Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] do [Music] five [Music] so [Music] well good evening good morning good afternoon wherever you are in the world it’s dr janice hooker with you for another episode of relationship matters i hope everyone is staying safe and staying healthy and wearing your mask as you know this show is about all kinds of relationships relationships with your personal friends your professional colleagues relationships when i say relationship matters it can even be relationship with those shoes you love my sisters you know that we can’t get rid of but we can’t wear and guys you know that old ratty chair that you love to sit in or the old ugly looking hat that your significant others don’t like but you just can’t get rid of it but today we are having two guests on that are hilarious and they’re going to talk about the relationships they have with their craft so the first one i’m going to bring on is someone that i’ve known for a little while and his name is frank townsend hey frank
Frank Townsend
hey janice how you doing
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
i’m okay how are you
Frank Townsend
i’m pretty good pretty good
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
that’s good that’s good so i want to tell my audience a little bit about you and then we’re going to bring my other guests on all right tell you a little bit about frank townsend is one of the hottest comics on the national scene who leaves audiences laughing and wanting more he’s been a comedian since 1996. and he’s open for the likes of damon williams tommy davison adele gibbons you know that i’m such a lady dave collier mike f’s and d l hewley he has performed on four seasons of bet’s comic view and is the winner of the 2000 miller genuine draft comedy search and guess what he’s also an actor so he’s extremely versatile versatile uh he made his motion picture debut in the smash hit barbershop now frank has been a regular on the norwegian you know i don’t know what’s wrong with my mouth i need water cruise lines for eight years where he wows audiences from all over the world so frank it’s an honor a privilege and a pleasure to have you on
Frank Townsend
thank you thank you
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
and now i’m going to bring my other guest on mr ronnie ray
Ronnie Ray
yeah dr jay how you doing this evening or this morning this afternoon because you know what i have an audience from all over the world um i’ve had them come in from italy i have them coming in from south africa so that’s why i say good morning good afternoon good evening because i don’t know what time it is where they are we all let you go right
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah yeah well the three of us and it’s snowing i hear the wind behind me coming through the windows though and it’s windy but but we live in chicago right right so let me tell my audience a little bit about you alrighty ronnie is a professional stand-up comedian writer and theatrically trained actor and a pod cast host he’s the only comedian to appear on nickelodeon and playboy tv the only one huge stretch i didn’t ask for it he gave it to me it was meant to be all right and so ronnie ray has toured the country as a headliner and featured for over 12 years as a stand-up comedian he has performed at the improv in hollywood and other places the laugh factory in hollywood and chicago the famous comedy store in hollywood and he has shared stage the stage with robin williams and leslie jones and too many that i can name right now and now his performances are described as hilarious and quick with it and a little bit more
Ronnie Ray
you don’t even sound like me go ahead keep talking it’s making me feel good i was kind of mad today but preach keep going doctors
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay all right okay his television credits include the playboy tv series canoga park appears in nickelodeon’s victoria’s sondra chandra rhymes grey’s anatomy on abc’s chicago fire uh on nbc as firemen grimes and he was even on empire
Ronnie Ray
you know i’m gonna have to look for you uh oh i am not gonna find me on that one they cut me but my credits at the end i’m being honest now i want people going to the series to find me i was just that was one i wasn’t confident in in saying like watch it like yo yo tonight i’m on but don’t get too happy don’t don’t it’s a credit it was like a co-star too and guess who i ran into that day jesse smollett that’s the only one that talked to me from the cast and then the following year almost to the date he um went to subway that’s real talk good
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah okay now let me finish with your credits okay good okay i mean there’s more money wait a minute and i’m not saying at all because you know you know half an hour for both you and and and frank so you know but let me say this you were in the movie saved the last dance with carrie washington
Ronnie Ray
yeah 20 years ago last month crazy i’m the one that grabbed the butt when she came in the club my first audition ever first movie ever
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yes and they didn’t bring you back for scandal that would have been cold you know what i’m saying come on come on
Ronnie Ray
i was close with grades i’m like i was the guy with the rebar in his chest and grades and i thought she was gonna come in to be the wife because that was just before scandal started but it wasn’t her so i thought i’d get a chance but no i moved back to chicago and it didn’t work out well
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
oh well oh well but at least it wasn’t cool circle though you know you know
Ronnie Ray
yeah thanks for we gonna call sean the rhymes and i don’t bring it back just for that special episode you know what right look
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
well scandal is not on anymore can’t do that we’re gonna bring it back olivia pope for that one episode
