About Me

Early Life

I was a weird kid my grandma says I was a mimic by 1 year old. Copying faces, she'd make a face I'd make the face. As I grew up this mimicry continued with imitating voices and mannerisms. In grade school, and on the teachers notes section of my report card it would read how, "Joseph is a nice student but very disruptive during classes. talkative, and very social." This continued. Class clown is a very subjective term. I saw it as an audience. This journey is not easy. The art was turning what was disruptiveness, where the teacher gets irritated and turning that into the teacher laughing as well. It took all the way until high school, on this path of outspoken silliness, peanut gallery comments, bad words, that came with lots of, parents having to come into school to meet with deans and principles and teachers. Home suspensions in-house suspensions. But I wasn't a bad kid, just a habitual over the line stepper, all in the sake of comedy. All the trouble I got in, it was always for the sake of the laugh. On this journey you learn a few things, getting the audience attention, keeping it and then filtering out what bombed and got you in trouble. High school was more a science. making teachers laugh. some not so much, but I had a majority rule. I'd still sit my share of suspensions. But the legend became more nefarious. It was a mixed bag of teachers who loved me, and those who made sure I'd get in trouble. It was fine. Came with the territory. For context, by sophomore year I became the school DJ, and host of the student functions, talent shows what have you.. My school was a New York City Performing Arts School. So there were different majors, dance, vocal, band, and drama which was my major. It was essentially a 4 year intensive, which till today I still apply skills learned. This springboard that I was fortunate to experience helped give me the platform to try my material, tell jokes during class, get teachers to break character. And as important I learned how to bomb, and at times be cringe and terrible. A swan is only as good as its ugly duckling counterpart. I also learned how to crack up a room, how to cause such a stir that the class forgets what we were doing. To command a room, make them laugh. This is an art I have taken with me into my life. To wait for the perfect moment to chime in, add your comment, say your line. The timing has to be perfect.