I was pacing outside the bizarro retail shop/stand-up venue during the show last night, wondering what would happen if I told the lovely and talented producers that I couldn’t perform. I could get back on the plane and worry about how to explain my mental breakdown to everyone I’d told I would be performing later. Fuck, I’d been working on this 9 minutes of material for the last month. I was ready, wasn’t I?
Actually, I had no opening line. I came up with it outside the theater and struggled to memorize it while listening to other comics say funny things.
When I got on stage, I found I wasn’t nervous. I finally felt ready. I said the first half of the opening line, and it got a laugh. Huh? Why are they laughing? Oh right, because I was saying it in a funny way. A way I hadn’t practiced or thought of until just that moment. It was like my brain knew what to do. I just needed to let go and let God. Err, is there an atheist way of saying that? I needed to let go and let brain.
I let that body part encased in my skull take over, and it knew what to do. It was embellishing jokes I’d written months ago that I was so sick of practicing, but they all of a sudden became brand new when I gave a certain look. The material came alive again. HOW ABOUT THAT?
It was a HOW ABOUT THAT? kind of night.
Hey everybody. I’ve worked pretty hard the past few weeks on writing a longish set of stand-up material (90% of which HAS NEVER BEFORE BEEN BLOGGED), so if you like reading this blog, you will likely enjoy it. There are also professional comedypeople performing in this show as well, and they will be delightful.
Here’s the deets:
8pm
Comedy
$5 (free wine/beer!)
Live Petting Zoo*
*Live Petting Zoo may not be operational by the time the show starts, as I don’t know how hard it will be to break into the LA Zoo. If it’s hard, expect no animals. If it’s easy, there might be a lion. Or two lions.
So far my LA trip has been good. Last night I had a grilled cheese at 12:45am from In-N-Out. This was the bag.
I’m headed to LA tonight, and tomorrow morning I’m staying in someone’s apartment using Airbnb. Here are the creepy things I will say tomorrow morning to the very nice woman whose apartment I’ll be sleeping in for the next few nights:
“I’m sleeping in your bed, so we might as well do it already, right?”
“NEWT 2012! NEWT 2012! Can I have the keys to your apartment now?”
“Don’t worry, my girlfriend is the only one staying with me. Unless I get her pregnant and then there’ll be another guest. And then it’s transvaginal ultrasound time, am I right?! You should join us for that.”
“Wow, your place is so beautiful I don’t even want to set it on fire. I guess therapy’s working!”
*points to table* “This is definitely going to be the fuck table. What’s a fuck table? Oh, every jew orgy’s gotta have a fuck table. The suck table’ll be across the room. We like to do our sex acts in separate places to keep everything kosher, you know? Otherwise it’s just a regular orgy, and nobody wants that.”
Standing at a bus stop today, I was asked by a professionally dressed young woman if I was on my way to the Obama rally in town too. When it became clear she was not hitting on me and genuinely wanted to know, I walked away. Not really. I told her I wasn’t going, but I asked her if she knew what he would be speaking about.
After two minutes of vague phrases like, “He’s talking about being against student debt” (hate those politicians who want everyone to be in debt!) and, “He’s very active on twitter and Facebook because that’s where the young people are”, it was clear she had no idea what his policy on student debt was, nor why he was coming to speak about it.
If a girl who is excited enough about a President to spend her afternoon watching him speak and yet knows nothing about his position (Googling for literally two seconds lets you know he wants to freeze interest rates on student loans), then we are fucked.
Just kidding, we’ve been fucked for a while.
Love is being tied to an uncomfortable chair with your eyes forced open as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked plays on an infinite loop. Whenever you get up for a bathroom break, you’re forced to wear headphones that blare the soundtrack to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Let me remind you that this album features the hit song, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” performed by The Chipettes.
I haven’t yet figured out how the original Alvin and the Chipmunks fits into my love metaphor, but love is also probably like having three animated chipmunks gleefully chew off your genitals whilst singing a Katy Perry song.