***
Why he suddenly became so agitated, why he became so emotionally ecstatic, for absolutely no reason, and, it seemed, out of all proportion with the subject of the conversation–it would be hard to tell.
***
In September, when I was thinking about what to get Peter for his birthday, I saw on my Instagram that comedian Patti Harrison was co-headlining a one-time October show in Medford with also-comedians Sarah Sherman and Meg Salter, which was serendipitous because Peter lives in Medford and we both think those people are funny, especially Patti Harrison, who is one of the funniest people alive. It was the perfect gift for Peter (and me).
At checkout on Ticketmaster I saw the option for a VIP Upsell that offered a chance to ‘Meet & Greet’ the performers after the show for just sixty more dollars a pop. No further details were provided, but it seemed worth the price to have this unexpected and funny twist to the gift. I went ahead and bought the upgrade.
What is sixty dollars worth? Does sixty dollars buy…an experience? It captured my imagination. In all likelihood it would be a twenty second interaction, but the prospect of hanging out with celebs…for more than twenty seconds…it was tantalizing. Emilia was sitting next to me when I bought the tickets and we were speculating on the possibilities when she asked if I would have sex with any of them, given the chance. Knowing Emilia, I knew this wasn't a trap so I answered honestly, yes, yes I would have sex with any one of them. Then Emilia decreed something extraordinary: If the opportunity somehow arose to have sex with Patti Harrison, Sarah Sherman, or Meg Salter, I could have the sex.
I can haz sex with celebs?
It is a mark of a healthy, empathetic relationship when partners can give blessings for each other to fuck a celeb or some other kind of outstanding person if able. How selfish would I have to be to stand between Emilia and sex with Ozzy from Survivor? It would be like being jealous of the moon if Emilia got to go to space. Besides, me and Emilia…I’m not worried about that. We know things other people don’t know. With all this understood between us, it was with a clear conscience that I pondered the ridiculous premise of sex with the vanguards of alternative comedy. I hadn’t felt excited like this since college where I was always performing for the affection of women. The more I thought about it, the less impossible it seemed. Was it so far-fetched to think that one of them might be looking for some one-time sweet ‘n’ earnest dick? My dick is like Babe, my dick is like mac and cheese.
Sometime after revealing the premise of his gift, I texted Peter: “Emilia gave me permission to have sex with any of them.”
Peter’s response: “I don’t think that will be an issue.”
My only hesitation with this whole thing was the question of who else was buying the VIP Upsell, an unease that stemmed from an established mental problem I have. Famous pedophile Woody Allen once paraphrased Groucho Marx’s joke: “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” I want this branded on my forehead. Some of the unhappiest moments of my life have occurred surrounded by like-minded people. The feeling is like how I imagine a clone feels when it meets its original. The clone can't disregard the authenticity of its own humanity, but it also can’t deny the proof that its humanity is replicable, cheap. Many find comfort in belonging to a ‘scene’, a ‘club’, that affirms their identity, but it makes me really uncomfortable because I frankly don’t think very highly of myself or my demographic. I practice compassion but it’s not my natural way.
So even just being at the comedy show would present its psychological challenges, and I feared it would only get more difficult at the meet and greet, where I worried about my ‘club’ members acting out of line. People can be so depraved in their dealings with celebs. They wrongfully assume familiarity, they try too hard to make a lasting impression, and they just forget the celeb’s humanity, all of which is so unbecoming. I didn’t want to see it and I didn’t want to be associated with it.
***
The night before the show, I googled ‘what are meet and greets like’, and a top result said they could last an hour. I tried to imagine that. That was about as much time as I could reasonably ask for to endear myself enough to the celebs that one of them might make an offering of sex. Peter was on his own. But even more than the hypothetical sex, I was getting nervous over simply speaking to the comedians, which is out of character for me, a good talker. It's just that there still were too many unsorted variables to this meet and greet that were preventing a rationalization of our interaction.
Trevor at work laughed and said, “I think you’re overthinking this. I can guarantee you it’s gonna last like fifteen seconds.”
Fifteen seconds? Not even twenty? That’s what sixty dollars gets me?
I tried to explain my anxiety. “There’s something that happens in my brain when I’m in a room of…similar people. Especially this. I get…I can’t…”
“You get bitchy?” Trevor guessed. “I love that.”
