Announcer:
Welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast presented by the National Federation of the Blind, the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans. Live the life you want.
Anil Lewis:
All right. Welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast. This is your host, Anil Lewis, and I am solo today. So we will see how this goes. Either I will show up on the next episode with Melissa or I will be replaced with someone else. You guys, our loyal listeners will decide. In I guess recognition of April Fool's Day, we decided to do something purely entertaining.
Well, won't be purely because we always sneak in something that's a little bit more meaningful, but we're going to do it on comedy and humor. And we are blessed to have two extremely talented individuals here with us. So I'm going to bring them right on since Melissa and I can't go back and forth. So our first comedian that I like to introduce, I met her when I was judging a virtual talent show and this young lady stole the show, Yvonne Neubert, welcome to the Nation's Blind Podcast.
Yvonne Neubert:
Well, thank you. This is great.
Anil Lewis:
Listen to her. She's trying to be all demure, my little southern bell here, but I'm sure we'll bring her out of her shell. And the other guest that we have on today's episode is another talented comedian by the name of Mr. Shannon Cantan. Hi, Shannon.
Shannon Cantan:
What's up? I don't know what demure means, but I'll get there.
Yvonne Neubert:
It's a Southern thing.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. You being demure will be a stretch. Yeah. That would also scare me if you were being demure. So it is April, the month of April Fools. Not saying that you guys are April fools, but we do appreciate the comic talent that you bring to the table and looking forward to having a discussion with you around humor as it relates to blindness, believe it or not.
So before we really, really get started, I'd love to know what your favorite, if you have an April Fool's joke, hit me with it. And if you have one that you just know from someone else, please share it with our listeners. Yvonne, why don't we start with you?
Yvonne Neubert:
Okay, I'll start. Back in long ago, one of the Memphis radio stations had this little comedy gag that they would do and people would call in and let the hosts know certain things about people. And we did that for April Fools because this guy in Memphis had some pet pirana and he dropped them in the Mississippi River and made the mistake of telling about it.
So we got the radio station to call him and pretend that they were wildlife or conservation people or something like that. I don't remember. And they told him, "We heard that you had dropped off and dumped X amount of piranha in the Mississippi River and now..." And he named some big enormous number of fish have died and several children had gotten bitten really bad by the pirana that he dropped in.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my.
Yvonne Neubert:
And the guy was just all apologetic and he knew he was either going to jail or going to be fined or anything. And they played it for three minutes or more. And you could tell the man was just about ready to cry.
Anil Lewis:
Did he really put pirana into Mississippi?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, he really did it. And look, you could do something stupid like that, don't tell your friends because your friends are your friends until they can create some comic relief off of you.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
So that's my favorite, funniest one that happened.
Anil Lewis:
All right. Well, just to get my head around it though, no fish or children died.
Yvonne Neubert:
No.
Anil Lewis:
Okay, thank you (laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
Not really. Maybe. Hopefully.
Anil Lewis:
Okay. All right. I'm going to wrestle with that one a little bit. Shannon, what do you have?
Shannon Cantan:
I'm probably going to get bleeped up for this, but...
Anil Lewis:
Okay, hold on. Let me enable my five second delay (laughs).
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah, please. I'd say April Fool's pranks are like a white people thing (everyone laughs). I grew up, we weren't wacky like that, man. You had to watch out for your drink year around. I think that's...
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, but come on now. I know you had to play some practical jokes on somebody or you got practical joked.
Shannon Cantan:
Man, people take it too far. I've had my stuff burned before (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
Okay. That's not a joke.
Shannon Cantan:
Oh yeah. No, football. They'd put Icy Hot in our... Yeah, that's what I mean. We took it.
Anil Lewis:
April Fools!
Shannon Cantan:
There was no gotcha, no wacky LOLs. It was...
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, that's urgent care right there (Shannon laughs). Oh my goodness. All right. Well, I think that's setting an interesting tone for the rest of this podcast. I always appreciate way back in the day on April Fool's, we released a video, the National Federation of the Blind released a video that kind of played with all of the misconceptions around blindness.
Shannon Cantan:
Oh yeah!
Anil Lewis:
And I love that video. It was like blind guys were treating the sighted people the way they treat us. We had a young blind lady. She was dragging one of the sighted people across the street (Shannon laughs) and all that stuff. So I love that. I hope we can dig that out of the archives and use that. But that's one of my favorite April Fool's experiences. And it's nice to have all these different jokes. And we'll talk a little bit more in the podcast around how jokes can actually be healing and therapy.
But speaking of jokes, I tell you what's not a joke is dealing with a horrendous bunch of emails. So I want to share with you guys, if you're like most people I know, your email box is out of control, hundreds of messages, maybe even thousands. And every time you try to deal with it, you're either fighting with your screen reader or handing your phone to someone else just to find one email.
