About Last Night
Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed a few posts which indicated that I had signed up for something worrisome. How worrisome?
Hold on tight:
Monday, 11am.
My friend, Bill, calls me up. He tells me he got a call from his friend who knows a comedian. That comedian (let's call him "Bob") needs someone to get on stage on Tuesday night and sing a few lines with him during his routine.
My first instinct is "No". (More like "Fuck, no") I really, really don't want to, I don't have great experiences with comedians, the general thought of doing this makes me nauseous. But I figure it would be good for me to say "Yes". I am trying to do more and more public speaking and I don't want to refuse just because something scares me.
Be brave, I tell myself, and I agree.
Bill gives me Bob's number. I call him and we agree to meet in the late afternoon.
Monday, 4PM, East Vancouver.
He shows up to the coffee shop. He's... a little odd. He hands me the lyric sheet for the song:
Title: "The Farting Song"
There is no God.
My role is to pretend I'm in the audience with another guy (another plant, we'll call him "Stevie V") ... I am to make (scripted) lewd comments to Stevie V. Bob will then put a song on, which Stevie V is to sing along to. (How a random member if the audience is supposed to know the lyrics to a parody song is beyond me. Ruse FAIL.)
Bob will dance and pretend to fart. I will be wrinkling my nose disgustedly, singing the chorus, basically: "Oh Bob is farting..." and the like.
Fuck.
It goes without saying that this routine is extremely unfunny. I wanted to say: "Uh no, thanks, please find someone else." But by this point it seems too late, as it might be too difficult for him to find someone else on short notice.
So I sat there thinking "Fuck...". Bob then tells me more about the routine, and some of his other ones. Really, really unfunny.
"Where will we be doing this?" I ask (Please name some hole-in-the-wall...)
Fuck...
He hands me the CD of the song and his routine. He leaves.
I text Bill: "I hate you."
I listen to the CD. There is laughter as he does his routine - but I am convinced it is a laughtrack, a la Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy. (If you've never seen it, Robert DeNiro's hilariously delusional character records his horrifically unfunny comedy routine in his mother's basement, in front of a huge poster of a comedy show audience. He has a recorded laughtrack which he plays after every "joke".)
I feel sick. Now I am no stranger to humiliating myself, but this takes it to a whole new level.
Tuesday 5:45PM
Mommy I don't wanna go...
Bill will be at the club to watch me humiliate myself (and hopefully see a few good comics), but first we go out for sushi. Before we arrive at dinner, I get a call from Bob telling me where to meet Stevie V. so we can pretend to be on the blind date and get seated together in front of the stage.
By the way, everything he said so far implied this guy was a professional and had done this routine with him before. Now he tells me: "Oh, Stevie V. is really nervous. Not about the song, he's fine with that, but he's worried about the lines. So feel free to take over". Take over what?! The routine sucks, I can't save it. Besides I was hoping to have a functional partner in this so I could feel more at ease. Now I'm the functional one.
Fuck...
Over dinner, I tell Bill no one will find this routine funny. Bill (who hasn't heard the routine, as he prefers to see it in action) counters with, "You'd be surprised".
True enough. Some actually like Two and a Half Men, which I think is abysmal. So I could be wrong.
I hope I'm wrong.
We get to the club.
"Bill... There are people lined up."
"It's probably not for the club."
"Uh..." They are all in front of the club.
How many people will be watching this?
I see Stevie V. (he has been described to me). He is shaking. Not good. Not good at all. He has a friend with him (let's call him "Johnny") who looks (and acts) like one of the slow guys from a back-country horror film.
Stevie V.: "I'm really nervous."
I have a tendency to become the calm one if someone else is freaking out (my parents are Eastern-European, so I've played this role many times).
"It'll be fine" I tell him. Though I doubt it will.
We get seated.
The place is PACKED. There are 250+ people there.
Stevie V. asks me some questions that lets me know he doesn't know this routine well. At all. Not good.
The host comes out, does his routine and tells us that it is "Crash and Burn" night. That sounds about right.
Bob ("our" comedian) comes out and begins his bit. It's awful. The audience is pretty much silent.
Except for one woman, bless her heart, who is cracking up like crazy. She can barely breathe she is laughing so hard. Is she intoxicated? Laughing out of embarrassment or sympathy for Bob? Who knows, but it's adorable.
Bob then says something I have never heard nor expected a comedian to say. Ever.
He looks at her and says, "Stop laughing, it's throwing me off." She continues to laugh. He then says, "Why are you laughing? I didn't expect anyone to laugh."
OK, now neither did I, but I didn't write the material...
I look over at another woman in the audience. She has an expression of horror akin to one of the victims in The Ring.
Bob finally pretends to pick me at random to get on stage with him. Fine, this should soon be over. Stevie V., pretending he's my date, gets on stage with me.
A woman yells out "Oh my God, it's Stevie V. Awesome!!!"
OK, maybe this will get better. After all, he has a fan.
We exchange our bawdy lines. Some shocked laughter. But of course, who talks like this with someone on a blind date... And in front of people, on stage? It's pretty obvious we're a part of this crap. Uncomfortable...
I hear Bill laughing in the audience. He is laughing in a unique way that says "Oh my God, Monica is going to kill me."
The music begins. Bob begins dancing and Stevie V. is supposed to sing along to the song.
I say "supposed to" because he doesn't.
He just sort of stares at me and makes random gestures.
My role is look like I am disgusted and think Bob is insane. This is not difficult.
The host suddenly comes out from behind the curtain "OK, OK, that's it". He actually stops the routine! The dude "got the hook!" It's over! Blessed relief. I scurry to my seat.
Steve V. "Oh! I forgot to sing the song!"
Uh huh...
Bill whispers, "That was so bad it was surreal".
"I told you so."
"Wow..."
We listen to a few acts some good, some not. The highlight, though was one guy. We'll call him "Stigmata".
He begins his routine and then says, "then I got hit in the head". And demonstrates by knocking himself on the forehead with the microphone. Hard.
Now I've been there, you're on stage, the adrenalin is flowing, you hit yourself (or someone else) harder than you intended.
Boy, I think, I hope he doesn't start to bleed.
But then I see the cut form on his forehead.
Oh no...
He's doing his routine, but I can't hear a word he's saying. I am watching the blood that is forming from the cut as it gets bigger and bigger.
I whisper to Bill, "He's bleeding."
Bill: "OMG! He's bleeding."
Then I become aware of the whispering that is occurring around the room as people notice this at different moments:
"He's bleeding", "Oh shit! He's bleeding!" "Man, someone get him a napkin".
Understandably, people are hesitant to interrupt him during his routine....
Finally, as the, by now, HUGE pool of blood, drips from his face, people begin to say: "Uh, man, you're bleeding?", "Want a napkin?"
"Oh shit!", Stigmata remarks, as he wipes his brow and realizes.
He continues his routine, but the blood is still flowing and it is all anyone can focus on. I think I hear 2 sentences of his 3-minute routine.Finally, Bill and I hightail it out of there, much as if we were this guy:
(P.S. I've asked Bill (who is one of the funniest people I know) to email me his account of this night, which I will post when I get it. As he wisely commented "at least you had a 3-minute break from being in the audience..."
Update: It's now below.)
