E15: What's Up With Comedian Andrew Orolfo?

Hi Andrew. This is Nikki, how are you today? Hi. Nikki. I'm good. Thanks. How are you? Good. I'm so glad we're getting a chance to connect now.

They told me that you were going to be flying and I was like, is he, is he going to be in town today? Because I was so stoked. I was like, well just have him in the studio and they said you, we're flying but not flying into Wenatchee until tomorrow. Right, Right, right. So where are you today? I'm in Los Angeles right now. And man, so, okay, what's it like being like in Los Angeles one day and then a place like win Apache the next day? Have you ever been here before?

I have not, I've been to Washington State before, but not Wenatchee before. So do you know what it's like here at all? Have you done any research or you're just coming in blind? You know, I like to be surprised. It's probably better off that way because we have, we've had a lot of comedians come through this town. I mean we're right in central Washington and I'm not originally from here. I grew up in the suburbs of new york city. So much different. Yeah, so much different and and we do have a lot of people who are, you know from here, they love the country lifestyle and and maybe kind of get a bad rap for being like non progressive, but that's the way I'm going to put it, I'm just going to put it that way.

But but but that being said, I think there's a lot of comedians that will come in here and have that umbrella and being like, we're going to make a bunch of like country bumpkin jokes and pretend like everybody's racist and it's really not like that here, like it is, you're going to find a really cool chill crowd. Okay, good, good. I won't go too hard on, you know, you can don't worry about it, we'll just roll with the punches. Okay, hang on one second I've got this like phone line ringing and I don't want to Mhm.

It'll make me sound really cool, but like I'm really popular but alright, there we go. Sorry about that. Thanks man. You're from the swear the san Francisco Bay Area. Yeah, I grew up in the Bay Area, so that's a pretty oh my goodness, hang on, this is like the comedy of errors. Part of this interview here. I didn't even know we were still using landlines, you know, in radio you do you know what? I'm not even gonna I'm just gonna we're just gonna let it flow. If the phone rings in the background would be like whatever it's happening, let them wait, let him wear cool.

I heard you're talking to Andrew on the other line. Oh we're having a debate. So I'm on, I do the morning show on on our country station, country 1047 and I am the younger, better looking co host on the morning show, so trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of your last name. And so I I say it is a Rolfo and my co host says it's ralph. Oh okay, I'm going to go with the first one is a little bit better. Uh He says it's like what is it Scooby doo?

So it's Andrew Orolfo. I knew I was right. Yeah, a lot of people get it wrong but that was actually really good. Thanks. It's just if you just if you know how to read then it's pretty, pretty good. Just sounded out. Yeah. Well how long have you actually been doing professional stand up for? Um professionally, I don't think that's such a weird because I don't I don't honestly don't I don't even know if I'm like even probably shouldn't say like when did I become professional? You know, it's such like a crazy, I don't know the second like somebody like through a a breath mint your way when you told him a joke it's like you got paid for it and now you're a professional, okay.

Um maybe I'll maybe, I'll say maybe five years. I've been doing it for almost 10, but professionally, maybe five or six. It's one of those gigs, like you have to really love it to be traveling, doing it all the time and writing all the time like I would imagine. Am I right? Yeah. No, it's it's uh so it gets, it gets challenging. Like um you were saying like uh what's it like going from L. A. To uh your place? Well, last night I was in Manchester, new Hampshire and I didn't know places could get that cold, you know, so that's, that gets difficult.

I'm never truly prepared for the weather anywhere I go. I mean you're from California. So you got, you have to make like a Hawaiian tour in the winter time or something like that. Can you make that happen? I mean, I, I would hope so. No one wants me over there yet, but hopefully soon and you would fit right in right? I think you would, yeah, I have some family over there. I could blend in. I could look like I'm from there. Everybody there has a little bit of like hippie ism to them and you with your, you know, you've got the hair and the glasses and you know, you've got the look going on.

I think you and I are like pretty much like I'm the the almost the female version of you. I was looking at at some like instagram videos and youtube. Like basically you've got, you wear the pants up to your shin and you've got the like a whole slew of sweatshirts and hoodies. Then you've got the really cool glasses and then the partially undercut shaved head with it longer on the top and the Converse sneakers. Mhm Keep going. This makes me feel good. This is good. Oh, that's literally, that's me too.

Oh, even even the mustache dude, like I'm right, I'm italian american. I've got the mustache when you get here. We'll have to take a picture side by side and we've got to get the same outfit would be really awesome. Oh yeah, let's coordinate, coordinate thrift stores in that area. Are you kidding? Of course there's thrift store, We've got a few really good thrift stores around here in antique stores. So we'll hook you up. There we go. So how long are you going to be in town for?

Just tomorrow? Are you like in and out the same day? Same day? I gotta get back here to, well, you know, what do you like to do other than like doing comedy because I would, if I was doing it and I was touring in different places around the country. I would be like, I need a buffer of like a couple of days because I want to see the towns like you said kind of do some shopping and win matches really good for like hiking and other things like that.

