INTERVIEW: COMEDIAN RON LECHLER

Ron Lechler is one of the most thoughtful jerks in Denton. That might be because he’s a Denton transplant via Michigan, though. We’ve caught him at a few Spiderweb Salon and Denton Comedy Collective showcases and he had us giving more thought to the comedy scene in Denton than we ever had before. Recently, we hung out with Lechler and asked him a few questions on his thoughts on comedy, leading dual lives and his views of Denton as nothing more than a byway. Read on for more.    

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Lechler?! What kind of a name is that?

It’s German. My great grandpa Helmut died at sea on a German U-Boat in World War I, but this helps readers to understand me virtually zero. I didn’t mean to sound critical of your question. Sorry. I mean, I’m not taking back what I said about it not lending insight. Sorry.

That's okay. It's cool. Also, sorry about Helmut. Our bad. Anyway, what brings you to town, Ron? 

I moved to Denton last year when I was accepted into graduate school. I think it’s kind of rare for comics, especially at my age, to be graduate students. A lot of them want to be comedians because college didn’t really suit them. I happen to love academia too much to give it up, so I lead a pretty dichotomous lifestyle trying to keep it separate from what I do as performer. I think it’s worth it, though, because I find them both to be entirely rewarding, albeit in very different ways. It never shocks people from my high school that I’m a comedian, but they can’t believe that I’m in academia. They’re always caught off guard by how serious I sound when I talk about research, scholarship, and those facets of my career.

Denton isn't especially known for it’s comedy scene, or at least not much is known about the comedy scene in Denton at the very least. Can you give us a brief rundown of what it’s like?

The comedy scene in Denton is really modest compared to cities like Austin or Chicago. There are a handful of comics, maybe ten, that I perform with regularly. There are guys I still haven’t learned the names of who show up sporadically and there are guys performing for the first time every week. I don’t want to jinx it and say that it’s growing, but I think letting people know that there’s an outlet for comedy now is creating a hospitable atmosphere that comedians at all levels of experience can appreciate.

The Denton Comedy Collective encompasses the grand majority of comedians that perform here. Alex Smelser and Matt Solomon are sort of the brain trust, but we all try to work together. Matt runs an open mic at Banter on Thursday nights at 11. The scene had just got rolling when I arrived, but my understanding is that Banter is where everything started. We also show up at The Garage’s open mic on Monday nights at 10:30 and Mable Peabody’s Beauty Parlor and Chainsaw Repair on Tuesday nights at 9 (I think). Also, there’s a monthly showcase at Hailey’s on some given Wednesday. Sorry, anything having to do with numbers always seems arbitrary to me, so I have trouble remembering it.

A lot of us go to Arlington or Dallas to perform when we can, which is neat because we’ve formed a bond with some really talented people there. Really cool acts like Clint Werth and Barry Whitewater and Brian Moody perform in our showcases sometimes. It’s really inspiring to be part of a network of really gifted writers and performers.

Audiences in Denton are pretty small and apathetic, generally speaking, but that’s common in a lot of scenes our size. You learn something on stage regardless of the size of the crowd. I’m actually really impressed with how far the scene here has come in just one short year. The problem is that the best and most talented comics here move to bigger cities to make a go of it. I think the point of Denton is to leave it. My buddy Martin Urbano was my favorite local act since the first time I saw him perform and he moved to Austin to pursue comedy. As foolish as it would be for him to stay here, I’d do anything to have him back.

“I think the point of Denton is to leave it.”

What’s the best heckling situation you’ve been involved in?

The best heckling situation is where it doesn’t happen. There’s something about comedy that makes people think that they can somehow improve it by interacting, and that’s just never true. There’s an unwritten contract between an audience and performer, and some people just don’t understand or respect it.

