Colton Downing's life is super different from mine
A chat on comedy and life with a 26-year-old cool dad of 3 | Week 40 of 52
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This week, I speak to one of my new online friends, Colton Downing. I met him as a wonderfully unexpected result of attending Zooms!
In particular, I’ve been frequenting comedian Tim Heidecker’s weekly pod, Office Hours Live. It’s a call-in show for fans, with additional guests ranging from comedians, musicians, and even Randy Newman! And despite my being one of the few POC (it’s okay, I’m cool with the bearded white guys), I’ve found a great community there.
Colton was in Zoom one day, holding a wee baby. I was shocked, thinking, Dang, that guy looks young! Must be a first-time dad. But I would learn that he’s actually a father to three, at 26 years old. Wow. Such a different life than mine. So family-oriented, so in-a-real-relationship, so un-LA!
Read on for my fun interview with Colton:
Part 1: On Comedy / Part 2: On Bein’ a Dad / Part 3: On Grandpas / Part 4: Advice for Future Parents
Fig 1. Meet the town of New Ulm, MN.
Part 1: On Finding Nuggets in Weird Comedy
Annie: For years, people were always like, "Have you seen Tim and Eric? I think you would really like their humor." But I didn’t really dive in until quarantine. Can you tell me about how you got into them?
Colton: My mom had gotten cable at one of the townhomes we were living in, and I liked to fall asleep to TV. And so Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! came on Adult Swim.
I never really was versed in the more obscure side of comedy, other than to what I'd wake up to in the middle of the night. You know, when you have those weird moments where it's almost like a pipe dream. I was in the right mind state to click with that comedy.
Annie: Yeah, how old were you then?
Colton: I think I was... I'm not good with time in general, but I think I was 14.
Annie: Oh my gosh. So you've been watching them for... 12 years.
Colton: Yeah.
Annie: That's a long time!
Colton: Sometimes things that seem obscure can mean a lot more than people even intend. I feel like some comedians maybe don't know how much people really look into it, how much it means, you know?
Annie: Yeah. I feel you on that. Because on the flip side, there's certain shows that are very well-regarded and run for many seasons. But when I watch them, it's like, "Haven't we seen this story a bajillion times?" I guess they're comforting to people. Whereas some of this uncomfortable humor is actually hilarious and surprisingly deep. I really like Nathan For You. Did you watch all of it?
Colton: Oh, I've seen every episode, yeah.
Annie: I recently rewatched it all, 'cause I need a friggin laugh to keep myself from going crazy. Well, Nathan Fielder has this mini-series within it, “Finding Frances,” where he helps this real, older gentleman who's a bit obsessed with an old sweetheart. But the dude is crotchety, and you just don't like him that much. But Nathan makes it real, because there's all these elements of, like… humanity.
Colton: Yeah. Oh my God. There's a perfect example from the same show that I can think of. What is it, “Smokers Allowed,” when he does a play. [Summary: In that episode, Nathan films a couple hours at a real dive bar, a scene he then recreates as a play, cast with actors who don’t know they’re replicating real life.]
There’s a moment where Nathan’s trying to train an actor, telling her how to say "I love you.” He had her really get into it, so much that she started feeling that emotion. It's all so funny, and then they show the original actor who he sat in for. The most gut-wrenching part is when Nathan is like, "What did you learn?" And the guy says, “That she loves you.” And he totally erupted: "No, no, she was acting. You know, she was just acting."
Annie: And then, doesn't she say to Nathan, "You're crying"? 'Cause saying “I love you” over and over made him actually cry. I think he was going through a divorce at that point. I wondered, Oh my gosh, is he just really hurting right now? because, like, he can't say that to his wife anymore?
Fig 2. Pause! Do a quick guess of the population of New Ulm.
Part 2: On Small-ish Town Dad Life
Annie: New Ulm, Minnesota. I’d asked you to describe your city in three words, and you said it’s “beautiful, historical, and generous.”