Ronnie Ray
yeah one episode there you go right there go to whatever the steps whatever the heck it was we’re going to be 20 years later they were hunting flashbacks on that show they did
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah okay look now uh everybody has a journey and i know you all have had a journey so frank i want you to start off what did you do before you became a comedian and why did you decide to become a comedian
Frank Townsend
i was actually a college student before i became a comedian so uh financial aid ran out basically okay no seriously um i was in college and i ended up opening for a dale givens that’s a long story short okay right now in college that was my second year doing comedy i have been doing uh the cotton club down to u of i which is a black history month talent show they do every single year okay i was in it one year i hosted it the next year and then adele came and after that came back to chicago and was like let’s get it popping so that’s how i got started
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay so what about you ronnie
Ronnie Ray
i started an improv first uh second city chicago uh you know 97 96 97. i thought about doing a stand-up but that’s when i saw you perform that joke we were talking about earlier and uh i was like i don’t know you know there’s d-ray and uh corey and all these guys i’m like i don’t know if i mix right away let me try this and become something else and then come back to it so i did that and we winded up my improv group wound up hitting the road we be negroes the first african-american sketch improv company ever and we started touring and teaching in like stanford and virginia state and all that stuff and we all like decided we was in uh san francisco they’re like yeah we’re all moving to hollywood so we went to la there there for like about two years and then i started doing stand-up in like 2004.
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so what made you think that i you know a comedian to me is is like a you got a special skill you know so what made you think that you were gonna you could make people laugh frank
Frank Townsend
i was actually the first before i even got in that talent show there was a brother down on the yard named brian dawson i watched him do it and brian was very funny and i was sitting front row dead center watching brian i was like man he’s funny i think i can do it too and i always like making people laugh anyway so and i come from a long line of fools so matter of fact i’m not even the funniest one in my family i got some relatives whoo
Ronnie Ray
i was just about to say that i am not the funniest guy i’m just the one that got on stage for it i don’t know when it took the series you want to be serious right for me i just always i felt like i belonged to that like i seen eddie murphy when i was like six i’m like i want to be like him okay i just want to be like him and somehow i was super shy then never think i’d be able to even speak in front of people and to do it is like yo it was the biggest it was the biggest rush ever to do it for the first time you know like i got to do that even though i did um stand up you know i did um improv and sketch comedy nothing nothing in the world is the feeling like standing up comedy when it’s going great nothing nothing like that
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay so when it’s going great what so you have to have a relationship a form a relationship with your audience how do you go about doing that i mean you know i mean you just can’t stand up on the stage to me and i’m not a comedian but it would seem to me that you got to put you you got to have you got to form a relationship with your audience you know you have to bond with them how do you do that especially frank with you because you’re on cruise ships and so your audience is extremely diverse when i say diverse i mean culturally i mean you have people from all over the world so how do you bond with them
Frank Townsend
it’s really showing them who you are okay once people feel like they know you then then you got them they have to be able to see something in you that they can say oh that’s who that guy is and once that happens then they relate to you on that level if that doesn’t happen if they don’t believe the person that they see on st is is genuine you’re lost
Ronnie Ray
yeah like it’s the scared it’s the dog that like they can sense like a dog can sense that you’re scared type thing and as soon as they sense that like you pretty much them it’s a confidence thing pretty much as soon as they see you being you or being whatever character that you’re playing to the um with the highest the highest amount of commitment they with you the whole time so as long as you’re doing it to the to the 100 you’re gonna be it’s gonna go well but when you’re off it’s just nice when you’re off you can’t pretend that if you’re not feeling it it’s not going to come it’s not going to come out right
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so what do you do when it is off what do you do when you go out there and you bum you know you you were telling your jokes or you know whatever your skits are or whatever and you get a like or they start ordering their dreams so they start coughing or talking what do you do and how do you feel
Ronnie Ray
you gotta heckle somebody before you name a dog he’s down at all he’s like man he’s going through the bathroom like what come on doctor and if they chuckle it that ain’t vomit
Frank Townsend
