An Interview with Katie Reidy

Katie is an artist, a teacher, a mom, a skateboarder, spoken-word performer, and a reluctant stand-up comedian

Katie and her artwork

I got to know Katie Reidy as so many people in my community do: She runs an amazing after-school program as well as summer camps and art programs, and my kid has participated in a bunch of these things for many years. Katie’s wife is also a teacher in the local elementary school, so between the two of them, they pretty much know absolutely every child in town. Katie is a painter who also performs spoken word and has recently started performing stand-up comedy. In short, she’s a real Renaissance woman, and I’ve been telling her for years that I want to interview her. Here, Katie and I discuss being moms and making art, comedy, and more.

Janine: A lot of times, I feel like moms are forced into the role of saying “Eat your vegetables!” while the dad is being a goofball. I feel like I am both the vegetable enforcer and the goofball, although my husband is also sometimes the goofball. In your situation, of course, you have a two-mom household. So who is more of the jokester in your family?

Katie: That's a really hard question. Because we all have our moments, I think. I'm typically the one that's more strict actually, in areas like needing to go to bed on time, or saying our daughter is not eating enough fruits and vegetables. My wife is a very social human. And she likes being out, so I think in some regard, she's a lot more flexible about things like eating and bedtime. But I'm typically more the wild animal of the house, like, I'll be the one that throws on music and gets really silly. I'll be the one that's roughhousing. But sometimes when my wife and daughter are getting ready for bed, I hear nothing but loud laughter from the bedroom and I don't always know what's happening in there — I don't even want to know, because honestly, it's their own little secret mission. They're such similar humans. So I think sometimes they're the ones that are much more silly, and I'm more like, Dude, why is the counter a mess? Why is this house such a wreck right now?

Everybody assumes that I'm the jokester of the house. But I'm the one who keeps the kitchen sink clean and makes sure that there are vegetables in the refrigerator. Not all the time. My wife is great. But she's more loose about it.

Janine: You say you’re “not a jokester” but you've recently been dipping a toe into stand-up comedy, in addition to the work you do as a visual artist and working with kids.

Katie: I started doing stand-up comedy because I was already doing spoken word. And I was wading into singing in public and things like that, where I was writing my own music.

Janine: Can I just say that when I saw you the other day [at an outdoor Halloween festival], and DMX was on and you came up to me and you were wearing a Halloween mask and you sang DMX? I immediately knew it was you. Immediately.

Katie: That was so funny. That night there was a kid who walked past me — I had a full face mask on, bunny ears, everything. And the kid was still like “Hey, Katie!”

Janine: So back to spoken word, and singing, and stand-up comedy.

Katie: I’d already done spoken word, and singing, and then a friend invited me to do stand-up at an all-women stand-up night. I said yes. How did I say yes? I'm not a comedian. So then I said to her, “Do I really have to be funny?” And she said “You're gonna be so funny. You're gonna kill it.” I don't know why the assumption is that I'm going to be able to do stand-up comedy, I don't understand what the rationale is.

Janine: People ask me a lot if I do stand-up comedy, and I haven't. Obviously, I do written comedy, but I don't do stand-up. But I'm thinking maybe I should, because people are asking me constantly if I do it.

Katie: I feel like, this is gonna sound… if I heard somebody else saying half the stuff I say, I would feel like I don't want to hang out with that person. But I feel like it's easy.

Janine: It comes easy to you because it's one of your talents.

Katie: I am so anxious and so nervous until the microphone is in my hand and the first word comes out. And once the first word comes out, I just kind of keep going. That’s what I've done my entire life, I'm the baby of eight children. I've had a whole crowd around me my entire life. I teach children in droves. I’ve taught classes with 400 kids.

Janine: You have a rapt audience every day.

Katie: I think I should be a stand-up comedian for children. Anyway, I don't really know how and why I could say yes to this, but it's now been two times I’ve done stand-up. I haven't sought it out. I'm just kind of waiting for things to fall at my doorstep, which is kind of the process I've lived with my entire life.

Janine: David Sedaris says the same thing. He says he just has people come to him.

Katie: That's kind of what I'm doing. For whatever reason, I just have a stockpile of really sad things to talk about and a stockpile of like really ridiculous things to talk about. I just keep writing all the nuances of all of my days, and make it really sad or tell the story this a different way and make it funny.

Janine: We were talking about this earlier. I was describing something to you and I said, this doesn't sound like a funny topic, but I'm writing about it in a funny way. I've been using a lot of gallows humor in my own life. Recently, I was supposed to go see Morrissey with a friend of mine, although I ended up not going because I got really sick. But my sister [who passed away in 2022] loved Morrissey. And to make a long story short, I have some of my sister's ashes at home. I was like, “Oh, my sister loved Morrissey. Maybe I should take her with me. She'd love it.” That’s some really messed up, dark humor. But my sister would have laughed so hard at that. If she can hear me make that joke, she's laughing.

