Ha blah blah.

 

Oh my God. Oh my God.

 

Ha blah blah.

 

To my approximation, those are, roughly, the sounds a human being makes when he abruptly awakes coughing up his own blood.

 

After my embarrassing stint at the Ice House — I’m sure the staff still refers to me as ‘oh, the cokehead’(see previous blog), I spent the rest of the night with my nose ensconced in ice (IRONY ALERT!) watching bad late night infomercials. In my red bull/vodka/blood depleted stupor, I became utterly convinced I needed both a Shamwow and Snuggie. I even ordered a set of 3 magical Shamwows on the phone. I fell asleep on my couch feeling Shamwonderful.

 

I woke up 2 and 1/2 hours later violently spitting up my plasma.

 

Ha blah blah.

 

Irrational thoughts race through one’s head when waking up in this fashion: the first of which being that I must, at all costs, avoid getting red on my new beige Craigslist couch, which was a freakin’ steal at $100! With this impetus, I jumped up – naked and hunched over like an imp – and raced to the bathroom, where I could bleed on some more forgiving tile. In the bathroom, I was able to examine the mess of my face. The Dexter-style blood splatter combined with bedhead… or couchhead, rather… wasn’t a good look. To make matters worse, the blood kept flowing. I decided, with my limited amount of medical expertise, to basically shove everything in the bathroom up my nose. Unfortunately, the source of the geyser had a different avenue to go down as well. As I leaned over the sink, I felt a tickle in the back of my gullet and…

 

Ha blah blah.

 

If you’re wondering about the phonetics, yes, I did sound a lot like a cartoon Count Chocula. In this case, “Ha” represents a futile inhale blocked at the throat by a stream of blood and “blah blah” is the quasi-concious physiological response of expelling blood out of the mouth.

 

And yes, I realize that lacking a dolby-surround-sound Blu Ray quality audio/visual with lustrous red blood framed by soft moonlight creeping through the canyons off Kirkwood and quick racked frame focus, the actual horror of ‘ha blah blah’ is lost. I swear to God I was spiraling into sheer terror, convinced I was going to bleed to death in my studio apartment.

 

Ha blah blah.

 

I was coughing more blood. Now it was on the sink, walls, and mirror. ‘Damn, I need Windex no streak!’ Again, weird trivial thoughts seemed to overshadow the logic of the event. The Scotty Tissues I jammed up my nostrils couldn’t seem to stem the tide. I grabbed a white beach towel and pinched my nose shut with it, instantly relegating said towel to a life of blood cleanup until its untimely demise. Any dream this fluffy IKEA towel had of beaches and the salt of biki-clad women lying down on it was DONE.

 

Within seconds, the hablahblah was soaking through this enormous wad of beach towel, rivulets following the course and twisting fibers of it until it started looking like a dye job. I tilted my head back, which just allowed physics and gravity to do their thing and send the blood quicker into my digestive tract. Yum. Probably not part of the South Beach Diet, I thought.

 

I ran to the deck. More ha blah blah. I needed to get to the ER. I imp-ran out of the house covered in blood, towel on my face. In my panic, I only managed to get boxer briefs and car keys. Naked, bloody, and running – it looked like a bad episode of ‘COPS.’ Slamming the door on my Honday hoopty, I peeled out, flooring it down the winding canyon roads, seatbelt seatbelt seatbelt warning annoying me as I ran lights like OJ.

 

I can only imagine how scary I looked when I stormed into the ER with my beach towel and Hanes based on the reaction from the nurses and other patients in the waiting room. Even the guys with axes in their skulls were like ‘Let this dude go first.’

 

After I got placed in a room, a calm gay nurse put some Afrin-soaked, rolled up cotton balls up my nostrils. Although it seemed to slow the flow, I was still periodically coughing up blood when the Resident strolled in very dude-like.

 

“What’s up, bro?” he said. He was a young UCLA resident, Jewish, and clearly too green to realize that you should never ever call your patient ‘bro.’

 

“I’m bleeding and it won’t stop for some reason.”

 

“Let me take a look…. Shit dude, it’s still bleeding. I can’t tell if you’re bleeding from your nose or, like…

 

He hesitated as if unclear what to say.

 

“….from your brain, bro.”

 

From your brain, bro? Silence ensued as I contemplated kicking him square in the balls. UCLA med school needs an etiquette 101 class apparently. He looked at me and twisted his lips comically as he thought about his next expert step.

 

“I’m going to get the attending, dude. Sit tight.”

 

Where was I going to go, dumbass? I was bleeding in my underwear!… Hmmm, it was West Hollywood, guess I might fit in at some of the clubs here….

