Talking With Noah Gardenswartz – November 6, 2023

Ira Sternberg: My guest could be a hedge fund trader, elementary school teacher, or even a weed grower. In fact, he was all three. But now he's given up the money, the education, and possibly the drugs to take on comedy. Award-winning writer and nationally touring headliner Noah Gardenswartz is performing in the Comedy Cellar at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino through November 12th. Showtimes are 7 and 9:30. For ticket information, go to thecomedycellar.com, and for everything about Noah, go to noahgardenswartz.com, and follow him on Instagram at noahgcomedy. Noah's special "Sweatpants in Perpetuity" is now available on YouTube. And Noah, welcome to the show.

Noah Gardenswartz: Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Ira Sternberg: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Why did you give up weed for comedy, or did you?

Noah Gardenswartz: I mean, I didn't give one up for the other. Life just kind of happens. I started, as my comedy career took off, I stopped being as risky with my other endeavors, but still, I indulge from time to time, though certainly less as I've gotten older and the weed got stronger.

Ira Sternberg: And now that you're a parent with kids, you wanted to take on the serious role of comedy instead?

Noah Gardenswartz: Exactly. How did you get started in comedy? I know that you were a semi-finalist on NBC's Last Comic Standing, but even before then, obviously, you were performing stand-up. So how did that all begin for you?

Noah Gardenswartz: Oh yeah, Last Comic Standing probably wasn't until I think I was seven or eight years into comedy at that point. I started comedy, I was going to open mics in Atlanta right before my senior year in college. I was a sociology major, didn't really know what I wanted to do, didn't have any job offers or necessarily career direction, as evidenced by all the different things I tried out that you discussed. But I've always been a creative writer, growing up I've always enjoyed writing, and I've tried different formats, everything from short stories and journalism to eventually just writing jokes. I started writing jokes, I've always loved stand-up, I never thought about pursuing it. But my junior year in college, I broke my leg and I had to take a medical withdrawal for a semester, and that six months back at home, I started writing jokes just as they came to me, and I decided to hit up some open mics that summer when I went back.

Ira Sternberg: You mentioned Atlanta. Did you grow up in Atlanta?

Noah Gardenswartz: No, I grew up in Denver, Colorado, but I went to Emory University for college.

Ira Sternberg: Okay, yeah, because I didn't notice any kind of accent from you that would indicate Atlanta.

Noah Gardenswartz: No, no Southern accent.

Ira Sternberg: That makes sense. Who did you look to at that point for mentors in comedy, or did you have any mentors in comedy?

Noah Gardenswartz: No, I mean, I didn't. You mean like when I first started?

Ira Sternberg: Yes, in other words, were there some stand-up comedians that were performing either of your generation or older generations that you looked to for a sense of your style, a sense of your approach, a sense of your material?

Noah Gardenswartz: No, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I've never had what I would call a mentor in comedy. I never had like a successful older comedian kind of take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Growing up, I was always a fan, like Chris Rock, Mitch Hedberg, those were kind of my two favorites. I watched a lot of George Carlin and Chris Rock, their HBO specials were kind of what I grew up watching and loving as a young child. And there are so many comedians I grew to admire over the years. One person in Atlanta that definitely was a professional comedian that kind of helped me out in terms of figuring out a writing style was a guy named Tom Simmons. So, I would say Tom Simmons is probably the closest I've had to a mentor, but like I said, I've never had someone take me out on the road and show me the ropes. I kind of went my own way.

Ira Sternberg: Do you find you ended up getting cynical by being out on the road?

Noah Gardenswartz: No, definitely not cynical. I mean, I loved being on the road. There's a time and place for everything in your life. So, the kind of things that I would do on the road back then, I can't do now. I'm married, I have two children, so my life and my lifestyle is quite different. But being out on the road definitely did not make me cynical. I actually felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to see the country, see the world in some regards, and live like a very carefree artistic lifestyle. I had no real responsibility other than performing at night, and I wasn't making a lot of money, but as long as I had enough gas to get to the gig and a couch to sleep on that night, it was great.

Ira Sternberg: Did you meet your wife on the road, or was that a relationship that was there before you hit the road?

Noah Gardenswartz: Uh, neither. I met my wife on a podcast. So, not on the road, but we did meet through comedy, certainly, in like the new version of comedy's way of meeting. We met on a podcast, and then from there, the romance grew.