So Lumin is built differently. It's a voice first personal AI. No screen, no swipes, no scrolling. You just talk. Ask it what's in your inbox, tell it to reply, ask what needs your attention today, and Lumin handles everything. In natural conversation, the way you navigate the world. For people who live and work without a screen, not adapted, not retrofitted, just built that way from day one. Lumin is in early access now.
If you want to try it, they'll do a free one-on-one onboarding call to get you set up. Just go to lumin.email. That's L-U-M-I-N dot E-M-A-I-L, Luminemail. Now, back to the jokes. All right. Well, that was my first attempt at reading an ad. Obviously, I need practice.
Shannon Cantan:
No, no. Next time you should ask Lumin to read it for you.
Anil Lewis:
Hey, that's a great idea! That's a great idea. But I'm going to have to check that Lumin out. That sounds pretty interesting to me. All right. To all of our listeners at the Nation's Blind Podcast, we have some experts in humor here on our show. And in recognition of April Fool's Day, we thought that this would be a good break for us to have a little fun.
So we want to talk to Yvonne. And Yvonne, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are. I know you performed standup comedy and you've done storytelling off and on, what maybe twenty-five years, I think?
Yvonne Neubert:
I've been an entertainer all of my life.
Anil Lewis:
And you're only twenty-five years old, right?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah (laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. And I spent several years in the '90s singing. I was old and grandpa then.
Anil Lewis:
Singing, really. What type of music? What genre?
Yvonne Neubert:
Blues and country.
Anil Lewis:
Nice. Do you play an instrument too or just the voice?
Yvonne Neubert:
I used to play guitar.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, wonderful! I didn't know that.
Yvonne Neubert:
And piano and saxophone and clarinet.
Anil Lewis:
Look at you.
Yvonne Neubert:
And keyboard (Anil laughs). I've always been an entertainer and yes, I was a class clown. And I went to the Tennessee School for the Blind, which made being a class clown really easy and a lot of fun. And I was tiny little thing. And I used my words and my language to get over on people who were bigger than me and bullies.
So humor was my go to, and I used it mostly well. And I was always bound and determined in any situation I was going to have the last word. And it got me in a lot of trouble, but John Lewis said it best, go out. Good trouble.
Anil Lewis:
Good trouble. That's my man.
Yvonne Neubert:
Good trouble.
Anil Lewis:
Necessary trouble. Yeah.
Yvonne Neubert:
Necessary (Anil chuckles). Good trouble.
Anil Lewis:
So you use humor to get out of trouble and into trouble?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes.
Anil Lewis:
Okay (chuckles).
Yvonne Neubert:
And I've always been a leader. I hold several leadership positions in the NFB, and my humor and quick wit has helped me in that. And that's what got me to being a leader in the first place, because I found out at an early age, humor can get you places that meanness or nastiness couldn't get you. And you could get one over, like I said, on the bullies. And I had a pretty messed up life. So humor was my salvation, I guess you could say.
Anil Lewis:
Interesting, so humor, you used it to defend yourself, but I also see here you have an alternative way of defending yourself. One of your hobbies is ax throwing?
Yvonne Neubert:
Oh yeah. I started out.
Anil Lewis:
(Laughs) She says, oh yeah (Shannon and Anil laugh).
Yvonne Neubert:
I started out shooting guns.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Shannon Cantan:
All right (laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah. Had to take it a step back (laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah. Okay, when I was little, my mama would watch her stories or soap operas, and I would nap on the couch. And there was this couple on one of these stories called Russ and Rachel. I don't remember if it was Another World or As the World Turns.
But they were always fighting about something. And on one of the days, she threw a plate across the kitchen at him. And I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
And this is great. So that got me into...
Shannon Cantan:
Thinking about axes (laughs)?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, it did. It got me into accuracy sports.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, accuracy sports.
Shannon Cantan:
I heard that. Yeah.
Anil Lewis:
Got it.
Yvonne Neubert:
And so I grew up in the south, so all my family hunted. So I grew up around guns and I started shooting when I was probably about eleven. And I guess only being able to see out of one eye actually helped with my aim.
Anil Lewis:
Interesting. Yeah, because a lot of people they'll close that one eye. Yeah. Interesting.
Yvonne Neubert:
And later, later in life, I ended up getting nerve damage in my arms, so I really couldn't shoot anymore. So I met a guy at a meeting and he had just started Tennessee's first ax throwing studio. So we went to the studio so he could teach me how to throw an ax. And it was the greatest thing ever. Wonderful therapy.
Anil Lewis:
Ax throwing studio. So you're in a building?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes.
Anil Lewis:
And it's like lanes like a bowling alley?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes!
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
It actually is like lanes like a bowling alley.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness (laughs). I'm sorry. I'm not going to make the whole episode about this, but I'm just curious. Can anyone just go in there? Do you have to have some type of pre-training? Are you in a room?
Yvonne Neubert:
Oh anyone can go in. I mean they even serve alcohol.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness (laughs). So we have another guest (laughs) with us.
Shannon Cantan:
Thank you, Lizzie Borden (everyone laughs).
