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Comedian Kevin H. Brady keeping us laughing through it all
RICHARD DUCKETT
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It was no laughing matter for comedian and Worcester native Kevin H. Brady.
Now living in Hackensack, New Jersey, his day job was working for “an essential retail business” that had stayed open through the pandemic. Until it filed for bankruptcy.
“I got laid off yesterday,” he said over the phone last week. “It’s a fun and exciting time all around.”
So Brady, 35, noted that “Today’s the first official day of being laid off. I’ve already submitted my unemployment paperwork. I’m looking at a handful of places. We’ll cross those bridges when we get to them.”
But although the day job had gone, the night job, making people laugh, isn’t going too badly under the circumstances. There are virtual/ Zoom bookings, including being one of the comedians on the “Friday Virtual Yoo Hoo Room Comedy Show” from Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank, California, starting at 10:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) Jan. 8. Ray Lau is the host. Tickets are $7. For information, visit http:// www.flapperscomedy.com/shows/ friday-virtual-yoo-hoo-room-comedy-show/62148/
Brady has more virtual shows booked for later in the month.
Unfortunately, it’s also the case that his in-person comedy connections as he commuted from Hackensack to clubs in New York City were increasing just prior to the pandemic.
“Things were trending upwards when the world exploded,” he said.
“I was booked the week New York shut down all of the clubs. That week alone I had six or something shows that were canceled.”
Brady, however, does not come across as bitter. Rather, he seems like someone who sees silver linings.
Closing the clubs “in hindsight was absolutely the right call,” he said. A comic he was supposed to appear with at one of the engagements that week tested positive for the coronavirus shortly afterward. Brady feels he may have dodged a bullet. Fortunately, the comic is now OK,
Kevin Brady will be one of the comedians on the “Friday Virtual Yoo Hoo Room Comedy Show” from Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank, Calif., starting at 10:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) Jan. 8.
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he said.
And since Brady is relatively new to the world of comedy himself, some learning curves might have been expected, although 2020 may have bent them out of any previous shape of recognition.
“It definitely wasn’t a late developing interest,” Brady said of his interest in comedy. “When I was younger, when I came home from school, I was putting on Comedy Channel. I came home watching stand-up comedy, watching comedians I had no business watching. George Carlin.”
Brady grew up on Vernon Hill in Worcester, and went to Vernon Hill Elementary School and the “old” North High School. College included a stint at Quinsigamond Community College.
But “music was what I was doing for the longest time,” said Brady, who was in several New England metal bands.
“I fell into acting when I was 23, 24 … On a different stage to music, it exposed me to that live experience.”
Something else, however, was also lurking. Comedy, “was always in the back of my mind,” Brady said.
In 2012 he met his future wife, Christie, when they both appeared in a show put on by Pilgrim Soul Productions.
He later stage-managed a Braid Productions presentation of “Helen’s Most Favorite Day” that Christie Brady directed, although her main interest remained acting.
In Worcester, the couple lived in the Burncoat Street/Lincoln Street area.
“My wife and I were both involved with the arts for 10 to 15 years. My wife is an actor. She had always talked about how she had wanted to go to New York to pursue acting professionally, and she never did. I just said I’m not going to be 60 one day and hear you say ‘I never went to New York.’ “
They were, Brady said, “Young enough to do something stupid, old enough to be smart about it.”
They moved to Hackensack, about 45 minutes from New York City, in 2017. They live with two cats. “Right now that is sufficient,” Brady said.
The company that Christie Brady was working for at the time actually gave her a raise and a promotion to make the move, her husband said.
She’s now working for another company after the previous employer went out of business.
Regarding the acting, “She’s gotten a few decent acting jobs locally. Some behind the stage stuff. She worked on a few professional shows,” Brady said. Then the pandemic closed the curtains on that for a while as well.
Brady was aware of open mic nights here where prospective comedians can get up and see how they fare with stand-up or, for more experienced hands, try out new material.
He said he would say “’I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go.’ I never did.”
Then in New Jersey he thought, “You know what, I’m gonna go. We’re a 30-minute bus ride from New York City (where) you can’t go a block without finding an open mic.”
This time he did, and as Brady put it, something terrible happened:
“I went on stage, did my material, and people laughed.”
Life might have subsequently been easier “If no one had laughed,” he noted. “I would have said ‘I tried it. It’s not for me.’”
Too late. He was hooked. Well, pretty much hooked, anyway. From March 2018 for six months he did open mics in New York, and then for no particular reason stopped for six months.
“There are a lot of different things I find funny,” Brady said. “I’m not above doing a stupid pun. Not above those stupid, silly one-liners.”
