New Orleans’ comedy gladiator, Sean Patton, will host his first-ever special, filming before a live audience at Tipitina’s on Thursday, February 3, with shows at 7 and 9:30 p.m. A native of Slidell, Patton has toured the world with his standup act and has been featured on the Comedy Central network, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and TruTV. In an interview with OffBeat contributing writer Dalton Spangler, Patton discussed his roots in New Orleans, comedy’s power to connect humanity, a memorable acid trip while working at his family’s food booth at Jazz Fest, and his personal bar-crawl route.

Have you ever recorded in New Orleans before?

One time years and years ago, when I’d been doing comedy maybe a year, I tried to record an album at Carrollton Station. Yeah. This is 2002, maybe. But as far as filming a special, no. I always wanted to do my first one in New Orleans.

Do you remember the first show you ever saw at Tipitina’s?

It was Pharcyde in 1998. I had a fake ID and I didn’t have to use it because I guess I had a certain maturity to me, so it was kind of a pointless. I just was like, “Oh man, I got this fake ID. I’m gonna use it and I’m gonna get in.” And then I didn’t have to use it. And then I was like, “All right, well, I don’t wanna drink.” That was just a pointless thing. But it was amazing, seeing one of your favorite groups live and being at that venue for the first time.

It used to have that basketball goal across from the stage. And it was just such an interesting place to see. And then, over the years, I’d see more and more shows there. I’ve seen Dirty Dozen there. I’ve seen Galactic there. I’ve seen a lot of the house regulars there and that venue was always so massive in my mind. Then in June of 2021, we were scouting venues in New Orleans to film at, and we went to Tipitina’s first. And we walk in, I remember being like, “This might be too big for a comedy special.” And then I got in there and was like, “Oh, wait a second, this is just smaller than I remember. Oh my God, it works!”

I was talking about that with the crew at Tip’s. I think that’s the thing that happens when you go to a venue and you have such an experience that it becomes bigger than the actual venue itself. Does that make sense? It was one of my first concerts at a nightclub. I was 19 years old. It was such a big experience in my mind. I also may have may or may not have been high on marijuana going in there. I’m just gonna let you decide…

Right from the minute I walked in, I was like, “Oh, this is the place. I know this is the place. It’s just perfect.” The look of it, the feel of it, like a dive venue, which is the kind of venue you want, because that means years and years of artist after artist have gone in there and just had amazing times and it shows. You can feel it in the walls of that place. You can feel the excitement and the energy of years of performances that were just amazing. And I only hope to add to that.

I think it’s really cool that you’re repping your city and you’re highlighting this really important venue for your special. And being able to be a part of it just seems almost like a rounding out of your story.

It’s interesting that you say that, because I think of it as the necessary page turn to the next chapter. Getting an hour special is a big moment. It takes you to that next step and that next step can take many forms. It doesn’t always mean you’re gonna be super famous or millions of people are gonna watch it—or it does. You gotta just put it out there and find out, but for sure, creatively, it pushes you to that next step. And I feel like it had to be here.

I’ve always been pretty open about wanting to do my first special in New Orleans. And I’ve had so many producers over the years pitch me ideas like these are honest. Okay. These are real. One producer told me, “We’ll build you a stage on one of those side streets off Bourbon and have Bourbon Street be the background of your special.” I mean, I almost think that’s so terrible, it’s brilliant. But no, like that’s like if I’m trying to have a dog shit special.

Then another producer was like, what if he did a show on a float during Mardi Gras? Like the audience is on the float with you and you’re playing to just them. But then Mardi Gras happening in the background. I’m like, that’s a fantastic Adult Swim special. If you want a comedian, who’s all about being in the chaos in the moment, that’s awesome for them. But I’m a storyteller. I think I needs it to be indoors. Let’s just start there. Producer after producer went by and then 800-Pound Gorilla, who’s producing this special, came in and they’re already awesome. They were just like, “Do whatever you want, man. We trust you. This is your special, we just wanna be a part of it.” And that was flattering beyond any amount of blushing I could muster. I chose Tip’s because it’s the New Orleans venue.

