"WAKE YOUR NARCOLEPTIC ASS UP!"
JOURNAL 11
1. NARCOLEPTIC FAUVISM PART 1
It was just a regular, bum-ass, bad vibes, midweek open mic. The most ubiquitous part of being a fledgling comedian in the big city.
There was a dude in the front row wearing a suit.
He was locked in, smiling sprightly even when the comics on the stage were clowning him for nothing more than wearing a suit; he was so bushy-eyed & bright-tailed I thought he must be a newbie.
Though often the newer comics wear the most bitter and acrid faces. I was like that, starting out. I didn’t wanna think nobody was funny. I sat there, scowling and judging.
Now I am an easy, cheerful laugher. I sit close to the stage, locked in, being the change I want to see in the world, ghandily.
Even when I absolutely don’t wanna fucking be there, like I was feeling on this day, when sunshining life was happening outside without me.
But you gotta get your reps in, and I don’t get booked on enough shows to eschew the terrible mics.
Anyway, it’s the Suit Guy’s turn.
His first order of business: he walks over and fixes the stage curtain, bending over so that we can experience exactly how tight his pants are: you could nearly see his anus breaching. A comic in the audience makes a pants-ripping noise, it really looked like that shit was about to burst.
He gets to the mic.
He’s bug-eyed, mustached; a clear but submerged insanity burbling in his aspect.
He starts telling us that he’s from the Netherlands. He’s something of a professional comedian over there, he says, but he’s really bad at jokes, doesn’t know how to write any. But, he says, everyone in the Netherlands knows him, he’s actually so well known that he’s banned from doing comedy over there, so he’s trying his luck in the United States.
Why is he banned in an entire country?
Well, he has one single joke, and it just annoys everyone so badly.
Now, by this point, I was getting tense, because it was certain that whatever this one joke was, it was going to happen soon, and he was insisting both how annoying it would be, and also how much he loved us and was sorry.
I was completely locked in and nervous. His insanity was starting to burble up to the surface. The fact that he squeezed into a wet-suit-tight dress-suit made me think that he was liable to do anything.
I was half expecting him to pull a katana out of his ass and seppuku.
Finally he goes, “Ok. Here it is… Hey guys, so I have narcolepsia. Do you know what narcolepsia is? It’s when—” and he drops like an imploded building, right to the floor, asleep.
Now back when I was an avant-garde comedian, I had a narcolepsy joke.
I would suddenly fall asleep, snoring onto the microphone and then wake up in a huff and ask the crowd, “did I say anything?!” and they’d be like, No, and I would say, “thank God! …I just got diagnosed with racist narcolepsy.”
And then later on, I would fall asleep again and sleeptalk a racial slur within my purview such as, “dago” or “spic”.
2. AN INTERRUPTION: COME ON HAROLD, DON’T SAY SLURS!
Yes, you’re totally right.
I shouldn’t say spic because it’s a slur for a hispanic person, and because of the Hispanophone-Industrial-Complex, they invented an entire category to describe LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN LATIN AMERICA and left out the biggest, and the best: BRAZIL (ZIL, ZIL, ZIL).
Yes, brasileños son latinos, pero no son HISPANICS; for those of you filling out your race charts at home.
Yes, maybe it’s our Whitey overlords inventing these categories, making us beef.
But in the spirit of internecine squabblement, let’s say that I love all my Latino brothers & sisters, but no me gusta, los spics.
I’m off the hook for the above section because I let ChatGPT write it for me: and I disavow everything he said.
Anyway, dago is a very interesting term. It’s supposed to be a slur for an Italian person but of course they’ve been white for so long that it’s hard for us to remember their greasy, spaghetti-sauce covered past.
An Italian being denigrated racially is now nothing but a wet-dream plucked from the brain of an It’s-Actually-Called-Columbus-Day t-shirt wearing wop.
(Jesus, Harold, can you say that?)
