I Read (and wrote) This

I want to thank everyone who came out Monday night for my first and definitely not last performance/reading at the Inner Monologues series. Specifically, Jen, Michael, Marissa, Mirra, Mark, Meredith, Josh and Jamie. Kind of off topic and random, but every person who I knew in attendance has a first name beginning with either a J or M. Special thanks also goes out to Marissa, Jen, Michael and Alicia for helping to edit, proofread and enhance the piece I read. Lastly, I'd like to thank Alexis for opportunity to read/perform and for believing so much in the worthiness of the story that she opted to open the night with my piece. Since some people had vaguely valid excuses as to why they couldn't be in attendance here is a copy of the piece I wrote.

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She was yelling at me loudly to eat the banana. Damn, will she shut the fuck up? Eat the banana, eat the banana. I was shaking my head no. I hated being told what to eat, my therapist said I have “food” issues and here she was yelling at me to eat a banana. I didn’t know where that banana had been. It’s sure as shit wasn’t FreshDirect, hell this banana wasn’t even Gristede’s quality.

Only ten minutes before I was fast asleep. Not bothering anyone and now she is harassing me to eat a banana. How did I go from peaceful serenity to an obscene ruckus? I am so not a morning person, in fact not being up before a noon is the perfect start to a day, but it was 11 pm and I wasn’t getting up for breakfast. The woman yelling at me certainly wasn’t my mother, or girlfriend or latest conquest, though I’m sure she is all of that to many, many, many, many, many people. Did I say many enough? Not one to judge based on superficial qualities, OK maybe a little, but she was the ugliest stripper I had ever seen. I was under the impression a requisite of taking ones clothes off for money was looking good naked. So not the case on this side of the Atlantic which is probably why I fell asleep, but now I was staring straight at a vagina with half peeled produce. All I kept thinking was I need a price check on bananas, are bananas in a vagina on special? If these lips could talk I’m sure they’d be saying the same thing as mine, “I don’t want to eat this fucking banana.”

Let this be a lesson don’t fall asleep at an Amsterdam sex show because two shut eyes is their version of raising your hand and saying “pick me, pick me.” Sure as shit didn’t teach me that idiosyncrasy in my International Negotiations class at Lehigh University. Although in hindsight I did get called on a lot and I always had my head down and thumb up. I digress, where was I?

Ah yes, my head in between the legs of a very plus size stripper getting my recommended daily serving of potassium. No one here will ever look at a banana the same way. I’m proud to announce it’s been 4 years, 10 months, 22 days and 3 hours since I had my last banana, but I know any day that could all come to an end, so I take it one day at a time. No wonder I have “Food Issues.”

Most people go to Amsterdam and immediately stuff their face with brownies or McDonald’s. I however, went right to a sex show. That’s when I knew this four day trip to Amsterdam was going to be unlike any other four days in my life. That was a bold statement considering I come to Amsterdam from Prague where I was studying abroad. Being in Prague was amazing; Capitalism at its best. There was already the celebrity touting his own sports bar. Citibank was everywhere except where I needed it most…fucking Bethlehem Pennsylvania, aka the shittiest college town. At least I wouldn’t have to pay an ATM fee thousands of miles from the Citi in question. Competition was the dominant market force. One place charged the equivalent of 75 cents for a beer, so the guy next door charged 50 cents, then the original guy charged a quarter. Finally the supply and demand curve intersected and every establishment except the over priced sports bar resolved to charge a quarter for a pint of beer. After communism who the fuck wanted to prohibit alcohol sales or sales of much of anything; certainly not the Czech. So Absinthe was legal. I’ve seen my share of druggy flicks so I knew when someone lit a spoonful of sugar before lighting the shot of absinthe I knew my boney ass was going to be fucked up in perpetuity. Thankfully, though I was leaving Prague to visit Amsterdman for 4 days… where I couldn’t get into too much trouble just smoking excessive amounts of weed.