Ira Sternberg: I love that. That's great. That's the first, I think you're my first guest that ever met their partner or their soon-to-be partner on a podcast, as opposed to so many other ways that you meet someone. So that's great.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, well, she's a comic as well, so it wouldn't be like doing a road gig and then seeing a woman in the stands, you know, or out in the crowd. We're peers and co-workers, and it works well.

Ira Sternberg: If you want to give her a shout-out, you're more than welcome to.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, of course. Her name is Esther Steinberg.

Ira Sternberg: Almost yes. I like it.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, not Sternberg, but Steinberg.

Ira Sternberg: I know. Steinberg is more popular than Sternberg as a name. So yes, I get you. Esther Steinberg, great. Okay, well, maybe we'll have her on the show in the future.

Noah Gardenswartz: That'd be great. Yeah, I'm sure she'd love to.

Ira Sternberg: So, how did you go from being on the road

to becoming a writer, especially for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"? That's a quite an established show and quite a popular show, and a lot of writing goes on. In fact, if you were paid by the word, you'd be a millionaire on that show, wouldn't you?

Noah Gardenswartz: For sure. I mean, it was certainly a long journey from the time of me being a road dog in Atlanta to writing for "Mrs. Maisel," spanning probably close to a decade. But I was in Atlanta doing comedy for about eight years before I moved to New York. And so most of my early road years were those Atlanta years. Then when I moved to New York, that's when I moved there for more serious professional opportunities and really give it a go to make a life out of comedy. While I was up there, I think my second or third year in New York, I got a Comedy Central half-hour special. That happened to be the year that "Mrs. Maisel" got a pilot order at Amazon. They were looking for writers and wanted to have a stand-up comedian in the room to help with the stand-up aspect. My agent sent Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, the executive producers and creators of the show, my half-hour special, and they liked my comedy enough to interview me. We hit it off just as people, and they were willing to take a chance and give me my first job.

Ira Sternberg: What a first job it was.

Noah Gardenswartz: Oh yeah, it's an amazing show. I don't think anybody has not seen it at this point. It's got so many elements, but we won't get bogged down in discussing the show because you have so much more, especially your upcoming performance at the Comedy Cellar at the Rio through November 12th. But I'm just fascinated by how you went from being on the road to writing for such a major show, and it wasn't as if you were writing for other shows for five or ten years before you got the "Mrs. Maisel" arrangement.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, it really was a matter of luck meets timing and preparation. It was absolutely lucky to even be considered or have the opportunity to submit for that, but it was right after I had this great half-hour special, a great body of work to showcase my stand-up talent for them to look at. So, it's years of doing stand-up to put yourself in the right situation when the opportunity arises.

Ira Sternberg: When you're in the writer's room, and you mentioned being in the writer's room, it's like being married.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, with a little more fighting and just as much discussion about what you want to eat.

Ira Sternberg: Exactly, but you get paid for it, so that's a difference with marriage. You don't necessarily get paid for that. So, okay, did you learn a lot while you were in the writer's room because you were so new to that field, that part of comedy?

Noah Gardenswartz: Of course, I mean, I learned endless amounts. Not only did I learn some because I was new, but I was learning from living legends. The Palladinos are some of the greatest TV writers of all time. So, to get to go in the room and really soak up all the knowledge and learn from people who do it at such a high level was an ultimate blessing.

Ira Sternberg: Did you get a chance to interact with some of the actors as well, because you were a writer, or did they keep you guys separate?

Noah Gardenswartz: There's definitely a separation. It's not like the actors were coming into the writers' room to chum it up or check on us every day, but we certainly interacted. I was on the show for five years, so at that time, you make relationships. When you go do table reads or occasionally are on set, you cross paths. Honestly, all the actors and actresses were lovely. I didn't have a bad experience with any of them.

Ira Sternberg: There are some legends there in the actor area as well.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, I mean, the truth is, I think everyone felt fortunate to be involved in the show, and as a result, it was a really great work atmosphere.

Ira Sternberg: Tell us a little bit, because I mentioned it earlier, "Last Comic Standing." Where did that fall in the timeline between getting started in comedy from Atlanta and then before getting the job with "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"? Where was "Last Comic Standing" in all of that?

Noah Gardenswartz: I might be off by a year or two, but I know I moved to New York in 2013, and I think I did "Last Comic Standing" in 2014, and I got "Maisel" in 2016. So, there was like a year and a half in between "Last Comic Standing" and my first writing job.

