Celebrity Interview | Entertainment & Film Industry - Actor-Comedian Aaron Foster Talks Comedy & SXSW Hopes

Voiceover 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Staffa.

Greg Staffa 0:28

My guest this episode is actor-comedian Aaron Foster, who is currently on tour for his Mostly Jokes tour. Aaron, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Greg. I appreciate it. Tell us a little bit about your growing up.

Aaron Foster 0:50

Sure, yeah, I was born and raised in the san francisco bay area and you know young, young parents who were knew each other in high school but didn't get married until college, and I had an older brother and then, uh, me and um, you know dad who worked a lot, and mom who stayed at home and kind of your standard sort of 70s, 80s childhood.

Aaron Foster 1:02

You know lots of time outdoors and running around with friends and I don't know. Everyone says, you know, be home when the streetlights come on. But like I'm not even sure we had to be home then, to be honest, in the summer at least. So a lot of freedom to kind of get into trouble and do that sort of thing that I'm not sure exists anymore. And then I went to college, uc Davis, which is just, you know, about an hour and a half up the road in Central California, and then since then I've kind of lived all over. I did about five years in Atlanta, I did five years in LA, I did five years in Boulder and I've been in Reno now for about six years actually. So the clock's ticking on Reno up here, if I have a pattern, I guess.

Greg Staffa 1:40

Now, most of the people that I've talked to that are comedians or claim to be comedians have a shyness that comedy was able to let them escape and almost be someone else. Were you funny growing up, or how does that all come about?

Aaron Foster 1:55

Yeah, boy, I hate to be a cliche and like everybody else, but yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that I was. I was very shy, very quiet, very introverted. I was very shy, very quiet, very introverted. You know, I moved to LA when I was 32 or 33 to pursue acting, and comedy was absolutely out of the question. As much as I loved it, I never could have even imagined doing that at the time.

Aaron Foster 2:16

So I mean, I feel like I always had something funny to say sort of in class, but I almost never said it, or maybe said it to just the one person sitting next to me, because I was too, like I said, just too introverted and I think, to be honest, like a little bit too afraid. Like what if it doesn't land? That's embarrassing. So a lot of hesitation and fear of failure, that kind of went along with that. And then I can't say that I've broken through it completely, but I have worked hard to overcome a lot of that and realize that it's all kind of silly anyway. So you might as well do what you want to do.

Greg Staffa 2:46

And what path came first the wanting to act or wanting to be a comedian?

Aaron Foster 2:51

Acting came before comedy. I really grew up. I fell in love with movies for a couple reasons. It's something that I did my dad loved movies. It's something we did together, something we did together as a family that we did well, and that was not a very long list. So there was that. And then I got a little bit older and I just I just sort of I think I would identify myself as with characters in the movie because, you know, most, most movies have a, you know, they have a protagonist who sort of feels like they don't fit in in some way and then finds a way to kind of overcome, and you know something along those lines and I always kind of envisioned myself in those roles and I think that helped me to, you know, really fall in love with with movies. It was a two-hour escape from from reality, I think, which you know I needed to a certain extent and at some points in my life.

Greg Staffa 3:39

Yeah, at what point did you turn that then, into doing stand-up comedy? I mean, because, like you said, it's one thing to say something's funny to the person next to you, but going to do it in front of an audience. At what point did you say, hey, this is something that I may be able to do.

Aaron Foster 3:56

Well, it's been a long path for me.

Aaron Foster 3:58

I moved to LA in I believe it was either 2004 or 2005, and pursued acting and all that kind of stuff and I got a gig hosting a show for HGTV, which I did for a while, and then that ended and I kind of didn't really get on to the next thing very quickly and so I jumped into stand-up a little bit, but I really, in 2009, I did stand-up for maybe seven or eight months and I did maybe a dozen shows.

Aaron Foster 4:22

So very, very minimal, but I can't say that I just started two years ago. But I came back to it in a different way two years ago, sort of post COVID and kind of. You know, realizing that the clock is always ticking and this is always what I wanted to do and finding a comfort that I was never able to find before in in, in honest, talking about things that I really wanted to talk about but had been too scared to talk about before. So my a lot of my material certainly not all of it, and it depends on the venue and the setting of what I'm doing, but my show, uh, when I do my full sort of 65 70 minute show, it's a lot of material about depression and anxiety and sort of issues with my family and mental health and things along those lines. So it gets a little bit dark in times, but I do think it is mostly, mostly funny.

