I Can't Make This Up

My eyes got watery as she spoke those words. But then her expression changed, and the mom-hammer came down: “But you’ve got one year to be productive and figure out how to take care of yourself this way. And if you can’t, you’re going back to school.”

Some people hate deadlines, but deadlines are motivation to get things done. My mom’s support, along with that deadline, made me more determined to find another way to make a living with laughter. A few days later, my mom handed me a check for the next month’s rent. She wanted just one thing in exchange for her support: She handed me a Bible and asked that I read it, since I wasn’t going to church with her anymore.

I stopped by the Laff House that night and told TuRae that I’d left my job, had no income anymore, and didn’t know what to do.

“It’s not just the money,” I explained. “I need to perform more so I can get better.”

“That’s good that you want to do that. The best way to become better is through stage time.”

“How do you get that?”

“You can roll with me for a little while and see how it works.”

It was his third offer, and this time I was able to say yes.

Besides talent and timing, success is also about work and relationships. Rolling with TuRae was the first comedy relationship I built, and he quickly became a mentor.

When TuRae said “stage time,” I imagined we’d be driving to comedy clubs all over the East Coast. But he was inventing his own spots in Philadelphia, so some of those stages were just the corner hamburger restaurant or a small student center. TuRae had become the comedy king of Philadelphia by doing this. He was always looking out for new places to start a comedy night.

The first room he took me to was a bowling alley, and he put me on first. No one was paying attention. At the end of a joke, instead of hearing laughter, I’d hear: Crack! “STRIKE!”

“Whenever you can get ahold of a microphone and be around people, it’s an opportunity to hone your act,” TuRae told me that night, after I expressed my disappointment. “So never turn down those moments.”



* * *



For months, no one on the scene knew my name. They’d just say to TuRae, “Hey, who’s the new guy with you?” And TuRae would respond, “He’s actually funny. I’m showing him around the scene.”

After I performed in the smaller rooms for a couple of weeks, TuRae let me do a guest spot on a weekend show at the Laff House. A guest spot was just five minutes of stage time to add variety and keep the audience warm between more polished comedians, but to me it was a big deal. Surprisingly, it was easier than an open mic. The house was packed with an audience paying to have a good time; none of them were friends with the comedians. And only the best comedians were performing. The room was buzzing with energy, and the audience was warmed up and ready to laugh. I went on stage that night and killed like I’d never killed before.

My mom had tried to keep me away from the violence of the streets, but here I was trying to kill on stage, destroy the room, murder the audience, crack people up, and bust guts open. To this day, I still don’t know why comedy is described in such violent terms. Even if you don’t do well on stage, it’s not called failing or sucking. It’s called bombing.

I’m surprised the government’s wiretapping programs haven’t sent a lot of innocent comedians to Guantánamo:

“You going to the club?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna kill there.”

“I’ll probably bomb.”

Whenever I wasn’t on stage, I was working on my Lil’ Kev the Bastard persona, trying to create the best, most fun, most high-energy five minutes that I could possibly perform.

I found that if I amplified the character of Lil’ Kev, anything he said could be funny. I’d say, “You ever take a bite out of a potato for no reason? Then you look up and go, ‘What happened to that potato?’?” Everyone would laugh because my eyes would be bugged out and my voice high-pitched. I’d dance for no reason at all, yell at the DJ, or say whatever nonsense came to my mind.

As I grew more comfortable with the character, people on the scene started to notice. “Man, the new guy’s getting good. This kid got potential.”

They weren’t saying this because I was a great comedian, or even a good one. They were saying it because I was persistent, and that persistence was starting to show up in small improvements. When you’re trying to make it, you’re not judged necessarily by your talent but by your potential. And that potential is all about your willingness to listen, learn, and improve.

The best gigs that TuRae booked were college shows. They each paid a few hundred dollars, and as he noticed me improving, he began letting me open for him. I was too new and raw to be doing those spots, but getting thrown into the deep end forced me to raise my game and get better. He’d slide me twenty-five dollars a day for traveling with him, purely out of kindness. That was his money, and no one was at those shows to see me.

At one of those shows, there was a student from the college on the bill named Na’im Lynn. I was performing at his college, and he was also doing a set. I don’t remember the comedy, just his beady eyes, which were always peering up at me even though I was smaller than him, and his quiet seriousness, like he was studying everything in life for a big exam. He knew my roommate, and we’d met a few times before, so we started hanging out afterward. It was good to finally have a friend in my circle who was also new to the comedy scene.

There was just one big obstacle standing in my way: money.





34




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OILING UP


“Mom, where’s the rent at?”

I was a month behind on rent and the next check was due the following day. My mom had promised to support me, but she wasn’t holding up her end of the deal.

“Are you reading your Bible?”

“Mom, I don’t have time to talk about that. I’m late to meet TuRae. I need the rent money.”

“Are you reading your Bible?”

I didn’t want to lie to her, so I told the truth. “No, I’m not, okay?”

“When you read your Bible, then we’ll talk about rent.”

I stormed out of the house, angry that she was trying to blackmail me. I hated studying, and the Bible was straight-up work. “Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them.” What exactly is going on there?

Two months of rent—four hundred dollars—was too much money to borrow from my friends, so it looked like I’d have to work a day job again. It was the last thing I wanted to do when I was starting to make a dent in the comedy scene, but my back was against the wall.

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