Ira Sternberg: Were you surprised at how you ended up with "Last Comic Standing"? You mean like in terms of how I placed?

Noah Gardenswartz: I mean, I had confidence in my abilities and my joke writing, but comedy is such a crapshoot. It's so subjective. It's up to the taste of the person watching it. There were 100 comics to start the show, three judges, and somewhere in between, you see how much they like you versus how much experience and talent you have against some of the other people in the field. I think I could have gone farther, but I also think I could have gone out in the first round. You never know when it's going to be your night or your crowd, where they're just not buying what you're selling. But overall, it was still a great experience.

Ira Sternberg: So, it wasn't like chemistry, which is exact.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, there's no chemistry, other than between the comic and the audience.

Ira Sternberg: Exactly. Now, your special on YouTube, "Sweatpants in Perpetuity," how did that come about? And did you use that for a very effective means of presenting yourself to people that may not be aware of you from before?

Noah Gardenswartz: It actually came out October 26, so it hasn't been out that long. But part of the reason we put it out for free on YouTube is specifically, as you mentioned, to give people who aren't familiar with my comedy an opportunity to find me. I've just started getting more active on Instagram, social media, posting clips, and I found that I'm gaining new fans. Everything I've been posting has been really old stuff from my past three albums or my old specials. So now, anyone who's discovering me for the first time will have a full special that they can go watch of my most recent material and see what I'm working on now. With no barriers to entry, there's no payment, doesn't need to be a platform that you have to download; it's just right there on YouTube. I've been very pleased so far with the results.

Ira Sternberg: And I think for some of those producers, there's a virtual casting couch then.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's opposed to the old days.

Ira Sternberg: What brought you to Las Vegas? You mentioned that you live here now, so that's unusual.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, my wife and I, we moved here in August. So, we were in New York together for the last five or six years, and then when we had our first kid and he started crawling around a tiny New York apartment, we decided we wanted some more space. So, we moved out west to LA to give it a shot. I enjoyed LA; I wasn't one of those New Yorkers that absolutely hates LA. It was a lovely place to live, but it was becoming incredibly expensive. We were hoping to be able to buy a house one day, and the housing market was just out of control. Then the writer strike was kind of the last straw for us. I was like, why are we paying to live in such an expensive city to pay rent when we can't even work in this city? So, we started exploring other options, and Las Vegas is close enough to LA to be there if we ever need to be there for work. It's incredibly affordable compared to some of the other big cities, there's a lot of full-time comedy clubs where, as a comic separate from TV and writing, you can work and get paid work. There's a nice-sized Jewish community, which was important to us as well. We have kids that we want to send to Jewish day school. So, it offered a lot, and we figured we'll at least try it for 12 months. We'll rent a house for a year, see how we like it, and if we like it, we'll stay. And so far, we love it.

Ira Sternberg: Now that's great, and welcome to Las Vegas. Was that soon, that you moved to Las Vegas, in August?

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, I moved here quite a while ago, so I've seen the town change over the years, but it's still a welcoming city, and the opportunities are still great, especially for someone in your position because it is a great base of operations I've discovered.

Ira Sternberg: Let's talk a little bit about your stand-up performance. Do you aim for a certain type of audience, or do you just write about what you know, or is it a combination of the two? You're a father now of two kids, you're married, so that's a little bit of a different thing than telling jokes as if you were in your 20s and you were single.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, I mean, the truth is, I don't aim for a particular audience other than myself. I write for myself. If I think the joke is funny, then I trust other people will think it's funny. I'm not a political comic, I'm not a satirical surrealist comic. I'm very much observational, a storyteller talking about my life. So, "Sweatpants in Perpetuity" is the fourth album and special that I've put out. If you were to listen to all four of my albums, you would really understand the transition of my life. My body of work almost is like an autobiography because I'm in a very different place. The first album, I was single, sleeping around, doing a lot of drugs, having fun. Now, this fourth album, I'm married with two kids and very much talking about that and everything in between. So, again, because my comedy is about myself, I treat myself as the ideal audience, and then who it speaks to, who it relates to, I would hope casts a wide net. I'm certainly not like a polarizing, divisive, "tell it like it is" comic. I think people from all walks of life can come watch me and enjoy my comedy. I'm just there to have a good time, be silly, make people laugh. I'm not trying to do anything other than make people in the room happy.

