Mark Normand discusses growing up in New Orleans, starting to skate around 13 years old, his local shop Humidity, going to film school at the New York Film Academy, starting to do comedy right after college, moving to New York, the many parallels between comedy and skateboarding, how he goes about writing his comedy bits, perfecting his jokes in front of a live audience, his skate footage getting lost during Hurricane Katrina, opening for Amy Schumer early on, Jerry Seinfeld seeing his Tonight show appearance and reached out him, keeping up with all the new skaters coming up and much more!
JENKEM – Skateboarding w/ Comedian Mark Normand
We weren’t fully aware of Mark or his comedy until a few friends of ours sent us a photo of him skateboarding as a kid. We started doing our own research and went down a rabbit hole of his jokes about bad news, being bad at small talk, gay marriage, and this story about a maniac. Growing up he was definitely a skate nerd and we were interested in how it shaped his life and comedy after he hung it up in his teens.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of live stand-up going on right now, so we couldn’t go sit in on one of his shows. Instead, we took a walk through one of the easiest places to make fun of things in New York: Tompkins Square Park. We cut him loose and had him skate and riff a little as he broke out his rusty go-to tricks in the freezing cold. – JENKEM