GenePool
Humor
See Austin and Die!
Part Two
SATURDAY
9:00 A.M. There is absolutely no earthly reason for me to be fully conscious at this time. I sincerely do not wish to be conscious, and I am trying very hard to remedy that situation, but nothing seems to be working. Also, I'm hungry.
9:30 A.M. I meander down to the hotel restaurant. In order to accomplish this I first have to make a cup of coffee in my room using the complimentary Folgers coffee and complimentary coffee maker in the complimentary cup with the seriously inadequate quantity of complimentary creamers and sugar. One cup has me awake enough to dress myself and wander downstairs without accidentally plummeting down an elevator shaft or impaling myself on the complimentary standing ashtray in the hall. But that's about it.
At the breakfast table I find Keith holding court with Girlfriend Julie (her full name is "Keith's Girlfriend Julie" but I've abbreviated it here for the sake of brevity, which makes this whole parenthetical remark sort of stupid, but there you go,) as well as Sheila and Mo (his full name is Hey Mo) and two out of three of the recommended daily allowance of Canadian sisters. Keith seems somewhat surly. He accuses me of having been in Jasper's room the night before and comments in a vaguely disapproving tone that the party went on until four in the morning there. Having encountered this side of Keith before (call him at 11:00 P.M. some time at home) I keep quiet and make sure his hand stays away from the sharp objects on the table.
9:45 A.M. Julie J. joins us and confirms A: the party did run that late, B: Aaron is a very sound sleeper, C: she and Val had hot lesbian sex. Or something like that. I'm not terribly awake.
10:00 A.M. I walk outside and discover it is two degrees out, plus wind chill, which is only pleasant if you like your nipples hard. I immediately flee to my room and get my one piece of warm clothing; the shirt I wore on the plane.
Going back down, I am forced to share the elevator with teenagers. I THINK they're teenagers, but it's getting more and more difficult for me to distinguish between teens and people in their twenties nowadays. Contributing to my general confusion is that one of them is drinking from a bottle of beer, and another is sucking on a pacifier. Yes, really.
10:15 A.M. It's about time to start getting together for the Duck Tour.
I had no intention whatsoever of going on the Duck Tour. This is something that we here in Boston call "really gay," and I generally try to avoid such things whenever possible. However, just before going to bed, Denise asked me if I was going, and when I said no, she cuffed me in the ear and said "you are going to BE down here for the Duck Tour, young man!" Denise can be sort of frightening, in a vaguely maternal way.
So rather than doing the intelligent thing and staying in my warm bed in my warm room, I instead sit myself down in the lobby, sip my coffee, and wait for the Duck Tour bus to arrive.
10:20 A.M. I am spotted by Denise, shivering and looking reasonably pitiful. The charitable thing for her to do would be to send me to my room. Instead, she loans me a jacket and tells me to sit up straight, mister.
10:40 A.M. Some fool has handed out little plastic ducks holding bubble mixture. Malcolm sits beside me and starts blowing bubbles everywhere. Malcolm should not be allowed near bubbles in the future. I try to kill him, but the best I can do is make my left arm twitch slightly.
10:50 A.M. The tour bus was supposed to have arrived by 10:30, but it is not yet here. Denise has called them twice, and they promised they would be right over and that they will try to keep their bedrooms clean from now on. I'm privately hoping some sort of Duck Tour bus-related accident has taken place (a collision with a randy mallard pickup truck would do nicely) and resulted in cancellation so that I can go back to my room again.
11:00 A.M. The damn bus arrives.
For those of you unfamiliar with what a Duck Tour is, it is not a tour to go see ducks. A Duck Tour is a perfectly normal tour in most respects except A: normal buses tend to be completely enclosed, which is remarkably useful when you wish to keep cold weather away from you, and B: Duck Tour buses actually go into water, intentionally, and (we hope) do not sink. This phenomenon began a few years ago in Boston and has since spread, much like a viral infection, across the country.
We all pile aboard, duly noting that the temperature has dropped to minus seven degrees.
11:30 A.M. After a short, brisk trip to the Visitor Center, (which is where the bus roosts,) Robert Ferrell asks the driver if it's possible to close the large plastic flaps on the side of the bus so as to convert the open-air bus into a somewhat enclosed one, as it is so cold all of our sexual organs have receded into our bodies. The driver looks at his suddenly androgynous passengers and says "okay, but it'll be hard to see." Evidently the driver is unaware that the flaps are made of clear plastic.
