Houston Has a Way of Making Comedians | Chapter 1: Phillip G

I met Phillip at Trash Panda, which feels like the right way to meet someone like him. They were hosting a free stand-up comedy show. How amazing is that? Not a polished club. Just one of those Houston spots where nobody’s pretending and everybody’s working. Trash Panda actually deserves its own post. Love the place.

Phillip went up and didn’t rush. Which is funny, because offstage he talks fast as hell. Onstage, he knew exactly when to slow down. 

After his set, I ran into him at the bar. We talked for a bit. That interaction is what gave me the idea for this interview, to tell his story to the other aliens while it’s still forming. Houston has too many people building real things in small rooms for their stories to only exist after they blow up. That’s way too late for me. So I started with Phillip.

How comedy actually showed up

Phillip didn’t have a master plan. There was a breakup. A weird emotional week that led to comedy. I asked him if he talks about that breakup on stage, if it’s part of his material yet.

He shook his head.

“I never did. My biggest goal in the beginning of comedy was I told myself, I’m gonna get to one year. I’m gonna get really good. Then I’ll talk about the whole story.”

He already understood timing.

“I wanted to talk about a girl. We were cool. She was really nice. Sex was decent. Sex was okay.”

He smiled, then kept going.

“She told me she’d never go back to her boyfriend. And then a week before I did comedy, like, a week after New Year’s 2024, she’s like, ‘I’m going back to my boyfriend.’”

It was at this moment that I know he is a great storyteller and well, very funny. He kept going:

“Then I called my friends, I’m like, I’m depressed. They’re like, ‘Hey, that’s gay. I said, ‘I want to do poetry. They said, ‘That’s gayer.’”

He tried anyway but couldn’t find a poetry night but he found an open mic comedy at Axerlrad.

“I go there with all my confidence, and I sit in the audience. But I meet Jeff Joe, the host. I asked him how to sign up and a week after that, I'm a comedian.”

Axelrad became his first comedy home. Not because it was perfect, but because it was open. That’s Houston.

The night he thought he hallucinated his future

Phillip told me his real turning point came later.

“Honestly, my big moment was last year. One of my mentors in comedy, J. Cann, super great comedian, I’m at The Riot one night, just hanging out. I’m high. Like, really high.”

“J. Cann walked up to me and goes, ‘I’ve seen you at another spot. You do comedy, right?’ And then he asked if I wanted to open for him.”

Phillip didn’t believe it.

“I was so high I texted myself in my notes app. Like, ‘Hey, future Phillip, you have a show in February.’ I thought it was the best dream I ever had.”

The next morning:

“I wake up and I’m like, let me check my notes. And it says, ‘Phillip, this is not a drill.’ I’m like, yeah… I know this is me, because this is shitty writing.”

“I got all my best material together. It wasn’t a lot. I brought my girlfriend at the time. I brought my mom. The room was packed, like 70 people. Biggest show I’d done.”

He paused before the last part.

“I was nervous as hell. But once I did it, the nervousness disappeared. Like the ecstasy, the fun. I was like… yeah. I want to continue to do this.”

The jokes don’t turn off

I asked Phillip about his craft. He doesn’t schedule writing. Writing schedules him.

Notes app always open. He’ll stop a basketball game to write a premise. He’ll put old people on hold at work just to jot something down.

While we were talking, Phillip probably told me twenty jokes without trying. Some landed immediately. Some didn’t hit until hours later, when I was driving home or replaying the conversation in my head. Those were actually funnier. They say comedy is medicine. Phillip seems to have figured out how to give you not just the fast acting but also a slow-release dose.

Phillip plays with expectations because he lives inside them.

“Beating stereotypes in a negative way, being a tall black guy, not being good at basketball until recently. Okay. That got me in a lot of good places and a lot of bad places. Like, I was in a basketball tournament, people like, oh, yeah, put your money on him. People are still looking for me.”

“I am a dad. I have a quarter Latino baby. That's the funnest shit ever. I'm the biggest movie buff ever. And that's because my mom putting me on shit that it's like the movies are supposed to get us to ask questions. Like the first time I' seen the movie Back to the Future. Uh-huh. That is the wildest shit ever. Right. Because you're watching in the 80s and like by 2015 we're going to have flying cars. I'm like, no, we got inflation. Like, Marty was wrong. Fuck Marty.”

Observational. Self-aware. Animated. Honest.

Houston is sharpening him fast

Houston doesn’t let you hide. Drag show rooms. Black rooms. Mixed rooms. Weird rooms. Good rooms. Bad rooms. Phillip loves that.

“As long as you’re funny, you can go. I’ve seen white dudes kill in Black rooms. I’ve seen super left-wing people kill at drag shows. Funny is funny.”

“I do have aspirations to want to act like a Chris Tucker. Uh-huh. I'm actively praying to God each and every night that they can't do rush hour six. Okay. I would I would be Chris Tucker's son. I'd be Jackie Chan's son. Don't ask how.”

Where to catch him now

Phillip runs a show at an anime bar called Name In Progress in Sugarland, which feels exactly right.

Next one is Sunday, February 15, the day after Valentine’s Day.

“If you had a good Valentine’s Day, come celebrate. If you had a bad one, come recover.”

Either way, you better catch him while he’s still close to the ground.

That’s always the most interesting moment.

Bonus P.S.
“I bombed one time so hard. It got there and somebody was like, what do you want to do? I'm like, I want to keep going. Now you're ready.”