Valerie Paschall is a comic and writer based out of Washington, DC but has reveled in the opportunity to perform in every geographic corner of the Internet. That said, she misses physically being in Baltimore on one of her favorite stages. Val came to comedy initially because she thought it would be less intimidating than trying to learn a musical instrument. She had been reviewing concerts, Fringe Festival performances, documentary films and albums for the likes of Paste Magazine, DCist and Washington City Paper and realized she needed her own creative outlet over and above analyzing the creativity of others. The adrenaline rush and camaraderie were intoxicating and proved a good replacement for spending time with a male friend who did not return her more than friendly feelings, so Val decided to keep performing. That was in August 2009. She hasn’t stopped. Valerie has since performed in a number of comedy festivals including Charm City Comedy Festival, Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, What a Joke! (Baltimore), Laugh Riot Grrrl Festival, Bechdel Test Fest, She Devil Comedy Festival and most recently, the Burbank Comedy Festival. Her short film, created during the festival’s 48 Hour Film Festival challenge was included in the Burbank Comedy Festival’s Best of the Fest. She has performed at such spots as the DC Improv, Flapper’s, Broadway Comedy Club and the Black Cat. She also got a chance to open for the Wham City Comedy Tour. Inspired by (now defunct) feminist collective Permanent Wave, Val started booking comedy shows in 2011. Much like the members in the New York branch, she wanted to both highlight the talents of female-identifying and non-binary performers and benefit women’s organizations in the D.C. area. She also learned from the failures that led to the dissolution of Permanent Wave and made her shows intentionally intersectional. After the success of her women’s showcase, Comedy on the Table, she started booking a larger variety of shows in more locations around the D.C. area. These included Pride weekend shows, novelty shows (including one that combined comedy with drone music) and grander showcases but all of them highlighted D.C. and Baltimore comedians with a heavy focus on women and BIPOC performers. In 2015 she started using the name Lousy Humans as the branding for all of her shows. The name came from misremembering something said by Bender from Futurama. By the time the pandemic shut down live comedy this included a weekly open mic (Lively City Open Mic), a monthly showcase (Lousy Humans) and a quarterly novelty show (Drone Comedy). Val is grateful to Joli and Rampantly for giving her the opportunity to help co-host the Chalk Talk teacher’s mic. She taught at a daycare and preschool for five years and knows that the profession brings a wealth of material. That said, her most recent jobs have been bartending, dog walking and pet sitting.