12:30 P.M. We get a very exciting tour of Austin in which we discover that we have no feeling left in our extremities. I spend the tour between Malcolm and Susan (who clearly is in love with me) and make incessant wisecracks that are working very well, as they are making the driver go faster just to get me the hell off his bus. The wind (the flaps don't exactly seal completely) keeps whipping Elizabeth Turner's hair into the side of my face. This is not how I envisioned having someone else's hair in my face on this trip. (Wave hi to my wife again, gang!)
The tour really is somewhat interesting. The streets of Austin are completely deserted because the most of residents here aren't foolish enough to brave the minus seventeen degree temperatures, and the ones that are get quacked mercilessly. (We have little quack whistles to terrorize the populace with.) We also get to see a large protest in front of the state house. Based on the signs, I don't think the protesters are very clear on exactly what they're protesting. It looks like here in Austin, people just put a lot of political hot-button words onto placards. Or, lots of people are upset about the apartheid Israeli pro-abortion anti-bush NAFTA advocates. Hard to say.
The highlight of our tour is when our bus becomes a boat. This involves locating a body of water that might be a lake, or might be a river. (I am no longer paying attention to the driver.) Now, when this sort of foolish behavior is done in Boston the tour goes into the Charles River, which happens to be a rather historic river, with lots of historic things to look at, in addition to very scenic toxic waste. In Austin, we get to see: houses, and a dock. I'll be recommending to the Austin City council that they try and do something historic near the water in the future to spice up this part of the tour.
Now, one thing we had been somewhat concerned with, especially since some of us are sitting at the front of the tour bus, was the possibility of getting wet. "I don't want to get wet today, so you're not getting wet today," the driver had said. For some reason-- possibly the constant heckling Malcolm and I have been administering ad nauseum-- when we get to the lake the driver forgets that he doesn't want to get wet, and guns the engines on his way off the dock. We actually see the windshield go completely under water.
A large wave comes crashing through the driver's open window, a wave that threatens to take us all out. It is only the quick action of Elizabeth Turner and her hair that saves us. Her heroic decision to throw herself in front of the wave will long be remembered, and I for one hope she recovers soon from the pneumonia.
1:00 P.M. We can't even go back to the hotel yet. First we have to stop again at the Visitor Center and pay for the tour we've already taken. As one, we decide paying for the tour would be the honorable thing to do because first, it's not entirely the driver's fault that it's minus twenty-nine degrees out, and second, it's too far to walk back to the hotel.
1:30 P.M. I reach the hotel lobby and find myself torn. On the one hand, I'm hungry. On the other hand, I'm cold and in dire need of a nap. I decide to skip lunch altogether, because I can eat at dinner and I'll probably be more interesting on-stage if I don't doze off in the middle of the monologue.
4:30 P.M. I actually manage to sleep despite the lack of a mini bar in my room. My wife calls and is no doubt pleasantly surprised that I am there to answer the phone. And that I'm alone.
5:15 P.M. I run the monologue, alone, in my room. I'd been working on it for over a month now, but this is the first time without the helpful commentary of my dog. It sucks. I'm going to bomb. Secure in this knowledge, I head down to the bar.
5:30 P.M. It suddenly occurs to me that when I'm home I drink approximately seven cups of coffee a day. Having had only three, it's a miracle I even have a pulse. A kindly restaurant maitre'd fetches me another cup and doesn't even charge me for it. I slip him my room key for later.
5:45 P.M. I meet up with Denise and Rob Hill in the bar. Rob and I have a lengthy conversation in which he recounts the sad tale of the pair of pants he is currently wearing. He had to walk to downtown Austin in shorts in the minus sixty-seven degree weather in order to buy the pair. There's more details, but I'm not listening too carefully because I'm worried about my monologue. Rob doesn't notice because he has one eye on the baseball game on the corner T.V. Denise, meanwhile, confuses Rob with Joe Ditzel.
Being somewhat intuitive, Denise notices I seem a tiny bit jumpy. My chewing on my Styrofoam coffee cup is probably what tips her off. "Don't worry," she says, "you'll do fine. Now sit up straight."
6:15 P.M. I head over to the banquet hall to snag some free alcohol before the open bar ends. The bartender is very nice, and extremely attractive, but she's not all that efficient. But that's okay, because she's still very nice and extremely attractive. I can wait ten minutes for a margarita. "Don't worry," she says as she hands me the drink, "you'll do fine."
