Sam Tallent, a nationally touring Denver comic who prides himself on his manic, seat-of-your-pants improvisation and punk-rock credentials, is ready to be taken seriously.
āMy comedyās silly and stupid,ā the 33-year-old said last week. āIt works at the Oklahoma comedy club as well as in Denver. But if youāre a comedy nerd, you can find interesting things there, too.ā
Stand-ups often labor to balance smart and stupid in their acts, but Tallent¶¶Ņõap sets frequently blow past that goal on the way to surreal, chaotic bliss. Rapid-fire wordplay rams headlong into ridiculous, inventive premises as the physically imposing Tallent roams the stage, constructing jokes in real-time.
āThe economy of words is important in stand-up,ā said Tallent, who made up one-quarter of the , the Denver comedy institution that formerly ran weekly showcases under the Too Much Fun banner. āI could never write a joke down on a piece of paper, like some of these other comics.ā
That¶¶Ņõap funny, considering his latest project.
The deal (or lack thereof)
Tallent self-published his first novel, āRunning the Light,ā on his own Too Big Too Fail Press in May. He had tried shopping it around to traditional publishers via United Talent Agency, but the offers that came back felt too low to Tallent¶¶Ņõap agent ā who had worked on bestselling memoirs from comics such as Chelsea Handler.
āHe loved my book but didnāt know who the market was for it,ā Tallent said. āEventually he said, āIām not doing you justice,ā and a month later, COVID hit. I didnāt want to self-publish at all. I wanted literary prestige. I wanted it to be reviewed by The New York Times.ā
Despite that, Tallent has gotten rave reviews and promotional help from national comics such as Kyle KinaneĢż(the āvoice of Comedy Central,ā who wrote the introduction to the novel) and Doug Stanhope, whoās welcoming Tallent to his Bisbee, Ariz., compound for a podcast recording next week.
In addition, Tallent estimates heās made ā20 times more moneyā on the book by self-publishing and selling directly than he would have with the best deal his agent was offered (signed copies will set you back $25 via ). Sales have recently passed the 3,000-copyĢżmark, and Tallent is nowhere near done promoting it as he hand-delivers copies to buyers during the shutdown.
It¶¶Ņõap not an unusual place for Tallent to find himself. The Elizabeth native, who moved to Denver in 2005Ģżto attend Metropolitan State University and later dropped out, madeĢża name for himself in Denver in the 2010sĢżwith his fiercely DIY ethics.
As a comic, Tallent hosted arguably the two most brutal comedy nights in the city ā the infamous Squire Lounge (taking over from Greg Baumhauer) and The Lionās Lair (with Roger Norquist), both open-mics on East Colfax Avenue ā as well as one of its most prestigious and popular stand-up showcases, Too Much Fun.
A roaming night that eventually settled at the Deer Pile art space above City Oā City, Too Much also spawned its own, scrubby festival (Too Much Funstival) and welcomed drop-in guests such as Dave Chappelle and other Comedy Works headliners.
But Tallent also helped cement Denverās reputation as a city where alt-comedy and music existed on different ends of the same spectrum. He presided over massive parties at his Mouth House punk-rock/comedy compound (weāll get to the alligator in the bathtub in a minute) at 29th and California streets, and drummed in bands such as Red vs Black and Big City Drugs.
āThe first time I ever killed on a stage was during my senior-year football banquet,ā said Tallent, an all-state football player who manned right tackle for a left-handed quarterback. āI was roasting the coaches and teammates and my dad said, āI didnāt know you were funny until you crushed at that.ā ā
After high school, Tallent began taking improv classes at Bovine Metropolis Theater and studying comedy and rhetoric at Metro. He received a C grade in his comedy final because he couldnāt make the class due to performing on Bovineās main stage that night.
āThe irony was not lost on me,ā Tallent said.
He entered Comedy Worksā prestigious New Faces competition a couple of years later and made the finals, but choked, he said, due to his inexperience. He then split his time between Denver and Ithaca, N.Y., where old friend and Red vs Black bassist Clay DeHaan lived. From there, he toured with Red vs Black, released albums and generally lived the ādumpster divingā lifestyle, scrounging, partying and devouring books along the way.
It wasnāt until Tallent met Denver comic Nathan Lund, who was cooking up a new comedy showcase with buddies Bobby CraneĢżand , that Tallent decided to invest in Denver comedy again ā having previously found the scene to be unbearably cliquish.