Anil Lewis:
You're a brave woman.
Yvonne Neubert:
Oh, no. The guy standing at the board tapping the board with my cane so I would know where to throw. That's a brave man.
Anil Lewis:
No (laughs)!
Yvonne Neubert:
But there's rules. There's rules (Anil laughs).
Shannon Cantan:
You can't maime someone (laughs)?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes.
Anil Lewis:
Someone's standing at the target tapping it.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes.
Anil Lewis:
No, see...
Yvonne Neubert:
He would tap it.
Anil Lewis:
No, here.
Yvonne Neubert:
And then he would come back.
Anil Lewis:
Let me help him. Get you some AirTags or a tile or something and you hang that on the target and you let someone press a button from where you are.
Yvonne Neubert:
Okay. Yeah. But I did that when I was shooting. I was at a firing range and I got the bright idea to put a beeper behind the target and I shot it.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah.
Shannon Cantan:
Okay. Yeah. That feels like similar to if someone's tapping it.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. With the ax, you just want to have a little bit more of a dangerous potential outcome.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah. No. The louder the scream, the better to the aim. That's the way.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. You know you hit your target if you go (groans), and you go bullseye. I actually got a bullseye.
Anil Lewis:
Okay. Okay.
Yvonne Neubert:
We worked for like thirty...
Anil Lewis:
Not audible bullseye though. You didn't actual hit anyone with that.
Yvonne Neubert:
No I didn't hit nobody...
Anil Lewis:
Okay.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yet.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
But anyways, it's great therapy.
Anil Lewis:
Shannon, save me. Save me, Shannon.
Yvonne Neubert:
No don't save him, Shannon.
Shannon Cantan:
No, no. She got an ax, dude. You alone (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
It's on Zoom. This is on Zoom. You're fine. So we have another guest (laughs). Shannon Cantan. Shannon, tell us a little bit about you (laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
Do you throw things?
Anil Lewis:
I hear you're an actor, a writer.
Shannon Cantan:
I'm done acting. I'm done writing. I would just call myself a comedian now.
Anil Lewis:
Okay. Yeah.
Shannon Cantan:
Born and raised in Hawaii. Live in Boston now. Hit most of the circuit. Been through. I'd say I've performed in twenty states now. Live in Boston, but I got my podcast out in Philly. Performed mostly out in Philly, but east coast shows me love. So I've been out here for a bit.
Anil Lewis:
Interesting. So you don't have any interesting hobbies (Anil and Shannon laugh)?
Shannon Cantan:
I don't know if there's anything I can do to beat what she just said.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, this is not a competition. Come on.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah.
Anil Lewis:
This is therapy. This is like full disclosure. Just let it go.
Shannon Cantan:
All right. So it all started when I was five years old.
Anil Lewis:
Uh-oh.
Shannon Cantan:
No, I do Brazilian jiu-jitsu now. I've always loved sports from high school. I played football, did track, did wrestling, doing some martial arts. Standup comedy has been a big, big part of my life. Anytime I get to write, I'm out here doing it. I'm working out bits, trying to get better every day.
Anil Lewis:
Nice.
Shannon Cantan:
Comedy's rough, but it's also real fun. When you can finally work out that joke, when you flesh out that bit, where you know there's something funny and you finally break it down to the point where people can understand where you're trying to go with it. It's probably better than having a child, I'd say. I have no kids. I have no kids (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Okay. All right. I was about to say, I don't know. I count that as one of my most wonderful.
Shannon Cantan:
Pretty sure?
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. Yeah. So I know I listened to one of your, I think it was a TED Talk when you were talking about, was it your brother?
Shannon Cantan:
Oh yeah!
Anil Lewis:
Was it beep baseball or goalball?
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah, beep baseball. My brother and I, we started out in Boston. My brother was never an athlete, so they wanted me to talk about something. But as weird as it sounds, even though I love standup, I'm terrible at talking about myself. Anytime someone's like, "Tell me about you." Oh, Yvonne caught me earlier. I could not. She's like, "Who are you?" I'm like, "I don't know."
Anil Lewis:
Still trying to find himself.
Shannon Cantan:
Exactly. There's an out of body experience where I'm like, I can channel whatever I want, but they wanted me to talk about myself and my story. But the most important thing about me is my family. And I remember my brother who, even though I grew up in a family of six, three of us were blind, he may have been the least athletic of the three blind ones.
And we all had different experiences, but when he finally got opportunities when he was in college, when we started doing beep baseball, it really showed how much of an athlete he was. He's a high level climber now. He's jacked.
Anil Lewis:
Wow.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah. So it really was one of the coolest things to be like, "This guy used to be a nerd (chuckles)."
Anil Lewis:
I just loved hearing you tell the story because it really was powerful and you did share on a really emotional level, but you still interjected that humor in your presentation, which I think is pretty cool. You both are really wonderful storytellers.
