Matt Braunger has seen a lot in his 43 years. “I’ve probably made most of the mistakes people younger than me are going to make,” he says. “I’ve done almost all of the drugs. I’ve done all of the dumb guy shit. I’ve made a ton of questionable career moves.”
It’s this wealth of life experience, both positive and negative, that fuels the standup veteran and “MADtv” alum’s latest expedition in entertainment. “Ding-Donger with Matt Braunger” is a weekly podcast that includes an increasingly popular advice segment titled “Dear Ding-Donger.” “I’m kind of like the dickhead Dear Abby,” he says.
In many ways, the podcast is a natural extension of Braunger’s standup—autobiographical yet relatable, the sort of 2 a.m. wisdom that is most usually found behind a bar or around the kitchen table of winding down house party. Braunger tells the kinds of stories that can only be told by someone with a few too many late nights under their belt, but infused with a progressive worldview.
His current tour, “Braunger Than Yesterday,” includes a bit about white privilege, but in Braunger’s story, a man with “drunk, old, white privilege” repeatedly misses a bus in Chicago and gets his comeuppance from a black woman bus driver. According to Braunger, his act centers around “the foibles that we all share, but at the same time are ridiculous and should be changed.”
His most recent album, Big Dumb Animal, was released in 2015 and fully embraces Braunger’s loudest guy in the bar persona. He opens by saying, “I am 39, I’m unmarried, have no children, no girlfriend, still rent an apartment; I think I’m fuckin’ killing it, you guys!” But at least one of those has changed since. Braunger married his wife in a courthouse earlier this year, and says it was “definitely the best thing that has ever happened to me in a courthouse by far.”
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The next step for Braunger is shopping around a special he shot in May at Portland’s Bridgetown Comedy Festival, tentatively titled “Finally Live in Portland.” The title refers to his upbringing in the city. He doesn’t know who will buy it, but knows he is planning on also turning it into an album.
In the meantime his tour is making stops all over the country and Braunger is focusing on his main goal. “I want, when people come see me, to have it be like seeing a movie you really love,” he says. “I want it to have that same kind of feeling.”
Matt Braunger is performing at the Underground Collaborative on Friday, Dec. 15. You can purchase tickets here.
