Tuesday, March 6, 2012
READ THIS POST FIRST!!!!!
I want to take this moment to explain exactly how my blog works. For new readers, I would like to thank you for clicking on my blog. Please read on and if you like what you read, please pass it along. If you hate it and reading my writing makes you want to break your computer screen, I suggest stepping away from the computer and going for a long walk. Yoga might help. Meditation is good too. Drinking can help too. To my old readers, I appreciate your readership, comments and jokes.
Since I started this blog, I have been working at writing a book. This book is a compilation of short-stories based on my experience bartending through the first half of my 20s in the Castro. While the stories are cased on true events and situations, they are complete fiction. Since I want to see if I have an audience, I have been posting one Chapter at a time. Then I add more to each story, do some editing and post again. This tends to confuse people and that is why I am explaining it.
From this post on, I will be posting stories one at a time. These are newer versions of the stories from before. I hope you like it.
As a thanks for reading my blog, here is a funny clip:
Since I started this blog, I have been working at writing a book. This book is a compilation of short-stories based on my experience bartending through the first half of my 20s in the Castro. While the stories are cased on true events and situations, they are complete fiction. Since I want to see if I have an audience, I have been posting one Chapter at a time. Then I add more to each story, do some editing and post again. This tends to confuse people and that is why I am explaining it.
From this post on, I will be posting stories one at a time. These are newer versions of the stories from before. I hope you like it.
As a thanks for reading my blog, here is a funny clip:
Epilogue. The Beginning
Epilogue. The beginning.
A few weeks ago I turned 26. It’s weird because many people have guessed I was 30 for years. It’s odd how with every year the birthdays seem to come faster and faster, and little by little they become more meaningless. Like the first drink at a wedding, you remember who did what. By the fifth or sixth, who cares When we are children, our birthdays are a big deal. We mark every year with a party, cake and if you’re me, then you piss yourself at the sign of a one Mr. Chucky Cheese. It only happened twice, but I digress. After a decade or two the birthdays just become more numbers, like the amount of cigarettes in a carton, the lotto numbers on a losing ticket or the amount a checking account is over drawn. The older I get the less I care about birthdays period. I care more about writing dick jokes and finding a way to make someone piss themself via a well choreographed sentence. That’s just me though. It’s the little things. I am not saying that I am Grandfather time, although I would love an excuse to tell “pull my finger jokes” all day and shit my pants without guilt or looking like a lunatic.
I do not live in, nor have I ever lived through any major wars or famines, unless one counted the great family feud of 2005. It is a mess. It’s worse than John Travolta in “Hair Spray.” Like many Jewish families we have arguments that last years and sometimes decades.
When I first saw “Romeo and Juliet” I thought they were Jewish only because their families had been arguing for generations and the women had mustaches. Sorry, that one was stupid.
Jews differ from other ethic groups. Our priorities are simple and to the point. We value family, bargains and stubbornness. This is done with arguments that last longer than Cher’s career and guilt that hale marries can’t get rid of. In this book we will not go over what happened in my personal family rift. It will be best suited for Oprah to turn into a mini-series on OWN. I will say this though, as result of my family being the stubborn mules they can be, I choose to stay as removed from the situation as possible.
I work in moderately big city, San Francisco. While New York is the city that never sleeps, S.F. is the city that gets too stoned to wake up sometimes, but has areas that sleep less than others. Here, I make my own family. Here I am learning that life is what you choose to make of it.
I laugh at things that make most people cry. I laugh at funerals and cry over spilled milk figuratively. I don’t care for milk, never have. I do get anxious and cry though when I see someone with melted ice cream that they have chosen not to finish. Perfectly good ice cream should never be wasted.
I have never considered suicide, but find jokes about it to be human and funny. I will forever be that person who laughs at well-written dead-baby jokes, but can’t watch some scary movies because I’ll piss myself. It’s wrong but so are many things in life.
I’m passing year 6 of living here, in San Francisco, the land of Rice-O-Ronni and random homeless people that no one tells you about before moving here. Walking through the streets here sometimes looks like a scene from “Dawn of the Dead.”
The most important thing to know about me is that I can barely make it through skipping breakfast cause I get cranky if I go more than five hours without food or booze, but we will go over that later. I once punched someone for trying to rip the gallon of ice cream I was desecrating from my hands. It was a reflex. Word to the wise: DO NOT get between my food and I. It will get ugly. When I get nervous I have to pee every five minutes and end up living in fear that I will piss myself. I end up constantly tapping my weenie and look like a pervert. I also sweat like a sumo-wrestler or George W. Bush in a gay bar. I do not think that all children are beautiful, some are ugly and that’s okay. The ugly one get the keys to the jeep really anyways. I have learned the hard way, that there is no nice way to tell someone that their kids are ugly. People with kids have to always ask stranger’s opinions on the looks of their kids. I’m not someone who likes to blow smoke up people’s asses, so I tell them.
“Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“She is sooo cute… that um… my eyes can’t bare it anymore.”
“Isn’t she a looker?”
“She looks like something.”
“How could you say that?”
“It’s not like I said, I didn’t know cellulite started so early on some people.”
Like I said before, blowing smoke up people’s asses, never have. Some people respect it. Others… well they see things differently. That’s fine too. I am one of the most stubborn people you have ever met and will argue for the sake of arguing some times just because I can. I am that guy. It's in my nature, for I am a Jew.
My biggest fear is that I, first generation Russian-Jew, will end up getting one of those fat Russian man bellies. One of those bellies that no one knows what it’s made out of, but it could be rubber. I imagine if someone ever shot a man with one of those bellies, the bullet would just get lodged in the rubbery-jelly belly. They would just be able to pull out the bullet and use it to pick out the fish guts from their teeth. These are the things I think about.
My parents came to the United States as refugees from the U.S.S.R. This explains the weird name. Yuri is my name, or as the kids in my kindergarten through sixth grad class liked to call me, urine, other’s stuck with Eureka’s Castle. The kids I went to school with weren’t all that creative. Somehow the chosen name alternatives work for the American kids I grew up with. Unlike them, I grew up with a father who thought that hot dogs, potatoes, vodka and cigarettes were the part of any well-rounded meal. As an adult I, I blame my hunger for hot dogs, vodka and cigarettes and anything similar to this nutritional training. I had a mother who thought that everything should be made in the microwave, and packed lunches like bread with butter or caviar. This was just one of the reasons that I rarely brought lunch to school. The dirty looks the other kids would give me when they would notice my stinky lunch was enough to make me wish I could starve myself. Instead I decided to compulsively eat, but that's another story and really the Russian oddness made me stronger. It also made me better understand many an Elliot Smith song.
