Patrice O’Neal’s Singular Performance: ‘Elephant in the Room’

‘100 Funniest Comedy Albums’ Book Excerpt

Frank Mastropolo

Comedy Central Films

Patrice O’Neal only recorded one hour-long comedy special before he died in 2011 at 41 from a stroke caused by type 2 diabetes. Elephant in the Room, released in 2011, showcased O’Neal’s interactions with the audience.

Ain’t no man in here ever ask how their woman’s health is, ever. Look at this nigga laughin’. How long y’all been together, by the way, bro?

Man: Two years.

Two years. Have you ever asked her a health question? Never. It ain’t happenin’.

“To be able to go off the cuff, you have to have a synergy with the crowd and they gotta love you,” O’Neal explained on the A Shot of Yager podcast. “But then at the same time you have the structure of your act that helps you go off to the left.

“It’s like having a GPS. It’s a place where you generally know where you’re going, and you take a left or a right. You don’t have to be that worried you won’t get back on the road.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you gotta rely on the GPS. Meaning you rely on just going off the cuff or just being funny, you can wind up in a bad place. And you got no place else to go because you took a wrong turn and you gotta be able to have your professionalism and your preparedness and material get you back on the road.

“I love doing crowd work because I think people are interesting. I’ve gotten a lot of material from audiences. I’ve gotten a response I didn’t think I was gonna get and you really embrace that response.”

O’Neal joked about his diabetes, acknowledging that at age 40, “My days are numbered. So I just wanna have as much fun as possible, you know what I mean?”

I’m 40 and that’s young in everyone else years. But in black years . . . I got high blood pressure. Diabetes. If you do the black-to-white life ratio, I’m a 177-year-old. I’m old.

If you’re over 40, and you’re trying to better yourself, just stop. You’re not gonna better yourself. You’re old. Your brain don’t work. Your body don’t work. You can’t change your ethic.

I went to exercise recently, and I tried to change my life and exercise. After I finished, I was saying to myself, “I gotta do this tomorrow?” Like, nothing changed.

I still got a lump. I don’t care what it was. Something shoulda changed. Nothing. And I gotta keep doing this until maybe I see a change. I just can’t. I don’t have that ethic anymore. I shoulda did it when I was 18 years old.

I saw some white chocolate-covered Oreos. Oreos dipped in chocolate, man. I was in tears, knowing I shouldn’t eat it, but I was in pain, going, “Oh my God.”

And I’m talking to myself, “I can’t eat these cookies, man.” And they’re callin’ me, and I’m praying to God, and I’m lactose intolerant, but, like, if I eat these cookies, I gotta drink milk too.

I’m-a go out like a soldier. It’s like, whatever. And then you say all kind of weird stuff to you to rationalize eating them. I’ll be like, “You know what? I don’t need both my feet. I’m not a ballerina. All I need is one so I can drive my car.”

Frank Mastropolo is the author of 100 Funniest Comedy Albums, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.