Spur of the Moment (6 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Both my dad and brother are firefighters. I've always thought it's such a crazy way to make a living. I mean fire scares me to death. Why would anyone willingly go into a burning building? One time, my dad told me how when a firefighter walks through the door to a burning building, he has to very tentatively tap his foot to see if there is any floor there, because arsonists like to cut holes so firefighters fall down to some blazing death in a lighter-fluid-created fiery hell—I couldn't sleep for weeks after he told me that. I was so scared my dad was going to die a horrible death.”

“There are a few times when I've been pretty scared, but most of the time, I really love the challenge. I really love being the nozzle man, the first guy in there. I feel powerful. I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. So where do your dad and brother fight fires?”

“In a suburb of Chicago. That's where I'm from.”

“Oh yeah, what brought you to Denver?”

“After I graduated from the University of Illinois, I knew I didn't want to stay in Chicago—it's a great city, but the winters are sooooo cold—so I went to the Greyhound bus station and looked to see how far I could get with one-hundred-and-fifty dollars, and of the possible choices, I liked Colorado the best—I mean, I'd never been to Colorado, but it sounded cool, and as the saying goes, ‘Go West, young woman,' or whatever, something like that, so I did, and I ended up at Rocky Mountain National Park thinking it was so beautiful, and I decided this was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I wanted to live right in the mountains, but there weren't a lot of openings for kinesiology majors there, so I decided on Denver.”

“What's kinesiology?”

“It's when you study how the human body moves, stuff like that. You take a bunch of nutrition and chemistry and human anatomy courses.”

“Cool. Wait. I don't get it. What do you do for a living with a kinesiology degree?”

“I work as a personal trainer and fitness instructor.”

“Gotcha. So how did you become a comedian?”

“Well, over the years I'd come to shows here and at Second City when I went home to Chicago, and I thought what they were doing up there looked like a lot of fun. Also, for a long time I've had this secret fantasy of being a writer for a sitcom, some TV show or something, preferably anything Sarah Jessica Parker is involved in, so when I saw the ad for workshops teaching improv, I signed up. I thought it might help me with my writing and improve my ability to come up with funny lines quickly, you know, which sitcom writers have to do every week. The first level is an eight-week course. Some people are chosen to make it to the next level, and I was one of them. I was really lucky because soon after I got through the third course, there was an opening for the professional troupe, and Steve Cuddy, he's the director and the one who runs the workshops, asked me to join them. One day I can go to New York or L.A. and become a teleplay writer.”

“I thought you wanted to live in Colorado for the rest of your life.”

“I'll just go to New York or L.A. long enough to become wildly rich and famous and then I'd come back here to live.”

“Why not just work here at Spur for the rest of your life?”

“I've met some of the people who used to work here, and they told me it's really unusual for somebody to stay here for more than a year or two, even though Ramiro and Scott have worked here for a little more than three years, Jason's worked here about two and a half years, and Ana and Marin have been here for two. They're apparently the exceptions to the rule. You get burned out working all these crazy late nights and giving up every weekend. It's hard to be married and have kids and have a day job and do this too. We've talked about hiring more people so we could get more nights off, but we never get around to it. The other five used to be in an improv troupe when they were in college. They've been doing this for years. They can't not do it. The only way they'll stop working here is if they get their own television show like
Kids in the Hall
or something. Or maybe if they get married and have kids, but I don't see it happening.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Jason I could maybe see getting married someday, if he ever gets over his crush on Marin. Maybe Scott could get married if he ever matured a little, but I don't know. Ramiro is gay, and as for us women, we've been hit on by so many married men at the club here, it's really hard to hold up marriage as this big goal, the answer to all our prayers. It's so depressing. I cannot tell you how many times men with wedding rings on their fingers have come up to me after the show and bought me a few drinks and flirted like crazy with me. They always say stuff like, ‘Oh, my wife and I are like brother and sister, we sleep in separate beds, we're going to get divorced,' yada yada yada. I'm like, okay, so when you're actually divorced, maybe you can give me a call then, but I'm not sleeping with a married man. There is just no way that kind of story can have a happy ending, you know? And maybe some of them really are getting a divorce, but I'm guessing that a lot of them aren't, and it's just so depressing to think about how many men cheat or would cheat on their wives if they had the opportunity.”

“Not all guys cheat. I've never cheated on a girlfriend.”

“Have you had the opportunity?”

“Sure. Plenty.”

“I don't know. I believe in love. I'm just not sure I believe in marriage. Maybe I just haven't met the right guy yet, and when I do, I won't have any fears at all about tying the knot.”

“I bet that's it. I bet the right guy will make you decide marriage is pretty great after all.”

The other five performers returned from their unicycle adventures to give more serious attention to their beers. After Chelsey introduced Rob to everyone and everyone to Rob, Ramiro asked, “So Ana, how did it go with the guy from Qwest? Can we quit our day jobs yet?”

“Not yet, sorry. He said their budget is really tight now, but he thinks he wants us for their holiday party in December.”

“That's it?”