Unlike my parents, I have no real clue what it's like to live in any country that reprimands me for being Jewish. I have never really been looked down upon for being a Jew. I do though know what it’s like to have the people working at sizzler and any buffet stare at your group with evil eyes. They know what we have planned before we desecrate their buffet. My grandma always put half of the buffet in her purse for later, then complain to the waitresses. The food being is too spicy or too bland for her. At the same time, my grandfather is mumbling bad things about the waitress in Yiddish under his breath. My mother then forces us to change tables a minimum of 30 times upon getting seated at any restaurant.
Unlike my family, I only know what it's like to be an American. What it's like to live in a place that treats me differently due to my sexual orientation. Gay men can't kiss in a T.V. commercial here without everyone shitting a brick and making a big deal out of it. When we perform anywhere as comedians, actors or anything we are called “alternative” when the world doesn’t even know what they are really comparing us to.
I am just 26, still a boy as others have put it. At least that is what people tell me who is even a minute older than me. Maybe they say this to make themselves feel better about growing older? What I wonder is how long this will last. One can only be young for so long. Suddenly, you wake up and the conversations shift from, “you’re just a boy” to “you’re just…” followed by that uncomfortable silence in conversation. People already ask me if I'm tired all the time regardless of how much sleep I have had. I assume that by 45, the conversations will shift to asking me how much longer I will wait to have my droopy chin lifted.
It's odd to be in my mid-twenties cause really this is the turning point. The other day I noticed that everyone on TV is my age or younger. It's weird how that happens. You grow up with everyone seemingly so much older than you and everyone telling you that you have the rest of your life and then bam, it just stops. All of a sudden, you're not the same kid with pre-braces crooked teeth who has to recite their havtorah portion in front of a congregation of smiling people, even though we all know you sounded like shit. I mean it’s really cruel to make boys have to sing in front of a room full of people while their voice is changing and makes them sound worse than Carol Channing’s normal voice.
Regardless of what has happened since the day my mother gave birth to me, I am still the kid who started out as a small child, with skin so light, nearly translucent, to the point where you could see the every vein on my body. I looked like that guy from the movie "powder," but with a huge alien baby head. In time I just covered that up with a farmer's tan and sometimes a nice store bought one if possible. This makes it so that I can be seen without the need of sunglasses or lighting adjustments. I am still the boy who was born on the day that Mark Spits won the Gold in the smog-congested city of angels, where you could still buy oranges on the side of the road, before popping by a drive-through Starbucks, and possibly while on the way to a plastic surgery consultation or acting lesson. In Southern California, where I grew up, this all could be done in just a short afternoon. Where I grew up, it wasn't uncommon to for a young girl to get a boob-job for her high school graduation gift.
I have heard that with age comes some wisdom, although, I still see myself as the awkward big-headed, blue-eyed, little-Jew-nosed kid who was teased for being different in school. I was the kid with the weird name to jerky kindergartners, who is now I am growing into my own skin. I am still the same insecure, pleasantly plump, blubber, pink-cheeked boy that in elementary school had bullies follow me home throwing pebbles at my head for shits and giggles. To this day I don't get how that was funny. I do though understand the reason one would throw shit at my head. My head has always been kind of hard to miss. It's HUGE, like Charlie Brown style. In the third grade this kid Kevin would always remind me by asking how Snoopie was. I have a head larger than most people. I would look like an alien until I grew into it. Some men have large hands, makes everyone question what other appendages they have that match. I have a head so large that when I try on a “one-size fits all” hat it doesn’t fit. It’s so large, that when I worked at jobs in high school, which required a hat, they had to special order one for me.
Too bad no one ever says, “Damn look at that guy’s head, it’s so big, you know what that means!”
Instead they usually say, “look at the melon, on that one, and to make it worse he has the tiniest little feet and hands, how awkward…”
I am the boy that since then has learned to laugh at myself and those around even when it’s just not appropriate to do so. This has created a very cynical and often morbid sense of humor that is of an acquired taste. It has also turned me into the person that will snicker at jokes out of poor taste that offend racially, morally and individually. This in itself makes life’s trials and tribulations more bearable. I am a guy that pees in the shower when I am in a hurry. I am a person who tells people that I am 5’8 when I’m really only 5’7 and ¾. I am the guy that used to eat a whole ½ gallon of ice cream in one sitting, and everything under the kitchen sink because contrary to popular belief, food is love at least while I am eating it. I am the kid that still rolls my eyes when I hear a really skinny person complain about how hard it is to be skinny and able to eat whatever they damned-well want without gaining an ounce. I am still the kid that is supported/raised by a single mother who did her best to support me. I am the guy who has worked ever since I was fifteen years old to get by because I had to even though no one forced me. I am the guy who put himself through school serving people coffee, whipping up puke, cleaning toilets, busing tables and later on by getting them wasted. I am a working class, blue-collar man. I am and will often be remembered by many as a bartender. I’m okay with that. Most people aren’t even that lucky.
Why should someone care about me? Many don’t and I assume that they shouldn’t. I am easily forgettable. I am a nobody with a degree in talking, literally a degree in Speech and Communications, which is only a few steps from a high school diploma, but attached to the loans which own me. I hope that some people at least see that I have a voice and what some may consider a unique point of view. I am just a gay-Jew-man who talks a lot. Maybe one might call my rambling a collection of "coming of age stories" about coming out in a harsh world, in what is often called a “gay Mecca”, with an unusual family both chosen and biological. I am just the help and can only enlighten readers with my point of view as a working class gay man who works as a bartender in San Francisco’s perplexing Castro District, in one of the largest gay bars there. Hopefully I gave shed light on what people think my life is like versus the reality.
I am am going on 5-ish years that I have worked at the “Labyrinth,” A bar in the middle of the peculiar Castro bubble. A bubble, is exactly what that place is. To my experience it has been much like that high school bubble that many of us survived from in our teens and if your friends were like mine, people eventually left that bubble for brighter futures or more often rehab and popping out babies. This bar has become my home in many ways. The bar metaphorically speaking has become my adoptive parent who adopted my orphaned self and nurtured me oddly. While we haven’t meant for it to be this way, life isn’t generally how we plan it. As I have grown, the bar restrained me. As I experience life, the bar has educated me. As much as I would like to say I hate this place for taking away my early 20s, and forcing me to work every major street-fair, holiday, week day, Madonna/Kylie/Pop nightmare cod-release party and weekend of these years. I in confidence will admit on occasion, this experience has actually made me stronger. Maybe I should leave San Francisco before I become too soft. The Castro oddly is the part of San Francisco that has softened me, while giving me the edge that we San Franciscans are not known for having. I am hard-boiled me, so to speak due to the weird shit I have seen bartending and living here. I would like to show others what the weird world I live in is like.
