Guess who I saw this morning?

A couple of months back, my husband posted something on his blog about me beating the crap out of this guy on the street. It's true. I beat the crap out of this guy on the street.

It was raining and I was walking into my building and this guy who was dressed in a suit with an overcoat and a hat, who was carrying a nice umbrella and a nice suitcase, who had a little rain hat and a little mustache, this guy who was wearing an Ipod, this guy started saying totally creepy, disgusting sexual things to me. He actually made eye contact with me when he said these things. My husband couldn't even repeat the things he said to me on his blog. I however, will tell you the things he said right now.

He said, "Nice pussy, oh yeah mamma, I like your pussy, you got a real nice pussy."

He said it in a real condescending way and it was completely beyond the regular teeth sucking and "psst" and "hey gorgeous" and "where you goin?" comments you get every day in the city. That's just white noise and if it dissappeared, I might think I was lettting myself go.

This was more like OH MY GOD WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME CREEP?

It took me a moment but then I floated right out side of my body and watched myself turn around and chase after this man. I say "chase" because as soon as he saw me coming he started to run. He ran out into the middle of the street. This is Madison Avenue, between 44th and 45th, very busy street my friends and he ran out into the middle of it and I went after him. I ripped his headphones out of his ears. I ripped his briefcase out of his hands. Then I proceeded to kick him in the shins, shove him in the chest and scream bloody murder at him, "You talk to your mother with that mouth you mother fucking asshole? Do YOU?! DO YOU TALK TO YOUR MOTHER WITH THAT MOUTH?!!!! Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you!!!!" He was curled over letting me kick him, whimpering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Finally, after I thought he'd had enough, I walked away. Not one person stopped or looked up or said a thing to me. I didn't look back to see if the guy picked up his stuff or what.

When I got into the elevator there was a guy in there with me and when the doors closed I just started laughing REALLY hard, big guffaws. I was dying to tell someone what happened. This guy just stared at me though and then he said, "Gosh, is it ever going to stop raining?" "No, it's not." I said back to him, still laughing. "It's probably never going to stop."

When I told my mom what happened, of course she was concerned. She's afraid that I will get shot. I shouldn't be so aggressive. She's right. I probably shouldn't be. Of course she was concerned that he was mentally ill or homeless. I told her that he was dressed like a businessman. He wasn't homeless. He was listening to his Ipod. Then she was concerned that he might have Tourrettes.

I don't think he as Tourettes because this morning, I SAW HIM AGAIN.

It was so weird because the circumstances were EXACTLY THE SAME. It was raining and he was walking toward me and we crossed paths in the exact same spot in front of my building, exactly where we had met before. The main difference between the last time we met and this time though, was that instead of saying creepy, disgusting sexual things to me, he looked at me like he was afraid I was going to kick his ass. Then I said to him, "Oh, hELllllo," with the same intonation that Jerry and Newman use when they speak to each other. Then he said to me, "Hello there, how are you doing?"

HOW AM I DOING? HOW DARE YOU ASK ME HOW I AM DOING!! FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!! YOU DON'T HAVE TOURETTES YOU MOTHER FUCKER!!!

I didn't say that to him. I just kept walking but he's scared for sure.

I hope he isn't only scared of me.

Lu Lu Eightball by Emily Flake

( Click on Comic for Larger View )

re: the blog

Tonight this show i've been working on closes and i will be a free agent once again. I'm looking forward to tonight's performance because I've got some friends coming and since everyone waits until the last minute, I'm thinking the house will be packed. Hopefully, it will be a fun and energetic show with some laughs and then IT WILL BE OVER. Wooo Hoooo!

I don't know if you've noticed but I pulled out all of the links from the Homecoming Queen Acid Story and placed them in the side bar in order. What I'm planning on doing is working on the stories and hopefully, turning them into a book of sorts. A novel? A memoir? I have no clue what you call it because I've never written a book before but I'm really excited to see what happens. I have to say that I am rather elated at the idea of working on something that has NO COLLABORATIVE ASPECTS WHATSOEVER. It's just me and me and me.

It's not that I don't enjoy collaborating because I do. It's just that it's pretty much all I've ever done. Acting and theatre is always collaborative on a certain level and there are so many personalities to navigate. I like navigating personalities. I think I'm good at it but goddamn it can get exhausting, can't it? Yes, it sure can la Ketch. See I'm already creating a dialog with myself. This is going to be great. I'm going to be my own best friend. Oh, and you. You too are my best friend blog and I will share the revised stories as I go along IF I FEEL LIKE IT.

