Josh Fadem Is Literally Just Vibing

Whitney Cummings—stand-up veteran and co-creator of 2 Broke Girls—once told a story on The Tim Ferriss Show about seeing a comic at the Hollywood Improv years ago. The comic walked onstage and, without a single word, started running in place—full tilt, flailing, panting, gasping. Just him and his breath. No punchline. No setup. Just the sound of exertion echoing off brick walls.

At first, people laughed. Then they stopped. Then they got concerned. “What is he doing?” Cummings remembered thinking. “Is he having a manic break?” But the comic didn’t flinch. He just kept running. And then, like a switch flipped, the audience cracked. “It was some magical bell curve of funny,” Cummings said. “I was laughing so hard I had to leave the room. He got past the stage of bombing and turned it into this other level … performance art. The audacity that he had and the bravery. And it was just—really amazing to see.”

That was Josh Fadem, and he hasn’t stopped moving since. The Tulsan-turned-Angeleno-turned-Tulsan-again has channeled that manic energy into creative projects in Tulsa and beyond, working monthly comedy showcases like Low Stakes at Chimera and recording a semi-regular podcast called Here Come the Details with comedy legends like Bobcat Goldthwait. He pops up at open mics and runs a monthly Noir Night film series at Circle Cinema. There’s a good chance he’s even made you laugh on your streaming service of choice, notching acting credits in 30 Rock, Better Call Saul, and Twin Peaks: The Return.

You can see him right now in Sterlin Harjo’s The Lowdown, playing a chatty record store owner a few doors down from Ethan Hawke. Fadem also had a hand in the Tulsa noir behind the scenes, suggesting classic noir movies to Harjo as reference material for the show and serving as a consultant for the writers’ room.

Like any true Tulsan keeping in touch with our culture, Fadem occupies a niche place in my pop culture consciousness—part of a personal constellation of semi-known celebrities, more than an extra but less than a leading man. A Tulsey Town Brian Dennehy, of sorts.

And so I dared to wonder: What’s Josh Fadem’s deal, anyway?

***

Despite being omnipresently out there on the entertainment streets, the 45-year-old is reserved in person. I met Fadem one Monday afternoon ahead of Noir Night. Taking a break from his preparation—which includes meticulously editing an intro to the evening’s film—he sat with me in Whittier Bar’s Devil Room. Our fixer for the exchange was Tulsa’s alternate mayor and good friend of Fadem’s, Evan Hughes.

The contrast between Fadem’s off-stage personality and his zany performance identity is as diametric as the black-and-white zigzagged carpet in Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge. Onstage, Fadem is a sort of mammalian Furby animated by Buster Keaton’s ghost. His intensity brings to mind a class of “alternative comics” like Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk and self-proclaimed “riffer” Casey Rocket, who talks about “riffing” repeatedly in his sets—even saying “I’m riffin’” as a punchline of sorts. 

But Fadem lives the riff, delivering verbal (and often physical) slapstick that constantly corpses his onstage counterparts in improv, making them break character and burst into laughter. His equally composure-destroying work on the podcast/YouTube series Here Come The Details invokes the hauntology of local ad space and public access television, flowered with stream-of-consciousness classical folly, library music, and gunky aestheticism. Fadem bills the podcast as the world’s first “Screen Show,” because, he asks, “have you ever heard anything else described that way before?” 

Here Come The Details is produced by Fadem’s longtime Tulsa friend and restaurateur Rob Stuart.¹ Guests like Michael Ian Black and Wilco’s Pat Sansone have appeared on the show, confusedly interacting with a version of Evan Hughes who gets pulled into a van by men in ski masks or berated by the owner of Dante’s Woodfire Pizza. Fadem himself plays an aloof, morning-show-style host in a slightly oversized suit. It’s absurd, it’s irreverent, it’s relatively low on details, and it’s hilarious. 

***

Fadem isn’t blasé or bitchy about his life and art, but there is a spring-loaded calculation with him—as if he’s always waiting to launch some Acme hijinks. I ask him what the first piece of comedy was that left an impression on him.

“I don’t know … I wish I had a cool answer. A funny face a relative made? I don’t know, man. Peekaboo ... absolutely legendary joke,” he laughs. Object permanence conquered, Fadem eventually became a class clown in his teen years.

Stuart remembers what Fadem was like in high school: “Out of control funny,” he tells me. “Always had a knack for physical comedy. He was in improv—a club at Booker T. Washington at the time—from as early as I can remember. Could remember every line and reference from anything he watched or listened to. He started working on his falls at house parties. I remember standing at the bottom of a staircase once, and he rolled headfirst all the way down a proper hardwood set of stairs … then stood up and walked away.”

“I never felt cool, or popular,” Fadem says. “But people thought I was funny, and I thought, ‘Hey, this is something I can do.’” By the time high school ended he felt the familiar pressure to do something—and so he did what he knew he could. He headed west to L.A. to pursue acting and comedy, taking classes with The Groundlings and netting early bits in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Weeds, and Reno 911. In 2015 alone he appeared in nearly 20 projects. 

“In your 20s, you think, ‘I’m going to do this,’” Fadem says. “In your 30s: ‘Wow, I’m doing this!’ In your 40s: ‘Wow, I’m really still doing this!’” 

