Last May local comedy impresario Mike Oquendo got an unexpected phone call. “You know you’re doing the work of the devil,” the caller said. Oquendo realized the man was protesting Proud to Laugh, a gay comedy showcase he’d organized as a fund-raiser for this year’s Gay Games, and laughed.
Oquendo, who bears a passing resemblance to Ozzie Guillen, grew up in Wrigleyville. “Back then it was all black and Puerto Rican,” he says. His parents were born in Puerto Rico and moved to Chicago in the 50s, where his father worked as a grocer and his mother as a factory worker. When he was 12 Oquendo’s older sister brought home the Freddie Prinze stand-up album Looking Good. Listening to it and relating to Prinze’s Latino experiences changed his life, he says. “We were poor, so I’d just sit in the living room and replay that album over and over.”
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Inspired by the energy of the audience on that record, Oquendo decided at 16 to put together his first public event. He brought together four north-side high school DJs for a competition at Roscoe’s Death Trap, a nightclub at Roscoe and Clark. They all pitched in to cover the $50 rental fee, and 90 kids showed up. Oquendo did it again the next year in a larger space, handing out a thousand flyers he’d designed himself. Five hundred people attended. “Here I was at 17 with $3,000 in cash in my pocket and no clue what I was doing,” he says. “My mother was convinced the money was stolen or ‘misappropriated.’”
In 2001 he was asked to serve on the advisory board for the Latin Grammys and host Chicago receptions for local artists and industry big wigs. Though the work raised his profile, Oquendo was still struggling to find a home for his show. He says one owner told him, “We’re happy with our blond-hair, blue-eyed people seven days a week.” Finally, in February 2002, Ed Warm, the owner of Joe’s, showed some interest. Oquendo liked the venue’s midsize capacity and its Goose Island location, but he had very specific expectations. “My goal was always to make comedy affordable,” he says. He insisted on no cover charge, no drink minimum, and wanted the freedom to experiment with new themes and formats. Warm said OK.
Oquendo advises his comics to “stay away from abortion, rape, domestic abuse, and the word pussy, because those things get you in trouble,” but they appreciate that he doesn’t censor them or ask them to emphasize their race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. “I think our show is more about commonalities than ‘otherness,’” says Sapna Kumar, who has performed at Cultural Madness since the beginning. “All of the comics have unique experiences that ring some grain of truth on a universal level. That’s why people laugh.”
Proud & Loud
Cultural Madness Comedy Jam
