Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation (19 page)

Second, having to go to a place every day where I had to be organized, sit in a cubicle,
not use curse words or eat with my fingers, and wear
panty hose
(argh!), seemed like a particularly cruel kind of torture.
⁴
Just months before I had been floating down the Connecticut River in an inner tube,
drinking beer out of an upcycled spaghetti sauce jar, and now I was wearing L’eggs
and a polyblend skirt, trying to figure out how to answer a phone that had more buttons
than the Starship Enterprise. It was bewildering: I had a dream position, doing something
that was important for the world, with like-minded people, in the city that I loved,
and yet I was totally miserable. I believed in what I was doing, and I forged some
good friendships with my coworkers (some that persist to this day), but otherwise,
this whole work thing was sucking major ass.

Also, panty hose make your knees itch.

The problem was, like most people on the planet, I really didn’t have an alternative
plan. I had been on this path since I was little: work hard, behave yourself, get
good grades, follow the rules, give up your dreams of being an astronaut, go to college,
get a good job, go to law school, become a lawyer, die a little inside each year,
and then eventually actually die. This had been the plan from the beginning, and so
far I had executed it perfectly. My parents were
thrilled
—I had hit all their benchmarks: I had an Ivy League degree, I was gainfully employed,
I had my own apartment, I wasn’t lurking around asking for money or raiding their
cabinets for food. They had raised me properly—to work hard, be polite, and stay out
of their hair—they’d done their job. Now it was time to do mine.

The only problem was the “die a little inside” part of my plan seemed to be kicking
in a little early. I felt strange and off-kilter and I had no idea why. I didn’t want
to do anything. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I would sit alone in my remote corner
of the office and stare zombielike at a computer screen while I gnawed droolingly
at an everything bagel (which, along with those long-nursed lattés, were one of my
only delights at this time). I was completely bewildered.

And then, finally, I figured it out—the long bouts of catatonic silence, the dependence
on carbohydrates, the itchy knees—I was depressed.

Even though I was clinically blue, it didn’t mean I didn’t work hard. I believe very
deeply in the concept of industry.
⁵
I care about what I put into the world, and I believe in doing my best in everything.
If my name is on something, it is going to be the best something I can possibly produce.
The best macaroni collage, the best book report, the best budget analysis, the best
round of kamikaze shots anyone has ever pounded in under a minute. I believe one hundred
percent in being the best. It’s just hard to be the best at something you find supremely
dissatisfying.
⁶

I kept at it, though. I like winning more than I like being happy, and I am also a
blockheaded and blindly stubborn ramrod of a person, so I threw myself into my work.
And that non-profit really was doing good things in the world, which gave me some
slim shreds of satisfaction. Trees were protected. Endangered birdies saved. Little
kids got green places to play. But as the months wore into a year, I realized I could
not go on like this. I needed to make a change. Thankfully, I had very few responsibilities
(by design) and even fewer belongings (as I was broke as fuck), so I had absolutely
nothing to lose. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I missed performing.
Plus, I was starting to eyeball sharp objects around the office wistfully. I decided
to cast about for some way to get back on a stage of some kind. Any kind. I wasn’t
picky. I needed to perform.

But I had absolutely no idea how to start.

I started thinking of what
kind
of performer I wanted to be. I could have joined a band, but I couldn’t play any
instruments. I had three years of violin in grade school but that skill was utterly
erased by my general apathy about the violin as an instrument. Plus I doubted any
rock bands were looking for a backup string section that only knew the first two movements
of Pachelbel’s
Canon.
I would have auditioned for a play, if I knew anything about theater or the audition
process, or if most regional theater productions didn’t test the limits of human patience.
Television acting seemed attractive, but of course, I knew as much about that as I
did about astrophysics. I actually knew
more
about astrophysics, thanks to my childhood obsession with sci-fi and my current obsession
with
The X-Files
.
⁷
And I was as likely to find a talent agent as I was to find a pot of gold in the
side alley next to my apartment building. Getting discovered seemed like something
magical that happened only to anorexic twelve-year-old blondes when they went to the
mall with their mothers for frozen yogurt.

