EP 8: Faith and Comedy with Tara Brown (Part 1)

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Hi, and welcome to another episode of catastrophic comeback. And I am thrilled today to have Tara Brown. Joining us. Tara is a comedian, and by profession, and welcome, Tara, thank you for

being you. Thank you so much for having me, Clark. I'm happy to be here.

So tell me a little bit about your career what you do now?

Well, I am a full time stand up comedian and motivational speaker, I spent more than 30 years working in PR, as a PR professional did it for books and television and film, started doing stand up comedy about a little over nine years ago, and decided in January of this year, to take the leap of faith and to leave my corporate job and to do comedy and speaking full time. And here we are. All right. Well,

so so. But first, let's see, let's tell me a little bit about what you did in PR some of the projects that you did, what type of work that you did. Did you enjoy it? What kind of what kinds of things were your responsibilities and accomplishments?

Well, when I worked in book publishing, I did have worked on a lot of books that were New York Times and national bestsellers, I it ranged the gamut from legal thrillers, to sports books, I love good sports biographies. So I was the you know, the cool thing in PR, and publishing, everyone kind of has a niche they like to work on. So you, you tend to get those books you'd like. So I actually liked a lot of the sports biography. So I worked on a book about Sandy Kofax. I'm a baseball fanatic. Go Yankees. So I worked on a book about Sandy Koufax, which was just the thrill of my life. So much so that it wasn't by him. But what it was by a Washington Post reporter who had access to his friends and family, which if you knew him, you know, that's huge, because he's a very private person and tremendous amount of respect for him. But he gave them permission to speak to her. So it was a pretty big deal. So worked on that another great book called goes to Manila. The faithful blood feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, this book was interesting in the fact that it kind of gave shot to Joe Frazier in a way that a lot of books and things don't, you know, everyone talks about Ali Frazier, but they talk more I lead than they do phrases to this book, kind of shine the light on him. And I got to work with the brilliant late Mark cram, who was a renowned sports right on that. So that was fun. So a lot of the biographies, I also was responsible whenever can book publishing for honestok lon, which was African American line of books, I was very proud of the work that we did there. And then, you know, so I'm originally from New York. And so when I was working in book publishing, obviously, I was in New York. And so in 2003, another leap of faith I made move to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I didn't know a soul, but it was just like Charlotte seems like fun. And the cool thing about moving to Charlotte, my plan was to do because as I mentioned, I liked sports. So I was going into sports, PR. And when I was considering between Charlotte and Raleigh, Charlotte had the better pro pro sports team. And as the saying goes, if you ever want to tell God a joke, tell him about your future plans. So my plan was to come to Charlotte to sports PR, but it didn't quite work out that way. So then when I moved to Charlotte, I started doing PR for television and film. And that was fantastic work on a lot of great projects, including some with Taylor Hicks from American Idol. in country music, I can trace Adkins and I work with a lot of cowboys, and I always have the running joke. I know more about cowboy and Western culture than any black girl from Brooklyn probably.

Okay, so you have this thriving career in PR, and in books and television and movies. And then at some point, it seems like a pretty dramatic shift in the company. How did that how did that go down?

You know, I always like to challenge myself and I'm not one who really feels comfortable if I'm sitting idle. So one day I was just looking to free told I was looking for something to supplement my life just something different to do a hobby if you will. So I googled literally Googled things to do in Charlotte and comedy class pocket. up. And I was like, Huh, you know, people said, I'm funny, maybe I come from a long line of funny, folks, I'll give it a shot. So it was a six week class we had offered at the Comedy zone in Charlotte. And week seven, you graduate, so you get so for the first six weeks, you'd learn how to put together a five minute set. And then on week seven, you perform in front of your friends and family, it is the best show you will ever have in the history of your life. Because everybody's coming near the route you want. And so you're like, I can do this. I'm amazing. The real world you like when my people that you know, so. But it was, it was great. And you know, and I've been doing it ever since. So I do clean and family friendly comedy. And so it's afforded me the opportunity to be able to perform in a multitude of places, and I do a lot of corporate work in churches and just different things. So it's been fun. So

