Sampson McCormick
The Funny Man We Need to Take Seriously
By George Kevin Jordan
Isn’t it time we started to take funny man Sampson McCormick seriously.
He has jokes, upon jokes, but during the pandemic, Sampson got a chance to take a long serious (but mostly hilarious) look at his life and career.
I recently sat down with Sampson McCormick, comedian, writer, producer, and all-around hoot, right off the heels of season two of the widely panned melodrama “When the f&#K is this coronavirus going to end.” During our chat the comedian was transparent about his career, his intense work ethic, love, teeth, straight men coming through windows (apparently another epidemic) and his latest project.
Pandemic pondering is a real thing, albeit, maybe not a real phrase. This is (by the writer’s own definition) when, after more than a year either isolated, or disconnected from humanity, the mind does a deep dive into our past, our present, and the uncertainty of our future. We overthink every moment in our lives, if we are privileged enough to be at home or not have to commute to work everyday. This has happened to many folks who after pandemic pondering, got married, or divorced, started a new job, or sought out therapy.
I always imagine this type of intensified self-examination would be worse for entertainers, robbed of the one thing that gives many performers purpose, an audience.
So when I got a chance to interview comedian Sampson McCormick, who for years has been a steadying comedic force in many of our lives, I really wanted to know how he was doing, what he was doing, and if I could pry it out of him – who he was doing.
The following is an edited version of our conversation.
SWERV: How are you feeling throughout, you know, this pandemic?
Sampson McCormick: Overall I feel great. Of course you know, there’s still challenges and things like that, but you know, I believe that we are taken care of.
SWERV: Good, I love that. And, how has the work been going in a pandemic — what has that been like? What has shifted and what has surprisingly been the same?
SM: People are still calling me. As a matter of fact, I think I’m getting more calls now than when I was actively touring. When I was really in the mix, and out on the road, nobody was really calling me like that.
SWERV: Really? So, what do you think the difference is now? Do you think it’s just like now they’ve had time and they’re sitting there watching all your work?
SM: That’s part of it. it’s like now I’m at home. I’m not really trying. Like there are some videos that I put out years ago, and I woke up one morning and, and all of a sudden they have hundreds of thousands of new views. I’m not sure if you remember That Bitch Better Be Funny.
SWERV: Is that the one you were a finalist for a Grammy nomination?
SM: Yes. So that one came out almost 10 years ago and it’s streaming now more than it’s ever streamed since it’s been out.
SWERV: Do you ever go back and listen to your jokes?
SM: Sometimes.
SWERV: Cause I was going to ask, do you find, like with music, that some things are classics, like ‘that was a classic joke’ or are you like ‘that joke didn’t age well’?
SM: A little bit of both. There’s a space that I always leave to be my biggest critic. I know what I need to improve on because I’m always looking to improve. But then I also know that I put out some pretty iconic work. I say that humbly. I’m blessed because there’s a thing that I say all the time, especially as I get older. I’m like, ‘What am I doing? Why do I do this? Why am I out here?’ We all ask the questions: ‘Why am I not in Alabama or Texas somewhere with some man, with a baby and a dog, living a normal life?’
SWERV: So, what’s the answer to that for you?
SM: That’s not what I am sent here for. It’s something I think being in this pandemic has given me clarity on, because I think a lot of great artists suffer from imposter syndrome.
I’ve never had an opportunity to stop and really look into things that I’ve done. And I think it’s mostly — and this is me being very honest with you – this is mostly because I never got credit for the impact of what I’ve created for Black gay men in comedy and in theater and, and with the types of films that I’ve done.
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Pause:
I want to pause and actually list a few things that McCormick has done in his more than two decades in the business. There were his two comedy specials, Church Boy, and That Bitch Better be Funny, which was a finalist for a Grammy nomination. There were also specials like Don’t Make Me Take Off My Earrings, The Shade of It All, and Shea Butter & Jesus. During this time, Sampson also penned three books: Carefree Black Boy: Essays on Life & Redefining Masculinity, Taboo Village: A Perspective On Being Gay In Black America, and Ebonics Faggotry.
As a writer and producer McCormick has done shorts like A Different Direction and Party-N-Play , as well as his most recent film, Love the One You’re With (Which we will get to shortly). This is not including his omni-presence on social media platforms like Facebook Live.
I later reached out to Sampson after this interview to see what he thought of as his most significant work, and he mentioned:
I Live Here, written and directed by Shane Watson, which is a dramatic indie student film about a Black gay man navigating gentrification in the Bay Area San Francisco. It was nominated for an Oscar Award [student category] in 2017. He also mentioned the 2016 documentary A Tough Act To Follow, he produced, which features Adele Givens, Sinbad, Darryl Stephens, Luenell and discusses the challenges that minorities face in the entertainment industry.
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Okay back to the interview:
SM: I was doing this before there were Black gay men in comedy, before they were putting on wigs on the internet and stuff like that. I was standing on stage making men who I know hated our guts fall out of their seats laughing.
