Meet Loy Lee | Stand up comedian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Loy Lee and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Loy, what role has risk played in your life or career?
As a stand up comedian, I feel that it’s all about taking a risk. Most of the journey is taking a risk, seeing how it goes, getting up again and doing it all over again but trying to not fail as hard as you did last time. Taking a risk and being ok with failing is most of comedy. The drive to do it again and the drive to try to be better. Figuring out what went right and what went wrong only works if you take risks. If you’re not taking risks to make the joke better are your jokes getting better? Taking risks and failing helps shave off the stuff that doesn’t work to reveal the things that do work. Without risk, comedy would just be boring Ted Talks.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Comedy below the surface level of jokes is actually very personal and can be extremely intimate. The things I share wouldn’t be the things I share with people that I would share a cubicle with or talk about at the family gathering. Being a comedian is being able to bring people into your world and show them who you are. Jokes come and go but you get to know me in a way that people who I interact with every day probably don’t. That is what makes my art unique because it’s not just the jokes or the stories or how they are presented but how real and authentically “me” they are. Easy? Honesty is the “best policy” not the “easiest policy”. Everything in comedy is hard. The hardest part is being honest with myself and with the audience. Being authentic in LA and not falling victim to trends or going with the “group think” hot takes for crowd approval is hard. Figuring out who you are is difficult, many pay trained professionals a lot of money to help, I’m paying that debt not with money but with public trial and error over a long period of time.
How did I overcome those challenges? My mom called me stubborn as a child and many called me a failure. But I’m starting to realize that if you’re stubborn enough and if you fail to quit you could just make it happen.
Branding as a comedian is weird. It sounds like “The corporate comedian” or “the juggling guitar jokester”. As a comedian I am my brand so it feels weird to boil “Me” down to a few buzz words. Hilarious, enigmatic, fresh or The “Rizzinator”or whatever the kids are saying. My brand of comedy is, “you’ll have a good time” “you’ll learn something, maybe” “you’ll spend some money but you’ll want to do it again soon” but most importantly “worth your time”.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
LA is a big city made up of “pockets”. Some pockets are neighborhoods and some are blocks. Each Pocket has its own vibe, history and hidden gems. If my best friend was coming for the first time, I would tell them to wear comfortable clothes and bring all of there blood pressure/cholesterol/insulin because we’re gonna eat drink and waddle our way through the most iconic Pockets LA has to offer.
I would play part tour guide, movie buff, beer expert and Anthony Bourdain tier level host. Taking my friend around for the food, chasing it with local beer, and pointing out different movie scenes shot locations as we move inward through the city ending the week in Santa Monica /westside cus you gotta stop somewhere, why not make it on the beach.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The cheesy but very real shoutout would be to my wife. Comedy doesn’t work without the understanding and support of your other half. My wife understands that I really don’t want to be going out every night and she understands that there is a tangible goal in mind that requires me to be working on material at odd dive bars and breweries every night, half full of strangers half paying attention. She doesn’t give me friction on the way out the door and is excited to see when I get back. If your partner doesn’t see the goal or understand the process, the end of that relationship is around every corner. So my shout out is to my wife, her understanding, belief, support and willingness to share her time with me with the random bar crawlers and pub goers that didn’t realize there was a comedy show going on. To her I’m grateful.

Website: https://Www.Loyleecomedy.com

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Image Credits
Rollence Patugan