Comedian Daniel Geneen wants Pittsburghers to like him — and not

Daniel Geneen is a nice Jewish comedian committed to upsetting his audience. The Toronto-born stand-up, who often riffs on his own masculinity, neurosis and pleasantness, doesn’t want showgoers to leave angry, but he’s more than happy to exploit his amiability for laughs.

“When I do longer sets — like if I’m doing an hour — I always want to actually piss people off at some point, and then have them come back around,” he told the Chronicle by phone from New York City.

The tactic, according to Geneen, prevents comedic hazards.

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“I think for me, it’s easy to fall into the trap of always just being likable, and sort of safe and making fun of myself. But I think if you’re not ever coming across as unsavory at all, that you’re not digging deep enough and you’re not being honest enough,” he said. “In my opinion, really good comedy is saying something that we all think but you’re not really supposed to say, and then figuring out how to explain why we’re all human, and it’s not our fault, and we’re all just doing our best.”

Geneen, who is slated to perform at Sunken Bus Studios on Sept. 24, is excited to welcome Pittsburghers inside his head.

“I try to write jokes about the outside world, but everything just gets related back to me,” he said. “I can’t write a joke about seatbelts; I write jokes about how I feel about putting a seatbelt on, and maybe that’s very Jewish of me.”

The persistently self-conscious stand-up holds a masters in journalism and publishing from The New School and a degree in classic culinary arts from the International Culinary Center, previously interned at “The Howard Stern Show” and works for the national website Eater making food-related videos and podcasts. At age 28, Geneen formally entered comedy.

“I started stand-up late because I was horrifically afraid of it,” he said. “It was just the thing in my life I’ve been most afraid of, and I did it, and unfortunately it went really well.”

What he means, he continued, is that “often, successful comedians have the right level of delusion — like you need to be delusional about how good you are right away. But if you remain delusional, then you never really get funny,” he said. “I had the right level of delusion where I was always able to be self-critical enough to keep growing, but not too self-critical to quit.”

Geneen, now 36, is striving for comedic mastery. To get there, he’s relying on accessible material: bits about dating, spirituality and self-understanding.

He said he loves “talking about how Jews love psychedelics.”

Why?

“Because there’s nothing more Jewish than being Buddhist,” Geneen said.

The comedian is well aware that certain jokes appeal to a select audience.

“I’ll just kind of ramble at some points and it’ll be so neurotic,” he said. “There’ll be a few people that laugh, and I know they’re usually Jewish.”

Geneen’s material doesn’t yet possess “some great story arc.” Still, he said, there’s much to laugh at and plenty to connect with.

“I want people to know that I actually am interested in the sort of shared experience of life and anxiety,” he said. “I think if I’ve gotten good at anything, it’s bringing people into my head.”

What they’ll find there is rather human: worry, humor and relentless awareness.

Whether in Pittsburgh or on another stage, “I want people to come inside my head for an hour,” he said. “I think that’s actually what makes comedy fun — if you can think through someone else’s brain.” PJC

Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.