I'm sure I had low-level scurvy all of my childhood.
The whole principle of coming out is that everyone knows someone who's gay. The minute someone comes out, no one can be a bigot, because someone they love is gay.
And I was the only black kid in my school for almost all of my childhood, until I was a teenager. So imagine, if you will, being 6 feet tall by third grade, so essentially being a living maypole.
One of the first movies my dad took me to see was the original 'Road Warrior.' And I was kind of raised on the action movies of that era: 'The Terminator' and 'Die Hard' and, of course, all of the 'Star Wars' movies.
Maybe the nails are a little stubby and gnawed on, but I definitely do not have man hands.
I really do know football.
I've said this before, and I'm sure there are people who disagree, but I feel like one of the reasons there aren't a lot more women in stand-up - and there are many more now; it's not parity, but it's getting there - is that women are not socialized to look stupid or silly. They're socialized to be pretty and precious.
Dartmouth is a small school with high-caliber teaching. Our classes were all taught by professors, not teaching assistants. I felt like that was a school where I could make a big splash. The opportunities would be grander and more robust for me there than at a school with 40,000 students.
Sunday is like this entertainment scrum for me, because I've only got a day, one day of fun. So I want to have brunch, and I want to see a movie, and I want to watch 'Game of Thrones,' and I'm trying to watch 'The Sopranos' from the beginning, and I want to play four hours of video games. So, it's, like, as regimented as my work life.
Yes, I do get recognized in public. It's pretty nice.
I hated, when I was a kid, being told that 'Black people don't do that.' And the white kids at school didn't accept me because I was black, and the black kids in my neighborhood didn't accept me because they thought I thought I was white.
The only way I was going to be funny was if I was myself, and either you liked it, or you didn't. Either you got on my train, or you didn't. Freeing myself of this idea that I had to fit a certain mold was when I was able to be my funniest.
People challenge my nerd cred all the time. I just show them the photo of me winning my middle-school science fair, wearing my Casio calculator watch and eyeglasses so big they look like they can see the future.
I went to private school for two years, then Aptos Middle School, and I finished at McAteer. Several of my classmates at those schools are my friends today.
When I get old and slow down I want to look behind me and see all the fire and the wreckage and no stone left unturned.
I thought I was gonna be an attorney, so I went to Dartmouth and I was a government major and I minored in environmental policy, and I didn't do anything academically around the arts.
I have this insane and unabated longing for San Francisco. I come up there every chance that I get.
I can tell you this: Stand-up is not glamorous.
As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.
I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.