A few weeks ago I turned 26. It’s weird because many people have guessed I was 30 for years. It’s odd how with every year the birthdays seem to come faster and faster, and little by little they become more meaningless. Like the first drink at a wedding, you remember who did what. By the fifth or sixth, who cares When we are children, our birthdays are a big deal. We mark every year with a party, cake and if you’re me, then you piss yourself at the sign of a one Mr. Chucky Cheese. It only happened twice, but I digress. After a decade or two the birthdays just become more numbers, like the amount of cigarettes in a carton, the lotto numbers on a losing ticket or the amount a checking account is over drawn. The older I get the less I care about birthdays period. I care more about writing dick jokes and finding a way to make someone piss themself via a well choreographed sentence. That’s just me though. It’s the little things. I am not saying that I am Grandfather time, although I would love an excuse to tell “pull my finger jokes” all day and shit my pants without guilt or looking like a lunatic.
I do not live in, nor have I ever lived through any major wars or famines, unless one counted the great family feud of 2005. It is a mess. It’s worse than John Travolta in “Hair Spray.” Like many Jewish families we have arguments that last years and sometimes decades.
When I first saw “Romeo and Juliet” I thought they were Jewish only because their families had been arguing for generations and the women had mustaches. Sorry, that one was stupid.
Jews differ from other ethic groups. Our priorities are simple and to the point. We value family, bargains and stubbornness. This is done with arguments that last longer than Cher’s career and guilt that hale marries can’t get rid of. In this book we will not go over what happened in my personal family rift. It will be best suited for Oprah to turn into a mini-series on OWN. I will say this though, as result of my family being the stubborn mules they can be, I choose to stay as removed from the situation as possible.
I work in moderately big city, San Francisco. While New York is the city that never sleeps, S.F. is the city that gets too stoned to wake up sometimes, but has areas that sleep less than others. Here, I make my own family. Here I am learning that life is what you choose to make of it.
I laugh at things that make most people cry. I laugh at funerals and cry over spilled milk figuratively. I don’t care for milk, never have. I do get anxious and cry though when I see someone with melted ice cream that they have chosen not to finish. Perfectly good ice cream should never be wasted.
I have never considered suicide, but find jokes about it to be human and funny. I will forever be that person who laughs at well-written dead-baby jokes, but can’t watch some scary movies because I’ll piss myself. It’s wrong but so are many things in life.
I’m passing year 6 of living here, in San Francisco, the land of Rice-O-Ronni and random homeless people that no one tells you about before moving here. Walking through the streets here sometimes looks like a scene from “Dawn of the Dead.”
The most important thing to know about me is that I can barely make it through skipping breakfast cause I get cranky if I go more than five hours without food or booze, but we will go over that later. I once punched someone for trying to rip the gallon of ice cream I was desecrating from my hands. It was a reflex. Word to the wise: DO NOT get between my food and I. It will get ugly. When I get nervous I have to pee every five minutes and end up living in fear that I will piss myself. I end up constantly tapping my weenie and look like a pervert. I also sweat like a sumo-wrestler or George W. Bush in a gay bar. I do not think that all children are beautiful, some are ugly and that’s okay. The ugly one get the keys to the jeep really anyways. I have learned the hard way, that there is no nice way to tell someone that their kids are ugly. People with kids have to always ask stranger’s opinions on the looks of their kids. I’m not someone who likes to blow smoke up people’s asses, so I tell them.
“Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“She is sooo cute… that um… my eyes can’t bare it anymore.”
“Isn’t she a looker?”
“She looks like something.”
“How could you say that?”
“It’s not like I said, I didn’t know cellulite started so early on some people.”
Like I said before, blowing smoke up people’s asses, never have. Some people respect it. Others… well they see things differently. That’s fine too. I am one of the most stubborn people you have ever met and will argue for the sake of arguing some times just because I can. I am that guy. It's in my nature, for I am a Jew.
My biggest fear is that I, first generation Russian-Jew, will end up getting one of those fat Russian man bellies. One of those bellies that no one knows what it’s made out of, but it could be rubber. I imagine if someone ever shot a man with one of those bellies, the bullet would just get lodged in the rubbery-jelly belly. They would just be able to pull out the bullet and use it to pick out the fish guts from their teeth. These are the things I think about.
My parents came to the United States as refugees from the U.S.S.R. This explains the weird name. Yuri is my name, or as the kids in my kindergarten through sixth grad class liked to call me, urine, other’s stuck with Eureka’s Castle. The kids I went to school with weren’t all that creative. Somehow the chosen name alternatives work for the American kids I grew up with. Unlike them, I grew up with a father who thought that hot dogs, potatoes, vodka and cigarettes were the part of any well-rounded meal. As an adult I, I blame my hunger for hot dogs, vodka and cigarettes and anything similar to this nutritional training. I had a mother who thought that everything should be made in the microwave, and packed lunches like bread with butter or caviar. This was just one of the reasons that I rarely brought lunch to school. The dirty looks the other kids would give me when they would notice my stinky lunch was enough to make me wish I could starve myself. Instead I decided to compulsively eat, but that's another story and really the Russian oddness made me stronger. It also made me better understand many an Elliot Smith song.
Unlike my parents, I have no real clue what it's like to live in any country that reprimands me for being Jewish. I have never really been looked down upon for being a Jew. I do though know what it’s like to have the people working at sizzler and any buffet stare at your group with evil eyes. They know what we have planned before we desecrate their buffet. My grandma always put half of the buffet in her purse for later, then complain to the waitresses. The food being is too spicy or too bland for her. At the same time, my grandfather is mumbling bad things about the waitress in Yiddish under his breath. My mother then forces us to change tables a minimum of 30 times upon getting seated at any restaurant.
Unlike my family, I only know what it's like to be an American. What it's like to live in a place that treats me differently due to my sexual orientation. Gay men can't kiss in a T.V. commercial here without everyone shitting a brick and making a big deal out of it. When we perform anywhere as comedians, actors or anything we are called “alternative” when the world doesn’t even know what they are really comparing us to.
I am just 26, still a boy as others have put it. At least that is what people tell me who is even a minute older than me. Maybe they say this to make themselves feel better about growing older? What I wonder is how long this will last. One can only be young for so long. Suddenly, you wake up and the conversations shift from, “you’re just a boy” to “you’re just…” followed by that uncomfortable silence in conversation. People already ask me if I'm tired all the time regardless of how much sleep I have had. I assume that by 45, the conversations will shift to asking me how much longer I will wait to have my droopy chin lifted.
It's odd to be in my mid-twenties cause really this is the turning point. The other day I noticed that everyone on TV is my age or younger. It's weird how that happens. You grow up with everyone seemingly so much older than you and everyone telling you that you have the rest of your life and then bam, it just stops. All of a sudden, you're not the same kid with pre-braces crooked teeth who has to recite their havtorah portion in front of a congregation of smiling people, even though we all know you sounded like shit. I mean it’s really cruel to make boys have to sing in front of a room full of people while their voice is changing and makes them sound worse than Carol Channing’s normal voice.