Ira Sternberg: That's interesting. A lot of comedians I talk to, they have a very specific point of view, and it's sometimes cynical, it's sometimes hard-edged, and sometimes political. But I think your approach is refreshing in that you are chronicling your life, as you said. If they caught your earlier material, it was based on when you were in your 20s or earlier, and then you're doing what you are doing now as a married person who has two kids. And not apologetic about it, that's you, that's who you are. So, do you run your material now by Mrs. Steinberg?

Noah Gardenswartz: I mean, you know, she's a comic, so there's a lot of joking around in the house, but we kind of have a rule that funny wins out. So, we both talk about each other a lot in our acts, and luckily we have a great marriage, so my act is not like [expletive] on my wife, and she's not up there making fun of her husband. It's not a lot of negative stuff about, "Oh, I can't believe I'm married to this wench," you know. We have overwhelmingly positive things to say, but when we want to take jabs or poke fun, or we have a joke here or there that's not necessarily the most flattering about our spouse, we always say, "Listen, if it's funny and it's getting a laugh, go for it. You don't need to worry about me being offended by it."

Ira Sternberg: Right, and also, I think because you're married to a fellow comic or comedian, that the issue of scheduling comes up. If you have to do a gig somewhere, she understands, and or if she has to go and do something, you understand. So, I assume that the parental chores get shared equally because of that situation.

Noah Gardenswartz: Exactly, and I mean, a lot of times when people find out from either of us that we're married to a comic, they're like, "Oh, how does that work? That must be crazy. I can't imagine being married to someone who does what we do." But we always say, "I can't imagine being married to anyone other than a comic," because, like you said, I never need to explain to each other why we're working late at night or why we have to be gone in this random city on a weekend. We completely understand. And yeah, we do make sure to kind of communicate our road schedule to each other so that at least one of us is home with the kids. But we definitely have both taken less road work and been at home more over the last three years as we've had children because we're just prioritizing the family over certain aspects of the career.

Ira Sternberg: Right. Have you ever thought that once your career gets going even more, when the kids get older and you have a little bit more time, have you thought about perhaps another language? So, doing your act in Yiddish, what do you think about that?

Noah Gardenswartz: I think learning enough Yiddish to do the act then would be more work than parenting itself. But I would love to see a sort of revitalization of the Catskills circuit, like the Borscht Belt comedy. I would love to, in a few years, perform for those kinds of audiences, but just in the standard language I speak.

Ira Sternberg: Understood. Unfortunately, I don't know if the Catskills themselves, physically or geographically, will come back, but I understand what you're saying. I think there's still a market for it in some sections of the country, Florida particularly, and parts of Los Angeles and New York, I think, as well.

Noah Gardenswartz: When you're looking ahead, Noah, are you looking at keeping both of your skills current? In the sense that do you want to split your time equally between writing and performing? And when I say writing, not writing your act but writing for other shows or other people, as opposed to what you do in performance, again at the Comedy Cellar at the Rio through November 12th.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, in a perfect world, I would love to continue doing both, and they both require a great amount of energy and a balance of energies. Standup is always there, and it was my first love, so I think there's a chance that if I was to get big enough and the kids were away in college, I would slow down on the writing and go tour more. I don't think there's a chance, no matter how much TV or movie writing I do, that I would ever stop doing standup. So I love them both, I feel fortunate to be able to do both, and I plan to keep on doing both. But standup is my first love and probably my ultimate artistic priority.

Ira Sternberg: What do you get from standup from an audience perspective? What I mean by that is, it's your artistic commitment to standup, but what do you psychologically get from it? Is it the immediate response of laughter from the audience?

Noah Gardenswartz: Sure, I mean, yeah, there's absolutely that serotonin that comes from instant gratification. Standup, you know how you did 10 seconds after you tell the joke. As soon as you leave the club that night, you know if the show went well or not. TV and film is a collaboration where you're working with a lot of other people, and it's a teamwork thing. Standup, it's all you, and so there's something beautiful about the connection of when I go perform a show. If the crowd likes me, I know it's 100% because of what I just did.

Ira Sternberg: Do you handle rejection well? In other words, if you have an off night, and all comedians do, if you have an off night, do you just accept it and go, "Well, it just didn't work that time"?

Noah Gardenswartz: You can't be a professional comedian for as long as I've been, or any professional comedian for that matter, without learning to handle rejection. You'll drive yourself crazy if you don't learn to shake it off.

