Fajitas and Greens comedy troupe was created by Mike Oquendo, right, and includes Frank Townsend, left, and Joey Villagomez, center. (Marina Makropoulos, Photo for the Chicago Tribune / August 15, 2011) |
A black man, an Irish man, a Latino, a Middle Easterner and a lesbian walk into a bar …
That may sound like the opener to a not-so-politically-correct joke, but it's what happens when a Chicago comedy troupe known as Fajitas & Greens and All in Betweens gets ready to perform.
Mike Oquendo, 45, who is Puerto Rican and the producer and creator of "The Mikey O Comedy Show," said he created Fajitas & Greens in 2002 to give people of color more opportunities to work, and because he was amazed that audience members often expected his shows to have an all-Latino lineup.
"People would say, 'Why do you have an Arab guy or that lesbian Cuban girl opening for you?' Or 'Why is that black guy headlining?'" said Oquendo, who grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood.
"I was shocked that so many people found that surprising. But at the end of the evening, I'd get a Greek guy who'd come up to me and say, 'You know when that half-Irish, half-Mexican comic was talking about his dad? That's my dad too.'"
Oquendo said the goal is for audience members to learn things about different cultures that they wouldn't get from books or the classroom. But what's equally revealing is what people discover about themselves. They sometimes find out they may not be as tolerant or as thick-skinned as they think they are.
Fajitas & Greens (sometimes called Cultural Madness) typically consists of five or six comedians whose acts challenge convention. In addition to comedy clubs, they take their nearly two-hour show, which has a question-and-answer segment at the end, to universities, corporations and nonprofit organizations.
"I think it works because the jokes are intelligent as well as hysterically funny," Oquendo said. "At Northwestern, an assistant dean didn't laugh the entire time we were performing, but he came up to me after the show and said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen and he was going to book us for six more sessions.
"I said, 'Why didn't you laugh?' He said he was in shock. He thought the show was going to be about some knock-knock racist jokes. But these are real stories that comedians are telling about their lives."
Comedian Joey Villagomez, 32, who has been with Fajitas & Greens for five years, grew up in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. His performance includes a segment about his dad, who moved to Chicago from Mexico in 1966:
My father wasn't your typical Mexican. He was a big Beatles fan, and a big rock 'n' roll fan. He couldn't speak English well, but he would answer people's questions with lyrics from popular Beatles tunes. A friend might say, 'How was your day today?' And my father would answer, 'Well, you know, it's been a hard day's night and I've been working like a dog.'
Villagomez goes on to talk about how he and his brother destroyed their father's collection of more than 300 classic records that included some by Ted Nugent and Led Zeppelin.
"We thought they were garbage, so we went out into the alley and just started throwing 45 (rpm discs) at one another," Villagomez told me. "My father whipped us for a week straight, and he wouldn't talk to us for months. He would just look at us and tell us, 'You know you're lucky to be alive.' It was 20 years of collecting records, and thinking about it now still hurts."
Frank Townsend, 38, who is black and has been a comedian for 15 years, was part of Fajitas & Greens' inception. He said that because Chicago is such a segregated city, it would be easy for him to perform almost exclusively for black audiences.
"I didn't get into comedy to only entertain black people," said Townsend, who grew up in the Chatham neighborhood. "I'm here to entertain everybody. But if you're black, you're perceived as a 'Def Comedy Jam' comic (from the HBO show) who's blue and more in-your-face. That's an easy way for a club to not book you because they think that's who you are.
"But very rarely do I bring up the subject of sex. I talk about life and current events. I've got an 18-month-old son and family who give me a lot of material. My feeling is, if we can laugh together, we can live together."
Townsend's routine ranges from explorations of co-workers who steal lunches from the office refrigerator to poverty and the goings-on in housing projects:
Whenever they talk about the projects, they always want to show a bunch of black people hanging out on the corner. They don't ever show the white projects. They got 'em. What do you think a trailer park is? Projects on wheels.
Oquendo said most of the time the troupe is received warmly. But members have experienced some icy moments.
"When we started doing the show a year after 9/11, we would bring up the Middle Eastern comic and you could feel the tension in the audience," he said. "But when he got going, people cracked up and relaxed."
Oquendo knows that talking about race is tricky even if humor is involved. So he often opens the show with this story:
A Jewish woman comes up to me at Jewel and she recognizes me from one of the shows and she says, "I have a joke for you. Why weren't there any Puerto Ricans in 'Star Wars?'" I said, "OK, why?" She said, "Because they didn't work in the future either." I laughed. It was funny. I wasn't mad at her. Then I said to her: "I have one for you. What's the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe tips." She said, "I tip."
Oquendo told me that the woman immediately became defensive.
