Please welcome to the stage the very funny Janelle Niles ladies and gentlemen G my name is Janelle Niles I am a first nation’s migma and black woman from s by gaged Nova Scotia thank you and I am scared to do mushrooms because I do not want to forgive my
Mother I have a very interesting relationship with milk I grew up in tro Nova Scotia which is located on migaki territory it’s Sagan nagity and I was about 10 years years old when most of the black side of my family moved to Ottawa Ontario I just
Remember being a kid being told to pack and all of a sudden we were on a train but I was just happy uh I had my twin sister Jalene with me because I could go anywhere with her and we uh just held hands and took on this journey that we
Had no idea what we were going to do it was uh 2001 my mom was a single mother of three and we kept getting evicted out of home home after home and I think it was because she liked to uh blast reggae music she would say the neighbors only complain because they’re
Racist okay in that case play Kid Rocks all summer long and we’ll have a roof over our heads I remember being a pre-teen living in vanet at this motel and it was just this little little strip Motel it was it was disgusting to say the least it was run down and the
Clientele weren’t the most you know welltoo people and we weren’t in a well-to-do situation the first second that door open I knew I wasn’t going to have a good time because there was no fridge right there’s no fridge to keep my milk cold so let’s fast forward I
Remember being a pre-teen at the time and in that situation some kids would resort to drugs or alcohol to cope I resorted to My Strange Addiction milk homogenized milk homo milk cuz I’m so gay I’m also lactose intolerant I remember it was weird going
To school living in a motel I had to go to class so we would wake up in the morning I’d take my milk out of the sink I make some cereal or we’d have a muffin and then we would have to grab the bus to go
To our school we didn’t have a washer and a dryer so we tried to keep our clothes clean by washing them in the bathtubs and hanging them to dry so they weren’t the softest clothes I remember even getting my menstrual cycle my moontime living in a motel and making
Sure we could keep ourselves clean and making sure we had the appropriate you know pads or tampons and living in a motel it it you have no privacy like you think you don’t have privacy living in a home with like three bedrooms and your parents imagine living in a space that
Just has two beds in a bathroom like some would count sheep to sleep I was counting bed bugs right but no fridge that was the biggest issue for me right because I need to keep my milk cold so I’m crafty this is what I did
Every 2 hours I take the ice bucket and I walk out and I pass all the PIN all the police all the Cockroaches having a knife fight you know and I’d fill the sink with ice to keep my milk cold no one could brush their teeth use the
Toilet so during this time our family was put on the housing list by Big Daddy government five years they said five years that’s a lot of pimps that’s a lot of ice but within a better part of a year I was hustling ice near the end okay I was
Hustling ice you need your beer cold you need your potato salad fresh you come to room 103 okay I am the pimp now so the point of my story thank you so much the point of my story is that I learned to control the uncontrollable to find anything to distract me from my
Hellscape and after a year boom we got housing right that’s amazing they must have heard about my hustle I’ve lost every single item I’ve ever owned as a kid I’ve never been able to keep a toy never able to keep an article of clothing cuz we move so much
In my 30s I’ve been able to hold hold on to something and I’ll never let go of milk I think that’s the biggest thing I’ll never let go of milk ATT tackle tough topics through humor because if I can make it funny it loses its power
Over me so if I talk about growing up in that tumultuous upbringing and my past I’m able to laugh about it and then I kind of feel alleviated if you will it takes that monkey off of my back and I did that watching Just for Laughs as a
Kid watching Paul Mooney or Richard prior and them talking about their upbringing or their lives or their experiences in such a way that it was making people laugh but they were talking about such dark topics but also making me laugh and they’re laughing we’re laughing with them and that’s a
Great tool everybody needs that and with people on both sides my black side and my indigenous side we we both heal through humor and it’s just part of our culture so I think it was just I was born this way I was born to do this I learned tragedy plus time equals comedy
And now I look back and I see a young girl who is just trying to live in the chaos and keep her wits about her and now today I am a standup comedian making jokes out of tough topics I have made it thank you and I am forever grateful to open my
Fridge grab a glass of homogenized milk after I take my Lac teas and I drink it down like I’m homelander from the boys God housing my name is Janelle Niles walan Chim mwit that is my story thank you thank you
How a 36-year-old comedian dealt with homelessness living in a hotel and turned the bleakest chapters in her life into a comedy career.
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