“Well…sure.” His guess was true as it was not.
“Trust me,” he continued, “I did a meet and greet once for the band A Day to Remember and it was just like that. You’ll probably see them right before the show, not after when they’re all tired.”
Before the show? I was embarrassed by my own disappointment with the bare minimum. It’s what I’d anticipated all along, really, but I’d gotten attached to the prospect of walking away from the meet and greet with a sort of personal gain, not even necessarily a sex-gain, but just a feeling of having been seen by people I admire. I couldn’t understand why this want was so palpable when I thought it was so gross to feel. Soon after that conversation, however, the theater sent me an email, subject line, ‘Important information regarding your VIP add-on’: “Please check in at the box office between 6:30pm-7:30pm with your photo ID to get your VIP wristband. The Meet & Greet takes place after the show, so once the show ends, please stay seated and await further instructions.” This information was somehow no information at all. Sit and wait? For what? But alright, it was after the show.
“It’s after the show,” I glibly informed Trevor. “So it could still be something.”
“Alright,” said Trevor. He was not sold on it.
I left work and traveled to Medford. The first smart thing I did was not drink any more coffee. Peter got me and him some Mexican food and Modelos, and the second smart thing I did was stop at one Modelo. We chit chatted, smoked a little (third smart thing, a little), then started our twenty minute walk to the Chevalier Theater. I was wearing a hat with Winnie the Pooh on it. The hat fits my giant head nicely and I’m an earnest Pooh-Head, but I’d also planned a full week earlier to wear it that night because I thought it might distinguish me from my ‘club,’ at least to myself, and maybe to the celebs, too. But almost as soon as we stepped out the door, I really regretted my choice.
“I shouldn’t have worn this. I look fucking stupid. I don’t want anyone looking at me.”
“I think it’s fine. Nobody will care,” said Peter. Peter, for one, is actually distinguishably dressed. He’s wearing a handsome tweed jacket over a sweater and nice pants, the outfit he wears to work. He looks like a professor. I would never go to the alternative comedy show dressed how Peter is dressed, but that’s the winning move: Peter doesn’t recognize the game.
While we walk, I summarize the Hellraiser movies I’ve been watching (“You know Pinhead?”). The topic of body horror proves to be more relevant to the show than either of us could have foreseen. One block from the theater we converge with a flock of collegiate girls in high-waisted white-wash jeans and Peter quips, “Think they’re going to the show?”
Outside the Chevalier Theater a woman asks if we’re planning on purchasing alcohol. Peter provides his ID, and that’s when I realize I don’t have my wallet. She stamps a smiley face on Peter’s hand as I stammer “I’m not drinking” and walk past her. I can see my wallet in my mind’s eye, still at Peter’s apartment on a table. I’m not too bothered by missing it, but I will be in about two minutes, as there’s a detail I’ve forgotten. I show another lady the tickets on my phone and ask her about the VIP situation. She points us to a box office down a short flight of stairs, where a plastic pane separates me and a kindly-looking middle-aged woman who asks me how she can help. I get the impression she’s a volunteer, that she has a different job tomorrow. I tell her I’ve purchased two tickets for the VIP experience.
“Okay, may I see your photo ID?”
My photo ID. The one in my wallet. My realization is accompanied by a plunging sensation of grief. My face flushes and I begin a rambling pitch for her to accept Peter’s ID in lieu of mine if it’s accountability the theater wants. Lost in passion, I slap the counter with my palm to accentuate my sincerity, and I guess this was all the lady needed to see because she soon tells me that providing my name should be acceptable proof of identity. I profusely express my gratitude and tell her we’re ‘Theodore Burns’, which grants us the purple VIP wristbands. She tells us to stay in our seats after the show, just like the email said.
***
With dismay I notice that I’m wearing the same jacket as the guy sitting in front of me, the new one I just bought, only in a different color. My ‘club’ surrounds me. I don’t see any other Pooh hats, though, but whenever I see someone look at me, I scrutinize their expression to surmise the impression my Pooh hat is giving, but it’s hard to tell whether their reaction is to the Pooh hat or to my searching, paranoid gaze. A guy sits down to the right of Peter who looks exactly like how me and Peter’s love child would look. Most of the audience, however, is queer, or at least signaling queer, and this bring me comfort because definitely the strongest identifier of my ‘club’ is our Straight Brain, the prism through which all our thoughts and actions are filtered. Queer people have their own thing going on, their own Brains, so it’s less conducive for me to project my identity-based neuroses upon them. So there in my seat, I’m doing just fine.