Unfortunately, I was no longer twelve, I had never been blond, and the only way I
would ever become anorexic was if I suddenly lost the ability to chew.

This left standup comedy.

I didn’t know much about that either, other than that I had seen some live comedy
shows while I was in college, and had found them indescribably delightful.
⁸
I remember emerging from one such show, after laughing so hard that my stomach muscles
ached (at an act that I would undoubtedly find insanely hacky now—something about
Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to play the flute—wait, actually it’s still pretty funny),
and feeling as delirious and amazed as if I had discovered fire. That was when I fell
in love with comedy. But several years later, I was still only a secret, slightly
lurky admirer. I had no idea how standup comedy worked, how you made funny come out
of your face, where you went to do it, or anything of any value whatsoever that would
help me become a standup comedian.

Serendipitously, comedy was in its boom time in the nineties. You could find it everywhere:
late-night talk shows, syndicated standup series, coffeehouses, strip mall comedy
clubs, and a brand-new cable network called “Ha,” which was the single worst name
for a cable network before “Starz.” “Ha” played standup twenty-four hours a day, and
because this was still relatively early in the advent of television comedy, they played
a lot of the same execrable crap over and over again. Dude in a blazer in front of
a brick wall. Dude in a blazer in front of a velvet curtain. Chick dressed like a
dude in a blazer in front of a piano in front of a brick wall. All of it tepidly amusing,
none of it very good.

Being an arrogant little snot with a freshly minted Ivy degree and no money to go
out and do stuff like normal people, I sat on my dumpster-rescued futon and watched
a lot of comedy on this channel while eating Smartfood by the fistful. And inevitably,
after each set, I thought arrogantly and snottily, “Man, that sucked. I could
totally
do better than that guy.”

It was this kind of unfounded and breathtaking hubris that made me quirkily adorable,
and also highly likely to lose a limb or get stabbed by an itinerant tattoo artist
someday.

Buoyed by my enthusiasm and total lack of experience, I immediately set about writing
down my joke ideas in a little spiral notebook. Anything that struck me as funny,
I would jot in my book for later consideration. I threw myself into this task with
relentless focus. I would scribble all day long in tiny wavering script, the ink-riddled
pages of my notebook starting to resemble an unhinged rant penned by Kevin Spacey’s
serial murderer in
Seven
. My coworkers thought I had some kind of late-surfacing OCD that caused me to write
things down compulsively. They started avoiding eye contact. They started calling
me Rain Man. They started reporting me to Human Resources. No matter. I was undeterred.

Mind you, I was not writing down good jokes or even jokes at all, really. I was writing
down
ideas
for jokes. Comedians call them
premises
. These are not anything you can actually say in front of people. They are unformed,
ill-conceived, malnourished
concepts
, and no matter how much potential they have, or how well-intentioned you are when
you deliver them, they will not get laughs.

I did not know this at the time.

Seven months after I started scribbling things down in that notebook like the foreword
to a hermit’s manifesto, I screwed up enough courage to actually perform. My obsessive-compulsion
in full bloom, I had done extensive and meticulous research on where and how to do
a first comedy set. I may have hated my job, but I sure did love the organizational
skills and access to clerical resources that came along with it. I had addresses,
show times, and phone numbers all charted and cross-referenced—every opportunity for
soaring comedic triumph or agonizing creative demise arranged meticulously in an easy-to-read
grid. I had discovered after several phone calls that the best open mike for beginners
(well, the
only
open mike for beginners) was at a club in the Sunset district called the Holy City
Zoo. They had a show on Sunday nights, and the fee for performing was two dollars
for a hefty three minutes, which to me seemed inordinately fair and a bargain besides.
I didn’t know much, but I did know you couldn’t pay two dollars to get on stage anywhere
else, except for maybe the world’s saddest strip club.
⁹

So I settled on a scant list of wobbly “jokes,” and rode the bus to the club on a
Sunday night with my boyfriend in tow, both for moral support, and so he could carry
me home should I happen to bomb and try to drink myself to death after the show in
despair. I felt optimistic, breathless even, over what was about to happen as we disembarked
from the bus in the evening fog. And as we arrived at this adorable little shack of
a club in the middle of a block of used bookstores, thrift shops, dive bars, and walk-up
dim sum counters, I was struck by one very apparent truth.