i’ve seen vomit no so what’s what’s bombing when they just don’t laugh at all okay i’m gonna go back to all jokes aside ronnie do you remember this keys yes all jokes aside was infamous for figuring out new and cruel ways to let you know you were bombing right they started jingling keys at people the whole room so basically it’s time for you to get in your car and go [Laughter] but to me the absolute best one that they ever did did you ever see them applaud somebody off the stage whoa god tells a joke joke don’t work tells another joke joke don’t work third joke he tells it he don’t think it works they start clapping though so he’s like okay they’re with me so he tries to tell another joke they never stop clapping you gotta figure out that you’ve just been booted wow i saw that happen a bunch of times it’s crazy wow all jokes aside was whoo perform up there right off like no not the first time i’m not going up there for the first time oh yeah no by the time i started it was already done it was over
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so so so what are your idols who who are your idols
Ronnie Ray
um well prior eddie uh carlin they can it’s a list of names good one what’s up all of them
Frank Townsend
i was gonna as i was especially gonna say carlin yeah yeah i learned about him later and don rickles probably just before he passed i was watching a lot of his interviews i’m like yo he is like oh he’s great and he that that that helps me host cause i don’t do material when i host anymore so i just gotta like flow with the room and make them you know all of us come together right well i mean i’m in here with y’all so if y’all don’t like this guy you know come to me if not i’m gonna attack the bully however but he was always like whatever so i know he couldn’t write this though rodney dangerfield the monster on stage jokes man think of jokes one liners
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so you all are talking about comedians that really kind of had kind of like intellectual type jokes especially george carlin oh yeah uh john rickles he’s racist no and don rickles would insult people yep yes okay and and so do you pattern yourself after a particular comedian or are you you know you you just you and and what you brought up and from here
Frank Townsend
you cannot never be alone whatsoever i never tried to be anybody else other than me right but i i did try to take bits and pieces of what other people did and tried to make it my own like if you watch johnny carson johnny carson would tell a joke that necessary it wouldn’t necessarily work but then he’d do like a facial expression or hand gesture and that would get the laugh little things like that you can pick up from different people right uh george wilborn taught me how to live in the moment of a joke george wilborn would tell a joke where he was upset and he would be upset telling the joke he lived that joke on that stage at that moment every single time you got to learn from the people you around too so okay
Ronnie Ray
oh yeah yeah yeah great great great teachers man uh i used to go watch bad bad comedy open mics and learn what not to do you know what i mean so yeah yeah um yeah that and you just i take what i’ve ever if i’ve ever took anything it’s probably somebody’s um cadence of the joke on how they they closed the joke out it was never the exact word but i know where it came from it’s like um a timing thing like chappelle i got one when he talked about the um with the kid the little baby on this corner at three in the morning or whatever timing of that yeah i got that with one of mines but you wouldn’t be able to tell it unless i tell you like boom but i i kind of like bit that a little bit of the timing but never you know first say like just taking the jokes no but yeah just watching people’s cadence ours like this it’s incredible
Frank Townsend
a lot of people have different ways that they they flow there there’s a certain power with certain comics where they are extremely influential when i was coming up in chicago corey holcomb was one of the hottest things in chicago okay at one point almost every single comic talk like corey at least a little bit um his cadence i mean to the point where we would greet each other with his cadence but you have to literally fight yourself not to do it on stage because cory just so powerful and influential with it right it made you do it some people make you talk like them okay
Ronnie Ray
it’s very distinct you know when you’re doing and hearing kevin hart then you tell you’re a fan too you imitate the voice that’s what i think uh seinfeld said that when they do you they say you’re big if they say you’re a [ __ ] you’re good but if they talk like you it’s like yo they love what you do before we had comics doing it yeah now carl was special he’s funny man very funny
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
and so okay now dude are you going to continue to do stand up it would seem to me that stand-up is hard you know so it’s do you want to continue always to do stand-up or do you want to move on to something different i mean still in comedic kind of thing but just different either either one of them
Frank Townsend
i’m a lifer okay i’ll act i’ll act i write i’ll do podcasts or do everything else but i still have to get on that stage it’s it’s in me now there’s nothing i can do about it
Ronnie Ray
there’s nothing there’s nothing in the world better than this better that’s better than that almost cursed on your show nothing in the world better than that i’m sorry i i do everything coming i told you i started in improv stand up sketch comedy um animation i’ve done uh movies acting sad card whatever all those all those things don’t match me going on stage and rocking out for whatever time i have to rock out for it’s a special feeling
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
i was getting ready to say it uh it’s it’s a feeling isn’t it that you get from the audience i guess it’s like a an entertainer um a singer or whatever you know uh that they like that those accolades of that feeling that you get you can’t you can’t beat it
Frank Townsend
we’re the only entertainers that it’s literally just us right singers you got a band behind you yes fingers if you’re nervous you can start singing a song with your eyes closed and pretend they’re not there i can’t do that it’s literally just me and that audience and when you got them going in your hands no feeling can beat that no