Then the lights dim, the show begins, and it’s hilarious front to back. The girl sitting to my left can barely breathe for most of the ninety minutes, she’s laughing so hard. The comedians start the show together, then break off into separate sets that span different shades of shock comedy and anti-performance, ‘anti-performance’ being the term I have for that Andy Kaufman brand of comedy where the general bit is to perform as a poor performer. But ‘shocking’ is the headline descriptor of the show. We are treated to a monologue from Patti Harrison where she imagines cutting open a pregnant woman with a boxcutter, a fake Q&A conducted by Meg Salter playing a delusional author who’d just released a terrible book with ‘cunt’ in the title, and a video aid for Sarah Sherman’s breathless description of her pussy lips that look like a turkey’s wattle and/or slabs of pastrami. Their relentless vulgarity is audacious, and each comedian wastes no opportunity to say the things they’re ‘allowed’ to say without getting canceled, though there are a few moments where they combat negative reactions from crowd members (“I see you shaking your head. You think I can’t say that? Yes I can. I can!”).
I’m enjoying myself immensely, but at the same time, all the while, my brain is assembling a question I can’t unthink: Do Patti Harrison, Meg Salter, and Sarah Sherman hate their ‘club’, too? And isn’t it likely that this crowd of young idealistic liberal arts students, all just thrilled to be out here supporting an all-woman comedy show!, are exactly their ‘club’? Their core demographic? At one point their peers, even? So…do Patti Harrison, Meg Salter, and Sarah Sherman hate us? I consider their rampant hostility ("I FUCKING HATE GAY PEOPLE"), much of which is directed at us ("YOU BOSTON IDIOTS"), and I decide yes. Yes yes yes.
I have fantasies of being moderately famous, about as famous as these comedians, because of course I dream of becoming moderately famous off this shit I do with the writing and music (a common situation in my ‘club’), and when I’m fantasizing about being moderately famous, I imagine hating my fans like I hate my ‘club’, for they’d be one and the same, and if there was ever a Teddy Burns Meet & Greet, I would dread the attendance, and if I was Patti Harrison that night in Medford, I would dread meeting Teddy Burns.
I couldn’t be more ecstatic or more terrified, trembling in my seat as Sarah Sherman threatens to finger Meg Salter. I’m trapped between infinite, parallel lines of double-thought, one that is heartbreakingly idealistic (I feel seen, they must see me), and one that is bitterly pragmatic (I feel seen, I only see myself). I can’t decide on reality, I’m so furious and in love with myself for being this way. Then I remember Emilia’s offer, as if for the first time, and it’s just about too much to imagine or hope for that paramount compassion for my body, that knowing and being known, and I feel unfit, not for lack of desire or seriousness, but the opposite. To inflict myself upon others right now, in this state, would be irresponsible.
When the show ends, I turn to Peter and say, “I don’t think I want to do this anymore. The meet and greet. I’m more nervous now than before. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Peter sighs and laughs softly. He is accustomed to me. “It’ll be fine.”
The audience files out until there are only about ten people left. Stern ushers accost us several times, asking to see our purple VIP bracelets like they know we don’t have them. But we do, we do. The other VIPs seem like fine, normal people, not the A-type Harvard comedy fan freaks I’d feared, and I wonder how much longer I need to live before I can start giving people the benefit of the doubt. Eventually this guy who looks and acts like an extra from The Departed starts rounding us up, demanding that all us ‘purple-bracelets’ line up near the backstage door. Mr. Departed has long, slicked back grey hair that he’s tucked behind his ears, which sport gold earrings and earpieces. He’s wearing a black suit and tie over a white shirt and clearly fancies himself a hitman or a member of Secret Service, which makes it more sad and annoying how he talks to us in his gravelly Irish and/or Italian accent, all curt and inflexible, like he’s part of something important and not overseeing the meet and greet for the alternative comedy show in Medford. Over and over he says, “Purple-bracelets only. You don’t have a purple bracelet, you’re not allowed in.” There is literally nobody left in the theater who doesn’t have a purple bracelet.
