Chris Gethard Looks for Laughs at X-Ray Arcade

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Photo: Chris Gethard - chrisgeth.com

Chris Gethard

Chris Gethard

“Now that I’m performing in Wisconsin, I’ve been to 45 of the 50 states,” Chris Gethard says of the accomplishment that brings him to X-Ray Arcade (5036 S. Packard Ave., Cudahy) for a 6 p.m. all-ages recording of “Beautiful/Anonymous” and a likewise minors-welcome 9:30 p.m. set of his engagingly autobiographical schtick on Friday October 7. And just as Gethard is well traveled, he takes his listeners on journeys of his own navigation. 

“I’m much more about laying track, letting things breathe, putting out information that the audience doesn’t realize is going to come back later,” Gethard reflects on his approach behind the mic. Though there is a downside to his way of leading audiences to laughter in the age of social media-abetted instant gratification. “Sadly, my stuff doesn’t translate as well to the TikTok and Instagram algorithms where everything is supposed to get boiled down to 30 second clips.”

Gethard knows he can deliver a unique experience to those willing to let him lead the way. “I can confidently say that if you put me in a room with a bunch of people, and we go on a ride together, they have a good time where they laugh and think about stuff,” he affirms. One early stop along Gethard’s own comedic trek was one that left him frightened but fueled his determined as well. 

“Being bullied sucked,” he remembers of the mistreatment he endured during his youth. “It wasn’t something that happened every day, but often enough that I lived in fear of it. My older brother got it much worse than I did. It made me angry and defensive, and it took a lot of years to unwrap that. But it also made me learn how to be a smartass and tell a joke as a defense mechanism, so I guess those miserable years wound up being job training at the end of the day.” That training has naturally attracted a subset of his audience who identifies with Gethard’s childhood suffering. 

“I think all the time about how there are probably people with those feelings coming to see me, and I have to write stuff that feels true and honest to them and makes them feel some momentum away from negativity. If I can let them know I understand, it means I’m doing my job. So, it’s still motivating,” the currently much more emotionally stable Gethard declares. Inspiration from his school days may even help some of the younger attendees seeing him at X-Ray.  

Great Respect

Those young comedy lovers will get the same set Gethard would give were he playing only to adults. “I have great respect for the intelligence of young people, both intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence,” Gethard empathizes. “The stand-up set has a few sexual jokes, but nothing that’s shock value for the sake of it. I think we often underestimate young people, and it’s a shame.” Gethard and his wife have their own young person to estimate, providing another source of comedic inspiration.

“God bless him as he gets older and realizes that his dad is kind of a lifelong weirdo with a strange career,” I definitely think about him a lot and write a lot of jokes and thoughts about things he has taught me,” Gethard relates. As his son teaches him, the woman with whom Gethard conceived him keeps her husband honest. “Her main request is that things stay truthful,” he says of his other half regarding personal boundaries on his artistry. 

“There have been a few times where I’ve had a killer punchline, and she’ll see it and go ‘You took a shortcut there to get from the truth to the punchline. That’s not cool.’ And I’ll go, ‘You’re right … man I’m gonna miss that punchline.’ But if the only boundary she places on me is aiming to be more truthful and not go for easier, hackier punchlines … then I have a very good partner in life,” Gethard confesses. 

His partners in the podcast for which he will be recording an episode at X-Ray, “Beautiful/Anonymous,” however, are strangers. They’re strangers who give him a telephone call, and Gethard never asks their names. Of its concept, he explains that it was “originally going to be an extension of my old public access show, in my mind. We took a lot of phone calls from kids on the air, and I figured it would be the same: high school and college kids calling up to kind of mess with me.

“Instead, it kind of took on this beautiful life of its own, where people get confessional, or empowered, or use the show as a platform to get out stories from their lives that don’t have anywhere else to live. I’m insanely blown away by it and proud I stumbled into it, " Gethard enthuses. His pride in B/A coincides with his good fortune at pursuing the work he does. 

“I feel really lucky to do what I do, and I will work my ass off to give people a good show. Please come out!”

Here Gethard, who usually draws narratively from his New Jersey upbringing and current New York City residence, takes a detour to Orlando to compare two tourist attractions, and, hence, fantasy and reality...