Regardless of what has happened since the day my mother gave birth to me, I am still the kid who started out as a small child, with skin so light, nearly translucent, to the point where you could see the every vein on my body. I looked like that guy from the movie "powder," but with a huge alien baby head. In time I just covered that up with a farmer's tan and sometimes a nice store bought one if possible. This makes it so that I can be seen without the need of sunglasses or lighting adjustments. I am still the boy who was born on the day that Mark Spits won the Gold in the smog-congested city of angels, where you could still buy oranges on the side of the road, before popping by a drive-through Starbucks, and possibly while on the way to a plastic surgery consultation or acting lesson. In Southern California, where I grew up, this all could be done in just a short afternoon. Where I grew up, it wasn't uncommon to for a young girl to get a boob-job for her high school graduation gift.
I have heard that with age comes some wisdom, although, I still see myself as the awkward big-headed, blue-eyed, little-Jew-nosed kid who was teased for being different in school. I was the kid with the weird name to jerky kindergartners, who is now I am growing into my own skin. I am still the same insecure, pleasantly plump, blubber, pink-cheeked boy that in elementary school had bullies follow me home throwing pebbles at my head for shits and giggles. To this day I don't get how that was funny. I do though understand the reason one would throw shit at my head. My head has always been kind of hard to miss. It's HUGE, like Charlie Brown style. In the third grade this kid Kevin would always remind me by asking how Snoopie was. I have a head larger than most people. I would look like an alien until I grew into it. Some men have large hands, makes everyone question what other appendages they have that match. I have a head so large that when I try on a “one-size fits all” hat it doesn’t fit. It’s so large, that when I worked at jobs in high school, which required a hat, they had to special order one for me.
Too bad no one ever says, “Damn look at that guy’s head, it’s so big, you know what that means!”
Instead they usually say, “look at the melon, on that one, and to make it worse he has the tiniest little feet and hands, how awkward…”
I am the boy that since then has learned to laugh at myself and those around even when it’s just not appropriate to do so. This has created a very cynical and often morbid sense of humor that is of an acquired taste. It has also turned me into the person that will snicker at jokes out of poor taste that offend racially, morally and individually. This in itself makes life’s trials and tribulations more bearable. I am a guy that pees in the shower when I am in a hurry. I am a person who tells people that I am 5’8 when I’m really only 5’7 and ¾. I am the guy that used to eat a whole ½ gallon of ice cream in one sitting, and everything under the kitchen sink because contrary to popular belief, food is love at least while I am eating it. I am the kid that still rolls my eyes when I hear a really skinny person complain about how hard it is to be skinny and able to eat whatever they damned-well want without gaining an ounce. I am still the kid that is supported/raised by a single mother who did her best to support me. I am the guy who has worked ever since I was fifteen years old to get by because I had to even though no one forced me. I am the guy who put himself through school serving people coffee, whipping up puke, cleaning toilets, busing tables and later on by getting them wasted. I am a working class, blue-collar man. I am and will often be remembered by many as a bartender. I’m okay with that. Most people aren’t even that lucky.
Why should someone care about me? Many don’t and I assume that they shouldn’t. I am easily forgettable. I am a nobody with a degree in talking, literally a degree in Speech and Communications, which is only a few steps from a high school diploma, but attached to the loans which own me. I hope that some people at least see that I have a voice and what some may consider a unique point of view. I am just a gay-Jew-man who talks a lot. Maybe one might call my rambling a collection of "coming of age stories" about coming out in a harsh world, in what is often called a “gay Mecca”, with an unusual family both chosen and biological. I am just the help and can only enlighten readers with my point of view as a working class gay man who works as a bartender in San Francisco’s perplexing Castro District, in one of the largest gay bars there. Hopefully I gave shed light on what people think my life is like versus the reality.
I am am going on 5-ish years that I have worked at the “Labyrinth,” A bar in the middle of the peculiar Castro bubble. A bubble, is exactly what that place is. To my experience it has been much like that high school bubble that many of us survived from in our teens and if your friends were like mine, people eventually left that bubble for brighter futures or more often rehab and popping out babies. This bar has become my home in many ways. The bar metaphorically speaking has become my adoptive parent who adopted my orphaned self and nurtured me oddly. While we haven’t meant for it to be this way, life isn’t generally how we plan it. As I have grown, the bar restrained me. As I experience life, the bar has educated me. As much as I would like to say I hate this place for taking away my early 20s, and forcing me to work every major street-fair, holiday, week day, Madonna/Kylie/Pop nightmare cod-release party and weekend of these years. I in confidence will admit on occasion, this experience has actually made me stronger. Maybe I should leave San Francisco before I become too soft. The Castro oddly is the part of San Francisco that has softened me, while giving me the edge that we San Franciscans are not known for having. I am hard-boiled me, so to speak due to the weird shit I have seen bartending and living here. I would like to show others what the weird world I live in is like.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Bit I'm working on. I was a fatty!
Hey ya'all! I lost 35 pounds!... It was about 8 years ago, but I digress!
I always was big kid. I was so cubby growing up I WAS what was eating Gilbert Grape! I was so chubby that finding my neck was harder than finding Waldo. Growing up "pleasantly plump" was hard. I was teased a lot for being the chubby kid in class. One bitch Monica Monesco, at recess would constantly say, "hey Yuri, get a thigh-master." I have no idea where she is now, but hopefully on her third divorce. Hey Monica, who needs the thigh-master now?
It was hard growing up big. While most kids could shop where ever they wanted, I had to shop in the "Husky" section. If you never had the pleasure of visiting the Husky section or don't know what it is, fuck you. This was where little cherubic boys like myself had to shop. There was nothing more embarassing than walking right past the cool clothing and heading straight to the Husky section with my mother Every piece of clothing there looked like they were better suited for Pillow People rather than an actual human boy. The name HUSKY SECTION always tripped me up. They would never call a girl's clothing section, "the retaining water section." Women's-lib people wouldn't stand for it. They may as well have called it the "you wont be able to find your penis to masterbate section." Or the "you'll be wearing a T-shirt at the pool until you turn 20 section." Or at least a name that made more sense and was less offensive like the "little Danny DeVito section."
One day I want to be famous so I could lie about how I lost the weight. Celebrities always seem to lie about how they lost the weight! Like Star jones. She went from Jabba the hut to skin and bones within a few months. I was hoping she had a meth habit. She then says it was pilates, water and excercies. Then a few months later we find out she had gastric-bypass.
Kelly Osborne went from Winnie the Pooh to Piglet in a matter of months. In interviews she said it was diet, excercise and "lots of water." What the fuck was in her water?
Now, more recently, Jennifer Hudson. I loved her fat. She was representing. Now she became so skinny I didn't know whether to applaud her, or pull off one of her arms and clean my teeth with it. She claimed to loose it the natural way. Natural, my ass... Naturally writing a check!
I'm sick of celebs lying about how they lost the weight! See, when people ask me, I tell them the truth! I lost they weight with a steady diet of self-loathing, contempt. It was very simple!