Colton: Yeah, it is a beautiful town. It's like the perfect size for anybody who's looking for a big small town. It's like 8,000 people. I might be a couple thousand off or something.1
It's about a five-mile-long stretch, and it's tucked in this river valley. It's almost like the entire town is covered by trees. But yet, it's not quite small enough. Yeah, by generous I mean that we get taken care of by our Parks and Rec. It's clean as hell. For the size of the town, it's really clean. And they're always adding new stuff. They built a whole indoor recreation center with an indoor park and a brand new water park. They have a skate park and everything. Yeah, they have a ton of things here.
Annie: That’s so cute! How did you end up there? You said that you moved around a lot.
Colton: I ended up here just recently (7 years ago) because my wife lived here, and we weren't married yet. I moved from a town that's about an hour away to live with her and start our life here.
Fig 3. Wedding photo time! Here is Colton and his beautiful wife, Isabella, in a “deliberately serious photo” on their wedding day. Ah, young love.
Annie: You know, for me, it's incredible that you're 26, you have three kids, and your own home. To me that's like, what? Like, wow, that is a full life.
Colton: Yeah. I bet that's really hard to do out in a place like LA.
Annie: I mean, yeah. The first time I saw you on camera during Office Hours Live, you were holding a baby. But actually, you have three kids. How old are they?
Colton: So Maria, she's four; Hector, two years old; and Isadore, he’s just six months.
Figs 4-5. The poise on that baby! Looks like a future wushu master or dancer to me.
Annie: Oh, that's a dope name. Is he gonna be “Izzy”?
Colton: Thank you. Yeah. That's what we call him.
Annie: That's so cool. Such a classy nickname.
Now, I guess I wanted to flip it and ask, what do you think of LA? Have you ever been here? What are your perceptions of it?
Colton: I have never been to LA, but I wanna go. If you tell somebody around here you wanna go visit Los Angeles— if they've been there, they basically say, "Oh, it's a lot dirtier than you think it's gonna be.” I mean, it's like a Minneapolis— there's trash everywhere. The big city.
Annie: Okay, let me just show you out my window. I have dreams for a pastoral life with animals. There's litter everywhere here. I want to live on a farm. I wanna have some animals that I don't kill, where I'm just their friend and I take care of them. But I also love the city because of the culture. I like that my friends are here. Obviously, as an actor, I can't really go far. Do you feel like you're very content in your town because it's not that small to you?
Fig 6. Is it messed up that I’m so LA that the third thing I thought about this photo was, “Location scouts, take note!” (1: “Wow.” 2: “Oh dang, is that two baseball diamonds?”)
Colton: Right, right. I do, yeah. One of the biggest— sorry, my wife left me a note under the door that said something about how—
Annie: You can read it. It's part of the interview!
Colton: Yeah, my son Hector… They were taking a bath, and Hector said to his sister Maria, "I can see your asshole."
Annie: I love that your wife has a funny note for you. I like her handwriting too!
Annie: Did you say you were a stay-at-home dad as well, or am I misremembering?
Colton: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm a stay-at-home, yeah.
Annie: Is that common, to be a stay-home parent with a few kids? I think in LA people might feel pressure that they also have to have a high-status job or something.
Colton: I wonder if it has to do with being surrounded with a specific kind of expectation in LA of doing LA things. I feel like when you're around one thing a lot, and pushed by a lot of expectations, you’re naturally curious to want to explore the opposite. If it's hard to have access to live like that, especially in LA— being a stay-at-home, you can't. I don't know how. Unless someone’s partner is making—
Annie: Millions. The rent of my studio apartment is $934. And that’s well under market value. That can probably buy you a house where you are.
Colton: Our mortgage is like $860.
Annie: Wow. Wow. (pretends to slam head on wall repeatedly)
Colton: I know, right.
Annie: I'm gonna buy a house and become your neighbor and come out to LA when it's cold.
Colton: There you go. It's easier here to stay home, and it works out a lot better. My wife, she got a degree and is working, and I'm doing stagehand work occasionally.
Annie: For concerts, right?
Colton: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Annie: Was that always something that you wanted to do?
Okay— I'm still hung up on the fact that most men I know would be freaking out at one kid, much less a full family. When you were a youngster, did you envision that being a dad was something that you absolutely wanted to do? Because if I met a guy who said that, I'd be like, "Yes."
