GenePool
Humor
See Austin and Die!
Part One
I think I'm going to have to move to Austin. First, I'm going to have to figure out a way to convince a slew of humorists to move there with me, and then get someone to fix the weather down there, but other than that, I'm ready to move. I might even bring my family along.
I came to this conclusion some time over the weekend-- I'm not sure when, as there was substantial drinking involved-- when I visited Austin for the first annual NetWits Convention. I honestly had some trepidation about the whole thing mainly because in general, humorists are crazy, and one would do well to avoid being trapped in a room with twenty of them. Also, given that Austin is inconveniently located in Texas, flying on a plane would be required at some point, and while I'm better about this than my mother, who considers air travel survival a fifty-fifty proposition, I still don't like it. Part of this had to do with the thoroughly mediocre film "Final Destination" which I stupidly elected to rent the week before my flight. The first twenty minutes of "Final Destination" includes some rather dramatic footage of a plane exploding in mid-air that will stick with me for the remainder of my life. This was but one of the many dumb things I did before the convention.
FRIDAY
8:00 A.M. I drop the kids off at school, after first saying heartfelt goodbyes to both of them that last approximately three seconds. Since I won't be home to pick them up this evening, and since Deb works late Fridays, my parents will be picking them both up at the end of the day and keeping them until at least Sunday. As far as Becky and Tim are concerned, they hope I go away more often in the future so they can go to Mamom and Papop's all the time.
9:30 A.M. I reach the airport. Since I didn't want to leave my car at the airport for two days and risk it getting towed (it looks like an abandoned car already) I use public transportation. This involves one trolley, three trains, and a shuttle bus. I immediately smoke the last cigarettes I expect to be able to have for six hours.
11:00 A.M. Here's how I know I'm not meant to have one of those jobs that requires me to fly all over the place all the time. On the little portable tunnel connecting the terminal to the actual airplane, I'm nearly overcome by a dizzy spell. Since I can't blame it on pressurized air, I can only conclude that I have begun to hyperventilate. As soon as I sit down I make a concerted effort to keep myself occupied and perhaps also breathe normally. I read the entire Boston Globe and then do the crossword puzzle. This takes all of fifteen minutes and the plane is still taxiing. I'm screwed.
3:35 P.M. We touch down in Atlanta, which is not Austin in most of your better atlases. I have to make a connecting flight here, but not for an hour. My primary concern on getting into the terminal is locating the gate my next flight leaves from. This turns out to be the next gate over. Right next to it? A smoking area. Things are looking up.
5:15 P.M. (Note: Until further notice, all times will be Austin time, also known as The Wrong Time By An Hour.) The Atlanta- Austin leg of my journey is delayed somewhat because it takes the pilot extra time to find all the air pockets, so I find myself about a half hour behind schedule in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport trying to find the complimentary hotel shuttles. Instinctively, I think of looking outside, because I'm smart like that.
Now, I have been to the South before. Many times, actually. (I have relatives in Louisiana.) One thing I expect to find, aside from gun racks, mosquitos and republicans, is hot weather. I even look forward to it, (the hot weather, I mean,) especially when the temperature in Boston is starting to plummet. And especially this year, when Summer in Boston never actually bothered to show up at all.
So I'm a little surprised when I walk out into the hot Texas evening to find that somebody had stolen the hot Texas evenings. I happen to be wearing a t-shirt and an open long-sleeve shirt that I brought with me as an afterthought in anticipation of a cool airplane. Not only do I not have a coat, I'm wearing the only article of clothing that could conceivably cover my arms.
This economy of packing is what enables me to travel with only one small carry-on bag, and it is this one small carry-on bag that convinces Julie J. that I couldn't possibly be a NetWit. (Julie's last name is either Joy or Jamison, depending on when you ask. Next month she's planning to add Juniper and Jumprope to the rotation.)
Julie is the first 'Wit I meet. We end up standing beside one another waiting for the same shuttle for fifteen minutes without saying a word. I'm pretty sure she's a NetWit, but she feels there's no way anyone carrying such a small bag could be in town for two full days. (She has fifteen bags being carried around by her part-time manservant, Raoul. After helping her to the hotel he takes the rest of the weekend off when his duties are picked up by NetWit Aaron Merriman.) Soon after we're loaded into the shuttle, a man who is deeply in love with his cell phone climbs aboard. Rob Hill has a Mariners problem. As a recovering Red Sox-ahaulic, I immediately recognize the symptoms and discuss possible intervention strategies with Julie. Rob does eventually hang up long enough to identify himself, and to ask the driver if he can pick up ESPN radio.
