A Quote by Jermaine Fowler

My dad kicked me out of the house when I was 18. I was supposed to go to community college. I wasn't really into going because I wanted to do stand-up, and he felt I was wasting my time.
When I was around 18, I got kicked out of my parents' house, and I wasn't allowed to take anything with me. I slept on YMCA towels for a whole semester in university before my father found out and bought me a mattress. I felt really free because I was finally living on my own, but I was also really depressed because I had nothing.
At the time, I was reading this Miles Davis book, and he was talking about coming to New York right after he was in high school. It kind of made me feel like, "Yeah." I didn't want to go to college; I wanted to do stand-up. And I figured, "What's the point of doing stand-up around DC? I'm always going to be under-appreciated there because I started there." I felt like I was strong enough and unique enough that I should give it a big leash to shine. New York was the best thing that ever happened to me as a comedian.
The Rat Pack was the piece that really kicked me out of that little funk that I was in and then Ted called me up and asked me if I wanted to be the dad in Blow.
My dad really wanted to work in Tokyo and he made it happen. That's important in the way that I grew up. If my parents wanted to do something, then they would do it, and they always push me to try things, to not be afraid of changes and to go out in the world and not be bound by what we're supposed to do.
My dad's American, and my mom's French. I lived in France for the first 18 years of my life, then came here to go to school at the College of William and Mary. I studied marketing. I really didn't know what I wanted to do, so I thought that's what I should do - study business - because it would give me the best chance to find work.
I swear to God, if my kids, when they're 18, if they come to me and say, 'Dad, I love pumping gas. I love getting up in the morning, I love grabbing the handle, I love the smell of the gas station,' I'd say, 'Go for it,' because if you love it that much at 18, he's probably going to end up owning 25 gas stations by the time he's 30.
I was kicked out of my own house and had my own drag mother, you know, a house mother. Things with my family are great now - my mom and dad were at the premiere - but they had kicked me out.
I think my dad was happy. I phrase it like this because he seldom showed much emotion. Hugs and kisses wwere a rarity for me growing up, and when they did happen, they often struck me as lifeless, something he did because he felt he was supposed to, not because he wanted to.
Yeah, I mean, I did regular stand-up for a long time. And I did - I stopped doing stand-up when I worked on 'Ellen,' which was for five years. So when I went back to it, I found that, like, regular stand-up didn't really do it for me anymore. It almost felt insincere, like I wasn't saying anything I actually really wanted to say.
My rebellion was telling my dad, "No, you're wrong, you don't know what's best for me. I'm not gonna waste my time in college." You know the story. He thought he was an abject failure 'cause he didn't convince me to go to college. I didn't rebel against my dad's economic status. I didn't rebel against what I thought were old-fashioned, archaic moral values. I didn't rebel by going out and wrecking the car and getting drunk and being irresponsible. I rebelled against their assumption they knew better than I did, what I wanted, and what I needed.
That's why I think some people kind of fall off and they end up going crazy because you don't give yourself time to go crazy. That's what you're supposed to do; you are 20, you are supposed to be a mess because you haven't figured it out yet, and 10 years from now I am supposed to have it all together.
It was like treading water all through the '60s, and when 1970 kicked in, I thought "We're here. Right." God, this is exciting. I'm going to go for it now. I really felt it was my time. Then Marc Bolan did it first. That really pissed me off.
When I came out, it didn't go well. My dad kicked me out. I ended up sleeping in my car.
I was in college, but I got kicked out. It was a very free school, but I created a "bad impression." Like I was a bit more fiery in those days. At the time I got kicked out, I knew exactly what I was going to do and didn't even bother to go back for a leaving certificate. Then I was singing in folk clubs around Birmingham and playing jazz in clubs on Sundays.
I started doing stand up when I was 19. Because I was underage at the time, at certain clubs I would be forced to wait outside until it was my time to go on stage. Then I would do my set, walk off, and be kicked out again.
When Culture Club broke up, I hadn't been going out a lot because we'd been working all the time, so I suddenly had this period of leisure. And it was just around the time that the whole acid house thing kicked off in London.
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