Can a journalist make it as a comedian? Long-time Detroiter Rob Parker giving it a go

Let’s start with a joke. Because Rob Parker likes telling jokes. And he told this joke at the Comedy Store’s “Belly Room,” during his stand-up debut:

“I got tickets to the Super Bowl, and they were awesome,” he says, pausing, prowling back and forth on the stage. “I opened them up and they are suite tickets. But I couldn’t use them … I’m diabetic.”

Ba-dum-bum!

Or how about this one, unleashed during his second time on stage, when he said he took a “Golden Girls” cruise and (skip to the next sentence if you blush easily) loved it because he didn’t have to worry about getting any of the women pregnant.

Ba-dum … ouch.

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“Dad jokes,” Parker said. “I’m not political. I try to keep it light-hearted. I don’t use the N-word. It’s a PG material with a little innuendo.”

Most of his humor is about sports, which makes sense, since he has been a sports journalist for nearly 40 years. Detroiters will remember his time as a columnist at the Free Press.

“First black columnist (there),” he said. “That’s still the crown of my career, the thing I value and appreciate the most.”

Parker didn’t stay long. He took a job at Newsday in New York City two years later before returning to Detroit in 1998 to do the morning show on WDFN. He worked for Channel 4, the Detroit News and ESPN on and off the next 18 years before taking a job in 2016 at Fox Sports 1, where he co-hosts a radio show, “The Odd Couple,” with Chris Broussard in Los Angeles.

Parker is scheduled to be back in Detroit tonight, where he will perform at The Detroit House of Comedy. It will be his third time on stage.

Like a lot of journalists who’ve been around Detroit a while, I’ve known Parker for a long time. And, like a lot of journalists around here who know him, we can all agree on one thing:

Nobody grins like Parker. And nobody laughs at his own jokes — or opinions (yes, there is a difference) — like he does.

It’s disarming, truthfully, and one of the reasons he has stayed relevant for so long in the business: He doesn’t take himself too seriously. And while he has made a career out of hot takes and the catch phrase, “Come on!” (with the final syllable drawn out — imagine “yawn” without the “y”), he travels the country as much to mentor as to get paid:

To meet up with former students, interns, or employees that once swept hair from the floor of his barbershop on 7 Mile. He opened Sports Cutz 20 years ago, and he’s celebrating that milestone this weekend, too, by throwing himself a party at the Hollywood Casino at Greektown — where else?

“I can’t believe 20 years have come and gone,” he said when I caught up with him earlier this week as he prepped for his trip back to his second home. (He grew up in Queens, New York.) “How many people have come through? How many jobs have we supplied? I’ve had kids who were sweeping up the floors go to college and start families.”

The barbershop, he said, is his most cherished achievement. He grew up hanging out in them in Queens, and they are where he developed his love of sports — and comedy.

“(Barbershops), especially in the black community, are important places. You get a vibe of the average Joes. I always felt connected. In Detroit, I got story ideas for my column. Fans would come in and complain. Those are the people living and dying with the teams. They’re really into it.”

Parker opened Sports Cutz when the barber who cut his hair, Teko Edwards, told him he wanted to open up his own place eventually. So he told him: “Let’s do it together.” Now, here they are, recently refurbished, thriving two decades later.

He gets back here three or four times a year, he said. He likes to check in. Catch up with Edwards and some of the regulars. Talk shop. Argue sports.

He’s also in love with the city.

“It’s the people here,” he said. “I’ve traveled all over the world and have never met people like here.”

Parker used to give those he covered in the Detroit sports scene a tour of his shop. One time Larry Brown asked if he’d take him there.

“He got in my car and we drove down and he spent several hours hanging out,” he said. “Word spread fast that he was in the shop. People rushed in. It was great.”

The then-Pistons coach wanted to connect with fans of the team and talk with some fans he knew couldn’t afford to get to a game. Barbershops are social multipliers like that. Parker is like that, too.

It’s hard to imagine any sports analyst shouting into the microphone with as much mirth as the 58-year-old. Aside from his radio show, he contributes to MLB Network and runs a website called MLBbro.com, highlighting Black and brown baseball players.

He also writes a column for Deadspin and produces a video once a week called “Trash talkin’ Tuesdays.”

His most recent take was actually an old standard — for him — about Tom Brady’s good fortune; he likes to call the seven-time Super Bowl winner the “LOAT” — the Luckiest Of All Time. He smiles when he says this, of course.

Just as he smiles when he talks about just about any topic in sports. Just as he smiles when he takes the stage to drop a stand-up set, as he’s set to do tonight.

Someday, he may even figure out how to combine radio and standup into the same gig, which is dream. And when he does, all you’ll be able to do is smile back.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Can a journalist make it as a comedian? Rob Parker giving it a go