What a hoot or Your Pant is on Fire
Yesterday was my day of people I haven’t hung out with all year.
I went to the show Charles Star hosts in Brooklyn. I went with Mary, Fisch and F-train. KJ couldn’t make it due to ambulance duty. I picked Fisch up first. We haven’t really been speaking due to a difference of opinion on the age old ‘hoes before bros’ debate. I said women are not to be called hoes and he said Jews aren’t bros. There were fistacuffs, he rejoined the cult of Karol and I started whittling his voodoo likeness. I had forgotten how to do the eyes, so yesterday’s refresher visit was infinitely helpful. I am almost done. If anyone needs a slave to do chores around the house let me know, he specializes in lamps, but also does floors. I do not recommend using his cooking services.
“Alright, so what’s your bet on how long things are not this awkward,” he asked me over the Dreamgirls soundtrack playing in my car.
“What time is it now?”
“7:45.”
“9:22.”
“Tonight? Wow, you think more of us than I do.”
I smiled knowingly. I’ve always wanted to smile knowingly and let me tell you, it is as satisfying as you imagine it to be.
Anyway, he took the over/under on 9:22, which evidently means he gets every time over 9:22 or under 9:22, leaving me with a very specific 60 seconds to win. Message for the kids: don’t put money on the line if you don’t understand the rules of the game.
I parked the car –in under 7 hits to the bumper of the car in front of me — and we walked the 20 blocks back to the bar. (In my defense, the guy that owned the car in front of me, started lurking around to watch me park my car and make sure I didn’t it his. SO, I put my car in park and just waited for him to leave before I properly moved into the spot. When he finally left, I shook my fist and said ‘I am now going to hit the shit out of your car, tough guy!” And I did.)
We ran into Ugarles at the club and Mrs. Ugarles was in attendance. Congratulations to both of them on their impending wise cracking mini Ugarles.
Mary and F-train showed up next. F-train was a man on a mission.
“You! Summers comma Dawn, are hereby officially and unequivocally uninvited from the Spring roadtrip with CK!”
“Huh? What?”
“That’s right. Yer out, black girl. Get your own hot Asian chick to go cross country with.”
“Your not the boss of her…she said I could come.”
He then leaned in real close, opened up a can of peanuts right under my nose and said –through clenched teeth –
“You’re not coming. You got that? And if you try to come, I’m going to force feed you peanuts through every orafice until you go into anaphylactic shock and then I’m going to slather your unconcious, suffocating body in peanut oil. And if CK asks why you’re not coming, you will say something came up. You know, like your sudden will to live. Do we have an understanding?”
So…umm…yeah, I’m…umm…busy all Spring. Somebody tell CK. Oh, and not so random thought…remember the F-train weight gain challenge? I’m calling steroids.
Brother of Ugarles was also in attendance.
The show was very hit and miss. My exact reportcard: Miss, Hit, Miss, Hit, Miss, Hit. Also chronicled in Fisch/Dawn text messages as: KJ is a genius, during the first set when the guy was doing this horrid racist ‘I don’t Crown Heights love you bit’ that made me want to kill myself. Then: KJ is a fool! When the South Asian comic had me rolling on the floor with his “Will you accept Batman’s challenge to fight the Joker and drink Coke? Come on…don’t be a douchebag…drink Coke! Fight the Joker.” bit. Back to KJ is a genius When this black guy had a terrible set…and so on.
The funny South Asian comic also did a terrific bit that went something like:
So, I’ve heard there’s a new drug called Cheese. Have you guys ever heard of cheese? It’s supposedly Tylenol PM and heroin…dude, that’s not a new drug…that’s HEROIN. Heroin is really doing the heavy lifting there, wouldn’t you say…so what the fuck…JUST DO THE HEROIN. Now, the last time they invented a new drug it was crystal meth…and if you messed it up, everything would blow up and you would DIE. Now that’s a new drug.
He also had a great bit about how google makes us competitive with people with the same name as us. “Can you imagine years ago, if you met someone with the same name? You would be so happy. You would be like “I wish you the best of everything Dawn Summers!” Now, with google you’re all…fuck, I hope his damn rockband fails! I want to be the first hit!”
I really liked this guy’s act alot and would follow him around the circuit, if I were not a lazy ass girl.
The next funny guy was the one who told the heart condom story below. And then finally, the last comic, who had a bold confident style was just hysterical. He was all “I wanted to spend my graduation money to buy a motorcycle, but my mom wouldn’t let me. See, she had a brother who died at 18 in a horrible motorcycle crash, so she said I could just have his.”
