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

What If I Rolled Down These Stairs: The $55.00 Bet

There are some wonderful highlights that occurred in my life living in San Francisco that were unexpected and pretty joyous.

Being invited to Mayor Gavin Newsom's Inaugural and Reception was one of them.

When I got the invitation on the nice parchment paper with the RSVP, I just sort of stared at it. Wow. This is nice. This is actually really super nice.

I just sat there dumbfounded looking at this, while hearing someone yelling BITCH I DON'T NEED THIS SORT OF BULL SHIIiiiiiITT IN MY LIFETIME DO YOU FEEL ME MOTHERFUCKKA outside of my windowless SOMA apartment.

Ah. San Francisco. I would love to bring this person as my date to the inaugural. You know. Real San Franciscans.

I do the right thing. I call and reserve my spot for both the Inaugural and the Reception event.

About two weeks later I get an email from SF Connect inviting me to come to the Inaugural. Well. This is not as special as what I'm thinking this is going to be, I think to myself as I hear a dog yapping outside and his owner screaming: BUTCH WHAT THE FUCK!! STOP THAT...BUTCH! BUTCH!

Butch, by the way, is a Chihuahua. A high strung, out of control, "mouse dog."

Ah. San Francisco. I'm sure Butch was also invited to the Inaugural. I'm not that special.

But, I'm still excited. I ask a friend to meet me on the steps of City Hall. I tell him I will be "Theater stage right" on the steps. That would be my right as an actor, as I no longer speak like a normal human being.

I see the whole world on a raked proscenium arch, three quartered out.

I wear a chocolate shirt and beachwood aged black pants (I don't know if I should wear them or pour them in a Ale Glass) and I pull up the braids.

Walking through the Peace Park that contains the exotic birds I'm still not used to seeing after seven years of living there. Big monster parakeet hybrid birds, bathing in the peace fountain. There are no homeless there, because of rain. Just the birds.

There were wonderful moments of the Inauguration that includes a beautiful version of Ave Maria by the San Francisco Boys' Choir (strange to see a grown man with them take the brunt of the song. If you were standing on the sidelines...you would have thought one of these kids testicles seriously dropped out of nowhere).

Gavin's father swearing him in. The idea of change. Universal Healthcare in San Francisco. Then, it was I'm not holding my breath. But wouldn't it be nice?

Now? Well. What do you know? It's nice.

As mentioned before, I'm starting to realize the non-sequiturs of important events are the most memorable. The strange. The funny.

I get there and meet my friend. He has just gotten a haircut. He is wearing a smart and spiffy business suit. We look like an unlikely couple. It looks like I have brought my high-end Entertainment Attorney with me. He is tall. Thin, but with lean upper muscles. He does physical comedy.

We are handed programs and shooed up to the second floor. He has never been in City Hall. I have been there before and climb down that grand staircase pretending I'm in a long white dress.

At the bottom of the stairs is Gavin Newsom, mic checking, with kids related to him playing on the steps.

It is these moments that I will always carry with me. More than Ave Maria. More than the talk of Universal Healthcare.

Friend: (Slyly) Wonder what would happen if I rolled down these stairs.

Aaaaah....San Franciscans.

You can put the San Franciscan in a suit...but you can't get rid of the San Franciscan. You can put a Chicago girl in a pair of Beachwood aged pants...

Me: I will pay you $55.00 to roll down these stairs. Do it. Do it now!

...but you can't get rid of the Chicagoan.

Why $55.00 you might ask? Because it makes just as much sense to roll down San Francisco City Hall's Grand Balcony Staircase, as it does to pay him the off amount of $55.00.

It's not "ATM Even."

He would roll down the stairs, lay at Newsom's feet...be wrangled away by security, and I would have to try to break a twenty to give him 55 dollars after I bail him out of jail for much more.

Then I started thinking about the excuses he could give for not going to jail for rolling down the stairs during an Inauguration:

It's my VERTIGO!

I fell for you in 2003...I guess I just did it again.

It was the only way to get close to your girlfriend.

Dick Van Dyke is a PUNK compared to me!!

Or the simple truth: (pointing up the stairs to me laughing my ass off, him meekly almost childlike) Shaun Landry said she would give me $55.00 if I rolled down these stairs. Yes. She is with me. Hmm? Yes, I DO look like her attorney, don't I?

I mean it's not like he went to Burning Man to burn the man before they actually burn The Man...or the Cathedral with explosives and tried to burn and blow that up...right?

It is not like he teased a tiger and got himself mauled, right? He would just roll down the stairs for $55.00.

It makes logical comedic sense to me. It's a victimless crime! I mean shoot... Newsom's niece was scooting all UP AND DOWN the stairs until she was moved away. What harm is it to roll down the staircase during a sound check?

Who suffers?! What is their problem?!! Why would they put him and possibly me in JAIL! How DARE THEY!

Harrumph.

This of course is all in my head.

He did not roll down the stairs. But it was the joke for the rest of the morning. Every once in a while me leaning into him and whispering:

You know, you could do a lot with $55.00. Do it. Do it now!

Finding that for yourself. Finding the non-sequitur joke or Comedy Bit of the day to share with someone. No matter where it is. No matter who they are.

On the couch with your husband...

...Or at a very prestigious event with a friend.

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