Greg Staffa 5:09

I actually saw one of your clips or your demo reel and I enjoyed it. I like the turning depression into humor. It was a funny approach.

Aaron Foster 5:21

I mean ignoring it didn't seem to work for me. I did that for a decade or two or three. I tried, you know, a lot of the meds. I never really had any luck with that kind of stuff making a significant positive improvement for me. You know, therapy helps a little bit. I mean, it's just sort of, you know, there's these things that everyone says, oh, you exercise, you eat right, you sleep, and all that stuff helps a little bit, I think, for me. I have to do it all pretty consistently. There's never as much as I would love to have found the magic bullet and I had looked for, you know, especially with some of this fancy new stuff like ketamine, ketamine treatment, four infusions, five infusions, because here's your depression forever and it's like if that works for you, that's great, but I tried it and it didn't work for me now they say in hollywood that you know, there's the stories.

Greg Staffa 6:02

Are that everyone has told the same story? Now we're just regurgitating previous films and stuff like that. Sure, as a comedian, there has to only be so many different variances on how you can tell something. How do you come up with new material and make it fresh?

Aaron Foster 6:16

Well, I mean, you never know, but I do think the safest way to do that and certainly for me, me is to talk about the most personal stuff in my life, which is myself, my issues with, with mental health in general and my family as well. You know the bipolar father and the schizophrenic brother and and you know god forbid I have a vegan uncle, you know. So you know, all things considered, you know I dodged some bullets to just have depression, but I think the more personal you make it, the more unique it make it. You make it, but also somehow some think the more personal you make it, the more unique you make it. But also somehow, some way, the more personal you make it, the more universal it becomes.

Aaron Foster 6:48

It's a very strange way that that works and obviously there's exceptions, but that's been my experience, where I don't. My stuff is so personal that I don't worry too much about having overlapping premises and punchlines and things, although certainly there's plenty of other comics doing material about depression and stuff like that. So it is anytime. My algorithm is lots of comics, so anytime I see somebody starting to talk about that, I'll be like oh, what's this? Oh, nope, totally different. Take on it. I think we all have. You know everybody's unique in their own way, and the more you can trust your own uniqueness, the the better off you'll be.

Greg Staffa 7:25

I think Are you able to draw from other comics that you enjoy, that you like watching, that you kind of Cadences and how they set up a joke and tell a story.

Aaron Foster 7:36

I mean, I have my comics that I love and that I will absolutely go out of my way to see and have. I have flown across the country multiple times to see Mike Birbiglia or mark maron or or maria bamford or gary goldman, neil brennan, and these are comics who are very personal as well and some of them get into some dark stuff, which I do a little bit as well. So I I don't know that I take any specific sort of cadence or rhythms or style from them. Hopefully, hopefully, I have my own, but more so what I style from them, hopefully, hopefully I have my own, but more so what I get from them is just the inspiration that wow, I didn't know you could talk about that, I didn't know you could talk about that and make it funny. I mean, those are all very, very honest comedians and one of the examples I talk about sometimes with people with this kind of question is I don't know if you know there's a comedian named Anthony Jeselnik and if you know him, he's very dark very, very, very dark.

Aaron Foster 8:32

He's hilarious and he's got a great career, and I would love to have a tentative career that he has, and I'm a fan, but his jokes are not true. They're made up premises and you know members of his family die every time he does a show and horrible things happen, but they're not true. But he's a brilliant joke writer and he's done phenomenal. My preference, though, would be comedians that are talking about the real things that happened in their life and being honest about it and finding the ways to be funny about, sometimes, things that certainly don't seem to be very funny.

Navigating Comedy and Acting Challenges

Aaron Foster 9:02

Greg Staffa 9:02

Really, and that's interesting that you would say it that way, because you're also an actor and actor is 100% mostly not you. I mean, you're playing a character and so to have that approach where the comedy is internal but the acting is creating a role and creating someone fictitious and playing that out, so it's interesting that you kind of adapt both depending on what, what you're doing.

Aaron Foster 9:27

yeah, I think you know, I think for me and my experience with acting, the best thing to do is to to try to find the things in a character that are are like me, like if I have a little bit, maybe more so, maybe it's a more extreme in the character, maybe you want to play it up to a higher degree and you want to turn this dial on whatever selfishness up to 60 for this role and you're going to turn your compassion down for this role because that's what fits the part and the tone of the piece or something, whereas all those things might be a little bit more subdued in myself as a person.

