CIGARS AND CRACKERS

My fourth comedy album came out, and I invited my friend and fellow comic Johnny Taylor Jr. to join me at our neighborhood cigar bar. We planned to smoke our pipes and watch the iTunes charts on our phones, hoping for a good first day response.

We found this particular cigar bar when our friend Michael hosted Joking and Smoking stand-up comedy nights there, and while I knew most of the clientele was more conservative than me, they had a good sense of humor and I always enjoyed performing for them, including the time I’d come by just hoping to have a smoke and watch the show on a rare night off. As I walked in the door, I heard Michael announcing, “Please welcome your next comic, Keith Lowell Jensen.” I was confused, but instincts kicked in and I took the stage. As Michael handed me the microphone he whispered, “Twenty minutes,” in my ear. I did a twenty-minute set and it went well. It seems one of the comics had been a no-show and Michael was killing time on stage when he saw me come strolling in. It was a room I felt at home in.

Unfortunately, the night of my album release was also the night of the Ferguson riots over the failure of a grand jury to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man.

Our hearts were heavy from the footage we were seeing from the streets of Ferguson. All the more reason why sitting in a cigar bar and having a mellow night seemed appealing.

Unfortunately, the response to the riots from our fellow smokers was less somber. One man in particular was jovial, and animated, actually walking around the room cracking jokes and explaining how he’d go deal with the “thugs” he believed were “savages” eager for “any excuse to loot and burn down their own communities.”

I was honestly trying to hold my tongue. Both Johnny and I had our jaws clenched and I considered politely asking if we could change the subject, but when I heard the big jolly cigar-chomping man say, “They need to send in the Reserves and just arrest everyone on the streets, let them know this shit don’t stand,” I finally snapped.

“Maybe a more practical idea is for cops to stop killing black people.”

The whole room got quiet. Johnny tightened his hands into fists.

“What did you say?”

We yelled back and forth at each other, and it was clear that Johnny was the one and only person there who didn’t think I was completely out of line. One of the older cigar-chompers told me he had black grandchildren. I somehow managed not to reply, “Yeah? Well so did Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond.”

Michael, my dear friend who’d introduced me to this smoke shop, would later write me to say, “I worried this might happen when I saw your Facebook post that you were going to a cigar bar where most of the customers are cops.” I had no idea this was a cop hangout. This was information Michael could have shared with me sooner.

Continuing to argue with my fellow smokers, things got more heated, and finally I told the big cracker piece of shit that he was a big cracker piece of shit and did my best to break down empirically what it was that made him a big cracker piece of shit.

He said, “Boy, you’re about to get your ass kicked!”

I saw Johnny getting ready to fight. I rose to my feet and yelled back, “REALLY?! REALLY?! That’s all it takes to get you to resort to violence? Some smart-ass talking shit in a cigar bar and you’re ready to get violent, and you’ve got the fucking nerve to condemn their being violent when they’re getting shot in the street!” I waited, still pretty sure that I was about to get my ass kicked.

To my absolute amazement, big cracker says, “That’s a good point … you just saved yourself from an ass whooping.”

I quit smoking tobacco a short time later.

Police continue to kill black people.

“Nazi Punks! Nazi Punks! Nazi Punks … Oh, you have a permit. I see. Well, okay, sorry. Carry on then.”

—Not the Dead Kennedys