Comedy is a space where technology and NFTs haven’t touched yet. Until now. Jambb is the best source of comedy collectibles in the world. With Jambb, you’ll be able to own and transform cultural and novel moments in the comedy space. You will have full utility and exclusivity akin to physical collectibles. If you’re a comedian, imagine your set as a digital piece of art, and you can earn money just by telling jokes. That’s insane! Join your hosts, Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, Josh Kriger as they talk to the CEO & Co-Founder at Jambb, Alex DiNunzio, and comedian/co-creator of the Lowkey Comedy Show, Paul Elia, about merging comedy and NFTs. Discover how COVID helps boost all of this when it comes to comedy shows. Find out how Jambb does it in today’s episode.
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Listen to the podcast here
Alex DiNunzio Of Jambb & Comedian Paul Elia On NFTs In Comedy, Plus: Giraffe Shout Outs, Listener Gratitude, And More…
This is Paul Elia.
This is Alex DiNunzio. We’re from Jambb where comedy meets collectibles.
We’re on the Edge of NFT where Eathan, Jeff and Josh get to meet cool and funny people like us in Web3. Lucky bastards. Stay tuned.
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Stay tuned for this episode and find out why comedy and NFTs are a match made in heaven or LA or Chicago or Cambridge, or anywhere else.
Why Edge of NFT beat out getting gas or a stalled car abandoned in the middle of Detroit.
How another great member of our community is spreading good energy and gratitude through giraffes, perhaps the next great beasts to take the NFT world by storm. All this and more on this episode. Enjoy.
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This episode features Alex DiNunzio, CEO and Cofounder of Jambb, and comedian Paul Elia. Jambb is the first digital collectibles marketplace focused on comedy and was founded with a mission to transform the way of novel content. Prior to founding Jambb, Alex was employee number one at AssetBlock, a blockchain-based real estate investment platform. He also led product development at Fuze, a leading SaaS communications company. Despite living in Boston and having an MBA from Harvard, Alex remains loyal to his hometown of Buffalo. He can be found whispering the lyrics to the Bills’ Shout to his four kids as they sleep to ensure they follow suit.
Paul is a Chaldean-Assyrian comedian from Detroit, Michigan, best known for his frequent sketch characters. He’s also the co-creator of the Lowkey Comedy show, which has been featured in Deadline, The Tonight Show, and the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival. Welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.
Thank you.
Eathan, that was some awesome bio-reading. I feel more hyped than I am.
I do have a bio PhD so I should be good at bio-reading.
He’s the man for that. It’s great to have you on. We’ve done over 100 episodes here and we talk about a lot of different concepts and applications of NFTs. One that we’ve always talked about in the background and loved and thought about a lot is stuff related to comedians, their podcasts, and their shows. There are so many fun things that happen in those episodes. There are so many impromptu things in shows that pop up. It’s a fun, cool, and very relevant category. It’s great to see what you’re doing here. We would love to know a little bit about the origin story for our audience. Give us the deets on it.
It started with comedy and watching The Machine, for those of you who aren’t familiar with that particular bit. My cofounder says to me, “You’ve never seen this before.” I said, “No, I’ve never seen this before.” He said, “Right now in this conference room, let’s go.” We’re in the middle of a giant office building. We end up with a whole bunch of people outside. We’re watching The Machine over lunch. Bert got his shirt off.
I said to him, “Do you think that he knows that we’re watching this right now?” He’s like, “No way he knows that we’re watching this right now.” I was like, “That’s a problem. How is it that he doesn’t know that we’re watching this right now? There are now twenty people that have seen The Machine that hasn’t seen it before. Why can’t you own this thing or participate with it more deeply?”
I showed him the closing scene of the first season in Silicon Valley. It’s like an exchange. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it. The next thing you know, we’re building a platform centered around helping comedians get their work out in new ways. There are many amazing things we’ll get to but that’s the rough basics.
Anything else to share about the origin story in terms of you guys getting together? Paul, what’s the story behind how you came into contact and how you established this relationship?
I was in Utah and my buddy, Azhar Usman, was doing a show for Jambb. They were doing The Hannibal Buress Show. I was on my way there to hang, and then Azhar was like, “Brandon, Paul’s a comic. Let him do five minutes.” I went up for five minutes and it was awesome. On our way over there, Azhar was like, “Your set is going to be NFT,” and I was like, “What does that mean?” He gave me the Subaru Outback pitch of what it was and it sounded so cool.
I was like, “The set that I have could essentially exist as a piece of art and someone can purchase this, and then I can get money from these dick jokes?” After I did the show, I was happy with the way the show went. It was dope meeting Brandon. I met Val, Tamika and a lot of the Jambb team. They seemed like people who cared about the comedians and comedy.
Especially in this business, people want to put their hands in your pocket. They want to own your stuff and own your audio. I had known buddies who have done different deals with their comedy albums. I’m like, “How is it that your album is playing on all these major radio stations like SiriusXM or whatever platform and you’re receiving a check for X amount of dollars? This doesn’t make any sense.”