And I know that when I was serving as a judge for the talent show, a lot of the jokes that Yvonne shared were stories, just like the pirana one she shared earlier. So I love the way that you guys are able to interject that. And I want to drill down with that a little bit more, but let's just take a quick minute for a message.
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Anil Lewis:
All right. Glad I didn't have to read that one. So (chuckles) let's talk a little bit more, get a little deeper with this whole comedy thing. How did you guys get started in comedy?
Shannon Cantan:
A breakup.
Anil Lewis:
Really? Are you serious?
Shannon Cantan:
Dead serious. I had a breakup. I'm not really a big relationship guy, but that one hit me. And so I knew I was like, if I bomb, it won't be as bad as this right now (Anil and Shannon laugh). So I found the mic and I made a deal with God. I said, "God, if I do well tonight, I'm doing this."
I've always loved comedy, was a big comedy fan, probably since like sixth, seventh grade. My dad hated comedy. He never understood it. He's very immigrant mindset. So he's like, "What is this dumb thing? Ha ha ha." He's like, "I can do that." But I remember loving it so much. And then I finally did back in 2018. That was when I finally made that deal to myself and I did well and I bombed the next nine months, but I got the taste (Anil laughs)...
Anil Lewis:
That one thrill where you killed that first time sustained you, huh?
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah (Anil laughs), it could be. I saw it a what if.
Anil Lewis:
Wow. Yvonne, what about you?
Yvonne Neubert:
I was fortunate. I grew up knowing people from the Grand Ole Opry, and there was a comedy duo, Lonzo and Oscar. And so I'm like dinosaur. Well, not quite dinosaur old, but old enough that I watched the show Hee Haw.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, I love Hee Haw.
Yvonne Neubert:
And thought it was just hilarious.
Anil Lewis:
(Singing) "We're not ones to go around, spead rumors. I love you all."
Yvonne Neubert:
My favorite one from Hee Haw is, let's see, how'd it go? (Singing) "She took out her glass eye, her wig and her false teeth. She took the makeup right off of her face. I'd love to love and kiss on you darling, but you were scattered all over the place (laughs)."
Anil Lewis:
Wow. Wow.
Shannon Cantan:
Sing it with her, Anil. Sing it with her.
Anil Lewis:
Hee hee, haw haw haw haw.
Yvonne Neubert:
So I grew up with country comedy and then I found Richard Pryor and then it was on.
Shannon Cantan:
Legend.
Anil Lewis:
That's Grand Ole Opry right there (Shannon and Anil laugh).
Yvonne Neubert:
And my uncle, everybody's got one of those uncles and he introduced me to Red Foxx, not Fred Sanford, but Red Foxx. And then it was on again.
Anil Lewis:
And people messed up when they confused the two. They weren't the same man, but different comedy styles (laughs). Yeah. When he was Red Foxx, it wasn't Fred Sanford. I know a lot of people thought, "Oh, let's go see Fred Sanford." And they get to a Red Foxx show., it's a whole different type of comedy.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah so those were my influences (laughs) from country comedy.
Anil Lewis:
So when did you transition though from what you were talking about earlier? You recognized that it was a tool that you could use in school. When did it happen? Did you see those artists sayand, "Hey, I could do that."
Yvonne Neubert:
Well, no, not really. I took a comedy class and got probably the best compliment anybody would ever get from a known comedian. And he asked if anybody wanted to tell a story. It was comedy and storytelling. And I popped up, of course, unlike our friend here, I don't mind talking about myself. There's a lot to talk about (Anil laughs). And so he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this here is what you call a natural."
Anil Lewis:
Oh, nice.
Yvonne Neubert:
So I was given a God-given gift of comedy, might've went a little stray a little bit with Richard Pryor. And my best friend, her daddy was really big in the Assembly of God Church, Southeast, and just wonderful. Love that man. And so I was walking across the campus at the blind school one day and I was going over a Richard Fryer routine (Anil laughs), four letter words and all.
And somebody walked up behind me and kind of put his hand on my shoulder and I was in the zone. And he said, "Young lady, you need to watch your language." And I'm like, "Oh no, it's fine. I got this memorized. It's perfect (Anik laughs)." And I turned around and there was brother Gene, big as life. And oh, I think I turned every shade of red a white girl could turn. Oh yeah, big time.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
And I'm like, "Oh, brother Gene."
Anil Lewis:
Well, if you don't have moments like that in your life, you're not really living, right?
Yvonne Neubert:
But he just hugged me up and he didn't yell at me or holler at me or anything. Like I said, great, great man.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, this is the Nation's Blind Podcast. How did your blindness impact your comedy journey?
Yvonne Neubert:
I got this firm belief that maybe sighted people were put on the earth for our amusement (Anil laughs) because it just worked. It just worked out that way. And so I've always, like I said, used humor because a lot of blind people say, well, the big question, "Well, how much can you see?" "Just enough to be dangerous."
Anil Lewis:
There you go.
