Existential Dread Down the Drain
SANTA MONICA, California -- A stormy minded Russian woman new to this side of the ocean and this amount of alcohol was told: “There is a stage where people can stand and share their innermost contemplations." Meanwhile, a swath of coronavirus runaways heard word of a renegade comedy show in the same location.
Arriving at the event, I parked in the heart of the LA urban sprawl. A van with a broken windshield flashed advertisements for backpage dot com. I overheard some chatter which I followed into a backyard illuminated by string lights. The place had a grungy personality. There were exotic plants, stolen street-signs, and dozens of mid-grade paintings scattered about, some hanging from the walls and some painted on them directly. A chaos hardened German shepherd made a home out of a small stage made from pallets. People, some wearing masks, some not, sat in various chairs and beanbags. I’d say half were comedians, half were characters.
Each person on “the list” got 9 minutes on the stage.
A guy with a Massachusetts tattoo on one arm and an “I love mom” on the other made jokes about sex and consent. A nurse talked about bacteria and her sister’s butt. A demon lured us under his spell with wordplay that would make a dictionary cry. To calm things down, a kid played some ukulele songs about the pains of immortality.
When more comedians took the stage, a guy named Aaron’s giggle box was so trigger happy, it drowned out jokes before the punchlines hit. Comedians began to lose interest, but people called this Aaron out for his unstoppable form of heckling. “The guy is so positive,” one comic said, “I don’t even want to kick him out. I want what he’s on! But damn man, please, can you just pipe it down a degree or two?”
Aaron stood up, wobbling drunk and seeing things, saying, “I’m just living life, being positive being present,” Shortly thereafter, a beautiful woman wearing a mask sat next to him. He looked her in the eyes and said, “I hate mask people. You are evil. Get the fuck away from me, and sit somewhere else with that underwear on your face.” Then he reached to me for a fist bump and genuinely told me and the entire backyard that he hoped we were all having a "fine evening."
Eventually the event host implemented a mandatory no laughing rule, which solved some of the problems.
Not long after, the Russian lady began heckling the host, poking for her chance at the stage. She pushed aside a large man called Stink and grabbed the mic. Stink tried flirting with her, and she flirted back, but she soon fell into the existential monologue that the crowd had no way of foreseeing. It was so wretched, speaking of death and meaninglessness, and she was so drunk and talking like she was in therapy even though this was a comedy show. At first people laughed because they thought she was telling jokes. But as she spiraled downwards, even her boyfriend backed away.
The woman was left drawling emphatically into the mic with nobody in the crowd, until eventually Stink, having finished all the joints he had brought that evening, returned back to sweep her off her feet. Her 50 y/o boyfriend, Russo, who owned the house, didn’t care to be the girl’s boyfriend anymore and encouraged Stink to take her away.
When everyone left, I found myself inside the house, surrounded by unfinished paintings, bongs, piles of tobacco and half-read books. I talked with Russo, who was the artist of the place. He paints for 3-4 hours each day, conjures chaos and grows tomatoes. I bought one of his smaller paintings, the best I could get with the money in my wallet. It was a painting of his lost love, a quadro-paligic person in a wheelchair who he met in a bar. He threw in a freshly grown tomato for free.
As I bit into the juicy vegetable, an angelic woman, walking down the sidewalk as Russo was showing me his garden, mistook me for his apprentice. Russo gave her a tomato too and she asked me if it was clean. I said “probably not, but it will make you live forever.” She said she’d save it for later.
From what I’ve heard, the comedy treatment had no effect positive or negative.
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