His grandparents lived at home, and “Dean Martin roasts where very popular in my house,” Brady said.
He avoids politics in his material. “I try not to go that route, not because that’s taboo but I’m not after low-hanging fruit about something that’s going on (now). It should be relevant one year from now, two years from now …
“Most of what I write is your standard in-my-life type of thing, and you might find it funny too.”
Brady said he has “a couple of jokes about Worcester — not disparaging.”
One is, “Birthplace of the Smiley Face and oral birth control. I don’t think those two are mutually exclusive.”
In March 2019, Brady responded to a Facebook announcement looking for comics, and much to his surprise “booked my first professional show.”
The show was “Fashionably Funny” run by comic Maryssa Smith at the Broadway Comedy Club in New York.
“It was my first audience experience with people that weren’t just comics looking to try out material.” Furthermore, he was at “a known and famous comedy club.”
Evidently once again people laughed. A while later, Smith messaged, “ ‘I have another show coming up if you’re free.’ It was kind of downhill from there,” Brady said. “I did her show five or six times.”
Other venues he’s performed at include New York Comedy Club and Greenwich Village Comedy Club.
Along the way Kevin Brady has learned the importance of his middle initial as in Kevin H. Brady.
“There are way too many of us out there,” he said of the Keven Bradys of the world. Back in Worcester he once got a message from an actor he knew after casting for a show had been announced saying he was looking forward to working with Brady in the upcoming production. Brady replied, “ ‘I didn’t audition for that show.’
“In Central Massachusetts there’s another Kevin Brady into acting.”
There are at least two other people named Kevin Brady in comedy — one from Seattle and the other from Nebraska, Brady said. There’s also a Republican Congressman from Texas, Kevin P. Brady.
As was mentioned earlier, Kevin H. Brady was getting known in comedy circles just before the pandemic. “I had been booked for my first comedy festival in Pennsylvania in April,” he said.
“I was starting to get booked at venues I hadn’t performed at with people I hadn’t performed with. It was that slow build.”
But “on the other side of the coin,” Brady said he is thankful there has been Zoom. He has done five comedy festivals virtually since the pandemic, including the recent Boston Comedy Festival.
Also upcoming for Brady is an All-Massachusetts show hosted by the Chicago-based improv duo Flower Shop Bangers. The show is at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24 and broadcast on Facebook Live and YouTube Live.
“It does feel like there’s a silver lining to the COVID cloud,” he said.
Brady acknowledged that early on in the pandemic his attitude had been “it’s not really gonna be that bad.”
People were doing online shows as early as mid-March but Brady tended to think “ ‘I don’t really need to.’ “
A friend posted Brady a message on Facebook: “ ‘If you’re not willing to do Zoom shows, comedy is going to pass you by.’ “
Brady saw the light. “OK, I’ll give it a try.”
There was technology to learn, and etiquette, Brady said.
Performing online, “You don’t
VEER MUDAMBI
Jenny Stimson’s initial attempts at cultivating her land were not coming up roses. After losing a peach tree last summer, she chalked it up to the notoriously sandy New England soil which has a high level of sand and acidity but is low in nutrients. When sulfur and lime additives to enrich the soil failed to improve the fertility, she resorted to soil testing.
The results were eye-opening, revealing a hidden hazard on Stimson’s land. The slope on the backside of the house proved to have toxic lead levels, and any food grown there would be unsafe to eat.
The Worcester County Conservation District, which performed the soil test, aims to help landowners like Stimson. Part of the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Districts, the WCCD’s Healthy Soil Initiative launched in 2016. This past November, WCCD received $42,000 as part of the state’s Conservation Partnership Program specifically for Healthy Soils.
The money will go toward programs such as soil health workshops, supplies, promotion and the salaries of full-time workers like Joel Betts, WCCD soil analyst. “Without the grant, we wouldn’t be able to charge as little as we do for the soil testing,” said Betts. “It’s really what allows us to dedicate the time to go out into the field and meet with people.”
Betts has done over 100 soil tests with over 60 landowners, whose land can encompass as little as a small garden plot in the city to a couple of acres in the country where owners grow their own food and livestock. Large farms often receive
KEVIN BRADY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6
always know if your joke worked.”
If you know that a joke usually gets a laugh at some certain points in the telling, should you pause?
Still, “It’s great. You don’t have to worry about going to a place. You’re
Jenny Stimson’s property in the Rochdale section of Leicester has many raised beds and an arched trellis to grow cucumbers and zucchini.
CHRISTINE PETERSON
analyses from fertilizer companies, but WCCD provides local landowners with these same resources they otherwise would not be able to access.