Yvonne Neubert:
So that's a quick little comic way of doing it. But one of my favorites that I did get to use, not my humor, but their, whatever it's called, I called the furniture store one day to see about getting a sleeper sofa. And I asked him, I was like, "Do y'all have sleeper sofas?" And he said, "Well, yes, ma'am, we do. We got sleeper sofas all the way from 250 dollars up to a thousand or more." And I'm like, "Great, I need one."
I said, "Since COVID's happening and all, I need to ask you this. I'm blind and I'm going to need to feel of the furniture to let me know what I'm looking at." He said, "Oh, that ain't going to be no problem." He said, "We'll just clean it up when you leave. That's fine. (Anil laughs)" He said, "But there's one problem." I'm like, "What?" And I thought he was going to say, well, you have to wear a mask or something like that. No. He said, "Well, we don't have any wheelchairs."
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah. And I was like, the only thing out of my mouth in a crowded room was, "bless your home." I mean, that just popped out.
Anil Lewis:
Spoken like a true southern belle, that's right.
Yvonne Neubert:
"Well, if you remember, I don't need a wheelchair. I need a sleeper soba." And it just went...
Anil Lewis:
Did he get it?
Yvonne Neubert:
See, that's the bad thing. A lot of times they don't get it.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, yes, this is true. This is true.
Yvonne Neubert:
I was arrested one time and the police asked me, did I know anything about anything? And I'm like, "No, sir. I can honestly tell you, I didn't see a thing." And it went right over his head (Anil chuckles) and I was shocked (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. Yeah, I get it. What about you, Shannon? Has blindness been a positive, negative help, a hindrance?
Shannon Cantan:
I think it's neutral. I don't think it's really made a change. I will say my comedy journey was a little different. I was the bully.
Anil Lewis:
I get that. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah (Anil and Shannon laugh). I think my blindness probably took that back a little, but every now and then it rears its ugly head. But I think we all talk about our lived experience. So blindness will pop up every now and again the same way me talking about being from Hawaii, being Filipino, being Hawaiian, being part of a family of six. I think there are funny things about blindness that exist in the world that I will say some people who are blind may not find funny because we all experience things differently.
I will just throw on to a little thing that happened. While I was in Hawaii, I did a really big show with my buddy who's a touring national headliner. And a couple of my friends from the blindness community came along and couple very much didn't like one of the jokes he riffed off of that happened with me and him, and I loved it.
And some did, some did not. And I'm not the type of person to question their experience, especially I think in the world of blindness, they've been in it longer than I have. They fought more battles. They've had tougher experiences. However, in my experience, you look at the heart, right? You see where the joke comes from with the blindness. Are you laughing with the person? Are you laughing at the person?
Anil Lewis:
That's a good point.
Shannon Cantan:
And in comedy, sometimes there's people who go for the joke. The punch should be the most important part. But I will say sometimes people go for the reaction and you're not going to be as successful. I'll say with knowing his heart, I thought it was great. But ultimately, every time somebody has a feeling, I let them feel what they feel.
Anil Lewis:
That's right.
Shannon Cantan:
But you can never tell somebody what they meant by their joke.
Anil Lewis:
And that's a life lesson. That's not even just comedy. That's just real for life. I know that I went to see a Trevor Noah show once and you know the guys that come up to warm up the audience right? So you're ready to laugh. And he was picking people out in the audience and he picked me. And I had my blind driver challenge hat on (Shannon laughs). He's like, "What's that hat on your head?" I said, "It's the blind driver challenge hat."
He's like, "You're blind?" I'm like, "Yeah." And I forget what Joke he told, but to me it was funny, but the crowd went quiet. And he said, "Would you please let them know it's okay to laugh?" I had to give the whole audience permission because they all had turned themselves into my advocates, I guess, that "No, don't laugh at the blind man," but if it's funny, it's funny. The blind jokes. I don't know how you guys feel about blind jokes.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah. No, funny. I'll say the Chappelle's, the blind...
Anil Lewis:
Clayton Bigsby. Oh my goodness.
Shannon Cantan:
It's brilliant.
Anil Lewis:
That made me so uncomfortable. It was so funny. Oh my goodness.
Shannon Cantan:
It's so uncomfortable, but funny because of its absurdity, right? You understand that this is not going to happen, but also throughout the joke, they built how smart he was. He wrote four books. He got all these degrees. So the blindness was really ultimately the smallest part of it, but it really was hilarious.
Anil Lewis:
It was masterful. So many dimensions to that skit. So many dimensions. What were you about to say, Yvonne?
Yvonne Neubert:
Oh, about blind people and comedy.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah and blind jokes.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, I had to give audiences the okay to laugh at things. An example, to get over my depression after I'd lost all of my sight, my friends got really worried about me and finally talked me into going to a costume party. And this was spur of the moment. And if you've ever had to put together a really good Halloween costume, it takes time and effort and thought. And I didn't have time for all that.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, you're serious.
