We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Max Kerwien a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Max, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

With standup comedy you have to tread a fine line. You need to be self-aware. You should have a general idea of how audiences perceive you, sometimes even before you get to the microphone on your way on stage. How you dress, your ethnicity, your voice, the way you hold yourself, audiences see all of this and subconsciously make assessments about you (it’s human nature). Even if you may feel one way about yourself inside, comedians have to reconcile that with what they look like. That’s why many comedians have a “I look like this” joke in one form or another. I used to play competitive tennis in my teenage years and I was always underestimated because I was a short kid. Then, I took offense to it because I wanted to be treated with respect as a formidable tennis player, which I thought I was. Now I understand that you can’t really control how people look at you, you can only control your perspective. This is the long-winded and detailed answer to the question “what is self esteem?”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a standup comedian and poet. I do standup when I want to be funny and poetry when I don’t. Art is fun! I highly recommend. I think everyone should do standup at least once on their life to see that it isn’t as scary as everyone thinks it is. It actually doesn’t matter that much. Comedian Arsenio Hall once told Roy Wood Jr. that people will forget your bad jokes but not a bad attitude. Standup is freeing in that way. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at telling bad jokes. I tell good jokes too! It’s just sometimes you have to tell the joke before you know it’s bad or good. Then you find out it’s bad in the moment. Then you have to deal with that.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I love bringing up NFTs. I bring them up whenever I talk to dudes at parties, and if they get excited and giddy, I know to leave that conversation immediately.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

For poets: https://www.pw.org/
DuoTrope (submission manager service)
Local poetry workshops (just google it)

For comedians:
https://jackiekashian.com/advice
“The Set Up” YouTube series by JP Buck (Conan’s former comedy booker)
Good One – a podcast about jokes

Contact Info:

• Website: maxkerwien.com
• Instagram: @kerwien

Image Credits
Ian Zandi, Greg Feiner, James Rios