6:25 P.M. There is no smoking in the banquet hall, so I'm glad I elected not to incorporate a cigarette into my routine. (Yes, I even rehearsed stage business.) The nearest smoking area is the emergency exit in the hallway. Someone wisely propped the door open with a free-standing ashtray, but it's still minus eighty-two degrees outside. While I'm out there developing severe frostbite, I have a chance to talk with Ben Baker, who bums a cigarette and points out that it's the first one he's smoked in seven years. I don't believe him; he said the same thing to me when he bummed one the night before. "Don't worry," Ben says, "you'll do fine."
6:35 P.M. to 7:10 P.M. I have approximately seventeen cigarettes. Julie J., Aaron, and Valerie all inform me that I'll do fine. Erin Mendell meanwhile proves once again why we, as a group, need to continue to provide young writers with the opportunity to join our group, learn from us, and provide us with valuable information, such as why any person above the age of two would suck a pacifier in an elevator at nine in the morning. Evidently, this is what one does after one has spent an evening taking E. (No, not the cable channel E!, although I personally feel like sucking a pacifier myself after watching it. E is the synthetic drug Ecstasy, and if you didn't know that already you're even more out of touch than I am.) Teeth-grinding is a common side effect, it seems. Based on the apparel of choice of the pacifier-sucking youth, gigantic pants and unlaced shoes are other side effects.
7:15 P.M. In the food line, I run across Mike Jasper. This is fortunate for both of us. I need to know when I'm going to be going onstage, and he needs my help to reach the food, because he can barely see over the table. I'm going first (i.e., after Jasper's introduction and Keith's toast.) Even though this means Mike fully expects me to suck-- let's get the scary acts out of the way first-- I don't mind because I will be able to drink heavily fairly early in the evening. "Don't worry," he says, "are you really doing twenty minutes?"
7:20 P.M. We eat. I am starting to feel better about my chances, in large part because I'm sitting between Lo Phat Ham and Valerie. Lo Phat is mostly silent; evidently he forgot he ever volunteered to perform and is frantically scribbling a poem which will hopefully, A: rhyme every now and then, B: incorporate all the NetWits in attendance, and C: be funny. Val and I take turns telling each other not to worry; we'll be fine. She is also scheduled to perform some standup this evening, but while I have nothing to do but freak every few minutes, she is too busy writing her routine on a scrap of paper to do the same.
7:45 P.M. Ten more cigarettes. Whitney Ayres hands me a Crikey Kid Snoop t-shirt and says "don't worry, you'll be fine. Who are you again?"
8:00 P.M. Mike Jasper sets the festivities off in grand style by assaulting an unseen midget and insulting Keith MacDonald repeatedly. He turns the microphone to Whitney Ayres to discuss how one goes from electronic media to print successfully. Whitney offers a remarkable number of insights that last almost two full sentences. Then Keith gets up and delivers an impromptu speech saying how much he loves all of us. It's actually sort of sad. Denise Wahl stands and delivers a speech as well, saying how happy she is that everything is going so well, and that we'd better remember to brush our teeth before bedtime. Ben delivers a short speech too, but by now I'm in full-frontal panic mode, so I'm not listening to any of this. I'm next.
8:20 P.M. No, I'm not. Jasper decides to warm up the crowd with a couple of tunes, with the help of his musician/friend/bass player whose name there is no way in hell I can remember at this particular time. I take this opportunity to have six more cigarettes outside. The songs sound great from there.
8:35 P.M. It is time.
If you have ever wondered what goes through the mind of a comedian, here is a rough transcript of my thoughts as I stand onstage:
"OMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
(Repeat)
I must stress that at no time did I let these thoughts actually escape my lips. What came out instead is the routine I'd practiced for over a month. The reason I practiced it that long is so that no matter what went on in my head, the right words would still come out.
And for the most part, they do. I get laughs in places I simply do not expect to, and none in at least one place where I do expect to. I do not wet myself, although I had gone out of my way to wear dark clothing to prepare for this eventuality.
I do get booed once. Here's a good thing to remember, if you ever plan to try this for yourself: don't tell the audience you think they're ugly. I actually end up forgetting the next part of my routine when this happens, even though I sort of expected to get booed. I have to pause for a good five seconds before I remember what to say.