HAHAHAHHA, see what he did there?
Then he was all “You don’t know pain until you’ve had your baby drown in the tub while you’re giving it a bath. You just don’t know pain until that happens to you…you also don’t know shit about washing babies.”
Okay, as I type this, I realize this may be one of those you had to be there comics…
Anyway, it was a good way to detox from my tequila/Corona based existence of the last five days. Oh! And a comic threatened to beat the shit out of me and rip out my tongue after I hissed Barack Obama and The Wire. And when F-train said “don’t worry, your Fisch will protect you,” there was an uncomfortable silence during which I decided to get a gun.
Ah, good times. Good times.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Why do you insist on putting an “e” in “ho”? We are not gardening tools!
February 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Correct! You are pieces of meat, unworthy of respect!
February 20th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
In sum, I was a genius, a fool and a great-lovely-caring boyfriend. Not too bad.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Wait so you’re the ho and she’s the bro? I’m confused.
And I wouldve protected you just because I didn’t like the way he looked.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Who’s this CK person? And why is F-Train keeping you away from her?
I wonder why F-Train bought me a new peanut butter body butter . . .
February 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
And why is F-Train keeping you away from her?
I wonder why F-Train bought me a new peanut butter body butter .
I don’t know, that bitch is craaazzzyy.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:29 am
So much more fun than actually being there is reading about it days in pjs
April 17th, 2008 at 11:14 am
[...] Back when the inimitable Charles Star used to host comedy shows at the now-closed Magnetic, I saw a young South Asian comic there. He was nonstop funny from start to finish. I blogged about it here. He was so funny I put him on my list of “comics I will follow around!” So, when Ugarles said Kumail Nanjiani was performing in a one man show at the UCB, I was in like Flynn. The show started Islamic call to morning prayer, which to the infidel ears sounds a lot like nondescript wailing. From there the show is a tour through his Muslim childhood in Pakistan, where from a young age he was taught that heaven was to be reached by walking across a razor sharp wire draped across the fiery pit of hell. “Yeah, every day at four in the morning I’m thinking about razor sharp wires cutting into the soles of my feet as I walk across the fiery pits of hell…I was six!” Honey was also a big part of the Islamic faith. It was good to like honey and things with honey in it…”I didn’t like honey. Not at all…to me it tasted like something squeezed out of an insect’s butt.” He then talked about how his dad was a doctor and how doctors had been targeted with violence. At one point his father got a letter threatening to kidnap his oldest son. “And can you believe that my parents didn’t even tell me? Dude, I was the kid in that napping! I could just be walking along and some guy in a van would pull up and be like ‘hey little boy’ want some honey?” From there he talked about getting ready to go to college in America. His mother said she wasn’t worried about sending him to the US because she had trained him to be a good Muslim and that is faith would protect him from the corruption here. So wrapped in that protective shield, he went off the the corrupt, sinful, raunchy state of …Iowa! At the Des Moines airport the customs officer looked at his passport and declared his name to be “unpronounceable.” (Also the name of the show.) After his first year at college his mother begins to arrange a marriage for him. Her first choice, his first cousin. “Really, mom? You couldn’t throw, say, a wider net?” After a few years at Grinnel, he begins to question his faith and eventually undergoes an existential crises one day at 4 a.m. “I know it’s cliche, but you don’t choose when your existential crises come.” He started smoking constantly “really, I think this is how cigarettes should be marketed ‘come on…what’s the point of life anyway? Have a Marlboro.” He eventually gives up Islam, decides to move to Chicago, while his family moves from Pakistan to New Jersey “the Pakistan of America, by the way.” His mom starts to figure out the internet and one day his brother calls to let him know that “mom just found out on myspace that you’re an athiest and in a relationship.” D’oh. They have a touching conversation about it and come to an understanding never to speak of it again. “Of course, now my mother thinks the only use of the internet is to find out how I’m doing.” She googles my name all day long –”oh, Kumail, this new blogger just thinks you are hilarious.” At which point Ugarles turned to me and said “I’ll get you the correct spelling of his name.” And I laughed out loud. I’m such a hits whore. But mostly a comment whore, so please comment Kumail Nanjiani’s mom. Hi! Your son is hilarious. Here’s a myspace video of one of his sets that Fish sent me a couple of months ago, so you too can share in the hilarity that is Kumail. Kumail Stand-up at the Lincoln Lodge [...]