Sleepwalk With Me_ And Other Painfully True Stories - Mike Birbiglia [42]
I thought, surely there must be someone who’s heard of me. Otherwise why would they have invited me? Then I read, “Dan Nagler, class of 2008, said he has never heard of the comedian and is unsure whether he will attend the show. ‘[I’m] not disappointed necessarily,’ he said. ‘Just because I don’t know him doesn’t mean he’s not awesome.’”
Phew, I thought. Dan may not be attending the show but at least he’s not ruling out the possibility of me being awesome. Of course, it’s hard to be awesome when no one attends your show, so there’s kind of a catch-22 there. As I read further, there was a ray of hope: “Though he had never heard of Birbiglia, Austin Shiner, ’11, said he will likely attend. But a higher-profile comedian would make for a more exciting event. ‘I suppose at the end of the day, I think Robin Williams when he’s on his game is just about unbeatable,’ Shiner said. ‘If they had found a way to get Robin Williams to come, it would have been unbelievable.’” Finally, I thought, a voice of reason. Austin Shiner has this Bill and Ted–style idea about taking a time machine back to 1979 and booking Robin Williams in his prime. While we’re at it, why don’t we have Jimi Hendrix open the show and just play the hits? Now that we’re brainstorming, is FDR available to speak at graduation? The article ends with a quote from Maddy Blount, ’08, saying she did not know of Birbiglia but is glad that “the Fall Show will actually take place during the fall this year.” Glad to be of some help, Maddy. If there’s one thing Mike Birbiglia knows, it’s when fall is. September, October, November, right? Nice.
When I received this Google alert at 1:41 a.m., I sent a letter to the Yale Daily News. I wrote, “I’m still planning to come to your school and I’m going to put on the best show I can. A great man once said, ‘Just because you don’t know who I am doesn’t mean I’m not awesome.’ I’m trying to stay positive. After all, my first choice was to perform at Harvard. You were my safety school.”
One day Jill called and asked if I was willing to perform at five colleges in four days in Oregon and Washington State. It was short notice because one of her other comedians had to cancel. Perfect. I wasn’t the colleges’ first choice. But given the choice of me or no show at all, I had triumphed over nothing.
“Five in four days is a lot, right?”
“Two of them are nooners.”
“Right.”
“It shouldn’t be a big deal. Jump on a plane. Knock out some shows. Fly home.”
This is the kind of language people use when they want you to forget about the extreme strain you’re about to put on your body. “Jump on a plane.” “Knock out” some shows. No mention of the “drive your ass off eleven hundred miles until you’re almost asleep at the wheel” or “cram yourself into a seat with no leg room and endure six and a half hours next to a one-and-a-half-sized person who smells likes olives to a gig no one really wants you at.” I looked at my bank account that was in parentheses and said, “Sure.”
A few days later I wake up at 4:30 a.m. to jump on a plane, which is that part of the morning before the earth even exists. Before they’ve even programmed the Matrix. You walk out of your apartment and the road isn’t even there. You walk out of your house, and there’s just a guy with a laptop who yells, “We need a road, stat!” “How ’bout a building, Tank!”
I get a cab to the Newark airport. And I get my ticket. I hand it to the security lady. And she looks at my ticket and she says, “Well, this gate is completely wrong.” I guess they changed the gate. The way she says it is like I was involved in the gate selection process. Like I didn’t like the gate that was printed on my ticket, so I photoshopped my favorite gate onto the ticket and printed it myself. Like I took one look and said, “B twenty-two, I don’t think so.” No, I was not involved in the process. I was not even cc’d. So she says, “You need to take a tram to another terminal, and I suggest you run.”
So I run.
There’s nothing worse than being late for a flight because you’re running