Jerusalem Syndrome - Marc Maron [32]
I still had a romanticized Beatnik idea of what philosophy class would be. I thought we would all hang out and grapple with a collective existential discomfort while bonding together against a cold world. We would solve big problems and perhaps start a movement. A café society of a cranky dreamer, three grandmothers, two dim kids, and myself. I also thought that my propensity toward bad behavior in a classroom situation had dissipated with age, as had my inability to fully understand the tenets of philosophy. Within the first few meetings of the class, I was lost. I would show up stoned and made cracks at the professor’s expense.
After the fourth class I was waiting for the elevator with the professor. I was wearing a hat that somehow implied I was a comedian; it was a jester’s hat. Actually, it was a baseball cap that had the logo of the New York Comedy Festival printed above the bill. My teacher looked at the top of my head and asked, “Are you a comedian?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you like comedy?” Trying to kiss up.
“Comedy is fine,” he said. “Are you taking my class for material or to learn philosophy?” He looked at me as if what defined me as a person was riding on my answer.
“I don’t think there is a difference,” I said. “My head feels pretty full when I leave.” In retrospect, a very stoned thing to say.
“You can fill your head two ways,” he said precisely, without missing a beat. “You can put new things into it or you can heat up what is already in there so it expands.”
I chuckled uncomfortably, not sure whether I had been insulted or not. I had. I was an expander. That was the last day I went to class. I had learned enough.
It was also during this time that I came out as a Jew on stage. I had never really brought it up because I couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t reinforce the stereotype of what being a Jew was. I can’t stand comedy that trivializes the Jewish type into a set of pathetic behavioral idiosyncrasies, i.e., Jews like to eat, Jews like to whine, Jews like to sit, Jews feel guilty, etc.
I was on stage in North Carolina. There were three hundred people in the room and no one was laughing at anything I was saying. I was bombing, badly. Sweat was spraying out of my head, which in retrospect might have been why I was bombing. It’s weird when it sprays. Then, when I was right in the middle of delivering a joke, I stopped and said, “You know what? I’m a Jew,” just to see what would happen, because I was down South and because I hate myself. Then, right after I said it, a guy in the front row sitting right beneath me turned to his wife and said, “I knew it.” Like whatever led up to that statement was a healthy mental process. I couldn’t help but push my luck. I was already in the soup. So I said, “You know what? I think the Christians are getting a bad dossier on the Jews. I think there’s some misinformation going around, and I want to clear some stuff up because I’m here to help. Let’s start with holidays. For instance, the Jews have Passover and you Christians have whatever it is you do with the Bunny. Oh, yeah, but we’re the ones with the freaky rituals. Go find the colored eggs, kids, then you can eat a chocolate rabbit. Yeah, the Jews are the freaks. Sit on the fat guy’s lap and ask him for free shit. Yeah, we’re the weird ones.” Then I said, “If you don’t know what Passover is, it’s a ritual dinner where we have a service and then there’s a meal and then there’s a sacrifice of a Christian baby, and then dessert.” Some people laughed; others turned to the person sitting next to them and said, “I’ve heard that. You see what he’s doing? He’s telling the truth and he’s twisting it to make it funny. He’s manipulating