"Was either of us trying to be hurtful or malicious? No," he said. "But you have to be careful.
"I tell people (the comedian and actor) Freddie Prinze once said, 'My dad was Puerto Rican and my mom was Hungarian and they met on the subway trying to pickpocket one another.' That was provocative, but it helps when it's also thoughtful and really funny."
That may sound like the opener to a not-so-politically-correct joke, but it's what happens when a Chicago comedy troupe known as Fajitas & Greens and All in Betweens gets ready to perform.
"People would say, 'Why do you have an Arab guy or that lesbian Cuban girl opening for you?' Or 'Why is that black guy headlining?'" said Oquendo, who grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood.
"I was shocked that so many people found that surprising. But at the end of the evening, I'd get a Greek guy who'd come up to me and say, 'You know when that half-Irish, half-Mexican comic was talking about his dad? That's my dad too.'"
Oquendo said the goal is for audience members to learn things about different cultures that they wouldn't get from books or the classroom. But what's equally revealing is what people discover about themselves. They sometimes find out they may not be as tolerant or as thick-skinned as they think they are.
Fajitas & Greens (sometimes called Cultural Madness) typically consists of five or six comedians whose acts challenge convention. In addition to comedy clubs, they take their nearly two-hour show, which has a question-and-answer segment at the end, to universities, corporations and nonprofit organizations.
"I think it works because the jokes are intelligent as well as hysterically funny," Oquendo said. "At Northwestern, an assistant dean didn't laugh the entire time we were performing, but he came up to me after the show and said it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen and he was going to book us for six more sessions.
"I said, 'Why didn't you laugh?' He said he was in shock. He thought the show was going to be about some knock-knock racist jokes. But these are real stories that comedians are telling about their lives."
Comedian Joey Villagomez, 32, who has been with Fajitas & Greens for five years, grew up in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. His performance includes a segment about his dad, who moved to Chicago from Mexico in 1966:
My father wasn't your typical Mexican. He was a big Beatles fan, and a big rock 'n' roll fan. He couldn't speak English well, but he would answer people's questions with lyrics from popular Beatles tunes. A friend might say, 'How was your day today?' And my father would answer, 'Well, you know, it's been a hard day's night and I've been working like a dog.'
Villagomez goes on to talk about how he and his brother destroyed their father's collection of more than 300 classic records that included some by Ted Nugent and Led Zeppelin.
"We thought they were garbage, so we went out into the alley and just started throwing 45 (rpm discs) at one another," Villagomez told me. "My father whipped us for a week straight, and he wouldn't talk to us for months. He would just look at us and tell us, 'You know you're lucky to be alive.' It was 20 years of collecting records, and thinking about it now still hurts."
Frank Townsend, 38, who is black and has been a comedian for 15 years, was part of Fajitas & Greens' inception. He said that because Chicago is such a segregated city, it would be easy for him to perform almost exclusively for black audiences.
"I didn't get into comedy to only entertain black people," said Townsend, who grew up in the Chatham neighborhood. "I'm here to entertain everybody. But if you're black, you're perceived as a 'Def Comedy Jam' comic (from the HBO show) who's blue and more in-your-face. That's an easy way for a club to not book you because they think that's who you are.
"But very rarely do I bring up the subject of sex. I talk about life and current events. I've got an 18-month-old son and family who give me a lot of material. My feeling is, if we can laugh together, we can live together."
Townsend's routine ranges from explorations of co-workers who steal lunches from the office refrigerator to poverty and the goings-on in housing projects:
Whenever they talk about the projects, they always want to show a bunch of black people hanging out on the corner. They don't ever show the white projects. They got 'em. What do you think a trailer park is? Projects on wheels.
Oquendo said most of the time the troupe is received warmly. But members have experienced some icy moments.
"When we started doing the show a year after 9/11, we would bring up the Middle Eastern comic and you could feel the tension in the audience," he said. "But when he got going, people cracked up and relaxed."
Oquendo knows that talking about race is tricky even if humor is involved. So he often opens the show with this story:
A Jewish woman comes up to me at Jewel and she recognizes me from one of the shows and she says, "I have a joke for you. Why weren't there any Puerto Ricans in 'Star Wars?'" I said, "OK, why?" She said, "Because they didn't work in the future either." I laughed. It was funny. I wasn't mad at her. Then I said to her: "I have one for you. What's the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe tips." She said, "I tip."
Oquendo told me that the woman immediately became defensive.
"Was either of us trying to be hurtful or malicious? No," he said. "But you have to be careful.
"I tell people (the comedian and actor) Freddie Prinze once said, 'My dad was Puerto Rican and my mom was Hungarian and they met on the subway trying to pickpocket one another.' That was provocative, but it helps when it's also thoughtful and really funny."
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