Foie Gras

One month in, and the thrill of the subways and crowds has waned somewhat. I have come to New York to seek fame and fortune, or at least not to have to wait tables anymore. This is the capital of standup comedy, with more clubs, showcases, open-mics, auditions and television opportunities for aspiring comics than any place in the world. Yes, I have heard of L.A., but you have a lot of aspiring actors playing standup comics there. And, I’d rather live here. People in L.A. pretend to be nice. People in New York don’t. If you’re going to be an asshole, at least be honest about it.

I wake up each morning and ride the L-train into Manhattan to wait on the wealthy and powerful at a fancy French bistro. I tell myself that the more I hate this job, the more motivated I will be to rise through the comedy ranks and out of the hair shirt that is the day job. Insert obligatory witticism about “character building”.

We sell a burger for $32. It’s ground sirloin stuffed with braised short-ribs, foie gras and truffles. Three animals had to suffer so these pricks could chortle smugly, play at provincial-everyman and say, “Well I guess I’ll try the burger.”

For those who don’t know, foie gras is fattened goose liver. To produce it, the goose is force-fed with a stick and not allowed to move or exercise until its liver nearly explodes. Then, mercifully, they kill it and soak the liver in brandy. Sometimes I think the fabulously wealthy find it an empowering sense of entitlement to have their food tortured and humiliated before it shows up on their plate. I’m waiting for Mr. Witherby III to request that his salad be slapped and forced to beg for mercy before arriving at the table.

My customers are either arrogant, condescending pricks who think their wealth is testament to their greatness, wealthy Europeans (who fit the above description, but have and accent that makes it seem more aristocratic) or desk-jockey yahoos who want to play Manhattan socialite on the company dollar. There are a few lost tourists and retired elderly couples who have the naïve, un-cultured tendency to treat me with respect and say thank you with sincerity.
Somehow all of the above, with the exception of the last, seem to think that their presence in these ultramodern-hipster-French décor-confines reflects a level of refinement that gives their opinions importance and validity. I show up at tables to hear quick-fix solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, inner-city education and national security.

All this social-consciousness from people eating tortured fowl.

Let me grab a stick and help you with that burger…

I’ve decided to become a vegetarian. “Drugs and meat in the same year?” you say. Well, I’ve been feeling better, and every time my stomach fights an acidic battle with beef or pork, I think, “Why should I be part of the machine that inhumanely mass-tortures animals, screws up the environment and wastes valuable resources while perpetuating malnutrition and a national health problem.” And, frankly I’d rather have coffee after lunch than guilt.

Besides the supermarket in my area of Williamsburg, Brooklyn smells like cat shit, which changes the aura of the meat cooler dramatically. The reason it smells like cat shit is that there is a cat in the supermarket. I gather this is a solution to a rodent problem. Suffice to say I may start fasting soon.

Anyway, New York has enough ethnic variety and generally metropolitan market abundance to make vegetarianism a more viable option than it might be in rural America, where the local Beef, Bait and Guns Emporium is always flush out of tofu - although, I fully expect to find a Whole Foods inside of a Walmart in the near future.

So, I go through the motions at work, and walk out, leaving it behind me, go to the park and look down at the pigeons and squirrels, asserting my position in the social hierarchy…

O.K., hold on.

I’m not really this bitter. I love the pigeons and squirrels. I love the park, and I love waking up in the morning. I love my dog (who I need to walk more). I just hate pretense and dishonesty. I spent 15 years pissing away my potential, on liquor and drugs. I lied to everyone and myself about everything and nothing, and now I want to embrace life, be true to myself and make up for lost time, so if frustrates me to interact with the fake and shallow so intimately all day.
That, and if I write about fluffy clouds and the love energy that flows through all of us, this will quickly become a private diary. And, without an audience, I’m nothing but a lonely tree fighting a losing battle against gravity.

Comedy. The carrot on the stick. The goal. The light at the end of the tunnel. It rounds out the hard edges, makes it bearable… sometimes.

I go up every night I can. I go to open mics. I go to showcases. I bark on the street, promoting shows in exchange for stage time. I suffer through hacks, waiting my turn and fend off hecklers to protect my stage, my moment in the light.

It sounds so romantic when I write it romantically.

There are a lot of comics in New York. There are a lot of terrible comics in New York. There are a lot of terrible comics everywhere, on television, in the movies and at the dinner table. I am required to sit through it, and wait my turn. Most people can stay home and turn the channel to avoid another ironic comment about masturbation. Note: There is nothing ironic about a comic commenting on masturbation, because every hack on the planet talks about masturbation. In fact, for the most part, their entire act is emotional masturbation. Unfortunately, the audience is more likely to be receptive if you emotionally have sex with them. The bar is low, and I spend my evenings tripping over it trying to spin humorous analogies about existential angst, because I’m so friggin’ brilliant…

There’s a compromise involved here. You want to make the audience think and laugh, but you have to play to a certain level, or they’ll just “think” you’re not funny and start talking to their neighbor about sports. I don’t live in a vacuum, so I’m aware of the banal voyeurism that pervades popular culture. The trials and tribulations of eight self-centered, physically attractive twenty-somethings living the “reality” of being the voyeuristic object of the drooling masses is topping the Neilsen Ratings. I’m not going to get a lot of mileage pointing out the hypocrisy of Christian Calvinism… unless I couch it in a joke about MTV.

Fortunately, I realize my own hypocrisy; that I’m not always the sophisticated altruist I like to think I am, that I am weak and human, and that’s how you get ‘em. I’m the victim. I’m the drooling idiot. I’m the bleary-eyed sucker waking up from the propaganda. Now the audience feels it’s okay to look at their own foibles, because I’m standing naked in front of them pointing out mine. I mean, make no mistake about. I know I’m a brilliant martyr who will save the world despite being misunderstood, abused and under-appreciated. But, for ten minutes on stage, I’m the everyman giving voice to thoughts we all have; giving perspective on the absurd, making the pretty girls laugh…

Would you like pommes frites with your burger, sir?