The one thing I never figured out how to do, when rehearsing, was come up with a killer exit joke. This is all the dog's fault, for not offering me better feedback. So when I get to the end and can think of no way to say "that's it," except to actually say "that's it" which isn't very funny. Jasper rescues me shortly after I add "Jasper, get this mike the hell out of my hand."
I'll be completely honest. Stepping off the stage, I really have no idea how well I've done, up until I see the completely stunned look on Jasper's face. And then Denise gets up and informs the crowd, just in case they didn't know this already, that "this is the first time Gene's ever done standup." The audience manages to look genuinely surprised. Me, I just need a drink. Desperately. So desperately, in fact, that I walk directly to the bar from the stage.
9:00 P.M.- Midnight Things get a bit fuzzy. I've just gotten a month-old monkey off my back, and by god, there is drinking to be done tonight. And many more performances.
Julie J.-- Borrowing a theme from her day job of teaching small children, Julie makes us all wear underwear on our heads. It is, fortunately, clean underwear. While we're doing this, she reads one of her columns-- with great difficulty given the lighting onstage-- and every time the word "panties" comes up in the column (which it does a lot) we have to put the underwear on someone else at the table. We are almost drunk enough to do this.
Rob Hill-- Rob sombers up the crowd by playing acoustic guitar and singing, which we all find massively depressing because he is so much more talented than we are.
Lo Phat Ham-- Until this moment, I didn't think it was possible to hit on an entire roomful of women at the same time. I sincerely hope Lo ends up getting some company later in the evening, because I like to think this scattergun approach could work. Later in the evening one of the women (which one I don't know) tells him if not for his beard he might get lucky. So he leaves the hall and returns ten minutes later clean-shaven. When you gotta have it...
Valerie Sprague-- Valerie thinks she did terribly, (she didn't) but as Val herself pointed out, she has the deck stacked againster her as a female comic because she is not a lesbian. But I understand she is willing to learn.
R. G. Ferrell-- I don't know how we ended up letting someone from the SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism) into the NetWits. I'm guessing Robert didn't list it in his application. What, you might ask, does an SCA member do when confronted with a microphone and a request to entertain? Viking poetry, of course. Yes I'm serious. Viking poetry is actually very amusing, and it also sheds some light on why you don't really see any vikings any more.
Larry Graves-- To fully appreciate the sheer majesty of Larry's performance, you have to understand one thing. Since we all assembled 24 hours earlier, Larry was reported to have uttered exactly five words total. (Those words were "you're standing on my foot.") This came as something of a shock, because online, he is rather vocal, in an inscrutable sort of way. So he gets up onstage, and proceeds to read what I can only generously call poetry. With his pants around his ankles. Of the many questions I had before the convention, "is Larry Graves a boxers or briefs guy" was not one of them. (It's boxers, by the way, thank god.) I simply cannot adequately describe how funny it is to watch a man in Scooby-Doo boxers tease his own nipples. Then for good measure, he and Jasper break into an impromptu rendition of Stairway to Heaven.
Joe Ditzel-- If there is anything like a polar opposite to the type of performance I gave, it's Joe's. (Five or six people have already told me by now that they loved my "deadpan" delivery. I didn't know it was deadpan; I was just too scared to modulate my voice.) Joe is brilliantly frenetic onstage-- actually, in front of the stage, which is too small to contain him. I get tired just watching him. He is, of course, funny.
The evening is rounded out by encore performances from Jasper, that guy on bass whose name I suddenly remember (Russ) and Keith MacDonald on guitar. Rob Hill joins in for a while, just in case we all forgot how talented he is.
12:15 A.M. We adjourn to the bar. This would be a splendid place to spend the next few hours, which I cannot do because of Priceline.com. In order to afford this trip in the first place I had to buy my airplane tickets through them. They don't let you pick the departure times. My plane leaves at 6:00 A.M.
1:00 A.M. Having drunk just about all I can, I say my goodbyes, head to my room, and thoroughly fail at getting more than an hour of sleep.
My journey home was fairly uneventful, in large part because I wasn't awake for it. Just about the only good thing about catching a 5:00 A.M. airport shuttle was that I knew there was no way I was going to miss my flight; the pilot was sitting next to me.
On the whole, the NetWits first annual convention was one of the most entertaining weekends I've ever experienced. Not to get all weepy, but I don't think I've ever felt more at home with a large group of people, including family reunions.
So where's next year's convention gonna be?
© 2000, Gene Doucette