Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, thanks for tuning in to the TCB Infomercial with Nacho Redondo. I personally don't think I've been as excited about one guest ever in the history of the commercial break. And the reasons are varied. Not only do I like EDN, Escuela de Nada, the podcast he is a part of, but Nacho and EDN live large in the hearts and minds of many of the Venezuelans that circle my universe.
So this gives me a true opportunity to be kind of a rock star with people who may not normally tune in to The Commercial Break. But my reason for popping on ahead of time is twofold. Number one, to tell you this is a really long episode of The Commercial Break, but I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. And you'll notice that Chrissy is not a part of that conversation.
The only reason why is the scheduling conflict. So while you may not hear her, she's here in spirit. But number two, last week I announced I'd be doing a separate podcast called After the Break. Nothing is happening to the commercial break. This continues to be my baby.
And sitting with Chrissy four times a week and doing this show is the true highlight of my life outside of my children and being married to Astrid. I'd like to take the opportunity to play that trailer for After the Break right now before the show starts, and then you'll have an opportunity after this episode to go take a listen.
You can find it anywhere you download your podcasts, wherever you're listening to this show right now. Search for After the Break, and you can put in my name, Brian Green, if you want to. Okay, without further delay, my trailer for ATB, and then my conversation with Nacho Redondo. You make this rather snappy, won't you? I have some very heavy thinking to do before 10 o'clock.
Hi, I'm Brian Green, creator and co-host of the Commercial Break podcast. For years, I've been cracking jokes with my best friend, riffing on the absurd, and trying to make sense of this weird little ball we're all spinning on, but through improv comedy. And man, do I love doing that. But sometimes the chaos isn't enough. For me, some stories deserve a bit of a deeper dive.
Some topics are just too fascinating, too ridiculous, or too important to skate past with just a punchline. That's why we're here after the break. Each week, I'll take one subject, polyamory, the failing movie business, Venezuela, TV psychics, the rise of hallucinogenic healing, or why people are obsessed with competitive geoguessers and why maps, yes, maps, are so freaking controversial.
We'll chew it up, spit it out, and break it down. I promise you'll have to do no homework. You'll get a laugh or two and I'll bring the voices and perspectives to give you an honest, funny and unfiltered look at the strangest, most interesting or most obsessive worthy things the world is looking at today.
If you like your comedy with a little bit of curiosity or your curiosity with a bit more comedy, I'm here to scratch that itch. Let's find out together after the break. On this episode of The Commercial Break. We are the product of a miracle. It's a miracle. It's not even far away from the concept of a miracle. It literally is.
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Chapter 2: How did Nacho Redondo's journey in comedy begin?
We play with it in a different way. Yeah, and people are desperate for... To do a talk, to just talk to someone. And maybe they're scared of therapy or even because therapy is very expensive. Maybe they don't have the money. And that conversation starts that conversation. like need to go to see a professional. And I always say it, always, like, have you talked to a professional about this?
Most of the time are like, yeah, maybe, oh, well, once or whatever. And it's like, no, no, you have to go after we talk here and that's great, but you have to go to a professional. Yeah, the guy from EDN is not your therapist. You need to go see someone about that dead body you found. Oh, no, very far from it. I wonder if you take any of this stuff home with you.
Like, do you onboard this, some of this trauma, like, emotionally? Do you go home at night and you're like, holy shit, what did I just hear? Like, I was in a room full of people and I heard three terrible stories and I'm not, like, energetically you're feeling a little off. Oh, yeah. Well, this show, this is a very responsible, irresponsible show to do.
Because I was, well, I talked a lot with my therapist and my stepfather is a psychiatrist. So it's a very well designed show with the... Well, I mean, I had to be very, very careful with everyone that talks to me. I have to be able to feel if this is a door that it's closed and we can talk about it or this is a very open door and I'm bringing the trauma back into the person's life. Wow.
So I managed to design this with my psychologist. My therapist. And she was able to let me understand the signals that make me understand if I had to dig deeper or just step back in the most elegant way so this person doesn't get home again reliving this horrible event. Wow, man. That is really well thought out. Yeah, because it's not like we do it and it's funny and that's it.
And most of the stories, because I know how to... I've been in therapy for 30 years. And all of my family members are psychologists or psychiatrists. So it's very, very engraved in our DNA, in our home DNA. All the mental health issues. Even my stepfather, he always tells me, like, you should have been a psychologist. And I hate you for being a comedian.
And I sent him – I just did a show in – a couple of shows in Texas. And I sent him – a girl that punched in the face at her father's funeral she punched in the face and kicked out of the funeral her father's mistress very Venezuelan very Venezuelan and she was very mad and I asked her why is she more guilty of this than your father And she didn't even, like, thought about it.