Yvonne Neubert:
So I went as the third blind mouse (Anil laughs). All I needed, gray tracksuit, piece of wire hanger made into it.
Anil Lewis:
The third one. Why the third one?
Yvonne Neubert:
I don't know. Just the number three is so cute and print. It's all squirrely and everything.
Anil Lewis:
Okay. All right (chuckles).
Yvonne Neubert:
And the third blind mouse, that just sounds better than the second blind mouse or the first blind mouse. The third blind mouse just flows better (chuckles). So here we go to the party. And I've not used a cane. I didn't really need one, I didn't think at that point in time. And so I just walked up hand in hand or we had our arms around each other probably.
My friend Gary. And so everybody was walking up to the stage for the costume thing. And the judge got to me and he's like, "Ma'am, I'm afraid you might offend somebody." And so of course we all just broke up and they're like, "She ain't going to offend nobody. She's the blindman. She's the real deal." And I ended up winning the contest. Of course I did.
Anil Lewis:
Of course you did. Of course you did. Yeah. Yeah. But just to make sure I offer this disclaimer, blind jokes are fine if they're funny. I don't like blind jokes that aren't funny. Every blind joke is not funny. Some of them are just stupid. But if it's funny, it's funny.
Shannon Cantan:
That's the toughest thing about being blind in comedy is there's a lot of jokes that you have to call out for being hacked. And I'm like, I've heard this a million times. Don't give me that side, "Oh, do you know why blind people can't go skydiving?" No, I don't want to hear this (laughs). And I'm not offended. It's just bad, just regular bad. And that's part of, I think, the educating. I will talk about my blindness because it's my lived experience.
There's been hilarious moments. I have a joke where I compare being Filipino versus being blind. I grew up in a household where we didn't turn lights on. So you might come to my house and there's no lights. And I'm like, "No, no, don't blame blindness on that (everyone laughs)" That's part of the experience. It's like to educate through humor. And it's really important in that way. But I also don't think when you're trying to make somebody laugh, education is necessarily the most important thing. Laughter is.
Anil Lewis:
Right. But you do see, because that was one of the things I wanted to know. Do you guys see jokes and humor as a way to perform public education or do kind of systems change or perceptions, like creating some type of social change, getting people's public perception around blindness to be altered?
Shannon Cantan:
I'd say the side stuff, I call it the hang. Afterwards, what happens on stage, if people consider me a wordsmith, they can rock with me. They know what I'm saying on stage as a joke. That's the point. So when they come off and they say, when I tell them what I've done, my advocacy efforts, talking about blindness in general, what blind people can do, it's a lot easier than if I just straight up went up to people and was like, "Hey, blind people can do this." They believe what blind people can do because they've seen what I've done on stage.
Anil Lewis:
Is that similar for you too, Yvonne? Do you tell a blind story or do you let your stories represent blindness because you're a blind person telling those stories?
Yvonne Neubert:
My stories usually end up representing blindness and I usually try to focus on my wins, the things I've won, the positive change I've made and how I've made that positive change.
Anil Lewis:
Oh, celebrations.
Yvonne Neubert:
And sometimes if I'm talking to newly blind people, I will tell some of the funny, messed up things that have happened because sometimes seeing what you've done kind of helps them with their journey. They're like, "Oh, so what I put salt in the frosted flags?" Things can and do happen. Yeah, my first husband didn't follow the rules of the golden rule, do not move our stuff. Well, he did. And it was not Ovaltine in my five-year-old's milk.
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yeah. She still, to this day, has trust issues with me (Anil laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Well, that keeps him on his guard. It keeps alert. That's good. I think that, well, I like comedy like I like music. I like all kinds of music and I like all kinds of comedy. I mean, all the way back to, what's the guy? The two, Ollie and Stanley, Costello, Abbott and Costello, those types of things with the real kind of slapstick, kind of the straight man, all that, all the way to the social change people, like the Lenny Bruces of the world.
And you mentioned Richard Pryor and what's the gentleman's name? Ralphie May. May he rest in peace, along with Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce. All of them use their comedy in a way to really create some, I think in a real way, a paradigm shift of thought around race and socioeconomics and the whole deal. And I just love being able to get people to laugh. I think that if we were able to do that more and more today, I think people would be in a better place because I think laughter is therapy. And I do appreciate you guys for what you do. Tell me a joke.
Yvonne Neubert:
I'm a story person, so you go.
Anil Lewis:
Okay.
Shannon Cantan:
Oh I'm a dirty boy (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
You want me to tell a joke?
Shannon Cantan:
Oh yeah, you go. I put it back on you. Go ahead. Funny man. Why don't you dance?
Anil Lewis:
Shannon invited me to come talk to him with this group that he hung out.
Shannon Cantan:
Oh no (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
They do this late night show comedy thing, virtual comedy thing. I should have done my research (Yvonne chuckles), but we were talking, I think it was around Black history and I was going to go talk about the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment and that kind of thing. And I got in early and man (laughs).