I'm familiar with your career, and I followed your career for a while, in fact, you and I met at one of your comedy performances. Yeah. And so. So I love the whole I love the clean comedy, and the, you know, that I can bring my kids to, and I think that's just a really cool thing. And so, so So what's the reception when you're when you're at a? I mean? How do you how do you get your, your clean comedy out? I mean, do you go to the same clubs as everybody else? And just perform? Is it? Is it? Is it labeled as? Is it a different genre? How does it? How does it How does it work? And what's reception? Well,

you know, when you're first starting out, you do a lot of open mics, you do open mics, when you get established also, because you want to make sure that the comedy works. You know, funny is funny. So if it's clean, it does, you know, I don't go to this place, specifically, if they're doing clean, which is really hard for me to find anyway. So I, you know, you know, you have to sometimes build your own thing, so much so that I produce and host my own clean comedy shows around Charlotte, but I go and work the material out at open mics across the country, the good thing, comedy is a lot about networking, too. So when you're out at these open mics, and different shows, you meet people, people see you, they put you on their shows, you know, thankfully, I've been on enough shows that I can pretty much I get asked to be on shows a lot, which is always nice. And I can get to pick and choose what I want to do. As I said, for me, you know, I tell people all the time I try to encourage my fellow comedians, I don't, I don't want to change anybody from doing what they do. If you work glue, and that works for you, that's fine. But I try to encourage everyone to have a good arsenal of clean material in their toolkit because it will afford them the opportunity to stretch their brand. And because there's a saying that goes if you work clean, you work more often. And I found that to be very true. So I am thankful and blessed that I get to work often. And you know, at this point, like I said, I get the the luxury, if you will, for lack of a better word of just kind of deciding what's a good fit for me and what's not. What

is what is the reason for your commitment to clean comedy. It's just

who I am. It's not you know, I am not a person in my daily life who speaks profanely. And so I honestly tell you jokes, the way I speak to people, it's not like I made a conscious decision. To do it this way. It's just who I am. Also, I'm the daughter of a preacher. And I think my mama would not like me out on stage using a bunch of F bombs. Vega so it was faith a part of your life, a huge part of my life. It God's everything I do, this whole journey of my life is just it starts and ends with my faith.

Well, so let's come back to that, because there's some questions that I want to ask you about that. And that's kind of in our, in our wheelhouse. As far as, uh, just things that might help people get through tough times. Yeah. So, in other words, the purpose of this podcast is, every day out there somewhere, someone is wakes up to a terrible tragedy, they've been really seriously injured in an accident, they're in the hospital rooms, you know, they've lost a loved one, they've had a permanent injury that just won't affect them for the rest of their lives and, and we want to be able to go into that room with them and give them some tools that might help them work through this process. And so faith is one of the is one of the tools. You know, it's one of the things that helps us get through tough times. And so we'll come back and talk to you about that in a minute. Well, you know what, let's talk about it. Now. If you're how What comes up is? If God is good, and God is powerful, why does he let bad things happen? You know, how does a, how does a person die or become paralyzed in an accident? You know, how do we lose loved ones that are those kinds of terribly tragic serves circumstances? And I'm sure you've had tragedy in your life where you have observed tragedy in your life? And how do you reconcile those things?

