âIâm a little bit nervous. Not for the whole âstand-upâ thing. Itâs just, Iâm from the South, and so Iâm conditioned to be nervous in a room full of drunk white people.â
So began Richard Douglas Jonesâ set at the New Negroes show at Doug Fir Lounge.
âAnd to top it all off,â he continued, âthis is a goddamn hunting lodge.â
Comedian and actor Baron Vaughn brought his New Negroes show back to the Bridgetown Comedy Festival for a third yearâand, yes, the room was predictably packed with drunk (mostly) white people, which did not go unnoticed or uncommented on by the performers. Local comic and recent Kill Rock Stars signee Nathan Brannon co-hosted with Vaughn, and the two comedians riffed easily with each other, warming up the crowd instantly.
This yearâs comics hailed from north to south, and their styles shifted dramatically from one to the next. Austinâs Yusef Roach opened by confessing that, âthe whiter the girl Iâm hitting on, the blacker my voice gets,â then, almost as an afterthought, he added, âI donât know if anyone else can relate.â
Atlantaâs Mia Jackson followed Roach, holding it down as the nightâs only female comic. With the same genius for timing and delivery that led her to the semi-finals on Last Comic Standing, Jackson delivered a set that, while funny as hell, perhaps resonates more deeply in the South. She began by tracing her deteriorating relationship back to an argument over a biscuitâânot a Red Lobster biscuit,â she explained, âwhich wouldâve been worth it, because it has cheese inside.â Probably zero percent of the Doug Fir audience has ever been inside a Red Lobster, or eaten a biscuit with cheese inside.
Taking the stage next, and carrying a bowl of baby carrots with him, LAâs Quincy Jones (not that one) dropped a rapid succession of Mitch Hedberg-like one-liners, all the while pausing between jokes to take a crunchy bite from a carrot. âI love how packed this room is of white people, to watch a show called New Negroes,â he observed at the end of his set. âWhat the hell are you guys doing here?â
Richard Douglas JonesâMemphis native and host of the Black Nerd Power podcastâcame next, testing the audienceâs comfort level by carpetbombing them with the N-word, defending it by calling it âthe country club of words, and white people are just dying to get in.â
Solomon Georgio was next onstageâdressed, in his words, like a âgay, black lumberjack going to a business meeting.â A Seattle-raised comic, actor, and Bridgetown regular, Georgio introduced himself as âa professional homosexual,â then went on to proclaim that âstraight dudes that refuse to eat pussy are the gayest thing in the whole wide world. Who are you for? Why do you exist?â
The energy (and volume) rocketed skyward when the kinetic David Gborie took the stage. He elicited equal parts laughter and groans when relating how his Google image search for black people with Downâs syndrome resulted in âone picture of a black guy with Downâs syndrome⌠one picture of an Asian guy with Downâs syndrome, and then a picture of rapper Jadakiss.â
The show closed with LA-based actor and comic Tone Bell, who had a halting start to his set, then admitted he was âdrunk as fuck. This goddamn city is killing me.â He struggled to bring it together, but midway through his set he found his groove, during an extended riff on his father, who answers his Samsung smartwatch, âDick Tracy here,â and calls his lone pair of jeans, âthe jeans.â Bellâs indifference (or, sure, his inebriation) was, unexpectedly, a refreshing way to close the night.
So what did the drunk white people think of the show? I couldnât honestly tell you. While getting post-show drinks at B-Side with a handful of white friends, the overall consensus at the table was that the show was âgreat.â But I found myself wondering, as I often do, what white people talk about, and what they laugh about, when Iâm not there.