Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

Wandering Minstrel Eyes Part II: Lesbian Dancing Announcement

I hadn't seen a full day of sun in about a year.

We were living in a very nice apartment that was a walk from the Space Needle. We were doing shows at Hamburger Mary's adjunct space called "Night Mary's." It used to be a workout space. It was now an "Entertainment Space" that they booked us into. We would go on as the comedy. After our show they had a Lesbian Dance Night.

It was made very clear to us that we had to announce The Lesbians after our show in case there were Lesbians in our audience, wannabe lesbians, or just people who wanted to see lesbians dance. This was mandatory. I had to announce this pre-approved plug:

Thank you for coming to see The Underground Theatre Conspiracy. We are here every Friday and Saturday Night at 8:00pm. If you would like to stay around there will be lesbian dancing by (The name of their production company).

They would then storm into the room and be complete assholes. We had to hide our stuff week three of this run because their DJ would come in and toss our CDs around, breaking them.

They were rude and mean. Their music was not particularly dance music as it was more stand around and talk without seats music. When a song you could actually dance to came on, there would usually be two or three lone lesbian women doing what I can only describe as The Jackhammer Fist Pump Dance. After attending other Lesbian Dance clubs over the years, I realized that this one just plain sucked ass.

Did I mention these women were horrible? Some can easily see this as a diss to The Lesbian Community. It's not. These women were just plain snippy, weird, unhappy and pretentious. They just happened to like other women.

So, I did my pre-approved plug for their Lesbian dancing for a few weeks while having my brand new CD burner ready to re-burn music after they kept destroying it on purpose. It was when we came to the space and all of our props in the backroom were all over the floor and laying on top of it was their sound equipment that I got out my dear friends, The Low Hanging Balls.

All bets were off with the lesbians.

My plugs for the show week after week became more severe and snarky. I would have our audience screaming in laughter at these plugs, as the lesbians got more and more pissed:

Thank you for coming out to see The Underground Theatre Conspiracy! We are here every Friday and Saturday Night at 8:00pm. If you want to stick around? Lesbian Dancing. Yes. Lesbians DO DANCE and you can watch that!

Thank you for coming out to see The Underground Theatre Conspiracy! We are here every Friday and Saturday Night at 8:00pm. Stay for Lesbian Dancing, because we all know that is how you want to end your improv/sketch comedy night!

Thank you for coming out to see The Underground Theatre Conspiracy! We are here every Friday and Saturday Night at 8:00pm. Nothing to do and want to hear a loop of K.D. Lang Music? Lesbian Dancing immediately after I say goodnight, so you can stand outside with the rest of the lesbians and pay. That's right! You don't get a discount! GOOD NIGHT!

After the last particular announcement, a short and stout woman with very little eyebrows and hair violently pulled back (making her eyes look like they were pleading for help) stormed up to me in our Storage Closet Dressing Room/Sound Equipment space. She was the DJ who was destroying our CD's and throwing our props and costumes around. She was yelling with furious anger.

DIDN'T WE TELL YOU HOW TO ANNOUNCE OUR DANCE?? IT WAS APPROVED.

I was out of a shirt and putting on street clothes. She was now in my personal space. We were staring at each other, her head precariously close to my tits. Hans has now taken attention to this.

All I can think of is this: What the fuck is going on with humans smaller than me getting all up in my space acting nuts? Is this a thing with short people?

I sighed and put on my Low Hanging Balls. I looked down at this woman and became calm. Icy Calm.

First and foremost, get the fuck out of my space.

She went paler than what is usually seen in Seattle and stepped back.

Secondly, I stopped giving a fuck about your "Mandatory Speech" about the second time I had to re-burn a CD you had purposely destroyed, after having to hide it from you. You can go fuck yourself with a dirty dental dam on a plug for your dance that if you could not tell...not one single solitary audience member of ours would give a rat's ass about. If they did, it would be for comedy purposes. They wouldn't even buy your fucking drinks. They just stand in this place and listen to your shitty music and the three women who even go out and try to dance to it. We got two more weeks here. You better get away from me. Right now.

She tries to open her mouth to find some sort of retort. It was Hans from the back who pulled up to the side of me and in a low tone said: I don't think she's kidding.

And that is where she stormed off and waited for us to leave before she set up. Turns out that these lesbians were not only pretentious, mean and obnoxious. They were also whole-hearted chicken shits.

I have said this about people and it still stands true: Just because you are black or white. Gay or Straight. Disabled in a wheelchair or not. This does not exclude you from being a dick.

A phone call from the owner of Night Mary's in the morning, wondering what happened. I told him my side. I also told him we had two more weeks in this space and they would no longer have to deal with the annoyance of an Improv Sketch Comedy Ensemble. He apologized for everything.

Magically, for the next performances everything was just lovely. Our CD's were untouched. They had gotten us a rack to put our props. The restaurant started to give us free food and drinks after our shows.

For our last shows The Lesbians waited until we were completely out of the space. They were fuming.

I figured I would throw them a bone in the peace offering stew. My last two announcements for their dance were nicer. Not the Pre-Approved Announcement, but nicer:

Thank you for coming out to see The Underground Theatre Conspiracy! We have one more performance tomorrow. And remember...Lesbian dancing after the show!

Thank you for coming out to see the Underground Theatre Conspiracy. We would like to thank Hamburger Mary's and the owners of Night Mary's for having us in their space. We are very grateful. Look out for us in The Seattle Weekly for upcoming shows in The U-District. We will be next door drinking if you would like to follow us. If not? Lesbian Dancing after the show!

We went next door to Hamburger Mary's and we drank and ate for free. I looked at Hans and said to him, I think I'm tired of Seattle now.

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We are minstrels with a wandering eye. I hadn't seen the sun in almost a year.

Hans did not want to move to San Francisco. We both agreed to go back to Chicago if we ever moved again. We might be cold as hell? But at least in Chicago, you could see the sun.

In 1993 we thought we were going to move to Florida, to stay with his family and go to the job he had lined up as a HR financial manager of a major hotel chain he was working at in Seattle. We drove across the country in a car that we got at a car auction. It started to act badly at the Indiana border. We stopped in Chicago to see my mother. We went to The Improvisation and saw our former Foogle Woogle company member Jim Kopsian in his new ensemble Ectomorph.

We got into the car back to my mother's home. We woke up the next morning and went to that car. It was dead.

We look at each other and laughed. It was meant to be. Hans took a Greyhound Bus to Florida and gave me an ultimatum: Find a job in Chicago in two weeks and we will stay in Chicago. I got a job three days while in Chicago and a place to live that week from the money from selling that dead car. He called that hotel and said he was not going to work there. He drove from Florida back to Chicago in a U-Haul with the things we had shipped from Seattle.

We were on a new adventure back in our Hometown.

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