I’m grateful that there are people out there who want to help comedians. Lovers of comedy get more tapped into the comedy space. I told Brandon about the Lowkey Comedy show, which is a show we started during the pandemic. We did our first Lowkey-Jambb collab at the Wayfarer Hotel, which was awesome. It’s an awesome show. We had Damon Wayans Jr. and Beth Stelling. Ian Edwards and I hosted it together. We had Matt Rife and Candice Thompson. It was a fire-ass show.
The 50 people that were there or whatever we sold out got the chance to have a drink with Paul and hang out with people. This idea of bridging real life with the digital world is talked about a lot in our ecosystem but not executed on. These guys are hanging out. After doing their sets, they’re not going straight out to go do their next ten minutes on stage. It was such a stark contrast to what I’ve seen elsewhere and it was a lot of fun.
When I was living in New York, I got a chance to hang out with people that were in the New York comedy scene and watch. I would go to some open mics sometimes. A lot of these comedians as with other domains of the arts are focused on their work. They want to get better. They want to get through all of the rough patches that can get better.
It’s interesting how NFTs are offering a bit more of this ownership of that time. This ability to say, “I was there early. I was an early supporter. I was hanging out with them. I was part of the process of what was happening.” It’s an interesting use case there. It is great to have folks that are concerned with bringing that to that audience too because there’s only going to be a handful of folks who are naturally involved in something like NFTs.
There are very few creative arts where the audience is part of that creative process in such an explicit way. It’s hard to work on your jokes on your show without being in front of a live audience. You can do it in front of the mirror or mom and dad or something. You’re not going to get that same feel. Working on that and evolving that in front of a live audience, the audience is part of that creative process. The feedback you’re getting from them and the iteration that happens based on that feedback.
JAMBB: When your set becomes an NFT, it essentially exists as a piece of art that someone can purchase. So the comedian can actually get money from their jokes. That’s every comedian’s dream.
For them to be able to take a ste0p further and own a piece of that or have a part of that process and to be able to say, “Paul dropped his first iteration of X joke that became this classic. I was there in the improv when he first dropped it. I have that moment, the 1 of 100 that’s created.” There’s something special about that and it’s different from almost any other creative venture that’s out there. The fans are not typically that integrated into the process as they are with comedy.
As a suggestion too, there should also be, “I was there and I didn’t heckle NFT.”
“I was there and I didn’t slap the comedian.”
For me, learning more about the origin story harkens back to one of my favorite movies, I’m sure you guys know Dying Laughing. It was a documentary in 2016. There was this part of it where they talk about bombing on stage. It was brutal. It felt like a gut punch as you’re hearing some of that conversation. At the same time, comedy needs that audience. I’m curious for you, guys, to what extent COVID do you think made you more receptive to the concept of a collaboration like this given the need for having that interactivity with an audience and some of the constraints that that put on things? Do you think you would have done something like this if it hadn’t been for COVID?
We started our show originally at the Comedy Store. It was called Lowkey Upset. When the COVID happened, no one was doing comedy. Michael Che made his attempt doing comedy and he did two shows in New York. Dave Chappelle started his camp, and then it turned into what it was. In LA, no one was doing anything so we were like, “We need to do a show.” We got a pickup truck and we got some comics, and people came.
I remember talking to Sam Morril right before he went on stage and he was like, “I am nervous as fuck. I’ve never felt this way in so long.” It has been four months and he’s performing for this starved group of people. He went up and it was awesome. Everyone had a great time. I didn’t think I understood that comedian-audience connection until that first show and until I saw people’s faces. People who haven’t listened to comedy or heard comedy finally get the opportunity to do that. It was cool.
We did a show called Non-Fungible Jokin’ at the Dynasty Typewriter in LA and we had fifteen comedians. LA had lifted the ability for us to be in the venue. The first night, we had half the audience turned away because they didn’t have the right vaccine card. It was a disaster from that perspective after putting on this huge production.
I remember talking to Chaunté Wayans and Zainab Johnson before the show and it’s like, “This is the first time I have been on stage in a long time.” It’s an interesting set of learning about the dependency we all had on-stage time. What about a way to take the things that we’re doing and give them a life outside of it having to be done live? What about audiences that aren’t quite here? Some of those percolations of those stories are starting then, and then now progressing a year later with doing live shows with Paul, Lowkey, and some of these amazing things. It’s been a journey that started at that moment.
It’s so fun that The Machine is part of that story too. Given its prominence in comedy culture or for fandom at least right now, it’s a fun place to start.
When we started doing our shows, we put some clips online for people who weren’t able to attend. We saw this vast reach of people who are like, “Can you stream this? Is there any way I can see this? How can I be a part of this?” COVID accelerated this digital age that we are already in. I feel like this is perfect timing for comedy NFTs and NFT-ing other forms of art.