So on this new special, is it going to be some of your older material, some new material or material from your most recent album?

Nothing from my most recent album, King Scorpio. This new show that I’m recording, there’s a couple of bits that I’ve done previously, but mainly it’s a thematic hour that I did in Edinburgh in 2017. When I came back from Scotland, from that festival, I just sort of put it back in the oven. I thought this needs to broil a little more, to cook a little more. The time just didn’t feel right back then. And now when it was like, “Hey, we gotta do this, it’s time to do a special,” I was like, “It’s ready.” So it’s material that I hadn’t done in years mixed with some new stuff to sort of season it the right way. And now I love it and it’s ready to be feasted upon.

Your new album seems like a departure from your typical storytelling approach. It obviously tells stories, but in a lot of your older material, there is one central story that you branch off of to get your bits in. Is this new special going to be more of a storyteller-type special or are you trying something different?

Well, something that a much wiser person brought to my attention a while back—albums are awesome because they kind of exist in their own in their own bubble. They have their own vacuum where people are going listen to those. And when it comes to an album, you gotta think like people aren’t always gonna just be sit able to sit down and listen to the album, start to finish. A lot of times people are listening in the car on their commute to work or while walking around. They’re probably going to listen to it in chunks. So with an album you can sort of give them a charcuterie board of material, if that makes sense.

Go back to it, pick at it, take servings of it when your desire, but with a special it’s a meal. Eight times outta 10, people are going to sit down and watch it start to finish. So it’s gotta be like a meal. And I want this to be a meal. The person’s gotta know what the chef can do or what they’re capable of, using that accidental culinary metaphor I stumble into while talking about a special film in New Orleans. This special is basically an exposé of who I am to start to finish, from the deepest, darkest, most humiliating parts of me, to the parts I’m very proud to have as a part of me.

It’s a very personal hour and it sort of follows a theme of I’m slaying my demons for you, so you can learn how to slay yours. I’m exposing my own natural flaws, so you can laugh at my flaws and then find your own.

I’ve seen that in a lot of your material. A big part of your approach is making fun of yourself and in doing so, allowing others to connect with you and take themselves a little less seriously too.

I think over the past few years there’s been a lot of pressure put on comedians to say the thing that will fix society. You know what I mean? People definitely treat comedians as if our words are what make people act on negative and positive impulses. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I still think at the core of it all, it’s still comedy and it’s for amusement—say something, make a point, have an opinion, but also make people laugh. If you’re gonna do those at the same time, why not make it about the human condition, the thing that unites all humans. The thing we all share is mortality. Let’s relate, let’s start there and then grow.

I do think there is importance to the words of a comic. I think we all have to take responsibility. We have to also understand that some people don’t have a sense of humor. As performers, we should never edit ourselves. We should never censor ourselves. We should be 100 percent real, a 100 percent honest, 100 percent truthful at all times. And also use 100 percent of our ability to say it in the best possible way we can, which I don’t think I’m doing right here at this exact moment. However, say it so it’s completely understood. This is how I feel, this is who I am, this is also comedy. Laugh at it. Take what you can from it, but think for yourself at the same time.

So many of your stories are based in New Orleans because you know, that’s where you’re from, but it also seems like a lot of them take place in the French Quarter. Why is that?

I grew up in Chalmette and Slidell.  My parents are both from the Lower Ninth. They grew up on Chartres. That’s where all my family’s from. A lot of my family lives in Lakeview and also in Mid-City, but we grew up kind of in the ‘burbs. So as a kid, my dad has a catering company and I would work for him. So all of his events were in the city and I’d always be in the city with him. And then as a teenager, when we would lie to my parents and say, “Oh, I’m just going to Darius’s,” and Darius would say, “Oh, I’m just going to Sean’s.” And my other friend, Gabe would be like, “Oh, I’m going with them.” And we’d go to the city.

