Cabaret Of The Damned: "The Rory Sanchez Experience?"

WANTED: Like minded, sick motherfuckers in Southern California to assist Bugs and me (and one other actress, won't say 'til I get the "yes") with an act we're going to do at open mic night, and if they get it, spoken word venues' comedy night. You don't really have to do anything either. We just really need as many friendly faces between us and the real audience as possible. We do have a couple people recruited to be straight-up blockers ["Silly" Simon Phoenix and "Jolly" Judas Booth], but if you want to do that as well, that would be great.

The only hitch is that, unless we book a spot in advance - most of this is a "you never know" thing, though with three people throwing the same name into the hat, it could up the odds a bit. You kind of have to be into this idea that you're part of our little "street theater" troupe, and you'll probably have to buy some drinks and definitely have to listen to some sad, sad, comedy. Fortunately, I/we know some pretty strange and wonderful people.

Why do we need blockers and friendly faces?

Now a lot of things come out of my mouth that, metaphorically speaking, regularly put me in front of firing squads. It's either a talent, a character flaw, or perhaps even an endearing trait of mine - but either way, it's something I do well. And often.

This act is fucking abhorrent. It's partially inspired by the Andy Kaufman tribute that Bugs and I went to last week. But it ended up being a way of fusing together two bits that Judas and I were working on: Rory Sanchez, the Diabetic Comic and The Worst Comedian in the World.

Now it's Guerrila Theatre - Performance Art. Sure! That's It!!!

I now present, in all it's shameful glory, The Rory Sanchez Experience? And I'm really, really fuckin' sorry. Sort of.

Let me set the mood:

It's open mic night at The Ha Ha Hole or The Chuckle Hut, maybe even an open-minded spoken word venue with a cool audience. If what I've seen so far is any indication, the crowd at the former is mostly other comics... well, and a couple neighborhood drunks hitting the post-happy hour specials. It's only slightly less depressing than a Bukowski novel. In other words, my kind of room.

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for The Rory Sanchez Experience!

Rory Sanchez is a bad 80's-style comedian. I mean, she's not a "flashback" schticky character - in the grand tradition of other hack comics of using their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and or disability for THEIR ENTIRE FUCKING ACT, Rory can't stop talking about her Diabetes:

You know what's funny about Diabetes? Nothing.

I just got out of a diabetic coma. What day is it?

She points to somebody's appetizer.

Is that any good? Yeah? That's death on a plate for me.

Then I start heckling her:

You're dying now!

Heh. Funny. (recovering) I just flew in from a blood sugar test, and boy is the tip of my finger tired!"

She holds up a finger with a band-aid.

Is this all you do?

No, sir. I take my shirt off for an encore.

Now that would be funny!

Now she's really fucking pissed. But still trying to keep it together.

Man, my blood sugar is low.

HOW??? LOW??? IS IT???

That tears it.

Look dude, I don't want to compete. Why don't you come up here and tell a joke?

I don't want to.

She steps aside.

Come on. You're so smart, you do it.

Other plants in the audience will badger me. So I get up to the mic.

I tell ya, folks. I'm just on edge. That's all. I'm sorry, lady. I just got fired from my job. You may not know this, but when you come to work with blood and semen on the Chuck E. Cheese costume, management tends to frown on that.

Groans.

While we're on the topic of stain removal, anybody know how to get the stench of toddler corpse and zima barf out of the back of an ice cream truck?

Groans.

It was better than my last job though. I was a playground magician. Know what that is? A playground magician is kind of like a street magician - only I made kids disappear.

Groans.

I should be feeling good. I'm in a new relationship, and that always puts a fresh spin on things. She's a model. She's only done Osh Kosh B'Gosh spreads, but I think I can get her on the back of a milk carton by Valentine's Day.

Groans.

What does a child see before it's drugged and shoved into a potato sack? Well, in my house, it's "Finding Nemo."

Now Bugs starts heckling me. She's on crutches. Not in real life, for the act.

You suck!

That's a good insult. You have another one?

You're a fuckin' retard.

Say - what's wrong with you, Speedy? You want the little Insulin girl back up at the mic?

She's funnier than you!

Why are you so uptight, Sugartits, you get molested or something?

As a matter of fact, I did! Make a joke out of that, motherfucker!"

Was he any good?

Motherfucker!!!

She charges the stage. I mean, she hobbles to the stage.

I get it, I get it. I'm sorry that he fucked you crippled.

She hits me in the nads with her crutch. Rory steps back up and shakes her hand.

That's when I kick the crutches out from under Bugs, knocking both of them to the floor.

I get up and grab one of Bugs' crutches - and start jabbing her with it.

Rory starts pounding on my back. I turn around.

I'll put you in a real coma, you fucking cunt!!!

I swing for her head. She ducks.