You know, that's the toughest question you get asked as a person of faith, you know, when you're, you're trying to speak to someone about your faith, and they come at you with questions like that. And they're very valid questions, and you don't want to diminish what people feel. But what I can do is just, you know, accept that and what they're feeling because I've sometimes I feel the same way. I feel like the words children and cancer should never be in the same sentence. So when you see, children's suffering is sick, it breaks my heart. So I don't have the answer to that. What I talk to people about is, I know what God has has done for me, I know that there are times when I didn't see my way out of situations. And it was I can just point that there was nothing but the Lord that kind of got me through is interesting. Because I, the over the past three weeks, I've been having a challenge in three weeks. And I remember being in my car, and thinking to myself, I would not allow myself to get into this frame of mind. That was me, because it is but so I kind of flipped the narrative. And I said, You know what, God, yes, this happened, but you didn't allow this to happen. And so when I started kind of speaking, that to myself, it really changed how I looked at my situation. And so I said, Okay, God, you got me through something similar. We're gonna get I'm going to, we're going to walk through this, and you're going to show me out and I'm not going to tell you the magic magically felt better. But it really helped me deal with it. And it's interesting, I had a very interesting experience happened last week, I was in the picking up breakfast. And a woman walked in, and she had really cute sunglasses on. And I started to tell her, Oh, I like your sunglasses. And before I can say that, she said to me, you look so pretty. And I literally burst into tears in this place. Because I didn't I didn't even feel emotional. But I just had been having such a rough three weeks for her to say something kind, just really pricked me. And I was like, The Lord knew I needed that. And so he sent this woman to do that. And it was so so what happened is, I hooked her, she hooked me, we start crying. She's telling me she had it for three weeks, and we were ministering to each other. And that's what I love about the Lord. I love that. He will. He sees us, He hears us. He knows he cares. And I didn't even know I needed that lady. I didn't even feel emotional that day. And I was like, Why am I crying? But I thank God that He allowed her to be a blessing to me, you know, to speak life into me when I needed it. So, you know, again, I don't diminish at all. You know, when people have tough questions about why this has happened. I can just speak to my experience of walking with the Lord and just how he's been. He's got it my whole life and this whole comedy journey. I call it my proverbs 1816 journey, how the Lord's gift, the law will let your gift make room for you. So I get I can just come from my place of knowing what God has done for me.

Well, so it sounds like that your your, your the way you look at it is it's not so much that God does these things to people or even allows them to happen necessarily. It's this but But what he can do what where God fits in is he helps us through these difficult things.

Yes, he does. Every step of the way is just and that is, you know, my prayer is like God helped me to feel your presence. And so a lot of times it's just you think you're in it by yourself and you're not and they can feel lonely. You know, i My heart broke down when during the pandemic, because when people were in isolation, and some people don't do well with things like that, and I just think that was a time for sure. You had to lean on my faith really heavily because just it was a very isolating experience. But yes, that's, that's what it is. For me. It's just feeling the Lord's presence around me. And just like you know what's funny, is it's an interesting responsibility also, because when you feel a little bit walking with you, you also feel and hear those times when he's telling you not to do something you want to do. Like when you want to fuss somebody out in traffic or something you like. I had someone laugh about this the other day and I just I laughed about it myself when when I think about it. I was driving into traffic one day, and someone let me in front of them. And I was like you know thank you. I kid you not less than 10 feet at drive 10 feet someone tried to get in front of me and I rushed up. And I laughed out loud. I said, Lord, I saw my back. You know, and it's just you just have to laugh. But just like, you know, we're giving grace every day. And we just have to remember the group grace to other people, because you never know what someone's going through. That's why with comedy, is such an awesome responsibility to me, that the Lord uses me to think of something in my mind, write a joke that will help someone in the room because my whole thing is, when I say this a lot about my comedy. I don't know what you walked in this room where, but while you're here with me, I want to just be able to say something, maybe tell you a funny story, that just will help. You know, you get through or change the direction of your day, or make you forget about that date that heaviness you walked in with, and you not lived until you perform comedy. And then afterwards, someone comes up to you and says, you know, thank you for this, my dad just died. And this is the first time I've been out and I had I needed a laugh. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, so I'm grateful that I get to do that.

Well, so that's kind of the whole point of this conversation is the idea laughter can be the best medicine, and it's in it's if people are going through tough times, then then then we're looking for ways that people can, things that people can find that will help them through those tough times. Right? So so how do you, you know, when you're writing, and when you were in when you were? Let me ask you this, you went through a You're a funny person. And then you learned you went to you intentionally went to a school or a class or a series of classes, to help you use that natural ability, and to craft and write jokes and those kinds of things. What was that? Like? How did you and what kind of material do you focus on? What kind of what what do you what do you? What's your sort of genre? Or what do you you know? Are you observational? Or what are the different genres? And what do you do? And how do you pick it?

