 Griot Audio presents an unabridged recording of a conversation with the man by John Ridley, narrated by Dionne Graham. This work is copyrighted 2002 by John Ridley. This recording is copyrighted 2003 by Recorded Books, producer and publisher of Griot Audio. Jackie Mann, growing up in 1950s Harlem, struggled to support both himself and his father while maintaining dreams of being a stand-up comedian. He knows there's only one way out of his demanding life to attain the simple respect and dignity all white people take for granted. He's got to make it big, no matter what the cost. And now, a conversation with the man. Introduction The Green Kitchen was where I first met Jackie Mann. The Green Kitchen was on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The Green Kitchen was a little restaurant diner kind of place where me and the boys, Sweeney, Richie, Raider, God bless him, used to chow down after doing sets at the Strip, Catch and Stand Up, among very few other comedy clubs we were limited to working. That is, if you call hanging out till 2am, hoping to go on for the six people left in the audience working, but that's what we did. Hang out, because the 2am slot was when all the hotshot club bookers, who used to be bartenders before the comedy boom in the 80s, turned their saloons into comedy spots and made them hotshot club bookers, would swing young comics like us. Of course, the 80s ended and so did the comedy boom, and most of the clubs closed and the hotshot club bookers went back to being bartenders, but that's not the story I'm trying to tell. I'm trying to tell the story of how I met Jackie Mann at the Green Kitchen, where us wannabe comics used to chow down. It was a good hangout. After a hard night of 15 minutes of joke telling, there was much griping to be done and many roadstories to be swapped. One morning, post-griping and swapping, when the boys were ready to head home, I took our collected money to the counter to pay the bill. Standing there was an old black guy who mumbled at me, Give me a dollar, I don't have enough to pay for my fries, or something close to that. The man didn't look shabby or indigent. He just looked like a guy who'd left home a little short and was asking to get covered for a buck. But he'd said what he said sharp, and matter of fact. He said it like I owed him a dollar. He said it in a way that made me think the entire world owed him a little something. I gave him two dollars. I got no thank you from him. He said instead that he had seen me around a few times and wondered what I was doing at the Green Kitchen so late at night, and I told him I was a comedian, and he laughed a little and said yeah, and I said yeah, and he said you know I used to be a comic. I didn't know that. Sample complete. Ready to continue?