Finding My Funny
A comedian learns that the best stand-up is the kind you do for yourself
A comedian learns that the best stand-up is the kind you do for yourself.
i tried to change so you don’t have to
I had graduated from college with an engineering degree and was working at Xerox, but I’d always dreamed of a career in comedy, so I had enrolled in Claire’s comedy class, “So You Want to Do Stand-up?” According to her website, Claire was a “world-renowned” teacher of “comedy arts.” Now she was telling me, in front of the entire class, that my comedy wasn’t any good. “Can I try again?” I asked.
“No,” Claire answered, motioning me off the stage. “Give somebody else a turn. You can try again next week.”
I’d paid $300 for six weeks of lessons and a showcase where students perform in front of a live audience at a Hollywood comedy club. To me, the showcase alone was worth the money. All I wanted was to get onstage.
After all, I had killed at the highly competitive Brewster-douglass Housing Projects Junior Talent Show when I was nine. A few years later, I got some of the best laughs the Prairie View Student Center had ever seen with my one-woman “Wanda Winfrey” talk show. While I was in college, I used to do the open mic contests at a local bar. I’d get onstage, talk about college life and my roommate’s latest shenanigans, and win that prize money every time.
The first time I performed in front of Claire, I had given her what I thought was a solid joke about take-your-kids-to-work day. “Who came up with this idea? People go to work to leave their kids.” In the break room at Xerox, my coworker Bob had laughed so hard his Diet Dr Pepper came out his nose. But comedy expert Claire La Monroe didn’t even crack a smile.
“The problem with your material,” she said, “is that it just doesn’t feel authentic.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what Claire meant, but I understood that there are a lot of different ways to be funny. Richard Pryor forced his audience to confront uncomfortable truths, like racism; Jerry Seinfeld specialized in making funny observations about everyday life; and Joan Rivers’s best jokes involved putting herself down.
I knew I wasn’t “raw” or “edgy,” and I didn’t want to shock or offend. I wanted my comedy to be a reflection of myself: warm and easygoing. I wanted to be the kind of performer who you’d see onstage and think,
I’d like to invite her over for a fun night of drinking cocktails and taking pics for my Tinder profile. Most of all, I wanted to make jokes about the world I saw around me, like the crazy things that happened at work every day.
The next Tuesday, I tried my material again. “Have you ever noticed how people who work in offices decorate their cubicles … ” I began.
“Wait, wait—stop right there,” Claire said, putting her hands up like a traffic cop. “What are you doing right now?”
This felt like a trick question. “I’m doing comedy?”
“No, no, no, no, no. What are you talking about? Is this supposed to be some kind of Seinfeld bit? You know, like, ‘What’s the deal with cubicles?’” Claire did a pretty good Seinfeld. “I think what an audience wants from you is more personal. More of you speaking from your own experience.”
“This is my experience,” I said. “I work in an office.”
“No, no, no, no,” she continued. “I mean, give them something more unique and authentic. Like, where did you grow up?”
“Detroit.”
“OK, that’s good. Give me more of that. What kind of neighborhood was it?”
“Uh, the hood?”
“Love that. Tell me more.”
“I grew up in the projects.” “Fantastic!”
“But I work in an office. I’m an engineer ...”
“Loni, everybody works in an office. We want your unique experience. In the hood. Were there drug dealers? Drive-bys? Give me some of that gritty hardscrabble life you lived.”
I wanted to tell Claire that I didn’t know anything about selling drugs or drive-bys. I wanted to tell her I played the French horn when I was a kid. But she was on a roll, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“Do you have any stories about crack? Dealing crack, maybe? Smoking crack? Like maybe you dabbled in the crack?” I stared at her blankly. “OK,” she said. “Let’s try this again. Show me what you got.”
I cleared my throat and gave it another shot. “So, I work at Xerox,” I said, my voice trembling with nerves, “and I was in my cubicle …”
Claire just shook her head. I didn’t want to mess up in front of the whole
class again. I had to think fast and save my joke. “So I reached under my desk,” I continued, “and, um … I pulled out some crack.”
Week after week, Claire directed me to “keep it real,” by which she meant “talk about life in the hood.” By the second-to-last class, I had a solid fiveminute set filled with f-bombs.
“Loni,” Claire said, “this is so raw. I love it!” Claire was happy because I’d taken her notes to “put some sassy Black girl in it” and “represent” like a girl from the hood. But the truth was, even though Claire liked my jokes, to me they never felt right. As proud as I was of my roots, I didn’t want to talk about my past like this. The hood, my mama, ketchup sandwiches, being poor, the crack epidemic—it was all part of a world I had worked hard to escape. I didn’t think it was funny when I was living among crack dealers and cockroaches, and I didn’t want to turn that life into jokes now that I was out.
Besides, I didn’t think I had to. If Seinfeld could make a career commenting on everyday stuff he noticed all around him, why couldn’t I?
THE NIGHT of our graduation showcase, I drove to the comedy club with what felt like bats flying around in my stomach. When the lights went down, I stood in the back and watched my classmates perform. Annabelle was up first. For five minutes she complained about dating—bad food, bad company, bad dates. Then Juan Carlos went up. He got some good laughs about wearing slippers with socks. Then it was my turn.
On my way to the stage, Juan Carlos grabbed me by the arm. “Do you, girl,” he whispered. “Claire don’t know your life. That cubicle routine was dope.” His words stopped me dead in my tracks.
Sometimes people are put in your life to tell you exactly what you need to hear—like when a man in a crisp white dress shirt approaches you on the General Motors assembly line and suggests you go to college, as my first mentor, Mr. Arnold, had for me.
This was another one of those times.
For six weeks Claire had said “Be authentic” and “Find your voice.” But I didn’t really get it until Juan Carlos whispered in my ear. If I wanted to be authentic and real, I had to do what felt right to me.
I stepped onstage with the spotlight shining bright in my face and my heart beating through my chest. “My name is Loni Love,” I said, looking out at the crowd. A hundred faces peered back at me expectantly. This was my moment to choose my truth over the reality someone else assumed for me. This was the fork in the comedy road.
“I’m an engineer,” I began, “and I work in a building with rows and rows of cubicles. Everybody tries to outdo everyone else decorating their cubicles. My coworker Carol has pictures of her ugly old family members all up in her cubicle. Nobody wants to see that! It’s just rude. Now, I try to be nice to my coworkers. In my cubicle I have my computer and a little radio. You know what else I have under my desk?”
I paused, looked around the room, and smiled. “I got me a George Foreman grill.”
For five minutes, I talked about office life—my office life, cooking chicken at my cubicle and teaching my White coworkers Black history. When I finished my set, I got a standing O.
I learned an important lesson that night. Claire—the supposed comedy “expert”—didn’t know a thing about me or what I could do onstage. All Claire knew is what I looked like. For her, that was enough to decide who I should be.
Claire was the first industry expert to try to mold me to fit her expectations. But she sure wasn’t the last. Fighting other people’s assumptions is a challenge I’ve had to face for most of my career. I’m hardly alone.
No matter who you are or where you go in this life, people are going to try to put you in a box. Once they put you there, they’re going to try to convince you that it’s the best place for you. But if they are wrong about you, you’ve got to stand up and let them know it. In comedy and in life, you can’t expect people to give you permission to be yourself. You have to march onstage, claim your space, tell your story, and live your truth. If you don’t do it, who will?
From the book I tried to Change So You don’t have to by Loni Love with Jeannine amber, Copyright © 2020 by Loni Love. reprinted with permission of hachette books.