you know, get dressed or changed or whatever, and then figure out what I'm going to say.

And Sorry if I'm a little off or low energy, I'm kind of sore.

I was working out earlier.

I've been working out a lot recently.

Trying to lose some weight.

Anybody else here... liars?

problem that I've had in writing jokes recently.

It's like you write off of personal experiences and it's like, well, I don't have any anymore.

Like I sort of just I'm sort of just floating around and then I kind of like come to when I have mic in my hand And it took me, like, till now to realize, oh, the real like gold in comedy is talking about you, talking about your vulnerabilities, talking about your insecurities, and directing that spotlight on what you're going through.

And that's something that I'm still trying to develop now.

For this moment, even if its just this moment of your whole week, I want you to experience joy.

being transparent in my standup, it took a long time.

It wasn't something that just came to me, like, naturally.

Like, I remember I was reluctant to talk about my dad driving an ice cream truck.

And I remember maybe 4 or 5 years into comedy.

one day I took a chance.

I crafted a joke and it went.

It went okay.

But it took about three years of telling that joke to get it to the point where it is where it is now.

like all my friends, they had regular cars like Toyotas, Hondas.

And then it would be me.

Like [Ice cream truck jingle] it was actually the first joke that landed me a TV opportunity comedy is one of those things where you have to figure it out for yourself.

You have to get on stage, you have to have bad night, you have to bomb.

in order to get better, you have to fail in comedy because you have to know what works and what does not work.

so crowd work is a way to do that.

Crowd work is a way to, like, maybe loosen them up a little I saw somebody— numerous people on a bike, like banging on car windows.

Yeah, yeah.

That is very crazy.

Why do you think it's crazy?

Because anything can happen.

They'll shoot you...Second Amendment.

All right.

Is that a white man?

“Because my Second Amendment right, Ill tell you what!

Better not bang on my window!” Don't tread on me!

“The founding fathers said I can shoot you if you touch my car.” Where are you from if I may ask?

Youre from Florida?

Sometimes you just gotta bomb, though.

Sometimes you just got a bomb.

But crowd work and then just see what kind of jokes they like.

If someone is bombing but its vulgar stuff, maybe do some sillier stuff, or if it's silly stuff is not really connecting, maybe you try some more real shit or hard hitting things, but some audiences you're just going to bomb, you know?

I wanted a place where I could practice my art without the the pressure of performance.

In 2021, We started this thing called the Sonic Comedy Lab So lab means like imperfection.

In order for a scientist to come up with a correct formula, it takes a million hypothesis and a million failures.

Do yall like this set up?

We're doing something new.

Yall like it?

Yeah.

It's different, man, its different.

Yall cant see my asscrack can you?

Comedy, I try to look at it very in a uniform way, I mostly try to use the same general formula of what I know about people.

It don't matter where they at.

It don't matter.

Like, I feel like it's my responsibility to, you know, make them laugh.

There is like this weird feeling when you're doing really well in a really good room the laughter is so loud it doesn't even feel like a sound.

It's it's like the walls are moving, It's great to start here because there's great shows, smart audiences, very smart audiences in D.C.

I grew up in northeast D.C.

and then, I moved to, PG County for high school.

White people if youre not familiar with PG County, it's like the Wakanda of Maryland.

DC crowds are diverse, uptight sometimes smart.

Smart.

You know, they don't they don't go for that bullshit.

DC comedy does not allow you to not be funny, like a lot of greats came from D.C., so they already set the tone.

Like youre either funny or you're not and we're not laughing just because you're up here doing this.

We dont care.

We just got off of work, like actually be funny.

D.C.

comedy is very slept on.

It always has been.

It's not just the people who came from here 30 years ago.

It's happening right now.

There's a lot of great comedians that deserve great things.

Like, like, I mean a lot in this area.

Good talent.

I love this city.

I was born here.

I was raised here.

I want to do it here.

I don't like being the small fish in the big pond.

I'd rather take the most ugliest, muddy, fucked up ecosystem pond and turn that shit around.

And then everybody looks back who's moved to the big lake and they're like, God damn it, I wish I would have stayed in that fucking pond.

I think comedy is definitely a purpose.

I think there's many purposes, but I think they all tie under the gift of laughter.

with my comedy outside of just like, expressing my personal like, honest truth.

I want to pose things that make people think and maybe inspire them to be better.

The work is the same.

My comedy is more than just laughter.

It's also a conversation.

Like, it's therapy almost, because it's like we're finding these things out about each other.

Were realizing me and this stranger have things in common, and this happened because of this person on stage.

We just thought we were coming to laugh.

But actually, now we're opening up.

It's a very fine line in this business where you're trying to you're trying to move up, but you're also trying to stay true to yourself.

So fortunate that I was able to get everything I got through the people and not through the industry.

if this is your first time, like, you catching me at a really good time, like, things just good.

Like, I just started making money for the first time like last month.

So tonight, if you hear me talking about getting money and getting pussy, just know I deserve it.

If you could ask Open Mic Martin Amini, what does he want?

He's like, man, I just want to make enough money to not live with my parents no more.

Or like, you know, year four, year five.

Like, I just want to make enough money where I can keep my girlfriend and be able to afford to take her out to dinner and, you know, pay my rent on time.

And now I'm year ten and I'm able to do things I've never been able to do financially while having a comedy career.

I don't think there's one definition of success, because to somebody there, success to be, okay, I want to get this special and I want to be in a writers room.

And then they get it.

It's like, you're done, you've accomplished your success.

to me.

I feel like when you're doing things that you love and you're making money for it and youre getting recognition and people know you across the world., you're traveling, doing things that you never thought you would do, knocking down your goals like they're really coming to the forefront, like youre accomplishing them, I feel like thats success.