When Jakub, a graduate puppeteer, had to choose between playing theater for children in kindergarten and talking on stage, he chose the stage. Thanks to that, he is now a successful stand-up comedian, which you can see in the slovakian show Silné reči. In addition, he is the co-creator of the podcast Lužifčák, moderator, quiz master and theater actor. Twenty years ago, Kubo began skateboarding, and then putting Horsefeathers posters on the walls. He has remained skateboarding until now and has also become our ambassador. And he considers this his fulfilled teenage dream. Find out more about him in the following interview!
Hi Jakub, first of all, thank you for accepting the invitation to this interview.
Hi, hello the whole internet and anyone who reads this. Thank you for inviting me and I look forward to you finally answering the question I have for you. Why am I your ambassador? I love you extremely, but I think you can do better :D You sponsor all the best snowboarders, the best people and you have as a ambassador some semi-fat comedian who goes to the forest to collect mushrooms at most. I'm just saying that a mistake must have happened somewhere. Why am I the Horsefeathers ambassador?
There is a simple answer to this: because you have it in you. Our claim It's in your DNA I think best describes it. Horsefeathers riders, ambassadors, family or whatever you want to call it, they are not just about top snowboarders, skateboarders or well-known names, we are guided by the fact that you have the Horsefeathers DNA in you, and you do have it. You do things your way, skateboard and have a feel for the lifestyle that we have.
I'm still trying to do skateboarding, but thirty-two year old legs are something completely different than when we were 16-17 years old. It hurts now. I remember used to be skateboarding all day and nothing hurt. I had bruises, I fell, but nothing ever hurt. Now I fall twice in the park and actually "gobble" for a hip or something similar for two days. But I am really grateful to you, because you have basically fulfilled my big dream. When we were young and started with skateboarding, such sponsorship was an unattainable thing. As little kids, we used to put posters on the walls. I specifically had two companies that I put there, skateboard posters from DC and snowboard posters from Horsefeathers. I had a wallpapered room with them. So I basically fulfilled my poster dream. Although in a tricky way and not at all as one would expect, but the fact that it came true for me was one of the greatest mental trips I have experienced this year.
Your 16 year old self must be totally excited somewhere inside.
Let's be honest, my 16 year old self is now taking those posters off the wall and secretly going to masturbate somewhere in the corner. Let's face it, it's like that. Thank you very much for your support. But at the same time, I feel a certain responsibility for this ambassador's thing, but I don't really know what to do. I just keep going outside the way I did, but luckily I don't feel extra bad about it, because I really do use those things. I've always used it properly. For example, I have had one Horsefeathers belt for the last 5 years. One single Horsefeathers belt, which has now been replaced with another, the same one, only in black. I still haven't opened it because I have some remorses about it.I never knew I would be a man with two belts. Well, long before the ambassadoring, I had and still have only two jeans, blue Horsefeathers jeans and the same black Horsefeathers jeans. I wear black for decent events and when the blue ones get dirty. And I have them for years. In fact, I am completely satisfied with this, because it is quite easy to stay morally clean if you are ambassadoring a company that does extremely good and long-lasting things. Because I know that if I ask you for a pants, I will be using them for the next two years. Because they will last. Otherwise, those jeans don't even burn.
Did you try it?
Yes, I say everywhere that jeans don't burn. And Horsefeathers jeans are one of the few that have really withstood this test. I tell everyone that jeans don't burn, that's why they invented them for cowboys, and everyone thinks it's bullshit, that I should prove it. And quite a few times, when I lit the jeans, they started burning. But not yours.
Haha, we're glad to hear the jeans pass the test. And also about what you said about the quality and durability of our clothing, especially when we have been dealing with eco solutions for quite some time.
Yes, the eco side is also a very important issue. For example, I have my own merchandise for Lužifčák, and sometimes I get dizzy from how cheaply clothes can be made. I know that if someone offers you a T-shirt in the basic amount for 1.90 Euros, it just can't be good. Behind that T-shirt, the lucky story is almost at no level. So yes, that's a very big thing for me too.
