Jeff Allen isn’t there yet, but he’s well on his way. It’s been a long journey, but he isn’t walking it alone now.
Are We There Yet? brings Allen’s journey into the light and demonstrates comedy from agony. He isn’t merely telling a sad story. His hilarious comedy drives home the humor in everyday family life, the ups and downs of marriage, the challenge of rearing children, and the joys of being a grandparent. He laughs and jokes and sometimes gets emotional relating devastating hardships. Allen brings family audiences along with him—in a rip-roaring way. He puts out good, clean humor with a great message to boot.
Jeff Allen’s Comedy
In Are We There Yet?, Allen’s comedy has become a tour worthy of family entertainment. Now in his fifth decade as a working comedian, Allen’s show first features his brilliant standup comedy, which has garnered hundreds of millions of fans around the globe. The second part is based on his book, Are We There Yet? My Journey from a Messed up to Meaningful Life (released 2023) which tears down all walls and shows Jeff’s journey from very dark times, to recovery, to restoration, and ultimately to redemption through Jesus Christ.
For those inspired by Jeff’s arc, his show opening invites people to support local (or other) charities. Among them is APParel clothing line where all proceeds go to support counter-human trafficking operations (Antipredatorproject.org and Getapparel.org). His goal is “to make a difference that outlives the tour … that outlives me.” Allen’s rapid-fire humor is a hit with all ages. A live comedy favorite, at times both gut-wrenching and sidesplitting, Jeff’s Are We There Yet? tour offers a unique glimpse into his crazy world.
Exactly what makes Jeff Allen special? His comedy is relatable; the sublime craftmanship in his act is flawless; he can spend 90 minutes on stage and not say anything you wouldn’t want your granddaughter to hear—not a single nasty word.
Allen enjoys performing at early hours to draw parents and older audiences to his shows. “I’ll get parents home before their babysitter has time . . . to get caught in an embarrassing situation,” he jokes. “Really, it’s that my audience doesn’t go out much after 8, so we started asking clubs to let me do 5 or 5:30 on Saturdays, and they quickly sold out.”
In both the book and tour, Are we There Yet?, Jeff Allen takes audiences on the rollercoaster ride that his life and career took before he found redemption. Allen drastically reworked what had been an angry act filled with foul and hateful language. His comedy was reinvented: he became a smiling, happy comic who works clean. He admits that non-clean material still pops into his head, but he works it into family-friendly shape or dismisses the jokes he simply cannot do to his other comic friends.
“I had a heart change. It was interesting because the comedy material didn’t change much. It was just how it was delivered—the vessel changed. There were times my wife would come into a club, hear me talk about our marriage, and leave in tears. She’d say, ‘You must hate me!’ I’d say, ‘It’s comedy! Comedy is anger! Anyway, my heart changed.”
Jeff Allen Comedian: Pursuing a Moronic Lazy Atheist
While that’s all true, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Jeff Allen can be measured in consistent “laughs per minute.” He shares the inspirational and at times laugh-out-loud story of how God rescued him from drunken alcoholism and cocaine and despair through the book of Ecclesiastes that begins exactly how he felt. He started listening to three taped sermons a day about all aspects of the Bible, including Jesus.
Before redemption Jeff describes himself as “a shallow, empty, vacuous man filled with anger; a jaded, bitter, foul-mouthed cynical man—definitely, not a nice man—with a very large ego.” Long before he knew or believed there is a God, that same God used an ancient poem, The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson, a little know English poet (1859-1907), to pull him into a different reality. Allen saw himself in the poem. Through symbolism, Hound of Heaven pictures God ever-pursuing a deviant, depressed man while he runs. God so follows the fleeing soul by His Divine grace that the soul feels the pressure to turn to Him alone in that never-ending pursuit.
God chased Jeff Allen in another rather odd way through a friend he had met at a golf course. This man had done well in business, and Allen began asking him about ways to make money. Phil explained, “You don’t want a lot of money.” “I don’t?” “No, you can’t handle what little you have. To enjoy the creation, you must have a relationship with the One who created it. When you can handle a little, you will be entrusted to handle a lot.”
“Phil got me thinking about life in a way I never had before. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jesus got people to open up by asking questions. The problem? Great wealth was my mighty goal.”