I’m realizing this too. The whole COVID situation made me not only crave laughing but crave laughing until I cry. I don’t know why. I’m like, “I’m laughing at this but I need to find something where I laugh until I cry. That is what I need right now.”
People see you and you’re in despair like, “What’s wrong?” You’re like, “It’s so funny.”
I want to know from you guys about the Roommates drop because we’ve been chatting here going back and forth. Tell us a little bit what that’s all about.
Paul, why do you start with Roommates? That’s a great place to start.
Ian Edwards is a brilliant comedian. He’s hilarious and a good friend of mine. He shot his special called Ian Talk, which is available on Comedy Central streaming platforms. He was like, “I want to promote the show but I want to find a clever way of doing it. I was thinking maybe we can shoot some sketches.” I was like, “What are you thinking that we should do?”
Ian was like, “I want to do something simple and hilarious. It doesn’t need to be some elaborate throughline of deep meaning, motifs and symbolism. Let’s do a show about two guys that live together. We’ll write the characters similar to ourselves, and then we’ll go from there.” Ian has a character named Ian. I have a character named Paul. We met up at the Bourgeois Pig, which is a restaurant coffee shop in LA.
Ian was like, “I have some drafts for some episodes.” I read these and I was like, “Great. You terrorize me in every episode.” I kept looking at these and I’m like, “These are so funny.” We found this great balance of humor in a short amount of time because each video was a minute and a half long. At the very end, we would tag Ian’s comedy special, and then we kept doing more of these.
Eventually, I would walk into comedy clubs. I remember I ran into Dane Cook and he was like, “The Roommate shit is fucking hilarious.” All these comics that I was familiar with, cool with, and maybe didn’t have a personal relationship with were all coming up to me like, “This is so funny.” Ian was telling me that he went to a party with Sarah Silverman. She stopped and told him the ideas that she has for future episodes.
It became a comedian niche show. A lot of comedians would love it. They weren’t getting massive views at first. Eventually, we started putting out more and collabing with different people like Maz Jobrani and another influencer named Violet Summers. She posted our video and it was getting millions of views and hundreds of thousands of shares. It started to take off. We reformatted the clips and put them on TikTok. They have millions of views now. It started as something we wanted to do to promote this special and it turned out to be its own separate show. We’re excited to be partnering with Jambb on this drop and share this with everybody.
That’s amazing stuff. When we think about NFTs these days, especially some of the most beloved ones, they come with a lot of utility like background on additional features and privileges that holders get. What do you guys have cooking for Roommates?
We got some interesting things. This utility piece is quintessential for us. You can’t just buy something. There have to be more these days. We’re right there with you, Jeff. We’ve got some interesting ideas. First of all, the drop consists of some of the best moments from Roommates. You’ll be able to own these moments. We have a bunch of real-life things that we’re going to give to people who buy these NFTs. Paul, who’s wearing the boots around right now?
Ian currently has the boots.
It’s a pair of Timberland boots, properly sweat in by one of the comedians. This is going to be a beloved item on someone’s mantelpiece. I can’t wait to be like, “I’m a person with these boots.” Every single time someone walks in the house, that’s the thing that people are talking about. We’re going to do things with the ability to meet Paul and Ian and have digital sessions with them, and various ways to be at a Lowkey show when these things are being filmed.
Having audience participation as much as possible and having this narrative that we don’t have to know all the answers right now but the idea of building these relationships that are lasting in years and be able to add value to people who’ve made the purchase and are excited early on. Layering things over time. That’s one of the philosophies we’ve got.
It’s authentically saying that, knowing that it’s not going to be a rug pool. You’re going to stay there, stay committed to the project, and add value. Most of those things don’t necessarily even have to cost money. There’s a bit of access, time and additional content that you’re already creating anyway that can add value. There are so many amazing things that the fans are going to dig. That’s pretty cool. I love the boot idea too. That’s fun.
One reflection I had is, believe it or not, Eathan, Jeff and I have all done improv at some level. Some of us are a little bit more than the others.
I would like to share that without consulting me first.
It’s out of the bag. You can edit it on the show if you want, but that wouldn’t be very cool because it’s an interesting fun fact. My point here is that there’s an element of improv to what you guys are building in the roadmap. I’m curious as to how much you’re thinking about the improv side of comedy and that sub-genre when it comes to this project?
With the growth of podcasting, people want to hear what you want to say now. Just say it. Real genius comes on its feet. Some of the comedians’ best jokes are like, “I thought of that earlier and I said this thing that I thought of.” I like this improv format, which is what I wanted Lowkey to be. After the comedians would do stand up, the audience would have an opportunity to hear them talk.
Showcasing that side of comedy is important. People feel like it’s just a hangout. They’re like, “I feel like I’m just hanging out with these people,” which is also one of the important keys of Lowkey. People were looking for comedy and it’s like, “I can also see them do stand up,” and then, “I feel like this is a hang.” It feels more connected. It’s going to continue to grow. More shows are starting to do that now.
