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February 28, 2003
Curses
So the spousal unit and I went out on the town the other night. It only serves to remind me of how degenerate our nation truly is, how we are addicted to entertainment. Of course, I retain all the tastes of the ridiculous and that's what makes old(er) age such a rich and jaded paradise.
I'm one of those brothers who does not jump a sudden loud noises. When cars wreck or guns pop I only wish I knew what to do. I'd like to remain expressionless and competent. The one thing I don't want is to become paranoiac and otherwise scared shitless.
Let this paragraph be a quick detour, because there has been a word that has lingered in my brain for several weeks. I have avoided using it on the off-chance that some certain folk responsible for hiring me might be perusing this website. That word is 'girlyfucked'. I don't think I have heard it since I used to hang out with Todd Person in the 10th grade, but it came out as one of the first sentences I distinctly recall in my interview of several weeks ago. It's one of the reasons I remember fondly wanting to go to work for B. Any boss who can utter such a priceless sentence in response to my desire for more money as "We're all girlyfucked" is definitely a mensch in my book. Needless to say, one must have the appropriate mental geography and experience for such a sentence to be hilarious. By experience, of course, I mean knowing that very girl, doing that very deed, and remembering the very look on her face and the very timbre of her voice. Evocative n'est-ce pas?
This kind of richness of experience is available to the masses, and yet who knows if they partake? I don't write much about sex, ever. Nor do I write much about spectator sports. Me, I've always much preferred to engage. Those who can't do, write. So that's why I write about geopolitics. Be that as it may, B. could only guess that his use of the word would work on me. This is genius and risk-taking, and nothing describes that quite as thoroughly as the presumptions of the business of stand-up comedy.
I write this after seeing the performances of Dave Chappelle, and his two front men on the Blackzilla Comedy Tour Friday night at the Wiltern.
You should know by now that I hate crowds, especially crowds of stupid people. I take the opposite presumption of Cornel West these days and assert that everyone, without exception, is working in their self-interest. The implication of this is that the idiot in the row in front of me with the 7 inch black lucite ring that stretched his earlobe to an inch above his shoulder truly is a loser. In order to survive masses of idiots who use cool to mask their stupidity, one also must wear the mask. These days, my mask is camouflage pants and loud plaid hunting jackets. I've explained some of that before. But that mask is appropriate to suburbia, not for this crowd. This crowd, this Hollywood, 20 something HBO soft porn audience, this laid back snarkpit of toungue studs, black pants and volumninous jackets, this panoply of weed-friendly party people, are not good subjects for camo. Besides this was Valentines day, which meant that I had to wear the Hollywood Power Suit, slum village version. The Slum Village version of the HPS is still all basic black, but instead of the Armani jacket, a zipped Claiborne is appropriate. Of course you leave the Coles at home and wear the Sketchers. This way you don't mind so much bumping into people you would ordinarily keep at small arms' distance.
I wasn't particularly needful of entertainment. I wasn't suffering from an egregious week of labor. No company was in from out of town. We had reserved the tickets weeks ahead of schedule. All in all I wasn't amped and due.
Posted by mbowen at February 28, 2003 09:38 PM