Stutterer interrupted, p.6
Stutterer Interrupted, page 6
That politician understood the power of the church as a networking tool. Religious communities offer connections that can lead to jobs, friendships, marriages, and more. Oh yeah, and there’s also the spiritual part! Let’s not forget about that. Religion can be personally transformative. For many people, the rituals of worship have a cleansing and grounding effect. When they are faced with crisis, religion offers them a formula for coping. Someone died? There are funeral rites. Feeling guilty about something you did? There are atonement rituals.
My relationship with the church never ran that deep. Once my parents stopped bringing me along, I was pretty much out, apart from a few obligatory family functions. I never had the experience of being an integral part of a church community. Not until I became a comedian and discovered the Brainwash.
Comparing the Brainwash Café and Laundromat1 open mic to a church might sound like a bit of a leap, but it’s a short leap. Both serve as communal spaces. Actually, the Brainwash served as three communal spaces: laundromat, café, and open mic. The holy trinity! You had washing machines in one room and a café/performance space in the other. You could get a beer and watch stand-up while waiting for your clothes to dry. A genius business model if there ever was one. Throughout the day, the drifters/yuppies/techies/druggies/hippies/rockers/skaters would come to eat, read, work on their laptops, hog the single-stall bathrooms, loiter, drink the free water, and do a million other things I probably don’t want to know about. In a city increasingly shaped by economic barriers, the Brainwash offered the rarest example of a complete cross-section. You could sit at a table with techies pitching start-ups to your left and skater bros scoring drugs to your right. Around three o’clock, the early-bird comedians would start rolling in. You could tell them apart from the ordinary patrons (civilians) if you knew what clues to look for. They carried notebooks. They rarely bought anything. They always crowded around the same two tables outside, passing around a joint and running jokes by each other. Between five and six, they would start lining up at the back door to get a good spot on the sign-up sheet.
The Brainwash had a mic going two or three nights a week, but Thursday was the big one—the Sunday service, if you will. Thursday nights were hosted by Tony Sparks, AKA the Godfather of San Francisco Comedy. He was the pastor of this degenerate church, leading the crowd through another evening mass. I had seen Tony on a show in Oakland fifteen years before I ever called myself a comedian, so I knew his legend long before I signed up for my first set at the Brainwash.
If it was your first time signing up, Tony would tell you to put a star next to your name. When it was your turn to perform, Tony would scream at the top of his lungs:
TONY:
Hey good humans! Your next comedian is new to the room, so what do we give them?!
AUDIENCE:
A lot of love!
TONY:
Say it louder!
AUDIENCE:
A LOT OF LOVE!!!
TONY:
That’s right! Everyone, I want you to lose your fucking minds for [insert frightened newcomer’s name here]!!!
On that cue, the gathered assortment of comedians, Google worker bees, and confused laundry patrons would erupt into applause—the loudest your average open mic performer would probably ever hear. The crowd’s enthusiasm would then gently diminish as they watched the first-time performer fumble through their badly-written material and realize that wow, this is actually hard! After five underwhelming minutes, Tony would get back on stage and act like he had just seen the greatest talent in the history of stand-up (then forget about them two seconds later and bring up the next act). Just like that, another congregant had been baptized into the church of SF comedy by Tony Sparks.
If Tony was the minister of the Brainwash, the deacons were people like Anthony Medina and Kristee Ono. When it wasn’t Thursday, they held open mics and showcases that gave us great sets, painful lessons, and everything in between. Kristee even organized a comedy prom night—perhaps the only time I’ll ever get to do stand-up in a formal with my grandmother Ida’s mink stole. I was definitely not too weird for that prom!
Just like church, the Brainwash had its own set of rituals and practices, which went something like this:
• Don’t run the light
• Bring your own pen when you sign up
• Women sign up first
• If you are not a woman, get there early
• Don’t run the light
• Expect a contact buzz when entering on the café side
• Don’t come in late and expect Tony to put you up, unless you’ve been on TV
• Expect comedians who have been on TV to show up late and jump ahead of you on the list
• Watch out for Sweet Gail, she might hit you with her cane
• If you’re running the light, get the fuck off stage!
These were the customs we all observed. No matter how important you thought you were. No matter what was going on in your life. No matter your education or status. None of that mattered at the Brainwash. All that mattered was being funny and not running the light. There were rare exceptions, like the night when Faizon Love (Big Worm in Friday) came through. The drunk hipsters were so star-struck, he could have committed a war crime on stage and they would have eaten it up. I can still hear the voice of the guy sitting behind me, gushing to his friend, “Oh my God! It’s Faizon! FAIZON!” I saw firsthand how a big fish can show up to a small pond and get all the adoration they want for doing next to nothing. The rest of us had to win the crowd over by being funny. And sometimes even that wasn’t enough.
Just like church, the Brainwash provided a space to network and socialize. You could form friendships, romantic or sexual relationships (which Tony strongly advised against), and get booked for other shows. My first paid gig was the result of Tony introducing me to Kiko Breiz, who produced a show called Speech Therapy (how fitting is that?). The Brainwash also introduced me to Jabari Davis, who booked me on a show at the historic Purple Onion club. Because of the Brainwash, I got to perform on a stage where legends like Lenny Bruce, The Smothers Brothers, and Phyllis Diller once stood.
