Jason Roeder

I’ve been reading atrocious celebrity profiles at work. They provoked the following: 

Interview with an Actress

I’m sitting in Bistro Max eyeing the basketed focaccia covetously. It’s official: Chloe Pomeroy is late for our lunch date. I’m wondering how much time we’ll have to chat because she’s got a plane to catch. I’m wondering if, in the presence of such beauty, I’ll reach my first question mark before melting into a puddle of adoration. I’m wo—two of the most luminous green eyes I have ever seen are fixed upon me from across the table. Who needs daydreaming when there’s an actual dream suddenly right in front of you?

“My cab driver was a little slow,” Chloe tells me, with smooth blonde hair that could have been poured from a bottle of chardonnay, “and by slow I mean retarded.” She pokes her tongue through her lips and crosses her eyes. “Of course, it’s hard to tell with foreigners,” she concedes.

You know Chloe best as—well, maybe she’s not someone you can know, a sensual shape-shifter. After all, the 23-year-old bombshell has taken on roles as diverse as an agoraphobic lifeguard, a lovelorn dog walker (in the Luke Perry vehicle Heart on a Leash), and a spitfire saloon dancer who battles the walking dead in How the West Ate Brains. Action suits her, it seems: When our bill is settled this afternoon, Chloe is off to Canada, where she’ll be co-starring with Dolph Lundgren in the environmental shoot-em-up Leave No Trace.

“I always need a challenge,” she says to me, with perhaps a mote of flirtation in the upturned corner of her mouth. “If I’m not pushing myself, I’m bored, and if I’m bored—well, that’s when the really deep hate comes out.”

Chloe admonishes our waiter to avoid eye contact with her at all costs and orders the arugula salad with orange-rosemary vinaigrette. She vouchsafes me a few words concerning the tabloids (”the next hack who trashes me gets his pets stomped”), her recent charity efforts (”none”), and her week in New York (”just read over my lines, wrote the word Satan over every appearance of God in the Bible”), but I sense that she’s heard these questions before—yet another script to contend with. Something tells me that this stunner wants to go off the page.

“Who are you?” I ask her. “Or, if you’d rather: What does Chloe Pomeroy want—and you can’t say ‘to direct,’ dear.”

“Well, if that’s off the table, then I guess I’d go with oblivion,” she informs me. “Like, to be quadriplegic, but from the neck up, if that makes any sense. I suppose actual connection with life would be nice, too. But odds are, I won’t be leaving a pretty corpse, and you’d better believe I won’t be leaving just one.”

A sphinx without a riddle? Hardly. Miss Pomeroy is an enigma wrapped in sphinx’s clothing. I wait for her to vacuum up some cocaine residue she discovers on the side of her thumb, and I try a different tack.

“Soon you’ll be on a plane headed north of the border,” I say, “but if you could take the controls and go wherever you liked…”

“Go? Who wants to go anywhere?” she says to me. “But I do have kind of a silly recurring dream about flying. I’m circling the whole world in a crop duster, except it’s not insects I’m poisoning, it’s people. The insects are spared. For everything else, it’s death from above.”

The clock strikes one-thirty, and this Cinderella has a 767 to catch. She walks—no, she positively flows-through the dining room, pausing just long enough to demand that the manager fire our waiter for no particular reason. Then she is gone, and it occurs to me, anguishingly, that when I next see her, she will be caged in a DVD case.

Death from above? Perhaps. Oh, but truly an angel of death.

“This is a tough crowd, man. All comics.” Mike was cluing me in. We were sitting so close in the unheated basement of the bar that it almost seemed illogical not to talk to each other. Mike’s choice of words puzzled me a little. If I’m a “comic,” then the cardio-kickboxers in the 6:30-7:30 class at UltraFitness are gladiators. After all, I had just paid $5 for a five-minute open-mic set, the exact placement of which would be determined by the order in which my name was drawn from a fishbowl by the host. And with all that in mind, why should this be a tough crowd? Are we really competing? If that’s the case, I should’ve just dropped in a $20 and been the headliner. I mean, I’m not going to manufacture a laugh for shamefully hack material, but you’d think beginners would want to, like, support each other.

Anyway, the audience consisted entirely of the 30—yessir, that many—open-mikers, plus a random couple that a barker had pulled in off the street. I don’t even want to think about how badly the actual show failed the pretense that was used to sell it. It was that uncomfortable. Imagine a football game in which a player was wheeled off in a cervical collar every down, except not nearly as sidesplitting.

As luck would have it, I went up 26th out of 30. This meant that by the time I took the stage, everyone had already sat through a two-hour show (on a Wednesday night), and not just a show but an awful one that couldn’t have been as bad without their stammering, half-remembered contribution. 

“How’s everyone doing tonight?”

My own five minutes went just like I practiced in my apartment that very day, meaning I got every word right and the room was silent throughout. That’s not entirely true. Certain bits worked but most were just sort of stillborn. Or maybe I just fell asleep at some point. I noticed that the comics who got more laughs all had one thing in common: humping the air motions. Big laughs for tired basement dudes.*

*(and one girl)

Next week marks my return to stand-up. I have been meaning to get back into it, but these last 10 years have been—you know, we’ve been getting slammed at work.