Ronnie Ray
yeah yeah and you’re famous you can sing the same song for years but you’re a famous comedian you have to change your material every comedy i would like to do so it’s like it’s not even even if you do the old show we heard that before yo i mean like you have to retire the joke singers can’t don’t have to retire songs they’re gonna ban a whole bunch of dancers like hammer and just rock out we have to be up there by ourselves that mike and that light on you and you have to go go for yours
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
but don’t you think that when you’re famous and i’m gonna i’m going to use richard pryor as an example he could tell the same jokes over and over and over and over he really didn’t have to have any new jokes because even now let’s say if you play uh richard pryor cd you’re gonna laugh you know what the joke is you’re gonna laugh so so when you say uh you can’t tell the same jokes over and over again if they’re really really funny can’t you
Ronnie Ray
not on a new special okay special if you see me this year at the improv uh-huh i’ll do a set i come back around the next year at the improv you come back and i do the same set you’re not gonna be happy okay okay if you’re that guy if you’re like him if you’re richard pryor you can’t do it like you’re coming out every year where he could get the live and concert then he did the um sunset strip and then here and now he could come out and do the same act like there’s no way the only thing first time i heard this though george crawling he’d do a new hour he had like 13 hours on hbo or something like that basically after every new set that he has he comes back out and he says yell him out yo i mean yell out the old stuff you want to hear and i’m gonna do it so he does an hour of encore so i get to that level yeah i do it then but until i get to that yeah i’m just rocking out new stuff too it works
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay all right all right i remember uh and i was uh telling some friends about it when bernie mac started and um there was uh the cotton club here in chicago and bernie mac uh would come on open night uh open mic night and he would tell these jokes and we would be looking like he’s not even funny you know and i don’t know
Ronnie Ray
really really
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
no no it and so one night the mc wasn’t there and he volunteered to be the mc and so he and and he got it was it was on monday evenings and he kept getting funny and funnier and funnier and uh so one night he said to to us look hbo is coming and i don’t care if i’m not funny i want you all to laugh and whatever i say hold on to chairs do whatever and so that’s how he so hbo came and and evidently you know they thought he was good and the audience loved him because we were falling all on the floor you know and so he got his first show on hbo then he had he’d have they wanted him to either come to new york or wherever it was and he didn’t have any money and so he had a fund raiser and somewhere i have a signed program where he you know he autographed it but it was bernie mac and the macaronis and he was telling me like i don’t have any money i got to get there you all got to please y’all got to donate donate you know and after that you know well history
Frank Townsend
yeah history history history the best bernie mac story i ever heard came from john hinton from uh in living no living single he was doing the show he had just gotten off stage he went out in the lobby bernie shook his hand and then went in the room so they could hear bernie telling jokes but they couldn’t hear anybody laughing and by this time bernie mac was bernie mac so they’re like i know he’s not bombing what’s going on they looked in the room the people weren’t laughing because they could not breathe wow he literally had people on the floor if you weren’t on the floor you were hanging on to your table to keep from falling on the floor gasping for air wow i’ve never even heard of that in comedy wow
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah you know well look um you know when you have a show and you have you have to pay for your show so you got to have your sponsor so i got to do a couple of commercials and then uh we’re going to come back and i’ve got a couple of more well i got a few more questions for both of you all okay all right see you in a few no right all right [Music] so [Music] [Music] so have you all had to make any sacrifices to become tell me what sacrifices have you had
Ronnie Ray
for me um i’m not i’m not married i don’t have any kids like a sacrifice that’s just that for me yeah i was out there on the streets [Applause] yeah time it’s a lot man i can’t even describe it honestly it’s a lot this is hard though you have to especially at the level as long as i’ve been doing it and i’m not a millionaire there ain’t me no i’m not no i’m still this is it for me you have to understand this life if you don’t understand this life you really can’t hang with me so that’s probably why i absolutely got married when i was 18 and somebody that had my my back since prom night you know i needed a woman like that but now like it’s like uh now like you still out there and you wake what i ain’t seen you on this yeah i got credits but it don’t matter yeah i don’t know maybe i’m going up go ahead hey frank talk man cause i i’m about to just like and then in 87 no keep going
Frank Townsend
no but uh you do because i’m on the other side of that because i do have a wife and kid right and trust me it is a sacrifice um when my son was born i didn’t take a road gig for two years oh wow i stayed local i worked a job and i still did comedy but i only took local stuff he was two before i left and it killed me and you work through it you keep going got to the point where i can go now and he understands what it is and the wife has to be down with it because when you’re gone you’re gone right
