No joke: Recession brings out the clowns

updated 3:40 p.m. ET Aug. 7, 2009

LOS ANGELES - There's just something about a recession that makes people want to do funny things.

Like wannabe comics who are out of a job and hoping amateur hour at comedy clubs could be the ticket to a paycheck — and maybe stardom. Because, really, how hard could that be?

At New York City's Gotham Comedy Club, co-owner Chris Mazzilli says he saw more than 1,000 such hopefuls recently as they tried to win a spot on a program being broadcast on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham."

"We've had financial people, attorneys, garbage men, right down the line," he said.

At the Laugh Factory on Hollywood's Sunset Strip, people line up around the block for open-mic night. Some even show up the night before to ensure they will land one of the 30 coveted slots that will pay them absolutely nothing. But if they do well they might win a paying gig later.

Near the front of the line on a recent Tuesday is Jefandi Cato, who was so broke after she lost her job as a cocktail waitress that she says she was forced to move into her car earlier this year.

Still, Cato, 27, counts her misfortune as a blessing, saying it gave her the courage to finally do what she always wanted.

On stage, she tells the audience things aren't as bad as they could be; she's still managing to get her hair done.

"But what's sad about that is that I have a white girl braiding my hair," says Cato, who is black. "That's how you KNOW the economy is going down the drain."

The line gets a good laugh, but when a follow-up joke about "bartering weed for weave" falls flat, a surprised Cato tells the audience, "It was funny last night at the Comedy Store."

She has just discovered what veteran comic Paul Rodriguez says every comedian quickly learns: You can never count on any joke being funny two nights in a row and no matter how good you are, you never really know when the audience might turn on you.

"It baffles me every day," says Rodriguez who has made a handsome living for 30 years telling jokes. "One day you can be as good as anyone who ever did comedy, and the next day the same stuff doesn't work. It's more frustrating than golf."

Which is one reason Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada says he's blunt with people trying to switch careers in this recession, especially the older aspiring comics in their 40s and 50s that he says he sees more and more often these days.

He tells them he's seen just about every successful comedian of the last 30 years come through the door, and it took even people like Jim Carrey and Dane Cook years to make it big. The harsh reality is that television shows don't book old people and even the funniest arthritis and hemorrhoid jokes don't play with a young crowd.

He repeats what Richard Pryor told him: no matter how funny you are, it takes 10 years on stage to develop the timing to become great.

"Some of them tell me, 'I would be 70 by then, I would be 60,'" Masada says. "I tell them, 'I don't want to crush your dream, buddy, but that's what it takes.'"

Still, a recession always seems to draw people toward careers in comedy, says Stephen Rosenfield, who has operated one of the country's pre-eminent joke-telling schools, the American Comedy Institute, since 1989. His three-week workshops, which start at $425 a pop, sold out this summer, and he's taking reservations for September.

"It's not so strange in a way," Rosenfield says, adding a recession provides "good cover" for someone interested in making the kind of career change that might be considered idiotic at other times.

MORE FROM REINVENTING AMERICA

Reinventing America Section Front

Great Recession transforms the workplace As fees rise, airlines test flier limits Census: Americans hit hard by downturn How one family eliminated $106,000 of debt Credit crunch creates a delicate balancing act Urgency for new financial rules is slipping away Frugality is the new normal, by necessity For class of 2009, degree doesn’t mean a job NYT: Rise of the super-rich hits sobering wall Frustration rising over mortgage relief Reinventing America Section Front   Add Reinventing America headlines to your news reader: