A comedian whose “Another Weird Week” segments have racked up tens of millions of views online will bring his stand-up act to central Iowa for one night this week.
Jason Salmon says his style of comedy has been called “the best advice you’ve ever gotten, from the dumbest guy you know.” Salmon says the highly popular videos are simply his reflections on current events.
“I turn on the news and I just jot stuff down for about three days, and then because I’ve got a comedian’s brain, fortunately, I see a bunch of chaos,” Salmon says, “and instead of getting bothered by it, I sort of go, ‘I bet there’s a joke in there somewhere.’”
His hour-long standup special, “Biscuits and Gravity,” is primarily observational humor, but Salmon’s weekly videos tend to be lean political, skewering our elected officials while urging people to “stay ornery.”
In a phone interview with Radio Iowa, Salmon says he doesn’t typically change his material mid-set based on the reception from the audience, be it red or blue.
“I’ve always just looked at the world and said, ‘This is weird, right?’ and that sort of ended up being the theme of my political videos. I just always make fun of the dumbest things I see, and right now, that’s in a lot of halls of power,” Salmon says. “I’m not sitting there going, ‘This guy’s a jerk and this guy’s an idiot.’ I’m like, why do we need more testosterone since we no longer fight with swords?”
While some comedians, like Lewis Black, express their frustrations through obscenity-laced monologues, Iowans won’t likely won’t hear a single curse word in Salmon’s act, which he says is an intentional choice.
“I grew up watching comedy mostly on TV, so I always was attracted to the sharpness of the thing as opposed to the outrageous thing,” he says, laughing. “I love Lewis Black. I love his style, but I’m not nearly as angry as he is either.”
The sixth generation Texan is based in New York City though it wasn’t comedy that drew him to the Big Apple from his home state.
“I moved to New York with an engineering job and realized that I was not built to be an engineer. I did not enjoy it,” Salmon says, “and then started, well, to be honest, I took an acting class to meet women and that sort of started my trajectory toward comedy and that’s where I ultimately ended up.”
His acting credits include appearances on “30 Rock,” “Orange is the New Black,” and “At Home with Amy Sedaris,” while comedy has taken him around the world, with one Iowa stop scheduled on this Make Laugh Not War Tour.
Salmon performs Thursday night at the Funny Bone in West Des Moines.
