What’s Going on in Austin? Out-of-Town Transplants Bring Unwelcome Attitudes to a Thriving Local Comedy Scene
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This week comedian Peng Dang posted a video of podcaster Tony Hinchcliffe unleashing a racist tirade about him during a show earlier this month in Austin, Texas. Dang, who had opened for Hinchcliffe, later said he was shocked and upset by the rant, and that he had to step outside during Hinchcliffe’s set. Hinchcliffe—a writer for Comedy Central’s roasts, host of the popular podcast Kill Tony, and frequent opener for Joe Rogan—has since been dropped by his agency. He was also removed from two shows he was scheduled on this week with Rogan at the Creek and the Cave, a club that recently reopened to Austin after shutting down in New York City.
Like everything in comedy, this incident did not occur in a vacuum. Until recently Hinchcliffe was based in Los Angeles, where he could be seen regularly at The Comedy Store. His presence in Austin reflects an ongoing migration of comics led by Joe Rogan, the millionaire super-spreader who famously relocated to the city earlier this year. News broke last month that Rogan plans to open a comedy club in Austin’s One World Theatre, which he will run with former Comedy Store booker Adam Eget. Rogan has said on his podcast that he hopes to turn Austin into a comedy utopia.
The thing is, many Austin-based comics would argue that the city already is a comedy utopia, with a vital, diverse scene full of talented artists who routinely go on to great things. Some in the scene—especially those who laid low during the pandemic while others moved in and performed live shows—view the arrival of comics from Los Angeles and New York City as a potential source of division in the inclusive community they built, if not yet a real one.
To help unpack all this context, I called up Austin comedian Carina Magyar. Below is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.
Last week in Austin, I got to bring up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he said. Happy Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month! pic.twitter.com/9XG6upit2a
— Peng Dang (@pengdangcomedy) May 11, 2021
Paste: Just to start with this week’s news, could you say a bit about what went through your head when you watched that Tony Hinchcliffe video?
Carina Magyar: Shock. In the sense anybody would be shocked seeing somebody go on stage and say those words. I was not surprised, knowing everything I know about Tony. It sort of confirmed my worst fears about what kind of energy was coming to the scene. I think Peng is fantastic and I was just really hurting for him. And then also noticing the audience wasn’t going for it gave me this sliver of—they weren’t not going for it, there wasn’t any booing, but it was sort of like the room temperature died down. And I was really analyzing the audience, basically. “How did that go over?” ‘Cause the Austin I know, that wouldn’t fly. And it felt like it didn’t fly, but in a way that an audience could handle—you’re not gonna boo somebody who you think is famous. So just the quieting down to me was the equivalent of booing. So I was like, “Okay, that’s good.”
Paste: For people like me who might be unfamiliar, can you say a bit about what the Austin comedy scene was like before the pandemic?
CM: This was a crazy, bursting-with-talent scene. Lots and lots of activity, lots of huge names coming out of it. Or just about to be huge. We had pumped out, in the three years leading up to the pandemic, a lot of names that were on the cusp of or are just now starting to hit national attention. They’re probably names you know one way or another, but I’m talking about Lashonda Lester, first of all, who unfortunately passed away right when her Comedy Central special was taped. Then names like Kath Barbadoro, who’s gotten a huge following in podcasts out in New York. Vanessa Gonzalez, who’s been on HBO and Comedy Central with specials lately. Daniel Webb, who just filmed out at the Rose Bowl and is doing all sorts of big things with Margaret Cho and all these names. Maggie Maye, just name after name. Martin Urbano, Jake Flores.