I had a guy at an open mic try to tell me that he didn’t like the direction my material was going in the middle of my set. I’ll never understand behavior like that. If you don’t think I’m funny, that’s totally okay with me, but it doesn’t mean the show should stop. That same guy played guitar later and even though I found his Sublime covers to be trite and derivative, I didn’t yell it at him during his set. Heckling looks really insane when it happens to anyone but comedians. Imagine a heckler at a play or dance recital. That’s how I know that it’s unacceptable behavior across the board.

Experiences run the gamut. I’ve been heckled by women who tried to sleep with me later. I berated a heckler until my neck turned bright red and he left, and I found out later that he was mentally ill. I made a joke about natural disasters and some guy said, “You think people dying is funny? Why don’t you come to my hometown and tell some of your jokes again. Us Oklahomans could really use a laugh,” and I said, “It’s we Oklahomans.”

The thing that all these experiences have in common is that none of them were good experiences. It’s never fun for me. I hate when audience members make me shut them up because I end up looking like a jerk too. Everyone should get the chance to do the performance they planned on. Especially considering how little stage time we get every night or every week, trying to take any amount of it away is really rude.

You deal a lot with race and religion in your comedy. Is there any sort of underlying message you’re trying to get across in those jokes?

To be clear, I don’t think my humor deals with race so much as it does racism. I think these topics are easy fodder for comedy because as ideologies, they’re so full of holes. There’s so much silly nonsense built into those topics already, pointing it out comes easily to anyone who’s looking for it.

I don’t think there’s any sort of underlying message to those jokes, but it would be nice if they helped people take a look at themselves and do some reflection and perhaps even re-evaluation of the quality of their character.

And to be fair, I have just as many jokes about breakfast foods or going to the zoo, but they never seem to get much attention.

“The most horrific topics are the ones that need humor the most. ”

Do you feel as if the adversity you face as a for-lack-of-a-better-word "edgy" comic, is too much, too little, or about what it should be?

I would never call myself edgy, but I think comedy as an art can be purposely intense and provocative. That’s how I want to be a part of it, so I'm liable to catch flack from time to time. Offending audiences is inevitable, but that doesn't mean that a topic is beyond humor. The most horrific topics are the ones that need humor the most. I have a library of clean, silly non-sequiturs; tame jokes that are entirely devoid of controversy… and equally devoid of meaning. I could spend my career saying “Why do they call it a shower head? Is there a shower tail somewhere?” but it would be an empty and disingenuous pursuit. It’s vitally important to me as a performer that my voice on stage matches my voice on the inside. When people have a problem with me being myself, it stings a little bit. While I steadfastly support freedom in art, I’m not impenetrable or unfeeling.

Are there any topics that you, yourself, consider too taboo to be included in your act?

Jokes never go too far, but they can be poorly done. When people get offended, I never think I went too far. I just know that I did something the wrong way. For me, there’s nothing that’s off limits. Everything can be funny and has to be. Like everyone else, there are things that hit really close to home with me personally like family alcoholism, cancer, or sexuality, but I would never tell someone they couldn’t talk about those things. Humor is how a lot of people cope, and we should be allowed to.

Are there any jokes that you used in your act in Michigan, but didn’t fly after you moved to Texas?

I make an effort to make my humor pretty universal, but there are some jokes that just don’t fly here in Texas because there’s no context for understanding them. I couldn’t really make a joke about bottle return here. Similarly, Michiganders wouldn’t get a joke about outdoor ceiling fans, because they’ve never seen them.

There’s one joke in that I have to tell different ways depending on what state I’m in. I have a joke about a place called White Settlement, Texas and how awful and bigoted the name is and the town must be to keep it. When I tell it here in Texas, I’m overtly condescending like I’m some progressive liberal from the “free states” trying to make everyone feel ashamed. When I tell it in Michigan, it’s more like, “You guys are never going to believe the sort of things they allow in Texas.”

Steven Wright or Patton Oswalt?