We didn’t know anywhere else. The Quarter was the city to us. So as a teenager, too young to drink and go places, I spent a lot of time in the Quarter. And you know how the Quarter is, you don’t have to be of age to enjoy it really. Especially not back in the nineties. We’d be walking around, smoking bowls, buying big-ass beers with whichever one of us looked the oldest. Nine times outta nine we were able to buy booze underage. It wasn’t hard in the Quarter. And it was just such an amazing place as a teenager to always go. We probably saw stuff we shouldn’t have seen at that age.

We used to hang out with all the buskers and I liked going to raves. I used to go to raves on Frenchmen Street at Cafe Istanbul, which is not there anymore. And Cafe Brasil, which is not there anymore. But going to raves at like 16 or 17 years old, raves would always either get too crowded or get busted. They were legal, but a lot of illegal stuff was happening in there. You’d end up spilling out into the Quarter at one in the morning as a 17-year-old. And we couldn’t go back to Slidell till six or seven in the morning cuz our parents all thought we were sleeping at each other’s houses.

So we would just roam around the Quarter and the area around it on the river for hours as teenagers. So when I go back to New Orleans, I always have to dip into it. As a local, Bourbon Street may be the most famous street in the French Quarter, but it’s not in any way the coolest to me. There’s so much other cool going on there. Like I’m still amazed when I walk up and down Rampart because I remember when Rampart was seedy. I remember Rampart was not what it is now. There are still parts of the street that are like the tattoos on the neck of a preacher, where you’re like, “Oh you used to be in prison.”

You can still see the scars on Rampart. But that’s what I love about it. It’s beautiful. Like Armstrong Park in the nineties though, that area was like, “Woohoo man, all right, we’re doing this,” but now it’s beautiful. And I love that. I don’t know, to me the French Quarter is a magical place, even though it can be touristy and a lot of drunks and a lot of crime can go down around there. I still think it’s like one of the most beautiful places on earth, just from spending so much time there as a youngster.

And even now, I go to Molly’s at the Market because I fucking love that bar. I think it’s one of the most just eclectic spots on earth.  I’ve been in there with drag queens. I’ve been in there drinking with CEOs of tech startups with members of bands you know, tons of musicians with other comedians, with celebrities, with recovered alcoholics who are just in there making sure that their friends who still drink are not going too far. And they’re the ones with interesting stories. That bar is so awesome to me. And I always like to get a frozen Irish coffee and just walk around the Quarter at two in the morning. It’s not the safest activity, but it’s an inspiring one. There are just ideas floating around the Quarter for you to grab.

Your parents’ catering company, Patton’s Catering, usually work Jazz Fest right?
Oh yeah, they do. They have the crawfish sack at Jazz Fest.

Did you ever work with them at Jazz Fest?

I did back in the day. I started working for my dad—not full-time or anything—but starting when I was around 11. My dad kind of put us to work on weekends and for big events, like Jazz Fest and the PGA tournament, which used to be at English Turn, the whole family would work that. Then as a teenager, I would get my friends and we’d go. I once worked Jazz Fest, whacked out of our skulls on acid and did the job.

Me and at least three of my buddies from high school would work at Jazz Fest because the deal was, my dad would let us slip away for one show. I remember in 1997 or so, I snuck away with my buddies and saw the Hot Boys at Congo Square. That was Lil Wayne, but pre-Lil Wayne, when he was still like 16 years old. A lot of hip hop shows aren’t designed to be live shows, but they were so great live. And Lil Wayne you could see, even then, that this guy’s gonna be huge. He is, and it was such an amazing show.

We had a 90-minute window where my dad let me and my two boys go to the show. We got really hammered. We snuck beer in our backpacks and smoked weed. And we got into the festival through the vendor’s gate, so they didn’t search any of our shit. We’re all 18 years old, and then went back to work around deep fryers and whatnot.

But in my early twenties, I worked for my dad full-time until Katrina, so from age 21 to 25. I was doing comedy wherever I could at night and there wasn’t much of it back then. You could only get up maybe once or twice a week at tops.

