Channel 52: My Life

Channel 52

         Hello, Hi! I could tell you my name, my age, my sex, my sexual orientation, my ethnicity, what I like, what I don’t like, what my job is right off the bat. But would there be any point? It’ll take me about two minutes and then you’ll leave me.
         I thought of this last weekend while I was at a speed dating event that my friend dragged me to. I was wearing one of those ridiculous “Hello...My name is...” stickers. Fred is my name. How attractive is that? Fred is a boring name, I say boring, others say square. Can a name be square?
         Anyway, back to speed dating, the way it works is that the men stay seated while the women rotate in a clockwise fashion every five minutes. Some would say five minutes is too short but I think it’s plenty time enough for some of the women you find.  For instance, this one woman sat down and started going on about how her friend that she brought with her was better looking and was stealing all the men. It was at that moment I knew that her friend getting all the guys had nothing to do with looks. She caught me staring at her friend and cut the date short. I wasn’t offended.
         The next woman who came by was smokin’ hot, but sophisticated looking. I was definitely interested. She took one look at my name tag “Fred” and my face and she suddenly needed to use her 5 minute washroom break, probably to throw up. I’m not the best looking guy and with a name like Fred you really need to get to know me first before you make a judgment about me.
         The woman that crossed my path next actually showed potential. We had a mildly intriguing conversation for about three minutes on whether the duck-billed platypus is a mammal or not. And we got to that from a conversation about her neighbor’s cat giving birth to puppies. Where does this woman live? It all fell apart when she started to rhyme words with Fred, Ted, red, unwed; she forgot dead, which is what I wanted to be at the end of the five minutes.
         I decided to cut the night short and head home. I’d had enough of women for one night. An experience such as this is never good for my self-esteem. Usually after a night like that I grab a newspaper, flip to the classifieds and read the “missed connections.” The missed connections page is where a person can write about seeing someone on the street that they wanted to talk to but didn’t have the balls to. So, someone can post an ad with a description of the situation. Tonight there was a particularly funny ad. Heres what it said:

                   Me: Brown hair, tall, hot
                   You: Brunette, tall, hot
                   -we had a moment

Perhaps the person caught their own reflection in a window. I can only imagine the kind of moment they had. There are always some odd descriptions. The other day I read about someone seeking out a blind person. Reading that ad made me uncomfortably amused but optimistic. Still, I feel sorry for blind people because they miss the excitement of T.V.
         I love television, especially Jerry Springer. It has a perverse trashiness that can only be found on Hollywood back lots. There is always a transvestite or two on the show. It never gets old. Personally, if I had a suspiciously he-man girlfriend and I was invited to the Jerry Springer show, I would know something was up. To be honest, the trashy shows are some of my favorites; they make me feel better about myself. Oddly enough I’ve learned a lot from them. Like from “Cops”, I’ve learned that I should never hide crack in my crotch in case I get busted. If I was a desperate drug addict running away from the police on “Cops” I would be more afraid of the cameraman. That guy can run. In fact, some of my best ideas for writing comedy skits come from my favorite reality shows.

***

         I woke up in front of the T.V. the next morning not even remembering what time I fell asleep. I didn’t bother showering because I wasn’t planning on impressing anyone in between my house and the local Starbucks. I contemplated the idea of not brushing my teeth, but my better judgment and the rotten taste in my mouth won over. Settling into my usual corner, I didn’t have to order, I’ve come to expect my black venti Columbian delivered right to my table. I opened up my laptop and started from where I had left off:

         When I was seventeen I needed a SIN number to get a job. It took my mom months to find my birth certificate and passport. There came a point when she just made excuses for not having them. I would ask her about them every other day and she would never have them. I honestly was beginning to think she had smuggled me in illegally from Africa or something. I was adopted, so this theory was totally possible.

Normally I’m a comedy writer, but right now I’m not on contract so I’ve been working on my novel. I’ve been working on this novel for a little over a year. If I start writing a novel then begin all over again with a different idea in mind but with the same title as before, is it considered the same novel as the one I started with? Anyway, the novel is about me, and events in my life. I’m not full of myself, I’ve just had a mildly interesting life that has had it’s fair share of ups and downs that readers can laugh or cry about. I didn’t become a writer because I wanted to be rich. I became a comedy writer because I wanted to be rich. That didn’t really work out too well.
         My comedy skits never really had punch lines and I never wrote about what I knew. People expect comedians to talk about their own experiences. Well, I don’t. I joke about what I don’t know because my naive thoughts are humorous at times. For example, I don’t know if George Bush was ever dropped on his head. If I were to make a guess, I would say he was. But I’m not sure. I’ve never had tens of thousands of human beings at my disposal; I don’t know what I would do if I did. George Dubya sent his people to find “weapons of mass destruction” aKa oil. Me? I would have my tens of thousands of people make sushi...no, that is lame. I would have them play Broken Telephone. If I start with a message such as, “I eat paper in my sleep.” I wonder how it would change? No that’s silly, not funny at all. I don’t know what the hell I would do with tens of thousands of people, but at least I might find a girlfriend among them. But that’s not original, Bill Clinton had the same game plan. That’s why I was never a good comedy writer. So, back to the point, I just sit in a corner of Starbucks all day watching people, listening to people, and writing about myself.
         Sometimes my memories are triggered by the most unexpected things. I was watching this show for the first time and about five minutes into it, the daughter tells her mom she’s gay. The mom instantly slaps her in the face. I thought that was hilarious; what the hell was the mom thinking? Was she trying to slap the gayness out of her daughter? Now, I’ve seen some ridiculous strategies, but that one was way up there with the line “It’s all my fault.” What the hell? How is it always the mother’s fault? Because she shouldn’t have given Billy the knitting needles? I don’t understand, but it did give me an idea for my book.

         I think I found out my brother was gay when I was 8. The conversation went like this;
         “Do you have a girlfriend?”
         “No.”
         “Do you want a girlfriend?”
         “No.”
         “Do you have girls that are friends?”
         “Yeah.”
         “Are you gay?”
         “Yep.”
         “Okay.”
                   I think that is a pretty healthy and reasonable          way to find out. The                    conversation was pretty quick and we both knew were it was headed.

I watch T.V. to get away from my life. Unfortunately, it just reminds me of things that have happened to me. Hopefully, if my book does well it’ll all be a happy ending. Two paragraphs, that’s enough for one day.

***

         I slid into my comfortable routine and flipped on trusty, reliable channel 52. To my horror  “Wife Swap” had been replaced that evening by the movie The Borrowers. I hate this movie; I think it’s really creepy. Who could live with little people the size of mice living in their walls stealing their shit? Oh wait, I’m sorry! They “borrow.” I would prefer to have giant rabbits breeding in my kitchen rather than little thieves in my floor boards. I turned off the tube, manually, I’m not sure why. There is a powerful feeling I get doing it that way. Perhaps I need to feel like I’m in control or something. I opened the newspaper to read the “missed connections.” One caught my eye. It read,
                   Scruffy man in the corner of Starbucks.
                   A little goofy looking. I wanted to say Hello,
                   but was intimidated by your piercing gaze.
                   Call me, Jami 416-555-5865
Could it be me at last? I guess I have always subconsciously been waiting for that special someone seeking me through the “missed connections.” Eagerly, I called the number and asked for Jami. A husky voice responded and asked me to hang on a sec. An even huskier voice came on and said,
         “Hello, this is Jami, who’s calling?”
If I have learned anything from Jerry Springer, it is to never get involved with another man.