I do, I'm observational, for sure, self deprecating. And I found my sweet spot. You know, I heard this said, and I found that to be true, you know, when you first started out, started out doing comedy, you're trying to find your way you don't know what your your lane is, and so on and so forth. And about five years, and you start to figure it out. And I believe that's what happened for me. So five years in, I really leaned in to doing comedy that focus on focuses on me being a woman of a certain age, I'm 54 years old, I don't run away from that, you know, a lot of people get weirded out about talking about the I don't, because and the reason that I don't, and I tell people this too. I'm from two of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York, where people didn't make it to see 54. So when I stand on the stage, and I tell you that I'm 54 years old, which this is also is another declaration of my faith that I thank God that I've made it to see 54. So what I found is that when I do comedy, as I call it, as a woman of a certain age, that really resonates with people. And so afterwards, like a woman came up to me after a show one time she goes, you need to call the pension, let them be your sponsor, because I left it to my defense. And I was so happy I had my depends on it. And I laughed. But I found that that has resonated with people really well. I also do a lot of workplace humor, which people really relate to. And again, because I work clean, and I work in a multiple of spaces, a multitude of spaces, I try to have comedy that travels well and plays well in all time zones. So it doesn't matter. If you're a certain, you know, race or ethnic group or whatever, whatever, everyone has a job or had a job. So they understand workplace humor, right. And if you're a person of a certain age, you get that. But now for instance, if I'm doing a show, one time, I was doing the show, in a Bar Grill and it was very millennial focused, I'm not going to do a bunch of jokes about being over 54 to a bunch of 20 year olds, they could care less, you know, so I'm grateful that I have enough material that I can stretch and, and go a lot of places but like I said, more observational than anything is my humor.

So so when you're when you're when you're working on material, what kinds of things inspire you you mentioned? Office, you mentioned, you know, well, and also the clean shows that you have, you put together those clean shows like you host them and you bring the comedians to the clean. Yes, that's in Charlotte and do what Age is kids come to those kinds of shows. I

create the shows not just clean, but family friendly. And that is extremely important to me. And so at my show, any age group can come when I have when you see teragrams clean comedy show or clean comedy brunch that I do at the Comedy zone. It is a it's all ages. And I done that intentionally because kids don't get to come to comedy shows. And I remember the first one I did, there were two things that were awesome things that happened. Everyone who came to the show, I knew them either I had worked with them or went to church with them. They were friends somehow. So I pretty much knew everybody in the room. And but I saw this guy and he had like two teenagers with him. And I like to go up and introduce myself to everyone and just say hi before the show, and I reckon I didn't know him. And so I introduced myself and I said, Hey, how'd you hear about so? And he told me so it advertised and he said, You know, I never get to bring my kids to comedy shows. That is reason why I did it. And then secondly, my coworker came and he bought his daughter, she had to be about eight. And it's you know, I'm coming in and I hug everybody. And and so funny when when COVID came out and said don't hug I was like, I'm so getting this thing because I hug everybody like, right, but anyway. So she came in and I'm like hugging her. And this little girl wanted nothing to do with me. She was mad. She was there. She didn't know what he brought her. There's like stranger danger, like leave me alone. So after the show, she comes running up to me and gives me the biggest hug. She knows. That looks amazing. So you have fun because I had so much fun. So she became my why like her reaction? Oh, yeah. Ever since then I was like I'm locked in. So and I tell the performance. I handpick everyone on that those shows, and I told them, my shows you do not have profanity, vulgarity, or in your window. I said, if you think it's questionable, it probably is. And the running joke I have is like if you cannot tell your joke to your mama or your pastor, you cannot say that. And, but and the other piece of this is is I also am trying to encourage people who don't normally work clean, to have clean material in their repertoire. So what I will always do is make space available to give a comedian who doesn't normally work clean, and opportunity to do a guest spot to do five to 10 Very good clean minutes. And so and that's worked out well. And at my last show, I had a kid, a girl brought her to her son and his friend and they said, Miss Tara, we have a joke we want to tell so you might tell on the stage. And it's like they ask our big so I let them tell their jokes on stage. And it was just fun. So we have a lot of fun and details. And like I said at my shows, I create this atmosphere that's very familiar. So I'm you know, we dance, we have fun. I'm like, Look at somebody you don't know, introduce yourself, you know. And so I we have a lot. We have a lot of fun, but it's such a labor of love. Thank

you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury.