Shannon Cantan:
My bad.
Anil Lewis:
No, don't apologize, man. I just wasn't ready (Shannon laughs).
Shannon Cantan:
He learned. He learned (laughs).
Anil Lewis:
Yes, yes, I did. I did. And like I said, luckily I love all kinds of humor (laughs) because that was an awakening. I think that's what endeared you to me too though, because I like people that are willing to express things. And unfortunately, well, I won't say unfortunately. Fortunately, we have people that have the ability to create humor in these variety of different styles because there's a lot of people, Abbott and Costello's not going to do it for them.
And there's a lot of people, of course, that, as you were saying, Yvonne, Richard Pryor's going to take a little bit too far, but I still think that these were tremendous comedians because they played to an audience that their stories and their situations resonated with them. And I think that as blind people, you being in this industry really helps us in our mission as the National Federation of the Blind to really show society that we're truly a subset of society.
And we can laugh at ourselves. We can laugh at society in general. We can use laughter as therapy just like everybody else. And I really appreciate you guys for this as a chosen profession. But let me ask, as we're talking about this, is there a point where you think jokes go too far?
Yvonne Neubert:
Oh, that depends on you and that also depends on your...
Anil Lewis:
So what about blindness specifically? Do you think that there's a time when the jokes are too offensive for blind people?
Shannon Cantan:
No.
Yvonne Neubert:
I've heard some stupid lame ones about the dog and the parachuting and all of that, but not anything too offensive. My thing is don't intentionally hurt someone. Don't intentionally set out to degrade any single person or any group of people. You don't do that intentionally. So that's my line. That's the line I do not cross. Not intentionally.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah. And saying it, I'm hearing you say sometimes you've said something, it wasn't intentional.
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, it wasn't intended to harm.
Anil Lewis:
It may have created some harm. Yeah.
Shannon Cantan:
Yeah. I think we all have the goal coming in trying to make people laugh. And sometimes it doesn't work. Often it doesn't work. Way too often it doesn't work (Yvonne laughs). But I don't think I've ever been mad at what somebody said. I've been in roast battles and there's times, probably the most hurtful things people have ever said to me in a roast battle had nothing to do with my blindness. They looked within me.
And I think that's how many of us feel, but some people maybe blindness hit them a little different because the comedy world usually, and the world in general, whether it's literature, whether it's comedy, whether it's walking down the street, the expectations for blindness is low. So we're usually the butt of the jokes.
But I think there's a certain paradigm shift that is coming, where more people, especially with social media, where people can see what blind people are doing, where the National Federation of the Blind has been one of the biggest groups that have shown what we can do. But in the world of comedy, we can now laugh at ourselves because I think we've gone far enough in the world of work, the world of academia.
I think that's where you're allowed to start making more jokes, right? When people start getting more opportunities and the fight's not done. So I think if people came up with the heart of, "Oh man, Shannon is going to kill himself if he cuts scissors" and he meant that, I would be stupid. It wouldn't be, but I would take that more offensive than someone coming up to me and saying, "Man, what an idiot. He did this."
Anil Lewis:
In terms of your capacity. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Yeah.
Yvonne Neubert:
A lot of times people don't get what your point is. I was in college and walking to the cafeteria and this girl came up and she's like, "Can I ask you a question?" I'm like, "Yeah, always ready to oblige an interested public." And I just woke up from biology class (Anil laughs) and she was like, "How do you eat (Shannon laughs)?" And then I woke up, I woke up real quick and I told her...
Shannon Cantan:
That's hilarious.
Yvonne Neubert:
I said, "When I go to the cafeteria, I walk through the line and I tell them what I want. I want a hamburger. I want some pizza. The chicken dumplings, they look good today." Yeah, that chocolate cake and that pie and some French fries to top it off. And they take everything I want and they put it in a blender and they blend it up. And then they give me one of them big old McDonald's straws to drink it through because as everybody knows, blind people, we can't use forks and spoons.
And our Tennessee legislators just saw it that they're going to make a law saying you can't give a blind person a sharp object like a knife. And her response was, "Oh my God, how can I help?" And I told her, "Well, you go to your political science teacher." I said, "You're a freshman, right (Anil laughs)?" And she said, "Uh-huh."
I said, "So you go to Joe and you tell him, if you don't remember my name, just tell him you met the blind woman on the way to the cafeteria. I'm the only one here. He'll know who you're talking about." And I got to class a couple days later. Joe comes in, slams his hands on the table. "Yvonne, what have you been up to now?"
Anil Lewis:
You didn't let her off the hook. You let her leave thinking that was the truth.
Yvonne Neubert:
I did not think she was going to do that. I mean, she came off dumb as a box of rocks. "How do you eat (Anil laughs)?"
Anil Lewis:
And how many other people did she share that with before she talked this before (laughs)?
Yvonne Neubert:
I don't know. I did not.