How wrong I was. Apparently marijuana isn’t the only drug you can order off the menu. So I ordered a number 5 and supersized it. This was long before Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me Fame had to go and screw up my ability to consume larger and larger quantities of controlled narcotics called French fries, quarter pounders and caffeinated high fructose corn syrup; with a name like Coke how could it not be good for you. Needless to say the number 5 was a 1/8 of weed grown in the Jamaican style in Jerk seasoned soil, a 1/8 of beginner mushrooms, a slice of pizza and before 4 pm the lunch special came with a choice of a can of soda or cold noodles in peanut sauce. I chose the can of soda obviously. So we had it all planned out. Eat lunch and then go to the Van Gogh museum. Not sure whose bright idea it was to trip and go look at the artwork of a guy who cut off his own ear. Thankfully it wasn’t the Lorena Bobbit museum. So we ate or in my case swallowed whole some mushrooms and pizza and washed it down with a Fanta. Then we went into the museum to look at some art. Only problem was the museum wasn’t that big and it took a little while longer than expected for the mushrooms to perform their duties. So at the tail end of viewing the museum twice they finally began to kick in and it wasn’t as cool as I had hoped. Hype, never lives up. So we decided to go to the park and stare at the clouds and wonder how many would look like Cameron Manheim’s stomach, big, white and poofy. Why her? Because Kirstie Allie still had respect for herself. I kid the Fat Actresses.

With an ear to ear smile on my face it dawned on me that we were leaving early Sunday morning and it was Friday afternoon right now. There was still a major attraction we hadn’t gotten to yet, Anne Frank’s House. With tomorrow being the Sabbath, the House was surely going to be closed and we wouldn’t have time on Sunday. We had to go now. I couldn’t go to Amsterdam and not go to the “House of Frank, where nobody’s first name was actually Frank” without getting yelled at by my mother. I apparently also have “mother” issues. Damn, that Jewish guilt. So we flagged down a taxi and went to Anne Frank’s House. At that point I was still entirely composed, in control of all my mental capacities or so I thought. Clearly I have the mental capacity of 67 year old man with a prostate problem because I thought going to Anne Frank’s house was a good idea. We entered the museum/house. Shortly after entering someone burped and I lost it. I was laughing hysterically; thankfully, someone hadn’t farted because flatulence is even funnier. Unfortunately any laughing no matter how minor is so wrong. This museum is inherently not funny nor are the walls covered in cashmere, yet oddly I had begun petting the walls ever so softly. It was time to climb some stairs up to the attic. At this point I decided to become a mime doing his best impersonation of a rock climber not going anywhere. I pretended to climb the stairs for a whole five minutes while the line began to back up. Once I finally really started climbing the stairs it was like climbing up the side of building that can’t stand up straight. The stairs were on an 85 degree angle with footholds mockingly too small for an Oompa Loompa.

When we got into the attic there were drawings done by children of the Holocaust all over, including drawings by Anne Frank. Now these were the type of drawings that can be mind altering while tripping on mushrooms. Who was I to not marvel in the vivid use of watercolors less the water? The well ran dry in this attic. I was full on stupid by the time I got to the drawings and couldn’t help but continue laughing. A couple of flights to the exit and I was finally out of there. While waiting for a taxi I had time to reflect with my friends about what I had just done. With the video camera focused solely on me I stopped pedestrian traffic so no one ruined the sight lines of me in the video camera. With traffic stopped I declared loudly, “It wasn’t bad enough you assholes were in there shrooming your asses off, but if the Jews believed in a hell, I should probably buy a condo there instead of Boca cause I was surely heading there after I broke my hip rushing to qualify for the early bird at dinner. I mean of the five of us I am the only Jew and I basically just did the equivalent of pissing in the holy water urinal. Fuck me! Lets go watch Nascar, its so cool with all the colors.”

After sleeping for the better part of Saturday there wasn’t much to do but pick up some last minute presents. For my mom I got a t-shirt with a banana that said don’t tell me what to eat. Figured how can I pass up a gift that addresses both my issues. My therapist is going to be proud. I was facing my issues in a passive aggressive overly ironic way, but it was a start. My brother got 4 loose joints and an 1/8 of weed and hash. Yeah I smuggled drugs from Amsterdam to Prague, kept them wrapped for 3 weeks and then smuggled the narcotics back into the United States. That’s just the kind of brother I am, always willing to go the extra mile. My dad was a little trickier he wanted something he could use. (PAUSE)

I bought him a banana.