People used to call me “dago” when I worked at Smokey’s in Steubenville.
As in, “get me a pack of Marlboros, you dago!”
Which I guess if I was really the most muliebrious priss in the tri-state area, I could take umbrage to, barking,
“Hey! My Nana was Eyetalian!”
Frankly, I thought it was hilarious.
But really, dago might be the most appropriate thing to call a white brasilian.
The term originates as a slur against the Portuguese, when they were dockworking in Spain and it seemed like all their names were “Diogo”, which said quickly in their stupid lusophonage could sound something like “dago”.
Further information can be found in my forthcoming book, THE UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF SLURS (NYRB 2027).
3. A FURTHER INTERRUPTION: THE HACK SALOON
On Thursday I actually performed labor for a portly, megalomaniacal dago out in Jersey City.
He owns a Saloon that runs comedy shows.
He had one show going on the bottom floor, and a smaller show going on the upstairs floor; delightfully, when there was a silent moment on the upstairs show, that crowd could hear the downstairs crowd having more fun than they were.
The owner’s interest in having these shows is that once all the comics have gone up, he can go on and do his only joke. Where he has a cigar in his mouth and he wears a wig and talks about how lovely his hair is, rapunzelly, and the wig falls off and he’s actually a bald asshole.
Two years ago, I participated in one of the worst shows of all time at this very Saloon.
The lineup was full of very strong comics, but the vibes in the room were all the way off. The host zeroed charmingly, and then the guy going bullet was this guy we call The Asker.
Because he’s always asking for things.
He wants you to be his bringer for this show, wants you to do this, that, he needs to talk to your agent, he needs to drive your car upstate, what you don’t have a car? could you buy a car for him?, etc., etc.
He found out I was on this show and he was like, How can I get on, it’s my birthday? So I gave him the producer’s number. The producer is a pushover: he gave him a spot.
The Asker brought his new fiance (“The Asker strikes again” was circulating many text threads when he posted the picture), set his camera up, and then proceeded to bomb so hard it was like somebody opened a window on an airplane: all the air was SUCKED right outta the room.
You don’t often see punchlines having a reverse effect; instead of laughing, people were gulping.
After that it was fucked.
The crowd was surly cause they were late getting the drinks they ordered, and the lighting was weird, and it just so happened that NOBODY got a laugh the whole night.
Back then, I was entering my avant-garde phase, so I was screaming at the crowd in a way that certainly appeased me.
Another comic on the lineup who hadn’t seen me in a while said, “so you’re screaming now?”
A coach from the gym and his girlfriend were at that show.
Believe you me, this coach ain’t a bullshitter. I was worried about what he was gonna say. The next day at work, I was like, “hey man, sorry the show was so awful.”
And he goes, “whatchu mean, man? It was good.”
Regular people’s experience of comedy shows is sometimes, to me, a mystery of almost theological thorniness.
This night, the crowd at the Saloon had a slightly better time, I would think.
I got up, did my ten minutes of what’s-the-deal-with-airplane-food? type fare, and then booked it the fuck outta there.
4. NARCOLEPTIC FAUVISM PART 2
So anyway, the Sleeping Dutchman is out like a corpse on stage.
His set is over and the host is like, “OK! THANK YOU!” and of course he doesn’t stir. I’m cracking the fuck up.
I say, “he’s not gonna get up. He told us this bit annoys everyone. He’s banned!”
The next comic comes to the stage and the Dutchman is moving so little that the comic actually checks his pulse. (Still alive.)
This comic is prodding him, saying he’s gonna do heinous things to him, absolutely no reaction.
I’m in awe. I take a picture and send it to Gaby saying I’ve never been so jealous of a bit in my life.
She said, “LOL jealous of a bit. that’s fucking funny unless he’s really UNWELL.”
The Dutchman’s bit was an adrenaline shot to the whole mic. I was actually glad I showed up (a rare feeling for these things!).
