Malis­sa Lara

When Learie Joseph was a boy, the prin­ci­pal at his school told him he would be a fool when he grew up. "I cried so much be­cause there were many oth­er boys around, but now I wish he was here so I could tell him thanks. "Ah mean, come on, it has a whole lot of fools out here mak­ing mon­ey, go in Par­lia­ment..." he said with a grin.

In an in­ter­view with Joseph, 53, last Tues­day, it was al­most im­pos­si­ble to be se­ri­ous. That's be­cause the co­me­di­an doesn't change when he steps off the stage. He re­mains the same in re­al­i­ty, al­ways mak­ing some­one hap­py and al­ways laugh­ing at him­self. But be­neath the co­me­di­an is a man who once was a street child for just over a year. Per­haps that's the rea­son Joseph does not like to see chil­dren un­hap­py. "I have a dream...My dream is to take every child off the street. I try to help peo­ple who can­not fend for them­selves," Joseph said. So it was no sur­prise that the sec­ond favourite char­ac­ter Joseph en­joys por­tray­ing is a va­grant.

"I was there, so I know," he said with a hys­ter­i­cal laugh. Joseph and his broth­er, Ash­ton, suf­fered that fate af­ter their moth­er left them. "She packed her things and asked us to help her pack. And so we did." Af­ter a face split­ting grin, Joseph said at that time he was glad the stress had left. He said, "To add in­sult to in­jury the land­lord came the next morn­ing and said we had to leave, so they gave us one week." It was not the first time that she had left Joseph as he spent at least 13 years at an or­phan­age in Bel­mont. "They (the nuns) are the ones who have me the way I am. I am still ground­ed." Per­haps that's why the co­me­di­an said he didn't like be­ing called a star or a celebri­ty. "Peo­ple put you on a pedestal and then they can't reach you. I want to be down on the ground." Cel­e­brat­ing 30 years as an en­ter­tain­er this year has not made him swell head­ed. Not even peo­ple scream­ing out his name in pub­lic, even when he slept at his for­mer Mar­aval home, has giv­en him a puffed up view of him­self.

Wash­ing cars for 50 cents

Though Joseph and Ash­ton lived on the streets, the co­me­di­an said they were hap­py. Joseph said he cre­at­ed a world of his own when he was frus­trat­ed.

"I was an un­hap­py child but I made my­self hap­py." Joseph said, "We washed cars for 50 cents. In those days that was a lot of mon­ey." He re­called pay­ing 25 cents to see a movie; "a co­conut drop' cost just ten cents." Joseph had am­bi­tion and told his broth­er that they should look for jobs. "I was al­ways a think­ing per­son. I told Ash­ton that I need­ed an ed­u­ca­tion. The thing with me is that I don't like fail­ing." So, the two broth­ers got jobs at Farm­house Bak­ing Pow­der pack­ing cus­tard pow­der, among oth­er things. Even­tu­al­ly, they rent­ed an apart­ment in St Au­gus­tine for $39 a fort­night.

"That was tough," Learie said with a laugh.

Soon enough, Joseph be­gan study­ing ac­counts, eco­nom­ics and Eng­lish, among oth­ers, for the Gen­er­al Cer­tifi­cate of Ed­u­ca­tion (GCE) ex­ams. The well-spo­ken co­me­di­an gained five sub­jects. "In those days pass­ing GCE was like a de­gree," he said. Joseph forged ahead and sent mon­ey abroad to get course in­for­ma­tion from Ben­nett Col­lege, Lon­don. He stud­ied the course con­tent here in Trinidad. Joseph worked at a va­ri­ety of places af­ter Farm­house, in­clud­ing the cafe­te­ria at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Tech­ni­Cen­tre Ltd as a sales man­ag­er and as an ad­min­is­tra­tive re­al es­tate man­ag­er. He had al­ready been re­hears­ing for plays when he de­cid­ed to open his own busi­ness, which in­volved mar­ket­ing for oth­ers.

But some­thing, he said, was still miss­ing. He had a pas­sion for act­ing, a pas­sion for mak­ing peo­ple hap­py. "I closed down my busi­ness. I had a lit­tle mon­ey saved but then I start­ed to catch my...! "Life is not about mon­ey. Life is about be­ing hap­py." So, al­though at that time one could not make a prop­er liv­ing off of com­e­dy, Joseph said he adopt­ed a "do or die" ap­proach. He con­tin­ued his per­for­mance un­til he be­gan writ­ing his own scripts in the ear­ly 90s. The pas­sion and cre­ativ­i­ty have paid off for Joseph who has be­come a house­hold name, not on­ly in Trinidad, but in sev­er­al Caribbean is­lands. He's well known and loved. Think­ing of ask­ing Joseph for a com­pli­men­ta­ry tick­et to his shows? He puts it this way: "Why don't you com­pli­ment me and pay to come to the show?"