Nice Jewish Girls Gone Dead
written by Ophira Eisenberg
Working the road alone can be grueling and lonesome, but traveling with a group, doing fourteen shows in fourteen days is a whole different van of worms. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever feel to touring with a rock band, minus the groupies and bong hits. It’s tough. The group functions at best like a junior high school stage band. There are a few parts that will never be in synch and after a while, you just put up with the off key notes and occasional loss of rhythm. And that’s when conditions are perfect.
Once again, I hit the road with the comedy variety show Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad. This show is made up of a host and producer, Susannah Perlman, two dancers, Jessi Erian and Amber Bloom, and two comedians, me and Shawn Pelofsky. I traveled with this exact group before Christmas and we actually had a pretty good time. Our reunion followed a trajectory. The first day was like hooking up with an old boyfriend. You romanticize about the fun times you had but also rediscover your disgust for all his annoying ticks. By day two or three, survival skills kick in. Like back pain, you know going to have to put up with a certain amount of discomfort so you need to stay focused, stay positive, read a book, ignore everyone. A mental countdown clock begins. By day four, you have the best day and performance of the tour. It’s the first time the band makes music together. You’re all drunk on the harmonies and celebrate together with a social cocktail. You swing by a Target and buy some new road clothes. There is peace in the van.
On day five, when you drive from Breckenridge to Denver…all hell breaks loose.
Two days before that drive I stood in eighty degree desert weather on a street corner in Moab, UT talking to a morning show producer in Denver. I was scheduled to appear at 7:30am in a couple of mornings and we were working out the details. It’s a ninety-minute drive and clearly I wasn’t looking forward to getting on the road at 5am, driving through the mountains, and being television-ready by 7. Just thinking of the energy that would take made me feel old. However, after being emailed by Donny Osmond’s brother, who watched my appearance on a Salt Lake City morning show, I knew it would be worth it. These are the little unexpected rewards that push me forward.
The producer wanted to cancel. She had consulted the station’s meteorologist who warned that an evil storm was rolling in and they were predicting snow fall in the measure of feet rather than inches. She predicted they would shut down the highway to Denver. I took her semi-seriously. For one, I grew up in Canada. I know from snowfalls. Shutting down the highway to Denver in April – well that sounded a little ridiculous. Also, after a mild winter in New York where on a daily basis we were told to brace ourselves for The Storm of the Century or a Deadly Downpour or a Behemoth Blizzard, I had more faith in the news copy writers than the actual forecast. But what could I do? I told her I understood. Cancel me. It was Denver’s loss.
It was lightly snowing when we got to Breckenridge. We performed at a rock club to a gaggle of drunken ski bums who were nice enough, considering that their great goal in life was to spend all of their parents’ money.
The next day, we had a lazy morning 9,500 feet above sea level and finally packed the van to make the trek. The roads were a little rough; certainly not ideal, but totally drivable. I wondered if that morning show producer really bumped me for a better guest. White chocolate chunks of snow fell from the sky and melted on the windshield as we entered a tunneled mountain. The tunnel was like a magic closet because when we came out the other side, we were in Narnia. It wasn’t beautiful. It was hell, frozen over. I finally saw it.
Snow blew at the windshield, the pure whiteness causing darkness, and cars were careening everywhere – sliding in front of us, speeding behind us, stuck in ditches on either side of the road. Watching the other vehicles was like watching puppies chase a balls across a freshly waxed floors, except there was nothing cute about them crashing into each other. We rolled along, very scared, and very quiet. It takes a lot to render five Jewish women in a car silent. Starting up a hill, we felt the van give way to ice and start slipping uncontrollably. Susannah was gasping on to what seemed now like an unattached steering wheel, as its motions did nothing to the direction of the car. We each screamed a little outwardly and a lot inwardly and finally plowed into the ditch, joining the ranks of cars that had also given up, succumbed to the power of storm and the mercy of their crappy mini-van.
A man wearing a trucker hat, not ironically, tapped on our window and offered to tow us up the mountain with his truck. Since our minivan that was rented in California neither had chained tires, or winter tires at all, this Obi Won was our only hope. We assembled fifty dollars as gratuity but he refused and instead asked for tickets to our show that night, while shyly inquiring if anyone got naked in the show. But clearly there would be no show tonight. We were in chaos, true act of god territory. and another 100 miles to go.
On the other side of the mountain, we were met with gridlock highway traffic, roughly two hundred cars, stalled while the snow continued to pile up. After an hour, we were told by others that the highway ahead had been closed due to an eight car pileup and numerous stalled or turned trucks. I couldn’t believe the highway was actually closed. Everyone was to get off at the next exit.