Okay, let's get back to you now. You are a stand-up comedian, moderator, quizmaster, co-creator of a successful podcast, actor and graduate puppet actor. What do you enjoy the most?
I studied musical acting with singing and dancing, but I must admit that I was not as excellent dancer as might be expected, haha. At university, I studied puppetry, which I really enjoy so far, and I've been doing it for a long time. My normal job right after college was to get up at 5 in the morning, load a van and go play an hour of puppet shows for kindergarten children. I played in around 3-4 kindergartens like this daily. And that was a great thing. But then I started doing stand-ups and it started to mix up too much. It is very difficult to come home from the stand-up at 4 at night, let's say from Žilina, and get up at half past five to go to perform in kindergarten. I dragged it like this for about a year, until I was too tired of it and I said to myself that I had to choose just one thing. So that I could sleep and so on. I chose stand-up, because once you try stand-up, you don't want to do anything else.
What is the best thing about stand-up?
It is complete freedom. I have never experienced such freedom anywhere in my life. At all. In the theater, you have a text written by a dead author and the director and playwright prepared it for you, and there are about 70 opinions on how you should play it. Plus the same character was played by 10,000 actors before of you, it's a collective work. During stand-up, I come up with something, think it over, direct it, I play it myself, and for the first time, people actually see it on the stage. It's just like on a skateboard or on a snowboard. The bigger the rail, the bigger the adrenaline, the bigger the adrenaline, the bigger the reward when you land it. The stand-up is exactly the same. The bigger the rush, the bigger your hype is that you did well. Or it hurts even more when you fall on your face. And you fall often. This is also very similar to skateboarding. You have to try it many times before you land those tricks, haha.
What percentage would you say your stand-ups are about preparation and what percentage is improvisation?
I improvise a lot. People also characterize me as someone who improvises a lot and that my act is created on stage. But just because I don't write things down in advance doesn't mean I'm not preparing. I would be lying if I said that I was only improvising, because the only difference is that some comedians write sentences on paper and then say them, and some comedians like me or Tomáš Hudák don't write it down, but we still talk about it all over in our heads. You're still thinking about it. You can cook, you can stroll, you can park, but somewhere in the back of your head you're still thinking about those sentences. About the possibilities. So in my opinion I improvise a lot and so it's right that I'm in this category, but there is not much chance of saying things that I wasn't thinking about, because before you are really on the stage, you're on it all day. Wondering what happens if a guy jumps up to me and pour a beer on me now, what would I do if I'm in a sentence and a guy jumps up to me, or if I talk about this and the lady coughs in the corner, will I be able to get back to the idea? That's actually it. You're preparing for the battle. When you're ready to fight, nothing will surprise you, even if you're improvising. You are not doing exactly a rehearsed series of cuts and punches, you don't go karate kata.
Do you have any fun stories from stand-ups or some bizarre things that happened to you?
For example, when we were joking about the presidential candidate Harabin, who was such an older gentleman who believed in tens thousands of immigrants heading to Slovakia in train sets. Before the election, it happened that I threw a joke at his address and a lady in her 70s stood up and came to the stage to show us a middle finger.
Or you have a group of obvious ĽSNS voters on stand-up, who sit at one table and look like a carton of eggs. All bald. You could say someone's going to make an omelette there, haha. And my favorite joke is: What cream does a fascist use for hemorrhoids? - Mazurekt. And that actually affected them. The guy jumped out, and shouted: I am going to beat you! And said: It's fine, you can obviously beat me. We are all fully aware that you can beat me. But it never really happened. In the club. Outside, while smoking, it has happened to me a few times that it was too close. But these are things you have to expect. If you go out somewhere live and make fun live, it's a normal thing. It's bad when someone actually beat you up, but we're human and I totally understand. We are all very simple monkeys. If someone offends your buddy and you can't find the sentences for it, you just stretch your muscles and do grrrrr. We are just the same mammals. In this sense, we are very simple.
