On the Downtown Train
Last night, after drinking one margarita that left me nice and loopy, I ran out of Two Boots at 7:30, possessed by the idea that I had to do something. Something for my comedy career, something for my brain, something to get me back into first class again. A friend said she had an audition for Montreal at Stand Up New York on 78th, so I ran up over and down to the subway, jumped on the 5 and rode it up to 86th Street and Lex. Maybe I could strike up a conversation with the booker. Flirt, charm, wow, entrance. Yes. I rand down Lex, so fast the pen popped out of my back pocket. My lucky pen. Stolen from the bartender. "Screw it, keep running!" I ran from 86th Street to 78th when I asked myself, "78th and what, Kara?" "Well, you know, 78th and…comedy club. You know, 78th and…and…upper wsst sd…" said the thirteen year old with ADD who lives in my brain most of the time. "UPPER WEST SIDE, dear. Upper West Side. You need to go to the other side of Manhattan" said the Olympia Dukakis part of my brain. I then ran west on 78th street, over to Park Avenue, trying to simultaneously "be in the now" and enjoy the buzz and not too aggressively remind myself that being late and messing up directions can cost us valuable opportunities. I walked quickly across Central Park, remembering that in Jodie Foster's next psychological thriller (does she do anything else?) she plays a New York talk show host who is brutally attacked in Central Park. I'm still not sure where "walking through Central Park at night, alone and female" sits on the stupidity index, but I have a feeling it's up there. But there's something about running past the old oaks and under the glow of pink lights from the midtown skyscrapers that I can't resist. I finally got to 78th and Broadway, home of Stand-up NY, where the show had only recently started. Comedy clubs must post ads asking for "Big friendly black man to host comedy show. Must act "black" and not be especially funny." I'm sorry. I know I'm a type too. "Edgy, kinda cute comedian needed. Must be smart but not too smart. Must have one major physical flaw, eg big nose or teeth." As we all know, the bigger the flaw, the funnier you will be. No wait. I'm sorry. I mean the more I will like you. . Lucille Ball had a weird nose. Fine. Roseanne is big and squawky. Love it. But Sandra Bernhard, well, she's just a doll.
I'm sorry, but let me take a break to tell you all just how much I love Sandy B, as I lovingly call her.
Here is a list of things Sandy B will do:
- adopt a non-foreign baby.
- Give Rupaul a much-needed manicure on his show
- Go to the Bodhi tree bookstore (hello episode three of TKBS reference! I'm totally doing cross platform plugging, which hellooo, is so Sandy.)
- Wear a shitty Abercrombie and Fitch outfit to her House of Blues show and charge me $60 for it
- Pose nude even though she's got a really weird bod
- Pose with Madonna in matching ripped jean outfits
- Make comedy albums that aren't funny and know it
Pose with a fan with an active pustule.
Here's a list of things Sandy B will not do:
- marry a man.
- Cry if she makes a mistake on the register
- Murder somebody
- Get busted for a DUI
- Use a racial slur in a genuine and non-funny way
See! Isn't she great!? Anyway, I love Sandy and all her flaws and her assets. Jeremy used to play her for me all the time when we grew up, creating my one pleasant memory from my childhood. At any rate, I think what I'm saying is: black men need to be more like Sandy. But I'm not getting racist here. I think we could all stand to be more Sandy. More sensual, more brave, more bold, more honest.
After the show ended I was no longer at all drunk but still needing to make something happen. I went up to the booker and asked him if he wanted my dvd. Maybe I was still drunk. He appeared disinterested, and maybe even disgusted. Who was I becoming? Who was this girl? This classless, desperate girl? This is a girl who has felt the warm wet towel of first class rubbed across her body and she won't rest until she feels that feel again. I asked him for his business card and said "Cool, I'll send you my stuff." He seemed utterly unamused. "He has no idea who just talked to him." I walked outside, where several comedians were pointing to a car that was on fire. Had I done this? Did my new personality spark this?
Everyone went separate directions after the show. As always, I walk away alone. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is in pairs, and I'm the girl walking down the street alone, staring into windows, staring into my reflection and wondering where things went so terribly wrong. How is that something is broken so badly in me but not broken inside other people? I was staring into a high-end card shop called La Brea, looking at their beautiful porcelain doggy dishes and irreverent 1950s postcards, thinking about the healthy and whole people who need to buy such things. I shoved my hands into my pockets. I felt something squishy in my right pocket. They were the earplugs from my flight from LA to NY. I pressed them between my fingers and smiled. I may not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but I have someone better than that. I have a best friend, a constant companion who has accompanied me on all my travels. On all of my journeys, she has been there, providing her lively commentary through the backroads of Cambodia and Thailand, the quiet, sad rooms of mental wards and the first class cabins of coast to coast flights.
I look at the sign. "La Brea." I walk in. Anything to be closer to California, but California isn't inside this store. California is inside my magazines at home. (The Hollywood Reporter. The Variety they handed out on the plane, as if this was a necessity, like beverages and earplugs.) California is inside Jeremy's apartment on Barnam Blvd. It's inside his car, where we laughed and talked, but mostly talked. California is inside my mind and I can't get it out. I want to be with it still. I want to carry parts of it around with me. I walk to a newstand. New York, US Weekly, In Touch, The Post. No Variety, no THR.
I get on the subway to go home, so I can be with California at home. At the Union Square subway station I look at their magazines. New York, US Weekly, The Post. I see a wrinkled copy of the Mark Walberg Premiere. Fine. I buy it, along with a Snickers Dark. The magazine is $4.50 and I have to dig for dimes in my bag in order to buy it.
I start reading the magazine as I walk. It's nowhere near as detailed as Variety or THR and it pisses me off. It's written for mainstream America, not for studio execs.
I walk through the tunnel leading to the L. There is a woman standing by herself in the middle of the tunnel. She has dirty blond feathered hair and the terrible skin of an acne patient who smokes two packs a day. She is wearing a lavender ribbed knit turleneck like you would find in the clearance section of TJ Maxx. She is belting out, at the top of her greying lungs, these well known lyrics:
.
-- never found anyone who fulfilled my neeeed
A lonely place to be and so I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
I feel moved to drop my Premiere, and my choclate bar, and walk towards her and look into her eyes, and join her.
"If I fail., if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe"
No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity
The few passersby have stopped to watch.
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all inside of me
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve"
A crowd of thirty has gathered, and all, even the most hardened Brooklynite is moved to applause and tears.
Unfortunately, I can't sing and so this didn't happen. It did make me realize something though. I am in New York now. And I need to be here now. And for this, I am so very, very glad.
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