 

Twenty minutes later (hey, no rush – it’s only a potential cerebral cortex hemhorrhage!), the attending physician marched in, much older and possibly even more Jewish. With little gab and zero ‘bro’s’, he efficiently and swiftly inserted nasal tampons into both of my nostrils. If you’re confused about what a nasal tampon is, let me explain: it’s a tampon that you shove up a nostril. Get it? It even had a string. It sucked. I have new sympathies for vaginas.

 

The attending told me to wait an hour to “see if it would stop.” If, after the hour, I had “blood on my tongue” and or “down my throat,” he told me it could mean something “very serious.”

 

Translation: you might be bleeding from the brain, bro.

 

Tick tock. Tick tock. What ensued was the longest hour of my life.

 

I watched Judge Judy on the teeny TV hanging off the robot arm above me, even though the TV had no volume. Another Shamwow commercial came on. If I had a 20 times more absorbent Shamwow at home, I thought, maybe I never would have had to come here. I contemplated my silly life and laughed at how much it meant to me. Stupid mortality.

 

The nature of my death would make an interesting caveat to my life. I would get the ultimate tombstone engraving for a comic: “Here lies Bill Dawes RIP. Died of a bloody nose. No joke.”

 

I survived the hour with sardonic and grim solitude as Judge Judy silently hollered at white trash.

 

In the end, it was just a bloody nose. I breathed a sigh of relief as I was discharged. The gay nurse gave me shorts and a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt from the lost and found. He wanted me to be able to get home with some dignity.

 

Well, at least with as much dignity as I could muster with two tampons hanging out of my nostrils.

 

The actor’s nightmare is going on stage and not knowing your lines. EVERY actor has had it, sometimes even onstage. When you ‘go up’ on a line during a play an eternity passes while your neurons ransack the archives of your ADD-addled brain looking for the smallest iota of logic that can serve to paraphrase. The adrenaline is comparable to being attacked by a mugger, your mind is defenseless against the onslaught of errant chemicals coursing up and down your spinal column.

 

Finally, you sputter out something semi-coherent while the other actors try desperately not to laugh in your face and you manage to get offstage without a complete mental breakdown. In truth, 3 seconds elapsed and no one noticed because most of the audience was asleep and the other 25 percent was wondering if they TiVo’d LOST properly. Still, it haunts you like a ‘Nam flashback and you tell the story for years about the holocaust of forgetting your lines during summer stock Moliere.

 

I was always curious about what the comic equivalent would be. When you forget what the hell you’re saying as a comic, you just look into the audience and say ‘How long you two been married?’ or ‘That’s a crazy shirt!’ or ‘Are you Asian or a stoned Mexican?’ Eventually your brain will scramble out of Hackville into something in your wheelhouse. Never a truly awful moment. Pull out your open mic impressions if you must. “Here’s Robert De Niro as a MIDGET!” What a wacky twofer that is!

 

I think I recently experienced the TRUE ‘comic’s nightmare.’

 

I was making my debut at the ICE HOUSE in Pasadena, an amazing club (the Laugh Factory equivalent … for Pasadena). Since I had just moved to LA, I hadn’t worked many local clubs and was excited about the prospect of a another comedy haven. I had my Red Bull Ketel One doing the Jedi mind trick on my brain, convincing me that I was brilliant and ready to blow the roof off. Yes, Red Bull Ketel One is deliciously responsible for delusions.

 

When the emcee brought me onstage, I came on and stared at, yet again, a group of strangers. They looked at me expectantly. At this moment, I think about one of my heroes – Patton Oswalt – who once talked about the merit of digging yourself a painfully uncomfortable unfunny hole the first five minutes, just to see if you can climb out of it. I was feeling Patton cocky.

 

“How you guys going?” Smattering of indifferent applause. One disproportionate WHOOOOOOO! Hmmm, you can always count on one slut in the audience for that bellow. I nodded as I looked at the crowd.

 

I noticed a stockily built guy with a tight, sparkly t-shirt stage left. His arms were folded, face like cold granite, measuring me with a withering stare. He had a thick steroid vein running from the top of his brow to his left temple like a topographical map of testosterone and rage.

 

“Hey sir, thanks for the shitty body language. They asked me what song I wanted to come up to and I said how about I just come up to that guy in the front row’s hatred. That’ll be fun.”

 

Crickets. Arms folded tightly. Everybody could see the bizarre standoff between this Ellen Degeneres-looking comic and this beet-faced muscle head with the floral Ed Hardy shirt.

 

“I don’t get you man.”