He’s still doing it—only now, he’s often doing it back home in Tulsa. The pandemic prompted his return to his hometown, as he realized remote work between shoots was sustainable, and he quickly planted roots in Tulsa’s comedy and film scenes.

“I don’t love one more or the other,” Fadem says of the two cities. One key difference, he suggests, is the sheer amount of opportunity in L.A, which creates a competitive and passionate ecosystem of artists honing their skills. Tulsa has hungry comedians too, but also plenty of hobbyists. It’s a relaxed microcosm in contrast to L.A.’s cutthroat macro. “In Tulsa, it’s way easier to just have an idea, show up, and do it,” he says. “Like, I wanted to bring noir to Tulsa, so I just did it.” 

That’s not to say Tulsa is devoid of competitive talent. “I think people like Sterlin [Harjo] have created this artistic ecosystem here, bringing in great comics like Johnny Pemberton [21 Jump Street, Fallout], and that creates a reverberation through performance and inspiring a newer generation of comics. And [it gives] Tulsans [the chance] to interact with these people.”

Watching Fadem himself interact with these people is an incredible experience. Last year I attended a secret show at Belafonte during the Blue Whale Comedy Festival, where Fadem and Pemberton riffed each other into oblivion over topics like ’90s post-grunge and Metal Gear Solid. Pemberton is hilarious, and a talent Fadem admires, but by the end of the show he’d been riffed under the table, complete with red cheeks, tears of laughter, and visible pain in his side. 

***

After our initial interview with Hughes, I caught up with Fadem at one of his “Low Stakes” comedy nights at Chimera and asked for a follow-up chat. “Why, am I that interesting?” he asked, with his signature self-deprecating humor. “Well, yes,” I replied. “But also, David Lynch just passed away.”

Fadem may have been reticent to talk about himself, but he’s quick to talk about the profound impact of his heroes. Having seen Pretty as a Picture, a 1997 documentary about Lynch’s artistic process, Fadem considered Lynch a creative idol and was stunned in 2017 when he got cast in Twin Peaks: The Return.

“Lynch was incredible,” Fadem says. “He encouraged me to do more physical comedy, and to bring in who I was to Twin Peaks. He did that with the entire cast.”

Fadem also learned about Transcendental Meditation from Lynch and began practicing it between shoots. When he told Lynch about the development, the director replied in his trademark Missoula twang, “Well, Josh, that is fantastic! Good for you.” 

Fadem says he’d never felt more understood as an actor than by Lynch. What’s it like, I ask him, being somebody with a pretty reserved nature who’s in the peculiar position of being a character actor—not always instantly recognized, but always familiar? Is he comfortable being a “that guy” actor, like Brian Dennehy?

“I’m a DENNEHY?” Fadem responds. “That’s the biggest compliment.” 

After many nights of watching and talking to Fadem, I started to have this thought: the place he really comes to life is in performance. “Are you asking if I’m either on stage or in front of a camera, or at home staring at the back of my eyelids?” he asked when I mentioned this theory. “Because yeah, motherfucker, I’m meditating!” Jokes aside, he agreed on the sentiment. I asked if he’d read Catching the Big Fish, Lynch’s book on meditation and creativity. “Oh yeah, man,” he said. “That one’s important.” 

***

At one of Fadem’s Noir Nights at Circle Cinema, the audience ranges from elderly film lovers to millennial hipsters, cinephiles, comedy fans, and curious moviegoers. They’re clearly tuned into Fadem—not just the movie. His pre-recorded intros blend film class with surreal comedy, and his live presence is insightful, chaotic, and sharp. He acts as both curator and comedic conduit for a genre that’s even more niche than horror, sci-fi, or fantasy.

Some of that noir vibe might have rubbed off on him, though. Later, at a Spotlight Theater showcase featuring other comics, Fadem notices my note-taking and calls out “spying journalists.” The Fadem moment of the night—one that sums up my favorite thing about his comedy—comes during an exasperated rant about professional basketball. He stops for a second, pants, takes a breath, and deadpans, with no joke to directly accompany it: “Nobody calls it ‘puh-TAH-doe.’” He earns the biggest laugh of the show with little more than a face and a pause.

Fadem’s been running hard in entertainment for more than a decade now, building a respectable career. He keeps his goals private—closer than a noir detective’s flask. “If I say a certain goal, people might be like, ‘Look at this douchebag; he thinks he’s amazing.’ And if it’s something I don’t accomplish? I’ll look back on this interview in ten years and get incredibly depressed.” 

“I’ve done interviews in the past and looked back and cringed,” he says. “I don’t have the cool answers. But I have my goals. I just feel incredibly lucky, and I exist as the work and moments happen, instead of building up anticipation.”

Apart from a few hidden bucket-list items, Fadem says he’s content to go with the flow, to just keep doing it. He’s headed out of town this fall on a national comedy tour called “Josh Fadem Lives On Stage,” which I can’t help but think sounds like a riff on that theory I had. 

He’s also plotting a new monthly local showcase, making more episodes of Here Come The Details, and getting ready to join Dan Levy’s upcoming Netflix comedy Big Mistakes. And he’ll continue to surface on Tulsa comedy stages whenever the mood strikes. It’s all part of letting the creative winds blow ripples on the pond of opportunity, and occasionally catching a very big—and funny—fish.

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