Sometimes people ask me, they say "Yuri, how did you get the muscle?" I often lie and tell them steroids. This way, I can attribute my anger issues to Roid Rage.
It's wierd, I somehow lost the weight and gained a vendictive side. Go figure. I am thin now, but in my head I have this phantom fat which will never go away. Nothing makes an ex-fat kid happier than logging on to facebook and watching the kids who made fun of them get fat and settle!
Not sure where to take this rant and if this would even work on stage... any ideas or suggestions for direction?
I always was big kid. I was so cubby growing up I WAS what was eating Gilbert Grape! I was so chubby that finding my neck was harder than finding Waldo. Growing up "pleasantly plump" was hard. I was teased a lot for being the chubby kid in class. One bitch Monica Monesco, at recess would constantly say, "hey Yuri, get a thigh-master." I have no idea where she is now, but hopefully on her third divorce. Hey Monica, who needs the thigh-master now?
It was hard growing up big. While most kids could shop where ever they wanted, I had to shop in the "Husky" section. If you never had the pleasure of visiting the Husky section or don't know what it is, fuck you. This was where little cherubic boys like myself had to shop. There was nothing more embarassing than walking right past the cool clothing and heading straight to the Husky section with my mother Every piece of clothing there looked like they were better suited for Pillow People rather than an actual human boy. The name HUSKY SECTION always tripped me up. They would never call a girl's clothing section, "the retaining water section." Women's-lib people wouldn't stand for it. They may as well have called it the "you wont be able to find your penis to masterbate section." Or the "you'll be wearing a T-shirt at the pool until you turn 20 section." Or at least a name that made more sense and was less offensive like the "little Danny DeVito section."
One day I want to be famous so I could lie about how I lost the weight. Celebrities always seem to lie about how they lost the weight! Like Star jones. She went from Jabba the hut to skin and bones within a few months. I was hoping she had a meth habit. She then says it was pilates, water and excercies. Then a few months later we find out she had gastric-bypass.
Kelly Osborne went from Winnie the Pooh to Piglet in a matter of months. In interviews she said it was diet, excercise and "lots of water." What the fuck was in her water?
Now, more recently, Jennifer Hudson. I loved her fat. She was representing. Now she became so skinny I didn't know whether to applaud her, or pull off one of her arms and clean my teeth with it. She claimed to loose it the natural way. Natural, my ass... Naturally writing a check!
I'm sick of celebs lying about how they lost the weight! See, when people ask me, I tell them the truth! I lost they weight with a steady diet of self-loathing, contempt. It was very simple!
Sometimes people ask me, they say "Yuri, how did you get the muscle?" I often lie and tell them steroids. This way, I can attribute my anger issues to Roid Rage.
It's wierd, I somehow lost the weight and gained a vendictive side. Go figure. I am thin now, but in my head I have this phantom fat which will never go away. Nothing makes an ex-fat kid happier than logging on to facebook and watching the kids who made fun of them get fat and settle!
Not sure where to take this rant and if this would even work on stage... any ideas or suggestions for direction?
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Story 20
I was a quiet, soft-spoken child. Things like trick-or-treating, would often be a chore for me. I didn’t speak to strangers, stuffed animals or much to anyone really unless I had to. I would get to the door, clam up and speak quietly. As they would open the door, I would start out saying “trick-O” and would fade to a volume frequency only audible to dogs and rodents Miss Cleo. My father often would be a few feet behind me chain-smoking his Benson Ultra-Lights, cause it was the late 80s and everyone was health conscious then. He would be glancing at his watch, because he wanted to make it home in time for a Charles Bronson movie which he had seen a million times, that was going to be on tv that night. He would then try to record the movie off the TV, so that he could improve on the last recording. Until I was 12, most of the movies I had seen were off these recording of various movies of the week. I was 18 when I realized that there was a scene in “Grease” where they mooned the camera.
On a side note, my father made it his duty to make sure he would show me what it meant to be a man, like other fathers. Unfortunately he wasn’t sure exactly what it was that men did, so he used TV as an aid. He would make me watch Bronson, Norris, Eastwood and any other machismo bullshit hero crap he could dig up. He would also make me watch Tyson fights on a constant loop, because that apparently taught a young boy how to be a man. He also made me watch every Eddie Murphy movie cause my father loved him. Tyson on a loop just made me want to hang out with Robyn Gibbons.
Back to the story at hand, while exhaling his Benson Ultra-light, he would come from his cloud of smoke, in his harsh Russian accent, say to me, “speak up, if you don’t they won’t hear you.” This was his fatherly way or at least the closest to that role I ever knew him. This would in turn make me blush, grab the candy and walk away with my head low. Actually, until the age of 12 or 13 that was my father’s response to every sentence that came out of my mouth.
In school I would sit as far to the back of the classroom as possible. This way I would avoid getting asked questions. I would sit quietly until called upon or picked on. Being a little, chubby boy, with a big head, pinkish-white skin so light that you could see my veins, huge eyes and a weird Russian name didn’t help my cause either. I kind of resembled a caricature until I eventually grew into my huge head years later. I looked like a real life Charlie Brown without the friends. My name, Yuri, for some reason only got me associated with stupid nicknames and bodily functions that didn’t help my child-self much either. To American children my name for some reason sounded like the word “Urine.” On the first day of school, the torment would always begin once the teacher would take role and attempt to say my name, stumble and then spell it out. They would then proceed to compliment me on how unique I was at the time. While as an adult, the sentiment could be understood, to a child, this was anything but a compliment. To me, the concept of being different was like being telling me that I was an alien and proved what I had knew all along, that I didn’t belong.
Aside from being simply an awkward kid, I also had two left feet. While many boys were inclined to go play soccer ball or basket during recess I would often be found playing house or simply chatting it up with the girls. Oddly, every game of house would end in divorce and me leaving. I watched a lot of “Thirty Something” with my mom. I became ridiculously good at making macramé friendship bracelets and lanyards. I had few friends besides my cousin Nicole to give them too, who was in the same grade and equally as awkward as myself. By the end of the third grade, my mom had so many of them she began to re-gift them to other relatives. The bracelets were so ugly that she had to share in the wealth.
While I didn’t have all that much desire to actually do physical activity, it was more so that I hated being picked last for games. For a fat kid, being picked last was pretty much the normal routine and always uncomfortable. Often, while lining up during PE for game like flag football I would wait to see the kids argue over who would be stuck with me on their team. I would sit there thinking about how much I didn’t understand the reason we were forced to run like barbarians and steal flags off of each other and compete so much. The goal of this game made no damned sense to me. Then, each and every time without fail there would be this kid. Always some cocky moot, kid that would see me staring past them and then yell, “hey, stop staring at me.” The truth was that my eyes seemed to take up half my head in those days and it probably looked to a lot of people like I was staring at them even if I wasn’t. This would escalade to “that fag’s looking at me.” I never really understood this phenomenon. If I was or wasn’t looking at them, why would it matter? I didn’t even know what a fag was I figured it was some sort of bug or something. That was the ironic thing about growing up with Russian parents, when they got angry, it was in Russian and pretty much never in English. I had no role model to learn “bad” words from. I didn’t know that “fuck” could mean more than just the act of penetration and made for a good adjective that would come in handy later. There were a lot of things I didn’t know then. What made me more odd was that I never had the inclination to fight back, verbally or physically. I would kind of just stand there. After a while they would lose interest and drop their stupid vendetta of how my big eyes needed to stay to themselves because I would bore them.
