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My Debut on SNL
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My Debut on SNL |
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Janie Member
since 2000-08-13
Posts 158 |
Warning: This is a comedy sketch and there are a few words in this that I normally would refrain from using in my writing. Please take the piece for what it's worth and don't read it if you don't like secular comedy or have a problem with a few choice words. Other than that, it's clean. Hi Ya’ll! How ya’ doing tonight? Is it hot in here, or is it just me? …I’m always hot. Hot natured I guess, doesn’t help much living in Texas. It’s always hot there. Like they always say, it’s so hot in Texas, the fire-hydrants are calling the dogs! Or as my husband likes to say, it’s so hot in Texas that a fat-boy like him can make gravy! But seriously, are ya’ comfy? Seats not too close together? I hate that, seats too close together. It’s not that way in the newer movie theaters. They’re great! There are several new ones in my city. The seats are really roomy and they have that neat drink holder, you know the one on the armrest? But, at older theaters sometimes the seats are so close together you can’t even use the armrests because the people on either side are hogging them. And during the movie, when you think they’re not paying attention, you try to sneak your elbows up there when, suddenly, you get some resistance. That’s when you realize the other person is staking their claim. You end up spending the rest of the movie pressed up against some guy you don’t even know. You can’t even get up to go to the bathroom because you’re afraid you’ll lose all the valuable ground you’ve gained so you sit there during the whole movie like this... (during this section, acts out funny gesture of being pressed up against the armrest fighting with someone next to you) Yeah, I hate it when seats are too close together, very uncomfortable…you know, talking about being comfortable, everyone has their own comfort zone. Did you know that? Yep they do. There have even been studies about this. They say that when you step into a person’s comfort zone, if you’re too close, they’ll actually back away from you to maintain a distance that’s comfortable to them. They tested this with the English and found for people from England, their comfort zone is about three feet, for someone from France it’s about two feet. For a New Yorker it’s about 2 inches, which would make sense because I’ve heard people from New York don’t have any problems getting in your face. I guess that’s why they say a New Yorker’s bark is worse than his bite! Yep, those New Yorkers don’t have any problems getting in your face and they’re pretty comfortable doing it too. Really though, it’s not just New Yorkers. With the way we Americans drive it seems like we don’t have any comfort zone at all. For example, what about tailgaters? Don’t you just hate them? You’re driving down the road, minding your own business, already breaking the speed of light and some jerk ends up on your ass! So you look up in your rear view mirror, look at your speedometer and assess the situation. You think to your self, “I’m driving 100 miles an hour in the fast lane and the cars in the middle lane are driving slower than road blocks. You pause for a minute and then you think, “SCREW THAT GUY!!!” You take a stand; you take a stand and stay where you are; the only problem is the guy behind you is about to run you off the road. If his car were any closer he could drink from your straw! So then you decide to teach him a thing or two because there’s nothing we American’s love to do more than get even and teach someone else a lesson. Am I right? “I’ll teach that guy to ride MY ass!” So what do you do? You tap your break. Now folks, think about it. You’re upset because someone is riding your ass, you feel like they’re driving in your comfort zone and to fix the problem you tap your brake?!! I don’t know about you, but at light speed, this doesn’t seem like a very bright thing to do unless you’re Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon… “Come on Chewy, we’ll outmaneuver them by losing power, then we’ll launch past them to hyper-space!!!” What is it about us Americans and the way we drive? We just make the rules as we go along, but boy, oh boy, we have no problem pulling out our back seat driver’s license and making a citizen’s arrest any time we have the chance. I was driving with my husband once and he saw a guy run a red light and said, “Look at that! Did you see that guy? He just ran that light!” I had to check to make sure I was in the right car because he’s notorious for running lights. After I made sure I was in the right car, I asked him, “What about the lights YOU run?” He’s usually pretty quick and then he said “I only run them when they’re orange.” I let that picture enter my mind and I see how he’s gonna be. Then I plan how I’m gonna get even with him for getting out of my accusation so easily, ‘cause I like getting even as much as the next guy. But you know, we southern woman have our own way of doing this, getting even that is. Southern women are proud to be women and never want to be accused of not acting like one, so we have to be careful in the way we handle certain situations. The trick to this is to play dumb. Yep, play dumb and go along with whatever our husbands say. Never question what your husband tells you. In this case, my husband had already shown me the possibility, no fact, that stop lights come in other colors besides red, green and yellow and out of nothing more than love and respect for my husband, because I am a good, Southern wife, I say to him, in a sweet, Southern accent, “Well Honey, then what color are the stop signs you run?” Yep, if we’re not breaking boundaries, we’re breaking rules. I guess we Americans have always been that way. We didn’t like the rules in England so we came to America so we could do it our way. That’s why we like Burger King so much. We love it “our way”, don’t we? It’s been that way for as long as I remember and when we don’t get our way, we get an attitude… I don’t think I told you this, but I grew up in the 70’s. Yep, like wow, I was a groovy chick. Even then we had an attitude about comfort zones. Of course I was just a kid in the 70’s. I didn’t drive then. Who here was a kid in the ‘70’s? Raise your hands…so you remember some of the fashion trends like Under Roos. I had Wonder Woman. What about t-shirts back then? I remember there was a time when every t-shirt I owned had my name in block letters on the back. “J-A-N-I-E”. What about when designer jeans first became popular? Remember that? I would go to school with my t-shirt with my name on the back, “J-A-N-I-E” and my designer Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and