‘HAVING FUN’
For stand-up comedian Doug Mellard, ‘the point is to be silly’
Santa Fe has a special place in Doug Mellard’s life. The city is where the comedian married his wife in 2018.
He often visits, because his in-laws reside there.
Not to mention that he took part of the CloudTop Comedy Festival earlier this year.
“It’s a home away from home,” he says of Santa Fe. “I love the people (and food) there and am excited to run my material for my upcoming album there before I record it a week later.”
Mellard will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, at Teatro Paraguas Second Space in Santa Fe.
Mellard has been performing comedy for nearly 15 years.
He was inspired to try his hand at comedy while in high school, as a teacher encouraged his class clown antics.
“That evolved into some elaborate public pranks in college, including starting the Nicole Kidman Foundation and that slowly turned to me wanting a more concentrated comedic outlet,” he says. “All of this plus (comedians) Mitch Hedberg and Steven Wright. I also lied to my older brother at age 5 about being from the planet Light Bulb and rolled with that lie for 45 minutes, and I think that was the first ‘hey, joking around is fun’ moment that led me to this.”
Mellard’s style of comedy stems from daily activities.
Sometimes he draws from life experiences and balances it with some observational comedy.
“I started as a rapid-pace one-liner comic, and it is evolving toward more stories,” he says. “On my upcoming album, the material ranges from marriage to death to the history of corn flakes to Batman to skydiving to Sam Darnold. I’m a weird guy. Ideally, Santa Fe takes ‘weird’ as funny.”
One topic he stays away from is politics.
“I appreciate those that do and do it well, but I will leave that to them, because I just want to let loose on stage and get weird,” he says. “I won’t do jokes about people in my life without their permission. I always ask. I don’t want someone’s feelings to be trampled through a joke. You’d be shocked at how many people will OK a joke they shouldn’t, though. I’ll make fun of strangers all day, though. I’ll trample their feelings without even blinking. (I’m kidding, kinda.)”
Getting onstage and performing comedy can be overwhelming. Mellard says that’s the time to stay out of your own head.
“It’s scary in there,” he says. “You just have to be you and remember it’s all about having fun. For whatever reason, it’s easy to forget that at times. The point is to be silly — you have to stick with it. That and a possible zombie apocalypse bringing all of this to a stop. But I’m prepared for that.”