Allen hadn’t counted on the friend’s being a Christian—calling his atheism “simple moronic laziness,” an atheist who couldn’t come up with anything he disagreed with in the Bible because he had never read it. Thus began the friend’s mailing him tape after tape of the whole Bible preached by Tommy Nelson. Of course, Allen threw the tapes in any ole drawer or closet until years later when his marriage was all but gone and his stage appearances were failing—nose bleeds from cocaine use weren’t appealing to audiences. Neither was dirty, drunken alcoholism. Neither was horrific anger eruptions. Neither was marriage according to a wife who sought solace elsewhere. For years he had been taking his rage out on his wife and those around him by verbally berating them and making nasty jokes.
“I had started a journey where I explored all kinds of philosophies. After seven or eight years of recovery and self-help and New Age and Buddhism, I realized that there was no point to this life. My beautiful wife who loved me was so frustrated with me. I had children that were healthy, I had a job I loved, but there was no point to it. Can you imagine being married to someone like that?
“When I was 14, my father told me there is no God, and I believed him. There is no God. My father probably had one of the best vocabularies of anybody I’ve ever known, but he cussed like a lunatic! He told me that swearing is the ‘crutch of the lazy.’”
Eventually, I went into a 12-step program, and they said, “Pray,” and I said “To what?” They said “Well, something bigger than you in this universe.” It’s interesting how arrogant a drunk can be. I said, “Is there anything larger than me in the universe? Are you kidding me? I am the center of the universe”!
Allen sought help in almost everything. Eventually, he found the tossed aside tapes and listened to three tapes a day of Bible sermons. Ecclesiastes (1:1) spoke his language of hopelessness. “When I heard ‘meaningless, meaningless, all in life is meaningless,’ I agreed. That was my conclusion, too—nothing mattered. I was a full-blown nihilist; nothing mattered. What I really got out of that first sermon tape was life without God will have no meaning, and without meaning, there’s no purpose—and in a life without purpose, suicide. That summed up my eight-year search. I personally couldn’t find anything that gave me lasting peace or joy. That’s why I’m so concerned about today’s Millennials who choose these same thought patterns and are their own gods.
“I kept listening. Jesus said, ‘Don’t worry about this life, I’ll give you a new counselor in the form of the Holy Spirit.’ That was a new way of viewing of the world. It ushered in the proverbial ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting.”
The Hound of heaven was still pursuing this lazy moronic atheist through His Word.
“I got on my knees and when my friend who was leading me to Jesus asked, ‘Can you admit you’re a sinner? I said, well, let’s not go overboard . . . yeah…I know what I am. I know what I am.’”
Besides Jeff, wife Tami (Mishler) and two children had much repair work to do. The divorce papers remained unfiled, children had to come to terms with all of it and are still doing so. To his son who said he didn’t really remember much of the angry early life, Jeff responded, “You may not remember what I poured into you, but one day your wife will draw it out of you.” Wise counsel.
Breast cancer challenged Tami’s life. After her thirty-first radiation treatment and their living with a third-party controlling monster in their home—cancer—she declared that she was not going to be defined by cancer. When I performed at HBO’s US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Tami served as the bald “vanilla cream” between two bald black men (actors) in an Oreo-type picture, laughing all the way!
These days Jeff Allen is involved with One Church Home in Fairview, Tennessee, and sometimes leads men’s groups. Often, he performs comedy routines as fund raises in communities and for corporations. A summer delight each year is two dedicated weeks with the grandkids, bringing the two in Montana together with the two in Tennessee.
God brought Jeff Allen into His kingdom, rescuing him from addictions and despair; praise to the Father that Jeff Allen is thirty-one years alcohol and drug free and is helping clean up comedy one bleep at a time.
The Hound of Heaven, through Ecclesiastes, captured the heart of the raucous comedian who cleaned up his act. Jeff walks with the Hound now.
When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep His commands because this is for all humankind (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Sheila E. Moss: author of Living to Matter: Mothers, Singles, and the Weary and Broken; Interrupting Women: Ten Conversations with Jesus; and international publications derived from teaching Bible and Christian ethics in Africa, Ukraine, Venezuela, and England; teacher of Bible classes for 35+ years; mother of five adult children and grandmother of eleven.
JEFF ALLEN: ARE WE THERE YET?
Jeff Allen and Stephen Bargatze
Looking for funny? Bring the family!
Friday, October 11, 2024, 7:00 PM
Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Nashville, Tennessee
Tickets available now—but hurry! JeffAllenComedy.com
