"...It's time to stop blaming rats for spreading the Black Plague, and start looking at the Dutch..."
Three Kisses, Dec 7, 2004
"Trust me, it was good," said the promoter as I walked backstage.
I must've had a scowl on my face.
"That was good?" The audience, young Dutch people, were slow to warm to me, and only at the end was there any laugh worth writing home about.
"Yes. I booked you for the living room. The people who watch the show will understand everything, and with the subtitles, it'll be fine."
That feedback was echoed by other people at the show,
Raymann is Laat!, and when I returned to the dressing room, the band playing in the second half,
Electro Coco, gave me a nice ovation. Well, I know a good set when I hear one, and that's not what I heard but, happy booker + paid comic = no troubles.
Then I hung out in Rotterdam for two days.
Europeans have the disgusting habit of kissing you three times at both hello and goodbye. And it's not a fake airkiss like in show business. These people practically tongue your cheek. The first time it happened, I pulled away after one gooey kiss, only to be held in place by my shoulders so the person could administer the other two.
Eww.
It's time to stop blaming rats for spreading the Black Plague that almost wiped out Europe in the Dark Ages, and start looking at the Dutch. When you kiss a Dutch cheek, you are kissing a cheek that has been kissed by a hundred other people. I learned quickly to stand parallel to everyone, speaking out of the side of my mouth and dodging out of the way as they instinctively went for my shoulders. I'd wave in the "this is what we do in America!" way, but they'd either ignore or delight in my discomfort and find my cheek in the "but you aren't in America" way.
I slept 20 hours from Thursday night to Friday evening, a personal best in the 30-40 age group. My bed at the Westin was made of quicksand and heroin. I couldn't get out of it, and I was too relaxed to care. At midnight on a Friday in Rotterdam, I was one hundred percent awake, drinking an awful cappucino at a late night restaurant.
Everytime I go to Europe, I feel like I'm in a movie, fleeing Nazis. On Friday night, wearing 2 inch heels on cramped, cobblestone streets, I walked the city as if Germans were in brisk pursuit. The Westin Hotel, sick of my complaints about the overpriced internet access, had given me up as a Jew, and now the Krauts were after me. When I finally ducked into a McDonald's, I stood behind a pole and held my breathe like I was Melanie Griffith from that Michael Douglas movie.
Yes, Reader, I got bored.
I finished a fat book,
Live From New York, and watched one DVD,
Fargo three times. It was either that or Dutch masters at a museum.
