Cack-Handed

by Gina Yashere

  That night I was to perform with Patrice O’Neal, a hilarious comedian I’d met many times previously when he’d toured the UK, and Roz G, a comedian from New Jersey I’d never met before. When Roz G was introduced, the MC shouted, “You’ve seen her on Last Comic Standing!” Hmm. I took note of this. I went on later in the show and did well, despite my nervousness that this audience would expect more of what they’d seen earlier and might not be open to my stories about my Nigerian mother and my childhood dreams of being adopted by Mr. Drummond from Diff’rent Strokes. Later, I Googled Last Comic Standing and discovered that it was an American talent competition on NBC in the vein of American Idol but for stand-up comics. I called my agent that night. “Listen, there’s a stand-up comedy competition in America, and I want to be the first British comic to be on it. Look into it. I’ll fly myself out there to compete. Just get me an audition.”

  I enjoyed my first stint at the Just for Laughs festival, but nothing came of it for me. Disappointingly, there was no HBO development deal, no US agents falling over themselves to represent me. Nothing. I did shows, I was paid, I did some sightseeing, and I went home. Just another week in the life of a jobbing comic.

  A few months later, while surfing through the preeminent social media site of the time, Myspace, I came across a page dedicated to the Bay Area Black Comedy Competition and Festival (BABCCF). It was founded in 1986 by Tony Spires. Previous contestants had included Jamie Foxx, Chris Tucker, and Nick Cannon. According to the Myspace page, it was the longest-running live showcase of urban comedians in the world, and it was currently accepting entrants for that year’s competition. I was transfixed. I scoured the page, looking for any rules that would possibly exclude a foreign participant, and found none. The grand prize was a thousand dollars, which was less than half of what it would cost me for flights and accommodations in Oakland, California, where the competition took place, but I excitedly filled out an online application and paid my seventy-five-dollar application fee.

  Competing in the BABCCF was about getting more exposure in the US and laying the groundwork to move there, although at the time I had no idea how I was going to do it. I was 100 percent confident I was not going to win, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it past the first round, but this was an experiment to see how my comedy would translate on the other side of the pond and whether I could straddle the lines successfully between Black and white comedy in America, as I had done in the UK.

  Despite the fact that I was in the epicenter of a huge flare-up of symptoms of lupus, having been accepted into the competition, I packed bags of painkillers and flew myself to Oakland. I didn’t know anybody and had never worked with any of the comedians showcasing, but I had gone through all their Myspace profiles and confirmed that I was the only comedian from outside the US coming to compete. One particular comedian, Shea Suga, from Richmond, California, had messaged me on Myspace, having also done her due diligence. She had watched a few videos of my stand-up and told me how much she’d enjoyed my material and was looking forward to meeting me. When I arrived at the conference center where all the comics were meeting to sign in, I recognized her immediately from her picture, and we hugged like old friends. It was great to see a friendly face. She was from the area, so she gave me good tips on where to eat and what malls to shop at if I needed to get an outfit. Shea was also a hairdresser. She took one look at my “just come off a fifteen-hour flight and haven’t been to the salon” head and commented, “Honey, we got to do something about your hair! Come, come . . .” She took me to the mall where she had a salon, relaxed my hair, then colored and cut it, making sure I looked my best even though we were competitors. “Oh, honey, you gotta be looking fly for this competition. This is Oakland. You can’t be getting onstage looking all raggedy. They’ll boo your ass off before you get to your first joke!” We are still friends to this day, and whenever I do shows in the Bay Area, I always get her to open for me.

  The competition did not provide any travel expenses, so most comics were sofa surfing or staying in local motels. Coming from England, I had booked myself into the Oakland Marriott, as that was the only hotel name I recognized, and I wasn’t about to stay in a dump. I had money, as I was making a great living from my UK comedy career, and this was going to be a fun exploration of the American urban comedy scene, as well as a great vacation. I’d never been to the Bay Area, always preferring New York or Miami, so I was looking forward to sightseeing between my performances. The Golden Gate Bridge was number one on my list.