One girl approaches Mr. Departed and says, “This is kind of embarrassing, but…I don’t have a purple bracelet. I was actually invited by the performer?” From where I’m standing I can see the blue and gray blobs of a text conversation she's showing Mr. Departed, who I’m worried will shoot her on suspicion of foul play. But invited by the performer? Fuck. Which one? I feel like an idiot, too insignificant for my big thoughts and emotions. My agitation is escalating and I’m muttering to myself and Peter, fidgeting as I stare at the floor. Finally, after much inexplicable fussing by Mr. Departed, the backstage door is opened and we are led down a dank corridor that leads to a dank stairwell, at the bottom of which is one last set of double doors that lead to the green room, presumably. Somehow me and Peter are at the front of the line, even though I tried to make that not happen via manic glares in Peter’s direction that he couldn’t interpret in time.
“Stand against the wall away from the door!” Mr. Departed commands, so we do. It seems not unlikely that we are all about to be executed for being geeks. Our captor goes through the double doors and we hear chatting on the other side. Peter and I agree that, while we had no idea what to expect, this scenario was not among our guesses.
“I thought maybe they’d come back out on stage for like a Q&A?” Peter whispers. It feels like we should be whispering. “Are they even expecting us?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, and I keep repeating it like a mantra. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” I am so grateful for Peter. He is my rock.
Then Mr. Departed comes out one last time and barks at me, “You the first?”
I point to Peter and say, “Us.”
“Party of two?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, one of you will give us your phone to take the picture, then we’ll give it back to you on your way out, alright?”
“Uh, yeah, okay.” Peter hands over his phone, bewildered.
“Alright, let’s go then,” and Mr. Departed waves us into our great reckoning in a little room.
***
Patti Harrison, Meg Salter, and Sarah Sherman are standing in front of a black backdrop with their backs to us, and they’re talking about something I can’t hear as Mr. Departed hands Peter’s phone to a little woman, the photographer, I guess. Immediately to our left is the exit, manned by some poor employee who must be wondering why he has to be here. There is no formal introduction, nothing to, you know, help us out. So we approach them and I say something like ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello,’ which doesn’t really seem to register with them, so both Peter and I try another greeting that successfully gets them to turn and face us.
“We’re your first party of two,” I say in mock formality, alluding to the strangeness of Mr. Departed that Patti Harrison, Meg Salter, and Sarah Sherman may or may not have witnessed, but I think what I said works, is appropriately cheeky. Frankly, they seem as out of it as we are, and I suspect Peter’s guess might be true, that they didn’t even know this was happening until now. Adrenaline melts my neuroticism down to a nub, and for the first time that night, I’m not even thinking. I believe I say ‘great show’ or something like it, but we’re being hustled along, whether by Mr. Departed or the comedians, I don’t really know, I’m kind of blacked out, and we all get into a pose, nervously chuckling and mumbling over each other, Peter and I kneeling and holding up a prop from the show, a decorative ghost girl. Sarah Sherman puts her hand on my shoulder, then reflexively asks, “Permission to touch?”, which is funny, but maybe too quickly I reply, “Oh, absolutely,” an affirmation I wince at for its over-enthusiasm or over-familiarity, though at least I don’t yell it or anything.
The pictures are taken, I get back on my feet, and here it is, this amorphous, undecided moment that makes my face hot, but, bravely, I soldier on to say the most important things, which is that they are ‘awesome’ and that ‘the show was great’, and they should ‘keep on doing what they do’. On principle, I make determined eye contact as I say these things. I think Patti Harrison sees Pooh on my hat, and we make split-second eye contact. I am seen. Amid the clutter of each passing moment, even as I’m stuttering and using my hands a lot, I linger on her expression, a distracted, polite half smile. What’s there? Given more time, maybe it would’ve been me who appeared there, and my fit in the theater would make sense and this weird, unquenchable longing in my chest would be absolved and I could cut it out, stop the nonsense. But of course I saw nothing of the kind.
Then all I remember is probably saying ‘have a good one’ and fleeing into the cool autumn night, breathing in deep through my nose and laughing at the absurdity with Peter.
“Happy birthday, my friend.”
We pass by the crowd milling around outside, and I’m totally anonymous to myself and everyone around me.
Comments