I would be at Jazz Fest every year. Sometimes showing up, hungover and slapping myself in the face and pushing through. It was fun watching people who thought they were infallible to sunlight. That’s the one thing I tell everyone who’s going to Jazz Fest for the first time. It’s not even a marathon, it’s a decathlon. Don’t get out there at noon and start pounding booze and taking down pills and snorting whatever you’re gonna do. You’re in New Orleans in the May sun. It is unforgiving. Pace yourself and don’t really even start getting wasted till the very last show of the day, because then there are 15 shows that night that are all awesome that you want to go see at the venues around town. But I’ve seen people so many times who are clearly at Jazz Fest for the first time and by 3 p.m., they’re being walked to the medical tent because they’re vomiting everywhere and didn’t account for the fact that there’s no shade at the Fair Grounds.

I didn’t appreciate it then as much as I do now, but looking back the crawfish sack basically gave me and my siblings a life. They peddled that thing. There would be lines and I’d have friends showing up asking, “Oh man, can I get a couple plates?” And my dad would always give ’em a couple plates and give ’em all bottles of water. They treat everyone who works for them like family. My dad has stepped down and my sister took it over. It’s a family business and they’re proud. They put so much love into the crawfish sack and the crawfish beignets. They put so much into that and it shows. I still to this day, when I come around Jazz Fest, I will stop at the business and, and bogart a couple of beignets for myself.

In one of your standup bits, “Cumin,” you discuss your apartment in New Orleans. In what part of town was the apartment?

That was on Freret Street, uptown. That area is now really nice but like back then, it wasn’t terrible, but it was just a little rough. It was right by a bar called Friar Tucks, which I don’t even know is still there. I also love Uptown. As much as I love the Quarter, I also love the Irish Channel and I love the 11th Ward. That’s where I spent all my twenties.

It can be a little sloppy sometimes, but I bar crawl from Cooter Brown’s to the Half-Moon. Which is a walk. It usually takes about five hours. That first walk from Cooter Brown’s, usually I go to Monkey Hill, there’s nothing really there and that’s about a 15-minute walk. So that’s just like a nice walk in the neighborhood. But once you get to Monkey Hill, you can pretty much barhop every block. There’s a bar to jump in on all the way down Magazine Street. You just gotta pace yourself. But I love doing that cause I love that Magazine Street strip.

But yeah, that apartment, from the “Cumin” story was up on Freret. And it was cheap. I do miss the days of being like, “Oh wow. A three-bedroom apartment for $800. Can we afford that?” I  bet they charge two grand now for that same apartment.

 

Tell me more about this bar crawl.

Well, it’s not technically on Magazine because there’s a part when you get towards the Garden District where it splits off and Magazine becomes a one-way coming at you. But I highly recommend two bars, actually the Half-Moon and the Saint. They’re on the same street. And that’s the official end of the crawl.

But if you feel like really pushing yourself, which I’ve done before, the second leg of the crawl is to go from the Half-Moon to Markey’s down in the Marigny. The first third of it you’re crawling through the Warehouse District, which isn’t that crazy or anything like that. But then you hit the Quarter. And if you’ve pace yourself, well, you’ve got a good buzz going, but you’re not too shit-faced to navigate the Quarter. But then usually by the time you get through the Quarter to Esplanade, you’re hammered. That’s usually when I go to Checkpoint Charlie and I’m like, “All right, this is actually a checkpoint for me now, can I keep going?”

Charlie’s is the perfect bar for that because their bar staff seems to be so pissed off at you for ordering a drink. I love that bar and I hope this doesn’t come across as an insult to anybody who works there, but It’s like, “Oh! Yeah, fine. Whaddya want?” I’m like, “I’m sorry! I thought you were a bartender. You’re standing behind the bar after all,” but I love that spot. By the time I’m at Checkpoint Charlie, if I’m okay, I’ll push all the way to Markey’s.

When you come into town for your special, do you have any plans for when you get in the city? Anything you want to do when you come back home?