āI lived off that $25 I got each Monday from the Lionās Lair,ā Tallent said. āBut the first ten years of my life in Denver had really been all about music.ā
Once Too Much Fun launched ā influenced both by scene regulars like Troy Baxley and Chuck Roy, and DIY landmarks like Los Comicos Hilariosos (which would later become )Ģżā Tallent shed his disdain for the āhipster popularity contestā that was Denverās unforgiving, underground comedy scene at the time.
Tallent also began touring, opening for bigger names, dropping in at festivals, and otherwise carving his own path in cities that he would come to visit repeatedly. He moved into the Mouth House, as it was called, where roaming punk bands and national comics performed during raucous parties that caught the attention of undercover police detectives.
āTheir way of trying to look like punks was having all of them wear Social Distortion T-shirts,ā Tallent said with a laugh. āAll of them. Theyād walk around the parties asking how old people were.ā
At the same time, Tallent and his 15Ģżroommates rented bouncy houses and alligators to add to the dilapidated circus atmosphere at Mouth House.
āWe befriended this alligator farm owner from Alamosa who would charge $10 per picture to get snapshots with it in our bathtub,ā Tallent said. āThe (expletive) thing is that we only had one bathroom, so people would be (relieving themselves) in the yard while this guyās daughter held the alligator upstairs.ā
In 2013, the when cops smashed through its gates and threatened to arrest partygoers for underage alcohol consumption. Later, as Too Much Fun was winding down and many of Tallent¶¶Ņõap peers were fleeing to the coasts to pursue careers, Tallent moved to Las Vegas with his wife, who was there to complete her first two years of medical school.
Without good friends, or much of fire in his belly for performing, he began to write.
On stage, then the page
āRunning the Light,ā Tallent¶¶Ņõap 287-pageĢżdebut novel, follows comic Billy Ray Schafer, a casually racist, deadbeat-dad drug addict who acts as an archetype for the hundreds of aging, self-hating comics Tallent has witnessed over the years.
Of course, the character should not be confused for its author, Tallent said.
āI donāt think thereās anything to applaud in him. Modern literature wants you to root for the protagonist, but some of the best books are about pieces of (expletive),ā he said, noting novels such as Philip Rothās āSabbathās Theaterā and Cormac McCarthyās āBlood Meridian.ā āI like a disgusting main character, but I donāt aspire to be like them.ā
That¶¶Ņõap a good thing, as Schaferās life is likely to leave many readers with a vicariously sour taste in their mouths. In vivid, electric sentences that read like cinematic tracking shots, Tallent recounts a string of bizarre and depressing gigs that Schafer performs, including trips up and down the Interstate-25 corridor, as he flounders in his personal life.
āA bare bulb in the ceiling yellowed the chamber visible,ā he writes about a backroom where a bar owner pays Billy Ray for a night¶¶Ņõap work before producing a baggie of cocaine, āilluminating a row of stainless-steel kegs lining the wall like the torsos of B-movie robots.ā
Besides the settings, many Denver comics and people in the scene will likely be interested in reading about Tallent¶¶Ņõap barely-fictionalized versions of the regionās stand-ups, bookers and club owners, although some characters are amalgams.
āBilly Ray is the guy young comics fear turning into,ā Tallent said. āThese guys who get trapped in the cage of not having any other skills and blowing money and getting addicted to drugs. Heās the man I feared becoming.ā
Tallent keeps saying āmenā because stand-up is a statistically male pursuit. Although, as Tallent reminded, his main characterās misogyny, racism and depravity should not be confused for his own. An insatiable reader, Tallent¶¶Ņõap writing betrays influences ranging from Hunter S. Thompson to the aforementioned McCarthy and Roth. Rough characters, he said, are the point.
āI never outlined it and had zero plan for what the book was going to be,ā he said. āIt just poured out of me.ā
Now based in Fort Collins ā his wife is working a three-year residency at UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital ā Tallent is halfway finished with his next novel and increasingly drawn to writing over performing, despite the lack of instant, unequivocal audience feedback that attracted him to stand-up in the first place.
āI think the book is the best thing Iāve ever done, creatively,ā he said. āIt¶¶Ņõap like the pebble in the water: a few people bought it, reviewed it online, and told their friends about it, and that¶¶Ņõap led to even more sales. My ego wanted the prestige of a (traditional) publisher, but Iām also proud of the fact that I have complete control over it ā and that people seem to like it.ā