Ira Sternberg: What would irritate you more than a crowd that doesn't laugh, which happens to every comedian at some point, as you said, as any professional comedian, but it's more about if they pronounce your name right.

Noah Gardenswartz: Oh no, I mean, I've given up all hope of people being able to pronounce my name. That doesn't bother me at all anymore.

Ira Sternberg: But you've kept it, which is good, so you didn't change it.

Noah Gardenswartz: Yeah, I'm not going to suddenly be Noah Smith one day. I'm not going to change it.

Ira Sternberg: Or Noah Jones. That could work as well. Do you videotape your material, so when you're performing, just to study and see how you can improve, or are you past that point?

Noah Gardenswartz: It's not about being past it or not. I know people who've been doing standup longer than I have that do that. I don't have the energy or the discipline for it. It's a lot of work, and yes, one thing that helps with my standup is I do have a great memory. So when I do the gig, I sort of know what jokes did well, if I flubbed a line, or if there's something I want to build on. But yeah, I don't have the time or energy to record myself and then go back and watch it.

Ira Sternberg: Right now, with two kids, I don't think that would work.

Noah Gardenswartz: I wouldn't think so. Do you get calls from fellow comedians about writing material for them?

Noah Gardenswartz: I have, few and far between. There have been a few times, I could count on one hand, the amount of people who have asked me about if I would sell a joke or if I would consider writing something with them. The truth is, I think standup is such a personal thing, and specifically the way I write standup, unless I'm writing for a TV show like "Mrs. Maisel," writing standup for a fictional character, I want to devote all my joke-writing energy to my own act.

Ira Sternberg: If you could, and I know it's hard to describe, but everyone's different, how do you, when you sit down and write a joke, because you've been doing it so long, do you write down the idea first and then think about alternatives to or funny takeoffs on that idea, or is it just a stream of consciousness where you just write a bunch of stuff and then you go back and edit it? How does that work for you?

Noah Gardenswartz: Very rarely will a joke come to me in full form. It's once in a blue moon that the joke just hits you, and that's the best feeling in the world. But for the most part, it's not even necessarily something that I think is funny, it's like something that I think is interesting. So, something will just catch my eye as abnormal, different, it'll kind of make me think about, "Oh, what was that?" And then I'll sit down to inspect why is that interesting and furthermore why is that funny. And then I'll try a loose version of that on stage. Sometimes I can write the joke right away, sometimes I tell the joke, and I can tell that the premise is interesting or the kernel that brought me to it is funny, but the punchline isn't quite connecting with the audience. And then I'll retool it and figure out maybe a stronger way to end the joke. But for the most part, it all starts with being interested in something and then kind of reverse engineering from there.

Ira Sternberg: And when you do your material on stage, can you tell yourself, because you mentioned about how you'll remember what the audience reaction is, so you don't have to record it at all, but are there certain materials in your act that you know will always

get an uproarious laugh?

Noah Gardenswartz: Always is a dangerous word to use in comedy. You never know when it's going to be your night or your crowd, where they're just not buying what you're selling. But yeah, you have a few aces up your sleeve where it's like, if you're sort of losing the crowd or you're losing momentum, you have a few jokes that you can pull out that you know should get you right back on track.

Ira Sternberg: And final question, so when you finish for the night, when you perform, do you immediately leave, or do you hang out with the other comedians? Or is it you rather get home to the wife and kids?

Noah Gardenswartz: I am infamously not a hanger-outer. There are a lot of comics that'll burn the midnight oil. I typically leave after my set if I can, unless I'm performing with friends I haven't seen in a while, or like a fellow comedian who I know is doing a new part of their act that I haven't seen and I really want to see what they're working on. There are occasions where, of course, I'll hang out, but for the most part, when my job is done, I go home.

Ira Sternberg: Well, that's a great way to leave it. My guest has been award-winning writer and nationally touring headliner Noah Gardenswartz. He is performing in the Comedy Cellar at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino through November 12th. Showtimes are 7 and 9:30. For ticket information, go to thecomedycellar.com. For everything about Noah, go to noahgardenswartz.com, and you can follow him on Instagram at noahgcomedy. Noah's special "Sweatpants in Perpetuity" is now available on YouTube. And Noah, thanks for being on the show.

Noah Gardenswartz: Thank you for having me. Really enjoyed it.

Ira Sternberg: See you next time.