Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Excuse me sir, your balls are showing. Bumble bee tuna.

I’m going to tell you something that is very hypocritical about myself…

I’m very often the loudest person in a room. Especially if I’ve been drinking. Getting a “Shhh” from someone, is not out of the ordinary and neither is people cowering in corners and scrambling for the nearest set of noise-canceling headphones. But I do this in confined spaces with people I know well. I have a little crew that has monthly dinner parties and after each and every one of them I think “Why was I yelling the whole night? I have got to control myself”. But I never do.

Anyway, the reason this is strange for me is because, in public, if someone I’m with is loud or causes a scene I get extremely embarrassed and usually tell them to shut the fuck up and get super annoyed with them. At Madonna Yoga on Friday night (It was a night of normal yoga but instead of the soothing sounds of Enya it was all Madonna songs… It was… AWESOME). Two of my friends were talking to each other, before class started, at normal volume.

I know this is weird for someone who typically talks at ear piercing decibels, but when I’m in public, if someone I know is talking loud I alert them to this almost immediately (or get really awkward and whisper in response to them while my eyes dart around the room to see who's staring at us until they catch on). There are certain social norms I am annoyingly adamant about upholding. And one of them is loudness when sober in public arenas.



I leaned over to my friends at yoga and said “You are talking way too loudly for a yoga studio”. Usually I would have been ignored but luckily my roommate was there too and agreed with me. So they quieted down and I was happy. The rules of whispered speaking also apply for trains and nail salons. Those are two places that, if I pick up my phone, I will whisper and get off the phone ASAP instead of chit chatting like a total inconsiderate jack ass. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Ok, so the point of that really long intro was to explain what happened to me last night. This is something that if I was sober and if it was one of my really good friends doing the "inappropriate act", I would have been seriously pissed and embarrassed. But because I was drunk I was hysterically laughing about this for a good half an hour straight, all the way from the comedy club, to the pizza place, to my bed.

Last night I went to a taping of Last Comic Standing with my friend Liz and three of her friends. We went because her boyfriend works in production for the show and is here from LA to shoot a 2-night showcase, technically the “quarter finals” of the competition at Gotham Comedy Club.



Don’t ask me how I don’t have a job in TV or Comedy with SWEET ASS connections like this. Whatever. I’m over it (I’m not). I also felt like a total bad ass because I had seen 4 of the 33 comics that performed before from my dabbling in the New York stand-up scene. So I kind of felt like I owned the place. No big deal.

Anyway, the staff and crew were really into telling us that we weren’t allowed to look at our cell phones the entire time and that we had to put them on silent and not even vibrate and they weren’t allowed to be on the table. I was fine with that. A break from looking at my Blackberry is really refreshing, and it usually only ever happens if I’m being forced for some reason.

So the show was nearing an end. We’d sat through 33 comics each doing 3 minute sets. We had been through 3 bottles of pinot grigio (and I had been through 2 glasses of ice, cause I take my white wine on the rocks, thank you very much). We had kind of weathered a storm together and it was finally starting to wind down. But what I did not see was that Liz was texting her boyfriend from inside her purse. I’m usually pretty good at noticing when people are looking at or checking their phones. And I really didn’t see her doing it at all.

Which is why I was totally confused when a man in a suit and tie who obviously worked for the comedy club came over to her and whispered something in her ear. I had no idea what he said. When he walked away we asked her what happened and she was like “That dick just told me if I didn’t stop texting he was going to throw me out”. And I was like, Whaaaaaaaaaat!? How am I totally oblivious to this going on!?

The thing is, if you're asking someone to stop something for the first time, just be nice about it and threaten them the second time. Also, it was ridiculous because the girl at the table next to us had her cell phone ring twice throughout the night. So whatever.

So a few minutes later I was leaning across the table asking her what exactly she was doing and she demonstrated the inside-the-purse text, a move I had also done a couple times that night and probably millions of times in my life.

But what we did not bank on was the same man, from across the room, spotting her doing it and yelling at her “WHAT DID I TELL YOU!?” and then Liz screaming back “THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS. I WASN’T EVEN DOING ANYTHING” and pulling a ziplock baggie of advil out of her bag immediately to demonstrate that she did not have her phone in her hand (which I’m pretty sure she did).

What happened next is kind of blurry because I was drunk, confused and laughing hysterically. But it was pretty much Liz yelling, “YOU KNOW WHAT? I’M OUT OF HERE. FUCK THIS. THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS.” And as she angrily grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair it slammed to the ground and she stormed out.

It. Was. Incredible. After my laughing subsided I realized how annoyed I would be if this was going on and I was sober. I would have been hideously embarrassed. My face would turn bright red and I’d probably scold my friend afterward. But this was just so great. I think I thanked her 20 times for making my night. So that… that was my manic Monday. Two thumbs up.

Other things I learned last night: Natasha Leggero doesn't eat food and is possibly 5 feet tall (but I still love her) and Greg Giraldo is really really attractive.



1 comment:

erl said...

im still trying to figure out how i can get that dickhead fired. mark my words- i will make it happen.