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Have you ever thought about how there’s no good word in the English language for nonbinary folks to use that’s equivalent to “Daddy”? Like…in bed.
No? Well…Joe John Sanchez III has. The Portland comedian once posed this question to someone at a bar, and the best alternative they could come up with was “parent/guardian” (we know…appalling).
But luckily, after Sanchez, 38, posted a video of themself telling this story at Helium Comedy Club, people in their Instagram comments had a lot of superior suggestions, including “Captain,” “Yes, chef,” and “Your Majesty.” A few even rebuffed Sanchez’s claim, citing the wise Pedro Pascal, who once said that “Daddy is a state of mind.”
As silly as Sanchez’s joke was, it clearly opened up a conversation among the queer community. Which, ultimately, is the goal of their “unapologetically queer” comedic style.
“I don’t wanna be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m saving the world, but…,” Sanchez jokes of the Daddy debate.
In many ways, Sanchez is just like us. They post photo dumps on Instagram. They saw Barbie. They get really cold. They think Portland winter is “um, disgusting,” as is made clear by the title of their Portland tour “John vs. Winter.” They laugh self-deprecatingly when we refer to their Portland shows as a “tour.”
Yet Sanchez—who produces and hosts the comedy shows Defiant Joy and Fluid Comedy—does everything in their own unique and very unserious way. Their IG photo dumps, for example, occur daily and adhere to a monthly theme.
“The daily posts started during Pride Month in 2022,” Sanchez says. “And I just had so much fun doing them that I continued them into July, which I called ‘Shame Month.’” Other recent eras include: “Sexy Grinch Month,” “Haunted (but in a Cute Way),” and “No More Drama Month.” And we’re currently in “Innocent Mess Month,” if you’re curious.
Sanchez, who used to work in social media, is very aware that their posting strategy, or lack thereof, is “not smart” and “not going to deliver numbers every time.” But they don’t care. Their approach to social media—which they like to call “raging against the algorithm”—is just as silly and delightful as their standup.
“I do kind of try to emphasize what’s unique about me and my thought process versus trying to be ‘relatable’ in a very obvious way, which I think is an approach that a lot of people take, and obviously it works,” Sanchez says. “But I just want to speak for all of the little freaks in the world.”
Though Sanchez points to broad comedy legends like Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Jim Carrey as early influences, it was divine intervention that led them down this career path. Divine intervention in the form of Saturday Night Live’s Bowen Yang, that is.
After having met some queer comedians in New York via a RuPaul’s Drag Race online discussion group, Sanchez, who’s originally from the East Coast, traveled to NYC to see Yang and Matt Rogers’ tour of “I Don’t Think So, Honey! Live.” The next stop on their tour was in Seattle, where Sanchez had just moved from at the time.
“So, I talked to Bowen after the show, and I said to him, ‘Why are you coming to Seattle? I’m funnier than most people in Seattle,’” Sanchez says. “And he looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘Oh, then you should sign up for the show.’ I was like, ‘Oh, no no no, I don’t do comedy, I couldn’t do that.’ [But] it planted this seed in my head, [of] like, ‘Oh, but I wish I could do that.’”
Some time later, when Sanchez moved to Wenatchee, Wash., they did. After a couple instances of merely lurking and watching in the background, they decided to try their hand at a small, mixed open mic.
“By the third time, I’m like, ‘Well, the stakes are pretty low here, I might as well give this a try,’” Sanchez says. “And it just became something that I kept on doing.”
Now, Sanchez has made a life for themself among Portland’s comedy world. In addition to producing shows and performing their own standup, they are currently working on their new variety show called Exquisite Nonsense, which they hope will “prioritize variety, by incorporating poetry, clowning, live music, storytelling…and drag, of course.”
Above all else, Sanchez’s comedy is motivated by joy, silliness, unapologetic queerness and, of course, Bowen Yang. Their staunch unrelatability is somehow relatable, not to mention charming and refreshing.
“Even if a show didn’t go well,” Sanchez says, “if one person came up to me and told me, like, ‘Hey, that joke really meant something to me, or really made me laugh,’ that’s more of a win than an entire room of people.”
Funniest Thing They’ve Seen in Portland: “When I first moved to Portland, I became obsessed with a sign outside of a strip club that said ‘COLD BEE HOT GIRLS.’ Reasonably, I knew the R fell off, but I could not get the visual out of my head of a bunch of gyrating women and a poor guy in a bee costume shivering in the corner. It was one of the first things I talked about at a Portland open mic.”