Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents

Casey James Salengo approaches growing up poor with the weary pragmatism of someone who learned early not to expect much. His best bit treats his mother’s revolving door of boyfriends (men with names like Ace, Haggy, and Scutty) as an ongoing cattle call of mediocre talent, with eight-year-old Salengo acting like an exhausted casting agent telling them to hit the bricks.

He keeps the rhythm loose and conversational, never pushing harder than the material requires.

The set was taped at the Civic Theatre in New Orleans for Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents, the network’s showcase formerly known as The Half Hour. Salengo entered the taping in the middle of a breakout 2017, having made his network late-night debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live just weeks earlier.

The rest of the time goes to small indignities and domestic panic. He breaks down the hostile specificity of dating profiles and offers a reliable test for smoking too much weed: holding your hands under a manual sink faucet, waiting for a sensor that is not there.