They say the best comedy comes from pain. While that might be a point of debate, it’s working lately for Jerry Rocha. “The last time I was in Cincinnati,” he says, “I had just gotten out of the worst relationship I had ever been in. I finally found a way to take all that misery and pain I was going through and make it funny.” That lemonade landed him in the semifinals of this past summer’s Last Comic Standing. “It was a lot of fun,” he says. “At first I was kicking and screaming, not wanting to do it, but then I thought, ‘What’s the worst that could happen? I get to be on NBC a few nights a week in prime-time?’ ”
The exposure has helped him gain new fans that come to hear him talk about life’s absurdities, as well as more personal aspects of his life. He has a fresh new perspective on the absurd having moved from Dallas to Los Angeles two years ago. “Traffic sucks,” he says, “and there are a lot of violent Mexicans, but I come from a family of violent Mexicans, so that doesn’t really bother me that much.”
Rocha performs Thursday-Sunday at Go Bananas in Montgomery’s Festival Market Place. $8-$12.
Go here for show times, directions and ticket information.
