<\/p>\n
Jordan Jensen\u2019s comedy is hard to categorize, just like the rest of her. And while that\u2019s generally how we like our funny people \u2014 layered, nuanced, tortured \u2014 it tends to wreak havoc on the actual lives of the comics themselves. Not quite fitting in a box (even though she definitely knows how to build one) has basically been Jensen\u2019s schtick since birth. She grew up in upstate New York, raised in a heavy-construction family that included three lesbian moms and a dad who died when she was young. Because of that unconventional background, she says her level of hormone-fueled boy craziness mixed with her rugged ability to swing a hammer and basically turned her into \u201ca gay man.\u201d Somewhere in her teens she hit a \u201cfat mall goth\u201d phase that never left her, even after becoming a popular comedian worthy of a Netflix special. Combining her inner Hot Topic teen with freak-flag feminism and alpha-male energy, her style makes not fitting in feel like one of the coolest things you can do \u2014 because it is.<\/p>\n
On a recent Saturday night, before her new Netflix special \u201cTake Me With You\u201d drops Tuesday, Jensen prepared herself for one last run of weekend shows before starting from scratch with material for a new hour. Before going onstage in front of a crowd of a suburban crowd at the Brea Improv, the comedian\u2019s Zen-like confidence felt like yet another thing she\u2019s built from the ground up, along with her comedy career … and probably a patio deck or two. But onstage, her love of all things spastically weird and macabre makes her humor a fun and frightening project to unpack for fans and unsuspecting \u201cnormie\u201d audiences alike. <\/p>\n
How does this moment before your Netflix special \u201cTake Me With You\u201d drops feel for you? Are you past the anxiety of it?<\/b><\/p>\n
I can\u2019t see the numbers, so if it tanks, I won\u2019t know \u2014 so I like that. I\u2019m slightly dissociated because it\u2019s already been done, so I feel good; I don\u2019t feel anxious about it now. I was definitely anxious leading up to it. But the second that night [of filming it] was over it was a relief.<\/p>\n
And you filmed it in New York City [at the Gramercy Theat<\/b>re<\/b>]. But where did your comedy career actually start?<\/b><\/p>\n
My career really started in Nashville, and then I moved to New York after a year. I\u2019m originally from upstate New York. I grew up in Ithaca and then I moved to Buffalo and started trying to do comedy. I moved to Buffalo because my friend became paralyzed, and I moved there to be near here, and then I basically started doing open mic in front of her paralyzed body because she wasn\u2019t allowed to run away. Then my dad died, and I was going to move to New York City and instead [some friends of mine living in Nashville] said I should come live with them, so I did that instead for a year and really got into comedy there before eventually moving back to New York.<\/p>\n
Did doing comedy in Nashville help you develop your career?<\/b><\/p>\n
Definitely. I met [comedian] Dusty Slay, who helped me out. Lucy [Sinsheimer] from [the comedy club] Zanies got me all this feature work, and I drove my truck all around the South.<\/p>\n
What is like to hit the touring circuit hard as a young comedian? <\/b><\/p>\n
You do an open mic and someone says you can be on a show, and suddenly you think you\u2019re hot s\u2014, and every step of the way you kinda think you\u2019re doing really well, so you\u2019re driving around being like, \u201cI\u2019m on tour,\u201d and making weird tour posters, and you\u2019re not even looking at people who are at a different level; you\u2019re just trying to do the most you can do at your level. So, for me, it was the same as it is now. I\u2019m on tour every weekend, and I\u2019ll come back home and hit the [open mics] and get my material and go off again. Even though I was losing money on the road, I felt like I was a touring comic.<\/p>\n
You have jokes in \u201cTake Me With You\u201d about going through a <\/b>\u201d<\/b>mall goth<\/b>\u201d<\/b> phase. Are you still a goth kid on the inside?<\/b><\/p>\n
I stayed in a little punk era in Nashville and dabbled in being everything from punk to goth to hippie to whatever was the shape of my body at that time. But Nashville being similar to where I\u2019m from, which is Ithaca, where I worked as a carpenter, it reaffirmed that you can be a dirty carpenter, and that\u2019s also kinda cool. So I said I\u2019m just gonna dress like I do at work. So I stopped being full goth in ninth grade when I wanted to get a boyfriend.<\/p>\n