 

People watched, uncomfortable. I could literally hear the shifting in the seats and the clinking of Apple-tinis.

 

“You’re an interesting mix. Your face says ‘F%CK YOU!’… But your shirt says (with an effeminate flourish) ‘F%CK MEEEE!!!’”

 

The audience erupted. A solid minute of tension just got uncorked into a cacophony of laughter and applause. It was off the cuff and honest and I landed upon a joke that I knew would serve me well for years (and which I knew would surely be stolen by road hacks within weeks).

 

I then proceeded to my standard jokes about dating and love and relationships, but with the unbelievable credit and trust gained from navigating a delicate opening. They trusted me now and even so-so jokes were getting applause breaks. Clearly, I was on my way to being an Ice House fav.

 

And then I felt I weird space open up in my breathing. Then a telltale taste of iron on the blade of my tongue. My nostrils flared as a litmus test for the change in chemistry. The space expanded more and my lips smacked with the foreboding flavor.

 

Dammit, am I having a nose bleed?

 

I took a sniff, hoping for a runny nose. I held up my index finger to blot my right nostril and sure enough, it was bright red under the harsh illumination of the Ice House lighting grid. F%ck ME now, I thought.

 

“I think my nose is bleeding.” I double-sniffed again like an agent in a Hollywood Hills house party. I hadn’t had a nose bleed in years, but I remember an old trick from elementary school.

 

“Hey can I borrow your napkin?” Before the woman in the front row could answer, I had taken the course cocktail napkin from her table, ripped out a piece, and rolled it fervently into a makeshift tampon, whereupon I shoved it up my right nostril.

 

I had only done 8 minutes. I couldn’t get off yet, I was slated for 25.

 

“Does this look alright?” I queried the audience. They were laughing, they thought this was part of some absurdist Steve Martin-style bloody nose bit. Insecure, I shoved the wad in a little deeper. I started in on the next bit…

 

“The thing about –“

 

My left nostril, clearly feeling like the bastard stepchild of nostrils, decided then it was a good time to bleed as well. I sniffed it up until it slid down my throat like a shot of raw egg from a glass. I grimaced and gulped.

 

“Hey, I gotta get offstage… Sorry, I need to get offstage. Where’s the emcee, I need to get off.” An eternity passed until the emcee came back and relieved me from the mic. I was an instant butt: “No, he isn’t a cokehead, I’m serious. The truth is, this stage is a little higher off the ground than you might realize.” They both killed, I was a d-bag.

 

I went to the bathroom and stuffed more stuff up my nose until it finally stopped. I walked out bloody and beaten, the owners and managers giving me a look as if to say, “Stay off the powder, son.” I protested out loud to everyone and no one, “I’VE NEVER DONE COKE IN MY LIFE!” Just then, my 6 foot, rail thin, way too hot for me model girlfriend walked up to me, concerned. I could feel everyone at the Ice House collectively concur ‘ahh, now I see why she’s with him. He’s got the good shit.’
The management at the ICE HOUSE gave me half of my paycheck since I didn’t do my allotted time. I left upset and humiliated.

 

And that was just the START of the night…

When I first got to LA, I thought, for an all too un-brief moment, that it might serve me to be part of ‘The Scene.’ I got an AFFLICTION t-shirt, a spiky-combed-forward-to-cover-the-slightly-receding-hairline coif, and I even committed the cardinal sin for tortured, poor, New York theatre artists – I went to a tanning salon.

 

Now, I had never been to a tanning salon before but, since my arrival in LA, I had a lot of “let me tell you what you need to make it” types (they usually come with a Bluetooth and over-sized veneers) tell me I should get a tan so I look ‘healthier.’ I thought I was fair-skinned, but apparently in LA that translates to ‘corpse-like.’

 

Well, that was enough for me – I Googled ‘TANNING SALON’ and found the nearest one to me, ready to be a more effervescent, less cadaverous me.

 

I was immediately bombarded when I walked into HOLLYWOOD TANS. It smelled like an amalgam of Clorox and beach. Clorox beach, if you will. The music was lively and bumping, and it juxtaposed oddly with the still orange people sitting behind the desks. They all looked like they had been holding their breath for 4 minutes and just exhaled before I walked in. It looked like they went into the tanning bed and set the dial to ‘OOMPA LOOMPA.’ (And, of course, I mean the old-school Gene Wilder henchmen color schemata). It looked like they were taking carrot enemas 5 times a day. These kids even made Bill ‘Beta Carotene’ Clinton look like a sepia toned photo.

