12 August 28 - september 3, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents special (which was filmed at the Kessler Theater), a role as a host on an HBO comedy special and a guest spot on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “He was the perfect dude at the perfect time,” Martinez says. “It was the first time that Latinos of that generation could look on the stage and point and be like, ‘that’s us right there.’” Barbosa is in the midst of a nationwide tour, with upcoming dates in Chicago, San Antonio and a two-night stand in New York City. He’s bringing along fellow Dallas local Jesus Castillo as his opener, who primarily performs in English. “I started because I felt like I wasn’t good at anything,” Castillo says. “I finally found some- thing I was good at, and that I could be great at. It’s like you get obsessed over it. You want to keep on trying it and trying it, even if you fail. If you fail at your job, you’re going to get fired. With this, you can’t get fired because you’re on your own. If you really want to do that, you’ll do it. I think that was my fire.” Castillo’s fire has never burned higher than it has right now. Thanks to his dates with Barbosa, he’s just transitioned to be- come a full-time comedian, something that most comedians will never get to do. Though popular for his stand-up in English, Castillo does have some experience with Spanish comedy, including an opening spot for Mexican comedian Carlos Ballarta. “I just did open mics and random shows,” Castillo says of his Spanish comedy. “Espe- cially with this guy. His name is Roberto Silva. He goes by ‘Monky.’” Roberto “Monky” Silva is sitting inside his Frisco podcast studio when he’s forced to recall the origin of his nickname for the umpteenth time. He says that it was a nick- name given to him by a friend in high school after drawing him as a cartoon that looked like a monkey. He hated it at first, especially when it stuck, but eventually it became un- deniable. By college, Silva was introducing himself to people with the moniker, which he now appreciates for being easy to remember. He’s particularly grown into being introduced as Roberto “Monky” Silva at comedy clubs be- cause, as he quips, “Roberto Silva” sounds like a baseball player. He’s one of the biggest advocates for Spanish-speaking comedy and has fash- ioned himself into a leader in the under- ground scene in Dallas, organizing barnstorming comedy events that truly champion Latin comics. For his part, Silva looks to Bad Bunny’s infectious Latin pride for inspiration for his mission with his own craft. “He’s doing his thing in Spanish, and he doesn’t care,” Silva says. “Don’t understand? You need to find a way. People started sing- ing his songs in Japan.” Over a nearly hour-long conversation, Silva never gets more animated than when talking about the Puerto Rican musician. His tight pro wrestling shirt strains at his chest as he stirs a black coffee noticeably faster — the Japan line caused him to pound on his podcast desk with glee. It makes sense. One of the biggest artists in the entire world is a Latino, Spanish- speaking artist who refuses to compromise or dilute his culture for success, and it’s pay- ing off. For somebody like Silva, it’s the ulti- mate dream. Silva first started chasing it during the pandemic, when the shutdown of comedy clubs forced comedians to try to connect with audiences online. Silva organized a virtual stand-up variety show, where a ro- tating lineup of Spanish-speaking comedi- ans would join his livestream (first on Instagram, then on Facebook) to perform a short set. Of course, the virtual disconnect made for a much different comedy experience, but the optics weren’t a total curveball to Silva, who was still operating from a revelation he made years prior. “When I started, I always thought a com- edy show needs to be in a comedy club,” Silva says. “Big. Everyone’s silent. All the seats. All the lights. But I performed in New York in a basement, there were four people going to the show, and 11 comedians. No stage, no nothing. Just a couple of seats, more comedi- ans than crowd. I performed there and I said, ‘Wow, comedy is so simple.’” These days, he’s pushing simplicity to the limit. He operates a makeshift comedy club out of the unused upstairs of Mariscos La Reyna, a seafood restaurant in Grand Prairie. The DIY show is in collaboration with fellow comedian and animal-nick- name-haver, Fernando “Panda” Chacon. The events are called the “Monky and Panda Zoo Comedy Show,” and cast a wide net when booking. A Puerto Rican himself, Silva’s regulars include Castillo, who is originally from Mexico, and Venezuelan comic Jepherson Guevera. For Sifuentes, laughing offers a universal tongue to honor this Latino diaspora. “You go to New York or you go to Califor- nia, people talk different,” Sifuentes ex- plains. “Imagine that, but with countries. Mexicans speak a completely different Spanish than Puerto Ricans or even Venezu- elans. So imagine making people who speak different ways laugh. When you do, you know, it’s funny.” Latino