Like, why aren't you mad at your dad? And why are you mad to her? And even with that, I told her. I was, like, talking to her. Like, first of all, was he a good dad to you? She was like, yes. That's the only thing you have to worry about. The relationship aspect of her parents and how they treat each other, that's not of our business. But it's very difficult, especially for Latinos, right?
to disconnect that. And I'm like, if he's a good father to you, you're well served. That's it. That's what your father's supposed to be with you. That's your nexus to him is that. You don't have to worry about if he's unfaithful to your mom or whatever. That's not your problem. And you shouldn't be there. You shouldn't be hitting anyone, but your father's mistress... further. That's amazing.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Nacho face as a Venezuelan comedian?
Yeah, they're having a bad day. Like you rewind the steps to get to the Starbucks. Yes. Yeah, I do. I don't know why, but I do that as well. It helps me give empathy to the person in front of me who's acting like an asshole, right? I say, well, you know. And then sometimes there's just assholes. Sometimes I'm the asshole too. That's the tricky thing is that I can empathize with you.
But if you're not open with me, it doesn't justify you being an asshole. Fair enough. It's like, okay, you're an asshole because you're, I don't know, you fought with your wife or whatever. That's understandable, but not really. Because the people that were there, we don't know you.
So you have to shut the fuck up and take your mocha latte, blah, blah, blah, blah, to your fucking house and shut the fuck up. That lady gets paid $13.50 an hour to make your bullshit, just shut up and move on. To make a coffee that has like five lines of words. So she should be mad at you and your wife. Yeah, your pumpkin spice bullshit latte. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever feel...
A weird, I wonder if some people in the audience who make this connection with you, you know, they're big. I imagine a lot of them are big fans of EDN. They've been listening to you for a long time. We all know that when you get, you know, when people start listening to you, sometimes there's idolization and that doesn't happen with everybody, but sometimes.
And they walk into the room and now they're really connecting with you. Like they're making a super connection with you. I wonder if anybody ever crosses the line. Do you ever get nervous that people are going to want to take that outside of the room and go, oh, I just, you know, I connected with Nacho on this level. So now I'm, you know, now he's my friend. Now we get to talk. Now we get that.
Like, do they take it over the line? I mean, yes and no. The cool thing about the Traumas show is that it has brought me such a wider audience that the podcast has. So I really drew a line between the podcast audience and my stand-up audience. Even though my stand-up audience has been always there, even behind EDN. Before the EDN, yeah.
Yeah, when EDN started, I already had like six years in stand-up. But this time around with this show. Because of my podcast persona, it's a little goofier, and maybe I'm more into the conversation between friends, and I'm a little more relaxed, and whatever. And in the trauma scenario, I'm a little more relaxed.
tense, but also loose because I understand the language and whatever, but I'm also a little aware that something hard is going to come through the stage. People, I've always had this, people had this image of me because I'm such a emotionally responsible person and very, very aware of the limits I present to people, even my closest people, like, hey, you don't cross this line.
And people are very intimidated by that part of my personality. So I usually don't get that. People are very respectful of who I am. They come through me and most of the people are very, very nice and very educated. And also... I have a lot of limits in my social media. For example, you can't write me a direct message. That's closed in my social media.
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Chapter 4: How does trauma influence Nacho's stand-up comedy?
It almost goes as a fashion. Sometimes, every now and then, he gets it. But he... He's the real goat and the real first internet comedian. It's Dane Cook. I mean, Dane is such a fucking legend, bro. And I get the hate that he gets because I understand that he broke the internet code first. Yes. And he was very hated on a pod.
And he tried to make... At that time, where Hollywood was a little more... more like heavy, that internet presence. He managed to put this big, but he wanted this because this was what you had to make, like go and make movies and whatever. And it didn't go as well as he thought it will be. And then he basically like left a little unattended, like the internet and comedian stuff.
Chapter 5: What unique approach does Nacho take in his comedy shows?
But for me, as a Venezuelan kid who downloaded a lot of illegal shit because we didn't have access. Dude, there wasn't. And hopefully it doesn't offend this thing at all. I know it wouldn't. But, dude, I downloaded every single special and clips. And I was very young. And, dude, I was screaming. For example, that Burger King car thing. Oh, the burger thing where he's drunk? Exactly like that.
Whopper. Dude, that bit, for me, it changed everything because of the physicality of it. And right afterwards, not afterwards, but a little further, it's Sebastian. I mean, Mariscalco is just... Dude, the physical thing. He's a master of his body. He's a master of his vocals. Yeah. It breaks me. That thing that he does, the physicality of it, it breaks me. I don't care what you're saying.
I really don't. But you're so good at the timing and the professionalism of it. It's just magical for me. I saw Dane at the improv where... Once, and I saw Sebastian at the Hollywood Bowl at the Netflix. I think those big arena things, it's not for me, but just to see him. I think it's difficult to translate a physicality like that. You're just watching a screen if you're not close enough, right?