Unfortunately, the next exit was up a huge hill and we knew, now from experience, we would never make it. With no option to turn back we followed what had thinned out to about fifty cars who also desired to defy fate on the highway of doom.
Everyone was scared shitless, quietly munching on Larabars wondering if we would actually die on this tour. Would these be the last people I would ever see? Would my last meal really be trail mix? It seemed so unfair. We drove into what could only be described as car carnage. Stalled half ton trucks were everywhere, abandoned cars in ditches, sedans covered in snow left to die. It looked like the aftermath of the apocalypse, the work of the gang of Yetis, or a crew of winter-fairing zombies. Attempting to maneuver around a deserted Fedex truck, we got stuck on ice. Hearing the wheels spinning helplessly was too close of a reminder of what life could be like in New York. Yet all I wanted was to be able to get back there.
Another trucker from one of the broken half tons approached our car on foot. He thought we could probably make it through the highway by weaving in and out between the smashed, broken down and otherwise not-moving trucks and cars ahead; like an obstacle course, or the arcade game OutRun with a touch of Frogger.
The dancers and I jumped out of the car to try to push it up the hill. It felt so good to have my feet on solid ground, finally in control of my movements. How three girls in sparkly show makeup and sneakers were going to push a van full of the heaviest luggage up a snowy mountain seemed pretty unclear but we got behind the van and heaved hard. Somehow, it started to move. Susannah drove a few feet ahead and stopped to wait for us, which resulting in being stuck again. A State Patrolman showed up out of nowhere. He had an angry look on his face and while holding a shovel, yelled at the van, “Don’t stop next time! You have to keep Going!!” What he said made sense. She couldn’t stop. But, then what exactly would happen to us? There was no time to think. I did wonder – where were the ambulances? The police? The national guard? Where were the people that belonged to all of these forgotten cars? But I just found myself behind the van, pushing while my Vans slipped on the frozen highway, 3...2...1…PUSH! And the van started moving again. The dancers and I ran after it, in the middle of half closed off highway, screaming, “Don’t stop! Keep going, don’t stop!” We ran for a mile with mascara streaming down our face, covered in snowflakes that had turned to crystallized ice in the thirty degree weather.
But we couldn’t run the entire way to Denver. So we stopped in the middle of the highway to catch our breath. The van became a little speck in the distance. Behind us was utter whiteness. It was eerily quiet. We continued to walk down the highway through the automobile graveyard. It started to feel like a scene from an urban version of Alive and soon I would need to eat one of the dancers.
Ten minutes later, the mirage of our van appeared in the distance. They were waiting for us under an underpass, hoping that it would shelter the car from the elements. It was hard to make out the difference between the road and the rest of the mountain. Everything just looked empty, like God got tired of drawing. We loaded back into the van, drenched, dirty, and coughing the cold out of our lungs. It seemed like we were the only car left on the highway. Or the only car that got through? Shellshocked and angry by it all, we said nothing but, “Go.”
Susannah pushed on the gas, projecting us further forward into the abyss of nothingness. The next hour was spent following one other car, a black SUV, down the other side of the mountain at ten miles an hour. It felt like utter torture, like at any second we would most certainly crash. The only question left was would we be hurt or would we die.
Finally, the van plateaued and a sign ahead read, “Denver 5 miles”. The stabbing pains of the fear stopped only to be replaced with sheer rage when Susannah announced that we could probably make it to the venue by 8 and only start the show half an hour later. I was stunned that in the state I was in, we were all in, that we were expected to entertain. I craved comfort. A nice meal. A shower. Someone stroking my head while promising me it was all going to be okay. I know the old adage, “the show must go on” but I started to think that was a stupid phrase made up by people that never really had challenged that notion.
We walked into the venue like a tornado of broken hate, radiating trauma, unable to make the transition back into everyday life. There was an inevitable screaming fight back stage, followed by tears and a half-hearted group hug.
I reapplied my makeup, changed out of wet clothes in the club’s bathroom and got on stage. Raw and coming apart at the seams, I wanted to express to the audience what I had gone through, how we had defied death, escaped from the clutches of the Abominable Snowman to make it to this very show. The greatest thing about it was that the audience didn’t really care. They just stared up at me radiating, “C’mon! Do some jokes already!” It was both a slap in the face and incredibly grounding.
I launched into material. They laughed. My nerves calmed. Who knew stand-up could be so soothing. As soon as I walked off stage, I grabbed a glass of white wine and contemplated killing my cast members. It turns out that Denver meteorologist is very talented.
Ophira Eisenberg is a comedian from New York.
You can order her new CD at OphiraEisenberg.com.