Also I want to thank you again, blogger friends, for your support. A special shout out to Tomato and Basil who has been giving me crazy props and encouraging me for a while now. You should go check out her blog because she's got some funny stories on it.

xo,
la Ketch

la Ketch on the Run

I'm sorry but i'm still obsessed with Pippi. I just can't wait to watch those damned dvd's. Two things I keep thinking about that i can't wait to see again are both from "Pippi on the Run". The first is a song that Pippi, Tommy and Anika sing when they are riding on Old Man (the horse).

It goes:

Wake up you lazy bones

you've got some work to do

But the lazy bones says not today

tomorrow I'll work for you

tra la la la la la

I'll work so hard tomorrow

tra la la la la la

That's why I'm resting up today

The other part I can't wait to see is when this farmer lets them stay in his barn overnight. Pippi, Tommy and Anika are hanging out up in the hay loft with the farmer's kids at night talking about swear words. Anika says, "I know one but I have to whisper it." so Pippi has her whisper it in her ear. She whispers, "Heck". Then Pippi says, "Oh that's nothing. I know a much worse swear than that." Of course she does, her dad is a pirate. So she flings open the barn windows and screams out at the top of her lungs, "SHUT YOUR GOD DAMNED COTTON PICKIN MOUTH!" The farmer happens to be sitting under the window smoking his pipe and he hears it of course. Then he does this double take like, "What the....?!" And all the kids are dying laughing. They can't believe she said it.

11222 to 92626

Where I am now is 23 degrees and it feels like 11 degrees

Where I am going next week is 64 degrees and it feels like 64 degrees

thank god.

Lu Lu Eightball by Emily Flake

(click on comic for larger view)

Inger Nilsson

Do you remember when they used to play the original Pippi movies on television? Do you remember how the Swedish was dubbed over in English so poorly? I love it! It took me a LONG TIME to figure out that it wasn't them talking. Was I dumb? Maybe a little. Good news! The entire series is now available in a box set on dvd and it's still dubbed! Dear God, please say it's the same voices. Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh. I can't wait for Christmas...

Everybody Hates La Ketch

If you haven't checked out "Everybody Hates Chris" yet, do yourself a favor. It's really funny. The actors playing the mom and dad are great. It's no Arrested Development but it is very smart and sweet. Can you tell that I'm completely exhausted and brain dead and can't write anything intelligent? I'm sitting here recommending television shows instead. It's all I got.

Last night I was feeling tired and I had consumed so much red wine over the weekend that I thought it best to drink water instead. Still, I wanted my brain to shut off. Instead of doing yoga or meditating, I turned on the TV. We don't have cable and there was nothing on so I basically just watched commercials for an hour. I just sat there and watched fucking commercials! What the fuck was I doing?! I would turn to a channel and watch the commercials until the show that was on that channel would reveal itself. Then, once I gave the show enough time to prove itself unwatchable (not long), I would turn to the next channel and watch that channel's commercials until it's show came on and did the same - rinse repeat. Dup got home and turned the T.V. off immediately. Then, when he left the room, I turned it on again. Billboard Music Awards? Victoria Secret Fashion Show? That lawyer show with Captain Kirk and James Spader? Law and Order blah blah blah blah blah? More commercials. Dup turns it off again. He walks out of the room again. I turn it back on again. I have just one question.

Am I a monkey?

Luckily, we had one more episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" we hadn't watched on a DVD we Netflixed. Huh, I just verbed Netflix. We watched that and it was pretty funny. I love the woman that plays Larry's Agent Jeff's Wife. I love it when she comes out and says, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT LARRY?" She's hilarious. This was the episode where Larry's penis gets bit by a dog. Damn funny stuff.

I've been so tired out from this play I'm doing that I've taken a personal vow to turn down any acting opportunity that comes my way indefinitely. So far, I have turned down one reading. Not exactly a massive influx of offers coming in. Then yesterday, I got this E-Mail about a Clown Workshop that's being offered in January. It's being taught by Christopher Bayes who is supposed to be really good. He teaches at Brown now but used to be at NYU and Julliard. The workshop takes place at Juliard, which sort of appeals to me because then I could pretend that I was going there for two days.

The main reason I want to take the workshop is because Bayes is supposedly very nurturing to his students. The last Clown Workshop I took was from Philipe Gaullier, this famous French Clown (Bayes studied under him). Gaullier is NOT nurturing. He is into tough love. He plays games like, "Three chances to be funny." This is a game where is each student in the class has to stand up and be funny. You have three chances to do this. If you aren't funny and I rarely was, he will stop you and say something to the tune of, "If I had the choice between watching you for one more second or catching myself on fire. I would catch myself on fire." He's the Simon Cowell of Clown Teachers except that he has a very thick French Accent and he looks like Droopy the Dog.