 

One guy behind the register clearly had been Irish at some point, like me, but had, through his employee discount at Hollywood Tans, slowly metastasized his freckles until he was Mexican.

 

I skipped him and went to the guy with the Ed Hardy tribal tattoos with the least amount of fluorescent glow on his facial area.

 

“Hey man, I’m going to Cancun and I’m looking to get a base tan. Can you help me with that? Thanks.”

 

Although the going to Cancun part was true, the translation of the sentence in truthtalk is: “Hey man, I’m trying to book a TV job based on a nice bronze complexion instead of any discernible talent – can you walk me through this process so I don’t feel completely shallow? Thanks.”

 

Armande pulled out a laminated sheet that showed all the packages, insisting that I need a ‘package,’ that I would never see results if not for a ‘package’ and oh how much we all love a good ‘package.’

 

There were two types of beds, one that was mostly UVA rays, which were healthier and less intense rays, and UVB rays, which cooks your sperm into a molten broth of retarded one-eyed Cyclops after 3 minutes. I chose UVA rays.

 

He then proceeded to tell me for the low, low price of $19.95, I could have a special ‘high-pressure’ situation with UVA rays if I only bought a package of 3,000 tanning sessions. I might be mistaken in the quantity but it was a lot. I told him I just needed a ‘one-off.’ I just needed a hint of sun kiss so people weren’t expecting me to ask for “braaaaains” when I walked down Sunset Boulevard.

 

I bought ONE for $40 and walked into a mini Fortress of Solitude. It was basically a bunch of 8 foot long vertical light bulbs with a latticed steel cylinder fashioned around it. The subject stands in the square center of the bajillion bulbs at full blast for 8 minutes and then fervently prays he can still have children that don’t ride the short bus and go apeshit over a bowl of Jolly Ranchers.

 

I wanted an even tan so I took off my tube sock and fashioned it over my junk as best I could. I smiled at how impressive I looked with a size 11 tube sock with red stripes on it. I was glad, in this instance, that horizontal stripes make things look fat. Unfortunately, I looked behind me and my butt looked ancient Greek alabaster at best, 10 day CSI morgue victim at worst. I put on a pair of Michael Phelps swimming goggles and I walked into the chamber.

 

QUICK CAVEAT: I think it’s important to note that the guy asked me how many ‘minutes’ I wanted to be inside the machine. I asked what the range was and he said ‘between 5 and 8 minutes.’ Well, I was spending $40, so I wanted my money’s worth.

 

“I guess leave me in for 8 minutes.”

 

“That’s the max. It’s high pressure so it’s pretty intense.”

 

“Oh yeah, high pressure,” I reiterated, having no clue what the bejesus that could possibly mean. “Um, you’re right about the high pressure, I’ll do 7 minutes.”

 

He looked at me with a smirky smile or a smily smirk that seemed to say, “Wow, you’re brave,” or quite possibly, “Stupid people deserve skin cancer.”

 

I took my towel, goggles, bronzer/tanning lotion, sock, and stepped into the center of the cylinder. Now what? I fumbled blindly for a switch outside, found a little blue button, hit start, and the GE’s came to life with a grinding yaw, instantly and ironically sending chills down my naked spine and shaking my sock to and fro.

 

I stood there and closed my eyes as the current of wind and heat buzzed and whirred around and about me. I took a little peeksie through the blinding lights to see that there were subway-style hand straps for me to grab onto. I reached up and held on to the straps, slightly dumbfounded as to why I needed straps. Does this thing move? Finally, I decided that, obviously, it was important to have golden armpits. I couldn’t help but muse that it seems that I’m always getting ripped off whenever I’m holding my hands up on subway straps.

 

The same thumping music was on but muted, barely audible through the torrential wind machine. I settled into my straps and mini-fortress and decided to use ‘The Secret’ in this brief moment of respite, contemplating on how many cars and how many Mexican landscapers I would need with my new found fame, fame created solely by the mere deliciousness of my movie star skin.

 

At 4 minutes, I heard a sharp pop and realized I had farted. Damn you UV rays!

 

At 5 minutes, my nipples got way too hard and my scalp starting tingling like a bad Selsun Blue commercial. I was starting to wonder if maybe I should get out.

 

At 6 minutes, I instantaneously started feeling my skin tighten up and redden around my neck and shoulders, my left testicle retreated into a mysterious pocket inside my pelvic bone. I wanted out… but the timer was set to 7 right? What’s one more minute?

 

I got out at 7 and knew, right away, that life on Earth was now different. Heat was emanating off of me in waves. I felt light-headed. I was also keenly aware that my body was, right then, in the process of cooking. When all of the electrons had settled down from my buzz, there would be some serious issues.

