Comedian Jesus Trejo says he ‘lucked out’ by naming his upcoming special, shot in 2019, 'Stay At Home Son'
Stand-up comic Jesus Trejo, whose Showtime comedy special, ‘Jesus Trejo: Stay At Home Son’, will premiere soon, recently spoke to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) about his comedy, performing during the lockdown, his family, and, of course, the show.
Filmed at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood on November 2, 2019, the hour-long special is slated to be a front-row seat into his family dynamics. An only child of immigrant parents, Trejo’s stand-up set, directed by Brian Volk-Weiss, will be about his parents, life lessons he’s learned, and more.
The show’s name, ‘Stay At Home Son’ is oddly well-suited to the present where most people have been forced to stay at home, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. Asked if in retrospect he thought the name was prophetic, Trejo said, “I think I lucked out with the name of the special. It was the title that I had been playing around with most of last year when I was working out the material. And that's the name that we went with. And then, you know, given everything that's happened, it's like, Oh man, it's so perfect. I wish I would have added a comma in there, you know, that would have made it a little better, but it's pretty good.”
Talking about the show, he said, “The special is something I've been working on for some time, and I was really excited when I got the opportunity from Showtime to have my first one-hour special… I've talked about my upbringing. I talked about my family, which I'm very close to, and I talk about what it's like to grow up in Long Beach, California.”
“Then, you know, I talk about what it's like to live at home and care for elderly parents. And, you know, I talk about the dynamic and the generational gap that exists between my generation and the baby boomer generation, which my parents belonged to,” he added. “It was a great way to dive in and explore it and dissect what that's like, living with the American dream. My parents are from Mexico, I'm born here and you know, there's a cultural and a generational gap.”
The 33-year-old comic has been performing for 13 years now. And in all of his career, Trejo, like everyone else, did not imagine that he would be in a situation where he was unable to perform. The lockdowns have changed the game for entertainers across the globe. And even Trejo had to make some adjustments, even if he was reluctant about them in the beginning.
“I think that it's a bummer that we can't get on the stage, but, you know, hopefully soon,” he said. “I've been doing some of these online shows, which are cool. I think I was very much against it in the beginning, but now it's like I came around, I was definitely itching to perform some kind of version of standup -- I don't know if you could call it stand-up, performing over Zoom. But it's the closest thing, you know, that'll do for the time being.”
“I was against the idea of performance over Zoom because, you know, you're so enamored with the idea of a comedy club,” added Trejo. “There's something special about a live performance where, you know, you're in a dark room and you know, you got the microphone in hand. It’s old school.”
But it’s a little more than just that. He said, “With the Zoom thing, it's like you're in your room. You're staring into your laptop, but you know, there's a delay. A big rule of comedy is timing. So sometimes the delay with the laughter, you know, it just kind of loosens your collar a little bit going, ‘Oh boy’.”
But, ultimately, he had to give in. “I did it because I don't think we'll be able to do any live performances anytime soon,” he said. “So there was a bunch of material I had been writing and I was very excited to kind of try out the material. That's the thing about being a standup comic. You can't really perform in a vacuum… You think of something, you write it, and that night you can go on stage and test it. And I haven't been able to do that for some time. So I think that's what really pushed me in this direction.”
“I think there's a significant difference in comedy,” said Trejo about his years in the industry. “Thanks to the internet, you know, promotion, putting content out there has become a lot easier… I think it's cool. It allows people, who may or may not be able to go to a live show, to kind of see my comedy. And especially now, you know, it's like live shows aren't going to be a thing for some time. You know, a great way for people to get familiar with my comedy and my voice. And, you know, hopefully, when everything gets back up and going, people will come out.”
Asked what he wanted to do, other than getting back on the stage, once the lockdowns were over, Trejo said, “Once everything gets back to normal, I think I'm going to go to a nice restaurant. I like this barbecue restaurant out here in Long Beach… That's what I want to do.”
‘Jesus Trejo: Stay At Home Son’ will air on Showtime on Friday, May 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.