While I was a slightly pudgy little meatball of a boy, I didn’t notice that I was much different from the other boys. This was until, during recess, at the age of 9 or 10, I lined up with all the other kids to play basketball. As I got up to see if the kids playing would let me join their group, this little, Monica Tedesco yelled out to me 2 words that I will never forget. She asked me if I ever though of “thigh master.” This was when Susanne Sommers was selling that shit like hotcakes. Then I imagined myself trying to use one of those things and got confused. Instead of yelling back at the little jerk, I just walked away. No fighting back, not jokes about her legs resembling 2 lines of rope or being as skinny as extension chords. No come back. I just walked away.
My whole life my father would always ask me, hey been in any good fights lately? I would always respond the same way. No. He used to force me to spar with him now and again because as he put it, “you always want to be able to protect yourself and your girlfriend,” assuming that I would have one. I had no desire to throw punches at anyone. I saw myself as the Nelson Mandela of the 4th grade. He would always be disappointed in my lack of desire for these fights. Whenever guys would pick fights with me, I would just talk my way out of it or simply make an effort not to react. This was when I realized that I could talk my way out of many battles.
By the 6th grade I made it without ever really getting into any major fights. When guys would pick fights with me, I would change the topic just as I had done in the earlier years. I figured talking fast and changing topics would simply confuse these macho retards and deflect their desire to pulverizing me. When I entered junior high I still elected to stay quiet most of the time. When I would get teased or told I was a fag, I would listen and every once in a while actually talk back. My comebacks were weak but confusing for the average 12-year old. While they would simply shout out “fag” or “Yuri, what a fag name.” I would come back a minute later, not understanding the word “what is a fag? You would obviously know. What’s the definition?” They would look so confused that I didn’t take their shout as an insult often they would walk away in their own bewilderment. I would answer everything with a question this actually got me out of these messes most of the time.
By high school I simply didn’t give a shit anymore. While I was still soft spoken, my quietness turned to talking without words more often. My actions spoke louder. Around junior year of high school I already was working a full week with school and my part time job I didn’t care anymore. The thing is that by this point, the years of not fighting back had caught up with me. I had this pent up anger against bullies and those who had treated me badly over the years. Eventually this would turn to an obsessive compulsive eating problem which later lead to and obsessive-compulsive gym addiction. This was because as I have said many times before, food shall always equal love. While I would like to blame myself for these issues, it would be easier to keep the blame on those put me down for years as a child. In return for those years of quietness I became a talker. I became loud. I learned to speak for my beliefs and stand up for those who couldn’t. As much pain as the silence covered up, I am thankful for all that happened to me, both good and bad. Being unique, fat and different made me a better person at least that is what my mother told me.
On a side note, my father made it his duty to make sure he would show me what it meant to be a man, like other fathers. Unfortunately he wasn’t sure exactly what it was that men did, so he used TV as an aid. He would make me watch Bronson, Norris, Eastwood and any other machismo bullshit hero crap he could dig up. He would also make me watch Tyson fights on a constant loop, because that apparently taught a young boy how to be a man. He also made me watch every Eddie Murphy movie cause my father loved him. Tyson on a loop just made me want to hang out with Robyn Gibbons.
Back to the story at hand, while exhaling his Benson Ultra-light, he would come from his cloud of smoke, in his harsh Russian accent, say to me, “speak up, if you don’t they won’t hear you.” This was his fatherly way or at least the closest to that role I ever knew him. This would in turn make me blush, grab the candy and walk away with my head low. Actually, until the age of 12 or 13 that was my father’s response to every sentence that came out of my mouth.
In school I would sit as far to the back of the classroom as possible. This way I would avoid getting asked questions. I would sit quietly until called upon or picked on. Being a little, chubby boy, with a big head, pinkish-white skin so light that you could see my veins, huge eyes and a weird Russian name didn’t help my cause either. I kind of resembled a caricature until I eventually grew into my huge head years later. I looked like a real life Charlie Brown without the friends. My name, Yuri, for some reason only got me associated with stupid nicknames and bodily functions that didn’t help my child-self much either. To American children my name for some reason sounded like the word “Urine.” On the first day of school, the torment would always begin once the teacher would take role and attempt to say my name, stumble and then spell it out. They would then proceed to compliment me on how unique I was at the time. While as an adult, the sentiment could be understood, to a child, this was anything but a compliment. To me, the concept of being different was like being telling me that I was an alien and proved what I had knew all along, that I didn’t belong.
Aside from being simply an awkward kid, I also had two left feet. While many boys were inclined to go play soccer ball or basket during recess I would often be found playing house or simply chatting it up with the girls. Oddly, every game of house would end in divorce and me leaving. I watched a lot of “Thirty Something” with my mom. I became ridiculously good at making macramé friendship bracelets and lanyards. I had few friends besides my cousin Nicole to give them too, who was in the same grade and equally as awkward as myself. By the end of the third grade, my mom had so many of them she began to re-gift them to other relatives. The bracelets were so ugly that she had to share in the wealth.
While I didn’t have all that much desire to actually do physical activity, it was more so that I hated being picked last for games. For a fat kid, being picked last was pretty much the normal routine and always uncomfortable. Often, while lining up during PE for game like flag football I would wait to see the kids argue over who would be stuck with me on their team. I would sit there thinking about how much I didn’t understand the reason we were forced to run like barbarians and steal flags off of each other and compete so much. The goal of this game made no damned sense to me. Then, each and every time without fail there would be this kid. Always some cocky moot, kid that would see me staring past them and then yell, “hey, stop staring at me.” The truth was that my eyes seemed to take up half my head in those days and it probably looked to a lot of people like I was staring at them even if I wasn’t. This would escalade to “that fag’s looking at me.” I never really understood this phenomenon. If I was or wasn’t looking at them, why would it matter? I didn’t even know what a fag was I figured it was some sort of bug or something. That was the ironic thing about growing up with Russian parents, when they got angry, it was in Russian and pretty much never in English. I had no role model to learn “bad” words from. I didn’t know that “fuck” could mean more than just the act of penetration and made for a good adjective that would come in handy later. There were a lot of things I didn’t know then. What made me more odd was that I never had the inclination to fight back, verbally or physically. I would kind of just stand there. After a while they would lose interest and drop their stupid vendetta of how my big eyes needed to stay to themselves because I would bore them.