I actually killed my first time on stage. One drunk unaffiliated with HBO told me he was totally going to put me on HBO. My second open mic didn’t go quite as well. I didn’t have same energy, and the audience seemed a little indifferent. I wouldn’t say I bombed, really, I was just sort of comedy roughage.

The third time, I simply went blank, and while any open-mic audience ought to have low standards, I’m sure they deserved better than to watch me dig my notes out of my pocket and scan the folded-in-eighths printout for a punch line I would’ve been better off dynamiting, anyway. They still applauded—loser applause, the kind that gets sprinkled upon people who walk the last 12 miles of a marathon. So, although my comedy experience spanned just three open mics, I convinced myself that I was in decline somehow—decline without, like, an initial ascent. This time around, I’ll try to not over-interpret. No matter how I do on Wednesday, I’m going to try to go up on Thursday.

Want a preview? Okay, one joke: “The Centers for Disease reports that intravenous drug users who share needles are at risk for contracting HIV. In my opinion, this is a public health problem, not a criminal one.”

Lots more where that came from.

Anyway, I’m moving to Greenpoint in a little more than a week. For those of you unfamiliar with this area in Brooklyn, it’s sort of a Polish/hipster/industrial neighborhood (yes, lots of people who look like Lech Walesa publishing zines when they get home from the glue factory). I can’t flee Astoria fast enough, which I think has much more to do with my particular circumstances than the neighborhood itself. I was never one of those people who valued sunlight in an apartment—I don’t fucking photosynthesize—but I think basement life has rewired me a little, made me a little hostile to daylight and all that attends it. The birds outside my apartment won’t stop tweeting, and I’m always, like, “Come on, predators. Where are you?”

Yeah, it’s good that I’m leaving.

Job update: None. I no longer make jokes about selling my body.

My McSweeney’s column, Advice from a Person with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, has finally debuted. The title is supposed to emphasize my total lack of expertise that matters, and I hope that’s getting through to readers. I mean, an undergrad psych degree prepares you for counseling the way having House on while ironing prepares you to diagnose dengue fever.

So, it seems I haven’t been the only one sleeping in my apartment, and I’m not referring to the Australian college girls I pick up at the Times Square Ruby Tuesday. I’m talking about roaches, always dead and on their backs, because when you’re a roach, once you’ve reached a floor tile, what’s left to live for? My landlord Muji brought over what he called “the roach medicine for all the roaches.” I had my doubts because I wasn’t sure roaches deserved VapoRub, but Muji was actually referring to this toxic paste that the bugs find so yummy, they can’t wait to bring some home and kill their families with it. In any case, it’s not going to matter six weeks from now.

I’m moving to Brooklyn April 1, this time with roommates. I haven’t actually found these people yet, but I’ve been prowling Craigslist every day. In the past, Craigslist has helped me unload a bookcase and connect with just the right sexual monstrosity, so I’m confident that something will work out. It has been about 10 years since I was last in the position of auditioning for a room (yes, “auditioning” is the word), but I do all right in these situations. I’m a mild sort with good credit and nothing in my background that the statute of limitations hasn’t rendered moot.

Astoria is fine, of course, and I think if I were a few years older and bit more settled personally and professionally, it’d be a worthwhile option. But right now, I need a place that’s a bit more—okay, I’ll use the word—happening. It’s a strange word for me, considering I’m the sort of curmudgeon who could walk into bingo night at a Knights of Columbus hall and within 30 seconds be muttering about fucking hipsters. But I’m convinced this is the right decision.

I have left my job. I know that in the days and weeks to come, I will ask myself how a position I took because I desperately needed a paycheck and any means of staving off the wriggling insanity of unemployment could go so wrong, so quickly. So, as of next Wednesday, I’m freelancing again, whatever that means.

I just now noticed that, when typing, I sit with my knees out to the side and my upper torso swiveled toward the laptop. This might explain why my back’s been hurting a little lately. Who can I sue? Can I sue you?

Last Monday’s reading at McNally Robinson went well by any measurement (four stars, two thumbs up, Big Gulp). I’m pretty sure it wasn’t recorded, though, so you’ll just have to imagine the three of us—Sarah Walker, Wendy Molyneux, and myself—making our friends and family laugh. If you don’t know what we look like, you can find pictures of us on the web or trust my descriptions: Sarah’s kind of a tall mediabistro job ad, Wendy’s a really funny gym membership I have to transfer before I move to Brooklyn, and I’m some large cardboard boxes the supermarket gave me.

It is possible I am preoccupied.

I recently had a conversation with my agent about What’s Next. Obviously, the publication of Oh, the Humanity! would pave the way for a very similar follow-up, but I think I’m kinda done with long-form parody. The shorter humor stuff will probably go on forever, but the next project is probably going to be a comic novel or a screenplay or a very different kind of humor book. I hope to zero in on an idea in the next month or so and have a draft of the whatever-it-is done by the end of the year. Be sure to throw this paragraph in my face come December.