I was one cool chick. And remember we used to roll our jeans up at the bottom? At my school, you could always tell who the cool kids were because they were the ones with the widest rolls. The wider your roll, the cooler you were… And I don’t know if this was just a “Texas” thing ‘cause you know Texas is like its own small planet, but do you remember that fad with the big plastic combs? That was when everyone had feathered hair like Farrah Faucett’s and it was very cool to carry a big plastic comb sticking out of your back pocket. But, you had to do it right, what you’d do is put the teeth of the comb inside your pocket with the handle sticking out of the top so everyone could see it. Some smart guy, probably made a million dollars off this idea, but someone decided to print stickers with different sayings on them and put them on the handle of these combs…So, you’d walk up behind someone and see their comb sticking out of their back pocket and it’d say something like, “Sitting Pretty” or “Foxy Lady”. I always liked the one that said, “If you can read this you’re too close.” See? We Americans have always had an attitude about boundaries. In the 70’s, a comb that said, “If you can read this, you’re too close” showed you had a REALLY bad attitude. I think over the years our attitude has only gotten worse. I mean if those combs were still popular today they wouldn’t say, “If you can read this you’re too close”. Today they’d say “IF YOU CAN READ THIS GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF MY ASS!!!” Thank you! Thank you! You’ve been a great audience!!!… < !signature--> [This message has been edited by Janie (edited 08-19-2000).] |
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Elyse Member
since 2000-04-16
Posts 414Apex (think raleigh) NC |
hi janie. there are some funny parts in here. the part about asking your husband what color the stops signs were, the driving stuff was pretty good. considering his as a comedy piece to be performed, i would say its maybe a tad wordy in places. lemme give you a for instance... Yep, those New Yorkers don’t have any problems getting in your face and they’re pretty comfortable doing it too. Really though, it’s not just New Yorkers. With the way we Americans ... ok, so you dont need this kind of repetition in a performance piece. these people just listened to you talk about new york, your best bet i think is to pause, and skip straight to "really though..." keeps it tighter and holds the audience's interest. also, i think maybe try to steer clear of the "yuk-yuk" jokes. ya know, like the bark worse than the bite one. everyone knows that and if you actually performed that i hate to say but i think you would die a horrible death. standup like anything else is about freshness and new ideas. or saying an old idea in a new way. make sense? now, i think the two sections about the brake tapping and the light rinning are really strong. i just have a small suggestion about the light one I had to check to make sure I was in the right car because he’s notorious for running lights. After I made sure I was in the right car, I asked him, “What about the lights YOU run?” i pictured like a pause where you make a really incredulous face and then you say the "had to check...lights" line. and i would skip the transition again and go straght to "what about..." so i guess you see the kind of thing i mean. hope i was helpful to you. keep working on this and maybe try it out sometime at your local amatuer nite  it might be way fun.luv Elyse |
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Janie Member
since 2000-08-13
Posts 158 |
Thanks Elyse for looking at it. I know what you mean, it is corny in some spots. I should have explained this: this how I see myself, in my imagination, performing this sketch as a soliloquy to an imaginary audience. I can barely remember jokes to save my life and my delivery is terrible. It's not that I'm "afraid" to talk in front of a large group, I've done it before, but performing comedy in front of an audience would never happen (some of you who are reading,but not commenting are probably saying "Thank God" right now) I know it's wordy in some places, but that would be my problem exactly because I would probably talk just as you see the words here.I appreciate your honesty though and I'll look analyze it to see if I can clean it up a bit. Thanks! |
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Dawn Eclipse Senior Member
since 2000-01-31
Posts 637The Horsehead Nebula |
LOL.. that was a funny piece. keep writing comedy. Great job. "Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other course, no other way... No day but today" ~Broadway Musical RENT~ *Cassandra Roseen* |
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JnR4eva Member
since 2000-08-07
Posts 377Bronx, NY |
Hey Janie what's up..I was searching around the forums and ran into this place. At first I was terrified of the lengths of many of these works because it is simply tooo late for me to read them but when I saw SNL I had to respond b/c I love that show so much Your good..and I pictured a lady whom I assumed to be you lol standing up telling this as I sat down and watched and boi...you told a great skit....I like this a lot....keep working on it, it's great I loved it but uhh back up on New Yorkers, we are not ALL like that ahahahhahahahaahah joking (I guess your right though, the bark is worst than the bite lol ) "my love is my motivation my love is my inspiration perception of this poem is your interpretation" -- me |
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Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
Hey Janie, I will come back to this soon... bothered by some time pressure thingy... regards, sudhir |
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Janie Member
since 2000-08-13
Posts 158 |
Dawn, JnR4eva, Sudhir Thanks for your comments. I should have written this in my intro, but to further help you understand where I'm coming from on this let me tell you a little more. I can't tell a joke right to save my life. I have TERRIBLE delivery and even when I read this out loud, it doesn't sound right, but in my mind I am just beside myself in laughter, more than anything laughing at myself for being so corny. This is not intended to be a "live" act for me, but one that plays in my mind, as it did when I thought of it while driving home from work, a comic soliloquy, if you will. The different parts of the act, I envision myself role playing as Rodney Dangerfield, Jenny Garaphola (however you spell her name), Margaret Chu (is that her name?) and so on. I'm glad you enjoyed it. (oh, and nothing personal against New Yorkers, just playing up common heresay) Janie |
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