Steven Wright and Patton Oswalt are both great writers and performers. Comedians like Mitch Hedberg and Steven Wright were the reason I started telling jokes in the first place. They had this endless barrage of painfully funny non-sequiturs. Patton Oswalt is from the totally opposite end of the spectrum. I think he’s one of the most valuable assets the comedy community has, because he’s the closest thing we have to an academic. He’s so smart and eloquent not just in performance, but as a representative for the industry.

I love them both and I can listen to albums by either of them over and over. A younger me would pick Steven Wright, but Patton Oswalt is more my style now.

What makes a good audience for a comedian?

To be a good audience, an audience only needs one thing: A willingness to be entertained. If the crowd is excited and wants to laugh, everything’s going to go smoothly. Too many open mics are just comedians interrupting a someone’s dinner. A lot of times, an audience didn’t even know there was going to be a show. More often than that, an audience is just the other comedians. While not ideal, comedians make great audiences because, for the most part, we’re attentive and courteous. I’ve actually had a lot of experiences in Dallas where comedians don’t watch the other comedians’ sets. They just hang out at the bar and talk amongst themselves. I was blown away by the fact that they didn’t wanna participate in the thing they claim to like so much. They had virtually zero interest in new, local acts. It’s never like that here in Denton or Kalamazoo, MI, where I’m from. I’m proud of maintaining that sort of integrity in our scene.

What would make the comedy scene in Denton better?

The Denton comedy scene just needs time. Most of our guys have only been telling jokes for just over a year. Sometimes I wish I could fast-forward three years to see who has burned out and who’s gotten really good. The poignant part is that by three years from now, everyone with potential will have moved on to somewhere bigger and better.

MAKER SPACE

Dentonites, Heather Gregory and Tristan Bynum of the forthcoming Maker's Space have plans for you. They're cooking up a concept and plan for starting a collaborative, members-based creative workspace in town and they want you to set up shop inside. We've been watching similar spaces pop up all over the country - Brooklyn, Portland, Seattle... even Dallas (read: Weld), and we can't wait to have one right here in our own backyard. Having a central hub in which folks practicing various arts can not only engage one another but also learn, think and grow as artists, hobbyists and entrepreneurs. That can't be a bad thing, can it? 

Make sure not to miss them at the Denton Creative's Mixer next Monday. They're hosting, speaking and presenting along with Kevin Roden and several small creative businesses that have all started right here in our incredible city. 

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Tell us about your history with Denton.

Heather: My parents were born and raised in Denton.  I lived in Denton all my life until I was 19.  I left to go to college in Austin and then lived outside of Texas for 6 years.  I returned to Texas in December 2012 to be closer to my family.  After deciding to relocate to Texas I considered moving to Austin, Dallas and Denton.  I ultimately chose to live in Denton because of the strong sense of community, independent spirit, creative culture and untapped potential that I see here.  I have been back for just over 5 months and have been so inspired and motivated by the people, ideas, creativity and enthusiasm that I have experienced and am thrilled to get to be a part of it.

Tristan: ​I am a Denton native so I spent most of my childhood and adolescent years in Denton. I moved outside of Texas when I was 19 and spent a good 6 years away, wandering and experiencing what the world had to offer. I returned to Denton in the spring of 2010 to be closer to family. Upon my return I started to notice that Denton was on the verge of a great change­ socially, politically, and economically. Everything that I had left Denton for was now happening and I wanted in. I want to help build the community to its fullest potential­ whatever that is, and help to create a space where we can take that potential and turn it into something innovative and vital for the Denton community.

Why a collaborative arts space?

Tristan: ​Denton already has many creatives that collaborate and create amazing work on their own, but what Maker Space is looking to create is a space where those collaborative efforts can become better connected to the community at large. By creating a community space for creative efforts we can really open the lines of communication amongst creatives, of all disciplines, and potentially push Denton forward into becoming a vital/sustainable creative source.

Heather: Because there are so many creative people that live here and there is no infrastructure for them to work within.  I went to school for Architecture and it wasn't until I graduated that I fully realized what an amazing community I had been a part of and the extensive resources that I had access to.  Since graduating in 2006, I've missed the feeling of a design studio, the accountability and inspiration that other creative people can offer.  Being a freelance designer I personally would benefit from working in a community of creative people and access to tools that are cost prohibitive for me to invest in and believe that there are other people in Denton that feel the same way. 

