A comic for the freaks and the normies

Jordan Jensen's humor plays to the oddballs, but her Netflix special is for everybody.

- BY NATE JACKSON

JORDAN JENSEN released her Netflix special "Take Me With You" on Tuesday.

Jordan Jensen's comedy is hard to categorize, just like the rest of her. And while that's generally how we like our funny people - layered, nuanced, tortured-it tends to wreak havoc on the actual lives of the comics themselves.

Not quite fitting in a box (even though she definitely knows how to build one) has basically been Jensen's shtick since birth. She grew up in upstate New York, raised in a heavy-construction family that included three lesbian moms and a dad who died when she was young.

Because of that unconventional background, she says her level of hormone-fueled boy craziness mixed with her rugged ability to swing a hammer and basically turned her into "a gay man." Somewhere in her teens she hit a "fat mall goth" phase that never left her, even after becoming a popular comedian worthy of a Netflix special. Combining her inner Hot Topic teen with freak-flag feminism and alpha-male energy, her style makes not fitting in feel like one of the coolest things you can do — because it is.

On a recent Saturday night, before her new Netflix special “Take Me With You” dropped, Jensen prepared herself for one last run of weekend shows before starting from scratch with material for a new hour. Before going onstage in front of a suburban crowd at the Brea Improv, the comedian’s Zen-like confidence felt like yet another thing she’s built from the ground up, along with her comedy career ... and probably a patio deck or two. But onstage, her love of all things spastically weird and macabre makes her humor a fun and frightening project to unpack for fans and unsuspecting “normie” audiences alike.

How does this moment before your Netflix special “Take Me With You” drops feel for you? Are you past the anxiety of it?