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.