Jesse Chieffo
Charlie Kojis holds a microphone onstage.
Being funny is a good approach to every day, says Charlie Kojis.
“Every step of the process of getting married is embarrassing,” comedian Charlie Kojis asserts on his upcoming debut special, A Normal Amount of Pain. “You have to get down on one knee, and then you have to go take pictures in a field, and then you have to dance with your mom.”
Those obstacles are good, he jokes, because otherwise it’d be too easy to marry someone after just a couple of weeks. “Do you wanna dance with your mom about it? Oh, no, not really.”
Isthmus spoke with the up-and-coming local comedian, crowned Madison’s Funniest Comic by Comedy on State in the sepia-toned yesteryear of 2016, ahead of the May 22 debut of his special. The special will premiere on his YouTube page, shot by fellow local artist Jesse Chieffo. There will also be a physical CD for the more aurally-inclined.
The special draws from the first nine years of his comedic journey, which started when he was a fresh-faced 21-year-old UW-Madison student. At this point, Kojis feels like he has the act together, and he wants to document it somewhere. Topics range from marriage to ice cream samplers to getting excited about sparkling water during lockdown.
Kojis describes himself as an observational comic, influenced by Nate Bargatze, Tig Notaro, John Mulaney, and (most evidently once you see him perform) Jerry Seinfeld. Most influential, however, was his family’s general focus on humor. Being funny was “an important quality,” he says. “It’s a good approach to every day.”
He’s clearly taken that to heart, and finds humor in everyday occurrences — like a doctor’s visit, from which the title of the album derives. He even pushes himself to find humor in the moment, on stage. “I do like to leave it open somewhat,” he says, “because a lot of times, when you’re on stage, you will talk more in your own voice than in your writing.” He’s come to believe that giving the material breathing room allows a natural editing process to take over which results in strong, focused, fully-voiced bits.
“That’s the most exciting feeling you can have, when you can pull out a new line and it’s very organic,” says Kojis. While he likes talking about what he planned to talk about, spontaneity is funny and he wants to be “less precious” about his specific word choices in the future.
Even when comedy was new to Kojis, he never doubted he could succeed. He didn’t restrict himself to open mics and set his sights on winning Madison’s Funniest. He analyzed the competition, seeing the benefits of “really strong and really punchy” material, which proved to be a valuable guide for forming jokes early on. It helped him to “focus on that tight writing.”
Now that he has a special and the draft of a spec script for a potential sitcom with comedian Adam McShane, a former Madisonian, what’s the endgame for Charlie Kojis? Broadway? A special on the moon? No, it’s more straightforward than that: He just wants to do comedy, pure and simple.
“If I could go every weekend, and be able to do 45 [minutes] to an hour at a good room where people are up for listening to comedy, whether or not they know who I am, they’re just ready to see a show, that’s kind of the goal. If you can do a comedy club, and people go ‘That was a great night,’ that’s about as lofty an aspiration as you can have.”
Kojis will also be headlining Comedy at the Cabaret at North Street Cabaret May 4 at 8 p.m.