Hi, and welcome to another episode of catastrophic comeback. And I am thrilled today to have Tara Brown. Joining us. Tara is a comedian, and by profession, and welcome, Tara, thank you for

being you. Thank you so much for having me, Clark. I'm happy to be here.

So tell me a little bit about your career what you do now?

Well, I am a full time stand up comedian and motivational speaker, I spent more than 30 years working in PR, as a PR professional did it for books and television and film, started doing stand up comedy about a little over nine years ago, and decided in January of this year, to take the leap of faith and to leave my corporate job and to do comedy and speaking full time. And here we are. All right. Well,

so so. But first, let's see, let's tell me a little bit about what you did in PR some of the projects that you did, what type of work that you did. Did you enjoy it? What kind of what kinds of things were your responsibilities and accomplishments?

Well, when I worked in book publishing, I did have worked on a lot of books that were New York Times and national bestsellers, I it ranged the gamut from legal thrillers, to sports books, I love good sports biographies. So I was the you know, the cool thing in PR, and publishing, everyone kind of has a niche they like to work on. So you, you tend to get those books you'd like. So I actually liked a lot of the sports biography. So I worked on a book about Sandy Kofax. I'm a baseball fanatic. Go Yankees. So I worked on a book about Sandy Koufax, which was just the thrill of my life. So much so that it wasn't by him. But what it was by a Washington Post reporter who had access to his friends and family, which if you knew him, you know, that's huge, because he's a very private person and tremendous amount of respect for him. But he gave them permission to speak to her. So it was a pretty big deal. So worked on that another great book called goes to Manila. The faithful blood feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, this book was interesting in the fact that it kind of gave shot to Joe Frazier in a way that a lot of books and things don't, you know, everyone talks about Ali Frazier, but they talk more I lead than they do phrases to this book, kind of shine the light on him. And I got to work with the brilliant late Mark cram, who was a renowned sports right on that. So that was fun. So a lot of the biographies, I also was responsible whenever can book publishing for honestok lon, which was African American line of books, I was very proud of the work that we did there. And then, you know, so I'm originally from New York. And so when I was working in book publishing, obviously, I was in New York. And so in 2003, another leap of faith I made move to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I didn't know a soul, but it was just like Charlotte seems like fun. And the cool thing about moving to Charlotte, my plan was to do because as I mentioned, I liked sports. So I was going into sports, PR. And when I was considering between Charlotte and Raleigh, Charlotte had the better pro pro sports team. And as the saying goes, if you ever want to tell God a joke, tell him about your future plans. So my plan was to come to Charlotte to sports PR, but it didn't quite work out that way. So then when I moved to Charlotte, I started doing PR for television and film. And that was fantastic work on a lot of great projects, including some with Taylor Hicks from American Idol. in country music, I can trace Adkins and I work with a lot of cowboys, and I always have the running joke. I know more about cowboy and Western culture than any black girl from Brooklyn probably.

Okay, so you have this thriving career in PR, and in books and television and movies. And then at some point, it seems like a pretty dramatic shift in the company. How did that how did that go down?

You know, I always like to challenge myself and I'm not one who really feels comfortable if I'm sitting idle. So one day I was just looking to free told I was looking for something to supplement my life just something different to do a hobby if you will. So I googled literally Googled things to do in Charlotte and comedy class pocket. up. And I was like, Huh, you know, people said, I'm funny, maybe I come from a long line of funny, folks, I'll give it a shot. So it was a six week class we had offered at the Comedy zone in Charlotte. And week seven, you graduate, so you get so for the first six weeks, you'd learn how to put together a five minute set. And then on week seven, you perform in front of your friends and family, it is the best show you will ever have in the history of your life. Because everybody's coming near the route you want. And so you're like, I can do this. I'm amazing. The real world you like when my people that you know, so. But it was, it was great. And you know, and I've been doing it ever since. So I do clean and family friendly comedy. And so it's afforded me the opportunity to be able to perform in a multitude of places, and I do a lot of corporate work in churches and just different things. So it's been fun. So

