Yes, that I could definitely do.
I had also developed a pen-pal relationship with a young Kyle Kinane after joining a Yahoo! group dedicated to Chicago comedians. Kyle and I would email back and forth nearly every day for months (subject lines: “glad to hear you’re not reproducing,” “thursday morning coming down,” and “am I retarded?”), and he gave me something I wasn’t receiving from my ex-husband. Encouragement.
His lowercase stream-of-consciousness notes about the jokes I posted online and the status of his own life were like manna from heaven: “your blog is getting quite heelarious lately. well done. i’ve made a pact with myself that i’m not shaving until i’m not ashamed of myself anymore. last monday i got a citation for trying to sneak onto the train without having a ticket. this will be an amazing beard.”
I try to summon up every tiny encouragement in my mind right now and cling to it like a life raft. But I haven’t performed-performed in weeks since joining the Post.
“Up next . . . Mandy!”
Electricity shoots through my body.
I strut to the front of the tiny bar and survey the room. I feel a sense of nonchalance and attitude. I am just the right amount of drunk. Whenever I’ve performed before, I always overthought everything. I talked and delivered lines as if I was doing material. This time I delivered the whole set without thinking.
“I opened a fortune cookie the other day. It said, ‘Give up.’ ”
Laughter.
“I was going to wash my hair with L’Oréal . . . but I realized I wasn’t worth it.”
More laughter.
“I’m writing a point-by-point response to He’s Just Not That into You. So far all I have is, ‘That’s not what he said last night . . . when he was inside me.’ ”
The bar goes wild.
“Holy shit, that was great,” Dr. Tom says, giving me a high five.
The booker comes up and gets my email. Maybe I’m not done performing quite yet.
I kiss Dr. Tom on the cheek, grab a cab home, and, before passing out, realize I need to work out all the nervous energy wracking my body. I do something I haven’t thought about in years. Pulling out my cell, I dial a number I still know by heart. A phone sex party line that is free for women in Chicago. I discovered it the summer I interned at the Village Voice in New York in 1996, when I needed someplace to engage with those demons that have plagued me since I was fifteen.
Using a fake identity to self-flagellate sexually was my way to wrestle with the darkness. All those feelings of badness.
I record my intro message as I play with myself on my awful air mattress, sliding off it and falling onto the floor. “Hi . . . this is . . . Crystal . . . and I’m feeling kind of drunk . . . and wondering if anyone wants to chat . . .”
Bing! Bing! Bing! Seven new requests to chat one-on-one.
“Hey, this is Bob, a fifty-six-year-old married man in Arkansas, have you been a bad girl?”
The pain inside me has found its flogger for the night.
“Yes,” I say. “I am bad.”
ON THE SUBWAY the next morning, severely hungover from not just the alcohol but also the steep cliff-drop from stand-up to degrading phone sex, I check my email and see one new message from the guy who ran the open mic. He is putting together a show and wants to know if I’ll be on the bill.
“Definitely,” I write back.
I can’t believe it. Just like that, in the span of one second, I have something to cling to: Hope. Excitement. A dream, even.
That day, at our Tuesday 11 a.m. pitch meeting I decide to suggest a story on the best comedy spots around the city—and I make up my mind to hyper-sell it.
Our pitch meetings are always a nerve-wracking process, with the possibility of having something shot down in a span of two seconds as seeming too weak, already done, unfocused, boring, or, in the most delicious smackdown of all (and a favorite of editor in chief Col Allan’s): “Great idea. Tell them to buy an ad.”
The ultimate symbol of approval from Steve, though, is “It’s a talker,” meaning, well, you know. People will talk.
One by one, every reporter sitting around the long conference room table takes turns pitching. Now it is mine.
I suggest a bunch of things scribbled in my notebook. “Haircut that changes your life?” Pass. “The reconciliation vacation—a last-ditch attempt to save a relationship.” Maybe—find a news peg. “Replacement hotties—the next generation of young Hollywood set to upstage their older sibling stars?” Hard pass. “The detox-retox diet—the way pretty much every New Yorker lives.” Approved. “The emerging ‘fempire’ of women in Hollywood?” Pass. (“All you have is the word ‘fempire.’ ”) “The blog girls primed for Hollywood, from Stephanie Klein to the Washingtonienne herself, Jessica Cutler.” More reporting—and we’ll see.
Then it came time for my big pitch—the only one that really mattered. “One more idea that I’m, uh, really excited about,” I begin. “So I think the New York comedy scene is really having a moment right now.”
Tip: If you are ever pitching a story to any publication on the planet, be sure to use the phrase “having a moment.” Anorexia? Having a moment. Morbid obesity? Having a moment. Moments? Having a moment.
I continue: “There’s a bunch of comics set to break out in a big way, like Aziz Ansari. Kristen Schaal. Nick Kroll. Baron Vaughn . . . I was thinking I could do a story roundup of where to check out tomorrow’s biggest stars . . .”
Steve pauses. He knows I did comedy back in Chicago. He knows comedy is my big love.
“I could see that . . . for a Saturday cover,” he says. “Talk to Katherine.”
And just like that, my life changes again.
I now have a reason to contact every single emerging comedian who is breaking out and also an excuse to discover the best underground clubs. The most helpful person in all this proves to be a young comic named Liam McEneaney, who knows every single person in the