Can you elaborate to what exactly you’re intending to create? What kind of space or services are you planning to provide?

Heather: We want to create a space for creatives of all disciplines to come together to make whatever it is they make.  We will provide well designed and inspiring space that enables creativity and collaboration.  Maker Space will also provide the tools, knowledge and other resources for people to develop or expand their business endeavors. 

There will be office space and conference room for those that desire dust-free creative space.  Imagine graphic designers, web developers, architects, videographers, and illustrators all working away on their computers or drawings boards in a design studio setting. 

There will be flexible workshop space with work benches and a hand tool library where people can create more “tangible” work.  Jewelry makers, fashion designers, letter pressers, painters and many others would bring in the materials that they need for their work and have access to tools, space and a creative community.
There will be a woodshop with tools that help furniture makers, fabricators, wood workers and sign makers with their work.

There are other ideas that have been tossed around like a dark room, a laser cutter, and electric kiln.  We have a running list of tools that we are considering including and it ultimately comes down to what the maker community of Denton needs.

How has maker-culture influenced you?

Heather: I love the practice of making.  I get so much joy from being connected to the source of creativity and believe that seeing what other people are making pushes me to a higher quality of my own work. 

There is a“craft” resurgence in other creative communities like Portland, OR and Marfa, TX.  People are coming together in support of food producers and preservers, brewers and distillers, makers of clothing, shoes, and accessories.  There is a lot of power that comes from purchasing something that was made by somebody you know.  The maker culture drives creative economies and connects people to each other and that community connection is a huge passion of mine.

Tristan: ​In a world of quick and easy everything; from the food we eat, to the products we buy, there just always feels like a desire for something more, something with a little bit of substance, a story, a connection to the maker. I feel an emptiness when participating with the quick and easy culture and that emptiness is what draws me towards maker-culture. Friends, neighbors, and people of the community making things for their community and thus creating a vital self-sustaining local economy. It would be incredibly empowering for Denton to be able to provide most of its goods and services locally and not depend on outside manufacturers to provide them for us. Denton has all of the pieces to create that kind of community and with a resource like Maker Space we would really like to help foster that type of maker community.

How has the creative community in Denton influenced your decision to start the Makers Space?

Heather: There is so much creativity in Denton!  We are known for our music culture, obviously, but there is so much more here that has been flying under the radar for far too long.  Our universities produce incredibly talented print makers, graphic designers, fiber artists, fine artists (I could go on) and when these talented individuals graduate, they don't see many opportunities in Denton to put those creative skills to work.  I want to start Maker Space so that they can see it's possible to make money off of creative work and to offer some support and infrastructure for them to take that first step.  My dream would be for Maker Space to really put Denton on the map for a diverse and thriving creative economy. 

Heather, you're heavily involved with Scrap. How do you see Maker Space and Scrap working together in the Denton creative market?

Heahter: I consider myself incredibly lucky to have a job that utilizes my skills in community organizing for an organization with a creative mission.  It puts me in direct contact with a lot of active artists and makers and I get to sell a product that I've always been passionate about (reused materials). 

There is a very natural overlap between these two organizations and it makes me excited to think of ways that we might work together.  I'd love to see SCRAP offering a discount to Maker Space members to encourage them to use reused materials in their work.  SCRAP doesn't have a very large space and when we had 100+ people there for our fund-raiser last December it was uncomfortably crowded.  I'd love to be able to host our next fund-raiser at Maker Space.  I also think that SCRAP hosting craft nights at Maker Space would be super fun.  If I let myself really dream, I can't help but imagine an artist in residency program that is in partnership between Maker Space and SCRAP.

In what ways do you think this space can positively affect our community?

