A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body (2 page)

He greets me with a worried “Hi, Lauren. How're ya doing?”

“I'm just ... dealing with all the ... sexual ... tension.” (Pause.) “You know ... Fine. I'm fine.”

“Good. It's good to see you. We'll be starting rehearsal in about twenty minutes,” he says with a look on his face that is not amused surprised, as I'd initially interpreted, but fear.

 

 

The first time I'm on the show, I'm assigned a bit where I'm an entertainment expert talking about which of the Backstreet Boys is the gay one, which is the really gay one, and which is the really,
really
gay one.

In the studio you do one rough run-through, where you're bad and you flub your words and then squeegee the sweat off your eyebrows and do it again. The first one is a stumble-through, and it is petrifying. Since I had originally auditioned for the executive producer, rather than for Jon, it is also the first time that the star of the show is seeing me “act like a reporter.”

I complete the first run-through and immediately begin an inner mantra like a screaming army sergeant: “YOU'RE OKAY! YOU'RE OKAY! THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME—GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!”

Then I feel the ground rumbling. A herd of comedy writers is making its way toward me and soon I'm surrounded by urgent suggestions. One writer steps out in front of the mob only to be shoved out of the way by someone even more desperate to save his joke from the new girl.

“Lauren! Okay ... how can I explain this—”

“Just tell her what you want.”

“Okay, you're an expert. Meaning you know what you're talking about. Have you ever seen Stone Phillips?”

“Don't confuse her. Maybe she doesn't understand exactly what the joke is. Underline it in the script!”

“She doesn't understand. Let me try. Hey, Lauren! Whassup! You look great! Pretty hair!”

“We don't have this kind of time. We need to give it to a Steve!”

At which point the entire studio erupts in a chant: “Steve! Steve! Steve!”

I join in. “STEVE! STEVE! STEVE!”

After learning that both Steves are on vacation we do one more run-through before the actual taping. It is even worse than the first one because suddenly I can't remember how to keep my eyeballs from shaking. I decide the best thing to do is to suck my cheeks in, nod a lot, and look angry yet insecure. The “just be yourself” technique. This seems to give the writing staff the comfort of knowing “that's as good as she's going to get,” and they leave me alone during the actual taping.

 

 

The next morning the executive producer asks me, “Where'd you go after the show? Jon wanted to congratulate you but you just disappeared. I think he was worried you were upset.”

Normally I wait to make sure everyone is looking at me before I storm out of a building in tears, but this time I'd forgotten to check over my shoulder. And Jon had noticed. Oh my god. I love him.

 

 

“You are my new boyfriend,” I say, sticking my head into Jon's office. He looks surprised to see me. He's on the phone with Wolf Blitzer. At least, I assume it's Wolf Blitzer because he says, “I'll talk to you later, Wolf,” and hangs up. It could
have been Wolfman Jack. He's dead, but Jon can get anyone on the phone.

I notice Jon's Emmy is on a shelf, still wrapped in plastic.

“Look how modest you are, Jon,” I say. “You haven't even unwrapped your Emmy.”

Jon brings the conversation back under his control.

“Hey, great job on the show last night,” he says. “Welcome. I didn't see you after the show, so I wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I reply. And that should be the moment I leave, but I don't.

“I just love that you don't have a special cabinet built for your awards. Everyone I know with a bowling trophy has special spotlights installed—giant arrows on the wall pointing to it. Naked women dancing around it. That's what you should get.”

Jon looks confused, but he continues to keep his concern focused.

“Well, Lauren. We're glad to have you here. I just wanted to tell you that after the taping.”

“You know what happened after the show?”

Jon glances at the clock on the wall and takes a breath. But I am oblivious to his “I don't have time; I've reached out to you, now please let me get some work done” signals.

“I walked out of the studio and immediately started sobbing.”

He makes sad eyes that say, “Oh no!” and then looks at his phone. Probably praying for Kofi Annan or Carrot Top to call him. But until they do, I continue.

“It's just intense. I've never been on national television before, and the stakes were so high. I had to get out of the building and let all the stress out. I went in the alley to have a private breakdown but ended up sobbing in front of the doors where the audience exits. So suddenly the doors fly open: ‘Hey, there's the new girl! Great job!' and I'm trying to stop crying—”

I finally stop myself because I realize Jon has a “that's a sad story” look frozen on his face, but his eyes are darting from the phone to the clock to the door. The phone, the clock, the door. The phone, the clock, the door.

I start to laugh and hope he'll join me. But somehow he doesn't see the humor in a new hire telling him that she may or may not be stable.

We very formally end our conversation with some “welcome agains” and “I'm exciteds” and “thank yous.”

 

 

The journey to my office is always exhausting. Every time I pass an open office door I stick my head in and try to say something funny. I try to convince myself that I'm just saying hi. Getting to know the people of
The Daily Show
. By the end of the first week, it's turned into a bizarre dance routine.

Step, step, look right, “OK, guys—hands outta your pants!”

Step, step, look left, “Man, crack cocaine makes you sweat a lot, look at you!”

Step, step, look right, “For a fat person you're looking very thin today.”

Ball change and repeat.

If the person responds or laughs I take that as an invitation to come on in and ask them for advice. I want to know what the women before me have done. And why everyone keeps saying, “It's sooo hard to keep women here.” But people just nod and smile at me and reveal nothing. Which may have to do with the fact that they're “working.”

 

 

One month later, I'm back in the executive producer's office.

“Okay, I don't want to freak you out,” she is saying. “I want to help you. Here's the deal. You need to get Jon to like you.”

“I wasn't aware that he didn't,” I respond, in an unemotional, I-could-care-less-about-this-job, it's-a-walk-in-the-park tone.