I'm familiar with your career, and I followed your career for a while, in fact, you and I met at one of your comedy performances. Yeah. And so. So I love the whole I love the clean comedy, and the, you know, that I can bring my kids to, and I think that's just a really cool thing. And so, so So what's the reception when you're when you're at a? I mean? How do you how do you get your, your clean comedy out? I mean, do you go to the same clubs as everybody else? And just perform? Is it? Is it? Is it labeled as? Is it a different genre? How does it? How does it How does it work? And what's reception? Well,

you know, when you're first starting out, you do a lot of open mics, you do open mics, when you get established also, because you want to make sure that the comedy works. You know, funny is funny. So if it's clean, it does, you know, I don't go to this place, specifically, if they're doing clean, which is really hard for me to find anyway. So I, you know, you know, you have to sometimes build your own thing, so much so that I produce and host my own clean comedy shows around Charlotte, but I go and work the material out at open mics across the country, the good thing, comedy is a lot about networking, too. So when you're out at these open mics, and different shows, you meet people, people see you, they put you on their shows, you know, thankfully, I've been on enough shows that I can pretty much I get asked to be on shows a lot, which is always nice. And I can get to pick and choose what I want to do. As I said, for me, you know, I tell people all the time I try to encourage my fellow comedians, I don't, I don't want to change anybody from doing what they do. If you work glue, and that works for you, that's fine. But I try to encourage everyone to have a good arsenal of clean material in their toolkit because it will afford them the opportunity to stretch their brand. And because there's a saying that goes if you work clean, you work more often. And I found that to be very true. So I am thankful and blessed that I get to work often. And you know, at this point, like I said, I get the the luxury, if you will, for lack of a better word of just kind of deciding what's a good fit for me and what's not. What

is what is the reason for your commitment to clean comedy. It's just

who I am. It's not you know, I am not a person in my daily life who speaks profanely. And so I honestly tell you jokes, the way I speak to people, it's not like I made a conscious decision. To do it this way. It's just who I am. Also, I'm the daughter of a preacher. And I think my mama would not like me out on stage using a bunch of F bombs. Vega so it was faith a part of your life, a huge part of my life. It God's everything I do, this whole journey of my life is just it starts and ends with my faith.

Well, so let's come back to that, because there's some questions that I want to ask you about that. And that's kind of in our, in our wheelhouse. As far as, uh, just things that might help people get through tough times. Yeah. So, in other words, the purpose of this podcast is, every day out there somewhere, someone is wakes up to a terrible tragedy, they've been really seriously injured in an accident, they're in the hospital rooms, you know, they've lost a loved one, they've had a permanent injury that just won't affect them for the rest of their lives and, and we want to be able to go into that room with them and give them some tools that might help them work through this process. And so faith is one of the is one of the tools. You know, it's one of the things that helps us get through tough times. And so we'll come back and talk to you about that in a minute. Well, you know what, let's talk about it. Now. If you're how What comes up is? If God is good, and God is powerful, why does he let bad things happen? You know, how does a, how does a person die or become paralyzed in an accident? You know, how do we lose loved ones that are those kinds of terribly tragic serves circumstances? And I'm sure you've had tragedy in your life where you have observed tragedy in your life? And how do you reconcile those things?