Heather: The possibilities are endless. To start, better graphic design and aesthetics in our local businesses.  Creative start-ups and collaborations emerging from Maker Space members.  A stronger and more well rounded creative identity where the output is visible as you move through the city.  As Denton grows, I would hope to see more opportunities for the creative work staying in Denton and not needing to be outsourced to DFW and beyond.

Bringing creative people together is really powerful and there is no way I can predict the innovations and brilliant ideas that might be generated because of this space.

Tristan: ​I really want the space to create a sense of empowerment for the members and for the Denton community at large. There are so many great ideas floating around in this town and all they really need is a place to further develop and create them. As a business development resource, a community education center, a collaborative workspace, and as a supportive community space, Maker Space hopes to empower people with their ideas and assist in creating the kind of creative social and economic landscape that can benefit the entire community.​​

Heather you were part of a similar space in Portland. Tell us how that has influenced opening a collaborative maker studio?

Heather: Yes, I was a member of a space called ADX.  I was living in a really tiny travel trailer that I had renovated and was getting ready for a gallery show and literally just didn't have room to do my work.  I was a member for a couple of months and used the flex workshop space.  I saw first hand the work that was being produced and the results were innovative, creative, diverse and inspiring.

After moving back to Denton it didn't take long at all to see how much creativity exists in this city.  The idea came about a little selfishly, because I was having a hard time staying motivated working in my bedroom and garage studio so removed from anyone.  I realized that I would really benefit from having a space like ADX here in Denton and believed that I wasn't the only one.

What are some of the challenges you've run into so far while getting Maker Space up and running?

Heather: So far, the challenges have been minimal.  We have received so much positive support and feedback from the creative community here as well as from members of City Council and the City of Denton itself. 

The biggest challenges we can foresee at this point are raising the necessary capital and finding the right space.  We need a large, fairly open space (5,000 sq ft) and want that to be in downtown or industrial Denton and are hopeful that we find a property owner to is supportive of our idea and wants to work with us.

You guys are heading up the next Creatives Mixer. What should we expect? Who are you collaborating with for this event?

Heather: Yes, we are so excited about the next Denton Creatives Mixer.  Since Maker Space is co-hosting along with Kevin Roden, we wanted to highlight some of the creative start ups that exist here.  It was important for us to highlight individuals who are drivers of the creative economy here in Denton.  We have asked a few different businesses to talk about their experience of being a creative small business owner and are really excited about the lineup of speakers.  We will be hearing from DIME, Pan Ector Industries, Triple Threat Press, The Denton Community Market and Maker Space.

The mixer will also have lots of time dedicated to networking.  We want people to be able connect to resources, potential partners, property owners, etc. - so bring your business cards!

Favorite three things in/about Denton.

Tristan: ​The accessibility of our city government officials- the fact that I can call or even text local politicians or government workers and talk about issues surrounding Denton is incredible. I feel like everyone should know that that is part of what makes this city amazing- having access to change makers but also having the ability be a change maker. We can make this city what we want, we just have to speak up!

The Community- this is where I’m from and this is the community I love. 

The weather- I love the sun. 

Heather: Breakfast tacos. After living outside of Texas for 6 years I got tired of arguing the differences of a breakfast burrito vs a breakfast taco.

The community.  Seriously, I've been back for 5 months and already feel so connected to what's happening and who is making it happen.  The support that people have for each other is simply amazing.

The small town feel.  I love running into people I know.  There is a true friendliness to this place.

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If Maker Space sounds like something you'd like to participate in, make sure you befriend them on Facebook. They haven't finalized their payment structure for when they open yet, but we do know that they'll be making the space available to a whole range of artists - from beginners and hobbyists to people who are running small businesses. They'll have tool libraries, co-working space and everything in between - with membership prices ranging from something around $10 a day for a drop in class to $300 a month for access to just about every artistic tool you could possibly imagine and a semi-permanent co-working space filled with interesting people you can talk about art and whether or not the final episode of Battlestar Galactica was good or not.