for Norm
BEEN CAUGHT STEALING
Some ppl say I stole this literary journal
That I masterminded the takeover
Like a chess master, plotting it out over decades
Which, honestly, gives my intellect way more credit
than it’s worth
Makes me sound way craftier and more ambitious and
Future-driven than I believe
Myself to be
Like one of the siblings on Succession
Or Tom
So, thank you!
I’m flattered.
But, also, who the fuck steals a literary journal?
KEVIN HART ROAST
We didn’t have anything better to do
So we decided to watch The Roast
It didn’t matter who was being roasted
But it was Kevin Hart.
We were three women who didn’t drink anymore
In our 40s & 50s
Watching a roast of a celebrity on TV
Wanting to be comedians.
I had written a book four years earlier titled
MY ONE HOUR COMEDY SPECIAL
But I didn’t bother mentioning this to the women
The women and I had met in a 12 step program
So there were things we didn’t tell each other
And one of my things was
I’d written a comedy special years ago
In the heart of my alcoholism
Which is when, I guess,
You’re most likely to write
A comedy special
Esp if you’ve never been a comedian
Esp if you’re a woman
Married 3x, living a state away from your
Current husband who is a sex addict.
We’d been prewarned Chelsea Handler was
Being a bitch. Mark Normand had talked abt her
The week before when he came to Detroit
As tho Mark Normand was there at the roast
I kept waiting for Mark Normand to come out on stage
I’d had a crush on him ever since I’d seen him
Man-spreading on his podcast while talking to
Jerry Seinfeld
(spoiler: Mark never came out)
Earlier the three of us had walked to get ice cream
This was something the three of us did a lot
Now that we were (voluntarily) sober and (involuntarily?) celibate
It was hard to say if the celibacy was voluntary or not
Maybe we just liked ice cream
And walking
And surrounding ourselves w other strong women
LOL
It was hard to say
But probably at least one of us wished she had a dick
In her hand in that moment rather than a strong woman
Seated next to her
One of us, at least, wished she had a dick in her mouth
It doesn’t matter which one of us
But probably it was the most whorish (one of us)
I won’t say who, only that it wasn’t me
(I don’t feel pride saying this; you don’t know how often
I wish I was more whorish, the most whorish one)
The Roast wasn’t that funny,
This was the consensus amongst the three of us
But we all wanted to fuck Shane Gillis, the other consensus
Which came as a surprise, at least to me
It was something about his accent
Which made no sense – his southern drawl
How if you closed your eyes, he sounded like Danny McBride
Since he was from Pennsylvania
But whatever
We all wanted to fuck him anyway
And we were all in love with Norm McDonald
I don’t remember how this came out
The realization we had all loved Norm
While watching the roast of Kevin Hart
But we all agreed Norm was the sexiest comedian
Because he was the sweetest comedian
But also the funniest
I didn’t bother mentioning to the ladies
My One Hour Comedy Special
How I’d dedicated it to Norm
How it opened with the transcript of Norm
Going on The View in 2000,
Talking about the Clinton murder
Talking about Bill Cosby
A decade before anyone else talked openly about Bill Cosby
Abt his rapes
Long after anyone wanted to talk about Bill Clinton
The murder and rapes (alleged)
It was easier to just focus on Shane Gillis’s mouth
How easily the words drawled out of it
How he stared at the camera like a dirtier, southern version
Of Jim on The Office
A man someone (a woman) might actually want to fuck
It was such a disappointment when one of the three of us
Googled Shane Gillis and read that he’d grown up
In Pennsylvania.
we wanted him to be deep south dirty
like Theo Von
I regularly masturbated to Theo Von
Sling Blue Chew
I regularly masturbated to Theo Von
Sling Draft Kings
(I would masturbate to Theo Von
Sling anything, is the point, w his dirty deep south
Whorish southern drawl)
I wondered if I would masturbate to Shane Gillis
Hosting a comedy roast
If it wasn’t for the other two strong women
Seated next to me
I knew I could find clips of The Roast later
On YouTube
Download them to watch in my house
With no WiFi
This was my version of OnlyFans, of Pornhub:
Clips of a comedy roast comedian
Hosting with a fake southern drawl.
I didn’t need much, I guess,
Is the point,
To get me off.
And I didn’t need to pay like a bitch
(read: like a man)
To do it.
It was all free on the Internet.
I’d like to state for the record tho: I never once masturbated
To Norm.
May he rest in peace.
Our comedy angel, our truth teller,
Our SNL rebel,
Weekend Update forever Norm’s.