Oh yeah. I mean, Guy’s Poboy’s is my favorite poboy spot in the city. That’s all due respect to Parkway and all the other great po-boy joints, but I just personally love Guy’s. That’s gonna be my meal the day we shoot the special. But you know, I haven’t drunk yet in 2022. I’m saving it for after we film. So that night, I’m gonna burn the candle at all three ends. I’m gonna dig into it.

I love Ms. Mae’s. That place used to be such an asshole and it still kind of is, but it’s like a bleached asshole. I love that bar and I wanna go there. I want to go to Bacchanal. I know it’s a very popular spot now, but I think it’s one of the most interesting bars in the world and I love that place. But I have had drinks all over the world and that is one of the most interesting places as far as just the way it’s set up. Also, I wanna hit up a few Magazine Street haunts. The Rendezvous, head down to Half-Moon and the Saint. And just, all of it, man.

The Marigny, I still love the Marigny. Because I remember before Katrina, when it was a real neighborhood. You didn’t have bachelorette parties roaming around back then. I still love going to Kajun’s. It’s just such a perfect dive karaoke bar. The Hi-Ho is one of my favorite spots of the city. I bounce around as much as I can. I like to go have drinks out at Pal’s in Bayou St. John or, you know, and then head uptown to Carrollton Station.

That’s what I love. That’s what originally gave me the idea for that crawl. Because I was at Cooter Brown’s having lunch and I had nothing to do. And I was with one of my buddies. It was like, “Let’s just walk to the Half-Moon,” and it was awesome. And you know, by the time we got to the Half Moon, we were like, “Let’s just keep going.” We very much Forrest Gumped that shit. We’re like, “Figure we got this far, we’ll keep going.”

We were trying to make it all the way down to Bacchanal, but by the time we got to Markey’s we were done. It was also like three in the morning. And we had started drinking at like 2 p.m. I do have some rules if you’re gonna do the same crawl, can I throw these at you?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Go.

If you’re gonna do the crawl, it is a one-drink-per-bar rule. Stick to it. And the drink either has to be a walkout with that drink or have the drink in the bar, but you cannot have two drinks per bar. So if you’re gonna do a long walk, like for example, Cooter Brown’s to Monkey Hill—take a roadie. But then once you get to Monkey Hill, just have your drink there, because then it’s a very short walk to St. Joe’s and from St Joe’s have a drink there, because it’s a very short walk to Le Bon Temps. But once you get to Le Bon Temps, you might wanna consider taking that one for the road because I think that’s a long walk to Buddha Belly or the next area of bars.

There’s probably a bar in there I’m forgetting about, but try and stick to the one-drink-per-bar rule and eat something every hour. Once an hour, eat food, a small plate, and it’ll save your life. Just pop in The Bulldog, get some fries, keep that. And then an hour later, by the time you get to the Half Moon, get another thing of fries or get some boudin balls. Just every hour eat something.

How do people time the bar crawl out to get to your Tipitina’s set?

I would say if you’re gonna do the Tipitina’s, that’s a great tie-in. If you’re gonna to do the Tipitina’s show, the rule starts at Tipitina’s. Start at the show that night. You’ll be able to get drinks there, watch me do an hour of comedy. And then after that, crawl down to Ms. Mae’s and start from there. But yeah, if you’re gonna do the Tipitina crawl, make Tipitina’s the beginning because the show is at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. and those are good times to start crawling. And then afterwards you got the whole world as your oyster. Put some put on a cracker and slam it down.

Was there anything you wanted to add about your show or anything in particular?

This special is an hour for 20 years of love.  I’ve been doing standup for just over 20 years now and I started in New Orleans. I’ve been in New York and on the road for the past ten. This is just a show that encapsulates a lot about me and a lot about my love for the city. And I’m very, very excited to finally be sharing it with everyone, and Tipitina’s, it’s such an awesome venue. And you know, it’s a Thursday night. I know, but hey! Thursday night was the night I was born. So I was born on a Thursday and I feel like I’m being reborn again on Thursday, the third of February. So join me!

The live taping of the Sean Patton comedy special will be held at Tipitina’s, 501 Napoleon Avenue, on Thursday, February 3, at 7 and 9:30 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit here.