You know, that's the toughest question you get asked as a person of faith, you know, when you're, you're trying to speak to someone about your faith, and they come at you with questions like that. And they're very valid questions, and you don't want to diminish what people feel. But what I can do is just, you know, accept that and what they're feeling because I've sometimes I feel the same way. I feel like the words children and cancer should never be in the same sentence. So when you see, children's suffering is sick, it breaks my heart. So I don't have the answer to that. What I talk to people about is, I know what God has has done for me, I know that there are times when I didn't see my way out of situations. And it was I can just point that there was nothing but the Lord that kind of got me through is interesting. Because I, the over the past three weeks, I've been having a challenge in three weeks. And I remember being in my car, and thinking to myself, I would not allow myself to get into this frame of mind. That was me, because it is but so I kind of flipped the narrative. And I said, You know what, God, yes, this happened, but you didn't allow this to happen. And so when I started kind of speaking, that to myself, it really changed how I looked at my situation. And so I said, Okay, God, you got me through something similar. We're gonna get I'm going to, we're going to walk through this, and you're going to show me out and I'm not going to tell you the magic magically felt better. But it really helped me deal with it. And it's interesting, I had a very interesting experience happened last week, I was in the picking up breakfast. And a woman walked in, and she had really cute sunglasses on. And I started to tell her, Oh, I like your sunglasses. And before I can say that, she said to me, you look so pretty. And I literally burst into tears in this place. Because I didn't I didn't even feel emotional. But I just had been having such a rough three weeks for her to say something kind, just really pricked me. And I was like, The Lord knew I needed that. And so he sent this woman to do that. And it was so so what happened is, I hooked her, she hooked me, we start crying. She's telling me she had it for three weeks, and we were ministering to each other. And that's what I love about the Lord. I love that. He will. He sees us, He hears us. He knows he cares. And I didn't even know I needed that lady. I didn't even feel emotional that day. And I was like, Why am I crying? But I thank God that He allowed her to be a blessing to me, you know, to speak life into me when I needed it. So, you know, again, I don't diminish at all. You know, when people have tough questions about why this has happened. I can just speak to my experience of walking with the Lord and just how he's been. He's got it my whole life and this whole comedy journey. I call it my proverbs 1816 journey, how the Lord's gift, the law will let your gift make room for you. So I get I can just come from my place of knowing what God has done for me.

Well, so it sounds like that your your, your the way you look at it is it's not so much that God does these things to people or even allows them to happen necessarily. It's this but But what he can do what where God fits in is he helps us through these difficult things.

Yes, he does. Every step of the way is just and that is, you know, my prayer is like God helped me to feel your presence. And so a lot of times it's just you think you're in it by yourself and you're not and they can feel lonely. You know, i My heart broke down when during the pandemic, because when people were in isolation, and some people don't do well with things like that, and I just think that was a time for sure. You had to lean on my faith really heavily because just it was a very isolating experience. But yes, that's, that's what it is. For me. It's just feeling the Lord's presence around me. And just like you know what's funny, is it's an interesting responsibility also, because when you feel a little bit walking with you, you also feel and hear those times when he's telling you not to do something you want to do. Like when you want to fuss somebody out in traffic or something you like. I had someone laugh about this the other day and I just I laughed about it myself when when I think about it. I was driving into traffic one day, and someone let me in front of them. And I was like you know thank you. I kid you not less than 10 feet at drive 10 feet someone tried to get in front of me and I rushed up. And I laughed out loud. I said, Lord, I saw my back. You know, and it's just you just have to laugh. But just like, you know, we're giving grace every day. And we just have to remember the group grace to other people, because you never know what someone's going through. That's why with comedy, is such an awesome responsibility to me, that the Lord uses me to think of something in my mind, write a joke that will help someone in the room because my whole thing is, when I say this a lot about my comedy. I don't know what you walked in this room where, but while you're here with me, I want to just be able to say something, maybe tell you a funny story, that just will help. You know, you get through or change the direction of your day, or make you forget about that date that heaviness you walked in with, and you not lived until you perform comedy. And then afterwards, someone comes up to you and says, you know, thank you for this, my dad just died. And this is the first time I've been out and I had I needed a laugh. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, so I'm grateful that I get to do that.

Well, so that's kind of the whole point of this conversation is the idea laughter can be the best medicine, and it's in it's if people are going through tough times, then then then we're looking for ways that people can, things that people can find that will help them through those tough times. Right? So so how do you, you know, when you're writing, and when you were in when you were? Let me ask you this, you went through a You're a funny person. And then you learned you went to you intentionally went to a school or a class or a series of classes, to help you use that natural ability, and to craft and write jokes and those kinds of things. What was that? Like? How did you and what kind of material do you focus on? What kind of what what do you what do you? What's your sort of genre? Or what do you you know? Are you observational? Or what are the different genres? And what do you do? And how do you pick it?

