And I decided I quit. No more dancing, no more Bar Mitzvahs, nothing. I was done. I stopped doing them. DJ Timbo was calling me and calling me, telling me people were requesting me.
Tiffany: “I can’t do it, I can’t. I just can’t right now. This is not a good time. I don’t feel safe.”
DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, they are asking for you specifically. They want you there.”
Tiffany: “I don’t feel like people should be around me. I’m not safe.”
DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, your ass is not deadly.”
Tiffany: “No, my ass is deadly. That man is dead.”
DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, that man was old. It was his time. He was probably happy. It was probably the first time he ever danced with a black girl in his life. It was the happiest moment of his life.”
But Timbo couldn’t talk me into doing them. That man hadn’t wanted to dance at first, and I made him, and then I booty popped him . . . and now he’s dead! I just felt like a booty assassin.
Then, I got a letter from his daughter. She tipped me—she sent me a big tip and told me thank you. She said they’d never seen him that happy, they hadn’t seen him smile like that or that happy in a long time. And she said that they knew this was coming, he was in his late eighties, and they had been waiting for him to pass. And they appreciated everything that I did, and I should not blame myself.
She made some good points. And you know, she did tell me to dance with everybody. She specifically said to get all the older people up. So maybe she wanted me to kill him? I don’t know.
After that letter, I went back to doing Bar Mitzvahs. At that point, they were paying me $400 a party. The money was too good.
Laugh Factory Comedy Camp
I started doing comedy at fifteen. I was getting in trouble in school, that’s what got me into it. It was all because of this one teacher.
I was talking too much in class, and my teacher was always sending me to the principal’s office. The social worker was getting tired of coming up to the school, and the principal was tired of calling the social worker.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t just talking. This teacher kept saying I was racist, but I didn’t think I was being racist. I thought I was being funny.
My whole thing was just to make everybody laugh. If I could do that, then they’d let me copy their homework and they’d help me on tests.
One of the ways I made everyone laugh was to make up these imaginary friends. I had a female imaginary friend that I called Carmelita and a little bird that I called Cracker. I would talk to them in the hallways and during class, and if somebody sat down next to me, I’d be like:
Tiffany: “Wait, watch out. You’re sitting on Carmelita’s lap. She likes that, though. Wiggle on her.”
And they would jump up and be like, “What are you talking about?” And then, eventually, they would become my friends. People would be like, “You crazy. You silly. I like you.” It worked really well for me. It’s basically how I made it through school.
Every time we would take a test, I would turn my head toward my shoulder, and I would be like, “Cracker want a Polly?” I had some crackers, and I would crumble them up on my shoulder for my imaginary bird, and people would be laughing. Then they’d let me cheat off of them.
The teacher didn’t know I was cheating though, that’s not why she was always sending me to the principal’s office. During one test, I said:
Tiffany: “What’s the answer to number seven, Cracker?”
You know, because that was my imaginary bird’s name. But my teacher thought I was being racist against her.
Teacher: “You go straight to the principal’s office. You can’t be racist in here.”
This happened a few times, and everybody would laugh. I would just tell the principal the same thing each time.
Tiffany: “I was talking to my friend, my imaginary bird.”
Principal: “Oh, God, again with the imaginary friends?”
After like the fifth time, my social worker couldn’t take it anymore.
Social Worker: “Tiffany, you got two choices this summer coming up. You can go to the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp, or you can go to psychiatric therapy. Which one do you want to do, ’cause something is wrong with you.”
Tiffany: “Which one got drugs?”
Social Worker: “Therapy.”
I didn’t want no drugs, I had seen how those fuck people up. So I went to the comedy camp.
Laugh Factory Comedy Camp was kinda perfect, except how long it took to get there. I’d have to catch the bus up there from 54th and Western, and I would ride all the way up to the Laugh Factory camp. Riding that bus, you would see the demographics of the people change, as you went from South Central through Hollywood. I remember getting on the bus feeling poor. But as we would get to Hollywood, I would see a little bit higher class of people boarding the bus. I felt like I was literally moving up in the world.
I would go up there every week, and I got to meet a lot of different comedians. A lot of mentors would come in. Dane Cook showed up. Chris Spencer. All the Wayans brothers came one day. Harland Williams came by, and Quincy Jones.
I remember the day Quincy Jones came in there, I was like:
Tiffany: “What is he doing here? He ain’t funny.”
But he was saying how comedy is like music, and it’s about the rhythm of the words. Like if you really listen to a joke, it has a melody to the punchline. I got that, it really helped me.
Charles Fleischer was there. I was so excited about Charles Fleischer, ’cause he does the voice of Roger Rabbit. The character I’ve been emulating the most, just trying to be funny—and now, the guy who does this character’s voice is teaching me, talking to me.
I liked Charles Fleischer a lot, but he was all intent on telling me not to do bathroom humor, which I did not agree with. He was like:
Charles: “You’re a pretty girl. You shouldn’t do bathroom humor.”
I had a joke about going to a public bathroom, and then an old lady comes in the stall next to you, and she be making weird noises, and I imitated the lady’s noises and stuff. He said I shouldn’t do bathroom humor.
When he said I was too pretty to do bathroom humor, at first I was flattered. That was the first time a man told me I was pretty. Come to think of it later, that might have been a little creepy. But I think he was just trying to be nice, so it’s cool.
Being in that comedy camp was the first time I felt safe. I didn’t think anything bad was gonna happen. That was maybe my favorite part about Laugh Factory Comedy Camp.
By that point, I had lived in a few foster places and knew a few things. If a grown man tells you that you pretty, he’s gonna be trying to touch on you soon, and all kinds of terrible stuff is gonna happen.
But at comedy camp, that man told me I’m pretty, but I didn’t feel like it was dangerous. He cared about me and was saying a nice thing. He was trying to help me.
My biggest influence was probably Richard Pryor. He came in there, and I’m telling my jokes, and he stopped me in the middle of telling my jokes:
Richard: “Stop, stop, stop. What are you doing?”
Tiffany: “I’m telling a joke.”
Richard: “No, you’re not.”
Tiffany: “Yes, I am.”