No matter how you view federal employees, attending a Funniest Fed competition will change it.
A dozen federal workers competed for that title Wednesday night in the semifinals of this year’s competition.
Joe Davidson
Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about the federal workplace that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.
Naomi Johnson came up with the idea after doing some comedy open mikes around town nine years ago. She met a few others who were feds by day and comics by night.
“I started thinking that there must be a lot more feds out there who have done comedy or have always wanted to,” she said.
She was right.
Johnson, who works at the Department of Homeland Security, started the competition in 2007. Thirty people applied, and only about that number attended the first show.
Far more than that were in Wednesday’s standing-room-only crowd — everyone received Groucho glasses and nose — at the State Theatre in Falls Church.
A field of 12 comics was whittled down to seven by a vote of the audience and a panel of judges. Four were in the experienced category, and three were novices.
The June 22 finals will be at the Lincoln Theatre, on U Street NW in the District. Johnson said a portion of this year’s ticket sales will go to the Wounded Warrior Project. The winners in each category get $500 and Oscar-like trophies in the form of Geico’s gecko, the sponsor’s mascot.
Here’s a little bit about the finalists:
Lisa Dee (a.k.a. Lisa MacLeod) is a 50-year-old District native who works for the Justice Department.
“I got into comedy on a dare,” she said. “Friends had been bugging me for years to try stand-up, and one fateful New Year’s Eve they dared me to make it my resolution. In a momentary lapse of reason (and probably too many beers), I took the dare and two weeks later I was at a local open mike. I got a really good audience reaction and got hooked on it.”
Though the Funniest Fed strives to be a PG-13 show, only one of MacLeod’s jokes likely would make it past this newspaper’s editors:
“I recently turned 50. Now not only can I not remember anything, but now I don’t care! The other day, I was in a staff meeting, spewing what I thought was profound federal brilliance. But when I looked around, everyone was looking at me like I was a mental patient! So I thought, “What’s up with that?” . . . After the meeting I was in the bathroom washing my hands and I looked in the mirror, and to my horror I only had makeup on one eye! I looked like I had been giving everyone the stink-eye all day!”
Carson Gross, a 26-year-old Patent and Trademark Office employee, is from South Dakota and has lived in the District for almost four years.
“I got started in comedy because I realized a couple years ago that some of my happiest memories were when I’d have a roomful of buddies laughing and having a good time,” he said. “I want to create that atmosphere for more people, so I try to do that when I perform.”
But apparently only when he performs. Unlike other finalists, Gross declined to offer a sample joke from the semifinals because he didn’t want to provide “any more spoilers for the show.” His loss.
Nate Johnson is 28 and lives in Arlington. He works for the Social Security Administration.
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