Ten months ago, when the idea of a pandemic was just starting to sink in, I was up late at night scrolling through Netflix wondering if there was enough entertainment to keep things interesting for the next year. My wife and daughter go to bed around 9, leaving me up for another three hours to solve the world’s problems on my own. With no more Ozark or Stranger Things in sight, I noticed an alert pop up on my phone. “Comedian Godfrey Started A Live Video.” What’s this? A live video? On my phone? I had never clicked on a Live but because I went to college I assumed it meant that someone would appear live on my phone. And wouldn’t you know it, there was Godfrey in his living room talking to me in mine.
So you don’t think I’m a complete loser, I should tell you that I went to high school with Godfrey in Chicago in the 80’s and have followed his career, on and off, over the years. In 2002 when he replaced Orlando Jones as the spokesman for 7Up, many of us were certain he was destined for a Kevin Hart-like career. For whatever reason, it didn’t quite work out that way. There was Upload, a way too late Internet video thing he co-hosted with Shaquille O’Neal that was beyond cringeworthy because Shaq isn’t funny and Godfrey was forced to act like he was to collect the check.
One of my favorite Godfrey moments of the past decade was when I heard him on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast in 2016. Godfrey and Maron performed around the same general time in New York at The Cellar and both knew many of the same New York comedians like Dave Attell. After years of struggling, Maron finally broke through with his podcast and Godfrey was still trying to get to the next level. Their conversations were entertaining as hell because they’re both incredibly funny, raw, human and, most importantly, vulnerable. The appearances were also incredibly awkward at times because they’d talk about the frustrating racial dynamics in the world of comedy and Hollywood and at the same time Maron’s podcast was blowing up so one was left to wonder why he didn’t have Godfrey on more often to promote his shit or hire Godfrey for a recurring role on his new TV show? Those conversations were a microcosm of so many things and you almost wished they could’ve just solved it all right there so the rest of the entertainment world could’ve taken notes and later passed the test.
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All of this was going through my mind when I logged onto that first Live to see what Godfrey was up to. The setup for a Live is pretty simple. Every night around 2AM EST Godfrey, who apparently doesn’t require sleep, goes on his Live to talk to his fans about whatever’s on his mind. Sometimes it’s about the struggle. Sometimes it’s about the inner workings of a comedian. Sometimes it’s about old school hip-hop. Sometimes it’s about inter-racial dating. Sometimes it’s about his homeland of Nigeria. He also has a variety of guests, some famous, some not so much. On any given night, there’s anywhere from 300 to 600 people tuned in depending on the lateness of the hour and the subject matter.
Like any late-night talk show, which is essentially what it is albeit in a far more intimate format, there have been highs and lows. There was the time he had a young woman on who brandished a gun and started threatening to kill somebody. That was a low. Then there was the time, a few weeks ago, that he had on an old actor/comedian friend who once worked as Prince’s bodyguard and whose grandfather was none other than Ralph Metcalfe, an Illinois Congressman who once held the world record in the 100-meter dash and won two Olympic medals finishing second to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. That was some shit. There was fellow Chicago comedian Lil Rel who came on to congratulate Godfrey on his recent appearance on Tiffany Haddish’s Netflix special “They Ready” an appearance by Glickman telling the story of how Snoop Dogg almost smoked his chubby Jewish ass to death and a recurring segment between Godfrey and hip hop semi-legend Pete Gunz where the two talk about nothing and everything for hours at a time.
Lives have the power to make you feel like you’re a part of the person’s life, which is both ridiculous and 100% of the allure. The live factor is also key, because if you say some fucked up shit, you can’t go back and edit the tape to make it nice for your sponsor. At times, following Godfrey’s Live makes you feel like you’re part of a select underground club or like Godfrey just invited you over to his apartment for dinner even if he’s not totally sure he wants you there.
As a married, 50 year-old Jewish dude living 2,892 miles away from Godfrey’s apartment in Manhattan, I don’t have ready access to what a 20-something African-American from the Bronx thinks about the world. Reading through the comments on a Live can serve as a barometer of sorts for a segment of the nation. It’s enlightening. Sometimes. At other times I feel like an absolute idiot because why am I on Godfrey’s Live at midnight when I could be reading, sleeping, or gently massaging my own wanker?
