Beautiful weather made for an outdoorsy weekend. Of course “outdoorsy” here means running in Central Park and hanging out at various other little parks in the city, reading and writing.
On Saturday I did something out of the ordinary. YP suggested the Naked Comedy Showcase at The Pit downtown. Like literally buckwild naked. Why, you may ask? Why not?
First we met for dinner in Madison Square Park at the Shake Shack, renowned for their burgers and the seemingly endless wait. We stood in line for what must have been 45 minutes, and then another 20 after we placed our orders. We’re talking burgers and fries here people, not souffles. They need a better system. I ended up taking mine to go.
I was going to eat in the theatre, but suddenly it didn’t seem right chowing down with naked people in such close proximity. As we walked in, this old guy, whom I thought from the back was a woman, was disrobing side stage. He had an awful body, totally saggy and gross. I thought we’d be subjected to watching him perform, but he just wanted to get naked. (Audience members were free to strip down if they wanted. Clothed on the left, unclothed on the right. Wide berth around the saggy naked guy.)
Two takeaways from last night: people’s bodies can be really weird, and people can be extremely unfunny, whether naked or not. Only one guy had a decent body, this really tall Texan with a nice caboose. Toot toot!
The audience was mostly made up of friends of the performers. Then there were me and YP, two single women, and two single men. For some reason only the men seemed sleazy to me. Maybe cuz the women were well-groomed and put together while the men looked like they hadn’t seen a shower in days.
Afterwards we returned to the park so that I could eat. Even cold the burgers and fries were good. By the time I was done, YP was hungry again so we got back on line, much shorter wait this time. I got a vanilla custard, which was something like heavier, creamier soft serve.
On the train ride home, the weirdest thing happened. At my stop I got up and went to the door. Then I felt this man staring at me. I glanced down at him: disheveled white guy with bug eyes. He looked away when he realized I had seen him. But that didn’t stop his equally disheveled, redneck, bug-eyed wife from staring at me too.
I glanced at her. Stare continued. I looked at her again, this time with a WTF? expression, and she finally turned away.
Walking to my apartment, I kept thinking, Do I look weird? At home I checked the mirror: nope, still Asian. Welcome to America, land of the 45-minute burger, unfunny naked comedy, and yes an Asian American woman who will stand near you on the train.
Sounds like a wacky weekend (the staring people and unfunny naked people… not the outdoorsy stuff).
yeah, i get those kinds of looks all the time, and i do exactly what you do. go and take a look in the mirror to see if i suddenly grew a third eye or something…