Ha... Ha... Ha.
written by Ophira Eisenberg
Last month I embarked on a fourteen city tour of the Midwest, specifically planned for the fall, before flying into Chicago O’Hare becomes more terrifying than a double-loop roller coaster ride.
On day ten I landed in Bloomington Indiana, home of Indiana University, and a town that is often spoken of fondly by people who like to party. The word “party”, by the way, makes me feel tired.
This particular comedy room is not only are located directly across from the campus, but they’ve been there for forty years. It’s the smaller independent club in town, meaning they cater to a low-expectations kind of crowd who is willing to see “whatever” and take a chance for ten bucks. Good, loyal, cheap-ass people.
Right outside the door to the showroom, there’s a classic wall of framed headshots; and like most of these displays, it hasn’t been updated since 1995. These photos represent less of what magnificent talent has graced the stage before you, and more of antiquated photography trends and decade-old marketing ideas.
Shots from the 80’s are the most mock-worthy as the comedians are overly posed, cocking their head to one side, or unnaturally perched on their knuckles. Most of them are wearing funny ties, a perm that Bozo the clown would salivate over, and an expression that says, “Can you believe this?!”
My favorites are the ones that are consciously trying to be funny and involve a tickle trunk full of props. He’s wrapped himself in a garden hose or is holding a hammer near his head. He’s taped his mouth shut, holding a life preserver, or is holding a rotating fan close to his face. Why? Because his comedy is so damn edgy, dangerous, and hot! Some of the comics are well known now and others have vanished. I find it a bit chilling to gaze at these walls. I can’t help but wonder which one I will be.
The showroom itself looks like a log cabin that hasn’t weathered the years of being a college hang-out so well. But I like it. It’s homey. The curtain behind me is a beige material with a pattern of birds in flight, probably sewn together from the sheets at my shitty motel. The carpet is that industrial kennel grey, worn away to the black rubber for the most part, and over half of the antique-looking light sconces on the walls are smashed and broken. But the beer is cold, the microphone works, so all is good.
I spend the beginning of my act making fun of the place for being a shit hole. Then I go after the crowd for looking like shut-ins or new age crystal healers with their long unkempt hair and donning their “good fleece” for their big Friday night out on the town. They love being made fun of, being judged as stupid and back woodsy, told that their lives suck.
I segue into my material, which is no longer about them, and thankfully they’re into it. Things are going great – we’re all having fun, it’s one of those easy nights. I’m almost done, about ten minutes left in my set and I’ve hit the freedom walk where there’s nothing more to prove. We’re going to take this baby home together. That is until the show is completely interrupted by someone at the back of the room making this loud, disgusting, guttural sound that can only be described as someone with heavy asthma moaning while chocking on a chicken bone.
I make a quick comment that the door to the kitchen must have sung open and try to move on, assuming the disturbance is over. But it happens again. It doesn’t even sound human. Unable to ignore it or end my set, I start making fun that some feral wolf child must have snuck in or alien who hasn’t adjusted to our atmosphere, or even worse, an Indiana freshman. It wasn’t utter brilliance but the crowd enjoyed it and everyone continued to be on my side. But this noise, now sounding like a gagging corpse continued. And it was loud. It broke through every other sound in the room. I can’t believe that a manager, bar tender, or wait staff person hasn’t said something or asked this person to step outside. Or how about this – that the person themselves didn’t decide to step outside! I continued on stage, responding to the noise and how it sounded like someone was on their last fucking breath. Maybe someone should step in? When nobody does, I berated the crowd for being worse than a bunch of jaded New Yorkers.
But the sound changed. It came from exactly the same direction, but now I heard, “Ha…Ha…Ha.” It was slow, staccato, and certainly could not be confused as a laugh. I mean, I was actually hearing the word “ha.” The fear that blossomed from the depth of my stomach was that someone was fully making fun of me. They were outright ridiculing me, much like how I mocked Marty Markowitz’s headshot of him wearing a set of lime green jumbo plastic sunglasses.
There was something extra condescending about the speed; the pregnant pauses between the “Ha-s”. This person hated me. He thought I sucked. All of this rushed through my head in an instant, but I was still on stage. I fought back, angrily barking at the mysterious hacker, asking where they learned how to laugh, from a robot? And that I should let them know, you don’t actually say the words Ha. Then, I demonstrated how to do it properly as if I was teaching a retarded child. The rest of the audience was completely enjoying themselves, watching me spit and curse, but I made no progress with the patronizing patron. I couldn’t actually see their face as they were tucked in the back of the room beyond the lights.
I was borderline losing my mind as the slow laugh continued, which suddenly became so funny to me, that I started laughing every time it happened: normal laughing and then slow laughing as if we were doing some sort of concert call and response. Of course I made the comment that I didn’t even have to tell jokes anymore; I could just travel with this guy. The audience roared. Finally I had no choice but to say good-night. It was still a successful gig but I felt a little lack of closure as I never got to the bottom of what was going on.
I walked to the back of the room, and froze in my tracks when a silhouette of a jumbo wheelchair appeared. There was a guy, parked near the door, in the most elaborate wheelchair I have ever seen. It was a Stephen Hawking model, more like a dentist chair with a highly structured padded head rest since the poor guy probably had very little control of his neck movements, and a large keyboard attachment that I guess was his only way left to communicate with the world.
Standing beside him was a young man, maybe a friend, maybe a brother. I looked at him, and then the wheelchair guy that I’d just been ripping on for ten solid minutes. My face burned up and trickles of sweat ran down the backs of my knees. I was mortified. Switched into full apology mode, I swore to them that I had no idea, and I was beyond so sorry. I had the utmost respect and absolutely no intention of making fun of anyone handicapped or challenged. But his friend interrupted me and said, “No, no, no. It’s fine. Seriously. He loved it!”
It turns out that wheelchair guy was trying to communicate that he was laughing through his keyboard apparatus, that resulted in a mechanical voice going “Ha…Ha…Ha.” He loved being picked on, loved the attention, and didn’t want it to end, so he just kept it going.
The wait staff and management thought it was highly hilarious to watch me flail around and have a minor breakdown on their already broken down stage. The audience ate it up. This guy loved being mocked. Everyone was a bigger person than me. He wanted to be part of the show and thanks to the miracle of technology, he could. But they might want to upgrade their sound card or something to make that laughter sound just tad more genuine and less creepy and rude. He rolled his elbows over the keyboard and a speaker said, “Thank you!” as his friend said good-night and they rolled out. Wiping perspiration from my forehead, I sat down, leaned my head back and ordered all my comp drinks at the same time.
Ophira Eisenberg is a writer and comedian from New York.
Visit OphiraEisenberg.com.