 

I walked out trying to act like I was a Golden God, smiling from ear to ear, while surreptitiously checking that my thin strands of blonde hair at the top of my skull hadn’t curled into flaky Hiroshima ash.

 

The sun poisoning set in after about 3 hours. I laid up in bed taking pain medication and Nyquil and cursing ‘Hollywood Tans’ for their awful, evil existence. My friends only showed up to play that game where you touch the red to see how contrastingly white the imprint from a poking finger is. “Wow, you look like a lobster, dude!!!”

 

I couldn’t wait for the peeling to begin so I could start anew. LA = 2, BD = 0.

“Let me look at you guys.”

 

Another crowd. Faceless. Restless. To them, I am another comic. Unknown. Urban. Our disappointment sits between us.

 

I look out at them, trying to connect. They sit on silent haunches. There is a primal relationship; one of us is predator, one prey. Right now it’s unclear which is which.

 

The light on my face is too damn bright. I can barely see the front row. I only make out couples, holding hands, knuckles white, tense. I put a hand over my face, creating a makeshift visor.

 

“Sorry, I can’t see shit. They have these Gestapo find-a-Jew lights burning a hole in my retina.”

 

They laugh. A little. I’m literally half-blinded, annoyed, and unable to actually see my audience.

 

“How many people here are Mormons?”

 

Although there was another ‘haha-this-hacky-question-again’ wave of nervous laughter, I was genuinely curious. Despite having the trappings of some sort of quasi-erudition, I found myself completely naïve about what, precisely, is going on in Salt Lake City.

 

The audience at the Wise Guy Comedy Club in West Valley (read: poor section of SLC) responded, as comedy clubs do, with a smattering of applause. I wasn’t sure if that applause represented an accurate Mormon-o-meter, or if it represented general malaise towards comics asking that hackneyed question.

 

There were one or two Arsenio Hall-style ‘whoop-whoop’s.’ I guess a couple of people were hopped up on some Joseph Smith. The response quickly abated and the audience looked at me expectantly. It was basically the first thing I said; they were looking at me like baby birds, wanting nourishment, wanting to trust that I would take care of them. The third line. The turning point. The prestige.

 

“Hmmmm…. So I guess the rest of you are just white trash, huh?”

 

As luck would have it, this audience happened to have some white trash on them. The previous swells were usurped by an eruption of yelps and hollers and claps and, even more luckily, laughter.

 

Ahhhhhh, poor people. My people. Now the set could begin…

 

5 hours earlier, I found myself smoking a cigarette in downtown Salt Lake City looking at a bronze Brigham Young gesturing fondly to something Southeast. Beyond him, there were potted flowers and trees and manmade waterfalls and flawlessly clean marble and cemented populated by people who were also commensurately polished and shiny.

 

I took a drag of my cigarette and pulled out my cell phone to take a picture. “This is f#$%ing beautiful” I said in sincere admiration. My vague smile on this sunny day on the corner of TEMPLE SQUARE in Salt Lake City lead me to the austere visage of a Mormon magistrate, who gave me a ‘come hither’ finger move, the type of gesture, heretofore, I could only ascribe to kindergarten teachers and/or horny drunk girls (albeit the two aren’t mutually exclusive).

 

“First day in Salt Lake City?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You just broke 3 laws. There’s no smoking in the square, no cursing, and no cell phones.”

 

“Oh, shit,” I said, not ironically. My mouth had officially become potty after 6 years of club standup.

 

“Since you are on the entrance of the square, I’m not going to issue you a summons or a ticket. But please, put away your phone, your cigarette, and your attitude. Thank you.”

 

I took a few steps backwards and threw the lit cigarette in the street. Clearly, the magistrate didn’t like that, but it was out of his jurisdiction. I put away my cell phone in my back pocket. I decided to keep my attitude around, just a little quieter, with arms folded. “Go be safe in my head with the other Demons” I told my attitude.

 

I walked back into the square, gave the magistrate a smile, and proceeded into Temple Square. Despite the admonition, I didn’t feel chastened – mostly because Mormons have such a pleasant demeanor. The perma-smirk found on the face of every Mormon I saw nestled coquettishly between smug and spiritually content. Yeah, they thought they were better than the ‘non-believers’ in the midst, but ultimately, they didn’t care enough about them to form specific judgments. “If these fools don’t believe that Joseph Smith was visited by Moroni and dug up ancient tablets that no one ever saw and that Jesus made a pit stop in Kentucky, then too bad for them.”

