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Josh Blue is a student of comedy.
“I went to Evergreen State College, a little hippie college in Washington State. And you could create your own courses and your own majors. I majored in comedy,” Blue told me. “You’re not just getting high and watching Richard Pryor. You’re watching how he delivers his lines, how he stands and the words that he picks.
“You’re watching the comedy not to laugh but to dissect it.”
In studying the art and craft of comedy, Blue was immediately struck by the physicality of comedians – how they moved on stage. And to Blue, no one had a more pronounced physicality – or more of an impact on him – than Chris Rock.
“My biggest influence is Chris Rock. His physicality is like a caged tiger – pacing the stage – how he walks back and forth. It’s one man on a big stage – he owns this giant stage,” Blue explained. “He’s filling the whole thing with his presence. To me it feels calculated, but also, he has to do that.
“He can’t stand still and say these things.”
One’s appearance and physicality is part of the ongoing development of a comic’s craft and can be difficult to master. But for Blue the issue is a bit more complex. Blue lives with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that can cause loss of control of his body.
And there was a time when his inability to control his movements might have been a limiting factor in his pursuing comedy. But during his sophomore year in college, Blue went on an internship to Senegal to work as a zookeeper and had an experience that changed his life.
“I worked at the zoo for three months, and I got to be very close with the 400 pound gorilla. And I was one of three people in the world that could touch him. And in my last week at the zoo, I had my fellow zookeepers lock me in a cage on display. And I shared a wall of bars with this gorilla. I was locked in there for 8 hours,” Blue recalled. “And it was one of the most mind-blowing experiences. When I came out of the cage I was like – I could die now because I’ve done something that I know no one else has ever done.”
Being in the cage with the gorilla shifted how he thought about himself and his cerebral palsy. And when he emerged, Blue longer felt self-conscious about his appearance. “When I was doing it, I was doing it from the perspective of what it’s like to be an imprisoned animal. But then what I realized later was that it was a metaphor for my body. Being in a cage and putting myself on display. I just wore shorts – no shoes, no shirt. If you take cerebral palsy out of context, and you don’t see a wheelchair or a cane – people thought I was really this type of creature,” Blue described. “And I didn’t speak at all that day. But I got a lot of laughs. Just people that are so curious that it blew their minds. The zookeepers started telling people that I was the ‘BooBoo monkey from the mountains of the Congo.’ I just broke this shell of ‘Look at me. I’m on display.’ So after that, stand up was, I wouldn’t say easy. But it was.”
“‘A day in the cage is worth a life on the stage.’
As Blue decided to become a professional comedian, he realized how powerful his movement could be in his act. “The more I move on stage, the more people are just drawn to the movement. The way that I walk and my gait – it’s very eye catching. And the way my hand hooks and moves on its own – it’s almost hypnotic,” he said. “If I’m standing still, there’s still an element of movement. But if I move across stage, I can feel people going, ‘I hope he can stop on time and he doesn’t fall off the stage.’
“There’s an element of you don’t know what the hell is going to happen.”
To harness that unpredictability, Blue’s act initially involved his intentionally falling on stage. “If you think of the concept of taking my disabled body and basically putting it on display, it’s pretty powerful shit. I used to do a lot of pratfalls on stage,” Blue described. “And I tell you, when a guy with cerebral palsy falls down on stage on purpose – nobody ever knows if it was real or not. It takes people so off guard. I don’t do it much anymore, it’s hard on the body.
“But I can take the wind out of an entire room by falling down.”
But soon, Blue found that he moved away not only from the intentional pratfalls, but also from discussing cerebral palsy as a primary topic in his act. “There’s definitely been an arc to my comedy. Early on I talked a lot about having CP. I look at it as those were my ‘explaining years,’ where I needed to make people comfortable with who I am and the disability,” he explained. “And you see me coming away from that. I’m able to talk about other things than CP further in my career, because I’ve already made people comfortable with it.”
But like his hero Chris Rock, Blue feels that moving on stage is important for his act. “I think you can always make it better by moving around. I feel like if there’s a lull in my show, I’ll look at myself and go, ‘Wow you’re standing still. Move around,” he said.
“It just gets everyone’s attention.”
Blue is certainly succeeding at getting people’s attention. He rose to national fame as the winner of NBC’s 2006 Last Comic Standing. Blue later had a special on Comedy Central Presents in 2009 and was on CBS’s The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2013. He has made five comedy albums and performs hundreds of shows annually, including a current national tour.
As Blue’s success has grown, he often finds himself being referred to as “inspirational,” a term about which Blue has mixed feelings.
“It’s taken me awhile to integrate the inspirational side of it, because I’m not out here to be inspirational. You don’t want to be known as the cerebral palsy comic who’s inspirational,” he explained. “You want to be known as the comic who’s done consistent work. I’m a comic that’s being funny. And if you take inspiration from what I do, I can’t be mad at that. But it wasn’t my first goal.”
That doesn’t mean that Blue shies away from the issue of disability. But he feels that a more subtle approach works better for him as a comedian and is more effective in raising awareness and reducing stigma about people who struggle with disability.
“Don’t get me wrong, everything comes from the perspective of a disabled person. I don’t necessarily want you to think I’m telling you social commentary. But I want you to go home with a different perspective of disability,” Blue explained. “And I know that you won’t learn anything if I come at you with, ‘disable people need to be respected.’ Nobody’s going to hear that. That’s why I just say it straight up raw and real. And it means so much more to the movement than a public service announcement.”
And his message is raw and real indeed.
“Well they pile us altogether. If you’re blind, get in the pile. If you’re deaf, help the blind guy find the pile. I’ve always said that in my humble opinion, everyone is disabled in some way or another. Everybody’s got some quirk that they can’t get past – whether physical or mental,” Blue described. “I talk about how I’ve dealt with cruelty towards disability – not just my own but other people’s. And whenever someone’s being mean about disability, what that person doesn’t realize is that the disabled community is the largest minority group on the planet. People don’t realize that they could be in an accident and in a wheelchair and in a worse position than the person I’m making fun of.”
“It’s the only minority group that you can join at any time,” he said.
“You’re only one bad bike ride away.”
Michael A. Friedman, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with offices in Manhattan and South Orange, NJ, and is a member of EHE International’s Medical Advisory Board. Contact Dr. Mike at michaelfriedmanphd.com. Follow Dr. Mike on Twitter @drmikefriedman.