While I was a slightly pudgy little meatball of a boy, I didn’t notice that I was much different from the other boys. This was until, during recess, at the age of 9 or 10, I lined up with all the other kids to play basketball. As I got up to see if the kids playing would let me join their group, this little, Monica Tedesco yelled out to me 2 words that I will never forget. She asked me if I ever though of “thigh master.” This was when Susanne Sommers was selling that shit like hotcakes. Then I imagined myself trying to use one of those things and got confused. Instead of yelling back at the little jerk, I just walked away. No fighting back, not jokes about her legs resembling 2 lines of rope or being as skinny as extension chords. No come back. I just walked away.
My whole life my father would always ask me, hey been in any good fights lately? I would always respond the same way. No. He used to force me to spar with him now and again because as he put it, “you always want to be able to protect yourself and your girlfriend,” assuming that I would have one. I had no desire to throw punches at anyone. I saw myself as the Nelson Mandela of the 4th grade. He would always be disappointed in my lack of desire for these fights. Whenever guys would pick fights with me, I would just talk my way out of it or simply make an effort not to react. This was when I realized that I could talk my way out of many battles.
By the 6th grade I made it without ever really getting into any major fights. When guys would pick fights with me, I would change the topic just as I had done in the earlier years. I figured talking fast and changing topics would simply confuse these macho retards and deflect their desire to pulverizing me. When I entered junior high I still elected to stay quiet most of the time. When I would get teased or told I was a fag, I would listen and every once in a while actually talk back. My comebacks were weak but confusing for the average 12-year old. While they would simply shout out “fag” or “Yuri, what a fag name.” I would come back a minute later, not understanding the word “what is a fag? You would obviously know. What’s the definition?” They would look so confused that I didn’t take their shout as an insult often they would walk away in their own bewilderment. I would answer everything with a question this actually got me out of these messes most of the time.
By high school I simply didn’t give a shit anymore. While I was still soft spoken, my quietness turned to talking without words more often. My actions spoke louder. Around junior year of high school I already was working a full week with school and my part time job I didn’t care anymore. The thing is that by this point, the years of not fighting back had caught up with me. I had this pent up anger against bullies and those who had treated me badly over the years. Eventually this would turn to an obsessive compulsive eating problem which later lead to and obsessive-compulsive gym addiction. This was because as I have said many times before, food shall always equal love. While I would like to blame myself for these issues, it would be easier to keep the blame on those put me down for years as a child. In return for those years of quietness I became a talker. I became loud. I learned to speak for my beliefs and stand up for those who couldn’t. As much pain as the silence covered up, I am thankful for all that happened to me, both good and bad. Being unique, fat and different made me a better person at least that is what my mother told me.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
It's been a while since I have written an entry, so here we go...
The past few weeks have been a bit challenging to say the least. Many things have happened from a skeleton, I meant Madonna performing at the super bowl half time show, to Taylor face of plastic, you could never tell how I am feeling Armstrong publishing a book about her years of abuse, and scandals. Also, people have been voting for Romney and Santorum. If there was a time for pigs to start flying, I thought this was it. For me personally, lots going on and figuring out which road to take. While I had been working diligently at my buddying comedy career, I have still been at a place where I still needed to keep another job to pay rent. I had made a concious decision not to go back to a 9-5 office-type sales or advertising job as I had worked in my previous life post college and focus on comedy. My work of choice to remain afloat has been bartending. I was laid off from the bartending job I had been working the past few months. This was also the fourth time I had been laid off in the past 5 years which just added to the dissapointment. This was also a week before my big LA Recovering Commies show in January (which I was in and produced), a week after my lovely trip to Mexico, where I learned that everything tasted better with lime/chili, and a week before I would learn it could never be too early to eat an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream with a box of cookies chaser. It was also a week before my father would tell me that he may or may not be near kidney failure. This was what a doctor had told him. He had to wait for results from a free clinic because they couldn't afford a doctor. This was something he sprinkled into casual conversation while making me watch an old George Foreman fight, that he then played 5 more times to make sure I didn't miss anything. Normally I would have found a way out of this, but I just let him have the moment and then take me to cheap MSG filled Chinese food.
My goal originally was to take the next few months and finish my plan of turning the stories on this blog into a book. I would get a copy editor to fine tune all my grammatical errors and juvenile mistakes, then look for a book agent. My plan was to spend every waking hour on making this happen when I wasn't bartending or performing. I was planning on working new bits out that I have been writing and not had the opportunity to try out yet. This, along with working on producing more Recovering Commies shows and taking that show on the road to colleges. The idea was to turn all these things into a network of businesses and become a full-time comedian/author. The idea was not to end up being one of those people who lived their life thinking what if. Instead, the idea was to be the guy that did it. Well I did. I have spent the past month eating, smoking, thinking, drinking, analyzing and trying to think of what the next step should be. I have gone through at least 10-15 gallons of ice cream, 8-12 handles of booze and countless Lifetime movies looking for an answers. I even watched some of Oprah's "Life Class" to realize that I would learn nothing from sitting there feeling sorry for myself and needed to figure out how to handle life's problems. What to do next? That was the question I kept asking myself while eating random things barely recognizable as food every night at 4 am. I was wondering if I was just an idiot with a dream but not means create and make a sustainable reality as a joke writer, comedian, standup, author. Could this idea of making it be real? What could I know? Just another Jewish guy who liked to talk, complain about his family and compulsively eat... I felt like I had all the makings of a horrible afters-school special but didn't know what to do next.
A week ago, I went to a Sketchfest event with my friend Dan and my supportive boyfriend Guy. Dan took me to a bar where we met up with his friends. It was none other than Rachel Dratch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and some other really nice people who all had known each other at different points in their lives. Some knew each other from improv, college, and some from crossing paths at different points in their lives . We hung out, drank, chatted about life and random ice breaking conversations. We investigated various conversation staple like why it was funny that Ru Paul and Ron Paul were often mixed up in conversation, along with the bloggersphere. Whenever people asked me what I did for a living I was ready for the standard smirk that people often had prepared for people like me. The "that's cute, good luck with that pal" face. It was the same look that I would give a friend that was tone deaf and said they wanted to become a singer. Ironically, in this circle the reaction was different. I said comedian with pride and they responded like it was a real job. This was one of the first times I had seen this.
