CD: What was the solution?

JF: I was like, “I think I gotta just talk faster.” Because if I wait for a response, I could be waiting forever. I just talk through them. And that way they don’t have a chance to be drunk. If you just make it so that they’re funny, even unintentionally, and not like they’re wasting time, the audience is still having fun. I kind of figured out how to do that. But I think a lot of it’s trial and error because a lot of these situations that you get into as a comedian are not wildly different. You just have to know what to expect, a little bit.

CD: That’s also a lot like being a teacher. Where you’re like, “I don’t know of a way that students will misbehave.” But after they do it once, then you think through, like, “Okay, next time they do this, I’m gonna do these things.”

JF: Right. I try to maintain an atmosphere — I’m not sure if I’m always successful — but I try to maintain an atmosphere with all my shows where, it’s like, there’s no negative yelling or negative judgments. It’s all positive.

CD: Comedy is not always known as a very positive scene. But your shows are warm places. And I think because that you attract people who aren’t really — probably wouldn’t go to a stand up show.

JF: Yeah, it’s a different crowd. My audience can trust me enough to get up on stage themselves. They have to know that they’re not gonna be embarrassed personally. Everybody in the whole room is going to be embarrassed together. We’re all going to feel the same way.

I feel like that’s the only way to get people to put themselves out there — to create an atmosphere where nobody’s gonna be attacked, we’re all just gonna feel like idiots together.