It is two minutes before Riche Greene is set to go on stage. It is two minutes before Greene is about to go into his bag of jokes with the hopes of giving someone in the audience a chance to escape for a few minutes, to forget about their problems. In those two minutes, Greene closes his eyes and calms his thoughts, does not speak to anyone, and finds a place in his own mind to remember how it all began.
When Greene was a child, he always knew that he wanted to tell jokes. Cleveland, Ohio is known for producing great comedians and Greene wanted to add to that collection. Growing up on the east side, Greene had a chance to meet the likes of Cortney Gee and Mike Jones. Drew Carrey, Steve Harvey, and John Hinton were finding steady work nationally so Greene knew if he worked hard, he could do the same.
One night, he decided to try it. It was amateur night at Hilarities and the 17-year-old wanted to see if he had any talent.
“I went on stage and bombed,” Greene said. “I stepped onstage, and no one laughed. It was the worst five minutes of my life.”
The night was a total failure and a complete success at the same time. Greene might have bombed onstage, but he discovered his passion. Greene knew that becoming a comedian would now be his life’s journey.
Just as he started to work on his dream, Greene was smacked in the mouth by life. He just learned that he was going to be a father. And no new father could travel the country weekend after weekend telling jokes in some bar with the hopes of one day making it. No one really knows how long it takes to become an overnight success. It could take two weeks or it could take thirty years. With a child on the way, Greene knew he might not ever get a chance to find out.
“I had to put my dreams on hold for a while because I knew I was going to have a child, and the responsibility of being a good father trumps anything else in life I wanted to be,” Greene said.
Dreams on hold do not mean dreams are forgotten. While Greene was raising his children, he also worked at the Improv to stay around comedy. That kept him close to learning from the greats as well.
“I would do my job they hired me to do, but still get a chance to speak to and learn from comedians who would come in town to perform,” Greene continued. “Jeff Foxworthy and Dana Gould spent time with me and talked to me about good delivery of jokes, timing, and winning the audience. Gould would show me how to write a punch line. Jeff helped me understand timing and speaking in the first person. Those guys allowed me to work on my craft so if I ever got a chance to get on stage again, I would be ready.”
Greene got his chance when the opportunity presented itself. He would fill in whenever he could, and he would try different things to perfect his craft.
Fast forward years later to the beginning of the pandemic and the year 2020. Greene’s kids are raised, his mother’s health was failing, and Greene was wondering about life and his legacy.
“When life stopped and we all went home, I had time to think about my life and it felt like something was missing. It felt like I had unfinished business with comedy,” Greene said. “My mother would always remind me that I wasn’t pursuing my dream and that got me thinking.”
Greene decided to get back to the thing he loved. He had the time, the energy, and the desire to see if he could turn his dream into a reality.
That journey meant booking gigs for himself, traveling every weekend to a new audience, and still finding the time to be a good father, sibling, and son to his family. No one promised that living your dream would be easy. It takes patience, persistence, and the trust that you are doing the right thing when things are not going well.
Greene’s two minutes are up. He opens his eyes and prepares to walk on stage. He collects his thoughts and with each step understands that becoming a national sensation is not the dream at all. Living his dream is doing all the demanding work, every day, to prove to himself that he can do comedy. Living his dream is finishing what he started, that he can develop enough talent to make people smile whenever he performs in front of them. And finally, he can make his mother proud by accomplishing something they both used to only talk about.
Greene steps on stage takes the microphone and punches life right back in the mouth, just like we’re all supposed to. ●