It’s like MTV Unplugged.
Look at the MTV roster. It’s all ridiculousness.
What a deal Rob Dyrdek put together there. If you’re listening to him talk, he’s like, “I had to deal with 200 episodes with MTV.” I’m like, “What?” It’s insane. That’s serious. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s crazy stuff.
He gets $1 million or more per episode or something ridiculous.
It’s something like that. It’s a sick deal.
How many more videos are there that have people falling on their shoulders?
JAMBB: When COVID happened in LA, no one was doing comedy. So we were just like, we just need to do a show. So the Lowkey Comedy Show happened. It was just a pickup truck with some comics, and people showed up.
Plenty.
I thought that genre was over with America’s Funniest Videos. God bless Bob Saget. Apparently, it can keep going forever. Guys, you’ve done some other cool drops like Hannibal Buress, Pete Holmes and Tom Segura. What were those clubs like? How has that evolved Jambb? What have you learned from those experiences?
We started off with Non-Fungible Tokens. What we were trying to prove is that we could do something that no one else had done like, “Let’s host a comedy show. Let’s get fifteen comedians for two nights, then cut the entire thing up with a crew that has done a bunch of specials before. Do this high-quality thing.” Turn around and say, “Let’s capture this moment in time. The world’s first comedy show destined for NFTs.”
On stage, everyone shits on that like “What is this thing that I’m doing? I was paid to be here.” It was this authentic moment of like, “You’re going to spend your kid’s college fund on this. I love it. Thank you.” At the same time, this appreciation for how art is transforming in this way. I look at that as something interesting because now you have people like Moses Storm who hosted the show and now has a very successful HBO special. The jokes that he did on Non-Fungible Jokin’, more than half of them are the cornerstones of this HBO special.
If you are there, you saw it, and you bought these moments, that early on discovery thing and what you would experience at an improv session where you’re like, “I knew them when they were playing in Chicago.” That feeling is there. We did it again with Hannibal. Paul is part of that show. With Tom and Christina, Your Mom’s House, we said, “Let’s do it differently. Let’s take some of the most popular comedy content that we can find.”
They have more than eleven years of podcast. They have 600-plus episodes and a rabid fan base. I was like, “Let’s take 100 of those best moments and see what happens when we put those back out there and say, ‘You can own these things and you can participate.’” First of all, I don’t know if anybody has a better job than I do. You get to title the tracks of Tom and Christina’s jokes. That spreadsheet alone is something that people should be envious of about what we get to do every single day here.
For them, it was at that level of, “Should I trust these guys to go do this or not?” We did the drop. We sold the thing out subsequently. We’ve got another one coming very soon with them with a whole another chunk of content. Now we’re working with their studio, the YMH Studios. It’s this fantastic combo of people. We’re talking about animated shows, a bunch of podcast ideas, and things that are going to become Web3 native out of the gate, instead of it being retroactive content. It’s like, “How do you create new things that get fueled in this area?” If you think we’re evolving, we’ve got a number of exciting things that we’re working on. I like to see these relationships grow.
It’s cool to hear a little bit more about the evolution. I appreciate it when a comedian destroys a heckler in the audience. I would want that collection of the ultimate bazooka body slams against the hecklers.
We’re working on it.
It’s like the old school NFL hits when they used to put those compilations together.
They all go on ridiculousness.
You mentioned Your Mom’s House podcast and I’m remembering those were a couple of my laugh-till-you-cry moments watching their YouTube. They find these obscure YouTube videos other audiences share with them. There’s this video of a guy who’s enthusiastic about an interstate highway in Canada. Another one is of a guy that’s enthusiastic about a train engine that’s coming into the station. They bring these things on and show you how ridiculous these moments are. It’s funny that I mentioned the laugh-till-you-cry moments because those are a couple of those for me.
I own a bit of Tom’s mom farting. When I had a chance to meet Tom backstage here at the Wang in Boston, I’m sitting there and the first thing I said to him was, “Tom, I’m very proud to say that I own your mom’s fart.” He’s like, “This is incredible. What else can we do together?” It’s one of those moments of connection that you don’t think you’re going to have with somebody.
Comedy is such a special domain for people to have comedy around Web3 and NFT. I’m craving it. Next time we do a convention, we have to have more comedy for that audience. Part of what is interesting about it is, number one, it’s a new technology that makes people uncomfortable in a sense because they’re not sure what to do with it.
Any place you have of something new, unfamiliar, and makes people not sure what to do with it, they love laughing as a way of processing it. What’s interesting about this tech is that it’s also integrated with creativity. It is a perfect storm. I’m curious to see the evolution of what’s going on in comedy and how that integrates into the new tech and Web3 stuff.
We got to have a Jambb session at the next conference we do in LA. We had a great comedian that was the emcee of the overall event. Do you guys know Kristen? She’s awesome. I’m happy to connect you with her. She would find what you guys are doing to be super cool. She was great. She was a little bit about learning about NFTs, going to Google, checking out YouTube, going down that rabbit hole and coming out more confused than when she started. It was pretty funny.
