We toured the nation for three straight years. The L.A. Times compared NWC to the comedy of Chris Rock and early Culture Clash, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer declared we were “the anti-Three Stooges—nobody’s fools, and nobody’s victims.” Everywhere we went, people were up in arms about the title but then responded incredibly well to the show itself. We, however, were exhausted. We were on the road nine months out of the year. The stresses of a national tour and co-owning a business were getting to us. Liesel and Steve knew how to launch successful companies, but Miles, Allan, and I were learning those hardships for the first time. To use a phrase that Allan educated me on: I began to see the chink in the armor. We worked so hard at putting on a great show for people, while trying our best to pay our bills and balance our books, that we forgot to work on our friendship.
Liesel took a sabbatical from college to tour with us that first year, but by year two she had to go back to Mt. SAC, and Allan, Miles, Steve, and I continued on the road without her. Liesel still handled most of our touring logistics from home for us, while Steve became mother hen on the road and the “token white guy” holding the mic for us during Q&As. By the way, Steve had just cocreated the animated hit series Ben 10 for Cartoon Network and still he insisted on being on the road to help us out! But by the end of the second year of touring, we stopped going out together after the shows. As the tour became grueling to us, we started to stay in our separate hotel rooms more. Believe it or not, the power of NWC was not the performance; it wasn’t even the comedy. It was the audience. We weren’t always changing lives, but NWC forced people to look inward as they laughed. The title was always controversial and part of our discussion at all times. Fortunately, a big part of the project was to have residencies in every community we visited in order to have dialogues and workshops about issues in the show. This very meaningful work, however, took a toll on all of us. I’m sure some of the audience members were laughing without any deeper introspection, but as long as one person got it, that made all the touring worthwhile. If you don’t believe me, just listen to what happened in Kentucky.
We performed the entire show and then held a Q&A afterward. We secretly disliked doing these Q&As because we felt the audience needed time to digest the show before they could start asking us questions. But it was really the Q&As and the community dialogue that our management company was selling, so we had to do them. A young, skinny bespectacled white guy in the front row raised his hand to ask a question. As Steve hurried over to him with the mic, we realized that he was crying. Miles, Allan, and I looked at each other and thought, This is a comedy, what did we do wrong? The guy with glasses, now holding the microphone, didn’t have a question. He simply wanted to say:
“I’ve only cried twice in my life. The first time was during Titanic.”
Wow. What a brave soul to admit that out loud.
“And second,” he continued, “was during this show. Because as you told your stories, I related to you. And I realized that I had never related to a minority before because the only minorities I had ever seen were getting arrested on TV. I just wanted to say thank you—and that I promise to work on that.”
Despite our building tension, the guys and I felt it was important to keep the show going. That comment made us feel like Schindler’s List: “He who saves one life saves the world entire.” I’m not trying to compare NWC to Jewish law, but the show did give us purpose. Whenever we grew tired of performing, all we had to do was remember that skinny white kid in Kentucky.
We arrived in Olympia, Washington, shortly after our Kentucky performance. Unfortunately, it was on the same weekend the NAACP was having a burial for the N-word. Bad timing all around. The local NAACP chapter no longer wanted people to say the word, and in a symbolic act were holding a literal burial for it. This was not good for us because we had to say the word in order to do the show. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Sheriff’s Department came backstage as we were getting ready to perform and informed us that they had intercepted some Neo-Nazi activity online. Olympia, Washington, was once a hotbed for the KKK, and Neo-Nazis were active and upset about our show coming to town. Apparently, Neo-Nazis thought N*GGER WETB*CK CH*NK was a show designed to bash white people. I’m guessing Neo-Nazis don’t like to read because they didn’t seem to read our title. Where does it mention white people? The Sheriff’s Department took the time to walk us through what to do in case there was a race riot inside the theater. Before we took the stage, we heard members of the NAACP protesting our show outside. Then, a few Neo-Nazis also showed up to protest our show. There was never a race riot inside the theater in Olympia, Washington, but Black people and white people stood outside the theater united in their hatred of our show. I am by no means equating a hate group to a group that is actually fighting for the betterment of marginalized communities. All I’m pointing out is that NWC brought people together unlike you would ever imagine.
Like all great bands, NWC would eventually break up. Not from any lack of interest, but because the three of us were too young and needed time to reflect on what it was that we wanted out of life. I knew what I wanted. NWC was it. I got to write and star in something I’d created. There was so much power in that. But ultimately, NWC was like a marriage that needed to be worked on every day, and we didn’t. It was too much recognition, too fast. I wish we had created it a little later in our lives, but—no matter what—we will always have that guy in Kentucky.