But the mood in the room started to turn.
People were legitimately pissed off, screaming, “WAKE YOUR NARCOLEPTIC ASS UP!”, shouting threats from the crowd.
I really didn’t understand what the big deal was. I think it would’ve made everything more fun if we had to work around the guy. I was already planning to go behind the curtain and narrate his sexy Dutch dreams.
Two comics finally decided they had enough.
They stormed the stage and tried to undress the guy. But his suit was so tight that his jacket wouldn’t even come off. It just ended up over his head. Of course, you won’t be surprised to learn, he didn’t fucking stir, AT ALL.
So one guy grabbed his feet, and the other guy grabbed his arms, and they carried him off the stage and set him down right next to it where he continued his slumber.
Most people cheered. I booed, hard.
Then a guy gets up on stage talking about how the Sleeping Dutchman is a disgrace to comedy. That everyone in the room is working so fucking hard to write their jokes and this guy is just shitting all over their effort.
That rankled me.
For one, if you happened to be an aurally-gifted, sentient, fly on the wall at the open mic, you’d be pretty surprised that “effort” and “joke writing” were in any way operative terms.
And two, I said when it was my turn to go on stage,
“Aren’t we supposed to be comedians? Isn’t comedy about breaking rules? There’s not even a rule that says you can’t lay on the stage and pretend you’re asleep. And you’re all pissed off at this guy? You guys are acting like the fucking Principal. This bit should be in the MOMA! This narc energy is fucking antithetical to comedy. This guy came in to test us with an amazing, if admittedly a little one note bit, and you guys fucking failed. Anyway, I have narcolepsia—”
And then I passed out on stage to wild applause.
Then the club manager called the police, and when the Sleeping Dutchman got wind that it was about to be an oinkfest, he popped up and ran out the door.
5. ART IS CATASTROPHE
Everyone wants to be a real artist until it’s time to get down to business.
Because being a real artist is a catastrophe.
If that Dutch freak was really doing that all over the Netherlands like he said (and I believe him), then he must’ve gotten pummeled, assaulted, violated in every which way.
You could tell just by how tightly his shoes were tied the kind of contingencies he was prepping for. He had physically suffered for this bit.
But very few people are willing to suffer like that for the integrity of their vision. I certainly wasn’t. I went back to my joke book and became a hack again.
I ain’t a Patriot to Heaven like the Sleeping Dutchman. I am a slave to kudos & laudation. Like you probably are too.
The heretic always thinks that the purity of the vision will speak for itself, garner admiration without requiring dilution.
It never happens like that. Seeing a human in pure communion with their God scares the living shit outta people, and it has since the beginning of time.
If you wanna find the real artist, I can assure you, you won’t find him where everybody is clapping.
Or, or, or…
He might’ve just been an idiot pretending to fall asleep.
6. A MULIEBRIOUS CODA
After that very male week, it was a delight to rompfully muliebriate with Gaby on Friday.
The mission was to go to this store filled with girlcrap made of beads.
We were knocked off course odysseanly, lured into an awful perfume shop,
(really, if Gaby was the Road Runner, and you were Wile E. Coyote, all you’d have to do is paint a perfume shop on the mountainside and she’d be roadkill),
where they sprayed us with so much dupe fragrance I’m still trying to scrub off the ersatz Giorgio Armani.
Then we went to a much lower-key perfume store where she would have me smell the exemplars and I would say, “ooo, wow.”
Then she was diverted by a store filled with girlcrap made of ceramics; where, also, sat candles that were doughnuts and vice versa.
That was a Cyclops moment for me; I said we gotta get the fuck back on course.
Finally we made it to the muliebrious girlcrap bead store where Gaby and the store clerks engaged in a dialogue of Finnegans Wake-level density, muliebritywise.
Then we got some flower-flavored ice cream.
Then we went back to her place to watch GIRLS.
She said, “what a great Friday!”
I love muliebrity.