 

Temple Square, like many of the sites, landscaping, and architectural concepts predicated on the Mormon religion, was designed to represent, to a small degree, an entrance into heaven. It is an exquisitely beautiful and serence square spanning about 4 city blocks containing bronze statues, perfectly manicured flowers, waterfalls, fountains, and, of course, the temple. Since it is sacrosanct to them, they have constructed standard social rules that apply to Temple Square and no where else in Salt Lake City: namely, no smoking, no cell phones, no cursing, and, apparently, no black people.

 

If this is a synecdoche for Mormon heaven, guess what black people – you’re not in it. My blood boiled instantly. I wanted to kick Mitt Romney in the testicles. Why are there no African-Amormon’ans?! Of course, if something is too good to be true, it almost always is. I decided to break into the temple.

 

I went into the ‘grounds’ around the temple and there were about 12 weddings take place, allegedly since it was the ‘first sunny day’ of the year. I got in wedding shots, asked inappropriate questions, and was generally amazed at how damn sexy Mormon brides were. The grooms… not so much. I’m sure there alteregos on World of Warcraft were hot, but these pasty, freckled lards were dorks and their brides were fittingly and tragically young.

 

I went to the door and tried to wedge it open. I tried every window and side door too. Then I became aware the entire façade of a temple was basically hermetically sealed and my only way into it was through another building that would entail security and an underground entrance.

 

I made my way to the other building and decided to just walk through like I owned the place (something that has served me well getting into some of the snobbier parties in New York and LA. That’s right, suck it, Sky Bar). I heard an ‘excuse me’ from a Wilford Brimley lookalike and kept walking. His waddle could not keep up with my Manhattan pace. Soon I was at the entrance, about to cross into the temple, when a man looked at me.

 

“Do you wish to enter here?”

 

The paradoxically calm yet ominous undertones of his voice made me stop in my tracks. My mouth wordlessly moved up and down like a broken animatronic. The guy was sitting in a chair, the last buttress between the inner sanctum of the Mormon temple and the bustle of the pagans and the outside world.

 

“Yes, I do.” I satisfied myself that I had an answer that was, at least, honest.

 

“Are you prepared?”

 

I wasn’t sure what this meant, but as I thought about it, I got sucked in by the man’s countenance, by his whole appearance. He had uniform white hair and eyebrows, that, within a shade of Behr paint, matched PRECISELY with his white suit, white tie, and white shirt. Scanning down, I saw the equally white belt, pants, and shoes. It was like he had been dipped in a white vat with just his hands and face covered. He looked like an X-RAY of a well-dressed business man.

 

It was at this point I noticed my cavalier attempt to enter the Temple had galvanized a crowd of 4 or 5 of these shockingly white, exact same dressed X-RAY people. It was at the point, I realized that these impossibly white clerics were like the Oompa-Loompa’s of the Mormon world: creepy, uniform, and the keepers of all the secrets of what lie on the other side of the big door.

 

I gulped and tried to think of an answer to the ‘are you prepared?’ question. For a second, I thought about being a smartass and taking out a condom. I’m kidding, of course; I don’t wear condoms.

 

Before I could say anything, he handed me a brochure on the Mormon faith and said, in his mesmerizingly melodious voice, “I think you need to prepare and you need to get right with God.”

 

I wanted to laugh in his face. Unfortunately, the lonely child in me that struggles with my faith… In anything… clambered up my throat and took a mischievous tug at my tear ducts. I blinked back, surprised that I even cared anyone would say that to me…

 

It’s 5 hours later, and I’m hearing laughter. I had planned to rip on Mormons and expose the religion for what it is – the scam of the century by a charismatic charlatan with a penchant for 14 year old girls. Unfortunately for me, as a comic, I am the one who feels like the fake. I, for one, wish I had that faith in anything. I, for one, wish something could give me a perma-smirk and a belief in something higher.

 

I gave my doubts a shake. I am onstage. I am telling date jokes, relationship jokes, and fart jokes. And, for a brief moment, Mormons and white trash and this urban infidel come together. They are all laughing. There is sanctity to that, right?

 

Hmmm, maybe one day I WILL be prepared…

Another airport. Another weird-looking person I am unable to refrain from staring at. This one has got a handlebar mustache twisted tightly and stretched like pulled taffy. The respective sides look eerily like blonde antennae. It makes the guy donning it look like some white trash bug. As my eyes peel away from the minutiae of his faux-antennae, the full mosaic of the group of 4 sitting across from me is clearly revealed.

 

Effin’ Mormons.