Yeah. huge screen i remember how chapelle used to stalk i mean um uh how chris rock used to stalk the stage and i saw him live here in a bigger venue but we were up close in that he's a master of physicality also the way that yes you know that's great he's great well yeah
you brought rock so it's for me it's very difficult because I had so many stories like with each of I grew up watching HBO specials so but for me the first three comedians that I saw like religiously and I got sick of just studying them were rock cat Williams and Chappelle so that's why I am the way I am that's the way you know Listen, the very first guy that I ever interviewed was Dane Cook.
First comedian that I ever interviewed was Dane Cook. He was nice enough that I was a nobody. There was no reason to come on, and I interviewed him, and he could not have been nicer. While he was never my favorite comedian, I did understand why people liked his comedy, and the physicality of that comedy was funny to me. He's such a legend. It certainly was. Well, he was so humble.
Like, he just was, like, humble. He's also been through so much shit. Oh, yeah. Like, his story. The brother story and whatever. Oh, God. That's fucking insane. Yeah, that's one of the examples of someone who got... Someone very close to him got and took advantage of his work. And that definitely makes you... I'm not going to say weird, but makes you feel you want to be protected all the time.
And I get it. But I only hear great stories about him. I don't... I do not... I think it's a... He gets the same hate that Matt Rice gets because he's good looking. I was going to connect those two. Yeah. You know, he's great. He's very hardworking. And I get that makes people, I don't know, move a little bit, you know? Well, he's young. He had a lot of success.
No one expected the success, just like Dane. No one really expected Dane to do anything. He wasn't doing anything. And then all of a sudden, he broke the rules. He said, if they're not going to have me on Letterman... I'll send it out through my MySpace. And all of a sudden, people were like, well, shit, here's free comedy I just downloaded on Dane. And he built an empire that way.
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Chapter 6: How does Nacho connect with his audience during performances?
And they didn't have... that many hits as you thought of because we're fans, we know the hits. But it's not like they were big and famous all over the world. But the reason they're selling right now that much is because of the lore and everyone wants to live through it. And the amount of young people I saw In the UK. Not in Mexico. In Mexico, I saw, like, people my age and shit. Yeah, yeah.
But in UK, the little guys, like, the young guys, the kids, that they are, like, being introduced by their fathers and their parents. Like, this is me, bro. Like, understand this shit. And it was such a cool thing to study and to just experience. And the lore is that powerful that makes arenas sell out in hours, even though they're not as... You want to be part of it and want to understand it.
Yeah, Pearl Jam's a much more popular band from that age. I think so. Yeah, of course. In the U.S. In the U.S. In so many hits and so many people, but, you know, they don't, they're not selling out, you know, and no offense to Pearl Jam, I love them, but they're not selling out Soldier Field in Chicago to 150,000 people in six seconds, right?
It just doesn't, it hasn't worked like that because they have been feeding the beast the entire time. I agree with you. I think there's a lot of good PR. Yeah. I just knew, and this is a fun fact, it was for me like a couple weeks ago, the Pearl Jam means jizz. You know that? I didn't. Pearl Jam means jizz? Yeah. You knew that? No, I had no idea. Two weeks.
I had this information in me since a couple weeks ago. Pearl Jam. Now I get it. I understand. It makes a lot of sense. If I turn this camera around, there's 12 Pearl Jam concert posters framed up here. Well, you're a Jizz fan. You're a Jizz fan. I am a Jizz fan. It's 2025, Nacho. I'm a man of the people. I am, too. So, fuck it. I don't care. Nacho is on tour with Traumas right now.
The show is in Spanish, just to let everyone know. And I know we do have a lot of Venezuelan listeners. He's going to be on tour here in the U.S. I'll put a link down in the show notes. Of course, EDN is everywhere. So, you don't have to worry about it. Just wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can go check out EDN. Nacho, I can tell you... I don't have to leave.
I don't have to leave if you want to talk a little more. If you don't have to leave, I want to talk to you more. Let's go. Usually close to an hour in, a guest has had enough of us, and we may have had enough of a guest, but not with Nacho Red. The conversation continues, but I thought this was a great place to take a commercial break inside of The Commercial Break.
As a reminder, get involved in the conversation, 212-433-3TCB, 212-433-3822. And please do follow us on Instagram for original content and clips at least a few times a week at The Commercial Break. Also, as mentioned at the beginning of the show, my new podcast, After the Break, is now available for download.
Wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can get After the Break or click on the link inside of the show notes. Let's take a quick two or three minute break and I'll continue my conversation with Nacho Redondo from EDN. Let's talk about EDN for a minute. EDN is so incredibly successful. And I know I have experienced this myself. And just let me share a story for a moment. Yeah.
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