I’m hearing Alex talk about owning Tom’s mother’s fart. This all feels like merch on steroids. It’s like merch that keeps giving back and grows in value. It’s like you’ll get a tour t-shirt and you could sell it to a retro shop years later for maybe $100 more. It’s exciting to hear about the number of moments that you can NFT and create and fans can keep. It’s cool.
There’s something special about the intersection of that with comedy, that co-creation process that happens, the importance of the audience and the process. One of the biggest losses of COVID for me was the Comedy Store and being able to cruise there on a Tuesday night or whatever and catch this amazing lineup of people. Most comedy fans don’t even know what an amazing resource that was for comedy fans to be able to go out there in LA and experience that.
What’s happening with Jambb and everything is bringing that into the digital age. It’s very cool stuff. When we think of what’s next, that’s at the forefront of a lot of our minds right now. For Jambb and the roadmap, could you give us a little bit of insight as to where things are going in the coming year?
Bottom line, we want to be able to add some more immersive experience on top of as much comedy content as we possibly can. If you think of the NFT, it’s like a key into some Jambb Kingdom of some kind, the Jambb Stadium, if you will. Inside our episodes of the podcast, you haven’t seen our clips from Paul and Ian. I’ll use it as an example for Roommates that you haven’t seen. There are ways to meet them in real life. There are community elements.
It’s this idea of that next step. What happens when the curtain closes or when the mic gets shut off? What happens at that moment? How do you consume that little bit more for those things that you love? We’re constantly trying to ask and answer that question over and over again. We’re playing with fun things. We have a metaverse play right now. We haven’t shown anybody this thing, but you can go watch clips that no one has ever seen before from some amazing comedians inside of a Decentraland experience. This is cool.
Where does this fit in? I’m not quite sure yet. I asked myself the question, “Who’s going to be the comedian that you meet in the metaverse that you never saw in real life? That person is going to exist.” Think about how many people are famous on Tiktok and Instagram that you had never seen on the stage and they have a massive following, making significantly more money than all of us combined.
It gives us so many interesting things that if we lean slightly forward can start to enable. Maybe it’s someone like Paul that has some genius moments. Azhar is a perfect example. He’s the most forward-leaning guy. If you haven’t seen his work, it’s amazing. There are going to be some cool new success stories. I don’t know what all these things are going to look like quite yet, but we want to be there to provide as much of it as we can.
That metaverse play, there are so many cool things that can happen there that maybe wouldn’t happen in real life necessarily. For example, the hanging where after you’re done with the set. In the metaverse, you go into a separate room where those VIP NFT holders can go. There are maybe fifteen people that are hanging back there. It’s a Zoom room or whatever and you’re hanging out bullshitting or whatever, but it’s way more accessible than it would be the case if it was live in person.
I’m looking out for augmented reality stuff. That could be interesting. As the tech evolves, people get immersed in it and it becomes a little bit less awkward. Maybe the awkwardness is part of what’s funny about it. There are some interesting things that could be done with augmented reality, comedy, props, experiences, things going on, and owning those items potentially that happen in an AR situation. That could be some cool stuff.
I did stand up years ago with Oculus. It was some metaverse thing, and then everyone in the room was different avatars. It was weird trying to make a dinosaur laugh or whatever their avatar was. It wasn’t even moving. It was just them doing boomerangs.
It gives a whole new meaning to know your audience. It’s like humans as dinosaur avatars.
They were talking regularly. I’m like, “Hey.”
They are still working on it.
There’s a relationship here with Dapper and Flow, which is pretty impressive. How did that come to be? How has it been working with them? Can you give a little bit of intel on that, Alex?
For me, Dapper shared a similar vision and the idea that we could bring in the next billion users with experiences that weren’t entirely crypto-centric. In participating with comedy, I don’t want people to have to understand the complexities of Web3 to participate and be part of our experience. I don’t care how technically sophisticated it is, “Do you want to laugh with Paul? Great. Come to Jambb.”
I saw things like NBA Top Shot. Their mentality was aligned with us there. We’ve built our experience around paying with a credit card and checking out like a normal purchase. That has been a nice partnership from that perspective. We have all sorts of different things that we’re doing with them. From a technical perspective, we nerd out all the time.
We rewrote some pretty amazing smart contracts. We can get super nerdy if you ever wanted to. That’s evolved even in their platform. Those things have been forked and used across the ecosystem by a very collaborative group of people over there. From the NFT perspective, the other thing is the projects in that ecosystem have been great to work with.
Maybe there’s a little bit too on the noes. Is anybody doing comedian trading cards? I feel like that’s an interesting potential niche there.
It would be hilarious looking at the stats in the back like, “How many jokes per game? How many steals?”
I’m going to make you write yours first, Paul, and then we’ll use that as the prototype.
