Using Comedy as a Weapon
Tim Lovett Laughs with Purpose
By Melissa Karen Sances | Photos by Nikki Gardner Photography
Published In Northampton Living | September 2025
“I come from a funny family,” says Tim Lovett. “You got to be funny to be heard or you just get lost in the sauce.”
Growing up in the 1980s in Lorain, Ohio, a factory town once home to the Ford Assembly Plant, Lovett couldn’t see himself in that line of work. The well-known Northampton comedian was more interested in what his father had to offer – an enviable sense of humor. His dad would hold court on the porch every day, as passers-by pulled over to chat. He was his son’s introduction to comic timing – and his first critic. While Lovett was considered the funniest of his friends, his dad was unconvinced. “You don’t laugh at him,” he would say sternly.
When Lovett turned 20, he followed his sister east to Springfield, Massachusetts, hoping for a new start. “I tried to see what I could do without familiar faces and places,” says Lovett. “I got exactly what I wanted. Nobody thought I was funny. It was like I came out in a 1976 disco outfit and was like, ‘Hey ladies.’”
After a decade of learning to read the room, Lovett went to an open mic at Bishop’s Lounge in Northampton in 2011, where he met Kim Shields, now his comedy partner. While Shields was getting ready to go on, Lovett peppered her with questions about how to structure jokes. She interrupted with, “Do your friends think you’re funny?” He nodded. “Do you got material?” He nodded again, even though he didn’t. To his surprise, after her set, she invited him to hold court on stage.
“I don’t know what I said, but I got laughs and that feeling – it was like a drug,” he remembers.
It felt like a turning point, but then his life took an unfunny turn when he was arrested.
“Let me tell you something you already know … You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you get hit and keep movin’ forward. How much you can take, and keep movin’ forward.”
– Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa
“Jail was one of the best things for me, but not in terms of the punishment aspect,” he says. “To this day I don’t believe I should have got what I got for what I didn’t do. But it was the best thing in terms of a change.”
During his two-and-a-half-year stint in prison, Lovett decided that he would get his high school diploma. His GED teacher was Alexis Greenblatt, now Lovett’s best friend. She insisted that he go to college – and that he write. Soon he was publishing essays in the Change Agent, an online publication for adult learners.
Writing came naturally, and he wrote about what he knew – including what it felt like behind bars. In Day One, he wrote:
“You gaze into the eyes of the person looking back at you in the scratched mirror. The anger, frustration, sorrow, guilt, and hidden tears make the reflection barely recognizable. The images scraped into the wall serve as a mural of those who came before you. As you read the names – Spider, Pookie, J Dub – you’re not thinking about who they were, but how they got out.”
After some logistical complications that were out of his control, Lovett thought that maybe college wasn’t in the cards. Then, while arguing with a receptionist at Springfield Technical Community College about getting the runaround, she said, “I tell you what: We can take you upstairs, and if you can write an essay, you’re in.”
Lovett grinned: If he were the star of his own show, he’d be winking at the audience. “I broke the fourth wall,” he says gleefully. In 2015, he completed his certification in computer security.
That year he also started Comedy as a Weapon, an organization that harnesses the power of laughter to create change. “When you’re in jail, they don’t let you be funny,” he explains. “You have to do an emotional triage, but what parts are you going to save? I never wanted to give up my sense of humor.” He guarded it with his life, and soon he was doing weekly sets at Bishop’s Lounge.
Lovett says that he’s no longer nervous leading up to a show; in fact, he’s ecstatic. “It’s like that feeling in Rocky II,” he says, “when Adrian tells him, ‘There’s one thing I want you to do for me: win.’ That’s how I feel: When it’s showtime, it’s go time.”
Since September 2024, Lovett has been touring on the Chuckling Charlie Comedy Bus with DeShields. He puts on a 90-minute show that travels through Northampton, a love letter to his hometown.
“I got a saying at the end of each show,” he says. “The only thing I ever mastered in life is the art of being me – and in spite of life, I’m me on purpose.”
To learn more, visit facebook.com/welovettcomedy and funbus.org.
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