On a lounge chair in the quaint Xanadu coffee shop in downtown Phoenix, 24 year-old stand-up comic, Tristan Bowling catches his breath. He’s late. Twenty minutes late. But, living nearby, he made a run for it. He apologizes and tells me he got carried away with writing. Time slipped away. 

“I’m moving to New York at the end of the year, so I’m putting together like a bunch of like satirical Onion style headlines that I’m gonna be submitting out to different publications once I’m out there,” Bowling says. 

With bulky brimmed glasses that nearly cover his eyebrows, a mustache and wild brown hair he often tames with a streetwear hat, Bowling has style and spunk. He’s skinny. 

“I have the sex appeal of a daddy long leg spider,” he often declares. His buddies on his podcast, The Final Stop, introduce him as “The Vampire King” and “Lord Meerkat,” due to his wide eyes and pale complexion. Does he mind? Not in the slightest.

I ask him about his joke-writing process, and we are off to the races. The meerkat pops out of his hole and comes to life. His eyeballs serve as an exclamation point for his comedic timing and animated as ever, I might as well be at a stand-up show, party of one.

The West Valley comic has been making the rounds on the Phoenix comedy circuit since he was 16. But at the age of 20, Bowling earned a key to perform in the West Coast Mecca of comedy. After his appearance on the live, open-mic podcast Kill Tony, host and standup comic Tony Hinchcliffe, well known for his sharp wit and roasting chops, gifted Bowling the “Golden Ticket,” an open invitation to come up and perform a minute spot on the live podcast whenever he’s at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. 

It’s not a tangible ticket, but Bowling tells me if he had one, “I would lose it.”

Bowling cashed in his ticket immediately, driving out to The Comedy Store two days later after turning 21. He has made the six-hour drive a lot.

Kill Tony co-host Brian Redban has joked, “He’s been cashing in so much that we have to rethink the rules of the Golden Ticket.”

“To be fair there’s no fine print on the “Golden Ticket,” Bowling says. “And it just so happened that I lived six hours away, and was willing to drive out there like twice a month.”

His work ethic has paid off in a major way over the past two years. He’s hosted for some of the most beloved names in comedy as they swing through the valley, including Dave Attell, Chris Distefano, Big Jay Oakerson, and Mark Normand. Now Bowling is saying farewell to the scene that molded him into the comic he is today and moving to New York City for another climb with the best comedians in the world.

It’s a climb that he’s ready for.

“I’m just excited to be back at ground zero,” Bowling says. 

In a way, he is. 

He will once again be a newcomer at open mics. But this time it’s in the city that has been stuck in his comedy fantasy.

“All I have in my head of New York is the imagery and the stories behind places and shit,” Bowling says. “I don’t know the layout, it’s all a mystery to me. It seems like it’s not even real.”

All of his favorite comics are from there, and he’s excited to finally meet them. He’s already developed some New York connections, notably in the raunchy storytelling mind of stand-up comic Big Jay Oakerson, who helped him get onstage at “The Stand Restaurant & Comedy Club” in the city last summer. It went well. 

“There’s nothing I can fuck up yet. I haven’t like had an awkward interaction with someone or like bombed at a club, like that hasn’t happened yet,” Bowling says. “It’s refreshing.” 

He’s ready to go back on the “open-mic grind” and eager to see how New York audiences will respond to him. “Part of me is like I can’t just be funny in Phoenix. I can’t just be locally funny here,” Bowling says. “I gotta be okay in New York as well.” 

In New York, Bowling hopes to continue his day job, working in some form of catering. In downtown Phoenix, he works for a catering company called, “Conceptually Social.” He also wouldn’t mind trying his hand bartending at house parties. 

It’s a lot to juggle. 

“I’m thinking about jobs, I want to work as much as I can, make as much money as I can but also I want to be able to do spots. Which of course doesn’t pay. And it’s a lot of time, so I just don’t want to be burnt, physically and emotionally,” Bowling says.

Ultimately, he’d love to make some money off stand-up hopefully within the first year. But it’s one step at a time. 