Anil Lewis:
You're the reason they brought me my lunch in a straw (Shannon laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
Exactly. But his replied, I said, "So what did you tell her? And he said, "I told her since this was your baby, you're going to go to the library and you're going to get the names, emails, and phone numbers and addresses of all the Tennessee legislators." And he said, "And you are getting graded for this."
Anil Lewis:
Oh my goodness.
Yvonne Neubert:
Great, great teacher. He was fine.
Anil Lewis:
Well, I'm glad you got punished for it. Sending us back (Shannon laughs).
Yvonne Neubert:
I'm just a horrible, horrible.
Anil Lewis:
I got one last question for you guys, and this seems is the obvious answer to this, but do you find that your humor makes it easy for you to fit in? Because you know how people are just so nervous to be around blind people. Do you think that your sense of humor and being able to get people to laugh and relax helps you form those relationships better?
Yvonne Neubert:
Yes, I think it does. An example of that, somebody asked James Brown, he's our affiliate president, "Is Yvonne serious?" And it was somebody who didn't know me that well. And he said, "Oh, serious as a heart attack." She has her sense of humor. She has an offset way of looking at the world, but it works. I mean, she's our NFB Newsline director.
She's our legislative coordinator and serves on our board and does a bang up job at it. And then he followed it up by saying, "You need to watch this one and observe how she does things because she's sneaky." Her humor, you will think it's just funny and then you'll wake up three days later at three in the morning and like, "Oh, I get it. now."
Anil Lewis:
She's made you think about something. Yeah. Good for you. What about you, Shannon?
Shannon Cantan:
Yes and no. I think people...
Anil Lewis:
You're, you're always indifferent with your answers (Shannon chuckles). Go ahead.
Shannon Cantan:
You know I don't do things...
Anil Lewis:
This is why you had that breakup (Yvonne laughs). You can't commit. Go right ahead (Shannon laughs).
Shannon Cantan:
Stop saying things that are true, man (Anil laughs). I think yes, it's been easier for me, but I think people are uncomfortable. And in a space like comedy, if people don't have the time to work that out with themselves, because I think comedy is right now at its greatest point. There's more comedy to be had. There's more opportunities, more mics, more spaces to do comedy.
But I do think some people are a little scared. So the people that I tend to rock with a little more are the people who are a little more upfront. The people who will say something dumb. My boy, Ryan, first time I met him in Philly, he's like, "What the hell is this?" And he grabbed my cane, almost groundspiked it and became one of my best friends (chuckles). But there are people who truly do care about social justice, but they have a fear of saying the wrong things.
And I think that is a tough thing for them as well because you want to be in the right, but I think sometimes when you're worried about being right. Sorry, Alexa, stop. When you're worried about being right, you lose the chance to get to know somebody. So I think yes, blindness has helped me rock with certain people, but I think sometimes when you want to do the right thing too bad, you lose a chance of getting to know somebody.
Anil Lewis:
Yeah, I get that. That's real. So this has been interesting. I could go on forever, but we have to keep these at a reasonable timeframe.
Yvonne Neubert:
And I didn't get to tell my favorite, favorite, favorite story about John Pare.
Anil Lewis:
Well, why don't you tell that story and tat'll take us out?
Yvonne Neubert:
I absolutely just love Washington Seminar. And I'm friends with my congressman, Tim Burchett. And well, Tim, he's just about country as cornbread and he's always coming off with all these hokey things. I told him he needs to rewrite and change a script. And so here we are at Washington Seminar. My first time out as legislative coordinator waiting on Tim, he couldn't be at the meeting, but he was going to skip out of one committee meeting at the end and come say hi so I could introduce everybody.
And so waiting on Tim and in walks John Pare and I do get intimidated sometimes. And this time I was because I thought he was there just to watch and see how I was doing. And so I introduced all my team to him and then Tim comes in and like I said, we're friends. And Tim's the old Southern boy and he kissed me on my forehead. And I'm like, "Oh, you kissed me on my boo-boo. Because me and James Brown ended up having matching scars because he bent over without putting his hand out and hit his face on an exercise bike.
And I walked too close to a parked corner with a piece of plywood sticking out the front window." And so we had matched cars for Washington Seminar. And I told Tim, I said, "You just kissed me on my boo-boo. Thank you. It's going to heal now." And so we gave him a Hot Wheels car and I introduced him to John and everything. And then Tim left and John was like, "You really are good friends with your congressman." And I'm like, "What, John? Does your congressman not kiss you (Anil laughs)?"
Anil Lewis:
There's another story that I could share around John Pare that might explain why he may have had the reaction that he had, but that's for another episode (Yvonne and Shannon laugh). I really do appreciate you guys (chuckles) sharing with us today. I love having a good laugh.
I hope that I'll get a chance to see both of you perform for many, many, many, many years to come. And if our listeners have a joke that they like to share, feel free to reach out and share it with us. But until then, remember, you can live the life you want. Blindness is not what holds you back.
Announcer:
We'd love your feedback. Email [email protected] or call 410-659-9314, extension 2444.