"...I applied makeup seven hours earlier than normal and headed for Comedy Central's corporate offices..."
Dead Pigs and Abortion Giggles, Aug 6, 2001
It's daylight and I'm in my apartment. I usually don't write under these inhumane conditions, so I am not responsible for the quality of what follows. New York City is revolting today- muggy, thick and awful. I fastened the leash to Pinky's collar and she looked away.
"C'mon Pinky, let's go," I said, yanking on her collar, "walk! Let's walk! Pinky, up, up! Upsy daisy. Time to go outside."
Pinky rolled over and gazed at her pretzel bone, which lay on my underpants a few feet away.
Gennady has been unemployed for ten months. The self esteem of most men is linked to their job and/or ability to earn money. My Russian is not plagued by this American nonsense. If he were the president and CEO of Microsoft, he would be as happy, or less, as he is now.
"Look, hon," he said when I walked in the door after a night of comedy spots and subways making all local stops, "it's my new line of Dead Pig Clothing."
He opened a full sketch book and flipped past outlines of dinosaurs, porn stars and dead pigs.
"I'm going to put this logo on a shirt," he said, pointing to a pig on its back. The pig's feet were bent and stiff. It had X's for eyes and a downturned mouth. I pulled the New York Times Sunday want ads out from my sock drawer and looked under the D's.
"Honey," I said, "it appears that no one is hiring a Dead Pig Clothing designer."
Gennady has been working on his handball game. He watches tennis and shows me the similiarities between the two games. I respond with the differences, which are 1) crowd size and 2) income of top players. Gennady is the Andre Agassi of handball, which means he may as well be the Gennady of handball, since both postions pay the same, nothing.
But he's living off his savings and we're in his cheap apartment, so I keep my mouth shut as much as possible.
An ad for a new movie I'll not be seeing,
The Princess Diaries, aired on the Cartoon Network.
"Hey," Gennady asked, looking up from his sketches, "wasn't she raped as a child?"
"Julie Andrews? Lord no, she's an actress. She was in the Sound of Music. The Hills are alive..." I sang.
"Oh, right, the Flying Nun," Gennady said. He returned to his upcoming fall line.
Last Tuesday, I applied makeup seven hours earlier than normal and headed for Comedy Central's corporate offices. I thought I would be going over my material with a woman I knew from Lifetime Girl's Night Out, but no. I would be
performing material for seven people, under a florescent light at eleven in the morning. The woman I know was not in NYC, but in LA, and would be watching the videotape of this morning's show. Hello Camera.
Everyone was nice and they apologized for how awful it would be, but one person from content and another from brands would be taking notes on my set, so I would have time to make changes if necessary.
Concerns voiced afterwards lead me to believe the two abortion jokes will be axed. Premium Blend airs at 8 pm, and abortion is a 10 PM + topic. I will beg for the first one and concede defeat on the second one. Let's cross out fingers, readers. I want to make abortion kid-friendly.