Aaron Foster 10:06

Sometimes acting is turning things up and sometimes it's turning things down, uh, so that other things can, can, can, you know come to the surface in a different way. So I mean, we all have, you know, anger and sadness, and we have, we all have these things in us to a certain degree. And then I think it's just a matter of let's focus on that and let's not ignore it. Maybe let's turn off the fact that, wow, my life's great, I have nothing to be upset about, but this character today is really, really upset. So I'm going to sort of try to lean into that.

Greg Staffa 10:37

Now comedy is subject. Audiences on different days can have different interpretation. What has been the hardest group that you've had to perform in front of?

Aaron Foster 10:47

Oh boy, that's interesting because I am in a sort of strange place. I'm 52, but I look significantly younger than that. I probably look. Most people will seem to think I look maybe early 40s. In LA, comedy clubs are usually younger audiences. I'm in Reno, I play Tahoe. Places like that are usually younger audiences. I'm in reno, I played tahoe. Places like that are usually older. I don't know. I mean, I definitely.

Aaron Foster 11:10

You know I did a show about a year ago during the san francisco comedy competition. Is the competition's been around for 38 or 40 years or something? You know robin williams famously got seconded, you know, many, many years ago, but there, and it was four shows over a weekend. But we did a show in orinda, california, at two in the afternoon on a sunday and there was nobody in that room under 65 and uh, you know I watched it was. It was challenging, it was challenging. So you have to try to pick your material, or you know, sometimes I mean, I have a joke about being 50 and being middle-aged and you know somebody said, uh, you know, oh, congratulations, you're halfway. And I thought, well, that's optimistic, you know, but don't we all know the first half is probably going to be the better half and that that doesn't land real well with a bunch of people that are already over 50.

Greg Staffa 12:00

does doing an audience like that does that? I mean, is that like building a muscle to to be a better comic, to have to go through those and kind of fight for an audience like that? Does that help? I mean, is that like building up muscle to be a better comic, to have to go through those and kind of fight for an audience versus just having everyone laughing and everything?

Aaron Foster 12:13

Yeah, I mean, if everybody's on board from the jump, then you're probably not really learning anything and you're certainly not finding ways to get better. And you know plenty of times when jokes don't land, you can find, you find follow-ups, you find new tags or you find ways to address the fact that it didn't land. That may end up becoming part of the act because they landed so much better. I mean, there's, there's nothing to get your mind going like a room full of people not laughing at a joke for you to really try to come up with something in the moment to get them, to get them back on your side. So, um, it's all an education and I'm you know, I'm so young at this. You know, two years is really nothing in the world of comedy and I'm sort of trying to accelerate it as much as I can and, you know, not necessarily skip steps but really put myself out there in a way.

Aaron Foster 13:00

I mean, I'm I'm doing a self-created, self-booked theater tour, small theaters, but theater tour of a 65 or 70 minute show that I think most comics would probably say you know, you two years, you don't. You don't have 65 minutes in the show, you have 20 minutes in the show and you know I would disagree. But that's a common kind of threat of that people. You know it takes a long time and I've been sitting on a lot of stuff for a long time and writing and not performing for years and years. So you know, maybe that helped me a bit, but it's just a challenge and every night, you know, you just don't know, you never really know what you're walking into and how much of a joke is science, where you have something.

Greg Staffa 13:45

There, you're developing something. You know you got something, but you just have to figure out how to convert it into a story and mike first and then.

Aaron Foster 14:05

I think what's common with a lot of very, very established comedians is they have, they have their material that they know is good and they will sort of open with that and close with that and in the middle they'll drop the new stuff so that if it doesn't work, they know they can, can quickly get back to the stuff that they know works. Because, you know, one joke not working is one thing. Uh, you know, an entire set set of jokes not working is a whole other experience. It does happen sometimes, and sometimes you're just not the right person for the room or or whatever. You know, I mean, I have, I have jokes that I think are strong and have worked a hundred times, and then one night it doesn't work and you just, I did it, that's the way I've done it, that's the way I've done it for, you know, three months and it didn't work tonight, and sometimes it's impossible to figure out, but it's just kind of the way it goes, you know.

