Comedian Bio
There was a time when John E. was making his living
convincing people to gamble with their health and finance ratios, a.k.a.
selling supplemental health insurance. Then he was accepted into The Other
Side, an improv comedy trope that’s title took on a metaphorical meaning when he
reevaluated his personal purpose in this world, quit his job and dove deeper
into the comedy arts by joining the sketch comedy trope, Changing Channels.
That title also took on yet another metaphorical meaning as he developed the
multimedia production company, PARALLELLOGRAM. This lengthy, slightly
misspelled word became the moniker under which several comedic short films were
created. Then, in 2010, just as his unsatisfying occupation had led him to the
creative arts in the past, frustration toward societal hypocrisies led him to
performing stand up comedy. Since then he’s developed a friendly, irreverent,
satirical style that challenges the status quo of comedy by taking on divisive
topics like the military/industrial complex, nipple equality, government secrecy,
and perhaps the most divisive topic of our time, Kanye. Since John E. is a
Wilmington, North Carolinian, he hails the Dead Crow Comedy Room his home club.
He has opened for several of his comedy heroes there, including Myq Kaplan, Ben
Kronberg, and Ryan Singer.
Story
I got into stand up comedy with the best intentions. Sure
there was a narcissistic need for validation that inspires so many to get into
the art form, but my main motivation came from the need to speak free. There
are very few places in this world that truly encourage free speech, and the
world of stand up comedy is one of them, with the caveat that it has to be
funny, or at least interesting. The topic that I desired to speak about the
most: hypocrisy. Stand up comedy became an outlet for me to hone my complaints
about society’s many hypocrisies in a humorous and purposeful. This is a much
more fulfilling than the whiny complaints to my family and friends that I was
doing previous to this. With every bit that I’d write and perform, I’d ask
myself “How can I point out these hypocrisies in a way that will get people
giggling but also get them thinking”. It’s been an evolving process to find
that balance, especially when I’m attempting to make divisive points that are
difficult to convey much less make hilarious, some include “taxation is theft”,
“9-11 was an inside job, maybe, there’s so much government secrecy who’s to
say, except for the government, but they’re not saying”, “the sun is a racist
against white people because it’s always burning their pale white skin”, “how
little sense it makes to have fluoride in the water supply since there’s a
paste you can rub on your teeth that has that in it already”, “every cow in
America is a slave that will most likely be murdered by a hit man that was
hired indirectly by anybody that orders cheeseburgers”, and finally, “white
people can say the word “nigger” cause if you say a person can’t say a word
because of the color of their skin, then you’re not only being a racist but
you’re being a wordist.” This last one has caused me some strife, partly
because I’m white and partly because there are a lot of wordists out there. Hey
wordists, check it out, all words are created equal. No word, as a word by
itself, is bad. It’s about how that word is used; it’s context, but most of the
population has been indoctrinated into this concept that there are “bad” words.
In fact, despite the Constitution of the United States of America stating in
it’s very first amendment that all have a right to free speech, the federal
government, the very organization that wrote that document, contradicted that
amendment in a big way by creating an organization called the Federal
Communications Commission that created a whole list of “bad” words that could
not be said on radio and television. Included in that list of words is the word
“nigger”; a word so heavily discriminated against that it was taken out of new
printed editions of Mark Twain classics and changed to the word “slave”, which
as far as labels go, sounds way worse to me, but it’s a good example of how
much hatred for “nigger” (the word) that we’re dealing with in our society.
I’ve certainly felt this misguided discrimination multiple times while
performing this bit. One time I was performing for a crowd of 99% white people
and one black guy, who I knew, named Tim. We weren’t best friends but we’ve had
a couple of decent conversations in the past so I went up to him after the show
to say hey, and I could tell by his cold response to me that he was not
pleased, so I asked if he thought that it wasn’t cool that I did the bit that I
did, and he said “yeah”, and then turned his whole back to me and started
talking to someone else. We didn’t talk since, but a year later I happen to get
into a heated public Facebook post discussion with a black comic. The heated
discussion became about how this comic made some sexist comments to a woman
friend of mine while he was onstage and she ended up walking out. Then out of
nowhere, Tim chimes in. “Why would anyone heed what John E Gray has to say, he
thinks it’s cool to say nigger on stage”. This let me know two things. One: I’m
wasting my god damn time on Facebook, and two: Tim didn’t even hear the point
of my bit cause I lost his attention right after I became a white person that
said “nigger”. I should, at this point, add that I actually never say the word
“nigger”. I say, “nigga”. I do this not out of fear of the crowd’s response to that
hard “er”, (not to discredit the significant difference, those two “er” letters
definitely inspire a harsher reaction) but because my way of getting into the
bit is to talk about the song “Niggas In Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye West, and
how it’s my favorite song. This usually seamlessly segues from my comedy bits
about Kanye and Kim Kardashian, (two more divisive topics) and hopefully gets
me to the parts of the bit that the audience really enjoys, like when I talk
about being raised by wordists (my parents). Then I list all the bad words that
weren’t allowed at my wordist parent’s dinner table and how those are the same
words that the federal government deems as “bad” words, and so they were just
taught how to be wordists by the government, and what happens when the FCC adds
to it’s list of “bad” words the real bad word that ever one knows is bad, the
word “moist”. I’ve been told many times that “moist” is a bad word, I’m still
not sure why. I know it’s got something to do with vaginas, but in my experience
if you’ve got moisture and vaginas together, that’s a winning combination right
there. Anyway, that part of the bit typically does well. Then I rap it up with
making my point that words aren’t bad, it’s how you use them that can be bad,
and if I ever use the “N” word, its either to refer to my favorite jam, “Niggas
In Paris” by Jeezy and Yeezy, or to refer to my friends, and I’ll say, “even
though I don’t know most of you here tonight, ya’ll seem cool, and I’d like to
be your friend, so I hope y’all consider me to be your nigga.” I did this bit
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and a man in the back yelled “YOU AIN’T FUNNY”,
it was a black man. I asked, “did you say that because I’m a white guy that
just said the “N” word. He said, “Yep! Get the fuck off the stage, dude.” That
happened to be the last part of my set, so I said, “you’re right, bye”, and got
the fuck off the stage, dude. On the walk home I could tell my newly
girlfriended girlfriend was not pleased with my performance either. I could
tell because she said, “that wasn’t cool for you to say that, there is a lot of
painful history behind that word”. Then I said, “no there’s not. There’s pain
projected on to that word, but the real historical pain in the black culture
comes from being kidnapped away from their homeland, and the century of
slavery, and the institutional inequality and discrimination. These are vile
atrocities, the later two still in full effect with the 13th Amendment to the
Constitution that states that slavery is abolished unless the person is in
prison and the War On Drugs insures that butt loads of people are gonna be
taken to prison, and most of those people happen to be black. Meanwhile it’s
the word that gets vilified, not the actions. Words, just like people, are all
created equally, its discrimination that created “nigger” in the first place,
as a way to discriminate, so if black people want to own the word “nigger”,
they’re trying to make “nigger” their slave. How twisted is that?” My then
girlfriend said, “you should make that part of the bit”. Then I smacked myself
in the forehead cause it is a part of the bit. I had totally forgotten and left
out all the words that would have allowed me the freedom to set that slave word
free. I forgot to free my own speech.