Colton: No, I feel like I was a shithead. Even though I didn't really know what nihilism was, I feel like I leaned on the nihilist mindset of being an angry teenager.
Part 3: Grandpas, Man
Colton: When I was really little, I wanted to be a grandpa. I really liked my grandpa, but I didn't really know what being a dad would be like, of course. And I still don't feel like I do.
Annie: What did your grandpa do for work? And was he on your mom's side or dad's side… slash is he?
Colton: He was on my mom's side. What I know is he was in the army, but I don't know really what he did for work. I think he worked in a factory. He was working class. He passed away a long time ago, actually, in 2003, but he left a pretty big impression on me. He set a standard for what I wanted to be.
Fig 7. Baby Colton being held by his grandpa.
Colton: You know, it's kind of funny. Towards the end of his life, he just sat in his chair on an oxygen tank, smoked cigarettes, and watched TV and ate candy. But for whatever reason, I'd go over to his trailer. He'd be sitting in his reclining chair. And when I'd get done with school when I was six years old, I'd go and sit next to him. He'd just be smoking, watching wrestling or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He’d try and get stuff: "Give me a candy bar” or whatever. And it just set the tone for a lot of the ways I wanted to be to another little kid.
Annie: Wow. I can really relate to what you're saying about the grandpa thing. My grandpa lived in China my whole life. So unfortunately, I didn't get to know him that well. But he was such a role model for me, because he was a professor of English language in a Chinese university called Suzhou University. It's where I was born, actually.
But even though I don't know him super well, I respected him. Because yeah, he represented dignity. Like an old man that just sits in a chair and watches closely.
My grandparents, when I was a kid, were visiting us because we needed help. Like, we were poor. We needed help with me and my sisters. And you remember when there were Miss Universe pageants on TV?
Colton: Yeah, yeah.
Annie: He was watching that. And I was like, "Grandpa, why are you watching that?" I was like, seven. And he said “好看 (hao kan).” Which means, like, “It looks good.” I was just like, What? You know, when you're a kid, and you take things in, but you just kind of walk away.
Colton: Yeah.
Annie: I didn't really get whether it was good or bad. It was just like, This is weird.
Colton: Yeah, one of those things that just exists in the back of your brain, like a little macaroni noodle underneath an oven that you find later.
Part 4: Advice for Future Parents
Annie: I have a couple friends who had quarantine babies. People are getting busy in the lockdown.
Colton: Yeah. Yeah, right, right.
Annie: What is one piece of advice for a new parent that you wish you would have known?
Colton: Be absolutely vulnerable to feeling like a failure. It's not a negative thing. But before becoming a parent, you have never been a parent.
Annie: Of course, yeah.
Colton: And it's something so much bigger than yourself. And so you are bound to come short of what you think you should be. So just embracing being vulnerable about that, especially with yourself and with your partner, if your partner is around.
Chances are your partner is experiencing a lot of hardship too in the process, and for you to be open and in talking about these things. Being vulnerable can really help the journey between you two. It can help make things smoother, instead of you withdrawing into yourself under the pressure. You both can help each other out. So, be absolutely vulnerable.
Annie: That's beautiful. Yeah, don't try to be a perfect parent that is doing everything right, 'cause your kids are gonna eventually hate you anyway.
Colton: Yeah, right.
Annie: At least for a brief period. There’s gonna be at least one day where someone’s like, "I hate you."
Colton: Yeah, I feel like even at a four-year-old level and two-year-old level, they do, in their own way— like, occasionally.
Annie: Oh man, that's awesome.
Thanks for reading! See you next week/next month (depending on how much cold, hard cash you’ve shelled out).
Note: Wikipedia says New Ulm’s population is 13k. Still, quite small compared to what I know. To compare, even Larchmont Village here in LA, a 0.5-square-mile neighborhood that I avoid (sorry 🤷🏻 — people don’t respect personal space there) has 9k residents. How is that even possible?
Also, a quick but efficient online search tells me that New Ulm’s library loans out not only books, but also lifejackets! (Holy moles, I grew up in a beach city and no one was letting me borrow a free lifejacket or nuthin’.) Go New Ulm, MN!