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah especially you uh frank because you’re on cruise ships
Frank Townsend
yeah the thing is the difference with that is if i’m going for two weeks on land for land gigs that’s two different cities so i can technically come comedy clubs generally run from wednesday or thursday to sunday okay going back home monday and leave out the next wednesday so at least i have a couple of days at home okay cruise ship i’m doing anywhere from two to four weeks straight so i could be gone a month wow and that falls on my wife and the thing is i’m i’m active in my house so when i’m gone it’s missed because i do things around here i don’t want to just be that guy you know okay i’ll help i do this this is my house right so it hurts when i’m gone and so it hurts on both sides
Ronnie Ray
okay um let me add i lived in l.a so that’s a totally different grind i didn’t start stand-ups i got there you know four so like you there but you still gotta have a uh you still have to have still have to make money because back there you have to pay to get on stage open mics we paid to get on stage every like for years i i when i moved back here um in 13 i’m like what we’re gonna pay you and you can do this i’m like we have we up there being five five dollars for five minutes a day what seriously this is no joke yeah you know about this frank yeah that’s why you probably never moved out there because though it cost me a lot of money to get this so when i finally got a road gig and they like yo two two thirty minute sets back to back and i also used to doing like five to seven minutes at a time and they like ain’t no cursing either i’m like shh you really screwing me over like okay so how are we gonna do this and they wind up working out later the second show i learned that you know just just do what you got to do so i learned a big lesson from that but nobody taught me that if i would have stayed here and did it i think i’d probably be ahead of the game because you know comics here get paid they get time out there they can care less like it’d be 15 it’s a machine it’s a machine out there yeah there’s 15 comments on the show every day seven minutes at a time type thing and they’re filling up the 90 minutes and they have breaker shows and you have to bring 10 people and i’m like i don’t even know 10 people here you gotta find somebody i just yeah i brought like three people like man you know me man i said seven you ain’t going up i’m like what so you get stuff like that so it’s a different grind but i sacrificed a lot i didn’t have to take i moved away and got back in like i should just stay here to be a stand-up because you get paid to create your own little avenue like i got my own little avenue now so
Frank Townsend
yeah in a way you kind of need both i would think you come out you can build here and then go there and spend your time doing that right that could work as long as they know who you are you’re good
Ronnie Ray
right right no i have my probably my best friends in in comedy are in l.a so my comradery with my friends you know all of us paying money and being poor together yeah you do develop a bond but right yeah like to be able to make it a business there was no way it was all about the riding off getting lucky and some producer for paramount seeing you and giving you a picture deal on open mic and they play everybody like that now
Frank Townsend
being on the cruise ships provides a different problem in that i’m gone so much that when i come back here i don’t know when this shutdown happened and the comedy clubs were still open right i walked in the club and i might know two comics because so much it happened because i was gone so much yeah it’s okay and i’m like how do you know me [Laughter] i was an urban legend around this town for a minute right yeah no the season changed like every 18 months he’s a different proper comment to come in from somewhere right you’re just like the old guy so right oh wow
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay so do you have a ritual before you go on and i’m i i watched uh the kings of comedy and i was watching their rituals you know and it seemed like everybody had a kind of different ritual before they went on do you either one of you have a particular ritual before you go on
Ronnie Ray
i i go isolate myself i go sit in the car and i count to like 300 slow you know i just sit there my eyes closed one time i fell asleep because i was so tired but i said it counted slow and then i’ll praise the everybody you know just make sure i have a great show and so i did it before i did this so because every time i do something in the show business i try to do that
Frank Townsend
not anymore officially i do have one it depends on who i’m working with if i’m working with alex ortiz we got this weird thing where whoever’s going on stage empties their pockets and the other person has to hold it we started that when we were doing the miller genuine draft finals at uh the regal that was 100 years ago and we just did a show not long ago where we did the same thing and the crazy part is my wife was there i didn’t give my stuff to her i gave it to him because that was the ritual with him you give it to him he gives me his stuff and that’s how we do it
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
really that’s a weird ritual
Frank Townsend
it’s weird but it happened
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
but the argument on the way home nah okay okay
Frank Townsend
no there’s no argument
Ronnie Ray
that’s not like something
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so now that you’re on cruise ships you don’t have a ritual
Frank Townsend