 

Not surprisingly, I am waiting to go to a stand-up gig in Salt Lake City. And, of course, Salt Lake City has almost become synonymous with Mormon, which, TO ME, has become synonymous with ‘What the hell are magical underpants?’

 

The venue is called ‘Wise Guys,’ which serves as a nice bit of unintended (I’m sure) irony to me. The Mormon religion/race/lifestyle more closely resembles the clandestine, family-oriented, and ultimately illegal and tragic workings of the Italian Mafia than any other group in America.

 

One of the crazier ironies about the Mormon religion is how “golly gee” nice its practitioners are juxtaposed with the misogynistic, violent, and destructive religion itself. Rape, murder, incest, deceit, abuse, embezzlement, tax fraud – and that’s just happy hour on Tuesdays! Oh wait, they don’t drink. “Hmmm, I guess if you’re sober, Eli, you might realize that girl you’re defrocking is TWELVE…”

 

If I had any doubt the Jerry Springer bug sitting across from is Mormon, I see him put his arm around a much, much younger girl. His pretty ginger-headed girlfriend sitting next to him — with freshly budding boobs and skin the color of paste — is poring over, I shit you not, a coloring book. She is currently plotting her next selection from the 64. Trailer insect looks proud of her. Yay!

 

I am racking focus to the duo sitting across from them, a mother and daughter pair – clearly evidenced in the fact that the daughter suffers from some of the more unfortunate genetic missteps seen in the elder’s face. A stark generation gap sits between them. The mother borders on Amish in her austerity and the daughter has slut-on-the-sneak written all over her Hello Kitty backpack.
Watching this family, I can’t help but become keenly aware of the collision between Joseph Smith’s ‘old-fashioned’ ideals and the current currency of fashion and fitting in. The daughter is dressed in a hodgepodge of possibly hip but borderline scandalous. Her face is overly powdered, her pink blouse a little too form-fitting and too closely matching her pale pink lip gloss. Weird? Not really.

 

Mormonism has possibly become, after all, the sexiest thing in the world now. After Edward gave that super piggyback ride to Bella in ‘Twilight,’ millions of people became obsessed with Stephanie Meyer’s world – a thinly veiled metaphor for her belief in the BOOK OF MORONI; in particular, the values of fidelity and abstinence. I’m not quite sure that Meyer has converted much youth of America to the teachings of Joseph Smith, but it stands as a far more successful bit of propaganda than ‘Battlefield Earth’ — the Scientologists and John Travolta’s homage to ANOTHER pedophile’s religion.

 

Ouch. Stings reading this, doesn’t it, Tom Cruise!

 

Still, Edward is sexy. Travolta is a fat gay troll. Poor recruiting techniques.

 

Mormon daughter pulls out a pink iPod that matches her, yes, eye shadow. Mom sees me looking and shoots me a withering stare. She is, obviously, from a different generation. Hair cut across the forehead evenly, face sans makeup, long skirt, blouse buttoned to the neck, and eyeglasses straight out of a Granny Halloween costume bag.

 

Why do I hate them? It bugs me. It’s not their fault that they were indoctrinated into an absurd religion and were also coincidentally born without brains.

 

Maybe it’s because I have an 11 year-old daughter. I know Warren Jeff’s and that screwy compound in Texas is not indicative of the entire religion, but I have my doubts about the whole kit and caboodle in general.

 

I will be performing for a bunch of Mormons in a few hours. I’m Irish. I might drink. I flirt with this joke: “I like Joseph Smith. He was a brilliant man. Anyone who can invent a religion so he can legally bang 14 year-olds is okay in my book… What did I say? You’re right – 13 year olds, I should be historically accurate…”

 

Stay tuned…

These blogs aren’t going to be about the turkey sandwich I had or how nice people are. When I worked with rudiusmedia and Tucker Max, I got in some trouble because of my diarrhea of the fingers… as it were.

 

I can’t promise that you’ll love me as a writer or a comic. I can’t promise you’ll even LIKE me. But, if you’re patient and the 21st century pandemic of self-prescribed ADD (brought forth by Twitter, text, Facebook, google, etc.) still allows you to take some time to follow my crazy life… I CAN promise you that you’ll probably feel better about yours.

 

That’s about it, with, maybe, a nice turn of phrase here and there.

 

CINCO DE MAYO, 2009

 

I moved to Los Angeles from NYC in February. As an actor/comic in Manhattan, the prevailing axiom is ‘let LA come to you’ or ‘don’t go to LA unless they bring you out.’ I held onto that mantra in my 20’s, but then had to create a new mantra when I turned 30, namely ‘why the hell am I telling fart jokes to tourists in Times Square in my 30’s?!’

