My heart sinks. I feel so stupid. Only I could be in the paper naked and look like shit. So much for the piece-of-ass trajectory.
PERFORMING STAND-UP IS never something I plan to do in New York, but that one drunken night out with Dr. Tom changes all that. When I am booked to do a show at a gay Thai restaurant in the Meatpacking District, I nervously prepare as best as I can, trying to build up the fake confidence that a real performer gains naturally by going up at clubs five nights a week.
Inside the venue a few minutes before showtime, I walk up to a young man whom I ask, “Hey, are you on the show tonight, too?”
He is.
“I work at the Post,” I say, chatting him up nervously.
“Okay,” he says.
Then, all of a sudden, he turns to me in the middle of my wandering spiel. His face pinches up. He asks, with disgust and disbelief, “Did you just fart?”
My face turns red, and then I laugh.
“Yeah, I totally did.”
He pauses, stone-faced at first, then cracks up, shaking his head in disbelief. Onstage, I do not kill—at all. Halfway through my set, I look like a deer in headlights, and it shows. The young man I have been talking to before tears it up, however.
His name is Hannibal Buress.
“What are you doing now?” he asks me after the show.
“Nothing,” I say. “Want to hang out?”
It feels like we are both just trying to figure the city out, and we spend the rest of the night together. We soon find out we have something in common: We both have Chicago roots. I went to Northwestern, and he went to Southern Illinois University, where he says that after the first time he got a few chuckles, he got that rush any new performer gets, where you feel like Chris Rock or something. Little does he know that he is just a few years from being in the same major leagues as Rock himself.
A few days later at the Post, I get a call from Hannibal.
“You going up anywhere tonight?” he asks.
I hadn’t planned on going up anywhere again. But I meet him at a Lower East Side bar, where I get to see Eric Andre do stand-up in his earliest days of performing. Eric is modest about his talents, immediately bringing up that maybe Zach Galifianakis already has the music-and-comedy thing covered. Not a chance.
Hannibal calls me when he is hosting shows, and I get to do my own shitty stand-up. This sets my new intermittent pattern.
“What are you doing tonight, Miss Mandy?”
“Nothing.”
“Going up anywhere?”
Well, now I am.
One night after a show, he says he has nowhere to stay so I invite him back to the lesbians’ apartment to crash. We lie platonically in bed together, and he says after an awkward silence, “You’re cool as shit.” We make out for a little while, then fall asleep.
We text stupid shit throughout the day that makes me genuinely happier than most things in my life at the time.
Hannibal: Was yesterday our first date?
Me: yes—only 29 more to go and then we do it.
Hannibal: Taxi!
Me: hahahahha
Me: I also like your ipod franz ferdinand joke—& I like that it tests ur theory of all u need 2 do is say franz ferdinand 2 hipsters & they laugh
Hannibal: I’m full of hipster references. I’m buying your hat today.
But I never take him seriously. He is twenty-three. I am thirty.
Besides, it’s also incredibly clear that we should just be friends.
Still, my phone chats with Hannibal are far smoother than my other attempts at connecting with men.
During one night out on the town with Jessica Cutler after profiling her in my blogs-to-Hollywood piece, we notice David Cross out at Three Kings, and go up to him and say hi. He has totally heard of the Washingtonienne’s infamy in blog-land, and I offer to buy everyone drinks and expense them.
“Can you really expense them?” he asks, seeing through my bravado. “Because otherwise, I’m buying.”
He talks about the crappy sound guy who screwed up his set with Jon Benjamin when the two of them danced around to “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About,” and before too long we all move on to a place called the Magician on the Lower East Side.
Jessica doesn’t have her ID with her, though, so she gets left behind. Inside, we meet Gavin McInnes.
“Wait, Gavin from Vice?” I ask after he introduces himself.
“That’s the one,” he says, smiling, as it’s clear he’s done many times in response to the question.
I have this theory that Vice is evil (old indoctrination from my husband), and after leaving the bar, walking with David Cross solo now back to his apartment, knowing what comes next, I tell him exactly that.
“Vice is evil,” I say by way of small chat.
“If you think that, you can just leave right now,” he says and stops walking.
Whoa.
I take it back, and we keep going.
Back at his apartment, I make myself comfortable on his couch, then we kiss for a little while, and all I can think of is the many images of his face in my head from watching Mr. Show. Am I in a sketch? I cannot believe this is happening. There are few greater gods in comedy to me than David Cross.
We take a break, and I pick up the Wonder Showzen DVD he has lying out.
“I’ve never seen it,” I say.
“Best show on television,” he says.
“Oh, hey, I’ve got an idea, why don’t you put on MTV?” I say. “I can dance sexy.”
He gives me the kind of look that a man gives when he fears you might actually be a crazy person. This makes me nervous, which inspires me to keep talking, change the subject, really open up.
“I probably shouldn’t have sex,” I continue, filling the silence. “Because I just got my period for the first time in like six months. I’m so excited.”
His face has now definitely