Then we all yell, "...And SCENE!"

Rory says, "Well! I think that went pretty well. What about you guys?"

Bugs and I agree.

Then we hold hands and bow - and I give the girls flowers.

My great-grandmammy Vinehamner actually wrote this bit. I have nothing to do with it.

Three Big, Steaming Piles of “Who Gives A Fuck?” [or "Fuck The Lawyers, Let's Kill All The Publicists!"]

I’m not big on topical stuff. I’m not slamming those who do it - and I’m not saying I'm above it. Some people are better than others at the "So what’s in the news today?" format than others. I guess - and again, this is my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt - I’ve just considered it to be a lazy approach. The newspaper (or in my case, news feed) comes everyday. In the case of television and the Internet, it’s a ‘round the clock feed. And I don’t think being able to respond to news stories with a couple snarky quips is particularly unique. I'm pretty sure, almost everybody is good at it - if only to amuse themselves. But I digress…

So what’s in the news today? What’s going on?

You hear about this one? Tiger Woods has beeen stricken with Wandering Cock Syndrome. And it turns out that he had multiple ongoing affairs. Wow! A famous athlete with tons of money who’s been told, practically since birth, that his shit doesn’t stink had an affair? Good fucking grief! No way! Tell me more!

Yeah, he does seem like a nice enough cat. But people tend to forget that he was a golf prodigy, and even as a kid, was already in the public eye. Kind of makes me wonder if his old man was like Joe Jackson.

SMACK!

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

"If you don't make that bogey, you little shit, I'm going to give you something to really cry about!"

But considering where that guy's life is at, I'm shocked only in that people are shocked. With that kind of money and (relative) power, I'm surprised he doesn't travel everywhere  by parade. First, maybe a dozen or so dwarfs riding elephants; followed by 100 dancing girls; then, of course, some clowns; and the man himself on a chauffeur-driven Harley Davidson trike.

You see this one? Turns out a couple of star-fucking reality TV douchetards crashed a White House hootenanny? I guess it was a stunt of some kind to promote themselves, or their reality show, or... Holy fucking shit! Does anybody give a French-friend fuck about this? I guess someone does. Now they're having Congressional hearings about it. Let's see - the country is how many dollars in debt, the world itself is on the brink of fucking ecologic and economic meltdown and the people we elected to help run the country are wasting their time with what? Our tax dollars at work...

And Meredith Baxter (formerly Baxter-Birney) came out. The world stopped rotating for a split-second while a baffled nation paused to yawn and say, "Who's that?"

Now look, I know the totality of local news - praticularly in the City of Angles - makes The View look like a fucking MENSA meeting. Actually, though, it ain't a hell of a lot better when it comes to more "legitimate" news sources. You know, the "hard news" stations. I guess the main dividing line is that, every so often, when Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer have to read fluff pieces as lead stories, you can see something behind their eyes...

"Today in the news, Britney Spears cooked her baby and put a turkey in a stroller and took it to The Grove. Sources close to the singer say that..."

Then Wolf pulls out a gun that would give Dirty Harry penis envy.

"I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! ET TU, GREY FOX?"

Then, a very sullen Anderson Cooper comes out and pulls a gun. He seems more like a Derringer kind of boy, though.

They both take aim at each others' foreheads, and scream "SIC SEMPER TYRANNUS!!!"

Freeze frame.

Cue the music.

Roll credits.

Now I know that the miasma of doom and death that is the world today isn't quite the thing most people want to wake up to. So I look the other way on clown-cars like The Today Show, or Good Day LA. I like an anchor team where Steve Edwards is the heavy news guy.

I think, however, Steve-ster's beleaguered routine is schtick. I'm not saying he doesn't do it well, I just think he took a couple night classes at The Adler Academy or something. If his "Why me, O Lord?" look was the real deal, he would have stabbed his co-tards in their throats by now, at the same time, with a couple of ninja tsais. His hair would spring back into its "magic afro" form he sported in the 80's

As the security guards jump, he'd scream, with a savage look in his saucer-eyes, "I'M RIGHT!!! I'M RIGHT!!! YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT!!! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

And with her last, dying breath, Dorothy Lucey asks, "Is that Spanish?" And croaks.

But you have to wonder if it's a chicken and the egg situation. TV is ratings driven, and I guess there's not a lot of commercial value to telling people how fucked up things really are and how, unless we really change how we do things as a planet and people, we're doomed. Well, not without doing it in the form of a History Channel doomsday prophecy piece. I guess mega-tidal waves and nuclear holocaust brought on by a character in The Bible are easier to process than the ramifications of climate change and global imperialism. I guess if we plunge into the abyss in a sexy, stylized, Roland Emmerich kind of way, we can say it wasn't our fault.

All right. There's a freeway chase on Fox I gotta go watch...