The Last Black Unicorn(46)
I tried to have positive thoughts. I’d go on the computer and look through our wedding photos, to remember the good times.
And then one time, I was going through the wedding photos, and there was a photo of a buck naked chick sucking on her titties, in the middle of our wedding photos. That led to a big fight. Nothing physical, just yelling.
I was working on a movie then, and I called him the next day, but couldn’t find him. I came home, because I had been a little mean to him in the morning. So I thought, I’ll come home during my lunch break. I’ll butter him up like, “I’m sorry for being mean to you this morning.” But, he was not at home when I arrived.
Instead, there was an eviction notice on our door.
Tiffany: “Why hasn’t the rent been paid? Why are we getting an eviction notice?”
Ex-Husband: “Because I have a child. I’ve been talking to her every day. I have to pay $2500 a month. They’re garnishing my check. That’s where the money is going.”
That’s why he was asking me for $1000 every month. He said it was going towards the rent. Turns out, he was paying child support. He had another child who was eleven, a little girl, who he basically abandoned, because he didn’t like her mom.
? ? ?
It’s funny, because a few months before, his mom was at the house, and she was telling me that he got a daughter. But she was drunk, and he was like, “You can’t listen to her. She drunk. Don’t listen to what she’s saying.” But, I should’ve listened.
I had real issues about this.
Tiffany: “Why would you do that? You found my dad for me. And you know how I feel about that. You would just abandon your child? You just let her be out there like that? And then you didn’t even tell me that you reconnected with her or that you was paying child support or that you got a court order garnishing your check? You didn’t tell me none of that?”
He didn’t have nothing to say. I was like:
Tiffany: “Fuck this shit. I’m done. I’m out.”
So, I moved out. I got a divorce.
And this time, it stuck. We’re still divorced, and we ain’t never getting back together.
I know what you’re thinking: This was your breaking point? And not the ass-whippings?
It seems like a really small thing, relatively. Compared to everything else.
But the thing is, I couldn’t be with anybody, or potentially have a child with somebody, who could abandon his child. That was my personal boundary, and I had finally found it.
He had trouble letting go. He kept texting, “I want my wife back.” He’d be calling my friends. To this day, he still calls my friends. And he’s like, “How’s my wife doing? I miss her. She’s still my wife. Even though we’re divorced, she’s still my wife.”
No, we ain’t divorced. We twice divorced.
The Long Road to Comedy Success
I don’t want to make comedy sound easy, because it is NOT.
After I got back into comedy, and got my first paid gig (“The Lesbian Bomb Show”), I started doing a lot of paid shows all over LA. Occasionally, I was getting out of town to Orange County or Colton, or something like that, or far off, like Lancaster.
Back then, I considered a two-hour drive to be a serious traveling gig. I wouldn’t now, but then I was driving a little Geo Metro that sounded like a lawnmower. Ride in that shit for two hours, you feel like you done crossed America in a covered wagon.
Right as I was getting going with comedy, I kind of blew up in the Bar Mitzvah scene. So I was traveling all over the country, doing Bar Mitzvahs. That paid better than my comedy gigs, but comedy was my thing.
Then I got on the show Who’s Got Jokes? and that helped my career a lot. It was my first time ever being on television doing stand-up, and I won the first round of competition.
I had to go to Atlanta, and I had never done comedy in Atlanta before. I’d only partied in Atlanta, so I really didn’t have a feel for the comedy scene. I didn’t know how they even felt about women comedians, or anything. I didn’t have a clue. That shit matters a LOT in comedy, and because I was not ready for the second round in Atlanta, I lost bad.
It was in a civic center. There were like three thousand people there, and it was my first time being in front of that many people. And right as I walked out onstage, I realized, Tiffany, there are motherfucking cameras here.
I was just so nervous, it was horrible.
At the time, I had this goofy bit about the song “Chicken noodle soup, chicken noodle soup, chicken noodle soup and the soda on the side.” I would make fun of that song, do this goofy dance. I did that bit, but I screwed the timing up bad.
I knew I had fucked up. It was so quiet in there. And nobody made a sound. And then some man just went:
Man: “Booo!”
Just out of nowhere. He didn’t even yell, it was more dismissive. And because none of the other three thousand people were making a sound, it echoed all around that hall.
I looked into the audience, and all I could say was one word into the mic, real slow and serious:
Tiffany: “Niggas.”
That’s all I could say. I could get nothing else out of my mouth.
I got disqualified. This wasn’t a black comedy club, and you can’t say that shit on TV. I was done. I failed. It was bad.
First, I cried. I cried outside in the back of the civic center, hard. Then I started talking to myself and was like, You just bombed in front of all them people, all over TV. People are gonna be able to see that all over the world.