Do you ever get to hang out and do stuff like that? Yes, sometimes sometimes I'll try to do tourists stuff, but mostly once I get in town, my first, my first thing I do is like I go to a vintage or their story and see if I can, if I can buy something cool from the tone. Well we've got a few of them so I can give you a few heads up where where to go. And because me and uh me and my boyfriend we we do that all the time.

That's one of our favorite things to do. And we're vinyl collectors. So We have over 20,000 vinyl records in our house. And so were we always go around do crate digging and things like that. That's cool. Very cool. Yeah but you're like forget when actually I don't want to hang out in that place, I'm just going to go flying and do my show. I'm just I'll come back, I'll make I'll make another trip without doing comedy and I'll just explore the town. Alright, I'm gonna hold you to that and I will, you know, we'll take you around, we'll go to all the cool places if you like anything outdoors will take you to some outdoor places.

And uh we've we've got hiking, we've got, do you like ski or snowboard? I don't know if they do do they do that any kind of that stuff in in California. Yeah, I'm like um when I was in the bear it was like a few hours away from Lake Tahoe. Oh yeah, yeah. So we have, we have a mission ridge so you can go up there. They do like some live music sometimes up in the lodge and skiing and snowboarding and all that. And um but I mean this is the new american Performing Arts center where you're going to be at uh Oh my gosh, is that tomorrow?

Tomorrow? Holy cow. So tomorrow where you're gonna be at like that's a highlight of the town here for somebody like me who doesn't, who isn't from here, who used, who grew up like living right outside of of Manhattan and could go right across into the city to see. I saw a lot of comedy in the comedy cellar and all those places and um you know on broadway off broadway there was so much to do, like right outside of Manhattan, living in a place like Wenatchee, we really like depend on the places that do performing arts. Right?

So the Performing Arts center, uh there's like all eyes on the stuff that comes through there and they're not bringing in just anybody like they bring in, they make sure they vet out like who, wherever we're bringing in is going to be no pressure or anything, but I'm just trying to be your, your hype person here man Andrew you know, I'm trying to give you a little bit of like confidence that like you're coming in and people know already that uh that, that you're going to you're going to kick some butt because nothing that nothing ever really disappoints that comes through. Yeah.

Has there ever been like a place that you went to that just mm hmm. You were like, I don't, I don't belong in this town. I need to get out of here. Uh Okay. Yeah, only one time. Uh, it was in boca raton florida. It sounds like a place where there's a lot of retirees. Yeah, a lot of it's just a lot of people who don't necessarily like me. Uh For what reason can you share? Can you tell a story? I don't know. It's just like, it's just, I don't know.

It just wasn't the right vibe. I guess they didn't like what I would do it. But it was fine. It was only one night and whoever is listening right now don't. It'll be, it'll be better when I come tomorrow. I don't think I'm gonna be bad because of florida. No, I already told you, people are already expecting that you're going to be fantastic. So, but it's always nice to hear, you know, something that's out there. Oh, this guy maybe had story room went down in flames because I have a story.

You know, I'm on the air every morning and it's like to everybody else, they're like, oh, you sound so smooth and so clean and we're like, you have no idea what happens behind the scenes. Like I was coughing on my coffee and yeah, there was so much hectic going on that you really have no idea. Like just to make things happen. It's could be wild. Sometimes I get I get the same kind of thing when people talk to me, they're like, oh, you're, you're so chill. You know, there's nothing, there's probably that you probably don't get upset or anything, but like you've done inside having a panic that no, well is comedy.

It seems like doing stand up would be pretty nerve wracking because I've had people ask me like, hey, have you ever thought about doing stand up before? And I'm like, yeah, I've thought about it about a million times, but it's like I get really, really terrified at the thought of it. Sure. Yeah. Yes and yes and no, um once you start doing it like more and more the nerves go away and sometimes you, when you go into some like smaller shows, you're very relaxed and it's almost just just like, you don't care what's going to happen.

And that's that's always a good feeling, but bigger shows obviously and like tv tapings, those get real real nerve wracking, but once you do it a lot, some of the smaller shows, you're just like, they just wanted to just be there? And, and you can really, even though you're performing, you're really chill about it. Do you ever believe that you'd be doing like late night television and Comedy Central and all that good stuff? You know, I mean, I've had goals, like I wrote down goals when I was younger and stand up for what I wanted to do and uh, I didn't not think I was going to do it, but I knew it was going to be very, very difficult and I ended up doing them.

So now I'm very happy to see I like that. I like that you admitted that you were like, yeah, I worked hard at it. I had these goals. I'm going to do it because people were like, no, I've never really imagined it. No. Imagine it. Imagine it and make it happen. Yeah, that's cool. Put that energy into the university. You can definitely get it back well. Andrew, I feel like you and I could hang and we'd have a pretty good time. We're really looking forward to having you here tomorrow night.

And for the cold winter nights comedy series at the new America Performing Arts Center. I'm going to let you go enjoy the rest of your day. And yeah, thank you so much. Um, and I just really appreciate you taking out a few minutes of your time to just indulge me and uh, and racking your brain for a few minutes. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we'll see you tomorrow night. All right, bye bye. What's up? Wenatchee is produced as a collaboration between the Darling Productions podcast network and Hightower Digital Media.

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