Funny AF Woman #10

Alisa Kennedy Jones

When I was new to Substack I wanted to subscribe to fellow comedy writers. I clicked on “humor” and

Alisa Kennedy Jones

popped up. After reading one post I became an insta-fan. I won’t stop kvelling there. She has not one but two Substacks. Gotham Girl teases us with chapters from her latest book, and her Thursday Thread always asks an engaging question. The Empress is where she devotes her posts, salons, book groups, journaling prompts, etc to helping women over 40 (the ever so delightful peri/menopausal years). The Empress was born from her personal experience, having a series of Grand Mal seizures and being diagnosed with Epilepsy at the age of 40 right at the onset of perimenopause. She had another seizure last year, was facing eviction from her home by a “cabal of nefarious Tech Bros” yet still managed to be funny and prevail.

Here’s Alisa…

1.     What were your life events that lead you to realize, “Hey, I’m pretty funny.”

I was living in New York, and I was in my mid 40s, working on a super serious launch for Netflix, Marvel and another client. It's a big takeover of the city and I had a ton of work to do, and it was a Saturday and it was a gorgeous day and I was just running out to get coffee when I had this massive Grand Mal seizure in the middle of Gristedes on the Upper West Side. It turns out I broke my whole face like in 16 places and shattered my jaw on both sides to the point where I had to have a prosthetic jaw and was wired shut in the shoutiest, noisiest city in the entire world for six months.

I immediately lost my job because they didn't want anyone seeing me looking like a Bond villain and I didn't know what else to do so I just started thinking about how I was going to improvise my way out of recovery and figure out how I was going to survive this day by day because I couldn't speak and even people in my building didn't recognize me. They were like... Do you live here? And I realized the only way that maybe I could survive this diagnosis of seizure disorder and rebuilding my life was to write about how I would use the rules of improvisational comedy to get through the absurdities of getting better (and there were a lot of absurdities) and write a David Sedaris-style series of comedic essays about it. So, I pitched it and it miraculously sold.

Jaw wired shut in NYC— the first time.

I was finally able to talk and I was on the book tour and I was out in LA and I was in an Uber and my publicist had given them the address where they were supposed to take me to the studio to tape in front of a live studio audience and somehow we ended up in the middle of like this scary tent city encampment way downtown and the driver’s like “Well, we're here... time to get out!” and I'm like this is not the studio! This is not where I'm supposed to be and I'm calling, and I'm texting because I do NOT want to miss this appearance because it's a big one for me. And I have natural fear of tents—from far too much time spent as a Girl Scout.

But by the time we finally get there, because in LA it takes four hours just to cross the street, we're soooooooo late and I have no time. It's like all adrenaline and it's all just a rush and there's no time to be worried about my appearance or what I'm doing... it's all just off the cuff entirely and I race into the studio, I grab my headset, say hello and I hug the stage dog and I greet the comedian host and we start talking and she's so funny and I'm so funny that it's like this Mrs. Maisel moment where I realized that there's a whole ridiculous, very relatable voice within me that has been dormant all these years and that has all these zingers in the back and forth repartee with this other comedian. And I’m realizing in the moment if it’s fast, it’s funny. It’s freakin’ verbal pickle ball. So, I love being in that space and seeing that the host is having a great time too. But all these years, I was so busy being a mom or being a serious corporate blah-blah-blah... or I was so busy trying to be taken seriously as a corporate blah-de-blah that I'd forgotten that I even could be funny, so this was one moment of tragic absurdity that brought that all home.

2.     Did your parents encourage your funny side?

Not really, my parents mostly encouraged me to be achievement-oriented, but my dad and I would watch Carol Burnett, Sanford & Son, and Flip Wilson... and so that was BIG in our household. Carol is still worshipped by my dad. My mom and I would sneak out to Neil Simon or Goldie Hawn movies.

As Fleabag for Halloween, having spent lots of time on sets, I realized I have loads of costume shots.

3.     How did you nurture your funny side?

I used to sneak-read my mom’s Erma Bombeck books when was 8? And of course, I loved the irreverence of Carl Hiaasen and David Sedaris when I was older. In grad school Nora Ephron was a mentor, but she had a deep poignancy that’s only coming up in my work now.

4.     Do you think you may have inherited your funny bone?

Not sure. I’ve heard tell of a crazy great Aunt Madeline that people mention now and then, but I never met her. Apparently, she was always protesting some injustice in a hilarious way. I had another aunt who passed away last year, and she had been a minister from Princeton and whenever we would get to talking—I’d notice similarities in our speech patterns, little phrases like, “Well, that’ll put some starch in your undies.”

At TedX

5.     Did being funny ever get in the way of a close relationship?

Yes, I had one relationship where the person was so on the defensive, they could never tell when I was joking and so everything out of my mouth felt like a joust or a jab to them and it’s too exhausting to be constantly explaining yourself all the time or apologizing for their misinterpretation or misunderstandings... Finally, it was like, wow you don’t grok me, do you?