Greg Staffa 14:50

And how does your family feel about being the subject of different jokes?

Aaron Foster 14:56

Well, you know, somebody just asked me this morning who's coming to my show tomorrow. They said, you know, because I said, you know a good chunk of material on my, on my dad, and a good chunk of material on my brother, and uh, he said, how do they feel about it? I said, well, if you come to the show you'll, you'll have the answer to the question. But the reality is that they are both, uh, no longer alive. So they don't, they don't, uh, they don't have a whole lot of opinions on those. But that's you know.

Aaron Foster 15:19

Again, like I said, I talk about some dark stuff. So my mom and I are very close, my stepdad, I don't really have a lot of jokes about them. I mean, I think it's ripe for the picking, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. I'm sure I will at some point. So yeah, I don't have to worry about it, I guess, because I'm not telling jokes. Those specific jokes are not about people who really can. I mean, I'm not defaming them or anything, but I don't think they're in bad taste. But I guess maybe that gives me a little bit more leeway to tell those.

Navigating Cancel Culture in Comedy

Greg Staffa 15:56

We keep on hearing the term cancel culture. It's becoming more and more prevalent, and jokes that people said 10 years ago are no longer acceptable today. How much of that plays into as you're crafting a joke, thinking of you know how will this be viewed 10 years from now? Is that something you have to worry about, or because you're keeping it so close to being personal? It's less about other people, more about you internally, as long as you're comfortable.

Aaron Foster 16:23

Yeah, I mean I don't really believe that cancel culture is a thing. I mean, who's been canceled? Dave Chappelle does Netflix specials for $20 million. Joe Rogan just did a Netflix special for millions of dollars. Nat Rife just did a Netflix special All these people that have supposedly been canceled for whatever they're doing, fine, they have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of podcasts.

Aaron Foster 16:43

So I don't really think that's a thing. I think it's kind of a nonsense term. I don't worry about really anybody getting upset at me because I'm not doing sort of, I'm not doing political humor. I'm not doing, uh, you know, I'm certainly not punching down at anyone besides myself. Yeah, I, I don't know. I mean that you hear about it a lot from I I, you know I. I think you mostly hear about it from, uh, middle-aged white men who aren't that funny. I think that's their real problem. But again, that's, you know, I don't know, maybe that'll get me canceled. Yeah, it's not something I worry about. I think it's a lot of. I mean it definitely is the outrage and there's there's more outrage culture than cancel culture. You can't say that I don't know. I don't know anybody who's actually been canceled I can't think of.

Greg Staffa 17:28

Well, as a middle-aged white man, I think you're doing fine.

Aaron Foster 17:32

So you have nothing to worry about.

Greg Staffa 17:35

One of the things I was always curious about is you're formulating a joke, is it just you go out there and put it out there and see how it lands and adjust it accordingly? How do you kind of bounce off your ideas? Do you do it in front of family and friends?

Aaron Foster 17:51

Sometimes kind of bounce off your ideas. Um, do you do it sometimes. Sometimes it's it's you just kind of go out and let it fly. If you, if you have something and you have a show and you might you know, like I said drop it in the middle or something like that, and see what happens. And and, um, you know, audiences are fine with with one or two jokes not landing in the middle of a set. That's going well and, uh, you can address it. You cannot address it. You can sort of comment about like, oh, thought I'd try some new stuff, maybe not um. Or you can not address it. You can sort of comment about like, oh, I thought I'd try some new stuff, maybe not Um, or you can just move back into to find it to stuff that you know works.

Aaron Foster 18:13

I am really fortunate in that I have a community of of comedians that I write with and it's that's this community sort of been going for for uh, 15 years, and people come in and out and we sort of do these kind of. It's kind of a quarterly thing. We'll do a 10-week session with 10 or 12 comics and we all get together twice a week on Zoom and it's essentially an open mic where everybody will do six or seven minutes but then you get constructive feedback. Hey, I didn't understand that. Hey, what if you said this first and then you said that second part? What if I wanted to hear more about this thing? Or, I didn't understand that. And it's very smart people who are funny, these people who have done late night spots, people that write on tv shows, and so it's.

