January 24, 2018
Page 9
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Portland comedian Nathan Brannon finds the humor in today’s tense political climate.
Comedian navigates
race relations on
stage and in podcast
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
Nathan Brannon, 34, is a stand-up co-
median from Portland who has appeared
on Comedy Central, travels throughout
the country to perform, and is currently
promoting his second comedy album, ‘Be-
cause,’ which came out in October 2016
under record label Kill Rock Stars. It’s a
follow up to his first, self-produced album,
‘I Black Out.’ He’s currently recording his
third album called ‘Nobody’s Listening.’
Brannon first started doing stand-up
comedy on a dare when he was going to
Willamette University in Salem in his early
20s
“I went up for like five minutes and it
was awesome immediately. The whole
photo by
Comedy
in
of
Age
Trump
crowd laughed. Then I came to Portland af-
ter college. And then I started out there with
open mics, just kind of jumped into it full
feet, so to speak.”
Brannon is known for navigating around
race relations on stage and he also tack-
les racial issues by hosting a podcast, The
Hamster Village, which was born out of
wanting to connect with other people in
interracial relationships — he is black and
his wife is white -- to talk about their expe-
riences.
W ill W atts
“I wasn’t really [seeing] any kind of sup-
port group or anything like that to kind of
share experiences or concerns and things
like that. So that’s basically how it started.
I kind of said, ‘Well, I couldn’t find what
I was looking for.’ So I started it myself.”
Brannon said he and his wife have ex-
perienced a lot of “stares and glares” at
restaurants and hotels as well hate mail
from people who “don’t dig interracial re-
lationships.”
“That was actually a part of the reason
I started looking for support groups and
things like that. There’s a lot of things that
happen in an interracial relationship that
go along those lines. And then it’s not easy
for every couple to put themselves in their
spouse’s shoes and understand how those
situations make them feel,” he said.
Naming the podcast The Hamster Vil-
lage was Brannon’s metaphor for what so-
ciety could be.
C ontinueD on p age 15