Chatting with Mike Von - Part One

As soon as Mike Von calls me back, I understand exactly why he's a comedian. Outgoing, comfortable, talkative, and of course, funny, are just a few of the characteristics that describe Von. I left a message on his machine Sunday night, and wasn't really expecting to hear from him until much later. I'll admit, I was a bit discouraged after what seemed like several blow-offs (things did eventually turn around). To my surprise, Von called me back within just a few hours and greeted me with a friendly and enthusiastic, "Hey Erica, what's up? It's Mike Von!" As he walked to his car after finishing up at school for the day, Von graciously granted me my first interview for the blog.

Von, 22, is a Chicago-based comedian who was born and raised in Baltimore. Although his myspace page states that he's been involved with comedy since the age of 16, Von says that his interest was initially spark at 14 years old from being "the funny guy" in school. Reciting hilarious anecdotes that entertained his peers was a talent that he discovered early on. Working at Wendy’s only helped; he had plenty of ridiculous stories to tell from his experiences there. If you ever worked in fast food, you know all too well. Some of Von's influences include Jamie foxx( who he wrote a paper on when he was a sophmore at Dunbar), Bill Behr, Craig Robinson, Eddie Murphy and Pablo Francisco. It also helped that his father was a comedian and comedy writer; if you're from Baltimore, you might now him from the "Kiss my bumper" commericals.



While most might think this was a career Von was encouraged to do, it wasn’t that way initially. “My parents weren’t really excited about me going into comedy. [My father] knew what a tough business it was.” Although he didn’t have their full support, Von was determined that his career was in comedy. So, what else was there to do but to start sneaking out at 16-years-old to perform at clubs?

Part two coming tomorrow...