She continues: “Somehow he's getting the impression that you could care less about the job. He feels like you're treating this whole thing like it's a walk in the park. Like you could take it or leave it. And we all like you but we need him to like you too, so—”

Just then someone opens her office door. It's Jon, sticking his head in. I throw up a little bit in my mouth. Then swallow
it. Then hope it won't affect my breath in case Jon wants to give me a hug.

The executive producer's voice goes up a few octaves.

“Hey, Jon, come on in! I was just talking to Lauren about how excited we are to have her as a part of the show. Just telling her to try to relax and have fun.”

Jon nods his head and very politely says, “Yeah. Good. Listen, can I talk to you when you're done with Lauren?”

I jump to my feet, put my hands on my hips, pinch my nipples, and say, “I just want to please you. Do I please you, Jon? Do I?”

Jon looks at the executive producer and seems like he's about to say something. Since he doesn't laugh I figure I'd better start dancing like Shirley MacLaine—as fast as I can.

“Jon! I think that my nervousness—trying to act like this isn't the biggest thing that's ever happened to me—is backfiring. It's like when I first started dating my husband, I tried to act like I was used to sexy, gorgeous men. Which in my mind meant acting very cool and underwhelmed. I'm so worried about you licking me—what is wrong with me?—I mean
liking
me—”

“Is she serious?” Jon asks the executive producer.

She tells him that I'm kidding. She speaks for me a few more times before I say, doing my best deaf person imitation and using sign language, “Tell Jon I like his shirt.”

The executive producer bursts out laughing. “Oh my god!” she exclaims. “Girlfriend, you've got to get us all what
you're on! Oh my god! Okay, Jon, I'll be in your office in a minute.”

She continues to laugh until Jon closes the door behind him. The instant it clicks shut, she leaps toward me, grabs my arm, and starts shaking me.

“You have got to calm down!” she says. “Stop auditioning for the job! Relax!”

Am I acting so differently from the way I normally do? This is just me, right?

 

 

When I was six years old, my mom set me up to play with a foster kid named Fritz from down the street. At that age, the difference between “adopted” and “fostered” wasn't clear to me—they were both said with a sad whisper. So the day I found out that Fritz had been considered “a handful” and that his foster parents had
sent him back
was more than mildly traumatizing. Poor Fritz had clearly not provided his new family with hours of entertainment. From the day of his deportation on I started performing at least ten minutes of stand-up comedy a day at the dinner table.

Now, standing in front of the bulletin board in the hallway, I scan all the sign-up sheets for softball games and trips to Vegas and free tickets to stand-up shows to see if Jon's name is anywhere. One of the other on-air correspondents walks by and I ask him if Jon ever plays softball and he laughs in my face. He recovers and decides to share the secret to his success on the show.

“You need to stop treating Jon like a peer,” he says. “He's not your peer. Just lay low until they want to use you on the show. Don't ask for too much feedback. You're just calling attention to yourself. And don't sign up for anything on this board. On-camera people don't do that.”

A producer on his way to pick up his antidepressants stops and joins in. “And don't laugh so much. I didn't laugh at anything for the first year I worked here. So when I finally did, it really meant something.”

 

 

I'm in the studio for rehearsal. I should be practicing my lines but instead I'm practicing not laughing. Starting with not laughing at my own jokes (which, for me, embarrassingly, is incredibly difficult).

As soon as Jon walks in, everyone quiets down and gets focused.

“Don't spin around in the chair,” the stage manager whispers to me, trying to help. “Just sit still.”

Jon has brought his new puppy, who's jumping all over the crew.

“Sorry about my puppy, you guys, he's going through a licking stage,” he says.

“I wish my husband had one of those!” I exclaim, careful not to burst out laughing. The studio falls silent and then, in the Jewish tradition of ripping one's clothing to signify “you are dead to me,” the studio is full of the sound of collars being torn.

I've only been on the show for six months and I've been banished from sitting next to Jon in the studio. “You're too jumpy, you make him nervous,” I'm told.

They have me work almost exclusively in the field, finding mildly retarded people who don't have cable so they'll never know how much the show makes fun of them.

Sometimes I enjoy myself. Dripping wax on my breasts at an Amish candle-making studio for a “Wild on Amish Country” piece is memorable. Not for my parents, but I enjoy it.

Interviewing a tobacco lobbyist whose wife and child had just left him and moved out the day before is less fun. Mocking is one of my favorite pastimes, but this is rough. He makes the entire crew lunch and plays with his dog on camera, which we ask him to do because he looks so ridiculous doing it. He rolls around on the ground with snorty abandon.

In the van, driving away, I feel like a bully. The guy is a tobacco lobbyist, for god's sake—he deserves to have his eyeballs colored in red and horns drawn on his head. So why do I feel like I've just gone up to the fattest girl in high school (which could have been me, though technically I was the twelfth fattest, but was heavily girdled) and told her that the cool kids wanted her to come to a movie with us? And did it in such a way that she took a chance and joined us at the movie. But of course we'd only asked her so we could mock the shit out of her. And it wouldn't be until the next day at
school (or the “air date”), when we'd be reporting how she ate nachos with her chubby fingers, that she'd realize she'd been set up.

You'd think after so many years of having my metaphorical lunch money stolen, I'd be pleased to finally get cast in the role of bully with health insurance. But I wasn't. I missed jumping up and down in my chair next to Jon.

 

 

Like most workplace dramas, my situation came to a head, as it were, with the Giant Black Cock (GBC) incident.

There are no sexual harassment lawsuits in comedy. Maybe because there are so few women around to get offended. (“Did he mean
my
pubic hair? Hey!”) And “just kidding” works in every situation.

So when the first thing that greets me on my computer screen one morning is a picture of a white blond chirpy (WBC) enjoying a GBC, I know exactly how this day is going to go.