Carl Rimi is originally from Weston, Florida. He was a jock in high school, went to college in Nova and majored in Oceanography. He has performed on Cruise Ships. He consistently performs at the Improv and he had been seen on Comedy Central, CBS, the Las Vegas Comedy Festival. He is also an actor and obtained roles in “Love and Hostages”, “Smothered by Mothers” and “Evil Intentions”.

What motivated you to start doing stand-up comedy?

I initially tried out acting & modeling, but at 24 my friend backed out of an open mic at “Boca Nuts” so I ended up taking his place and performing a week later.

What type of comedians do you enjoy watching?

I don’t really watch comedy now, but when I was growing up I enjoyed watching underground/unknown comics.

If you can have anyone over for dinner (alive or dead) who would it be & what would you serve them?

I would have Elvis Presley over for dinner and would serve him a peanut butter & banana sandwich. Growing up I wanted to be the next Elvis Presley, an actor or a model, but since that wasn’t an option at that time I resorted to stand-up comedy.

Who would you want to play you in a movie?

Me, because I am a really good actor.

What don’t you like about comedy?

The politics of it. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you are funny or not. It comes down to who you know & who the popular people are. Sometimes the club owners will book people that they like.

If I was a genie & I granted you 3 wishes; what would they be?

1) Take care of my family.

2) Make enough money to live off acting & comedy.

3) Stay healthy

On the occasion that you find time to eat; what types of food do you enjoy eating?

I eat healthy; mostly egg whites, chicken and salad.

Tell me more about your acting career?

Love & Hostages is my first big role in a featured film. I also obtained small roles in the film “Smothered by Mothers” and I have another role in “Evil Intentions”.

What advice would you give to new comics that are starting out?

Write as clean as possible & morph into your own voice. You won’t have a voice until around 5 years. It takes a lot of time to get good. You have to go in a 100% in order to have a shot. When I first started doing stand-up that was all that I thought about night and day. You will also most likely go broke starting out. I sacrificed my job as a bartender to take less money working days at a Cracker Barrel so that I was able to devote more time to doing stand-up at nights. Also don’t have a girlfriend until she thinks that you are very funny and is willing to go to all of your shows.

What is it about you that makes you so awesome?

I work hard & I am still working hard, because you always have to put the work in in order to get better.

Here is something that you don’t know about me. I was so girl crazy, desired to improve my coordination and wanted to get an athletic advantage that when I was in high school I enrolled in a ballet course….The class started out great. I felt as if I was in heaven being 1 guy with 12 women. Once my teacher told me there was going to be spring recital where I would be performing in front of roughly a thousand people in leotards and those pretty pink girly shoes I changed my tune quickly…or smartened up and dropped the course like a bad habit. On the plus side my locker for the rest of my senior year was in between two dancers.

I realize that a lot of people smoke weed. Especially 99.5% of the comedic population, but I am strongly against it. This is just an opinion, but I can’t stand the smell of it. It’s smell is so putrid that it makes rotten eggs smell like rose water. It also had a negative impact on a childhood friend. He was bright, personable and had the whole world ahead of him. Once he caved into smoking weed his grades plummeted, he became moody and he had about as much motivation as a rock (And I am not talking about the wrestler either). I also desire to be in control of my surroundings at all times and people that smoke up tend to get in a daze and lose control of reality. I have nothing against people that do this, but it’s not for me.

I ended up wanting to be a clean comic as I welcome the challenge of being able generate a laugh without having to curse or use sexuality and my jokes are tailored towards an intelligent crowd that is fluent in sarcasm. I especially enjoy watching one liner comics, because long winded stories put me to sleep. At first I wasn’t actively seeking to become a comedian. Rather it happened organically. I always enjoyed watching comedy (Especially movies with Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell in them) and in my teens every time that I was in a movie theater I would watch movies where the actor had a cerebral, witty and sarcastic type of humor. My favorite actor was Vince Vaughn. Vince already knew that he was funny and he didn’t have to force it. It amazed me how he was able to get a laugh without trying. When I first moved down to Miami I was lonely, had trouble meeting women and I wanted to sharpen my fast thinking skills so I ended up trying out an Improv group in Plantation called “Got You Laughing” led by Kim Clark. That instantly got me hooked to Improv and afterwards I tried out Gerald Owen’s Improv comedy workshops in North Miami. Doing Improv was fun, but I still felt that I was missing something from my life. My friend Teresa in Toastmasters encouraged me to try out for a humorous speech contest, but I didn’t think that I was that funny. I finally took the plunge, because I thought that “You know what I will try it out; what is the worst that could happen”. The worst that could happen was that I ended up advancing in the third level (Division) level of the contest and I placed 2^nd. At that point I was still cynical of my abilities to make people laugh thinking that Theresa paid the hundreds of people in the audience to laugh at my punchlines. There was a point where I was also working a job as a server and I noticed that I started developing lines that I was able to use to instantly make my customers laugh and women started paying more attention to me which caused me to get more as a tip and to develop a small following of regulars. At that point I realized that I needed to take the plunge and dive into comedy.