Tell Me A Joke Bitch (Part 2)

Crazy Bride’s friends and Clueless Groom’s (let’s face it every groom is,) friends were going to be performing. Now Crazy Bride is a writer and a director and has a ton of friends who are performers. Clueless Groom is a lawyer. His friends also have serious jobs. One is a math professor. Another is an actuary. By the way, what the hell do they do? Yeah, I’m sure his friends, the math professor and actuary (and the others like them) would be great performing in a show. Sure.

Crazy Bride was doing a make up dress rehearsal (normal) while directing and doing a run through of the show (not normal). I had somehow missed the show dress rehearsal because it felt like I blinked, and the next thing I knew it was about an hour before the show was happening, and I still didn’t know what to expect. And I was feeling faint.

First off, it was like 1000 degrees in the place. It was an outdoor wedding, in September, in Massachusettes, and you’d of thought it was July. Hot, sticky and gross, it was one of those nights where even if you were naked you would still be uncomfortable. But besides the heat, I was worried about the gig.

My friend’s family is cool. Great senses of humor and totally my kind of people. Half her family is in show biz. I think. I don’t really know what they do in show business, but they do something. They’re really open, and they do things differently than most people. So I knew they’d be okay with this show.

I wasn’t so sure about the groom’s side of the family. They’re old. Really old. And did I

mention 40 of them were pastors? The groom’s dad was a pastor, but then something happened and he stopped believing in God. He was more my type of audience member. I thought he’d probably like my comedy, but what about the other ones? The God Ones. How would they like it?

While drinking cocktails before the big show, I was talking to some old guy in a bow-tie. As a matter of fact, many of the guests were wearing bow-ties, and it's not like they were wearing tuxedos. What was up with all the bow-ties?

How were these old bow-tie wearing people going to react to my humor?

I was sweating this gig. And not just for me. For her as well. This was her wedding. I didn’t want to screw it up. She had been meticulously planning this thing for months. Every time I tried to run my material by her, she wouldn’t let me. She wanted it to be a surprise. What if the surprise was that the cabaret/show/ weird thing to do at a wedding sucked?

And I never stress a gig. There’s no rules. You just go out there and make them laugh. You say whatever you want. And you’ll never see them again. But doing a show at one of your best friend’s weddings and trying to make old people in bow-ties laugh and not offend anyone is different. I’d be seeing these people again. You know, the next night at the actual wedding and also in passing at one of the 62 events planned for the weekend. And the bride and the groom, essentially, I’d be seeing them for the rest of my life. They were the ones I really cared about. There were 3 video cameras capturing everything just in case one missed it or malfunctioned. It was just all too much.

Crazy Bride came over to me and told me we’d be starting soon. I smiled and ran over to her brother. I talked to him hoping there would be a way out of this mess. He’s the opposite of Crazy Bride. I’m sure the day of his wedding he didn’t even know where to go. He suggested I try to talk her out of the show that way we could all just drink and get drunk. Maybe there was a way out of it.

TO BE CONTINUED...