Being your own Lloyd Dobler
Joshua Manly will be chronicling his life as a comedian in Los Angeles as a guest contributor for butr.net. He has written for several online publications and can be seen at the Ice House Annex May 2nd.
Becoming a comic in Los Angeles is a lot like asking a girl that you know is way hotter than you are on a first date. You have heard around that she may be interested in you but from the elusive way she ignores you in the hall you are not sure.
I mean you are funny around your friends and have had a couple of good back and forths in the lunch line but you are still uncertain as to why you are purposely putting your ego on the line like a white shirt in the middle of summer.
First you walk up to her; your legs are much like the legs of a young deer when it first learns to walk (had the deer also created fire and the wheel and was really in to the Lakers). Then you open your mouth and say one quiet prayer to whatever you believe in; God, Allah, Tommy Lasorda. Please oh great one just let me say something cool; I don’t even care if I remember it.
You speak and she laughs and you are relieved and you keep speaking and she continues to laugh. Things are going great! You are on top of the world. Screw you Indiana Jones, up yours Han Solo, take this John Travolta in everything before 1980. This is my moment and I have more swagger than all of you combined and I could still blow up both death stars!
You falter, you make a bad joke; she sees someone she is interested in over your shoulder. All the sudden your brain spins out of control and the jokes that were once hilarious suddenly lay dead around you like a Quentin Tarantino film. It’s a joke massacre worse than anyone has ever seen. A reporter should be showing up any moment to report on the news at 11 that you are personally and professionally screwing yourself.
She turns back and everything is great. The dead jokes get up and do a little dance like the Thriller video. You decide its time to go for broke, shoot the torpedoes and see if they hit the exhaust port that is only 2 meters wide. Who cares you used to hit swamp rats like that at home remember?
The conversation is over. She either said yes and you are walking away with the secure knowledge that you are in fact the coolest person in the entire world. You could talk to President Obama himself and health care would seem like a trivial manner fit between talking about Carolina basketball and the kids in school.
Who cares if it was your friends around that made it possible, that walked everyone away that could have interrupted you and laughed at some of the dead jokes to make them seem missed. Who cares if it was because she was a little drunk at a party. The digits are still in your hand for a little while and you have a second shot at fucking yourself over the next time up.
This is what being a comic is like in LA except that everyone else wants to ask her out too and you have to admit that there are some funnier people out there, there are people that are not only funnier but better looking to boot. You hate them and secretly love them. Welcome to the city of angels; avoid the clouds and try to hit the gates as often as possible.
Filed under: Culture, Featured
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