Bonding people with laughter: Zack Noe Towers
29 Jan 2019.

Zack Noe Towers is a talented young gay stand-up comedian. Busy as a bee, I first saw him when he hosted Dekkoo.com's Out on Stage, a six-episode show featuring various queer comedians. Zack told a joke about dating a high-maintenance guy who had digestive issues and could only eat 13 different foods, and he considered breaking up with the guy, "but one of those 13 foods was ass," so they stayed together. I laughed out loud. I knew I had to speak to him.

"As a kid I would mimic scenes from Home Alone to entertain people at parties," he tells me. "I'd always be the comic relief in the high school musical. Bonding people with laughter is amazing. When you have a crowd in your hands, there's nothing like it." 

He's been doing comedy for about eight years. "I was always a musical theatre kid and when I got to LA I was discouraged by the process of becoming an actor on screen. So a friend signed me up for a stand-up show and I had fun onstage and it satiated that aspect of me. Its better than going for an audition and being in a toilet paper commercial."

But is it? The world of stand-up comedy is very competitive, often harsh. Other stand-ups are stand-offish until someone proves they can make an audience laugh. "I perform for 97 percent straight audiences. So my gay jokes are usually for people who don't really know what a top or a bottom is. My gay jokes don't really work for gay men, they're almost bored by them."

It doesn't help that gay men were often targeted by comedians in the past. "I got my first paid gig on a gay cruise and I told an AIDS joke. I said, 'Gay Pride is more trouble than it's worth. As soon as I got there my phone started filling with random dudes' numbers and it died of AIDS.' The older gay men in the audience didn't like it. I thought they were going to throw me off the boat. I don't think it's horribly mean, but that joke will not appear on any more gay cruises."

Ask almost any gay male stand-up and they will tell you that gay male audiences are not there for them. "It does feel like there's an underlying competitive aspect to being a gay man. We see each other either as trophies or competition, with not much in between." Yet who else could appreciate a joke like this:
I have to share with you how my friend met his husband. They met at a sex party while sucking the same wiener. I didn't ask any further questions . . .  like, did they Lady and the Tramp it?

Well, I met my second boyfriend in a threeway, so I definitely get it, and I enjoyed the joke immensely. There are dozens of other young gay male stand-up comedians out there right now, and they need our support. And our laughter.