Another semi-ambition: a humor reading series. I participated in one a few weeks ago called the Ritalin Reading Series, which was great. But there aren’t very many like it, if you exclude actual stand-up open-mics. If you live in NYC and think this might be something you’d be interested in exploring and doing most of the legwork for while dividing the credit down the middle, definitely get in touch.

Read it here.

I haven’t written in this blog for almost a month, and I’m not really going to boo hoo about it. Think of my occasional blog entries as you would other unexpected gifts like a snow day or a blog entry you find on the sidewalk.

Here’s a pic from my reading in Brooklyn:

If you’re wearing your fashion glasses, you’ve noticed that I’m in the same sweater in both this picture and the one from my last entry. And if you’re really paying attention, you’ll recall it’s the same one I was wearing at the Lorem Ipsum reading a couple of months ago. It’s my one “classy” sweater, and I’ve just discovered that moths have been munching on it. This always happens, and I’m tired of it. At my reading in February, expect me to show up with a space heater strapped to my bare chest.  

Sorry to make you see that.   

Oh yes, there’s an event in February. It’ll be at the McNally Robinson bookstore in SoHo on the 11th. Not one, not two, not four, but three TOW writers will be reading that night. There might be a party of some sort afterwards as well as another reading at some point that week. 

Just when it seemed like I was going to have to sell my body to the rich and menopausal, I got a job. I’ll be a marketing writer/editor for LaGuardia Community College. It’s like what I did at Berklee, but with fewer vibraphone solos. Whew.

Here’s a picture of me trying to take in the moment. (Click to enlarge my exultation.)

What moment? I knew you’d ask, possibly. My Thanksgiving decoration won the art contest that was held at the conclusion of the Utter Wonder Reading last night. Sure, I read from my book, host Chris Monks and special guest G. Xavier Robillard made guffawing drunks knock over their beers and lick the spillage off the legs of their barstools because they have a sickness, but let’s get back to what’s important: I am a winner. I have a trophy with a sticker that says “Winner!” on it. That’s how I know. I realize it’s the kind of trophy that campers get for winning water-balloon tosses, but don’t tear me down. Yesterday’s trophy was my first ever. After all, they don’t pass out awards for failing to register for the spelling bee or leaving your lunchbox on the bus or shoplifting post cards with ladies in bikinis on them, do they?

Thanks, Chris, for having me. It was great . . . except for the folk singers who took forever to stand down and let us take the stage on time. Apparently, shoving your mandolin in a case takes the same labor and coordination as dismantling an Olympic Village.

The Utter Wonder reading was actually my second that day. In the morning, I held another reading at my aunt and uncle’s house for their friends. What was great is that people were buying copies above and beyond the courtesy purchases I expected. I figured one per household to stave off awkwardness, but people were taking home multiple copies. I brought 20 books to Boston with me, and I leave with none.

Thanks to everybody who came out to hear me read at Word Books last week. Really, there weren’t many of you, so every beating heart was appreciated. I didn’t expect a tremendous turnout, though. I’ve been in New York three months (unemployed for the duration), and it’s hard to put together a fan base when you’re spending most of your time writing cover letters about exciting opportunities you recently found on Monster.com. (”I feel this editing position allows me to combine my passion for mutual fund prospectuses with my longstanding interest in never being thanked. I look forward to meeting with you in person to discuss this position that will make me feel, not dead, but just kind of lingeringly stupefied.”)

Radar likes me. The Harvard Crimson does not. Regarding the Ivy League, all I can say is that most readers have appreciated not being treated like breakable objects. They recognize that the writer is one of their own.

Other people can tolerate “pointed humor” only when it’s not pointed at them.

As I left my interview at Cookie magazine (sort of a lifestyle magazine for upscale families), I saw a gnarled,* wheelchair-bound little girl singing “Part of Your World” from the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid. You may know that song as the one Ariel sings because she’s yearning to live among people—in other words, she wants functional legs. Yikes. Her mother—clad in a gray sweatsuit, arms folded—stood off to the side, monitoring. In about a minute, the girl earned about ten dollars, though her voice was nothing more than what you’d expect from any seven-year-old singing from the back seat of a minivan. I imagine the girl found herself busking in Times Square through one of two scenarios:

1. This little girl has seen performers on American Idol or some Disney Channel show of the moment. She says, “Mama, I want to sing like them. But look at me.” Mama says, “You listen to me. If you want to sing, you will sing. Maybe you can’t walk, but you sing like Jesus himself.”

“Can I sing The Little Mermaid song?”

“Well, I don’t know. That might be a little exploitative.”

“Pleeease!”

“Okay, but if it ever—ever—doesn’t feel right, you just tell me you’ve had enough, and we’re heading home.”

“Yay!”

2. This little girl is singing because Mama needs to raise bail for her boyfriend/rapist.

What do you think?

*Not meaning to be cruel, just apt. She was gnarled. That is the word.

With any luck, I’ll be able to fill in a March Madness bracket with good reviews (my only motivation for ever doing that). The Daily Gamecock out of the University of South Carolina says: “This book is a great read for anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a god of the social stratosphere, a feeble young introvert or just someone who might be a little shy.”