6:00 P.M. One of the strange things about attending a convention with people who I know but do not recognize, is that theoretically, everyone I meet in the hotel could be a NetWit. But I don't really want to walk up to every odd-looking person I see and ask, because for one, that could get me arrested, and for another, it's Texas, and everyone here is odd-looking. Nonetheless, at the hotel desk I end up behind someone I think MIGHT be a NetWit. She sees the three of us enter, turns around and whispers "NetWit?" This brazen soul is Valerie Sprague. The temptation to say "What the hell did you just say to me?" is great. I resist.
6:10 P.M. The lady at the hotel desk evidently enjoys playing with other peoples' neurotic hangups. My particular hangup is the conviction that when the guy I made this reservation with a month ago said "okay, your room is reserved" he was only kidding. After hearing my name she first asks me if there are any other names it could possibly be reserved under, and then when she gets a no, she fiddles with the computer for twenty or thirty seconds in what looks like baffled silence. In actuality, all she did was mis-spell the name the first time, realized her mistake, and then started entering information. But she didn't tell ME that, so I was busy trying to figure out if I knew any NetWit well enough to share a bed with them. (I spent the whole weekend wondering this anyhow. Everyone wave to my wife.)
6:15 P.M. After a quick visit to the room to change into a leather vest so everyone can pick on me about it for the remainder of the evening, I head to the bar, where I find tons of people who may or may not be actual NetWits. I just start introducing myself at random and see what happens, and end up meeting Robert Ferrell, Malcolm Fleshner, Lo Phat Ham (his given name is Gary,) Max Rizley, Sheila Moss and some guy named Mo, Susan Kawa, Larry Graves, Aaron Merriman, Whitney Ayres, Mike Jasper (who is insanely drunk) and some kid named Will (I think) who follows Jasper around all over the place because of some sort of ritual abuse I'm not clear on, Erin Mendell, who follows Jasper around all over the place because of... um, never mind, and the three sisters, Mary Ann Christie, Jacquie Gilmour and Elizabeth Turner. I immediately forget them all, which is okay because all I really want is a drink.
6:20 P.M. I have a drink, plop myself down at a table, and calculate the odds of my escaping this weekend intact. Hope in this regard arrives in the form of Denise Wahl and Kim Lane. I've known Denise longer than anyone else at this conference, and since she knows I have a wife and kids at home she may be able to help me survive.
I talk for a while with Kim about her recent audio appearance on NPR, all the while thinking to myself "hey, I'm talking to someone who's been on NPR!" Then I remember that Jasper has also been on NPR, and that just kills the whole thing.
6:25 P.M. I feel a strong gravitational pull toward the left end of the room, indicating that Ben Baker has arrived. Ben was admitted into the NetWits when it was discovered we had too few rednecks. Ben counts as several. I fortunately say none of this at the bar, because Ben is one of those people who just might have successfully managed to slip a gun onto his plane with him.
6:30 P.M. Mike Jasper graces me with his drunken presence. Jasper has been drinking Guinness pints since some time this afternoon. When I ask him how many he's had already he displays a total inability to count.
Jasper is also the emcee of tomorrow night's show. His first question to me is "are you REALLY going to do twenty minutes?"
Here's the thing: I've always wanted to try standup comedy. For the past year or two I've been trying to find the cojones to actually do a five minute set at an open mike night some time. So when Jasper was asking around to see who wanted to perform at the conference I thought "what the hell, how hard can five minutes be?" At around the same time Mike posted a comment to the effect that the sets would be ten minutes. So I tried to work on one ten minutes long. Soon I was up to seventeen minutes without pauses for laughter. Assuming I got laughter (a long shot) I was probably going to end up going about twenty minutes.
So I wrote to Jasper asking if twenty minutes was okay. He said sure, but I think the only reason he did was because he expected me to chicken out. (That, and I kept writing him saying how nervous I was.) Which is why he said "are you REALLY going to do twenty minutes?" Even drunk, he's still throwing me a rope.
6:35 P.M. Someone (I don't remember who) mentions that they don't have a NetWit t-shirt yet, so being the kind-hearted soul he is, Jasper takes his off and tosses it across the room. Since he is now naked from the waist up, and since they don't have deodorants yet in Texas, the shirt is thrown right back to him. There is much rejoicing.
