CJ Landry

Why watch CJ

CJ Landry grew up in Houma, Louisiana, wanting to be a radio personality or a death metal guitarist. He ended up hosting podcasts and doing stand-up in Austin, which is roughly what you get if you let both dreams negotiate with each other and nobody wins.

If you’ve spent any time in Austin comedy over the last few years, you’ve seen him. He has worked Vulcan Gas Company, East Austin Comedy Club, The Creek and the Cave and, by one local club’s count, nearly every show in town, from open mics to comic-produced rooms to opening for headliners around Texas and beyond. He has opened for Tony Hinchcliffe, Joe List, Jeremiah Watkins, Ali Macofsky, Fahim Anwar and Maddy Smith, among others. And he has been a door guy and regular at the Comedy Mothership, which in Austin is a little like working the mailroom at the studio: unglamorous, constant, and exactly where you want to be standing when somebody important walks by.

His act runs on the contradictions of the place he’s from. Landry talks about the South with the affection of a guy who can’t go back and the honesty of a guy who knows why. His Don’t Tell Comedy set, “Pregnancy Scare in Texas,” is a good entry point: conversational, a little sinister and built on the kind of details you only have if you were actually there.

He says he was a delinquent as a kid who couldn’t stand authority, which is the most common origin story in comedy and also the most honest one. He drew political cartoons growing up. He names Chris Rock and Sam Kinison as influences and admires Austin comics like Deric Poston and Jon Carden. He has also turned up on Stand-Up On The Spot, the improvised show where comics build sets out of audience suggestions in real time, including an episode in Houston and another in Austin, which is the comedy equivalent of a fire drill with the fire left in.

Why watch him now: Austin has become a factory town for comedy, and most of the product looks the same. Landry doesn’t. He has a specific voice, a specific place and a specific grievance with it, and he’s spent years doing the dull work of getting good in a city full of people trying to get famous.