“It was invaluable information and really helped me have confidence as kind of a newbie in dealing with toxic soil and high water tables,” said Stimson, “Newbie or experienced though, no matter who you are, you can learn something from them.”
When she purchased her three-quarter acre property back in 2016, Stimson knew she was taking on something of a restoration project. Situated in the Village of Rochdale in Leicester, the land was drastically overgrown and required the removal of shrubs, bushes and even trees before even the first seeds of a garden could be planted. The previous owners had left it in a state of neglect and the land was situated on a high water table (prone to at home — all in all it’s been a pretty positive experience.” As for the money with online shows, however, “There’s not much,” Brady acknowledged.
A headliner will get paid quite well, he said. Shows that are free but where donations are encouraged can be unpredictable. flooding) but Stimson was reasonably confident.
However, these issues were only scratching the surface of the real problems — literally. Heavy rains often reveal what had been buried. One year the earth gave up an entire bed frame. Turns out the land had not been wholly ignored — it had been used as a landfill. Further digging unearthed garbage everywhere, including old batteries, shoes, piping, roofing materials and car parts — all of which had contributed to the toxicity in parts of her property.
People reach out to the WCCD when they want to make their soils more productive or are concerned about its acidity (PH) level. Especially now, said Lisa Trotto, WCCD administrator, since “they want to educate themselves on how they can grow vegetables to produce their own food during COVID.”
However, WCCD does more than simply take a soil sample and get
He’s done shows where 30 people viewed online and no one donated. In contrast, one show watched by two people saw one of them give $30, which was divided up among the comics.
“That was cool. $5 (each). That’s not much, but that’s your coffee in the morning,” Brady said. back to the landowner in a couple of weeks with a chemical report. Betts aims to help people look at soil in a holistic way, beyond just what’s in the ground. Knowing the soil has high PH levels or low carbon content doesn’t mean much if someone doesn’t know how it affects what they’re trying to grow. “We encourage practices that encourage healthy soil — thinking of it as a living ecosystem and treating it as such,” he said. He will often discuss invasive species and pollinator habitats — both of which indirectly affect the success of a garden or small farm.
Betts did five different areas — Stimson said she had never seen such a comprehensive soil test from start to finish. Reports arrived after about a week, with each location having at least a page and a half report on what they found, including soil PH, organic and nutrient content levels along with optimal range for each of them. Comments included what should and shouldn’t be planted there as well as how to amend soil for intended planting, along with directing to further resources. “They’re really invested in what your goals are for the property,” said Stimson.
Stimson found out about WCCD through a neighbor in winter 2017, who directed her to their annual seedling sale. The seedling sales have been going on since at least the ‘60s, said seedling sale coordinator Kathyrn Zichelle Sullivan. They began as a fundraiser to make the District more financially independent but are now something the local garden and farm community looks forward to every year.
“It’s a source of plant material for small farms,” said Sullivan, “especially Christmas tree farms or
Having just lost a day job, he has thoughts of making a living doing comedy, but they are framed with a gradualist, realist vision.
“I’ve been telling everyone if I could make minimum wage in the arts I would never work 9 to 5 again,” he said. Actually, he would be happy to be “at a point where orchards that need bare root plants.” Bare root plants are able to remain in a dormant state for a time after being dug up, where their roots don’t need soil to survive in this state. The plants — such as evergreens, flowering shrubs, fruit bearing plants and perennials — will begin growing once replanted. “Each year we have a theme,” she said, “this year it’s native plants.” The sale will be held primarily online Feb. 1 to March 31.
“It’s great for homeowners trying to populate their yard with the right plants,” said Stimson, “Natives, pollinators, what’s good for the environment.”
WCCD will provide assistance relating to the conservation of soil, water and other natural resources to any land occupier, whether a farm or a non-farm. For a fee of $40 per sample, the staff will visit your site and take soil samples. They will dry your samples and mail them to a soil testing lab; once the lab has finished an analysis, staff will walk you through the results, and can make recommendations based on your needs. Soil health is for everyone and WCCD strives to make conservation accessible to Worcester County residents, independent of scale.
Stimson is now getting ready to plant her sprouts for the spring and pollinator plants that would do well in the shade on her land. She has been working with WCCD to set up a new composting system as well, having bought three composting units from them. With their help, she has basically rescued and rehabilitated her property, nurturing the land with healthy soil practices.
For information, visit https:// worcesterconservation.org/ or call
(508) 829-4477, ext. 5. I’m able to earn an income (from comedy) and still maintain a regular job in a part-time capacity.” When the pandemic ends he will have a good line for comedy producers in all seriousness.
“I can say I was able to stay working through COVID, I can do your show,” Brady said.
