Mike Epps: A Joke About His Start

**Mike Epps** (0:03)
Let's listen. If I could do anything in the world, man, if I could explain to my daughter that I was a kid when I had you, I wasn't gonna be a good dad. You know what I mean? Sometimes it take years for you to become a good dad. You know, it's called babies having babies. And when your baby is mad at you, cause she don't realize you was a baby when you had her. So it take time to grow.
So I had my daughter, I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. I ain't got no education, I ain't got no job, selling motherfucking drugs. I ain't got no money. I owe a couple drug dealers money in the city. I'm laying on the couch, and I'll never forget my baby mama. She had an auntie named Janet, real sweet. Used to come to Indiana from Atlanta. She said, Mike, here you having a hard time in Indianapolis. If you ever need to get out of Indianapolis and move to Atlanta and change your life, you can come and stay with me. So I said, okay, I'm gonna hold you to that, Janet. Meanwhile, they got a comedy competition on the radio. Come to next week's comedy competition here at Clubs of Fields. And I got two buddies, a buddy named Otis Brown, Gary Bates. They betted me. They said, Mike, you funny around here. You funny in jail, you all that shit, but I bet you can't go up there and be funny in front of people. I said bet. We go to Clubs of Fields. They bet me $500. When we walk in a club, it's a bar and grill. Ain't nothing but street motherfuckers in there. I'm talking to this smoke everywhere. I'm standing in the back getting drunk. I said, oh, I'm scared of the muckers. I'm tearing their ass up. I'm in the back getting drunk. They booing everybody off the stage. I get up on the stage, I make everybody laugh. Boom, everybody laughing.
First time I went on stage. The next week, my name was on the radio. Come next week, Clubs of Fields. Mike Epps, new comedian. So now the whole city coming up to me. Man, I heard you on the radio. You're doing your comedy. I said, yeah, I'm doing my comedy thing. I'd invited my mama, my neighborhood, everybody out the next week.
I went and got a suit. Had to tie everything. As soon as I walked up in the club, I seen two dudes I owed some money to. I said, oh Lord. That fucking radio then told everybody to come up here.
They like, yeah, I know where to find his ass at that comedy show next week. Two I owe money to, so I'm nervous now. Do you know how I went up on that stage and bombed? Everybody booed me off the stage. Wasn't funny. I'll never forget, I'm riding down the street, riding down Michigan Street, and I'm crying, because I'm like, damn, I've been a failure since the first grade.
Fuck a life. I've been failing since a baby.
You know how that feels, to keep failing? So I'm riding, and I called my baby mama's auntie. She came out and said, Janet, I said, remember, you said I can come to Atlanta. I'm ready to get away from here. I'm trying to be a comedian. She said, Mike, I got bad news. I said, what? She said, Ma, I got married. She said, I got married. I got a new husband. He's different. He ain't as cool as, you know, I thought he was. I went anyway. I said, fuck that shit.
I went and bought a bus ticket from Greyhound. My sister gave me $85 in food stamps. That's when you could rip them out the little book.
I had $85 in food stamps, and I had a 38 that had a pen, and it fucked up. And it skipped like this.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:31)
Click, click.

**Mike Epps** (3:32)
Wow! Click, click, click.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:35)
Wow!

**Mike Epps** (3:36)
So if you stayed for them clicks, it was going to pop you on the third one. So you could stay there and look at the raggedy-ass gun if you want to. It's going to pop.
So, by the time I get to Atlanta, I called Janet on the phone. So I said, Janet, I'm in Atlanta. And she said, Mike, it's three in the morning. What you doing in Atlanta? I said, I came anyway. She said, I told you, you couldn't come down. I said, Janet, I tell you what. In the morning, come pick me up and take me to the Salvation Army.