  My entire body was still inflamed and in pain from the lupus flare-up, so when the other comics were out socializing in the evenings, I remained in my hotel room, resting my swollen joints and writing my sets. I couldn’t open with the regular material I used in the UK, as I was about to be performing in front of an audience that was not familiar with me. I needed to get in front of the confusion they would have the moment I opened my mouth, and have good jokes to explain my oddness.

  On the day of the first heat of the competition, I sat at the back of the theater with Shea Suga and watched a steady stream of comics hit the stage with highly energetic sets, in the vein of the extremely popular ’90s stand-up show Def Comedy Jam. There was a lot of material about sex, illustrated with act-outs, which included a lot of stool humping and pelvic thrusting. I was nervous but excited.

  When it was my turn to hit the stage, I opened with an explanation of who I was. “Hi, everybody. My name’s Gina. And yes, this is a British accent, and no, I’m not the butler from Fresh Prince. There are a lot of Black people in England. We are everywhere. We are just like you. We even get your TV shows and movies. The only thing is, we get them a little later. For instance, we just got The Color Purple.”

  This got a huge laugh, as this was 2006, and The Color Purple had been released in 1985. I then went into a routine about how furious I was at my mother for leaving Nigeria for England, that had she made the right choice, I would be living Missy Elliott’s life. I’d also written a routine about the popular TV show MTV Cribs, in which cameras went into the homes of celebrities, the vast majority of them rappers, who then showed off their garish marble-encased mansions, their shark-size fish tanks filled with marine life they couldn’t pronounce the names of, and their beds in the shape of a Lamborghini. My joke focused on the fact that these rappers were constantly espousing their street cred, how many times they’d been shot, and how “hood” they were, but in the next breath they’d say things like “I had these tiles brought in from Rome.” The rappers always seemed to have a DVD collection that included Scarface. They idolized the Italian Mafia. I talked about how the Mafia did not reciprocate those feelings but in fact called Blacks derogatory names like mulignan, which, not speaking their language, I assumed was Italian for the N-word. If they really wanted to continue worshipping people who hated us, they might as well keep next to the DVD collection a copy of the Nazi handbook Mein Kampf. It was controversial, but I got a great response. I pushed even further. I discussed the use of the word “nigga,” which was not common among Black people in England at the time. (This has since changed with the sheer popularity of hip-hop with British Black youth, spawning our own version of it, grime music.) I talked about the fact that if I heard the N-word in England, it was invariably coming from a racist, and I knew what was expected. An ass whooping from me would ensue. I said I was confused by the n-i-g-g-a and n-i-g-g-e-r variations of the word. That I couldn’t go to a KKK rally, and ask, “Sir, which version of the N-word are you calling me? Oh, e-r? Got it. Give me a head start, so I can run for my life!”

  I received an ecstatic response from the crowd, and in that moment, I knew I could make it in America as a comedian. I had conquered a hard-core Black room in Oakland, California. I needed to figure out a plan to move here, stat!

  Suddenly these American comedians who had been looking at me sideways like some weird oddity began speaking to me with a little respect, after realizing I was legitimate competition. Shea Suga was overjoyed
for me. “Bitch, you murdered that motherfucker!”

  The next day was the second round of heats, on which Shea Suga was performing with the likes of Baratunde Thurston (who went on to become a celebrated author, commentator, and producer). It was fun, having done my heat, to relax and enjoy the evening of comedy. Shea did very well, with her added cachet of being from nearby and being able to call out the local neighborhoods. One particular comic hit the stage and blew the room apart. He was a tornado of energy, with act-outs of the crackheads in his neighborhood of Harlem, New York, and hilariously crafted routines that had the crowd screaming. I knew instantly I was looking at the winner. He was the epitome of all the best aspects of Def Comedy Jam. His name was Smokey.

