Carmen Morales’ Seductive Comedy

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All Credit to Carmen Morales and Milwaukee Comedy

Carmen Morales is out to make you laugh, but she will be the first to say that her stand-up comedy isn’t entirely about the audience. Especially if any hecklers try to get the best of her 

“Nothing a stranger has to say to me is gonna be more hurtful than things I’ve said to myself,” says Morales, who will perform Sunday, Dec. 15, at vintage boutique/performance space, Dandy (5020 W. Vliet St.), for a 7 p.m. show. “So, in a messed up kinda way, it makes you impenetrable.”

She continues about her comedic confidence: “There is a common misconception when people come to comedy shows that they think the show is just for them—nope! It is for me too, and if you show up there and try to mess that up, I have no problem addressing it.”

If Morales doesn’t lack moxie, she also comes to the microphone with a vulnerability about her life that she compares to nudity. As in gentleman's club feature dancer nudity. Don’t hold your breath on her disrobing at Dandy, but she draws a convincing parallel between her artistry and that of those women who use poles as props. “Much like when someone is stripping for you, they are seducing you while being vulnerable at the same time. Comedy, specifically stand-up comedy, does the same thing. Comedians will seduce you into listening by being funny and charming, then be vulnerable by sharing intimate details about our lives, hardships, opinions, etc. Strippers are trying to entice you to give them money, whereas comedians are enticing you to laugh and providing a release, in a much less biblical sense. Comedians are just slowly peeling away the guarding garments of our minds.” 

Adult as that reference point may be, much of her material has its origin in the sense of humor she has inherited from spirited interactions among her kin. That legacy often manifests in a persona that might be rightly described as genially cranky. Of her funny upbringing, she recalls, “My family is from Florida, but as most Floridians are from up north originally, there was a lot of light ribbing that happened; it was never with the intention of being hurtful or malicious. In a world where I think people are often quick to be judged for being mean and everyone is lying themselves and each other about ‘living their best life,’ I like to be a funny dose of that reality. Key word here is funny; if it’s not funny, it’s just mean.” 

She shares a hoot of an incident: “One time, back when I worked in the office for my family’s plumbing company, I had gotten arrested for something stupid, and when I got back to work, my family had post-it notes all over my desk saying things like, ‘What kinda bird doesn’t fly?—jail bird.’ It was hilarious and made me feel better about my situation.” Another work situation at least as valuable in making her the comic she is today was a stint as door girl at West Hollywood’s famed Comedy Store nightclub. For Morales, it was a lesson in how the comedic sausage is made in an often enough rarefied atmosphere. So much so that she still speaks of it in the present tense:  

“It’s almost like being a martial arts fanatic and going to a temple in the mountains to train among the best in the world. I see some of the best comedians in the world work out new jokes and see their process going from a shred of an idea to a fully formulated string of jokes that ends up on a comedy special. I've seen famous people bomb, which humanizes them to me, I think. 

“One night before I left town, I had a set at the store and found out Dave Chappelle was doing a set in The Belly Room, so I stayed to check it out. That same show, Leonardo DiCaprio showed up to watch along with John Mayer, Paul Rudd, Talib Kweli, Rami Malek and Robert Pattinson. So yeah, it’s an interesting place, a place unlike anywhere in the world, and I feel fortunate to be a part of it.” And though playing an antique store and performance space such as Dandy may be a unique experience for any touring comedian, it is by no means the only novel venue where Morales has professionally plied her wit. 

Of some of the places that have made her a most versatile stand-up, she relates, “Being a not-yet-famous comedian, boy, have I said yes to performing in places I perhaps shouldn't have. I've performed on the patio of an Asian-Fusion restaurant, in the food court of an indoor flea market, on a moving bus full of people doing a bar crawl, at the Hillbilly Festival in Kentucky. The list goes on. What it does is makes me prepared for anything, and I know without the shadow of a doubt that I can captivate an audience whether they knew there was going to be a comedy show or not.”

Her podcast, “No Sir I Don't Like It,” is an abundant font of comedic negativity. Of its genesis, Morales explains, "When I was a psych major in college, I remember reading a Psychology Today article talking about how our brains are more negative than positive, and that always stuck out to me. That, combined with the observation of how people would bond over things they didn’t like as much as, if not more, things they enjoyed immensely. In a world where people are constantly posting selfies with a caption about being positive or their good vibes T-shirt, I decided to lean into the opposite. Instead of lying to ourselves as if we don’t have plenty to dislike in the world. I never run out of interesting comedians and guests, and they never run out of things they don’t like. Several people, including myself, have gotten a bunch of jokes out of doing my podcast. It’s fun way of being funny and cathartic about the things you dislike. Like a release valve so you’re not walking around like a pressure cooker about to blow. It’s also just hilarious to hear someone get mad about the mere presence of raisins or getting infuriated by someone putting their feet up in the dash."

Sure as Morales is about the ability of people to agree on things they find disagreeable, she’s all the more certain about their having a good time seeing her be funny at Dandy. “I’d say whoever you’re going to hang out with that night isn’t going to be as funny, so you should probably bring them, too.”

Here’s the self-professed “damn good at what I do” Morales on Fox TV’s “Laughs” copping to be too immature to be a mom and how some mothers use their babies to passively-aggressively throw shade on other family members: