"Owl" Out For a Good Night

I had the night off from work.

The car I was going to get someday having all four wheels seemed even rarer than when one of these rolls around for me!

Yes. When you work as a dedicated nighthawk, a night off is a rare treat. A beauty.

So: what do I do? What did I do? What do I still do?

I work in the most unscrupulously toughest, rawest, no-holds-barred, lonely, confounded, unforgiving, ruthless, rough, and heart-breaking and greatest man-made line of “work” there is!

What could it be?

The Railroad industry? Microscope Manufacturer? High school?

No, Sir: it’s that fine fountain of fate: Comedy.

Comedy. Stand-Up Comedy.

Even rock‘n’roll and the blues look at Comedy and say: “Damn, that breaks a back in a brace! Ain’t going NEAR that bird! You gotta be even crazier than a southern sun to do that!”

They’re right. Musicians are wonderfully astute.

I’d been working for 12 years in it. I love it. Yup, 12 years… not all jail terms are served in prison!

But, to be clear: I'm not a stand-up comedian myself. In the comedy club: I have thoroughly enjoyed attending to and manning the sound and lights and seating like the holy stable and staples they are. I also deal with the crowds from outside the limelight. Every night, I don my uniformed red shirt up to where I don't even know my own shirt from my own blood. Both are as red and pulsating as hell; all in the name of making my beautiful city of Ottawa's people laugh. I get as much credit as the taste of the sticker on the fruit does, and I don't mind.

Ever hear the saying “always a bridesmaid; never a bride?” That’s me… …as the dedicated doorman of the comedy club called: “Absolute Comedy.” I have loved every writhing minute of it. Spilling blood and hearty laughs and all! I don’t mean any funny business; despite that I do!!

I am a doorman in a stand-up comedy club called “Absolute Comedy” in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. “Absolute Comedy”: leave no room for error.

(I love it when I’m taking a reservation and I get asked: “Absolute Comedy: is it funny?” and I sarcastically but cheerfully respond: “What’s the name of the place?”)

At the ripe old age of 32 in June of 2016, on a hot Friday night: I had the night off from my compulsory clean chin; red shirt; black slacks; and black dress shoes.

This night I sported an "Indiana Jones" backcountry-road-of-a-jawline; a blue t-shirt, ripped jeans, uninvested shoes; and only pone shoelace. I was either the best candidate for a "Gap" commercial or the most repellent candidate for a "Gap" commercial.

What does one do on a night off? When you’re single? Re-watch “Swingers?” Sleep? Dabble in Scrabble?

No: You go and see a COMEDY SHOW!! At the RIVAL comedy club!! Of course!!

I felt like going to the national Canadian chain of comedy clubs that is known in every country that laughs: I went to the Ottawa “Yuk Yuk’s” Comedy Club.

I work at “Absolute Comedy.”

Irony just drips like a scrumptious ice cream comedy cone….

Unlike if I were entering a small-town teenage beauty pageant as a contestant as my scraggly; beer-battered; 32-year-old-man-missing-a-shoelace self: I’m welcomed at Yuk Yuk’s!!

I’m friends with the staff of Yuk Yuk’s. Despite how seldom I go; and they come to me; (because of work!) our working-faces are quite cordial and friendly.

So there I was. Relaxed. At the bar. Sitting down. Not presiding over every face with the steely, but giggling, gaze of a crowd cop: not-making sure anyone was on their phone or disrupting the show or jibber-jabbering.

My friend, Tony The Bartender, saw my unkempt mug and a beautiful pint came whizzing my way faster than a zinger.

I had a good time. Just laughing. Nodding at the unrestrictive, supplying Tony. Minding my own business. …and before the show: Also saying “Hello” to a weirdly alarming and unexpected amount of Yuk Yuks’s OWN guests who recognized me! Yes: "guest-S!” Plural. Most of whom surreptitiously admitted they were here that night because they couldn’t get into “Absolute Comedy!” To which they followed up that little comedy confessional by asking me: “Deep in enemy territory, eh?”

It was funny the first two times I heard it. But when it got to the 6th repeat, without one word of deviation, I was wondering if Mel Brooks himself had hired some goofballs to toy with me!!

The show began.

The show ended.

The show was splendid!

I laughed like there was no tomorrow!

I’m not doing this any paraphrasing justice: but there was this one bit that stood out.

(Stand-up standing out; imagine that?) It was about barn owls. It energetically went something like this:

“Ever think about barn owls? Like I do? When you’re on the can? I was taking a dump one day, at work, and as I was scrolling on my phone, -Tuesdays, am-I-right?- I started wondering about barn owls. I don’t know why…. What was I smoking? At work… I can’t remember…. but it was good stuff! Apparently…. So, I researched barn owls, as I am sure each of you are as concerned as I was: Did you know barn owls mate for Life? Unless their partner is killed? I know! Nuts, eh? Way to cut out the middleman! No divorce. No soul-searching. No “Maybe we can be friends.” NO! Hitched until KILLED! Until Either ‘YOU-owl’ or ‘I-owl’ drink the ‘kool-aid!' PERIOD! I kind of like how we humans are given choices! What if I am a barn owl and I find out after I partnered up that she doesn’t love “The Police Academy” movie sequels as much as I do? What then? I guess once one of the barn owl mates die, Afterwards, CAREFULLY: it’s quite the barn-owl-prowl-for-some-Fowl, right everybody?? I guess, to get over it, they were ‘owl’ out for a good night!”

I don’t think much of what I just reiterated made sense.

I don’t think anything I’ve ever done makes much sense.

But it made me laugh!

Enjoying Stand-Up Comedy: what could be a greater thing?

I caught my breath, and I exclaimed to Tony: “So, THAT’S what it’s like to laugh at a comedy show! Whoa…”

Tony, almost as long in the comedy tooth as I, smiled warmly at me. Only a kindred comedy-crony brother like him could understand.

I just used the word "understand."

It’s a beautiful word in stand-up comedy, to shoot myself in the “shoe-laced” foot yet again….

A sad state of affairs in comedy (“There is only one, Simon?” sarcastically said a savvy savant.) is that in comedy clubs, right after the shows: audiences are made to feel like they have to leave. Immediately. Show’s over. Go home. Boom!

That shouldn’t be.

Well, in the beautiful City of Ottawa comedy clubs: we are trying to overturn that stigma!

We invite people to stay!

To hang out!

To laugh more!

….and even though Ottawa’s scene isn’t as grandstanding as the comedy motherland of New York City, this particular night the comedians and I did hang out at the bar and have a few drinks.

(After even THEY asked me what the heck I was doing there, too!)

….as did some unrecognized members of the terrific audience.

I was gabbing with the headliner for a while. I noticed over his shoulder a young woman, a bit tipsy, talking to one of the other comedians. The Emcee, in fact.

The headliner is winding down, and bids me a kindly “Good Night Simon!” I do the same.

As he goes; I look over.

Into the now-nearly-empty showroom, save for my friend Tony and few others.

The young woman, tipsier, (over the past, what, six minutes?) is still talking to the emcee.

I may understand the comedy workings to a degree, but one thing I understand better than comedy is being a guy.

I observe this hilarious comedian and this young woman eyeing each other up and down.

That was when, from my barstool, I noticed…

….her.

Another part of the scene.

I noticed another, very lovely, part of the scenery.

I had not noticed the tipsy girl’s friend.

(Perhaps she earlier went to the bathroom to meticulously research barn owls…)

Her female friend, sitting a few feet away, evidently bored.

Noticing a few eye-rolls; she was looking at her phone while her friend was "busy."

(The diligent doorman in me was so happy she never checked her phone during the show!)

I did not know this emcee personally.

I saw him for the first time ever tonight.

However. I do know a certain thing called good Karma.

I believe in that as deeply as I believe in and understand the healing power of laughter.

Good Karma and Laughter: Two things that have harmony upon humans that render us heartful.

Simply put: I wanted this guy to get lucky!

I wanted him to have a good night!

“I’m going to be this man’s ‘wingman.’ I’m going to help him out.”

How?

By going up to the bored woman sitting beside them, on her phone, whom I also had never seen before, and start talking to her.

(But without turning on the “old Wiggum charm!”)

I could tell she was pretty easy on the eyes, and pretty.…

Tony slung me one more jugged confidence, and I sauntered over.

I said “Hello!”

She looked up.

Upon closer inspection: Oh. My. Goodness!

I never knew a “Jennifer-Love-Hewitt”-look-alike with the two most dazzling and hazel eyes could ever live in the same country as mine, let alone the same city!

Oh.

Oh, man.

She was as beautiful as laughter!

This woman’s eyes widened in surprise as this dorky guy in the faded blue shirt and facial foliage came up to her.

She said “Hello” back, reluctantly, but not dismissively…

“How was the show tonight? Did you enjoy it?”

“I did! Hilarious! You?”

“Oh yeah. Comedy is a great thing! What could be greater?”

"Good to hear! I agree. There is lots of comedy!"

“Agreed! Well, one thing that could be greater, is if you had a drink, too. Like I do. Would you like one?”

She looked at me as if I was Daffy Duck dancing in daylight.

She twitched her cute, buttony nose. Strung back a strand of her auburn brown hair….

“I didn’t think they would still be serving after the show is over. My friend here, and her new ‘friend,’ are just ‘finishing their drinks….’”

(The floozie and the comic were now obviously and obliviously making out!)

I smiled. “That’s the beauty about show business: it’s not what you know, but WHO you know!”

“What?”

She gives me another dumbfounded look, but carved out of that light smile was a gorgeous right dimple...

I shout jovially: “Hey TONY!! You’re still serving, right?”

Tony, smiling, polishing his glass like every good and friendly bartender in every supportive movie, looks over towards the lightly-obnoxious, but friendly voice:

“Can’t say ‘No’ to a pretty face, Simon! And I sure as hell am not talking about yours!”

That was when I heard her heartful laugh.

Point-Of-No-Return.

Not now.

Not ever.

I turn to her laughing face.

“Bailey’s. On the rocks.”

I repeated the order that Tony clearly heard.

“Coming right up. Ah, what an Irish beauty, that is!!”

I turn to her.

“He’s right about the drink, but is he right about the lady, too?”

I hear her roll her eyes; muttering an inaudible “Oh Geez….”

(I could hear the spirit of Police Chief Wiggum shouting: “No! No! No!”)

Smirking: “My name is Simon. It is a pleasure to meet you….”

“Pleasure as well! My name is Catherine. That comedian was right: I guess we were ‘owl’ out for a good night tonight, eh?” Her eyes hypnotized.

“Comedy is a beauty!” I winked. “Oh, you’re gonna laugh about where I work…”

THE END