  After both heats, the judges picked the comics who were to go through to the finals in a couple of months’ time. I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t make it. This had been a fun experiment that had gone very well, and no doubt I would make plans to return at some point to continue this exploration, but I was going back to London, then on to Australia for a month-long tour, to make some money, and it would be extremely expensive and extremely hard on my lupus-addled body to then return to Oakland to take part in a final I was absolutely positive that Smokey was going to win.

  “The first comedian going through to the finals is . . . Gina Yashere!” Shit.

  The other comics who made it through to the final were Vanessa Fraction, Drew Fraser, a comedian from Detroit called Coolaide (yep, that really was his chosen stage name), Retha Jones, and of course Smokey.

  As comedians lined up to congratulate me, telling me how most of them had attended this competition three or four times and it was unheard of to get through to the final on your first try, I was frantically doing a pros-and-cons list in my head. Should I come for this final? Would it help cement a foothold in the US market? Who would be the judges? Was it worth putting more debt on my rapidly buckling credit card?

  “Bitch, you coming back!” Shea shouted in my ear as she hugged me. “You can come stay with me!”

  I found out that one of the judges of the final was Bob Sumner, who had co-created Def Comedy Jam alongside Stan Lathan and Russell Simmons. My plan was to be seen by him and become the first British comic to appear on that show. So it was settled. I was coming back.

  21

  Just Because a Man Is Short, It Does Not Make Him a Child

  While doing shows in Sydney, Australia, I received a call from my agent, telling me that while I had been making enquiries to audition for the American stand-up competition, the producers of Last Comic Standing had decided that for season five they would widen the net and audition internationally. One of the producers, Page Hurwitz, who had seen me at The Comedy Store in London, had put my name forward. They were currently doing auditions in London, but I could do mine in Sydney, competing against the Australian comics for a spot on the show.

  The stars were finally aligning.

  I turned up at the Sydney Comedy Store one sunny afternoon for my audition. A long line of wannabe stars had camped out there overnight, but I, as a professional comedian, had an appointment, and I walked in ahead of the line. I did a forty-five-second set in front of the three comedian judges: Ant, Kathleen Madigan, and Alonzo Bodden, who had won a previous season of the show. The auditions and showcase were all being filmed for the show, and my previous experience of performing on television in the UK put me in good stead. The cameras did not faze me at all. I went up, did what I do, and was one of the comics picked to go through to the LA semifinals. I was ecstatic.

  The rest of my Australia trip was a blur. From there I would fly back to Oakland for the final round of the BABCCF. I decided that afterwards I would go to LA and spend a couple of weeks getting in as many rooms and clubs as I could find to hone my set for when I returned for Last Comic Standing. I was taking no chances. I needed to get through the semifinals of their competition too. The grand prize would be $250,000 and a development deal with NBC. And to develop a show in America, you had to live in America, which I’d been planning to do since I was a child.