We proceeded from the bar happily tipsy and ready to go to the show. We went to go watch Rachel, Jesse, Lauraine Newman, Florence Henderson, Luke Perry and some other amazing people perform "Celebrity Autobiographies." The show was amazing. It was hilarious and simple. Each person read a different actor's Autobiography, didn't change a single word and just added their own something to the way it was read. Lauraine read Cher's and did it with the best Cher voice impersonation ever. Rachel read Madonna's "Sex" and did so with a British accent which just added to her brilliance. The chosen excerpts were random and funny which added to the night. The only thing that sucked was that the theater we watched this performance had seats so small and close together, it was like sitting in a sardine can. Sorry, the Jew in me had to say it. The seating made me wish that I didn't drink 4 Stoli sodas prior to the show. About 40 minutes in, I had an honest fear that I would be that guy. The guy who peed himself at the show. Being that I have always been that guy who didn't put that much thought into my clothing choices, I had a moment where I seriously regretted wearing grey jeans. It wasn't because I I was embarassed about the little awkward tear near the crotch or the weird wrinkle my zipper made from too many washes that made it look like I hat a hard on at all times. I was afraid I would piss myself Cukoo's Next style, from that ugly laughter where it looked like I was between crying and taking a huge dump.
After the show, we hung out with Dan, Rachel and her buddies again! We ended up at the hotel where Rachel was presumably staying and there was this Sketchfest after party. On the way in to the hotel, we saw this woman getting into the elevator. She was from the original "Mash" movie. I couldn't remember her name, but she had platnum-blonde hair and a face that looked like it was made my Mattel. Then, we bump into Florence Henderson! FLORENCE Fucking HENDERSON! It was AMAZING!
Guy, Dan, Rachel and their friends ended up ordering pizza, drinks and just hanging out in the lobby of this hotel for the next few hours. While I was sitting there sipping my drink and eating 4 slices of mushroom pizza, I wiped the melted cheese off my face and was not too cool to eat the piece or cheesy-mushroom which fell into my drink in front of people. I also thought about how amazing it was to be in that moment. I grew up thinking that famous/successful people were not like us. I would never be like them, where people actually cared what I had to say. I figured that I would never be in the same room as people on that level of success because that was out of my league. I knew how dumb the thought sounded, but I realized how similar we all can be. After the this evening and the past year of meeting various successful famous comedic types in the flesh, I realized that to call the desire to work in the world of comedy a dream was a mistake. To imagine a having a house with a staff full of Israeli men waiting to take care of your every need, and then one of them asking you to leave because your perpetual staring creeped them out, that was a dream. At least it was one I had. To imagine and work hard to create a life in comedy, that will become my reality.
My goal originally was to take the next few months and finish my plan of turning the stories on this blog into a book. I would get a copy editor to fine tune all my grammatical errors and juvenile mistakes, then look for a book agent. My plan was to spend every waking hour on making this happen when I wasn't bartending or performing. I was planning on working new bits out that I have been writing and not had the opportunity to try out yet. This, along with working on producing more Recovering Commies shows and taking that show on the road to colleges. The idea was to turn all these things into a network of businesses and become a full-time comedian/author. The idea was not to end up being one of those people who lived their life thinking what if. Instead, the idea was to be the guy that did it. Well I did. I have spent the past month eating, smoking, thinking, drinking, analyzing and trying to think of what the next step should be. I have gone through at least 10-15 gallons of ice cream, 8-12 handles of booze and countless Lifetime movies looking for an answers. I even watched some of Oprah's "Life Class" to realize that I would learn nothing from sitting there feeling sorry for myself and needed to figure out how to handle life's problems. What to do next? That was the question I kept asking myself while eating random things barely recognizable as food every night at 4 am. I was wondering if I was just an idiot with a dream but not means create and make a sustainable reality as a joke writer, comedian, standup, author. Could this idea of making it be real? What could I know? Just another Jewish guy who liked to talk, complain about his family and compulsively eat... I felt like I had all the makings of a horrible afters-school special but didn't know what to do next.
A week ago, I went to a Sketchfest event with my friend Dan and my supportive boyfriend Guy. Dan took me to a bar where we met up with his friends. It was none other than Rachel Dratch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and some other really nice people who all had known each other at different points in their lives. Some knew each other from improv, college, and some from crossing paths at different points in their lives . We hung out, drank, chatted about life and random ice breaking conversations. We investigated various conversation staple like why it was funny that Ru Paul and Ron Paul were often mixed up in conversation, along with the bloggersphere. Whenever people asked me what I did for a living I was ready for the standard smirk that people often had prepared for people like me. The "that's cute, good luck with that pal" face. It was the same look that I would give a friend that was tone deaf and said they wanted to become a singer. Ironically, in this circle the reaction was different. I said comedian with pride and they responded like it was a real job. This was one of the first times I had seen this.
We proceeded from the bar happily tipsy and ready to go to the show. We went to go watch Rachel, Jesse, Lauraine Newman, Florence Henderson, Luke Perry and some other amazing people perform "Celebrity Autobiographies." The show was amazing. It was hilarious and simple. Each person read a different actor's Autobiography, didn't change a single word and just added their own something to the way it was read. Lauraine read Cher's and did it with the best Cher voice impersonation ever. Rachel read Madonna's "Sex" and did so with a British accent which just added to her brilliance. The chosen excerpts were random and funny which added to the night. The only thing that sucked was that the theater we watched this performance had seats so small and close together, it was like sitting in a sardine can. Sorry, the Jew in me had to say it. The seating made me wish that I didn't drink 4 Stoli sodas prior to the show. About 40 minutes in, I had an honest fear that I would be that guy. The guy who peed himself at the show. Being that I have always been that guy who didn't put that much thought into my clothing choices, I had a moment where I seriously regretted wearing grey jeans. It wasn't because I I was embarassed about the little awkward tear near the crotch or the weird wrinkle my zipper made from too many washes that made it look like I hat a hard on at all times. I was afraid I would piss myself Cukoo's Next style, from that ugly laughter where it looked like I was between crying and taking a huge dump.
After the show, we hung out with Dan, Rachel and her buddies again! We ended up at the hotel where Rachel was presumably staying and there was this Sketchfest after party. On the way in to the hotel, we saw this woman getting into the elevator. She was from the original "Mash" movie. I couldn't remember her name, but she had platnum-blonde hair and a face that looked like it was made my Mattel. Then, we bump into Florence Henderson! FLORENCE Fucking HENDERSON! It was AMAZING!
Guy, Dan, Rachel and their friends ended up ordering pizza, drinks and just hanging out in the lobby of this hotel for the next few hours. While I was sitting there sipping my drink and eating 4 slices of mushroom pizza, I wiped the melted cheese off my face and was not too cool to eat the piece or cheesy-mushroom which fell into my drink in front of people. I also thought about how amazing it was to be in that moment. I grew up thinking that famous/successful people were not like us. I would never be like them, where people actually cared what I had to say. I figured that I would never be in the same room as people on that level of success because that was out of my league. I knew how dumb the thought sounded, but I realized how similar we all can be. After the this evening and the past year of meeting various successful famous comedic types in the flesh, I realized that to call the desire to work in the world of comedy a dream was a mistake. To imagine a having a house with a staff full of Israeli men waiting to take care of your every need, and then one of them asking you to leave because your perpetual staring creeped them out, that was a dream. At least it was one I had. To imagine and work hard to create a life in comedy, that will become my reality.
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