JAMBB: The idea of building these relationships that last for years is important—to be able to add value to people who’ve purchased the NFT and then layer things on over time.
Wasn’t a comedian talking about jokes per minute or laughs per minute?
Laughs per minute is a saying. Maybe somebody thinks this is cool. It was a little bit too technical. There was a guy who had a software for comedians. I don’t know if you guys have seen this. It was to detect your laughs per minute and you can use it to hone your sadness. There are laughs per minute that the good comedians can get or laughs per second or whatever it is. If you’re not hitting it, it is dead.
It would be a certain amount of decibel because there are some laughs that don’t count. It needs to be authentic like real pop. I would love to see this software.
There’s a size per minute. There’s booze per minute. There’s a whole spectrum of stats. He could get deep on this. It’s all there.
I don’t know if this is the same one. It’s a joke, Comedy Evaluator Pro. This is a real thing. Use your smartphone to know objectively how funny your standup comedy act is. I want to know if this guy is raking in any money on this. It’s a real thing. Look it up.
How does this work? You upload your set and then someone is like, “I listened to your set.”
You hit record with this thing on your set or maybe you upload an audio file and maybe it has a way of detecting laughs and then it tells you how often they happen. That’s it. I don’t know that it’s going to be helpful but it’s a thing. That exists.
They should make that the next America’s Got Talent judge.
There’s something in there. This is amazing stuff, guys. Across the board, what you’re doing is so fun and relevant. There’s a very wide spectrum of NFT use cases out there for creators. This feels like one that’s authentically a great fit. We’re all comedy fans over here. Maybe we’re biased a little bit. I feel like the uptick on this has got to be something pretty special. Owning these moments feels like the kind of thing we’d all be excited about for the people that we follow and are passionate about. Kudos for pulling that together and leaning forward to this for both of you. We would love to continue to follow what you’re doing and see where this thing goes.
As we wrap up this segment, guys, we’d like to ask a lot of our guests this question. As you take a broader view of the NFT space, maybe reflect on the drops that you’ve purchased or wish you purchased. Are there any projects or platforms or technology in the space that you draw inspiration from that you’re excited about?
For me, it’s when I see projects like concept art that are turning into a show that I can have influence over. When I can see a throughline to the thing that I’m buying to a bit of influence, that experience that money normally can’t buy, that’s the stuff that gets me excited. I’m always on the lookout for something like that. I always want to buy things. I never ended up on the waitlist. I miss out on every project, and then I don’t have the dollars to go buy on the secondary market. I’m not a good example of this. I have plenty of NFTs but they’re not necessarily all the ones I wish I could have had.
Tune in because I did a show casting meeting. We have a show that’s exactly on the topic that you just mentioned. You’ll have to check out that show, which will probably air the second week of May 2022.
Anything for you, Paul, on other projects or inspirations you’re seeing in the world of NFTs?
I was on Clubhouse early on. I would join these NFT rooms and listen in on all the different things. I wasn’t paying as much attention to it. I went back and saw some of those assets that they were talking about that are now worth 50 times the amount. It seems like such a lucrative space. I’m definitely on the lookout for way more.
I’m interested in throughline and background, but I’m not interested in just buying something because I’m like, “This is something that could make money because other people think it’s popular.” I want to get something I genuinely like and believe in. When you do the diligence, you can find some awesome stuff.
Many people miss that additional layer. They get in it and maybe they don’t make money on something, and then they forget about it and move on. The reality is even with the mainstream getting attention into that world of NFTs, we’re super early. There’s so much more room to run on this thing
Everybody is going to be involved in NFTs in one form or another, whether they know it or not. They don’t even need to know how Jambb is formed and how Flow was created originally. Swipe your credit card and you know that you want an NFT. You got something cool and fun and there you go. I appreciate it, guys. We’re going to keep our eyes on what you’re doing. It’s super exciting.
We want to shift gears a little bit and head into segment two, which is a section that we call Edge Quick Hitters. It’s a fun and quick way to get to know you a little bit better. We have ten questions. We’re looking for short, single-word or few-word responses, but we may dive a little deeper here and there. Are you guys ready to dive in on this thing?
Let’s do it.
Alex, let’s start with you. Question number one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
PEZ dispenser.
Paul, how about you?
I bought some Airheads and then I sold them for double the price.
I got to go back. It was probably the Big Foot chewy, that candy at the baseball. It was probably the first thing. That’s probably earlier than my PEZ.
We’re still in the candy category, so that’s good. Question number two, Alex, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
Lemonade.
A whole stand?
My parents loved garage sales, so I would go and try to make some dollars on the side being so confused about how change works. I remember the first time I sold something and had to give change back, I started crying. I was like, “Why am I giving money back?”
I feel that anxiety. I remember watching people at the grocery store counting out the change thinking, “What are they doing?” That’s anxiety-inducing for sure. Paul, how about you? Was it those Airheads or are you selling stuff before that?