At 15 and 16 years old in DC I was getting on the Greyhound buses, going to New York and Boston and Connecticut and Maine. You really don’t have time to think about what you are because you’re just struggling.
Even if I stopped doing comedy today, I wouldn’t be able to quit because people would be at my front door asking me to come outside and talk to them and tell jokes or something. If there’s something that you’re supposed to be doing, you can choose not to do it, but it’s going to haunt you, so you got to go do it.
I’m pretty aligned. I know that a lot of the things that I do transcend comedy, even though I will always do comedy, it’s housed under a comedy umbrella. But the impact that it has on people is much bigger than that.
And so when we talk about imposter syndrome, for me, I know mine comes from two places. One of those places is just exhaustion. It’s not easy being a Black queer artist. The standard that we have to work at, you meet that standard, you exceed it, and it requires a lot of energy, lot of focus like singing. Say, you’re a soprano and you got to sing at the top of your lungs. You have to hit all the high notes, and you’re doing it all the time.
You realize [your] voice is starting to become damaged. I can’t hit the same notes anymore. I have to change the key. I’ve had to change the key that I work in now. I still create great work.
But I’ve had to change the key. It’s taxing. It takes so much out of you. As a Black queer artist you come up against people who aren’t so open minded, and depending how you relate to people, that alone can be a lot.
I just put a new film out last month and the film is phenomenal. Love the One You’re With is on Amazon Prime. That’s huge. Black Queer films don’t make it on platforms like that. Not good one’s anyway.
I mean there are some good ones, but generally there’s not a storyline that is much bigger than two or three really good looking guys who, you know, they’re wandering around, lost. (I just interject shirtless) And so since they’re lost they just fall on a dick.
SWERV: But don’t you do that? When you’re on Olympic {Blvd in Los Angeles} don’t you just fall on a random dick?
SM: I mean yeah, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want to see that you can go on Twitter.
SWERV: Fair. Fair.
SM: It’s not to say that that’s not authentic because it’s authentic for somebody, but in a world where we want more freedom as people, we want more representation, we have to create stories that other people can also relate to. And do the work around that.
That’s something I am not going to be humble about. I worked really hard to put out outstanding work – the best of the best. If you’re going to take somebody’s time for them to look at something that you created, then you need to come with it.
SWERV: I definitely wanna get to the film, but I want to unpack two things that you were talking about. One, it’s interesting that you are using the word queer. How do you feel about that word? When do you start using that word? I am working my way with that word. I’m just curious about where you are with “Black queer”?
SM: I don’t really care, but I think that, you know, where I might say the word queer, somebody else might say gay, somebody else might say same-gender-loving. And you know, when we hear those words, we know what we’re talking about.
SWERV: [Interjection:] We go on and off the record in this section so to be fair and get us back on track, I ask a question about Sampson’s love life, and his work life.
SM: My focus and my goal is on creating the best work for Black queer people that the world has ever seen. That’s it. If people like it, and which they do, they love it, that’s nice.
I don’t need people to know who I’m dating. I don’t need people to know what drama I got going on in my life. This is my work, right. My work is outstanding. Enjoy it. I want to hear a little feedback. That’s it.
SWERV: I think that that’s a really fair negotiation with the world. So, I want to pivot. I want to talk about your film, Love the One You’re With. What is the film about to you?
SM: The film is about friendship. The film is about communication. The film is about how easily we discard each other. And the film is about real life, but in a way you can look at it and relate to it. But you can also laugh about it because life, as serious as it is, is also that silly. So, it’s very realistic, but it also shows people like this is real life.
SWERV: Why did you decide to write and work on this project?
SM: I always get a lot of really great ideas, but I don’t always stop to nurture them. That was an idea that I absolutely had to stop what I was doing and nurture it. And so it took me about two months to write that script and it was exhausting. I would write two pages and then I would have to sleep eight hours.
SWERV: What was the most challenging part?
SM: I think that the most challenging part was really facing the anxiety that you deal with and really creating something that you know is outstanding. And that’s a bar that even without anybody else critiquing it or looking at it, that’s a bar that I set for myself.
SWERV: What is your idea of success, both in your career and in life?
SM: My idea of success is [captured in] the Maya Angelou quote that says ‘Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.’ So I’m always looking at what I’m doing and I’m like, ‘Do I like, how I’m doing this right now?’ And, as long as I’m finding contentment in that then that’s success.
As a Black gay boy, who never really fit in and felt that I didn’t matter, comedy was my vehicle to at least make sense of the hand I was dealt in life, and as horrible as it was, I continued to press and believe, and fight. I’m still laughing and I’m still here.
I hope we all, as Black men and Black gay men, find that thing that allows us to believe in life, and ourselves and press on regardless of the circumstances.
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IG: @SAMPSONMCCORMICK