I was
super
fucking late.

I hadn’t realized that a part of the transaction for getting stage time at this place
was that not only did you have to pay for your stage time (utterly disproving any
misconceptions about meritocratic ideals ruling the entertainment biz), but it was
also first-come, first-served. Now, people have called me many things, but one thing
they have never called me is first-come. I am nice, reliable, trustworthy, charming,
supportive, and I make a mean Manhattan. But I am never, ever first-come. The earliest
I have ever been is second-come, and that was remarkable enough for me to take a few
snapshots and tweet about it, which also tells you how recently in my life this moment
occurred. “Be on time” is a recurring New Year’s resolution for me, getting replay
on my list more times than Taylor Swift at a bat mitzvah. The only thing I have resolved
more often is to get more sleep.
¹⁰
You can also see how those two goals might be at odds with each other. I have definitely
succeeded in getting more sleep, but it has directly and severely undermined my efforts
to be on time. One cannot have it all.

So I get to this club, and I’m terrified, and I’m confused, and I’m anxious, and I’m
late. What’s worse, the seductive aroma of
char siu bao
is wafting over me like college sex, and I can’t decide whether I want to do standup
or eat a fuckload of dumplings and pass out in a puddle of pork. But my boyfriend
encourages me; we’ve come this far, and on the bus no less, and what do you have to
lose except for your sense of self-worth and respect? He has a point, and when he
promises me as many steamed buns as I can eat afterwards, I reluctantly agree to move
forward.

I get in line. I am dead last.

This means, I discover when I finally get to the front of the line and plunk down
my two scrills, that I will also go dead last on the lineup for the night. Again,
I know very little about comedy, but I’m crystal clear this is a bad thing. The only
time going last on a lineup of performers is good is when you are Jay-Z and you are
headlining Coachella. And even then, half of the audience is drunk or on Ecstasy and
the other half made a break for their cars right after deadmau5 so they could get
out before traffic turns the parking lot into an actual parking lot, and they are
forced to sleep off a tummy full of pot brownies in the backseat of their Priuses.
Still, I have come all this way, I have been bribed with dumplings, and when there
are dumplings involved, I deliver.

That night was
long.
My set was right before closing, at 1:52 a.m., which allowed three minutes for me
to perform, and a couple of minutes for the show host to say good night and sweep
out any remaining customers or sleeping itinerants before they shut the doors. The
show started at nine, and after the host did ten minutes, each comedian got three
to perform, which meant there were approximately
one million comedians
before me.

I know this may shock you, but not all of them were good.

Some were. There was some real talent in there, some inspired ideas and well-crafted
jokes, and even a few true geniuses in the bunch. But mostly it hurt. Hurt to watch,
hurt to listen, hurt to laugh, hurt to think that would be me in just over three short
hours. It was terrifying, and it went on forever. I almost fled several times, but
I did not want to lose my two dollars. That was like ten percent of my $20 recreational
budget. There was no going back.

When I finally went up on stage, I felt brave. I had seen almost every possible iteration
of a comedy set performed onstage: some killed, some bombed, separated by every possible
configuration and result between. I knew I wouldn’t destroy, but at the least I might
do better than the guy who ate powdered donuts while reading aloud from
The Tao of Pooh
. As I climbed up there, I said to myself, “Be brave. No matter what happens tonight,
you won’t die.” And that, at least, was true. I did not die.