MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Are you ready for a laugh or two? Yeah, me, too. NPR's Elizabeth Blair recently got her share at the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival in Jamestown, N.Y., and she brings us the stories of a couple of the up-and-coming stand-ups who performed there.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Identity and relationships were big themes at the Lucille Ball Festival. Here's stand-up Ali Macofsky.
ALI MACOFSKY: I do couples therapy because individual therapy is very expensive. So now I have a boyfriend, and I make him pay.
(LAUGHTER)
BLAIR: Macofsky joked that when she comes home from work, she'll find her boyfriend gaming.
MACOFSKY: He'll have his little headset on with his little microphone. He'll be talking to his little friends. I'll walk in the door. He won't even register that I've entered the building. I'll be like, hey, babe. How are you? Love you. Miss you. He'll be like, Creeper, are you there? It's me, Schwee (ph). I'm locked in. They're right behind us. We've got to go.
(LAUGHTER)
BLAIR: This week Macofsky will make her late-night TV debut when she appears on "Colbert." And that's a big deal for a stand-up comedian for the prestige and exposure it brings. Macofsky's been doing stand-up for about 10 years. In some professions, that might seem like a long time to reach a milestone - not in comedy, she says.
MACOFSKY: When I first started comedy, that was kind of the thing that I would hear from, you know, everyone who'd been doing comedy longer than me. It was like, it takes 10 years. It takes 10 years. Everything takes 10 years. And so I just never felt rushed. I was like, this is going to take a while to feel more established or be kind of viewed as maybe a more legitimate comic.
OPEY OLAGBAJU: I've known Ali for, like, 10 years.
BLAIR: Opey Olagbaju met Macofsky on the club circuit in California, where they're both based. His writing credits include the sitcom "Bob Hearts Abishola" and "I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman." In his stand-up, he jokes about being an immigrant from Nigeria.
OLAGBAJU: 'Cause immigrant parents look at America as, like, a race track, you know, and, like, their kids as horses. That's why if you translate every immigrant's ethnic name to English, it roughly sounds like a racehorse's name. Like, my sister's name is Bouki. That means blessed belovings. My other sister's name is Tolu. That means thanksgiving forever. My name is Opeyemi Olagbaju. You translate that to English, it means Seabiscuit Clippety-Clop III. OK?
(LAUGHTER)
BLAIR: Olagbaju says sometimes painful experiences inspire jokes, like the time he was walking home from a show in Oklahoma City and a man in a pickup truck called him the N-word.
OLAGBAJU: Here's the worst part of it. He called me the N-word. And usually when someone says that, I'm like, oh, get out of here, right? But here's what happened. He called me the N-word, and then I sneezed.
(LAUGHTER)
OLAGBAJU: Straight up. He was like, [expletive]. And I was like, achoo.
(LAUGHTER)
OLAGBAJU: And then we just stared at one another.
(LAUGHTER)
OLAGBAJU: And he was like, God bless you. And he just drove off.
(LAUGHTER)
BLAIR: Olagbaju says comedy helps him channel all kinds of emotions.
OLAGBAJU: The sad reality of that scenario is, like, that's happened to me three times in my life. But the thing about comedy, I feel like, is if you have a strong feeling about it, it's funny. There's something funny about the scenario.
BLAIR: Olagbaju is currently working on a TV series inspired by the 1976 movie "Car Wash." Meantime, Macofsky is in New York, getting ready for "Colbert."
MACOFSKY: And so I'm just trying to run my set around town as much as possible and make sure it's ready to go for that taping.
BLAIR: Macofsky hopes to eventually record her own stand-up special. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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