Aaron Foster 18:55

I'm really fortunate that I have this first level of filter where if, if I have something that's made it through that process, I don't know that it's going to crash on stage, but I know it's probably not going to completely fall on silence. If that makes sense, it's very fortunate. But you have to, I mean, but you still never know you could. I mean, I have jokes that I have written in in this group that that you know we all loved and that you know audiences, sort of like. You just never really know until you do it in front of a crowd. And that's the the crazy thing about it, it's that you just and again, like I said earlier, you know I joke that's worked 100 times.

Greg Staffa 19:32

Just, it might not work tonight and um, that can be, that can be off-putting now, if I was a comedian, I think I'd be a little bit selfish because I would be afraid to to say something that someone else might use or borrow or incorporate into their routine. I mean, coming up with a joke is not easy, and so I'd be very possessive of it. But do you ever come up with a joke where you can say you know, hey, john, I just started this and I think it fits your routine better than me? Do comedians ever share jokes?

Aaron Foster 20:06

The really common thing is is suggesting what, what would be called a tag of like, hey, you have that joke, but what if at the end you also said this, this thing giving giving people tags for jokes or maybe suggestions to to go in a different direction, and that's kind of widely accepted as something that happens, and I've heard very, very famous comics talk about like, oh, that joke, chris rock gave me the tag for that joke and it always kills and I always and and you know so.

Aaron Foster 20:33

So it happens, and I think usually those are given because like, well, you have this whole joke, you have a premise, you have a setup, you have a, you have an act out, you have a turn, you have a punch. But so it's like the fact that I have this last one sentence that gives it maybe a little bit more. I can't do anything with that one sentence without that whole first chunk of it anyway. So I'm more than happy to to give it away and it's also, you know, I think it's very understood of hey, I got it, I got a tag for you. Here's what it is, you know, take it or leave it. And uh, because it's just, it's such a, it's such a personal. It's such a personal art form that if it's not in your voice or if it's not the right, thing, you know it just.

Greg Staffa 21:19

It just doesn't work the same, and they might not use that exact tag, but it might open the door for them to realize something else, and then that creates inspiration on, on other things.

Aaron Foster 21:27

Yeah. So I think you know you have to sort of take it all with a grain of salt and maybe try it, or maybe you twist it a little bit, or maybe you just say thanks and never mention it again. I mean, I've done all of those things.

Greg Staffa 21:40

So you're currently on tour. What kind of audience if I'm a first-time person hearing you and I'm living in an area where you're coming to, and I'll post a link to your website on here.

Aaron Foster 21:52

Oh, wonderful, thank you.

Greg Staffa 21:54

If they're thinking, after hearing this, coming to see you, what kind of audience would be interested in hearing you?

Aaron Foster 22:00

Oh boy, that's a good question. I mean, I can't answer that without something like a pretentious jackass. I'm not doing crowd work, I'm not interested in it. Uh, I'm impressed by comedians who can do it well. Uh, it doesn't interest me, in particular because I don't really care where somebody in the audience uh works or where they live or who they happen to come to the show. I'm interested in a comic for their point of view on life and the world and that sort of thing. So that's my preference of comedy.

Aaron Foster 22:34

So, yeah, if you want, you know, crowd work and dick jokes, I'm not your guy. But if you want personal stuff that you know addresses, you know, stuff that I think most of us have gone through at some point or another, or know someone who has, like I said, I talk a lot about depression and anxiety and I try to, you know, find the absurdity in it and and find find ways to make it silly. So, yeah, that's, uh, that's, I don't, I don't know what, what, what exactly demographic that is? You know, if it's, you know this comics that I mentioned uh, you know, if any of those appeal to you. I'm not saying I'm on a level of any of those, but those are the people that inspire me. So that's probably the bucket that I'm in of comedians and tone and content and things like that.

Greg Staffa 23:17

And on your website you do have some videos that you show some of your comedies, so they'll be able to get an idea of what they're getting into looking at your website and I'll link to that.

Aaron Foster 23:26

Yeah, oh, wonderful, yeah. And I have a collection of clips from different clubs. It's that's you know two or three minutes, it's probably you know five or six jokes or something. And then I also have kind of a like a preview trailer for sort of when I do my full, full hour plus show, just because I want people to understand that I do talk about some of these topics and I don't want anyone to come in not having at least some idea what they're getting involved in.

Greg Staffa 23:49

Sure, not only do you do comedy, you do artwork too, and as someone that has done two 48-state road trips, I absolutely love your state license plate.