I recommend you head over to the Galivanting Monkey's Blog and read her story about Clown Class if you've haven't already. Clown class can be really hard, really scary and very, very daunting. It can kill your spirit. It can make you feel horrible and hateful and depressed but it makes for a great story alright and the Galivanting Monkey tells it well.

If it's so horrible then why would I ever consider taking it again you ask? Well, it can also feel really, really good. This is if (and only if) you are actually funny (in the class not in life. just because you are not funny in the class doesn't mean you are not funny but you will feel that way.) The feeling good is sparse, brief and intense. The one time that I "hit" in class felt like what I imagine being on heroin must feel like. It was one insanely good moment in a cacophony of bad ones and it was just enough to make me want to go back. Also, a lot of time has passed and I am a masochist of sorts.

Honestly, all I really want to be is funny. I don't even care if it's in front of an audience of more than one anymore. If it's just my husband or some random stranger on the train, that's fine. Nothing is worth more to me than a getting a good laugh. Nothing. So I'm thinking about taking this class just so I can get funnier but I'm also afraid that it will exhaust me further and make me only angrier and more resentful. The opposite of funny.

I'll keep you posted. I'm sure you are dying to know what I decide.

Speaking of funny. This weekend my friend Lauren was in town and I had the great pleasure of hanging out with her. She is most definitely one of the funniest people I know. She came over and we just hung out in my apartment and talked and drank some wine and ate take out and laughed and laughed and laughed. hahahahahahha!

At one point I looked down on the ground by her feet and I noticed this little black blob on the ground. "Oh my God!" I exclaimed drunkenly, "what is that?" It was covered in dog hair. Lauren responded, "Oh, that's my sock." Lauren is always joking and it's very difficult to tell when she's not. "Oh yeah. Ha. Your sock." I realized that It must be a stray sock that fell out of the laundry pile which dup had brought up the stairs earlier that day. I picked it up and examined it. It didn't belong to us and it was all hairy and stinky. How embarrassing that such a gross thing was lying on our floor right next to our guest! I thought to myself.

Lauren was wearing socks, so it couldn't have been hers. I needed to throw it away. But on my way over to the garbage can, I decided to try out this hilarious trick that I had seen this really funny clown in my class do...

I put the sock behind my back and make a grunting sound like I was pooping then I dropped the sock down behind my back and onto the floor between my feet. I pooped a sock! hahahahahahhahha!!! Once I did it I immediately started cracking up at my own brilliance. I was HILARIOUS! I think Lauren was sort of chuckling but I couldn't tell exactly because I was laughing too hard at my own joke to see or hear.

The first time I did it was so funny that I decided to do it AGAIN!! I pooped that sock out one more time! Again, uproarious laughter from myself. I was falling over from laughing. Comedy comes in threes remember, so I had to do it again!! I pooped that sock out a third time!! I couldn't believe my own comic mastery!

Once the laughter died down, I walked over to the garbage to throw that poopy sock away, still chuckling. That's when Lauren screamed at me, "LA KETCH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" "I'm throwing this sock away!" I exclaimed back to her. "La Ketch, that REALLY is MY SOCK."

I stopped. oh.

Then SHE started laughing. I had insulted her so horribly by disdaining her sock, pooping it out three times and then trying to throw it into the garbage that it was completely hilarious to her. Of course, I was mortified. I hadn't considered that she could be wearing two pairs of socks even though it was freezing outside. I hadn't considered that she would have taken one pair of these socks off because it was boiling in our apt. I just wanted to try that joke out.

"Love the flop." The joke is in the failure. This is what they teach you in clown class.

I guess it doesn't matter how you get the laugh, as long as they're laughing.

A Rose by Any Other Name

When I first moved to New York I was in this horrible, horrible production of “Romeo and Juliet”. The girl playing Juliet was really good, even if she was about 35 years old but the guy playing Romeo was so bad that he single handedly destroyed the entire production. He was also one of the producers. Everyone knew he was bad, even the other producers and the director but they were all stuck with him and so was the rest of the cast because he was paying for it.

Part of the play's concept was that there was a Greek Chorus on stage throughout. I was a part of the chorus. There were sixteen of us, all young and green and desperate to act in anything. They dressed us in these white sheets and made us paint our faces white and wear these little white skull caps. We looked like condoms.

