4. How To Be A Person: The Mildly Interested Stranger
The Newsletter for Sunday December 3rd, 2023.
Gerry and I went for Korean on Wednesday. We ordered a beef dinner for four instead for some reason. The appetizer was thin slices of beef cooked on our table. All the smoke blew into Gerry’s eyes. Then there were mushrooms — the only vegetable I saw all night except for the kimchi. Which was delicious.
Gerry’s dog had just died. Or Ger had just put her down. We cheers Poppy. I’m not really a dog person. Not a cat person either although I have one on the premises now. I can finally understand we have an infinite amount of love to give and we must get it out. And that why we succumb to such lapses in judgement.
Toxoplasmosis is a real thing. I love my cat in spite of her personality, her girth, her loudness, how entitled she is and the shedding not to mention the hunting of rabbits and red cardinals and mice and rats and baby squirrels. On paper a pet feels like such a good idea. But paper has little to do with reality.
“Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I'll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
After eleven courses of cow of various formats they bring us a ribeye for dessert. We then rolled ourselves down Bloor to the Comedy Bar where we saw eight hapless young people stand up on stage and tell nary a joke. Some would yell at the audience, some would belittle, one begged us to love her. All were dressed as if they just fell off a couch in a dorm room.
Comedy is hard. Half the time I couldn’t look. Why do we do it to ourselves? My mother asked me that once in 1998 when I was having a panic attack over a one-man show I was performing. Why do you do it, Jacey? And I said, I don’t know. But I can’t stop.
Performers are compelled. We do it because it’s in us in the beginning and for some it never leaves. We do it because connecting in the real world is much harder. At a party where you don’t know anyone there is no separation like there is on a stage. You’ve got a mic that makes you louder and a light that makes you brighter. The audience knows they are supposed to sit in the dark unnoticed. The performer stands up high, in the light, safe from those below.
The last time I did stand-up comedy was November of 2013. I had two children under the age of three. I just couldn’t stay up late anymore. And I didn’t love heading downtown to do five to seven, fair-to-middling minutes in front of 12-15 mildly interested strangers.
The last time I did stand-up the man that went up after me was named Andre. He was about three feet tall. He approached the green room of the Rivoli on Queen in a mobility scooter, parked it at the stairs leading up to the back of the stage, threw his tiny crutches up on the landing and then heaved himself up. Grabbing his crutches he places them under each arm and walks out towards the crowd when introduced. Then he would lean his crutches against the chair, heave himself up and take the mic.
I watched him that night in November of 2013. Normally I would rush home in an attempt to get as much sleep before the onslaught of whelping young children began again at five or six o’clock in the morning. Comedy is hard for me. But Andre was an expert at suffering. Comedy wasn’t hard for him. Slinging jokes was the least of his concerns.
Since that night at the Comedy Bar with Gerry I’ve been writing jokes. And they are terrible. I know deep down I am a fan of stand-up more than I am a practitioner. But whatever I do or don’t do “easy” is not a deciding factor. It used to be when I was younger.
My children are still at that age of thinking Well, if it’s hard I don’t want to do it. I tell them ease or difficulty is not necessarily a part of the equation. Being an adult means you have to do a lot of things that turn your stomach.
The beef and the booze hit at about 3AM. I look out the window at a large moon above the high-rise in the backyard. Someone else’s light is on. Then nothing happens. How am I supposed to go back to sleep? I re-listen to a podcast on the birth of Costco. It’s surprisingly interesting.
Andre died in 2017 of a lifelong struggle with Morquio Syndrome but before that he died a 1000 times on stage in front of a bunch of mildly interested strangers. If only we treated each other with the compassion we do our pets.
Long live Poppy. Long live Andre.
The cat … we’ll see if she gets such a send off. Or maybe she’ll end up at a Korean restaurant.
She’s as big as a cow.