Dean: The Lean, Mean Comedy Machine

Senior student does racy stand-up at local clubs in his free time

Jimmy FlynnTHE SANTA CLARAJanuary 28, 2016

“[dropcap]I[/dropcap] knew I wanted to make people laugh since kindergarten,” said senior Dean Garcia, an aspiring stand-up comedian.

The epiphany came in the middle of a “long, even by Catholic standards,” prayer at his elementary school in his hometown of Stockton, California.

Quoting a line from his at-the-time favorite movie “Jingle All the Way” (a film he calls “underrated” but currently holds a 17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), the restless, six year-old Garcia blurted out “I’m sweating like a fat pig in a Chinese restaurant!”

Everybody started laughing. “I’m like, ‘This is awesome. This is totally worth a trip to the principal’s office,’ ” Garcia said. “That was the moment where I was like, ‘(Huh), I could do this.’”

Fifteen years passed until Garcia first took the stage to attempt stand-up comedy. His first show was in July at an open mic in the back of a Mexican restaurant that he “can’t remember the name of.”

He did well, earning some laughs and coming in second place in a “raciest” joke contest.

“I told a Jared joke,” Garcia said, since news of the pedophilic tendencies of the former Subway spokesman had just broke before his show.

Since “losing his stand-up virginity,” Garcia has gone on to perform over forty times, including a performance last Tuesday on campus in Kennedy Commons, where he did a forty-five minute set. It’s easy to imagine Garcia performing. He’s bespectacled, skinny and fidgety, much like a young Woody Allen. You get the impression that his real-life self transfers seamlessly to the stage.

In conversation, he’s a bit filthy and a bit self-deprecating. Unsurprisingly, he reveals his comedy influences to be stand-up legends Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, as well as more contemporary comics Mike Birbiglia, Bill Burr and John Mulaney.

Garcia said his plan is to keep writing and performing at open mics until he has a tight half-hour. At that point, he will have graduated Santa Clara and will be ready to test out his stuff on the road.

Beyond stand-up, Garcia is writing and starring in an upcoming web series called “Conflict Theory,” a mockumentary-style show focusing on three bickering roommates who are forced to live with a mediator working her way through a graduate program. Inspired in part by the lives of Garcia and his co-stars, the first, eight minute episode is currently being edited and will hit YouTube in the coming weeks. The second, ten and a half minute episode is scripted and ready to shoot.

Garcia is also planning to produce a second series as well as some sketches. Slowly but surely, comedy is becoming his life.

“I’ve always wanted to do (stuff) like this,” Garcia said. “Get cheap laughs for money and what not.”

Contact Jimmy Flynn at jflynn@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.