Aaron Foster 24:00

Yeah, license plate map. Yeah so it's a map of the United States where each state is cut out of that state's old vintage license plate. So it's kind of a giant jigsaw puzzle made out of of cut up license plates.

Greg Staffa 24:11

I absolutely loved it. I, when I did my first one, I took a photograph of every welcome to uh.

Aaron Foster 24:19

Oh sure, yeah, all the signs.

Greg Staffa 24:20

Yes, I created a photograph the second one I did. I collected dirt just like a tablespoon of dirt at every location.

Aaron Foster 24:27

Oh, that's great.

Greg Staffa 24:28

And then I put all the dirt into one container and that way it's like two cups of dirt, but it comes from all 48 states.

Aaron Foster 24:37

Oh, it comes from everywhere. Oh, that's great. Yeah, what a great idea.

Greg Staffa 24:39

So when you do your artwork, how do you get your inventory?

Aaron Foster 24:44

It was a challenge in the beginning when I started, because the very first piece I ever made I never had any thought that I would do that as a career or even sell a single piece. I made it as a gift. I was trying to impress a woman who was also an artist and had a crush on her and I thought I'll make her this thing. And I was also in the wholesale home furnishings business at the time and my business partner said you should make another one, put it in the showroom and we can sell it. And I was not interested in that because they are not easy to make.

Aaron Foster 25:11

But I did eventually do that and it really took off. And so I eventually found this organization called the Automobile License Plate Collectors of America, which is a hobby culture of guys. That that's what they do they collect license plates. So I used to buy from a lot of those guys and there's a lot of cars in this country, so there's a lot of license plates, although the older ones are usually much better colors, more solid colors now, so many of them are basically white bases and they don't work great for my stuff.

Aaron Foster 25:39

But yeah, I do get people every once in a while like hey, I want you to make me that piece, but I have my license plate from my dad's car when I was a kid and I'll incorporate it. That happens once in a while, but not too often. Usually it's it's just you know all the stuff that I get from from guys, most of the plates I. I've been. I've been buying plates from a couple guys for, yeah, over 20 years now what's the hardest plate to find?

Aaron Foster 26:02

oh boy, I mean I never go after anything that's a real high dollar rare plate because I'm cutting them up and you know, using them for I mean, the toughest thing for me that I use a lot of is the old black and yellow californias from the 60s, because they're they're a really great color for a lot, of, a lot of the things that I use them for, especially for the map. And the problem with those plates is if you have a pair and you have a whatever like a 68 chevy that you rebuilt and spent a fortune redoing, you can put a pair of 68 plates on your car. So if you spent you know 50 grand restoring your car, then you're willing to pay whatever to get this pair of plates. So a pair of those plates will go for 300 bucks on eBay. Oh wow For me, for what I do. That doesn't work for me.

Personal Stories and Artistic Endeavors

Greg Staffa 26:51

But is there a state in particular that is just difficult to like? Is there a lot of Maine license plates lying around?

Aaron Foster 26:59

Maine, no state is a problem to get. Cost is, I mean, older, something like Wyoming plates Great the Buckingham Bronco embossed right. A lot of states are not embossed anymore, so that's a problem. They're much better embossed, for my work at least. And so these old, you know 68 Wyoming embossed cowboy Bucking Bronco plate there's not a lot of cars in Wyoming in 1968, so there's not a lot of those plates around. So those things like that have gotten more and more. I mean, I know the guys so I can always get them, but it's just like wait, I used to pay $4 for this, now it's $18? Like whoa, what's going on? So which you know, same as everything, I guess.

Greg Staffa 27:41

And then what's the process for putting it all together?

Aaron Foster 27:52

Do you have like pre-cut, cut out drawings of? Yeah, I use like a, like a, like a stencil, like a lamp. You know, I'll have the design on a large, printed large on a large scale, and then I'll laminate it and then I'll cut it into different shapes of of that will you know our license plate size? And then I trace the back and cut it all with tin scopes and um. So it's, it's very labor intensive, everything's done by hand and then it's all mounted to, sometimes old barnwood, sometimes stainless steel, sometimes new wood, depending on the look and the color and feel that people want for wherever they might be. If they have a more modern house, it might be stainless steel. If they have a rustic cabin in Montana, then it might be on old vintage barnwood, Minus the background, just the license plates alone.

Greg Staffa 28:27

how much weight are we talking about?