  The final of the BABCCF was held again at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. As I’d predicted, Smokey won the grand prize, and I was happy for him. I came in third, after Smokey and Drew Fraser. Not bad for a tourist! From there, I flew to LA, where I booked the cheapest room I could find at a Holiday Inn in Burbank, rented an old Honda Civic, and began nightly trips into LA to perform at any club that would have me. I’d become friendly with some of the LA-based comics I’d competed against in Oakland, so I followed them to their shows and got them to vouch for me and my funniness. Using this method, I was able to perform at The Improv comedy club on Melrose on the Monday evening urban night, as well as Mo’ Better Mondays, hosted by comedian and actor DeRay Davis and promoted by a formidable former aeronautical engineer called Big Spike. Big Spike had been unsure of whether to let me on his stage, seeing as I was a foreigner he’d never heard of, but he gave me five minutes and was very supportive of me afterwards, telling me I could come back whenever I wanted. I was also able to perform at the iconic Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard, again on their urban night, called Trippin’ on Tuesdays, which at the time was hosted by the hilarious comedian and now in-demand executive producer Chris Spencer. I also got a set at the Laugh Factory’s Chocolate Sundaes, another urban night. It proved a lot more difficult to get spots on the regular, “white” nights at these famous clubs, as the competition was much stiffer and these were considered the more prestigious nights, when Hollywood agents, casting directors, and bookers tended to come, so you needed a nod of approval from a much higher caliber of comedian to even get looked at. Even then, as a Black comic, you had to be a standout, hugely famous, or have a good agent to get the same stage time. Another way to get on was to fight seven thousand other comedians for a tryout spot, by lining up outside the Laugh Factory on a Sunday morning to sign a list to possibly get three minutes in an 8 p.m. audition show. I was not going to be in LA long enough to do that, and I felt with my experience in the game, I was not about to be camping with a bunch of office workers whose friends had told them they were funny. I figured if I did well enough on Last Comic Standing, those clubs would come calling anyway. So I concentrated on getting in all the rooms I was actively welcomed in during those two weeks—clubs, bars, outdoor patios of restaurants, anywhere I could perform in front of an American audience and hone my set. At the end of that fortnight, I felt ready for my upcoming big break.

  A month later, I returned to Los Angeles for the Last Comic Standing semifinals. I flew there with comedians from London, Canada, and Australia. We were all booked into the Sheraton Universal, a hotel a stone’s throw from Universal Studios. Meeting so many comedians from all over was exhilarating. We were all booked at local comedy clubs to warm up for our TV recording, so I got to watch and size up my competition. I put aside all my doubts about the fairness of these competitions and my previous mistreatment at the hands of this industry, and I prepared for the show that could change my life. This was it. I was about to make my debut on one of the biggest networks in the US. I was going to put my best foot forward and leave that stage with no regrets.

  My previous foray into the US market had increased my confidence, and for me, it was just a case of which routine I wanted to pick that would be mainstream enough for network TV but different enough to make me stand out. I spent evenings in my hotel room piecing my jokes together like a jigsaw puzzle.

  There were thirty-five comics performing in the semifinals. Three, including me, were Black women. Tracey Ashley, a hilarious comedian who’d traveled from Indiana, was experienced and, like me, had a meticulously thought-out set. Thea Vidale had already had quite some success as a comedian and actor, having been the first African American female comedian with her own show, the ABC sitcom Thea. She was hilarious and had toured the world as a sought-after comic. In fact, I’d met her at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland at the beginning of my career and had gotten an autograph and a p
icture with her. I quietly wondered who had advised her to do this show, as it should have been way below her status, and I felt that doing this would be way better for the show’s producers than it would be for her, but who was I to judge?

  We three Black women sought each other out, bonded, broke bread together, but we knew what was up. Just ten comics would be picked to go through to the finals of the show, performing on national TV every week, before being whittled down to a final three, then the champion. We knew only one, if any, of those ten finalists was going to be a Black woman. Although we wished each other well, we discussed the fact that along with competing against the other thirty-two comics, we’d be specifically competing against one another for that single spot. Such was the plight of the Black female comic in this industry.

  On the night of the show, the order we were to go onstage was random. Names were picked out of a bucket. The worst two spots to be in the running order were first and last. First because you were going on to a cold audience, and you would be the guinea pig to test what material they would respond to or not. Everyone could watch your set and adjust accordingly, therefore putting them at an advantage. Going last out of thirty-five comics, with the inherent stops and starts of TV production, meant you would be performing in front of a tired, laughed-out audience, and you would have been forced to sit through the performances of all the other comics, hoping none of them had jokes similar to yours, while you became increasingly nervous. Everyone hoped to be somewhere in the middle of the lineup. My name was pulled out first. Uggh.

  Oh well, I reasoned. It was better than last. I’d get the audience and judges fresh, and be able to sit back and enjoy the show, obviously provided I’d had a good set; otherwise, I’d be watching jealously as everyone else went on and did better than me, while plastering on a fake smile for the cameras as my dreams died.