The majority of my comedian friends are people I met at the Brainwash: my friend (and current neighbor) Heather, who first caught my attention with her bit about feeling guilty for going on a luxury cruise; my friend O.J., who documented the San Francisco comedy scene on his blog, Courting Comedy; my friend Jesse, who impressed everyone with his unusual brain; and, of course, Mean Dave! I remember the moment when Dave and I became real friends. We were laughing at this one comic for blatantly kissing the host’s ass, bonding over our shared distaste for ass-kissing in general. At some point the conversation turned to Dave’s sick grandmother, a nice British lady in a convalescent home. I told him about the experience I had with my own grandma passing. That was when I knew Dave was a real friend and not just a peer in stand-up.
The Brainwash was a place where you discovered friends. It was also a place where you discovered who wasn’t your friend. Unlike church, stand-up allows people with beef to openly rip on each other, on and off the stage. Sometimes a little teasing would dispel the tension. Other times it poured gas on the fire. I once had a comedian make fun of my stuttering and say, “It’s okay because my uncle stutters.” He was Asian American, so I said, “I have Filipino cousins; that doesn’t mean I get to make hacky jokes about Asian people.” When I got up on stage that night, I spent four minutes mocking his fluent entitlement while he ducked out the side door. I guess it got too hot for him to handle.
As I became more comfortable and established at the Brainwash, I no longer felt compelled to explain my stuttering at the beginning of every set. People knew who I was; I could jump right into my observations about something unrelated to disability and not worry about them fixating on my speech. I came to realize that open mics are for the comedians and not the audience. It’s our time to experiment, workshop ideas, and socialize. Sometimes we only have three minutes to try out all our new material—you think I’m going to waste two of those minutes on a generic disclaimer? It eventually got to the point where new comedians would come up to me and ask, “Have you ever thought about mentioning stuttering in your act?” Nope . . . never thought of that. Thanks for the tip!
As if it weren’t already perfect, the Brainwash had four pinball machines in the laundry area. My two favorite things in life are comedy and pinball! Did I mention that I’m a world ranked player? If you ever look at a pinball machine and see “NAG” on the leaderboard, you’ll know who was there! Someone once told me that I’m probably in the top two percent of female players. That same person also offered me a foot rub, but I choose to believe he wasn’t just making up those statistics to hit on me.
One night I was there playing Junkyard, one of my all-time favorite machines (that’s the one where you have to assemble a junk-mobile to defeat Crazy Bob in space . . . as one does). I could hear Tony Sparks in the other room, leading the audience in another baptism: “What do we give them? A LOT OF LOVE!”
I listened in on the newbie’s set. He had one-liners that were smart and funny, especially for his first time on stage. Something jingle-jangled and pulled my attention back to the pinball table. Gotta watch out for that swinging crane!
I was still concentrating on the game when I saw Tony from the corner of my eye. He was introducing that new kid to an older, more experienced comedian. The latter was about my age, doing the unbuttoned-dress-shirt-over-a-T-shirt look with an army messenger bag on the side.
“Here, talk to him,” said Tony. He was clearly pawning this energetic rookie onto another comic so he could get back to hosting and finishing his burger and fries.
As I collected more junk to build my spacecraft and kill Crazy Bob, I eavesdropped on their conversation. The young neophyte was asking questions nonstop, picking the brain of this veteran comic. I was less than a year in myself, and no seasoned comic would ever give me the time of day. They tend to be the like blue-haired rich ladies in church, unable to bother with anyone beneath them in the Constituency. This guy wasn’t like that. He listened to the new kid and patiently answered all of his questions, though he must have been secretly annoyed at Tony for sticking him with babysitting duty. I willfully lost to Crazy Bob so I could join the conversation. I told the new kid that his style reminded me of Emo Philips, which made him all giddy because apparently he worshipped Emo. After another fifteen minutes of conversation, the new kid ran off to do some more networking. It was just me and the other guy now. We introduced ourselves; he said his name was Ethan.
“You were really patient and nice to the new comic,” I said. “Were you ever a special ed teacher or something like that?”
It turned out that Ethan was in fact a teacher, and he had worked in a program for adults with disabilities. When you grow up in special ed, you develop a sixth sense for these things.
Ethan and I had a lot in common. We were both on the introverted side. We both had a habit of offering rides to other comics. We eventually formed a carpool together, along with two other comedians. As I felt myself becoming more attracted to Ethan, I started to scrutinize him in greater detail. Tony strongly advises against dating other comics, and I was very hesitant at the idea. If Ethan and I were going to date, he had to pass two tests. First, he couldn’t be a scumbag: no rape jokes, no womanizing. Second, he had to be funny. I remember watching him perform and thinking, “Okay, this is it. If he doesn’t make me laugh, I can’t have a crush on him anymore.” I am happy to say that he passed both of my tests!
