SOLOMON GEORGIO This man killed on Conan last night!
SOLOMON GEORGIO This man killed on Conan last night!

Solomon Georgio is the formerly Seattle-based comedian so hilarious he twice took top honors at the Stranger Gong Show, so insightful The Stranger commissioned him to write numerous essays, and so good he eventually had to leave Seattle for the pro-comedy hub of LA. Last night, Georgio made his late-night TV debut on Conan, with a seriously funny set you can watch below. (Among the discussed topics: his name, his gayness, and Disneyfied genocide.) This morning I phoned Georgio in LA, to grill him on specifics on his Conan journey and the morning after...

Good morning! How are you? Where does this find you?
I'm in my apartment, still in my pajamas, and I am good!

How did this whole Conan experience come about? Was there an audition?
There wasn't an audition. I was doing a set at Meltdown, which is a popular weekly show in LA, and it just so happened that the booker for Conan was there. As he told me later, he was in the bathroom when I was onstage and heard the audience reaction and ran back out to check out my set. He didn't say anything to me that night, he just spoke to the show runner and got my email address, and the next day he sent me an email asking me to work on a potential Conan set.

What does working on a potential Conan set entail?
We started back in October, and I submitted the set the booker had seen along with a bunch of other material. Over the past few months, we've gone back and forth about jokes he liked, and suggestions for running order. He was very supportive, he didn't force anything on me, he basically just told me the jokes he liked, but made sure I knew I was free to do whatever I wanted. He's the reason the Pocahontas bit got on, because he was the bigger advocate of it. I actually hadn't done it for a year, and he was like, "Do that one!"

Was there ever any question of you mentioning your gayness?
Not even a little bit and there never will be. I've worked my ass off my whole life, and I've been openly gay most of that time, and I'm not going to let anyone take that away. If my career gets stunted, too bad. I still have a great life and I get to do something I love.

What was the most surprising element of your Conan experience?
After the show, Adam Sandler popped into the green room to say I had a great set. That was a giant compliment.

What's next?
I'm still waiting tables, I do standup sets at least four nights a week, and I just got a writing gig working on a small thing that will hopefully become bigger. At the moment, it's all pretty wonderful. I get to perform, and I get to hang out with wonderful human beings. The LA comedy scene is so phenomenal and so supportive and packed with people from all over the country and it's bananas.