more comedy jokes

Originally posted on LJ 4-4-09

so I recently got back from a crazy, hectic week on the road. I had three college presentations, plus the WAM! conference, all in one week. The WAM! conference was especially fun – I got to meet lots of people whose blogs I have read and/or folks I’ve corresponded with but whom I have never met face to face. It is neat to meet people that you know, but have never seen with your own eyes. It makes you realize how often we unconsciously make assumptions about people based upon their appearance in the "offline" world.

At WAM!, I was on a panel called “In/Out of Focus, Broadening a Feminist Lens: Gender, Non-Conformity and the Media” which was moderated by Kate Bovitch, and also included Miriam Zoila Perez and Jack Aponte. The conference filmed it and video of it should appear on the web soon – I’ll let you know when it happens...

At WAM!, I also learned that I am probably the only feminist in the world not Twitter-ing, and that I was likely the only person there who was not actively blogging about the conference. Although, I suppose I’m blogging about it now. But in the new modern world, does blogging about something ex post facto even count anymore? sigh...

While on my trip, I also got to see my family, since the last college event was in Bryn Mawr - a 15 minute drive from my parents house (aka, the house that I mostly grew up in). I had a weird time capsule moment while at Bryn Mawr. I remembered bike riding around that campus when a car pulled up beside me. A middle-age-ish guy rolled down his window, said he was from out of town, and asked if there were any good bars or clubs in the area (this was day time, mind you). I told him that I was home from college and never really went out around this area. Then he asked me if I liked to party. No lie: he literally said “do you like to party?” It was only then that I naively realized that he had been hitting on me. I said no, not really, and biked off. I think that was the first time that a guy ever hit on me as a boy (or, at least, the first time I figured out what was going on).

On my trip, I read my first fun, non-gender-y book in a long while: the Steve Martin book Born Standing Up, which chronicles his stand-up career. Lots of folks younger than me seem surprised when I say that he is probably my favorite stand-up comedian ever. They probably know him only from his many lame movie appearances over the last 20 years. Or they have seen little snippets of him saying “Excuuuuuse me” or “I’m a wild and crazy guy” and they got the impression that he was a shtick-y sort of comedian. But he was actually very surreal and “intellectual” (as he’d often joke). For those who have not been initiated, I highly encourage you to check out his comedy albums (e.g., Let’s Get Small. or Wild and Crazy Guy).

Anyway, I’ve been poking around YouTube looking for old bits from his stand up days (there are too few) when I stumbled onto this. It’s Steve Martin guest hosting the old Johnny Carson Tonight Show. The main guest is Burt Reynolds in his sexyist-man-alive heyday and, if you have the endurance to make it to part three, Burt Reynolds shaves off half of his moustache live on TV. and, if you make it to part four, Burt & Steve share a man-kiss. enjoy...

I know this will make me sound old, but I felt like I was at home watching it. I have no desire to go back to the 70’s. Nostalgia is kinda dumb, as every decade has its good points and bad points. But it was nice seeing something from my ten-year-oldish days that made me smile. those were (for better or worse) my formative years...

-julie