MY BOARDING SCHOOL ROOMMATE PRODUCES COMEDY ROASTS NOW
I was still on my knees in front of my friend’s TV
When the Kevin Hart comedy roast ended
And my boarding school roommate’s name
Came on the screen
I think I yelled out something like, “ohmygod, that’s my boarding school
roommate’s name!” and pointed at the screen
My friend feigned interest and took a long swig
From her tenth energy drink of the day
(I’m estimating)
Waiting for me to leave so she could hit her weed pen
(I’m assuming)
This was the proper response to my declaration
Why would anyone but me care?
Was the proper response
To this information
Aside from the feminist angle:
The angle that recognizes a woman’s name came first
In the list of producers
Of a comedy special
The only non-celebrity name
I had googled my former roommate many times
Over the past two decades
Seen photos of her and Eddie Murphy
Photos of her and Katy Perry
Photos of her and Robert DeNiro
Photos of her and [celebrity name]
Every time I saw a photo of her with a celebrity
I was whizzed down the memory tunnel in my brain
At a million miles an hour
Like a scene in an indie movie from the early aughts
To the hallway of our dorm at midnight, circa 1984, 1985:
My former roommate standing in her nightgown,
no underwear,
Feet shoulder width apart,
Nightgown hiked hip-high,
Peeing on the carpet,
Like a teenager in a horror movie,
Or a rich girl in boarding school.
She was in 9th grade and I was in 10th
And she was the most charismatic person I would
Ever (to this day) meet
& I would one day write a whole novella about her
Titled: TO SHITHOLE
Which was how she addressed the notes
She wrote me (an inside joke)
And signed: LOVELY ME
The last time I could remember hearing from her
Was right after Prince died (in 2016)
I’d emailed her to say I was thinking of her
We had played the Purple Rain soundtrack
Nonstop that year on my boombox
In our room
And she had replied she was right then
With Questlove from The Roots
Figuring out a tribute show
For Prince
I don’t know if that show ever happened
But after she pissed in the hallway
Of our dorm at midnight on a weekday in 1984 or ‘85
All of us had to stay in on a Saturday and do chores
Because she wouldn’t confess and our dorm mother
Mrs. Stone went all Nurse Ratched on the rest of us
Saying we were all heathens
And spoiled
And it was unacceptable
And we would all pay
For one girl’s disgusting prank
I remember doing whatever chore she was assigned (for her)
So she could go hang out with
Some cute upper classman from Qatar
Or Saudi Arabia
Or UAE
I still have the note she wrote me
After she found out a mutual friend
Had spread a rumor about her:
Detailed instructions I was to relay to him
For how to undo the rumor -
How he was to start with the Varsity basketball team
And end with the soccer players.
I remember in all caps were the words:
I WANT THESE RUMORS STOPPED!
I remember the words “twat head,” and “two faced”
And “guppy head” and “shitwads” used
The insistence he was “shitting all over me and my reputation”
I remembered she was kicked out of boarding school
For stealing two cheap gold bracelets
Out of my safety deposit box (allegedly)
How another girl spit in my face
Literally hocked a loogie on my cheek
After she was gone,
For what she viewed
As my betrayal.
Mostly, tho, I remembered reading Hollywood Wives
To her at night
Until she fell asleep,
How she fingered her bra as I read,
Rubbing together the fabric like a toddler
Rubbing the satin on her blankie.
How I loved her,
How I never wanted them to find my bracelets in her purse,
How I knew it was probably just another one of her pranks.
How I spent the rest of that year alone,
Listening to Purple Rain on my boombox,
Avoiding the girl who’d hocked a loogie
On my cheek, and wondering what [former roommate’s name]
Was doing, who was reading to her,
how she was falling asleep.
AGEISM IS FUNNY
Googles searches I made after watching The Kevin Hart Roast:
how old is Chelsea Handler
how old is Dave Chappelle
how old is Kevin Hart
how old is Eddie Murphy
Chelsea handler is 51
Dave Chappelle is 52
Kevin Hart is 47
Eddie Murphy is 65
The Rock is 54
No one who writes jokes for roasts (read: men) would think to make a joke
abt The Rock’s sagging nutsack
Or Dave Chappelle’s sad weak bonerz
Or Eddie Murphy’s ED,
Kevin Harts lifetime subscription for Viagra
How the roast is being brought to you by
Blue Chew, Cialis, Stendra
But how many jokes were about
Chelsea Handler’s decrepit vagina
She’s six years younger than I am
Fourteen years younger than Eddie Murphy
I’d like to see one of those male comics
Make a joke with Eddie present abt his
Non-working dick. His need for bionics.
million dollar man technology.
To get his dick up.
I WONDER
If my former boarding school roommate
Fucked Shane Gillis,
After the Kevin Hart roast
She produced.
If he talks w a southern accent when he’s fucking
If she closed her eyes and thought she was fucking
Kenny Powers.
