Comedian Moses Storm first learned to read and write when he was 16.
“I’m probably as educated as a second grader,” he said. Most of his childhood he spent with his single mother and his five siblings on the bus, not knowing where he would wake up the next day.
During these turbulent times, 32-year-old Moses fell in love with the art of making people laugh. Whenever his family had access to television, he would watch Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Comedy was a distraction from the fact that he often could not eat enough and his father had left.
Storm’s life has come a long way since then. He is an actor who has appeared in numerous movies and shows such as ‘This is Us’ and ‘Arrested Development’. Most recently, he debuted in his HBO Max comedy special “Trash White,” produced by childhood icon Conan O’Brien.
But his feature is mostly about past persistence, especially poverty.
CNBC recently spoke with Moses about how comedy has evolved from a diversion from his painful experiences to his now-chosen speaking style.
(This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)
Annie Nova: How did you gain the confidence to succeed as a comedian?
Moses Storm: There was nothing I was away from. I had no education. There were no parents to please. But this is something I love and knew I could probably make more money than a minimum wage job.
AN: Financial stress was a constant throughout your childhood. What does it mean to be an adult and worry less about money?
MS: You will never feel like you’ve stepped out of poverty. The idea that you could end up there again, that you’ll never have enough, that this could all go away – those feelings don’t change.
AN: The unshakable fear you speak of is around the place and home. When you were a kid, you didn’t stay in the same place for long. How does that fact continue to affect you?
MS: I subconsciously choose a life of constant travel. I don’t know how to live otherwise. If you’re not moving all the time, you start to lose real restlessness.
AN: Why do you think that is?
MS: There’s a sense of impermanence that comes from childhood when we don’t know where we’re going. How long are you at this campsite before you get kicked out? So now when I’m moving, I feel like I’m one step ahead. I can’t get kicked out
AN: If you were still living in poverty, do you think you could have written this feature?
MS: If I lived it positively, I wouldn’t have enough distance to convey it to people’s entertainment. We are not only sharing about our lives. People turn to Netflix and HBO to have fun and forget their problems. So I have to process what I went through and deliver it in a humorous way. That’s where the art form comes in.
AN: You seem to have so many perspectives on your experience. Have you been to therapy?
MS: To connect with your audience, you need to empathize with everyone in the room. You have to ask: where did you all come from? You can’t go there and express your anger. It’s not interesting to anyone. They come with their anger and their lives. So what is universal among us? What can we all connect with? Finding these touchpoints is what kept me in control of my anger. It was not a cure. Just came to these shared human experiences.
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AN: In a comedy feature, you talk about how your mother used to shoplift. Once you catch her stealing vitamins. I found this to be an amazing detail. why vitamins?
MS: The story of her getting kicked out of the Winn-Dixie supermarket and the cops coming is not very funny. But you might as well tell a joke to take that audience away from the unfortunate truth you just told them. Because that night, thousands of people will come to that room with their own traumas and fears. I chose vitamins because they were the funniest things she stole.
AN: What’s the hardest thing about pitching a comedy special about poverty?
MS: If you say, “I’m going to do a funny comedy about the economy and generational poverty in this country,” people will say, “Wow.” But what you can do is make people laugh. And during the moment they’re laughing, what you’re really doing is letting them open up. Then you can sneak in those details.
AN: You say you have a problem with how you talk about poverty. In your special, you express your frustration with the term “food insecurity.” You say, “I need carbs, not confidence.” Why does this wording bother me?
MS: We have reduced humans to these statistics and therapeutic terms. This frees us from responsibility and guilt for not giving $5 to the poor person personally. can say Must vote in November. We want these fixed.
AN: Your story is a very lucky one, emphasizing that we put too much emphasis on the rags-to-riches story. Why do you think we glorify these plots?
MS: Helping people is hard. It’s uncomfortable. If we give money, what if we don’t have enough of ourselves? If we bring these poor people into our neighborhood, does it endanger our lives? What if they are mentally ill? And the rags-to-riches story is comforting to us, because we’re doing nothing in that story. We see someone else helping ourselves.
