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Clean Laughs

Palascak To Perform Family-Friendly Show Friday

Michael Palascak is ready to perform at the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Museum’s Tropicana Room on Friday at 7 and 9 p.m. Submitted photo

Resilience and adaptability are the qualities that have made Michael Palascak a more successful stand-up comedian over the years, and he’s bringing his personally driven sense of humor to Jamestown Friday.

Palascak, known for being named 2018 Stand-up of the Year performer by the Late Nite Last Week podcast for his set on The Late Late Show with James Corden, this new father has been cracking jokes since the early 2000s, having started with an interest in writing material every day after his sophomore year of college and listening to Jerry Seinfeld speak about how “achievable” comedy could be.

More than a decade later, Palascak can say he’s toured the late night programming gamut with performances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Conan, The Late Show with David Letterman and various performances on Comedy Central. Palascak became a top five finalist on the most recent season of Last Comic Standing.

Last year, he recorded a set at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Comedy Festival that was also shown off on comedian Kevin Hart’s LOL network.

Palascak said he’s improved over the years, and every time he feels himself getting funnier, it just makes him want to break the ceiling of laughs even more. His content has always been focused on personal observations and stories regarding facets of his life, whether they be family, dating or his Catholic upbringing.

“Every time you do it, you get a little better,” Palascak said.

His sets tomorrow will consist of his evolved material. Even a few years ago, Palascak was joking about the quirks of his long-distance relationship with his girlfriend Sam, but now she’s a real life partner, and the couple have an infant son named Jackson.

He joked before he was a parent that parenting is more like an unpaid internship than a full-time job. With more personal experience under his belt, Palascak intends on sharing what his new life has been like in Los Angeles.

“Hopefully, it doesn’t come back around, and I’m living with my parents again,” Palascak joked.

Palascak wasn’t always a comedian touring the country with shows three to four times a week for approximately 45 weeks out of the year. He grew out of his improvisational roots while living with his parents and started to find his brand in 2007 playing at colleges and clubs in the Chicago area.

Since then, he’s maintained his family-friendly style, but he also said his jokes are still often funnier for adults in an audience who can relate to things young adults and those older experience when they reflect on their relationships and childhoods.

With a quirky sense of comedic timing, Palascak continues to show a vulnerability and honesty in his performances. He noted that the more truth there is to a joke, the harder the laughs usually prove to be.

“Jokes are all about surprising,” said Palascak, who likes to poke good-natured fun at himself, his mom and his wife among others.

“When I was a little kid, I never liked (the mean-spirited) part of comedy.”

Palascak said his current life is like having two worthwhile full-time jobs in performing comedy and raising his son. He writes material everyday still and will be able to take his family on his travels once Jackson gets older.

“The more you’re gone, the more you’re working,” Palascak said, “and I feel that’s the best way to get better.”

He is currently working on his third comedy album and is theming his newer material around becoming a father and the tribulations he and his loved ones have gone through in this new chapter in life.

“I’m really excited to be a part of the National Comedy Center,” Palascak added.

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