Since living in Buckeye, Bowling has acquired an abundance of jokes about West Phoenix. To my surprise, he tells me he wouldn’t mind breaking some out in the Big Apple, because to crowds in the urban metropolis Tristan jokes, “Everyone thinks the entirety of Phoenix, Arizona is Buckeye. Just like rolling nothing. But we got some things…we got buildings!” 

I might have been playing a little bit of dead air chicken, but his thoughts kept rolling. He took my silence and ran with it. For all the pressure to stay cool and collected, he can’t help but be starstruck. Validation from his heroes has definitely boosted his confidence. But his humility will always prevail. Bowling’s girlfriend Haleigh Boulanger began dating him at a time when he started hosting for a series of shows that blew his mind.  

“Before he was like, I don’t understand why I’m getting these shows, like I don’t deserve it. And now he’s just like, ‘you know, I’m like really growing and improving,’” says Boulanger.

But beneath all of Bowling’s confidence onstage is anxiety. He says that the amount of overthinking he experiences is “infuriating,” to say the least. Interactions with other comics he’s hosted for, have activated that part of his psyche, and if they find him annoying he’s keen to pick up on that. 

Bowling will even “like” negative YouTube comments about him, to the shock of the unsuspecting commenter. 

“It’s mostly just trying not to be annoying and just trying to be funny, but not trying to be funny all the time. You know? Because I feel like that can be annoying in conversation, just overthinking conversation constantly and just being like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to say the wrong thing,’” Bowling says.

And sometimes there’s more weighing on his mind than all the jokes suggest.

“Personal thing about me, don’t get weird. …Tried to off myself once, but I’m here. I was that sad, I was so good at it,” Bowling confesses with a chuckle before a series of suicide jokes during a feature set for Neal Brennan last summer.

He went through what he describes as a “rough patch,” when he was 19 and 20 and after going in for treatment, Bowling immediately started writing jokes. One he even performed on Kill Tony.

“I did a minute where I was talking about how I went to my psychiatry appointment, but it wasn’t a psychiatry hospital, it was a processing and rehabilitation ward for people going to jail. So it was me being like, ‘I’m sad.’ next to someone being like, ‘I’m coming off of crystal meth,’” he pauses and delivers with a laugh.

“It helps to talk through that shit,” Bowling says. 

He acknowledges that he fits the sad clown archetype often associated with comic performers, but his darker days are behind him now.

Before hosting for Annie Lederman at the Tempe Improv there’s quite a lot on Bowling’s mind. “How is he going to make this set different than the last one?” “Is my girlfriend going to get here on time?” He also informs me that he’s hungry, and often avoids eating before shows in fears of getting sick.

Onstage, he exudes calm, after a quick succession of jokes about his appearance. 

“I can be sexy.” “Fuck you guys, I can be sexy!” he yells with a smile. 

And he has the role play technique to prove it. 

The crowd is in hysterics as he reads out Miranda Rights, while mimicking handcuffing his girlfriend. Act outs seem to come naturally to Bowling, even during improvised sets, he has the mind to elevate his wit with a physical bit.

But he wasn’t always this animated onstage. As a young open mic-er, Bowling opted to let his observational voice drive the show. He was more stationary and soft-spoken, but to onlookers in the scene, he always had the “it-factor” of a natural performer.

Dennis Kiourkas, a founder of the Phoenix comedy collective, FYIF (Fuck You It’s Funny), has been an admirer of Bowling’s since he first saw him perform at “Shady Park,” a restaurant and music venue in Tempe. 

“He had a very palpable nervous energy, but that was, you know, really contagious and fun,” Kiourkas says. 

Phoenix comic and close friend Rob Maebe has seen Bowling develop from the very beginning. 

“It’s hard to explain, he has this personality onstage that is definitely him offstage but to a higher degree where it’s like, (he’s) awkward and uncomfortable but in the most confident way possible,” Maebe explains.

It’s an endearing quality that Maebe believes comes from Bowling starting his career so young when he genuinely felt that way, now he still does but the confidence from all of his reps onstage makes it all the more manageable. 