6.     If you’re in a partnership, is he or she funny? Was/Is humor a requirement?

Alas, no partner, but if someone were to magically appear... humor, empathy, and curiosity would be at the top of the list along with liking books, movies, someone who can stand picnics at Tanglewood, likes to cook, and who knows the difference between they’re, their, and there...

7.     If you have a funny partner is there ever a joke competition or do you play well off each other?

My ex-husband and I used to have this ridiculous inside joke we’d repeat to each other when something happened that made zero sense in the world... it stemmed from this weekend out in the Hamptons with some friends where the younger kids had all gotten a bit rowdy. We’d all gone to bed, but they stayed up playing billiards and somehow one of kids home on break from school had gotten it into his head to leap (full body) onto the billiards table right at the moment another person raised his cue—and it went right through him. Right through the gut. And so, how they managed it, I’ll never know, but they got him to the little local hospital and removed the cue and it missed all his vital organs. And the next day we were all walking around with our coffees looking at each other in awe and wonder, because of course, we had slept through the whole thing, the entire drama, repeating “it just went right through him!” and then another person would pipe up and pronounce “He must have been drinking!” The whole scene had a very Jeeves and Wooster vibe about it.

And so, from then on for years, whenever anything absurd would happen my ex-husband would chuckle and waspily intone, “Went right through him!” and I would retort mischievously, “Well, he must have been drinking!” and we'd both laugh at each other for how bonkers the world could be.

8.     Did being funny ever get in the way of school or work?

I had one boss tell me I was entirely too glib about things...  And I said, “We sell video games to addicted soccer moms who can’t sleep—I think that might be our remit.”

Website

9.     Was anyone ever threatened by your humor? Who? What happened?

No one has ever been threatened by me... I am a tiny, mouthy who writes mostly fiction and who just cosplayed Marie Antoinette in her living room, only to have her life saved by a Ruggable.

10.  Can you tell me about a time when you turned something painful into something humorous?

See answer number 1. That hurt quite a bit! Though I did almost give birth in Joan Rivers’ living room and I remember trying to make that funny. I told her “Look, I’m centimeters dilated here, it’s like walking around New York with your purse open... I’ll be lucky if the baby just doesn’t roll right out into Bergdorf’s.” And she said, “Ha! I’m gonna use that, kid!”

11.  Can you tell me about a time when you couldn’t muster anything funny and how it affected you? How long did it last? How did you rebound from the unfunny funk?

When I had Covid... I couldn’t be funny. It felt like I had thousands of weeds growing in my lungs. I rebounded by watching QI... the British Quiz show. It was several weeks of unfunny... dragging around the house.

12.  Can you describe the type of humor you possess? Clever, quick-with-a-joke, physical, goofball, self-enhancing, self-deprecating… one I didn’t think of?

I would hazard snarky, dry, and story-driven?

13.  If you have kids, when was the first time you made them laugh?

Early on as babies both my daughters were exceedingly giggly.

14.  Did your kid inherit your comedy skill?

They each have their own unique style... they’re both far funnier than I will ever be.

15.  Did your sense of humor change in the last 5 years? If so, how?

I’ve grown as a writer, so the way I inject humor into various scenes has broadened.

16.  Was your humor ever mean? What happened? Any regrets?

Yes, I mocked this girl’s mullet in high school, and she decked me, right there. Total regret. Do not make fun of hair. Even if you disagree. As Fleabag wisely says, “Hair is everything.”

17.  What would be the title of your life right now?

Have you Met Miss Jones? Like the song by Sarah Vaughn ?

18.  Who is your role model? If you could say anything to this person, what would it be?

Nora Ephron. I would tell her I’m sorry, I haven’t been more focused... and that I need to be hosting more dinner parties, this much I know.

Current author shot— they wanted me to look serious hence the fist.

Bespoke brand consultant and bestselling author Alisa Kennedy Jones is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on brand intelligence. Fluent in five languages, her celebrated TEDx talk on epilepsy changed the way we think about creativity, electricity, and the brain, and her debut bestseller Gotham Girl, Interrupted became a global phenomenon in the field of narrative medicine. When not writing her next comedic novel Ellery Allbright Goes Dark, Alisa is having the best time ever heading up a variety of initiatives for Cakewalk Ventures, Ltd., including The Empress, gotham girl, and DIA.

As a memoirist, blogger, and screenwriter, her words have been featured widely across national media outlets such as NPR, and TEDx, and as part of the Academy Award-nominated documentary CRIP CAMP, Executive Produced by Michelle & Barack Obama. An advocate for disability, neurodiversity, mental health, and epilepsy, her collection of comedic essays GOTHAM GIRL INTERRUPTED (Imagine/Penguin Random House) was a #1 new release on Amazon and is available everywhere books are sold as well as on Bookshop.org, IndieBound, and Barnes & Noble.

I’ve got questions, how about you? I’ll start.

• What makes you laugh?

• How do you prioritize your writing projects?

• When do you have time to read a novel? (As evidenced in your recent post.)