i speak for the lonely bitches

Photograph by Jonno Rattman for The New Yorker

LESLIE JONES! inspiration, from the new yorker:

She was forty-six, and had been a standup comedian for more than a quarter century; her peers respected her, but that respect rarely translated into high-paying gigs. “I remember some nights where I was, like, ‘All right, this comedy shit just ain’t working out,’ ” she told me recently. “And not just when I was twenty-five. Like, when I was forty-five.”

keep the faith mates. also:

One bullet that this opening takes away is speculation about Jones’s sexuality. She has never been married and has no children; much of her act these days is about trying to find a man. “I speak for the lonely bitches,” she said.

and  i just love this style:

we took a cab to the Comedy Cellar, in Greenwich Village. The booker, Estee Adoram, greeted Jones with a hug and implored her to perform, but she preferred to socialize. She walked past the comedian Judah Friedlander—he grabbed her arm and said, “Keep kicking ass”—and took a seat next to Larry Wilmore. At one point, the reactionary pundit Ann Coulter stopped by their table. Wilmore was courteous, but Jones leaned across the table and stage-whispered, “What the fuck is this frightening bitch doing here?” Coulter’s face froze in a rictus, and she soon backed away from the table.