I do, I'm observational, for sure, self deprecating. And I found my sweet spot. You know, I heard this said, and I found that to be true, you know, when you first started out, started out doing comedy, you're trying to find your way you don't know what your your lane is, and so on and so forth. And about five years, and you start to figure it out. And I believe that's what happened for me. So five years in, I really leaned in to doing comedy that focus on focuses on me being a woman of a certain age, I'm 54 years old, I don't run away from that, you know, a lot of people get weirded out about talking about the I don't, because and the reason that I don't, and I tell people this too. I'm from two of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York, where people didn't make it to see 54. So when I stand on the stage, and I tell you that I'm 54 years old, which this is also is another declaration of my faith that I thank God that I've made it to see 54. So what I found is that when I do comedy, as I call it, as a woman of a certain age, that really resonates with people. And so afterwards, like a woman came up to me after a show one time she goes, you need to call the pension, let them be your sponsor, because I left it to my defense. And I was so happy I had my depends on it. And I laughed. But I found that that has resonated with people really well. I also do a lot of workplace humor, which people really relate to. And again, because I work clean, and I work in a multiple of spaces, a multitude of spaces, I try to have comedy that travels well and plays well in all time zones. So it doesn't matter. If you're a certain, you know, race or ethnic group or whatever, whatever, everyone has a job or had a job. So they understand workplace humor, right. And if you're a person of a certain age, you get that. But now for instance, if I'm doing a show, one time, I was doing the show, in a Bar Grill and it was very millennial focused, I'm not going to do a bunch of jokes about being over 54 to a bunch of 20 year olds, they could care less, you know, so I'm grateful that I have enough material that I can stretch and, and go a lot of places but like I said, more observational than anything is my humor.

So so when you're when you're when you're working on material, what kinds of things inspire you you mentioned? Office, you mentioned, you know, well, and also the clean shows that you have, you put together those clean shows like you host them and you bring the comedians to the clean. Yes, that's in Charlotte and do what Age is kids come to those kinds of shows. I

create the shows not just clean, but family friendly. And that is extremely important to me. And so at my show, any age group can come when I have when you see teragrams clean comedy show or clean comedy brunch that I do at the Comedy zone. It is a it's all ages. And I done that intentionally because kids don't get to come to comedy shows. And I remember the first one I did, there were two things that were awesome things that happened. Everyone who came to the show, I knew them either I had worked with them or went to church with them. They were friends somehow. So I pretty much knew everybody in the room. And but I saw this guy and he had like two teenagers with him. And I like to go up and introduce myself to everyone and just say hi before the show, and I reckon I didn't know him. And so I introduced myself and I said, Hey, how'd you hear about so? And he told me so it advertised and he said, You know, I never get to bring my kids to comedy shows. That is reason why I did it. And then secondly, my coworker came and he bought his daughter, she had to be about eight. And it's you know, I'm coming in and I hug everybody. And and so funny when when COVID came out and said don't hug I was like, I'm so getting this thing because I hug everybody like, right, but anyway. So she came in and I'm like hugging her. And this little girl wanted nothing to do with me. She was mad. She was there. She didn't know what he brought her. There's like stranger danger, like leave me alone. So after the show, she comes running up to me and gives me the biggest hug. She knows. That looks amazing. So you have fun because I had so much fun. So she became my why like her reaction? Oh, yeah. Ever since then I was like I'm locked in. So and I tell the performance. I handpick everyone on that those shows, and I told them, my shows you do not have profanity, vulgarity, or in your window. I said, if you think it's questionable, it probably is. And the running joke I have is like if you cannot tell your joke to your mama or your pastor, you cannot say that. And, but and the other piece of this is is I also am trying to encourage people who don't normally work clean, to have clean material in their repertoire. So what I will always do is make space available to give a comedian who doesn't normally work clean, and opportunity to do a guest spot to do five to 10 Very good clean minutes. And so and that's worked out well. And at my last show, I had a kid, a girl brought her to her son and his friend and they said, Miss Tara, we have a joke we want to tell so you might tell on the stage. And it's like they ask our big so I let them tell their jokes on stage. And it was just fun. So we have a lot of fun and details. And like I said at my shows, I create this atmosphere that's very familiar. So I'm you know, we dance, we have fun. I'm like, Look at somebody you don't know, introduce yourself, you know. And so I we have a lot. We have a lot of fun, but it's such a labor of love. Thank

you for joining us, and we'll see you next time.