“He was awkward and uncomfortable, and as time went on he evolved it but he was more confident in what he was doing,” Maebe says.

A dive into Bowling’s performances on YouTube showcases an ever evolving comedic perspective that can only get more refined with time. Starting so young has been both a challenge and benefit that has given him room for reinvention along the way. When he was younger, Bowling opted to showcase another talent of his onstage, rapping. Now his rap alter ego “Baby Boy” that once wowed Kill Tony audiences is on the back burner. 

When Bowling thinks about rapping in his sets today, he feels embarrassed. But he admits, it’s still fun. 

It all comes with developing into a performer from a young age, something that Phoenix comic, Bubba McComb, feels is an advantage that has shone through in Bowling’s writing process.

“Most people that start stand-up start in their twenties, I started later in my twenties. And when I started writing and thinking about comedy, it came from my current perspective as an adult,” McComb explains. “So I would have to look back, and reinterpret things that happened when I was young. But Tristan started when he was young, so that perspective was active while he was writing his material. There’s nothing to look back to.”

Finding material doesn’t seem difficult for Bowling. He’s already found a rhythm delivering new one minute bits for all of his Kill Tony appearances. A feat that host Tony Hinchcliffe is impressed with and has reiterated to audiences that it makes him primed for great success. 

“This is one of those art forms where you’ll always get better and the fact that you are as good as you are and you make doing a minute look extremely easy on this show, I just absolutely can’t wait to see what you end up being,” Hinchcliffe said on Kill Tony in 2019. 

Before officially picking up the mic at the age of 16, Bowling had talked a lot about pursuing comedy with his parents. But as kids often do, he fantasized about it without taking concrete steps to make it reality. Throughout his career and from the first moment he stepped onstage his father, Brad, has pushed him to stay focused. 

“We talked and talked about it, it was to the point where I was like, ‘Well you need to do something about it,’” Brad says. “’You call some places and find a place where they’ll accept you because you’re underage. Talk to the manager, let me know where it is and I’ll take you.’”

His family was all-onboard, and on Thursday nights they would meet up in Scottsdale to watch him perform. Parental support is unconventional in a career decision often taken as seriously as the comics themselves. But for Brad, supporting his son’s dream was a no-brainer. 

“When he talks to other comedians that are like, ‘Your parents were supportive?’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah they were great,’ And I was just like, Why wouldn’t you be supportive, though?” Brad says. He’s doing something super cool that not many people in this world can do. And it’s so freaking important. Like to me, comedy is so important. Especially now, there are so many reasons to divide people and comedy is so under fire right now.”

Bowling has felt society’s discourse around comedy change too. As many comics navigate the waters of political correctness and bloggers with a hunger for outrage driven clicks, Bowling still wants to steer his ship where he pleases. He can worry about it but he’ll warn the crowd, “If you try to cancel me … I literally only have $150. You can’t take much!”

Phoenix comic Bryan Ricci, a feature act at Bowling’s Annie Lederman show, knows Bowling has a strong foundation of success that he can only build on from here.

“He’s done things to this point now where he has concrete evidence of success that he’s had to be confident about. It’s one thing to tell someone to be confident, when they haven’t done it well yet, or accomplished anything. And he has so much more to accomplish,” Ricci says.

Twenty-four isn’t old for most stand-up comics, but with seven and a half years under his belt in the scene, Bowling’s become a fixture. Fellow comics and fans will miss him of course.

But not without a parting shot.

On a Thursday night in September at Casey’s Woodshed Bar in Tempe, fellow comics take their turns roasting the room. It’s called “Working the Crowd Night.” Word travels around the room of Bowling’s big move and later in the evening he reassures me that he’ll be “zooming” back to the valley every month. Onstage in a moment of reflection during his set, Bowling remarks, “This is crowd work, apparently.”

A heckler strikes back.

“It’s not workin’ though.”

With his signature voice crack he resorts to his higher register, “It’s workin’…I’m… doing my best.”

They strike again.

“Not New York best.” 

But he’s heard it all before, and he knows how to handle his future.

“Not my New York best? Shut the fuck up! What are you? My inner monologue?”