The theme for February’s “In a Nutshell” is “the people who made us,” which the organizers describe as their simple way of saying “family stories.” On Feb. 27, they’re inviting storytellers to The Sofia in Sacramento to explore the complicated defining moments that shape us into who we are.
For stand-up comedian Joe Klocek, this means revisiting a chapter of his life he has never told on stage before, a story he teased as “a story including a suicide attempt, five months in a juvenile mental health facility outside Chicago and a 12-year-old trying to prove to the state that he was sane.”
Ahead of his appearance, Klocek spoke about vulnerability, absurdity and what it means to own a past that helped define him.
This month’s theme is “The people who made us.” Emotionally, where does this story come from for you?
Thank god you opened on an easy question. I mean, I’ll be 100% honest with you, I am struggling a little bit to put this story into an easy-to-digest format for people. It’s not a story that I’ve ever told before, and it’s pretty dramatic, and for a stand-up comic, it’s outside my comfort zone.
I don’t think it’s rebellious. I think for me, it’s just getting clear on one of the moments that defined who I was and how I was going to interpret the world, how I was going to see authority. I mean, at the time, I did not see it as that … with the benefit of much hindsight it’s really uncovering my past. I’ve been having a difficult time remembering some of it, and some of that is a function of age, and I think some of that is my own soul kind of saying, “hey, maybe we don’t need to go into this room.” Maybe there’s a reason we shut the door. So, I think it’s more just about owning my past.
How are you making sense of it now, as an adult?
I mean, that is what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make sense of it. I’m trying to see all of the circumstances that happened. I mean, here’s the thing: The story that I’m telling is about me when I was 12. At that age, you really rely on other people to take care of you, and you really rely on the system to do what’s right for you, when the people that are supposed to take care of you let you down and the whole thing is so absurd that I can’t make sense of it. …
One thing that I could say that might be kind of interesting is this story includes a suicide attempt, but that’s not the story. This story includes five months in a juvenile mental health facility outside of Chicago, but that’s not the story. You know, those are already stories of themselves, but the story I’m really telling is: What do you do when you’re 12, and you don’t feel like you belong in a mental health facility? And what are the legal options that are available to you to get you out? That’s the story, I’m trying to prove to the state, “Hey! I’m sane.”
At 12, without the coping mechanisms you have now, how did you survive it? Was humor a way that you got through the experience?
I think at the time I had no ambition to be a stand-up comedian. I had no ambition to be any kind of performer at the time. It just was not something that seemed available to me. But I also did feel like I had a pretty clear understanding of what absurd circumstances were. I didn’t know what Kafka was at the time, but now, I would look back on this and say, yeah, it’s Kafka because I was literally battling to prove that I’m not crazy, to get out of a place. And what really kept me there was that nobody knew what to do with me. No one knew where to put me. So I was stuck in a place for crazy people. I wasn’t crazy, and nothing was going to happen until I forced the issue.
I don’t know if that was emotional coping, but no, I was not equipped for it. The way that I was getting by was telling myself: This is fucking nuts, you know?
How does preparing for a storytelling show differ from preparing for stand-up?
I love the storytelling show format, and I want to respect it, and I’m not going in with, “Hey, I’ve got these jokes,” I’m just going to have a longer form to tell them. The thing that really appeals to me about the stories is that I can be a complete human being with a full range of emotions. When I’m doing stand-up, I’m really only allowed by the audience to be funny or angry. That’s it. You take these incredible moments in your life, and boil them down to just funny, and you’re editing out all the other parts.
So for me, it’s not about looking for what’s funny and working backwards. It’s about respecting the story, and it’s interesting to see people who are hardcore storytellers. They’re always trying to make their story funnier, and then I think a lot of the stand-up comedians are like, well, I know how to make an audience laugh, now I want to make them feel. … For me, it’s like, yeah, the laughs are there. They’ll be organic. This is more about can I hang in the silent spaces? Can I be true to my emotions, and what was really happening? And if I can do that, then when the laughs come, the laughs are bigger than they are in a stand-up show.
You have described yourself as a “square peg in a round hole.” What do you mean by that?
I just don’t feel like I fit anywhere, which means that I can be anywhere. I feel like sometimes I can be on the street, and people will run into me and I’m like, “I’m right here. Like, am I invisible?” But for whatever reason, I’m a chameleon to some degree, or I can just fade into the background.
When I was younger, that used to make me feel like: Why is the world not seeing me? But now it’s like, oh, I can observe, which is a great skill for a comedian to have. Then, when I’m on stage, I’m the center of attention and I get to report. I’ve never felt like I really fit in anywhere. That is such a great skill to have as a stand-up comic, because once you’re on stage, it’s like, “oh, here’s where I fit!” And let me tell you about what I’m seeing out there and how it feels, and then that ends up being universal, because nobody feels like they fit.
If 12-year-old Joe could see you now, what do you think he’d feel?
Oh, man, I think he would be blown away. I think he’d be ecstatic. I think he would just be like, “Wow!” For years, I’ve been working on this one-man show, where I get phone calls from a younger version of myself. I’ve never quite been able to pull it off, but for a while, I was just obsessed with the idea of being able to reach back in time and tell my 12-year-old self, or younger versions of myself and say, “Hey, it’s gonna work out. It’s gonna be fucking painful and ridiculous and absurd, but you’re gonna be okay in the long run.”
So, yeah, 12-year-old me seeing where I am now, seeing what I have now. I think 12-year-old me would just be like, “Oh my god, this is incredible.”
This story was funded by the City of Sacramento’s Arts and Creative Economy Journalism Grant to Solving Sacramento. Following our journalism code of ethics and protocols, the city had no editorial influence over this story and no city official reviewed this story before it was published. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, CapRadio, Capitol Weekly, Hmong Daily News, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Sign up for our “Sac Art Pulse” newsletter here.
By Chris Woodard
