Comedian retains his roots in stand-up, S.F.
Al Madrigal was working at his family business in the late 1990s, a San Mateo human resources company, in a depressing job where he fired people for a living.
Then he made the best move of his career: He fired himself.
“It was definitely time for something new,” Madrigal remembers. “After being miserable, I thought, ‘S—, I’m going to turn 30, and I need to try this thing.’”
That thing was stand-up comedy, which he tried out in San Francisco. His Bay Area run was followed by a few misfires on network television
in Los Angeles, and then an acclaimed five-year stint as a “The Daily Show” correspondent on Comedy Central. Madrigal also co-founded All Things Comedy, a podcasting network that has turned into a mini-empire.
But Madrigal will return to his roots — stand-up, not San Francisco — in the Showtime special “Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy,” which premieres 9 p.m. Friday, May 5.
The stand-up special, directed by “Chapelle’s Show” cocreator Neal Brennan and filmed at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, has a strong storytelling element, ending with a 20-minute tour de force; a real-life tale of revenge, involving uncooked shellfish and his daughter’s ballet studio.
Speaking on the phone a week before the special’s debut, Madrigal still seems a little bit nervous about that sequence.
“It’s a story I didn’t even want to tell,” Madrigal admits. “I was sitting at lunch with (comedian) John Hodgman. I told him the story, and he said, ‘What was the audience’s reaction?’ And I said, ‘No, I really did that. It’s not a bit.’”
Madrigal was surrounded by comedy from a young age, living on the same Sunset District block as 1980 San Francisco Comedy Competition winner Michael Pritchard.
“I listened to Alex Bennett on the Quake and then Live 105, and he’d have Bob Rubin on and Larry ‘Bubbles’ Brown and Johnny Steele and Will Durst,” Madrigal recalls. “All the local comics would go on the show. I was a huge fan of stand-up.”
But the St. Ignatius High School graduate didn’t take the stage until his late 20s, after dropping out of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, completing a business degree at USF and spending several years in the workforce.
After bombing during his first stand-up gig at the Luggage Store on Sixth and Market in San Francisco (“I really didn’t prepare anything — I had ideas but nothing written down”), Madrigal found quick success on stage. So he moved to Los Angeles in 2003, after securing a starring role on “The Ortegas.”
But the Fox comedy, alongside Cheech Marin, aired only half of its 12 episodes before getting axed from the schedule.
“I bought a car for cash the day before our show got canceled,” Madrigal says. “I had a wife and a 1-year-old. What lit a fire under me was having kids and a family and dependents. There was no screwing around. A lot of these other guys who do this are waking up at 2 p.m. I didn’t have that option.”
Madrigal was cast in two more forgotten network shows — “Welcome to the Captain” and “Gary Unmarried” — before ending up on one of the most popular and creatively thriving cable shows in history.
Madrigal was cast on “The Daily Show” as the Senior Latino Correspondent and other roles starting in 2011, leaving a few months after Trevor Noah replaced Jon Stewart in September 2015. In the meantime, All Things Comedy — a podcast network Madrigal started in 2012, recording in a parking lot with Bill Burr — had grown to more than 50 podcasts, with offices, studios and two upcoming television shows.
But while Madrigal is firmly embedded in Los Angeles, he manages to maintain his San Francisco credibility better than most locals. The comic, whose father had San Francisco 49ers seats back in the team’s Kezar Stadium days, was chosen by the Niners this weekend to announce the fourth-round draft pick. He’s also a proud member of Dub Nation.
“I went to the Clippers game last night just to root against both teams,” Madrigal says, referring to the first-round NBA playoffs between the Los Angeles Clippers and Utah Jazz. “I still have all my allegiances to San Francisco. My daughter’s first words I think were ‘Boo Lakers!’ ”
Madrigal’s style, like his sports allegiances to the Niners and the Golden State Warriors, is also distinctly old school — reminiscent of the storytelling style of Pritchard for those who remember his sets. Beyond the shrimp story, Madrigal’s Showtime special is heavy on reallife tales, involving parenting, family history and racial politics. An early set of jokes about Mexicans defecating in cilantro as revenge against Trump has multiple characters, building into high hilarity.
“I always liked stand-up that came from someplace that meant something to you,” Madrigal says. “I loved voices and characters. You looked at Eddie Murphy (describing) his family barbecue, just creating a whole scene and taking someone into that place.”