get there on time you know how hard wait wait first of all you fall asleep on that ship the boat is rocking you asleep we’ve had comics missed the show because they slept through it now seriously we have one we have one dude where we have an eight o’clock a seven o’clock show and an 11 o’clock show whoever headlines the seven o’clock show has to headline the 11 o’clock but there’s one in the middle so basically you got a three-hour gap between shows that is unheard of in comedy that’s a long time man so i saw him around nine before the other show started and he said he’d be there normally before i introduced a comic i would check backstage to see if he were there i knew he was there so because he said he would be there i introduced him nothing happened no so dean edwards was the other comic i said dean to go look for him while i stalled he comes back gives me a signal i’m thinking dean telling me to introduce him no i introduced the guy again still nothing happened so at this point now i’m making jokes like phil is dead so [Laughter] so dean did the show and wanted me to go upstairs to look to see where phil was i go up there and i’m knocking on the door one of the guys came with me as i’m knocking on the door the other guy starts backing away like something gonna happen i’m like what are you even here for phil comes busting out the door like great i’m glad you woke me up let’s go do the show and i’m like no man it’s it’s over you missed it wow the best part about that was the next morning my boss called me uh-huh and she’s like we heard you had a comic mr show now we never told because we covered it and it was cool no big deal and she was like you’re not in trouble i just want you know the only reason i know is we got 30 calls from guests wondering if phil was dead oh my goodness
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so so let me ask another question who is your hardest audience
Ronnie Ray
black people
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
really
Ronnie Ray
black women especially
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
why is that
Ronnie Ray
i don’t know i did a joke about michelle obama one time and they hated me man they were the only black women in the room like everybody else was white and everything they they were doing like my sister’s y’all that’s like nah you can’t talk about the queen like that like it’s a joke but that was just that one time so you you over a period of time that’s your hardest audience god’s good god it had to be race guys me and guys are cool it’s with women though i get i get heckled they drunk or something i’m recording my album they had to carry this lady out they carried her out of the club and put it in the car we out there talking and she comes back out and you can’t get rid of me and whatever i’m like where’s the comforter who is she i’m just taking it to the bathroom i’m sorry good show ronnie i’m like dude
Frank Townsend
what about you afraid i still say for me it’s just black people in general i think blacks are the toughest audience but we give the most love yes black audiences will come in with the intent on not laughing okay
Ronnie Ray
i heard of them they would come in and sit i heard steve harvey say this he said well i read it he said um he said white comics they’re judged after the comic that was before them he said black comics are judged from comics that perceive them like we’re judged like from richard pryor or whatever so black guy comes he’s dressed up and he has this woman he’s ready to see something he’s never seen before and we’re working jokes out like no you need to bring it so we have the roughest you’re right you’re right with that i just had to i had to tell that story about the girl that was drunk i’m sorry
Frank Townsend
it was a guy and all jokes aside he had drove a black dude from arkansas now back in the time back at that time there were literally only two black owned comedy clubs in the country okay all jokes aside in chicago and all jokes aside in detroit okay so this guy black guy from arkansas drove up for open mic night had never been to chicago never been outside had never seen a black audience before this was when those uh suede and denim suits were out he had one which was stylish at the time yeah mid-90s yeah yeah but he had a fanny pack okay biggest fanny pack in the world he got on stage with it this was when they were doing the cat calls that’s how they got you off stage okay this is the this wasn’t the keys this is the catcall [Laughter] so they gave him the cat call before he even finished the first joke damon williams got back on stage and said okay i know what’s wrong this man drove too far for y’all to do that here’s what we gonna do i know the issue not gonna say what it is we’re gonna fix the issue and we’re gonna bring him back in a few after a few comics so three more comics came they took the fanny pack off the dude they let him get back up there he told a joke they bowled him again jamie got on stage i was like y’all just couldn’t let it go could y’all [Laughter] the man got booed for an accessory wow
Ronnie Ray
yeah yeah what night your wardrobe got to be somewhat on point when you go into black audiences i add some white shoes on one time i literally threw those shoes away i walked in the house in my socks like i am done with these shoes and look at your shoes all like oh i couldn’t even come back at home like they match my pants though dude it’s a whole fit you know it matches though right man i don’t care if you can’t be aware you gotta have some ones on some jordans all right i know he had to go through a fashion consultant before we came here so
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah i got a question of this um from sandy barney ennis and she wants to know do white people understand or get our healer
Ronnie Ray
they love our humor okay they honestly love our humor i’m sorry i’m laughing because i remember doing the show and i was the only black guy on this show and um you know this guy came with me and said hey ronnie hey great thing i just want to tell you i think that uh black comics are better than white comics and he walked away like hey all right i guess yeah
