In the audience last night was a thin, bald guy in a shirt featuring purple pineapples.
“At what point during the evening,” I asked him, “did that shirt seem like a good idea? I mean, what mirror did you stand in front of and think, ‘Oh, yeah! I’m ready.’ We can go’?”
“The pineapple,” he said, “represents virility.”
He looked like the kind of guy in a Nugenix® Total-T Testosterone ad who doesn’t seem to notice his wife would rather fuck Frank Thomas, so count me among the unconvinced about the magical powers of this fruit.
“I didn’t tell him to wear it and I didn’t buy it for him,” his actual wife said.
“Why purple?” I asked.
“It’s the only one they had,” he conceded.
**
I asked a woman, during a segment in which I ask the crowd about fantasies, whether she had ever thought about sleeping with two men. She looked at her husband, tilted her head towards him, and said, “Please. I can barely do this one.”
“Do?” I repeated
(I thought about a line my father used to love, one he doesn’t use anymore — or maybe he just can’t remember loving and using — “What happened? The charm school you went to go out of business?”)
I continued couples counseling.
The woman’s husband got correctly the number of years they were married, as well as their anniversary and the ages of their children.
“Damn, you’re good,” I said.
“Ask him if he knows their birthday?” the woman said.
“Jesus,” I said, “why do you want him to fail? Hasn’t he gotten enough right for you? What’s next — the dates of the kids’ immunizations?”
The man then got the birthdays right.
“Apologize to him,” I said.
“No!”
“Tell me,” I asked him, “what’s the secret to being married 34 years to her?”
“Saying, ‘I’m sorry.’”
“You’re a beaten man, you know that of course. How long ago did you lose your spine?”
“Thirty-five years ago.”
“But you’ve only been married 34.”
“I know. Thought I’d get an early start.”
“You want to come sit by me?” I asked.
“Can I?”
***
A woman sitting in the center of the showroom emitted some kind of frightening hack/laugh after every joke.
It was disturbing.
“Are you Ok?” I asked. “I can’t tell if you like the show or are having a seizure.”
“No, I like it,” she said.
“You sure? Because if you choke to death during my act, it’s going to really fuck up the show — not to be selfish.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said before coughing up phlegm and sounding like an old man who took too big of a bite of a corned beef sandwich.
****
There was a man sitting by himself to my left. Earlier in the evening, before the show, he told me he owned barbecue restaurants, was very successful, hated his job, and wanted me to pick on him. He was pretty drunk, too, which always helps the inner pathos. During the show, when he wasn’t annoying the other comics, he’d temporarily pass out. When he’d awake, which he did periodically, he’d jolt forward and sound like a happy dolphin. I say that like I know what a happy dolphin sounds like. He was only sitting by himself because the people he came with moved away from his table.
But every time I would start to feel bad for him, I’d hear this.
Is anyone filming your routines? These should be on youtube.
The guy who was married for 34 years to THAT WOMAN should have his own gig. Nice that you recognized him.