JUST SAYIN’ w/ Justin Martindale is a weekly podcast recorded live at the world-famous comedy club The Comedy Store, where comedian Justin Martindale breaks down the hottest stories, gossip, headlines, and fashion in the world of entertainment.
In this episode, Justin welcomes Leslie Jones to the show.
It’s a big week for books! Leslie’s memoir, Leslie F*ucking Jones, is now available, the A-lister reading Britney’s audiobook has been revealed, Jada Pinkett Smith is putting everyone’s business out there, Madonna is back and much more!
Then Astrologist Kyle Thomas joins to get into Leslie’s birth chart!
Jones attended high school in Lynwood, California, where she also played basketball; her father suggested that she play the sport because she is six feet tall. Jones attended Chapman University on a basketball scholarship. While initially unsure of what she wanted to study, Jones worked as a disc jockey at the student radio station, KNAB, and contemplated playing professional basketball overseas.
Jones began doing stand-up comedy in college in 1987, when a friend signed her up for a “Funniest Person on Campus” contest. After winning the contest, Jones left school for Los Angeles. She performed at comedy clubs while working day jobs at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles and UPS to make ends meet. Comedians Mother Love and Dave Chappelle encouraged her to move to New York City to hone her craft for two years, where she appeared on BET’s ComicView before returning to Los Angeles. She performed at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, but received unfavorable reviews of her shows there. She then went out on tour, opening for Jamie Foxx where she was booed by his audience. Feeling as though she lacked experience, Jones stopped performing for three years. Fearing that she would only ever be known in African American circles, around 2010 she began to stop playing so-called “black clubs” One night, Chris Rock saw her perform and gave her name to several of “the biggest managers in comedy” all of whom “didn’t get it”. Rock would eventually help Jones get a job at Saturday Night Live.
In 2008, Jones was part of Katt Williams’s It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’ tour.
Justin Martindale: Justin Martindale is an LA based comedian originally from San Antonio, TX who has been seen as a guest on E!’s Live From E!, as well as the series Worst Thing I Ever… In 2014, he was the co-creator for the hit Funny or Die web series Not Looking which received high acclaim by Slate, The Advocate, and Huffington Post. He wrote for the LEGENDARY Joan Rivers on Fashion Police and has opened for Sandra Bernhard, Whitney Cummings, and Fortune Feimster. He’s performed with Atlantis cruises and resorts and has been seen on LOGO TV’s One Night Stand Up. He can also be heard on such podcasts as the Joe Rogan Experience with Joe Rogan and the Skeptic Tank with comedian Ari Shaffir. Some of Justin’s more recent credits include: @midnight, Acting Out and Butter Face.
The Comedy Store: The greatest stand-up comedy club in the world. The Store was founded April 7, 1972, on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood by comedian Sammy Shore, his wife Mitzi and comedy writer Rudy DeLuca. It started because Sammy needed a place to work out when he wasn’t on the road. Sammy was the longtime opening act for Elvis Pressley. It was the first all stand-up comedy nightclub in the world. In the beginning, since Sammy was frequently on the road, his wife, Mitzi assumed the nightly operations of the club and selected and scheduled the comedians that performed there.