Over the past 10 months, I have broken up with Godfrey on more than a few occasions. Like any couple in a relationship, I don’t agree with everything he says and sometimes he just really pisses me off. He has said repeatedly that he will not get the vaccine citing a general distrust of politicians, government and the history of racist experiments like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as proof that ‘you’d have to be out of your god damn mind to take that shit.” This is hard to hear given the fact that according to one study, “black and brown people ages 35 to 44 are dying at 9 times the rate of white people the same age,” yet white people are far more likely to be willing to get the vaccine.
During my breakup periods, I’ll admit I went looking for other late night Live’s and became close make-believe friends with two other Instagrammers. The first is Joey Swoll.
As you can see, Joey Swoll is super duper swoll. He offers “no bullshit online coaching” that features “custom diets, custom training and real results!” On the surface, it would seem like Joey and I have nothing in common because he looks like that and, well, I don’t. But it turns out we have lots in common. We’re both from Chicago. We both love old school hip hop and R&B. And, to a certain extent, we both like to take care of our bodies. Here’s the other thing about Joey Swoll. He’s an incredibly nice guy and he’s smart. He talks to his audience about proper diet and workout routines. He talks a lot about investing and crypto investing in particular. And here’s the kicker. His main goal is to make enough money to support his parents. One. Two. Three. “Awwww.”
But my absolute favorite part of Joey Swoll Lives are when he comes on after midnight and eats a huge, Fred Flintstone size steak right in front of the camera. It’s like watching an episode of Animal Planet in that you can’t really believe what you’re seeing and you just can’t turn away. How can a human be that big? How can he eat a steak at midnight right before going to bed? All the money my parents spent on a private Jewish grammar school to prepare me to be a lawyer or a doctor and here I am at age 50, trapped in a pandemic at 1AM watching Joey Swoll eat a late night steak snack. The only downside to Joey Swoll is that he was addicted to opioids for awhile and became suicidal at one point. And while I admire his willingness to talk openly about his addiction and his encouraging others to get help, sometime you’re just in the mood for something a little lighter. That’s where my other new best friend comes in.
I’ve never watched QVC In The Kitchen with host David Venable but when he came on Live one day I just happened to see him talking and OMG it’s like watching something out the 1950’s. You know how some white people sound like they’ve never experienced a day of discrimination in their lives because they haven’t? That’s David Venable. If there’s a happier man in America, I’d like to meet him. People can be protesting systemic injustice in the streets, storming the halls of Congress, dying of COVID and here’s this pudgy, middle-aged, Foodie Mr. Rogers talking about bananas foster pancakes, chicken fried chicken, flower pot bread and more deals than you can possibly imagine. It’s like he’s living in this alternative universe where the world is a friendly place and everyone gets along swimmingly so long as your Super Bowl nachos are made with low-fat sour cream.
“Hello, hello, hello, it’s Instagram Live before In The Kitchen With David tonight. Hi everyone it’s me, David, bringing you behind the scenes before the show starts. My goodness, we already have 300 people in the chat. So nice to see you all here tonight. Hello Susan from San Diego. Hello Gwen from Ann Arbor. It’s so nice to be here with you.”
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be that genuinely nice a person. It seems exhausting.
Last night it was late and I was tired. I wanted to go to bed. I needed to go to bed. And then that familiar message popped up on my phone. “Comedian Godfrey Started A Live Video.” In all the time I’ve watched Godfrey’s Lives, I’ve never commented. It’s not my style. But for some reason, last night I wanted to reach across the Instagram divide and make our friendship real. At 1:26AM, I finally mustered a little courage and made a comment. “Lufrano, that sounds Italian,” he said in a comedian’s Italian accent before moving on to one of the 348 other streaming comments. And that was it. He didn’t remember me. He didn’t remember that I was there in 1986 when his comedy career got its start in our high school gym. Every day after school, before track and basketball practice started, Godfrey and a group of athletes would sit in the stands and make jokes about each others clothes and girlfriends before Coach Lewis and Coach McClinton blew the whistle to get practice started. That was 35 years ago. Tonight, I was just one of 462 people searching for entertainment and a late-night sense of community on Instagram Live.