Aaron Foster 28:31

Well, just the license plates without the background art isn't too heavy, but one of those license plate maps of the United States. I've done a lot of different sizes of them, but there's a standard it's 62 by 40. The template I used is one of those old school maps that you pull down like a window shade. That was the size of it. So once that's mounted on wood'll be about, you know, 50 or 60 pounds. Um yeah, so shipping is, you know, not super fun and very expensive, but that's the way it goes texas is easy, but how much do you hate connecticut, or like rhode island?

Aaron Foster 29:09

rhode island. Well see, connecticut is great because the piece of the plate has to identify it as being from that state. You can't just use a corner of Connecticut that just doesn't say anything else. But for Connecticut I can use CON, I can use the CUT at the end, I can even use the ECT in the middle, because that does prove that it's Connecticut. Rhode Island. I use the registration sticker because it's the only thing, small enough, that still says Rhode Island on it. So I still only get one out of a Rhode Island plate, even though it's the tiny, but it still counts.

Greg Staffa 29:48

I have a negativity towards Connecticut because when I did my photo thing, like I said, I got all the welcome to signs, Connecticut. Because when I did my photo thing, like I said, I got all the welcome to signs and Connecticut. I entered in Connecticut and ended up driving around for like two hours making different approaches into Connecticut trying to find this and I'm like I have like 40 states I've already done. I can't just stop it now and you know not do it. I mean I'm almost done and I kept on driving around and driving around trying to different highway entrances that brought you into the state and looking for the thing. So connecticut, when I joke about it, there's some, there's some hostility, if they're lingering now, did you, did you finally find it?

Greg Staffa 30:30

I finally found it okay, uh, but it was just one of those things were like how many different entrances and do they? You know, maybe it's a state that just chose not to do that kind of thing and it took a while, but that was deeply frustrating. So your artwork is amazing. I love it. I wish I could afford the 50 state things. I think it's a beautiful design. You're also an editor and this editor job was very personal. It seems like editing a book called Fourth and Back. It's a poetry book. Can you tell us a little bit about that and who it is written by?

Aaron Foster 31:05

Yeah, sure, I was an editor. I was like I'm not sure where you're going with. This is a collection of poetry written by my brother, a poet who passed away in 2007 and had struggled with schizophrenia for a long time about 15 years and kind of finally succumbed to that illness. And then I knew he was a writer and I knew he wrote poetry and he wrote some other things, but I didn't. It was kind of a you know that happens and you go through people's things and you find things you might not expect, and just you know, I don't know that, you know what the title, what the total is, but I think it's.

Aaron Foster 31:44

It's over a hundred uh poems that he wrote that I, I, you know, I published, so it's fourth in book, and then back and uh, duncan foster is his name and um, you can you can technically find it on Amazon and all the proceeds go to mental health issues, but I mostly just published it for friends and family. It's just something. It's a nice, it's a very nice way to remember him, because that's really what he loved doing and how one of the ways that he sort of managed his illness was writing, and so, yeah, it took me a long time to do it. I mean, I think within a couple of days of him passing, I was like I'm going to publish this book and I think it took me about eight years because I had such a hard time getting through them. They're incredibly personal, they're very emotional and very intense, some of them written in in deep uh pain well, deep pain, but deep, uh, uh.

Aaron Foster 32:44

Oh boy, I'm blanking on the, on the right word, even though it's right there, but, uh, when he was really, really, you know, deep in his schizophrenia, and some of them written after that, and so, uh, you know they're, they're. They cover a wide range of emotions and perspectives and tones and things like that, but they're, they're very uh, they're very intense and and I, you know, obviously I'm very biased, but I'm, some of them are, they're very, very good did it give you a?

Greg Staffa 33:14

I mean, do you feel like you know your brother better now? After going through and compiling all these, did you learn a lot about him or was a lot of it just kind of not justifying but acknowledging what you already knew?

Aaron Foster 33:31

I think I certainly learned some you know it's his perspective. I think I certainly learned some you know it's his perspective, I think, especially from those ones that were, because a lot of them are dated and I did the math and okay, well, this is what was going on, this is when he was really having a hard time, or this is when he was in the hospital and things like that, and those give a little bit of an insight into what that mindset is like, which I don't think you can ever really really know for sure of um, you know that, the what goes on and inside the, the mind of someone who's having, you know, a schizophrenic break. But yeah, it helped me to understand just the, the magnitude of that, that disconnection, I guess I was draining just to write your own book, just not necessarily about depression.

