Good Girl Down My Throat!

There was a 12-month stretch in my life when I took my rejection up close and personal while writing and  performing stand-up comedy. It was a huge moment of pride for me when I wrapped up my emcee duties for a local T.G.I.Friday's comedy night and was promptly handed a check for my services. It didn't even matter that the amount was paltry; just the fact that I had been paid to be funny was enough for me. I'm not so sentimental that I didn't cash the check, however.

I liked stand up for the challenge it posed. You're standing in front of a room full of strangers sans props or podium or PowerPoint presentation with only your wits and words to rely on. That having been said, it's a high risk/high reward endeavor. Having a bit go over just the way you envisioned it would when you wrote it at the kitchen table is a huge high, but that can be more than counteracted by the reaction (or lack thereof) of people who, from all outward appearances, wish you dead.

No matter. When you're starting out, it's all about racking up experience. That's exactly what I attempted to do while on a business trip to Seattle with some people from work. We were attending a database marketing convention (yeah, they're as fun as they sound) and had a free night before it started, so I picked up a copy of Seattle's free weekly (the Emeraldian or something) and found a coffee shop that was hosting a poetry slam that very evening. Our plan was to hit the slam where I would do a ten-minute set before we went out on the town to drink ourselves silly. After I compiled my set list and ran the material once in my hotel, we all piled into a cab. After a brief ride, we found ourselves in a charming little Seattle suburb.

The coffee house was exactly what you'd expect a Seattle-area java hut to look what with its quirky decor, walls littered with works from local artists, and comfy if not clean sofas and upholstered love seats. Better, it was also brimming  with brooding poets right out of central casting. I located the organizer of the event and promptly secured my spot. I When I got up there, I did my usual set--to complete silence, save my four friends who were so enamored of the idea that their co-worker was in front of them, mic in hand, riffing, that they laughed at everything I said.

When I was finished, I flopped down next to my friends and grabbed the beer they had waiting for me. I took a long pull just as a young lady who would soon become inextricably linked  to our trip took her place in front of the crowd and let loose a vitriol-laced rant against her father that was so intense that we immediately became uncomfortable for both her and ourselves. The gist of her tirade was that her father was one of those never good enough control freaks. Evidently, this really did a number on her psyche. She punctuated every observation of mistreatment suffered at the hands of her dad with the phrase "Good girl down my throat!"

But she didn't just say this phrase, she bellowed it. And she yelled it twenty times if she did so once. In a matter of minutes, the slam had transitioned from my attempt to instill some comedy to a field trip through someone's tortured childhood. It became increasingly difficult to tell if this was a poetry slam or group therapy session. We all breathed a sigh of relief when, mercifully, her performance came to an end.

The rest of the night was a blur, perhaps because the poetry all started to blend together as our empty beer bottle count grew. When it was all over, we got up to leave just as a young, attractive girl approached me, intrigued look on her face. I fully anticipated a compliment for my bringing some levity to an otherwise snooze/rage fest or, at the very least, a question about how long I had been doing comedy, where I usually performed, etc. What was going to make it all the more sweet was it would take place in front of all my buddies who were looking on.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes." Big smile.

"What you were doing up there..."

I nodded, knowingly.

"...was that like comedy or something?"

My buddies howled, and I was too taking aback to say anything other than "Yeah, it was."

"Oh," she replied and walked away.

We all thought it was pretty funny that my comedic efforts were lost on Seattle's finest amateur poets, and I chalked it up to a pretty memorable creative rejection. Even better was the "good girl down my throat" takeaway line that we all started saying entirely too often during our trip whenever we wanted to bust each other up. But the best part was when we were walking through the convention center on our last day of meetings and passed by none other than the angry poet herself. The badge around her neck confirmed that she was attending the same database marketing conference as us. My guess is that at the next slam, they screened all the out of towners.

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[G Money]

When are you going to learn that you're funny, you're just not Cup o' Issaquah funny?