I Am Openly Jealous of Tim Barnes’s ‘Hazel Eyes’ Discount

Thanks to the coronavirus, comedians are now trapped at home like the rest of us, so we decided that while we’re all self-quarantining, we’d do something a little different from our usual “Follow Friday� column. Instead of interviewing up-and-coming comedians we love on Twitter, we’re going live on Instagram every week to check in on some of our favorite people in comedy and get a firsthand look into how they’re handling the pandemic. So welcome to our new version of the column, now titled “Follow (From a Safe Distance) Friday.�

This week, I swindled Tim Barnes (Comedy Central, The Tonight Show, at his grandpa’s house in L.A.) into sitting down for a digital chat about how he’s handling things in quarantine. He shared his thoughts on stand-up shows versus “joke recitals,� got pensive about how strange it is to perform on a national television show from the comfort of your living room, and discussed the legacy of the only stannable men in showbiz, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. He even gave yours truly an exclusive look into the life of a Black person with light eyes: “Every now and then, I get what I like to call the ‘hazel eyes discount,’ where you’re at a McDonald’s or wherever, and something about the hazel eyes makes them give you a little something extra.�

You can find Tim on Instagram at @timbarnescomedy and on Twitter at @TimBarnes451.