It was those same Airheads. I bought them for a quarter from an ice cream truck. I was like, “I think I can make more.” I went door-to-door and I knocked and I sold it for $1.” Some dude answered the door and then I was like, “I’m trying to raise money for my team.” I didn’t even say what sport. I said there’s a team and he gave me $1. I don’t think he even took the Airhead.
#Hustle. Good work. Question number three, Alex, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
Umbrella. I left mine in LA. Believe it or not, I needed it.
We all do at some point. Paul, how about you?
The last thing I purchased was tickets to a comedy show. There was a comedy show that was in town and I bought tickets to go see it. I wasn’t even able to go. I’m not using my money wisely.
We never said that was a requirement. Question number four, Alex, what is the most recent thing you sold?
I feel like with four kids, I spend dollars and don’t sell many things these days. If you include Jambb, it’s got to be our NFTs but that’s not a very exciting answer.
JAMBB: Hosting a comedy show with 15 comedians in two nights and then cutting the entire thing up with a crew was never done before. This is the world’s first comedy show destined for NFTs.
It works. We’re looking for the truth. That’s all.
That’s probably it.
Alex sold something illegally to Paul.
He is my molly dealer.
I think he stole something from TJ Maxx and he sold it to Paul.
That’s the worst place to steal. I live in Detroit and I can’t tell you how many pants I bought that had the sensor on that I still wore.
It’s a fashion statement.
It gets covered with my shirt. No one can see it. I have bigger shirts. The last thing I sold was a Lowkey hoodie, which I would love to send to you all. Send me your addresses. This sensor will be on all of them.
I appreciate it. Alex, question five, what is your most prized possession?
I wish you started with Paul on these questions.
He gets the second half.
I’m going to take your answer, Alex.
The sentimental side would be my kids and my family. People who know me know that I don’t like to have stuff. I’m not a stuff guy. I have the most boring answer here. I’m going with my family.
It’s that fart NFT that you own.
You forgot about that.
That is pretty true. If you can include the experiences, who gets to be Tom Segura backstage and talk about farts for a while? That is amazing. That’s cool.
Don’t ask him to compare the fart NFT with his family.
Lines are blurd trehere and I’m going to have to explain that one later.
Improv comedy is great because real genius comes when you're on your feet. Click To Tweet
Ask your family to create a fart NFT for you.
They would gladly do it. Do you mean to tell me, instead of spending money on your business, you could make money by NFT-ing the things that happened in our household every single night? Sign us up. It would be a unanimous yes.
Alex, I’m going to sell you my burp.
What were you trying to sell at the show that we did at Lowkey?
Is it something that you shouldn’t have been selling?
There’s a lot of bootleg merch at NFTLA so I wouldn’t be surprised.
Everyone is like, “Where can I get that white hoodie?” “What white hoodie?” “It goes right in the middle.”
The cool thing is they also included our trademark.
That’s a good review to bootleg and at least include the TM in there. Paul, what’s your most prized possession?
Aside from the human beings in my life, an actual physical possession is I ran track in high school and I wore the same track jersey from freshman year until senior year. I didn’t even remember I even had it. I went to my mom’s house and I saw it and then I gasped. I’m going to sell my gasp as NFT. It was such a wild moment because I was like, “This thing that I forgot exists is here.” I immediately put it at home. I bought a frame for it. That’s my most prized possession at the moment.
I’m the same way about my third-grade bowling trophies.
I’ve heard about those, Eathan, too many times. Paul, we’ll lead with you in the second half here. Question six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service and experience that’s currently for sale, what would it be? What do you get your eyes on?
I would love to buy dinner with Chris Rock and talk to him about slap defense.
The guy’s got a lot to say there.
If I could buy anything, I wouldn’t want to buy an island. I don’t know if I want to buy an extra thing. Honestly, a fast car and all these other things that depreciate in value. As I’m starting to get older and getting more hip to what matters in life, they start to weigh less. If I could spend money on anything, I want to spend my money on an experience. What that experience is hanging out with someone that’s dope, even if it’s dinner with a dope group of people. I know this is a broad answer.
It’s a good one though. Sorry, Eathan, you can’t make your sales pitch on your island anymore.
I’m looking for timeshare collaborators on that one.
Isn’t it hilarious the person that’s like, “A Bugatti.” It’s like, “What the hell are you talking about?
JAMBB: Jambb wants to be able to add a more immersive experience on top of all the comedy content. NFTs are just a key to some Jambb kingdom of things that happen once the curtains close.
Alex, how about you?
A trip of some kind. I have been traveling for the last couple of years. I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. I have never been. I would say something like that.
Question seven, Paul, back to you, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?
My belief in God. Especially when I see the younger generation, I feel like there’s not enough submission to the higher power. It’s so important to me and it has done so much for me in my life. That is something I will definitely pass on.
Alex, how about you?
The ability to meet someone and find some common ground and relate to them. We’re all vastly different. I don’t know you three, but I feel like I know you three now. That ability to connect at some level very quickly. If we could all do that and not be face down on our phones, it would be far better off.
