Duncan Carson, Volume 8

When Valerie spoke to Dun­can Car­son a year ago, he had just start­ed doing yoga. Fast for­ward to 2026 and he’s an avid out­doors­man: ​“the stage used to be my default place to run to, and now I’ve been camp­ing on the week­ends”. His own vari­ety late show Sign­ing Off (for­mer­ly Fall­out Tonight) recent­ly end­ed a two-year run at the Fall­out The­ater which sprung from Sure Thing’s eleven-year res­i­den­cy before it. 

For Car­son, now is the first peri­od in over a decade where hav­ing a place to be every Fri­day night isn’t a sure thing. ​“It’s like I just got out of a coma,” reflects the Austin com­e­dy vet­er­an. ​“It’s thir­teen years lat­er, who am I?” 

With all this time to him­self he’s learned to make good use of it. His inter­est in hik­ing has tak­en him to Hawaii, but the Big Island isn’t just a vaca­tion spot for the com­ic; it’s a clean slate to wow an unsus­pect­ing audi­ence. ​“When I went to this ran­dom show in Hawaii, I was like, ​‘nobody knows who I am, I’m about to blow them the fuck away’.” Even when he’s get­ting away from it all, Car­son makes time to crush at standup.

Com­e­dy Wham has to break some sad news: Car­son might be get­ting away from Austin per­ma­nent­ly. His long-time co-host and part­ner in crime Bren­dan K. O’Grady took leave in 2023. In the years since, more have left or retired. The world Car­son once knew has become unrecognizable. 

It goes with­out say­ing that the post-2020 rift in the com­e­dy scene has much to do with his dis­il­lu­sion­ment, but Car­son will say it any­way: ​“I don’t think Austin is the place that I thought it was”. For all the bad vibes sur­round­ing this ​“new” Austin, there is hope in the alter­na­tives of Fall­out, Cold­Towne, and Hide­out, like­mind­ed venues with an ever-grow­ing sta­ble of talent.

Here’s a New Years res­o­lu­tion for Com­e­dy Wham read­ers: instead of going to see the over­priced glo­ri­fied open-mic that is Kill Tony, try one of sev­er­al oth­er mics com­plete­ly free of charge. There’s no two-drink min­i­mum at Fallout’s recitals, though if you’re any­thing like Car­son, you might want a drink or two if you’re a stu­dent per­form­ing standup for an audi­ence of your peers. As he looks back on his hum­ble begin­nings, ​“when I was two months in, you couldn’t pay me $1000 to have peo­ple whose opin­ions I real­ly val­ue in the room”.

Let’s ignore every depress­ing point of dis­cus­sion between Valerie and Car­son and focus on the pos­i­tive. The big event on the hori­zon is the grand return of Sure Thing for one night only on Jan­u­ary 30^th. The sec­ond biggest event is the release of Carson’s nov­el, when­ev­er that may be. Sign­ing Off (the pod­cast) is still going strong. 

Despite hat­ing the algo­rithm and the nature of con­tent (more sad talk), Valerie is deter­mined to start film­ing her own com­e­dy; expect to see video evi­dence of ImproV­in­tage in the near future. And final­ly, dis­re­gard­ing all that’s been said of the place and its detri­ment to Austin, Valerie lets it be known that she went to that one moth­er­ship on sixth street and actu­al­ly enjoyed her­self. We’re told the act was a few degrees removed from the Rogan Sphere of influence. 

If there’s any sil­ver lin­ing to what’s become of the scene, it’s that you can still squeeze some lemon­ade out of its lemons. That is, pro­vid­ed the lemons fall far from the tree. All of these idioms to say that even with­in a com­e­dy blight, there is always some­thing hap­pen­ing in Austin that is sure to please, excite or inspire, and a count­less amount of peo­ple that make it happen. 

In the ten years of the pod­cast, Com­e­dy Wham has suc­ceed­ed in its goal of reach­ing every cor­ner of the scene and the comics, showrun­ners, and venues that keep it alive. The growth of Austin com­e­dy, for bet­ter, for worse, for inter­net fame or the love of the craft, has been cov­ered in depth with pas­sion and care. As Dun­can Car­son says, ​“it’ll maybe get worse before it gets bet­ter, but we’ll be laugh­ing the whole fuck­ing time,”. What a sound­bite, indeed.

Fol­low Duncan

• Twit­ter — @aduncancarson
  
• Insta­gram — @aduncancarson
• Face­book — face​book​.com/​d​u​n​c​a​n​c​arson
• Tik­Tok — @duncancarson

Fol­low Fall­out Tonight / Sign­ing Off Podcast

• Link­tree — Fall​out​Tonight​.com
• Insta­gram — @fallout_tonight
  

Fol­low Sure Thing Records

• Web­site — SureThin​gRecords​.com
• Insta­gram — @surethingatx

See Dun­can

• Sure Thing — Show #513 returns for one night only with co-host Bren­dan K. O’Grady, Jan­u­ary 30, 2026, 9pm, Fall­out Theater
• Sign­ing Off Pod­cast — Week­ly episodes with Jon Men­doza, Adam Shu­mate, and oth­er guests