 

Not that fart jokes and tourists are all that bad, but other than the vampiric sexuality of Manhattan nights, nothing was really keeping me in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment. So I shoved some rags and an ipod into a duffle bag and tripped the light fantastic to the land where dreams are made…..

 

Like most actors, when I first came here, I wanted to live in ‘Hollywood’ proper. I wanted to wake up in the morning and see the big HOLLYWOOD sign! I wanted to look at the empty pink terrazo five-pointed stars on the boulevard, use ‘The Secret,’ and inlay it with ‘BILL DAWES” in bronze. In my Willy Wonka-size imagination, my star would represent all 5 categories, just like Gene Autry.

 

However, one thing you may not know is that, if you live in the heart of Hollywood, you actually can’t SEE the ‘Hollywood’ sign. It’s east and high, closer to the rich people. Also, if you live in Hollywood proper, on any given morning, there is a 10 percent chance you will be shot in the face by a crack addict in a diaper.

Only a slight exaggeration.

 

I mean, just this past Saturday, a man was shot 6 times on Hollywood Boulevard out front of the tragically hip ‘Teddy’s’ nightclub. Those poor hipsters almost got blood on their Manolo Blahniks! And THEN what?!

 

ANYDEATH, I printed out my Craigslist posting and went to my first potential apartment. $700 a month. The same place also rents rooms by the night… and by the hour. Undaunted, I went up to the lobby and politely said hello to the man behind the latticed gate and bulletproof window.

 

“Hey, I’m responding to the room for rent on Craigslist?”

 

He measured me up. I guess to make sure I wasn’t the Craigslist killer or that I wasn’t wearing a diaper.

 

“Sure, sure, hold on, my friend.” He spoke with an accent and eyebrows that were most likely Persian. However, I’m sure if asked, he would answer with whatever country the USA just happens not be at war with.

 

I followed him to the room, in awkard cadence with the inharmonic timbre from his 3 million keys. I was convinced that at least one of those keys must be to a man-sized safe.

 

He opened the door to my ‘apartment.’

 

The mattress was a stained twin, the windows were wrought iron Gray-Gardens-gated, and a small, lonely tv hung in the corner — a la ER hospital room — with locks and chains around it to prevent theft. Why the owner would be worried that someone was desperate to steal a 13-inch crappy cathode ray tube TV from the 80’s is beyond me, but there it was — protected like Davy Jones’ locker. Pale paint was peeling off the ceiling and walls like dead tongues.

 

A wave of weird, creepy, psychic, Ghost-Whisperer vibes washed over me. I was sure that horrible things had happened in this room. It reeked of morbidity. On the plus side, there was probably a pretty good chance that if I opened up the mattress, there would be a stash of 100 dollar bills in a leather suitcase. Should I risk it?

 

A little Mexican boy was absently spraying disinfectant at things in the room when we walked in, but it didn’t cover up the smell of sex. Probably gay sex — the sweet amalgam of ass, cologne, and attitude. New York clubs and cabs had almost gotten me immune to the smell, but still, bile shot up my throat like a geyser and I swallowed it with a wince.

 

“So what do you think? For you, I do $650. Very good price, my friend.”

 

The Mexican boy squatting in the corner suddenly quit spraying the Lysol and looked up with me briefly with a look that said, ‘Don’t effin’ do this, senor! Es mal!’

 

I was temporarily speechless. Finally I managed to speak: “uh, yeah, this is cool.”

 

I said that. I’m retarded.

 

“I’m going to look at a few more places, but I’ll let you know.”

 

“Okay, for you, $600. For special friend, special price. Cooome on, my friend.”

 

The Mexican boy left the room and for a fraction of a second, I thought I was going to be raped and turned into ‘The Gimp.’

 

I started edging my way towards the door.

 

‘I just have appointments, but this is nice. I really dig it.’ (why did I say that? I used 70’s jargon!)

 

He didn’t move and I felt a slight bit of relief when I got to the hallway un-raped. I saw the sunlight through the metal matrix covering the glass entrance to the building and I started walking purposefully towards it. I knew he was behind me, looking at me, and I didn’t want to betray my nausea and fear by walking too fast. I felt like Jodie Foster in ‘Silence of the Lambs.’ Quid pro quo… my friend.

 

I got outside to find myself in a slight state of hyperventilation. Nice, Bill. What a man!

 

I walked, more than a little creeped out, to my car. I had a ticket. The meter had expired one minute earlier.

 

It was like the parking authority was saying…

 

‘Hey Bill… welcome to LA.’