Once-In-a-While Comic Opts for Support Roles

There is no doubt that Maggi Bass-Jackson is a very, very funny lady.

But she also has a very, very serious side and after three years as an emerging stand-up comic, Bass-Jackson found she lacked a major ingredient to scale the ladder to the big time.

“I had the talent, but I didn’t have perseverance,” said the Costa Mesa mother of four. “Perseverance is the main ingredient in making it as a comic.”

That means she was not willing to go out on the road for 40 to 50 weeks a year, a routine she felt was needed to make a big name for herself.

“I didn’t see there was an option,” said Bass-Jackson, who often used her family for the material in her comedy gigs. “I was not willing to give up my family for it.”

Marriages of comics usually don’t last very long, she said.

However, after 20 years of marriage, her husband, Rod Jackson, “liked what I did. I did not demean him. I called him ‘Bullet’ in my routine and the audience would get hysterical,” she said.

Bass-Jackson, who says she was an introvert as a youngster, also worked her children into her material, “but I didn’t hurt them.”

Her comedy routines were more storytelling, banking on her home life for much of the material in her act.

“I’m a humorist, not a conventional comic with a bam, bam, bam delivery,” she said.

So instead of comedy, Bass-Jackson, who said she has attended six different colleges without getting a degree, decided to teach others the basics of performing stand-up comedy as well as writing material for comics.

She has been teaching comedy workshops at Orange Coast College for three years.

“Actually, I wasn’t all that crazy about performing comedy as a job,” said Bass-Jackson, who has worked at such comedy spots as Igby’s in Santa Monica, the La Jolla Comedy Store and the Laff Stop in Newport Beach, among others.

“I get a bigger rush out of seeing someone do well that I have helped,” she confided. “If they have the talent I want them to be seen. I have a former engineer who took my class and now writes for Jay Leno,” who substitutes on the “Tonight Show.”

Although Bass-Jackson takes about six stand-up comedy assignments a year, she spends most of her time producing and directing “Off Center,” a weekly entertainment show on Channel 61 in Costa Mesa.

She finds herself more at ease during her infrequent performances than as a regular stand-up comic. “I don’t have to worry. It’s not my real job,” she said in an interview at the Laff Stop.

Her other activities include writing speeches for others, and this year she plans to finish a children’s book.

When she wrote for black, Jewish and Japanese comics, “it was really great and wonderful. It was the best writing experience I ever had. I could get away with murder.”

None of her work is off-color.

“I don’t like dirty material,” said the self-professed high school class clown. “Everyone was always asking me to say something funny.”

She also can be found mornings at a local ice rink with her daughter, Megan, 8, who is in training as a competitive skater.

Besides the pressure of family life, “stand-up comedy is a tough gig, especially for a female,” she said. “Some really good female comics couldn’t make the turn because they didn’t want to give up their other life.”

Bass-Jackson, who contends comedy is an art form that demands good delivery, urges would-be comics to take their talent elsewhere, preferably the East.

“Audiences in L.A. are really jaded, and L.A. is the toughest,” she said. “The city is not a nurturing atmosphere.”