comic CAIN Patrick says that Dal- las is “top five in the country” for joke-writ- ing amongst its comedians. “I think people in Dallas actually care about writing,” Patrick says. “If you go down to Austin, a lot of people, their writing is all based on shock value. Who can say the most offensive thing? Who can say the most shocking thing? It’s not even really about telling jokes.” Austin comes up a lot in our conversa- tions with the local Latino comedians. Over the last five years, especially, our fellow Tex- ans in the state’s capital have found them- selves at the epicenter of a massive influx of contemporary comedians, podcasters and influencers. It’s a massive migration, spurred, in large part, by Joe Rogan’s reloca- tion to the city and subsequent opening of his own club, Comedy Mothership. “I like where Dallas is,” Patrick says. “Not getting the same amount of attention, be- cause you don’t want it to become oversatu- rated. I feel like that’s the problem that happened with Austin. It had so many eyes on it, everyone felt they had to move there to make something happen. And that’s when you get a scene that has over 1,000 people and has no spots for those people.” On Monday nights at the Comedy Moth- ership, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe hosts a weekly stand-up variety show called Kill Tony. The show allows local comics to place their name into a bucket for the chance to be pulled onstage and perform a minute-long stand-up set before a panel of judges, a small audience and millions of viewers on YouTube each week. Hinch- cliffe remains a controversial figure, specif- ically when it comes to comments about the Latino community, such as at a rally for President Donald Trump, where he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Regardless, his namesake show has swelled into one of the most popular programs in the country and a launching pad for young stand-up comedians. On episode 686 of Kill Tony, Sifuentes heard his name called and was led on stage. Ironically, his minute-long set began with a joke about being bilingual. “It was all right,” Sifuentes says of his ap- pearance. “It wasn’t good for my standard, for what I’m used to doing. I messed up the joke. I was nervous.” As for Hinchcliffe’s comments, Sifuentes isn’t forgiving, but seems to see the bigger picture in what the show can do for comedi- ans, regardless of Hinchcliffe. “Here we have ‘son of a bitch,’ in Puerto Rico it’s ‘mamabicho,’” Sifuentes says. “It wasn’t a nice thing to say, but at the end of the day I would be a hypocrite if I were to shame someone for something they said on stage. I’ve said some dumb shit before and I’ve grown from it. The people he’s given op- portunities to, especially black and Latino comedians, it’s changed their whole life. It does more good for the comedian than it does bad.” Today, the episode has amassed 3.1 mil- lion views. Sifuentes says he didn’t expect to be pulled, obviously, but also sat through four other full nights of the show without ever hearing his name called. Cold feet at open mics are more normal than you’d expect, especially when Marti- nez first tried his hand at stand-up. “I would go to Backdoor Comedy Club, and I would sign up and leave,” Martinez says. “I still didn’t know how to write a joke or anything, and I didn’t really have any friends in the scene. So I would sign up, get real drunk, and then, ‘I’m out of here.’ I would just get drunk and scared, and then I would bail.” At 29, Martinez finally made it onstage. “I actually got a couple of laughs that first time,” Martinez recalls. “And then I didn’t get a laugh again for a year.” The jokes at that first open mic were filled with what Martinez now describes as “bluey, dark material,” which he’s since grown out of. Now a seasoned performer for 14 years, Martinez doesn’t perform in Span- ish, saying he has “enough trouble being funny in English,” and calls English his pre- dominant language, even though it was his second. “It was like two lives,” Martinez says. “Your English life at school and your Span- ish life at home.” Martinez describes himself as “white passing,” based on his complexion, and says that he doesn’t feel he’s been at any disad- vantage in clubs because of his ethnicity. “Before you hear me talk, you’d be like, ‘Oh this white motherfucker,’” Martinez says. “But I’m a child of immigrants.” Regardless, the ethnic divide at comedy clubs was always clear to Martinez, even when he was just signing up to run off be- fore his name was called. “When I first started, it was just black rooms or white rooms or a club room,” Mar- tinez says. “Now it’s like there is a space where Latinos can get together, laugh to- gether and have community together in a comedy space, which was not something I saw 14 years ago at all.” The culture shift has been overwhelming enough to no longer go unnoticed. Lilli Lo- pez has experience as an improv, sketch and theater actor, all of which she says were a Kathy Tran Hector Sifantes first tried stand-up comedy at an open mic when he was 18. Culture from p10