I was miserable through the entire process and I should have quit in the first week. Instead, I stuck it out and made sure everyone else was as miserable as I was. I complained constantly. I had a permanent scowl on my face. I was completely self righteous and out of hand. My behavior was not entirely unwarranted however. The whole deal was absolutely torturous. We had these horribly long rehearsals. We rehearsed for like two and a half months. The choreographer would just make the stuff up as she went along, waste our time standing there thinking for 20 minutes about what we should do next while our arms were falling off. It was sooo fucking boring.

They had us standing on risers in three rows. We sat sometimes but not ever for very long. We would do movements which consisted of very broad gestures like reaching out towards Juliet or putting our arms out like Jesus on a cross. We were always moving from one position to the next at a painful, Kabuki-like pace. Our movement was undetectable to the human eye. It could take us four minutes just to raise an arm.

Just indulge me for a moment and take a second to stand up out of your chair. Are you standing? Good. Now take both of your arms and hold them out to your sides like Jesus on the Cross. Continue to hold them up just until your arms start to ache a little bit. Now imagine what it might feel like if you had to keep them up there for another six minutes straight. Now imagine that on top of this arm aching pain you are feeling, you are being forced to watch the worst acting you have ever seen in your life and you can’t close your eyes or plug your ears or run away and kill yourself.

Sorry, you can put your arms down now.

By the time we opened I was such a raving bitch that everyone hated me except (thank God) for the two guys who were next to me and behind me in the chorus. We spent a lot of time together during the whole process and these guys were in just as much pain as I was. They were also both really funny and we would all try and crack each other up while Romeo was rolling around on the ground in the most ridiculous overwrought overacting fits imaginable. We would whisper things to eachother like, “Die Romeo Die” or “I’m going to go get a coke. Anyone want anything?” When Romeo finally did die, one of us would always say, “thank God” or "finally."

We were supposed to be “in character” the whole time, whatever that was: 100 billion year old Gods or something? The Fates? The Furries? No one really explained it to us but they definitely wanted our faces to be expressive. By the second week of the run, my facial expression was that of someone getting a manicure. I would just do the movements and think about whatever popped into my head, anything to take my mind off the horror unfolding before me.

Then one performance, I think it was a matinee, the most wonderful thing happened. We were in the middle of one of Romeo and Juliet's scenes during a particularly boring movement where we had our arms crossed over our chest and we were supposed to rock forward and back as far as we could go without falling over but so slowly that no one could tell we were moving. It was when we were in the forward part of this sequence that the girl who stood directly in front of me on the risers totally ripped a fart. She was really sweet, young and waifish, a dancer. You just wouldn't expect it to come out of her. It happened to be during a very quiet moment on stage and it was so loud that Romeo and Juliet heard it and of course we all heard it on the risers.

There was this second where time seemed to stop and we all asked ourselves, "did that just happen?" Then we started snickering and then we started laughing and then we could not stop laughing to save our lives. We were doing that convulsing thing, tears streaming down our faces. The actors playing Romeo and Juliet were not laughing. They were quite pissed off actually and tried with all of their might to go on with the scene but the laughter had spread down the risers like wildfire. Even the god damed goodie goodies who were so polite and had positive attitudes all the fucking time were cracking up. Of course, when you are trying really hard not to laugh at something, it only becomes that much funnier. We were all so tired and delirious from the whole process and I had been so angry through the whole thing that it was like someone had pulled the plug on a dam. Plus, I had these two yahoos sitting next to me and they both had the sense of humor of nine year old boys.

We were probably laughing for twenty minutes. One of us would stop and the other would start up again. We would get rid of it for a minute and then it would float down to the other end of the risers and come back to us. One by one we would have to go down and hide our faces. It was a wonderous wave of laughter, raining down on us, crashing over us, a wash of pain and pleasure. I was crying at one point, I was laughing so hard, and then I started peeing my pants. I do this when I laugh really hard and when I start to pee, I only laugh harder. My God. It was just so fucking funny.

When the curtain went down for intermission we all roared, falling on the ground, smacking our knees and retelling each other what had been going through each of our minds when it was happening. The girl who farted was mortified of course and she was apologizing up and down to Romeo and Juliet. I thought she should have been given a medal. It was the only real moment that happened in the entire run of the play. Why hadn't I thought to do something like this myself? I wonder what it looked like from the audience. They must have thought it was part of the show, unless they heard the fart too. It was pretty loud.