One day Ethan asked me out to lunch. We went to an Indian restaurant, followed by a trip to Yogurt Park in Berkeley. Ethan got zazzleberry-flavored yogurt topped with Oreos and gummy worms—does the thought of that make you also want to throw up? We spent the rest of the day strolling around and talking, until he had to leave for a show in San Francisco. He texted me later that night: “Is it a disability to have a crush on someone?” I texted back, “Only if it impairs your daily life functions.” He confirmed that it did. We went on several more dates, and things started to get serious.
On November 5th, 2016, Ethan and I were married at the Madonna Inn.2 My bridesmaids were my closest friends: Gina, Heather, Jody, and Mean Dave. Even though they are all talented writers, they elected Dave to give the bridesmaid speech.
“I hate weddings,” he began, raising his glass to toast. “If you told me when I started stand-up comedy at the Brainwash that in six years I’d be a bridesmaid in a wedding, saying the wedding toast to two aspiring comedians from that very same open mic… I would have quit comedy right then and there.”
The Brainwash wove our lives together in ways none of us could have predicted.
You might have noticed that I keep referring to the Brainwash in the past tense. Sadly, it was forced to shut down in December, 2017—another casualty of the changing culture and economics of San Francisco. The end came suddenly and without warning. One day some comedians showed up for the open mic and found locked doors instead. There was a letter from the owner taped to the window, listing the reasons that are always listed when another San Francisco landmark vanishes overnight. Bay Area comedians collectively lost their shit. Their brain pathways were wired to go to the Brainwash on Thursdays! Like Skinner rats pushing the disconnected food button, they sulked in front of the empty building out of pure habit and faith. Others ranted and raged through social media, which is kind of ironic, seeing how the Brainwash was killed by dot-com-fueled development. The rest of us grieved quietly.
The Brainwash was our church. It was our community and home. The building might be demolished or converted into an upscale condo, but the things that happened there can never unhappen. Memories were made and lives were changed. Countless friendships exist because of the Brainwash. The careers of famous and unfamous comedians exist because of the Brainwash. This book, the one you’re reading right now, exists because of the Brainwash.
Not bad for an open mic in a laundromat.
10
D-D-Dating’s Weird…
Hurl a stone through an open mic and it will probably whack a comedian in the head as they exclaim, “Dating’s weird, am I right?” That one phrase has become so cliché that it is cliché to point out that it is cliché. It’s cliché squared. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that dating is weird. And it’s even weirder when you stutter.
When I broke up with Sean, online dating was a firmly established “thing.” Everyone who wasn’t married had tried it at least once. Everyone except me, of course. The last time I had been single, people were using dial-up modems. The entire game had changed and I didn’t know where to start. Dating is already bad enough, but now I had to do it through profiles and private messages like some kind of e-Bay auction? Gross!
I recruited one of my guy friends to help me fill out the questions on my OkCupid profile. He was an old pro at this online dating thing, so I knew I could count on him for good suggestions.
The first thing people usually notice about me…
“My eyes are UP HERE BOYS”
Okay, maybe not. At least his intentions were good.
My profile ended up being mostly references to comedy and pinball. Under “I spend a lot of time thinking about…” I wrote, “How to make bunk beds so I have more room to do activities!” You might recognize that line from Stepbrothers, the Will Ferrell movie about two grown men who act like five-year-olds and share a room in their parents’ house. That’s romantic, right?
Actually, the comedy stuff landed me a few dates. Most of them were hooked by my various allusions to Chris Elliot. Forget the wonky algorithms; any man who loves Cabin Boy has to be a good match, right? Once a guy was interested, the next step was communicating with him via private message. If we exchanged decent banter, I would initiate the next step and set up a date.
It turns out that a man can love Cabin Boy and still be boring. Who knew? Every date was the same awkward conversation over the same overpriced hipster fried chicken with the same splitting of the check. There was no second date. Good! My new life as a comedian had given me an allergy to unfunny men. Most dates had me counting the minutes until I could say goodbye and escape to an open mic.
But I couldn’t get off the OkCupid train that easy. I had to keep trying! Keep tooling and retooling my profile until it attracted the right kind of man! I spent an inordinate amount of time on my profile, agonizing over how to present myself and how others would read it. The hardest part, of course, was figuring out how to mention the stuttering elephant in the room.
You should really contact me if…
“You have a stuttering fetish”
Funny, but it might attract the wrong kind of attention.
I am good at…
“Making fun of people who make fun of my stuttering.”
That’s better. A warning shot to scare away the jerks.
I went through many more revisions, searching in vain for that perfect way to broach the subject of my speech. How you disclose a disability is serious stuff. It can make or break a first impression. And in our ridiculous society, a handful of first impressions can determine a person’s whole future.
When people ask me if they should mention their disability on a job application, I always respond with a cautious “no.” Better safe than sorry—and I have been sorry before. When I was applying for internships during my final year of grad school, I had the option to apply to ten different agencies, many of them colleges. I mentioned my stuttering and learning disabilities in the cover letter, explaining how my personal experience could be helpful in mentoring students with similar backgrounds. I don’t think my prospective employers agreed. From those ten applications, I got two invitations for an interview. That was the first and last time I decided to disclose my disabilities in a cover letter.