Katie: Kids used to say “Yo Mama” jokes to me, you know, like “Your mom’s so fat…” I had a secret weapon in my pocket, I actually had a dead mother. So I would just respond, my mother's dead. And it would shut down the entire other side, while my entire crew would erupt in laughter. On the other side, it was just silence. Mic drop. So I get I get the dark humor. I've played around in that world for a long time.

Janine: With my brand of humor, I've never tried to insult someone or hurt someone. Everyone can make a joke that inadvertently might offend someone, but generally, unless you're an insult comic, I think most people who want to be funny, they want to be funny without wanting to touch a raw nerve. They want to touch upon truth without offending people. And that's a fine line to walk.

Katie: I don't like uncomfortable laughter. I've been to a lot of comedy shows where I know that the crowd is laughing because they're just uncomfortable with the content. And it's not necessarily genuine. I can't manage uncomfortable laughter and I’m somebody who kind of picks up on the discomfort of others. I don't know that I can call myself an empath. Other people are allowed to call me that, but I don't feel like I can call myself that. But I think every time I've done any spoken word, it's either going to be funny, what comes out of my mouth, or it's going to make you cry, or both. It's going to elicit some level of emotion.

Janine: When I teach humor writing, one of the things I talk about is that a joke is essentially building tension and then releasing that tension. When you laugh at a joke, you’re acknowledging, oh, we both recognize this thing to be true. So what do you like to joke about?

Katie: It's almost false bravado, a lot of what I talk about, like I go in with notes that are more self-deprecating. And then as soon as I'm on the microphone, I'm actually uber-competent. It's the opposite of what I've written. The first time I did stand-up, I wrote some bullet points on a napkin. And then I showed up, and I was overly confident. But everybody seemed to really appreciate that. A lot of my jokes are about myself, so I can make a joke about being a lesbian. I can make a joke about how I get called “sir” three to four times a week. I also have a litany of content because of working with children. Kids will say things that you're like, if an adult was to do any of this shit, it would be a problem.

Janine: A lot of kids are natural comedians.

Katie: Anyway, I don't try to make lesbian content. I happen to be a lesbian. So whatever I create is going to be based on my life.

Janine: Comedy derives from life. So if you’re a member of the LGBTQIA+ community… Did I miss a letter there?

Katie: You missed all of them.

Janine: I tried, I put the plus in to cover everything that I might have missed.

Katie: You had the plus.

Janine: But yeah, if you’re a part of a group, you can joke about that group. And when you have unexpected combinations of things, that’s also where humor comes in. Like how I’m not at all athletic but I have a super sporty child and now I’m a sports mom.

Katie: Yeah. Don't “punch down.” Where my community is, we’re not at the top.

[We had a digression about the musician Ani DiFranco].

Janine: I used to listen to Ani DiFranco. I went to an all-women college, so it was the law.

Katie: You own Birkenstocks, I’m sure of it.

Janine: I own multiple pairs. I get Birkenstock catalogues in the mail and I get excited when they arrive.

Katie: Brian Regan is one of my favorite comedians. He never — I don’t follow this myself — he never curses. He had a joke about Fig Newtons. It was so nonsensical. But it was so good. And so funny. You can use comedy to make change, you use comedy to bring light to something or just to be funny, to loosen up and be funny in the world.

Janine: Like Jim Gaffigan. He’s another clean comedian. He makes jokes about being Catholic and having five kids. Tig Notaro, she’s a lesbian comedian. I think she’s really funny, too. You might think they’re very different, on the surface, but they’re both funny. And I think they both come across as seeming very kind.

Katie: Yeah, I’d rather not insult people. I want to create silly, nuanced things.

Janine: Have you ever noticed in movies that the male body is often played for laughs, but the female body rarely is? Particularly the nude male body, like Will Ferrell. He can be naked without being sexualized.

Katie: Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids did great physical comedy.

Janine: Yes! And physical comedy in general, slapstick comedy… sometimes, people like it because it makes them feel like they can just turn their brains off.

Katie: I don’t like to see people get hurt.

Janine: You’re a protector of people.

[We had another digression here about TikTok and how I wasn’t enthusiastic enough about TikTok when interviewing for a job involving social media and I didn’t get the job, and I called myself a fuddy-duddy, and then Katie talked about finding good music through social media].

Janine: It’s great, though, that people have all these platforms now to show people their art, or music, or comedy. I started experimenting recently with posting little 60-second snippets of me making jokes, on Instagram. I say there’s no two-drink minimum, no need for pants. I mean, I’m wearing pants in this scenario.

Katie: I wear a lot of pants and leggings in the house, I’m always cold.

Janine: My kid has a thing called the Comfy. I think I’m going to have to get one. I already have fleece-lined Birkenstocks. I’m gonna get a Comfy. That’s it. It’s going on my holiday wish list.

Katie: Perfect.

After Katie and I wrapped up, we were talking about where she buys her art supplies and her sporting goods supplies for her after-school programs, and she said “I’m really offended that, as a lesbian, I have to buy my art supplies at a place called Dick Blick and a lot of balls at a place called Dick’s.” I give that joke a 10 out of 10.