Greg Staffa 34:16

But you've done a lot, you've been through a lot, you've experienced a lot. Is there any interest in telling any kind of story, whether it's not? You reflect about yourself.

Aaron Foster 34:26

I think about it sometimes, and I have a couple friends that tell me I should. Here's the thing, Greg I need an ending. I don't have an ending.

Greg Staffa 34:37

I can completely agree with that. I've had requests for my own story and stuff like that. All your stories are fascinating. You should write a book. That's the exact line I've used is I need to find the ending. I think when you're dealing with your own personal life, you always feel like there's a little bit more, and to tell the story now just feels like you're cheating yourself because there's just that little. You don't know what it is, but I would like to think there's.

Aaron Foster 35:05

There's more to it. And you know I tell a story in my show that's not dark, I mean it's a little bit dark because it's kind of about you know how I screwed up my acting career and I used to host the show for HGTV and I kind of uh, got myself fired from that, from that and and um, kind of put an end to my career. And it's a fun story to tell for a lot of reasons, except that it just it would be a lot funner to tell it on the tonight show after, you know, my movie came out or I did a stand-up set or something like that, rather than just like, oh, you screwed up your career and then nothing ever happened from that. That's not as good of a story as I'd like to tell. I want a better ending.

Greg Staffa 35:45

Five years from now. What's the five-year plan? Oh boy.

Aaron Foster 35:48

I mean, the five-year plan is well. The one-year plan is to keep working on this show. I think it's good. I think it's good, I think it's worth seeing, but I don't think worth. I wouldn't want Netflix to record it tomorrow. I think it needs work, but I do think it's pretty good. So that's my hope for the next year to work on.

Aaron Foster 36:07

I just made, I just wrote and directed. I've written and acted in a couple of short films of my own and I just wrote and directed and acted in a couple of short films of my own. And I just wrote and directed and acted in a new one that I'm excited about and hopefully be on the road with the film festivals next year, and I really would like to do a feature. I've struggled with writing a feature. It's been a little bit overwhelming, but now that I've kind of written this show that I sort of seemed impossible at one point, I'm a little bit more inspired that maybe I can make that work. So I would like to write and direct and act in the future.

Aaron Foster 36:39

I have a couple of filmmakers that are big inspirations to me. Jim Cummings is one who does a lot of that and sort of self-funds and just kind of isn't really in the Hollywood system. He just makes it happen on his own and he makes really good, powerful movies. So he's an inspiration to me. So that's what I would like and I think realistically that'll probably take four or five years.

Greg Staffa 36:59

Bring it to South by Southwest in Austin, texas, and you and I can meet up. I try to go there each year for the last several years. Oh wonderful, it's a very fun experience. I love doing the film festival circuit.

Aaron Foster 37:13

Yeah, I mean I certainly that's a big one that obviously is very difficult to get into and very competitive, but there are deadlines coming up and we're going to be able to at least submit a rough cut. I don't think we're going to have it finalized with sound and everything, but we have a rough cut that I'm pretty happy with and we'll submit that to some of the bigger festivals.

Greg Staffa 37:30

What is the name of it?

Aaron Foster 37:32

We'll get lucky. At the moment it's called Charles Gray. I think it's going to end up at about 11 or 12 minutes. There's a couple lines of dialogue at the very end, but there's not really any dialogue in it. It's a very personal story.

Greg Staffa 37:51

If it lands it'll work.

Aaron Foster 37:53

If it doesn't, then we'll make another one.

Greg Staffa 37:55

Maybe I'll be seeing you in march then. Well, aaron, thank you, it's been a great pleasure to to talk to you. Uh, again, I'll. I'll send a link to your website so people in the area they can come check out your comedy, but also check you out online.

Aaron Foster 38:10

Yeah, please yeah, just I mean aaron, it's my name. Aaron fostercom is the easiest way to know my stuff, so thank you.

Greg Staffa 38:16

And I look forward to hearing from you and seeing what the future has in store for you. I mean, we'll see you at South by Southwest or somewhere.

Aaron Foster 38:24

I hope so, yeah, thanks, greg.

Greg Staffa 38:25

Thank you. That does it for this episode. Thank you for listening to the Stafford Corner a corner.