Frank Townsend
i’ve heard that a million times
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
really
Ronnie Ray
yeah exactly
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so why do you think that is i mean the humor is is is different
Frank Townsend
we come from more black comics usually come from a place of honesty okay real life from your life a lot of the white comics i’ve seen do more abstract made-up situations okay well we talk about real-life issues whether it be ours or something we’ve seen okay they’ll make up stuff that is so abstract and not saying it’s not funny but one thing i’ve learned it’s really hard to do made up stuff once you’ve heard a real comic on that stage that night okay so we don’t do a lot of fake black comics don’t do a lot of fake stuff
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
now i’ve got two things i want to say uh and i want both of you all to do this uh frank i want you to go to i want you to tell that joke or that story about going to adopt a kid and yeah right okay and it’s uh and i know it’s only like about three minutes long and ronnie i want you to think of a clean story clingy that you can tell uh in like no for and it takes no longer than say about three minutes okay frank go ahead
Frank Townsend
okay because the problem with telling that one is i don’t really remember it again okay cause i remember it okay i got one that i want to tell though it’s very it’s the joke that would come before that okay talk about when my wife told me she was having my baby okay she said something to me that didn’t make sense as a man she told me she was late oh no that might be her calling you telling you don’t tell that joke she right up there so she actually was watching this um when a woman tells a man that you’re late it don’t really make sense to us because we don’t most men think that that’s a it’s a it’s an abstract time thing the average man thinks when you say you late you got like nine ten days to get this thing popping so when she said it was in one ear right out the other so she goes to take a test and she finds out that she’s having my baby so when i come home she’s gonna try to find a cute way to tell me she’s having my child but it’s based on me remembering okay yeah that she was late and the reason that don’t work because as a man i don’t remember like you as a woman i can tell you a story in three parts i need the first part today second part in the week third part of the month the minute i give you that last part because you’re a woman your mind snaps it all together every time you tell a man a story you add something new you got to start all the way from the beginning every single time you got to start off with you remember when i told you so when she when i came in the door my wife said this to me she goes guess what i peed on a stick today [Music] and i’m looking like why are you peeing outside the neighbor’s gonna see you [Laughter] she’s like i’m having your baby you dummy and i was like and it made me feel good because i wanted to be a father so i decided i was going to be the best father i could be i was going to read all the books i was going to all the doctors appointments i even said i was going to be in the room when my child was born because they told me child birth was beautiful okay they ain’t saying nothing about the actual child because when he came out it wasn’t nothing nice [Laughter] i mean he looked like gollum from lord of the rings when he came out hey you know my wife my wife is pretty yes what this kid don’t work out everybody blaming me so i’m doing everything i can to help this situation yeah you know i’m trying anything i can think of you know when they got those little heat lamps they put on the baby i’m trying to push them closer get it up to 375 because i figured he’s not done yet
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
all right frank all right ronnie
Ronnie Ray
okay uh a clean one nickelodeon okay all right i got well just but as far as cleaning what no swearing right no swearing don’t get me hooked don’t get me pushed you got you have sponsors and everything i did your commercial break too they go hard in the streets okay all right before comedy i used to want to be a pimp seriously god i was at the club i know pips they got a they got a power with them they got the power of subliminal you know subliminal is you hearing something over and over but you really don’t think you’re hearing it like they hypnotize you with the words you’re like yeah that’s cool i was like 21 i was in the club and his pimp came in he was like uh hey what’s up youngster see that girl at the end of the ball i’m about to pour that with the power of the subliminal he walked over to he said hey babe you can’t live without me when a drink can’t live without me two rooms and coach can’t live without me next thing you know she was in the car with him driving down the street and i was right behind us i feel like i couldn’t live without the media you i’ll know on the corner with a dress though for two days but i realize i’m about to live without this deal but you need to at that point i’m not gay i’m just staying without them
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay so i got a question here um have you ever been on stage and forgot your lines
Ronnie Ray
all the time i used to take i used to take the whole notepads up and trying to go word for word and i was like this is bad you know i mean after that i was like i’m never doing that again so i don’t even write jokes down anymore i just like put them on um topics and bullet points and go with it
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
yeah okay so uh we got about five minutes to go what are your plans for the future
Ronnie Ray