6:40 P.M. I'm left alone at the table when certain NetWits who shall remain unnamed because I don't wish to be forced to testify against them leave the bar to do evil things to Keith MacDonald's room. Keith is the estimable founder of this odd collective, and he has not arrived yet. I do not know how they obtained keys to his room. I do not want to know.
6:45 P.M. On my third margarita, I don't really care that I'm alone at the table because the table is not currently on an airplane, and neither am I, and that's good enough for me. Nevertheless, I am almost immediately joined by a potential NetWit (I REALLY didn't pay attention to the introductions.) "I'm Adrienne Ferrell," she says. "That's spelled A-D-R-I-E-N-N-E." Adrienne is worse than a NetWit; she is the spouse of a NetWit (specifically, the spouse of Mike Jasper.) She is simply delightful company, which suggests that Austin has a flourishing drug trade. I make a note to look into this further.
7:15 P.M. We are hungry. Regrettably, Keith is not yet here.
7:30 P.M. Keith is still not here. We are now an angry and very hungry mob. We decide Keith can fend for himself.
7:45 P.M. As we start to file out of the hotel on our way to the many vehicles we have awaiting us outside, Keith and Julie (his girlfriend) walk in. We eat them.
8:10 P.M. Robert and Adrienne Ferrell own a van, and this van takes me and many other NetWits on a lightning tour of downtown Austin, where we are treated to such delightful local things as: speed bumps, dead-end warehouse lots, and bridges with large bat populations. Eventually we arrive at Guerro's, which, we are hoping, has speedy service, because we are VERY hungry.
8:15 P.M. Guerro's evidently doesn't take reservations, which was an honest misunderstanding on our part inspired mainly by the phone call we'd placed to them earlier making a reservation. We content ourselves with standing outside in the cool Texas evening and harrassing the other customers. At some point, chips and salsa are brought out. The salsa is hot enough to put hair on your chest, which then bursts into flames. This causes several minor injuries.
8:45 P.M. A kind stranger who may have be Julie J. gives me a praline. (I am delirious; I only hope it's really a praline.) Julie J. and other strangers who may have been Aaron and/or possibly Valerie had already eaten at a different restaurant altogether, and are now going to Lovejoy's, which is where Jasper is. A thoroughly logical explanation regarding why one would wish to visit Lovejoy's is not forthcoming. I let it go.
9:30 P.M. We get to eat!!!!!!!!! Ahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!! I get to sit next to Rob Hill, who keeps muttering something about the Mariners game, and Susan Kawa. Susan is one of those people who looks like she has not only never uttered a swear word in her life, she has also never heard a swear word and is unfamiliar with the bodily function such a word might describe. Then, of course, she opens her mouth. It's spooky. I think I'm in love. (Everyone wave to my wife again!)
I get a burrito that is nearly as large as the van I took to the restaurant but probably gets better gas mileage. Susan gets soup. I do not know what sort of person gets soup at a mexican restaurant, but evidently Susan is one of those people. She doesn't even know what kind of soup she's eating or what, exactly it contains. I ask her what the white creamy stuff on the top is, and she doesn't know. If I am ever to eat soup that has white stuff on the top, I'm damn well going to want to know what the white stuff is. I find this soup fascinating, and not just because I am on my fifth margarita.
At some point over the course of our dinner Joe Ditzel and his date join us. Joe is a professional comic who will undoubtedly be ten times better than I am tomorrow night. And his date is very cute. I hate Joe.
11:00 P.M. Back at the hotel again, I stop to pee on Jasper's truck (because it's there) and then wend my way to the bar looking for my sixth margarita and the pool table.
A pool table is a big plus for any bar, in my opinion. Nobody in Boston will play me any more. I extended a challenge before I left, saying that whoever beats me at pool can have me for the night. This is probably the real reason Malcolm and Aaron lose to me several times. Malcolm almost has me (as it were) in the first game, before I remind him of the challenge. He promptly sinks the eight ball prematurely.
1:00 P.M. After exhibiting my mastery of drunken pool and sexual intimidation, the bar closes down and I make my way to bed, leaving Julie J., Kim, Aaron, and Denise to, I'm assuming, find their own beds as well. What I don't realize is that Jasper (who is staying at the hotel despite being an Austin native) is having a mini party in his room. Had I known this I would have still gone to bed. They, however, find Jasper's room and lots of things happen that I am under penalty of law not to divulge.
© 2000, Gene Doucette