A message from the Miami Tourism Bureau…
Greetings Potential Vacationers!
Divorces amicable and figurative… Part 2
My entire life I’ve had an interesting upbringing in no small part due to my godfather, Stephen. Stephen, my father’s best friend he met while going to grad school at the University of Miami, is a quadriplegic. He had suffered a broken neck from a diving incident when he was a teenager. Many argue this was the reason he has gotten away with his perverted conversations and wild views on “sex and drugs”, however, some maintain he would have always been like that. He has been married for years to my godmother, Gail, and she has always put up with it all the while joking she sleeps with a knife under her pillow. She also grew up with juvenile arthritis and, they have had a connection over their handicaps.
Divorces amicable and figurative…
Coming off of a year where I was struggling to get to where I needed
to be at work and trying to keep my comedy career afloat, all the
while dealing with the emotionally taxing experience of having my dad
battling cancer, I was hoping this year would be a happier one. Perhaps 2012 would be a year of renewal and positive changes ahead.
Subway is usually not sooo bad…
It takes a lot of my years of cognitive therapy and medication to be able to basically “handle” the subway and not flip out with so many inconsiderate coughers around. I also understand that there are mentally unbalanced people and I do feel for them.
However, it does not make situations like what happened last night any easier. This may not seem like a huge deal to other people. A man with a large hat composed of multicolored scarves and a big, puffy long skirt with many, many discolored, filthy looking layers, a dirty grey pillow, and a plastic juice container with gold-brown liquid and pieces of something floating in it that he’d take occasional swigs from came on the train. He would take pieces of the layers of the skirt and lick them and wipe his mouth and seemingly nose with them. Then, he’d put them back on and walk back and forth, the skirt brushing across my jeans and messenger bag. I was living in a nightmare. I would have moved but that would have involved brushing even closer to him. After I reached my destination I scurried quickly to find a drug store and buy a Lysol spray. Bought it, took it outside, and sprayed jeans and bag all over, not caring what people might be thinking.
The sense of relief after that must be somewhere along the lines of a druggie getting their fix.
Smacketology : A tournament to determine The Wire’s greatest character
Sure, The Wire has been off the air for years, but we should still always be talking about it. It’s hard not to just agree with the president and say Omar is the best character. But then you think about Prez in season 4, and Bodie, and the parts of the show when Jimmy McNulty was charming and tragically drunk (and not sober and staying out of trouble with Amy Ryan, thus rendering him a bit of a snooze). And how can you not take into account Stringer Bell’s sex appeal?
Does no one mourn for the sad, tragic Ziggie??
We asked a whole slew of illustrators to bring to life the insane clubs that Stefon has described on SNL. The result: Stefon’s Illustrated Guide to New York’s Hottest Nightclubs.
This is beautiful.
(Source: splitsider.com, via timeoutnewyork)
Woman in Comedy: A really scary thing happened to me last night at a comedy show.
Part of me thinks it’s too soon to be writing about this because I don’t think I’ve completely processed how I feel, but I also think maybe this has happened to other women and I should talk about it in as raw a way as possible. I’m still really embarrassed and ashamed and garbled up inside, but maybe this can start a helpful discussion in terms of women and comedy.
Last night, I was on a stand up show in the East Village. The show started out with a small crowd and the host did an amazing job interacting with them and riling them up. By the time I got on stage, there were about 20 or so more people in the audience and the place had really filled up. The show was still kind of loose because of the back and forth between the host and the audience, so when I got on stage, I riffed a bit about the stuff that had happened before and then talked to one guy on the side of the audience who the host had dubbed “Banana Republic.” All joke-y. All in good fun.
Then, I start my actual set and do my first two jokes, which go pretty okay. I start another joke that is vaguely sexual - not crude, not crass - mainly silly and that goes well too. The next joke I do is about my boyfriend.
At a comedy show, when you’re on stage, usually you can’t see the audience because of the bright lights. So I’m looking into pitch darkness. As I start the joke, someone yells, “Does your boyfriend know?” referring to the sexuality joke I’d just told. I stop, laugh and say that he does because I think it’s just more of the loose environment that’s been going on at this show. I attribute it to an audience member just having fun.
I start to tell the joke about my boyfriend again, and at the midway point, the same voice yells something else derogatory about my boyfriend, homophobic and misogynistic towards me. I stop, confused. I can’t see who is talking to me so I make a HUGE mistake and say, “Sir, if you’re gonna talk to me, you need to come to the front because I can’t see you.” I think calling him out like this will shut him up.
As a producer, comic, man, human, this is appalling.
OCD memories…
I was probably too old to let this be a thing. Then again, I could say that about a lot of OCD “habits” that came and went. If maybe I thought something bad, that I shouldn’t have, such as a mean thought about someone I’d have to unthink it by thinking it backwards. Yes, go through the sentences, each word, in reverse order, said backward, like some twisted Pig Latin. Very tough to accomplish in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Especially when you’d be interrupted and have to start over so many times.
Age: 14
When I’m sick…
Seemingly, you’d think that would make me see that I can’t avoid it. But, it makes me more OCD about germs because I’m like, “this sucks, let’s* try not to let this happen again.”
*Me and my immune system.