uh paying my rent for um show this snow it’s showing the snow tomorrow yeah it’s a lot of stuff dr james right now um everybody’s trying to wait to see what’s happening but you got to figure out what you’re going to do until then so you’re prepping uh a lot of us are writing uh not just uh comedy bits we’re writing television shows or writing movies and things like that so i got some shows that i’m trying to put together uh a couple of movies i’m trying to write and still writing comedy uh got some shows that are coming up in chicago as soon as they crack the doors open so um yeah you finished now what’s up
Frank Townsend
oh cause uh check with zany’s because zany’s is uh booking for march and april so
Ronnie Ray
oh yeah okay nice nice nice nice i um yeah i started my own podcast network uh underdogs at comedy network um i got my q a ronnie ray show uh i interview my favorite comedians actors and people that’s in the uh from playboy tv uh uh also also i got um sketches that i wrote uh whole thing with um uh right finish the script with my friend now now atlanta it’s a lot of stuff so yeah i’m just working there’s a lot of time on my hands i have to make that do something
Frank Townsend
yeah oh yeah one more thing i forgot because i did i just did start a podcast you just said earlier yeah i got three i got three episodes already done so let me let me be frank the let me be frank podcast
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
and how can they find it
Frank Townsend
uh you can look under people of comedy network on facebook or you can look under let me be frank because it’s also there as well uh right now that’s the easiest way and youtube
Ronnie Ray
okay great and ronnie ready subscribe to the youtube page i am man that’s the hardest thing we haven’t been able to do sketches i wrote like 70 i have a white boy here who are full of different sketches my brother just got this on the plumbing filmmaking oh you um jay david that’s your cousin jj david shanks i’m he told me that probably like about eight years ago you know frank townsend like yeah i was in l.a like yeah you know that’s my cousin like wow i saw him do the joke with what’s today i mentioned the talk too so
Frank Townsend
yeah he literally my first cousin he spoke in my brother’s graduation at columbia wow like two years ago so uh my brother’s a film student so i’m like we gonna get him going and yeah just it’s shooting stuff man just subscribe to the youtube page because we got a whole lot of stuff coming
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
all right so now we have something uh you know what uh what location uh not right that’s that’s your better hair yeah such a gift she had to say this right because she’s probably in the next room so um i got one little question and i don’t know if you want to answer this question or not but he put it up there he said ask frank about amy the pretty girl from comic con
Frank Townsend
amy the pretty girl for comic con you know what i don’t like kevin we went to comic con a couple years back and we just walked around videotaping what we saw and amy was not even a girl from comic con amy was a guy an old man an old white dude dressed like a girl uh because you know the end of the cosplay but i got a feeling here’s what in cosplay i think his was just friday night that’s just how he got there it was it was horrific it wasn’t horrific
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so quickly give me one line what would you say ronnie and frank about someone a young man or a young woman who wants to become a comedian one sentence
Ronnie Ray
and don’t stop ever all right get on the stage and don’t stop ever
Frank Townsend
what i say to the kids for the young comedy kids uh when you start know when they graduate because you they will never tell you when to move up to the next thing
Ronnie Ray
okay no no it depends because damon williams was good for uh letting folks know hey you need instead of just doing this open mic they need to pay you on the weekends that’s what he told me and then he told casually hey you need to start getting out doing comic you hey you need to go you gotta know when but he’s telling you everybody doesn’t say it though
Frank Townsend
oh yeah it depends on who you who you’re around some of the some of the old here to tell you if they see it in you they definitely will
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
okay so look rodney i want ronnie ray to be my grandbaby’s daddy
Ronnie Ray
i take a girl or boy you and my daughter would make beautiful babies she is stepping out of her daughter for life on the internet and my mom said from earlier i’m like okay she’s gonna see that and laugh real hard
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
so look it has been a pleasure it really has you all have just made my day i feel so good and i want people to reach out to ronnie reagan on youtube go on facebook look him up and for frank townsend go on youtube look for his podcast go on facebook these are both as you saw and heard very very very funny guys i want to thank you all for being on my show this evening and the hour just flew back and i i want to thank all my audience for watching and and um you all can’t see all the laughs and all that kind of stuff but you got a lot of love and a lot of laugh and so i want you all to just be safe and continue on your journey because you all agree and the next time you appear anywhere i’m coming okay
Ronnie Ray
and i try to keep it clean dr jen and you know you can’t keep it clean okay get your own wrist there no he’s wrong she can handle it
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
all right so i want to say good night to you all uh be blessed and stay healthy alrighty all right all right it’s been a pleasure i have enjoyed this and i hope that you all have enjoyed the show i definitely have remember relationship matters there are all kinds of relationships and we just had an hour of the most beautiful relationships there are so thank you all for tuning in and i will see you next week bye [Music] do [Music] you