Have you already been in a fight for something you said in your stand-up? Or at least did someone slap you?
Not in a fight, but there was some pushing. And I receive a slap. And maybe even some stronger fist to the shoulder. But not the real fight yet. In my opinion, people who want to physically prove that they are stronger than you, it is enough to show them that they really are. Mostly as a comedian, you have empathy trained in such situations, and for me there is nothing better than finding a common joke then. It's alright. You can predict.
Okay let's change the subject a bit now. I registered that you and your wife Ivka are moving right now. How it is going?
We are currently remaking the apartment and the architect made us a beautiful design. There will be an exposed brick wall, an exposed concrete beam, wooden cladding, clean lines, minimalism. Basically, I expect that as soon as it's done, some bearded hipster will come there, place there his bike and order coffee, haha. It will be nice. We are currently living at Ján Gordulič's apartment, he is my friend from Silné rečí, alias the leader of Silné rečí a.k.a papa of stand-up comedy. We are in one of his apartments of Airbnb passive income empire. But for at least another two months, we will be in such very special conditions.
You and your wife have a luzinovci_na_tripe account on social media. Who initiated it, who invents and plans these trips?
All these answers have a common name, my wife Ivka. She's a great planner, a explorer, and I'm such a classic grump that never wants to go anywhere, and then I'm always very happy to be there. Every single time. And this applies even now with these small weekend trips. I never want to go, I never want to do anything, but it's probably the best way how to stay mentally healthy and sane. So yes, we go on such good 6-7-8 hour hikes every weekend. Ivka really enjoys all the photographying and blogging. She even cares about the right times to post, watches audiences, targeted ads, and so on. It's one of the terrible cosmic injustices that my amazing lady, who just knows so much about it and really takes it seriously and enjoys it, has ten times fewer followers than I do. I put just jokes on social media and take pictures of my food. But the quality and visual content is lousy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this, people, thank you for your support, but the universe, if you listen to this, you're unfair to my wife and anyone who takes it more seriously than I do.
Do you have any favorite pieces from the HF stuff you got?
I still prefer my Horsefeathers belt. Leather one with steel buckle. That's what a real belt should look like! In my opinion, it is the best of the best. And also the jeans, that I already mentioned. From the things I just got, it's a winter jacket. And that is nonsense in a good way. During the winter I wore just a T-shirt and that jacket. But I'm already looking forward to summer. This summer, for the first time in my life, I might have a summer pants. It was explained to me, that there are also pants made of other materials, other than the thickest denim. And maybe this year I will even venture to have short pants. Although I still have the theory that an adult man should not wear shorts above the knee. Then you basically wear trunks. It's sick. Who wants to look at a man's knee on the street? Hairy bony ugly man's knee. You wear short pants in kindergarten and school, not as an adult man. But I might try some short pants with the lenght just below the knee. The reasonable male length.
Kubo do you have anything you would like to add at the end?
I would like to thank Horsefeathers very much. For being here from the beginning, from the time of Board magazine. Because a lot of things have started and now we don't hear much about them anymore. After all, there are ideas and then life happens and it doesn't always correlate. And to other people: be careful, love each other and don't be mean on the internet. This is a very cool thing, although there will definitely be 20 comments below, about who is this useless guy with a gay's voice. But if it helps you, alright dude, go ahead, write it down, you'll be relieved. But be good to people, wash your hands and love each other! I'm sure that there is someone who loves you and someone that you love. So why not focus on this very simple and affordable commodity at this bad time. Just love each other! Bye.
Jakub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kuboluzina/
Jakub with his wife Ivka on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luzinovci_na_tripe/
JAKUB'S FAVOURITE PRODUCTS
