No Joke: Last Comic Standing Winner Alonzo Bodden Used to Be an Aircraft Mechanic

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Alonzo Bodden is one of the hardest-working and funniest working standup comics on the touring circuit today. He won Season 3 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing; he has four standup specials so far; he’s a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!; he’s played a bouncer or a security guard in countless movies and TV shows; and he even voiced monsters on the Power Rangers. He’s been around.

But before he had anything to do with show business, Alonzo was an aircraft mechanic who got a job working for Lockheed Martin on the F-117 Nighthawk stealth bomber – one of the most advanced top secret aircraft in the world – when he graduated from Aviation High School in New York. At 18, he moved to Los Angeles, started making a lot of money, found himself in the throes of addiction, and wound up in jail.

The sound of the cell door slamming shut was his turning point.

In this episode, Alonzo shares details about his New York upbringing, his battle with addiction, his path to sobriety (36 years ago!), and how it all led him to find his calling: comedy.

He also shares the one hilarious joke he told at the 1997 Montreal Just for Laughs festival that immediately transformed him from a guy who did standup comedy to fully realized comic. You won’t want to miss it.

Wherever you live, Alonzo will be in a town near you sooner or later and seeing him live should be high on your priority list. Find him at www.alonzobodden.com.

Second Act Stories theme music: “Between 1 and 3 am” by Echoes

School’s Out, Laughs Are In: Retired Teacher Patty Forehand Becomes a Standup Comic

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The moment Patty Forehand opens her mouth, you know she’s from the deep south. And with that comes a certain set of preconceived notions. If she opens her mouth in front of a microphone on a comedy club stage, those notions are immediately blown away, and the results are hilarious. It’s funny once the F-bombs start flying and you realize she’s not the stereotypical, retirement-age, “proper southern lady” society expects when they see her, but it’s even funnier when you hear that her material is funny. Really funny.

It gets even more interesting when you realize that she’s relatively new to comedy. This standup comic, who’s been crushing rooms all over the South, has only been doing it for the past few years. She decided to experiment with comedy after she retired from a 31-year career teaching in an elementary school. And the results speak for themselves; Patty found her calling.

But she also says that teaching was a calling, and she worked an entire career in a Georgia elementary school. So why, when most other people are making plans to coast into retirement, did she decide it was time to try her hand at something that’s not only intimidating, but also incredibly difficult?

In this episode, Patty discusses her southern roots and upbringing, her career as “the funny teacher” in an elementary school classroom, her decision to do standup comedy, and why working dirty is only a result of finding her authentic self.

For more about Patty, and to learn about her live dates, you can follow her on Instagram at @forehandpatricia.

If you like this episode, please check out our other episodes featuring comedians with inspiring second act stories:

The Wolf of Late Night: Paul Mecurio’s Journey from Wall Street to Comedy

Adam Carolla: The Carpenter Who Built a Legendary Comedy Career

Brian “Q” Quinn’s Impractical Career Shift: Fireman to Funny Man

 

Second Act Stories theme music: “Between 1 and 3 am” by Echoes

The Wolf of Late Night: Paul Mecurio’s Journey from Wall Street to Comedy

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Paul Mecurio has achieved a level of success in comedy that budding comics only dream of. He’s a writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; he was a founding writer on The Daily Show, for which he won Emmy and Peabody Awards; he hosted a one-man Off-Broadway show called “Permission to Speak with Paul Mecurio”; he’s hosted shows on Comedy Central and HBO; he had his own comedy special; and he’s a regular opinion contributor on “CBS Sunday Morning.”

But all this success came at an incredibly stressful cost. After graduating Georgetown Law School with high honors, Paul worked as a lawyer on Wall Street at a top-tier international law firm and as an investment banker at Credit Suisse, executing multi-billion-dollar M&A transactions for Fortune 100 companies. He was living the life everybody thinks they want, making a ton of money and enjoying the trappings that kind of success brings.

All the while, Paul was writing jokes and living a double life, working in boardrooms by day and sneaking off to comedy clubs by night to feed an insatiable need to follow his passion for comedy. A chance meeting with Jay Leno was the catalyst for what would become an incredibly gripping, angst-ridden journey filled with self-doubt, torment and tears that had Paul living on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Hold onto your hats; this episode is a roller coaster that will inspire you to chase your dreams.

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