Question number eight, Paul, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
I’m constantly trying to eliminate and kill my ego as much as I can. That’s a personality trait that I would love to see. This idea of submitting and trying to let go of our own ego.
It’s like tool-type stuff. There’s a lot in that. Alex, how about you?
I was so focused on multiple chess moves ahead without living right here and now. Whatever the personality trait is that describes being too focused on multiple steps ahead and missing the present.
A little bit easier. Question number nine, Paul, what did you do before joining us on the show?
My car stopped in the middle of the road for not having enough gas and this was the first time that has happened to me ever. I swear to God, the car stopped in my neighborhood. I went to go get my mom and aunt some coffee and donuts. I walked this coffee and donuts to my mom. I gave it to her and then I’m like, “Mom, I got a show right now. The car is in the middle of the road but I promise I’m going to go get it.”
It’s still in the middle of the road right now?
It’s on the side-middle.
We’re so glad you made it. You took the time to get your mom that coffee. That’s something else.
She took a sip and said, “Where’s the Splenda?”
Am I getting this right? Is this contributing to the pandemonium that is Detroit or is it just another car?
It’s something else. Alex, how about you?
It’s much more basic. I refilled my water bottle and I need a handful of almonds in that order.
That must be nice.
Last easy one, question ten, what are you going to do next after the show? I think I know where we’re going with this, Paul.
I’m going to get this gas canister and I’m going to go to the nearest Sunoco and take care of this car problem.
Alex, how about you?
I’m going to probably sprint down the street in Cambridge to relieve our babysitter so I could get murdered. That’s probably the best thing.
If you need a ride, I’ll pick you up, Alex.
Shout out to you guys for indulging us a little bit with Edge Quick Hitters. We appreciate it. Lots of fun. Thanks for that. We also want to give a little bit of love to some of our fans and followers who are out there that are in our Discord community and other places. Eathan, you had some folks queued up that we wanted to talk about.
Let’s say hi to Adar from Discord. He’s a cool guy. He also showed up at NFTLA. He was very enthusiastic to be there. He’s got a project called Grateful Giraffes. By the way, Giraffes are a thing to look out for in the NFT space. I’ve noticed there’s a subculture of fun Giraffes stuff going on. We have another person in our Discord who does Giraffes NFTs. I’ve got a couple of them myself who also showed up to help out at NFTLA.
He calls himself Hypertonic in the Discord. He did not get to attend the event because of a budget but he came still to help us out. He was one of the folks putting swag into the bags and helping out the scene. Shout out to both of those guys and Giraffes in general. You can check out the Grateful Giraffes projects if you just google Grateful Giraffes NFT.
Adar was hanging out at the NFT LA. He had this t-shirt that everybody could sign and say the things they are grateful for. I signed it. Nicole Buffett signed it. Nicole’s nephew was there for a few minutes and got involved in this fun stuff. Shout out there. Lots of cool, genuine folks who are up to good stuff hanging out in our community.
Thanks, Eathan. We always like to let our audience know where to follow everything that you’re up to with Jambb, with yourselves individually. Where can they go to stay abreast of what you’re doing?
Ours is easy, www.Jambb.com, and then everything else is linked from there. Discord and Twitter are the places to follow along with what we’re doing, the latest drops, what’s going on with Paul and Ian, and all these things that are upcoming and exciting.
Paul, we got folks following you individually. Where are you active?
Follow me on Instagram, @PaulElia. On TikTok, it’s @PaulaEliaComedy. If you are in Los Angeles, Lowkey is going to be at the Netflix Is A Joke Festival on May 3rd, 2022. Lowkey is a part of that festival, which is awesome. It’s going to be at the Peppermint Club. If you want to get tickets, go to my Instagram, click my bio, and you get tickets right there.
We’re going to be giving away some cool Roommate stuff and some packs so make sure to follow Jambb. Follow us to get more info on this cool stuff that we’re dropping. Roommates has officially dropped on April 19th. You get the opportunity to join us and purchase your Roommates NFTs. We’re going to be giving out packs, prizes and all that stuff. Make sure to follow Jambb and get more info on it there.
The giveaways are all still there. We had some amazing things there that we’re excited to give your audience.
We’re excited about it. Keep an eye on our socials for all the details, giveaways, and fun contests that we’ll be running in support of this drop and everything that Jambb is up to. Cool stuff, guys. Thanks so much. We’ve reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFTs. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us, say something awesome, then go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks for sharing this time with us.
Important Links
- Jambb
- Sam Morril
- Ian Edwards
- YMH Studios
- Dapper
- Flow
- Comedy Evaluator Pro
- Grateful Giraffes
- Discord – Jambb
- Twitter – @JambbApp
- @PaulElia – Instagram
- @PaulaEliaComedy – TikTok
- Spotify – Edge of NFT Podcast
- iTunes – Edge of NFT Podcast
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