Jordan - How Yall Doing? : Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived (9780063076211)

Well, shit. How yall doing?

Thats how all this started.

When I was growing up, I was not allowed to cuss. It was just not the way I was raised. So, I dont cuss. At least, I dont cuss too much. My mother was none too happy I garnered such success using the word shit, but thats how it all happenedhow, in ten easy steps, I became an Instagram maven.

I had to look up the word maven to make sure I am using it right. I am not. When I was looking it up, I also learned that Maven is a girls name in Hebrew, but it can also be used as a boys name. It translates as one who understands.

Well, I certainly do NOT understand Instagram. Im a complete neophyte. But somehow, as so often happens in this crazy world, I amassed a gobsmacking number of followers. Five and a half million at last count. I think I need to say that again, because sometimes I cannot comprehend the magnitude.

I have five and a half million friends on Instagram!

I may not be the only person on Instagram to achieve that many followers in such a short time, to go from zero to well over five million in about six months, but heres the deal: I would imagine most people on Instagram with millions of followers were already a known commodity when they started their Instagram account.

Yes, I was on TV and in movies, but it seems that most of my followers say they discovered me on Instagram.

That seems to be what this newfound success is all about. Whether they thought they knew me from my parts on television, my parts in the movies or my stage parts, through the magic of Instagram, they got to know the real Leslie Allen Jordan.

Heres how my road to Instagram fame began.

I was working on a short-lived but wonderful series on Fox TV called The Cool Kids. The show had originally been presented to me as a pilot from the boys in a very popular TV show called Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a funny sitcom about friends in a fictional bar in Philadelphia who are always willing to turn on each other for profit or personal gain.

I thought it was so irreverent and unlike anything else on TV. Plus the three male stars, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, were really cute.

Anything these boys came up with, count me in!

On TheCool Kids, my characters name was Sid and had originally been written as a seventy-year-old straight Jewish man from Brooklyn. I drove to the audition (and, yes, I had to audition) befuddled. I could not understand why they would even be interested in my playing the part. I can play a lot of things, but I did not think I could pull off a seventy-year-old straight Jewish man from Brooklyn.

Oy vey.

So, I winged it. I threw caution to the wind, walked in the door and announced to all those present in the audition room that I was going to put a different spin on things.

I launched into my usual schtick. I made the character younger, Southern and gay. I did everything but tap-dance with sparklers and turn cartwheels. I was my usual shameless self.

I got the job.

I found out later that the road to being hired on this new series had actually begun on the set of Will & Grace. I had won an Emmy Award back in 2006 for my portrayal of Beverley Leslie. When the show was rebooted for three brand-new seasons, I was so excited to be playing Beverley again. On one episode, I worked with the actor Max Greenfield, of New Girl fame. We really hit it off and giggled the whole time like two little schoolgirls.

Max is the gayest straight man I know. I mean this as the highest compliment possible. He embodies the best of both worlds and is a spectacular human being.

And I adore him.

He is married to Tess Sanchez, who used to be the head of casting for Fox TV. When Tess told Max about this new series she was casting, he brought my name up. They both told their friend Charlie Day that he should at least audition me for the seventy-year-old straight Jewish man from Brooklyn. Just in case they might want to go another way with the character.

Years ago, I had been told by Barbara Miller, the legendary casting director, that when I died, on my tombstone, it should read, here lies the other way to go .

She liked to bring me in to audition for producers even though I might not have been right for a particular part. She would introduce me as perhaps the other way to go with the character.

Sometimes it would blow up right in front of us, as the producers would just sit there and stare stonily as I auditioned, the looks on their faces saying it all.

What is he doing here, Barbara? Hes not what we are looking for at all.

But then, sometimes, it was magical. The producers would lean forward as I auditioned. And once again, the looks on their faces would say it all.

Wow. We did not think of the character in this manner, but this is interesting.

And I would book the job.

* * *

But the story of how I became an internet success has an even more winding road.

When I was young, there were three female comedians whom I adored: Lily Tomlin, Phyllis Diller and Carol Burnett.

I could impersonate all three perfectly. I knew all their routines! I would jump up and do them at the drop of a hat. That must have been quite a sight. A twelve-year-old boy impersonating female comedians.

But I was born to perform.

Over the years, I honed all those impersonation skills into a lifetime of performing my one-man show all over the globe.

Sometimes I was performing in up to forty-four venues a year.

One night, at a performance of my show in Los Angeles, I looked out and Phyllis Diller was in the front row. Phyllis Diller was there to see me! I was so overjoyed; I called my mother from backstage to tell her Miss Diller was in the audience.

Mom, remember when I was little and I could act out Phyllis Dillers routines? Shes here! In my audience in the front row!

After the performance, I walked out into the theaters audience and there sat Miss Diller, all alone, waiting for me. I could tell she had been crying, as one of her famous false eyelashes had come unglued. It flapped precariously above her eye and gave her a slightly crazed look.

But there were other things on her mind, things she wanted to tell me.

Young man, she gushed, that was a wonderful show. Your speech at the end really got to me, as I have tried to express the same sentiment to my children their whole life.

At that time, I used to end my show by saying, Happiness is a choice. Happiness is a habit. And happiness is something you have to work hard at. It does not just happen.

What a sweet, dear lady Phyllis Diller was. And tiny. Teeny tiny, like me. She was so deserving of my heroine worship.

I then got to meet Lily Tomlin in 2007, on a series we did called 12 Miles of Bad Road. When we first met, I glommed on and would not let go. When we were shooting our first scene together and having such a good time, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who wrote the series, remarked, Good Lord, the two of you are like a couple of vaudeville comedians!

When it comes to getting the laugh, Lily Tomlin is as shameless as me.

She and I have remained fast friends for years now. Forget that she is a brilliant comedienne. Even more important, she is a sterling human being. She, along with her longtime partner and now wife, Jane Wagner, jumped in and helped take my one-man show to New York. Imagine, having Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner as producers on the marquee at your Off-Broadway debut.

It was the thrill of a lifetime.

Lily even pulled some strings and got us both on The View to promote the show. I got so nervous, I walked out, took one look at Whoopi and Joy Behar and started running my mouth. All of a sudden, one of them said we had to wrap it up and I realized I had not let Lily say a word. I was on a major talk show with a legendary comedienne and I had just silenced a legend.