“Steve should really be marketing us heavily to the local business community,” Ana said, as she had about nine million times before. “I mean Second City not only has performances every night of the week, they have an entire traveling team going around the country. I know Denver isn't as big as Chicago, but still, we should be able to do a lot better than we're doing. I think we just need to market ourselves. We should put on that sketch comedy performance we've always been talking about, and really aggressively market ourselves to agents and the local media and business community. Scott and I could create the posters and flyers, and I can write up the news releases and hound the press trying to get some publicity. I really think if we could show our sketch comedy skills, it would help us branch out. That's what Second City does.”

“It would be fun. I think we should do it. Really do it and not just talk about it,” Jason said.

“I don't know. It kind of sounds like a lot of work,” Marin said.

“It'll be great. It'll give Ramiro a chance to finish some of the sketches he's been playing around with,” Ana said. “We'll get Steve's permission to perform here some Sunday night.”

“Just one night?” Chelsey asked.

“We can see how it goes and then repeat it. We'll market it like, ‘back by popular demand,' ” Ana said.

“I'm in. It'll look great on my résumé for when I go to become a staff writer for a hit series on HBO,” Chelsey said.

“Okay, I'm in,” Marin said.

“Yeah, I guess. I've got three or four sketches you guys could help me finish up,” Ramiro said.

“I have some sketches, too, from when I took that sketch-writing class last year,” Chelsey said.

“You haven't written anything since then?” Ana asked.

“No. What's your point, that if I want to become a sitcom writer I actually have to do something about it?” Chelsey joked.

“I think we should do a celebrity boxing skit,” Ana said. “Marin could do Britney Spears and she could fight, I don't know, some bad ass woman, a woman who can actually sing maybe.” Marin did a killer Britney Spears. She had the same dark eyes and blond hair that B.S. had, and she was a good dancer, but when Marin danced, her exaggerated facial expressions and hammy moves were hilarious. She acted all dumb and air headed, with big eyes and a high-pitched voice. “Ani DiFranco? k.d. lang?” Ana continued. “Oh, I know, Rosie O'Donnell! I'll be Rosie. You and I will kind of argue, and then I'll throw a single punch and knock you flat.”

“Yeah, but first I'll dance around doing these fly girl moves to avoid getting hit.” Marin stood up to demonstrate, getting into it. The others liked the idea too, and started shouting out ideas all over the place. The Keebler Elf against the Jolly Green Giant! Xena against Barbie! The character of Jack from
Will and Grace
against Arnold Schwarzenegger! Ramiro would play Jack. Ramiro was awesome at talking swish. Whenever he played a limp-wristed gay guy type, the audience roared. They thought it was hilarious that someone they assumed was straight, super-masculine straight, could pretend to be so swish. It was a great big irony sandwich.

“How about this? How about feminist cheerleaders?” Ana said. “We'll wear baggie jeans and t-shirts with varsity letters on them, and we'll explain to the audience how for years, cheerleaders have encouraged male violence and aggressiveness with cheers like, ‘You've got to B-E A-G-G-RE-S-S-I-V-E, got to be aggressive, whoo!' but no more. We're a new breed of cheerleaders who encourage women to excel in their careers and their lives, because everyone needs encouragement. We'll cheer men on to share more of the housework and take care of the kids.”

“It's got potential,” Chelsey said. “It'll be you, me, Ramiro in drag, and Marin, and instead of being all bubbly, we'll be sedate and talk in a monotone. It'll be fun to write the cheers.” Just then, Chelsey realized she'd completely forgotten about Rob. She turned to him. “Rob, you're having a horrible time, aren't you?”

“I'm having a great time. Your friends are fun.”

“You'd rather be home fooling around with me right now, wouldn't you?”

“That would be a lot of fun too, but we can do that all Sunday and Sunday night, all next week. I'm not going anywhere.”

Chelsey's heart did a back handspring. She hadn't thought this might be a long-term thing when she slept with him three hours after meeting him. Well, okay, she hadn't really been thinking about anything but how cute he was. Did this relationship really have a chance to become something, despite having the fact they had sex on their first date?

“I should probably get home and get some sleep before I have to get to work,” Rob said. “But let's do brunch on Sunday. Come to my place, I'll cook for you.”

“You cook?”

“Sure.”

Oh dear. She could very well fall madly, deeply, and passionately in love with this guy.

“Come by around 11. Is that too early?”

“No, that sounds great. I'll see you then.”

After Rob left, the rest of them worked on scripts for the show until 4:30 in the morning. Some of the ideas they worked on were based on characters who had popped up now and then in their improv, like Ramiro's and Jason's After-School-Special
Hector and Bob,
in which exchange student Hector explains his Brazilian heritage, and Bob explains about American culture.

Jason/Bob and Ramiro/Hector stood up and started improvising to get some ideas out while Ana wrote it down.

Ramiro/Hector: “Good international friend, what is this? We do not have such things in my country.”

Jason/Bob: “Why, my good international friend, it's called a china cabinet. White people buy dishes that are so expensive, they use them only once a year. And then they buy an entire piece of furniture to display these dishes they only use once a year. Then they buy bumper stickers that say, ‘Live simply so that others may simply live,' and put them on all three of their cars and their SUV and their boat.” And so on. When they'd gotten all the mileage they could out of Bob and Hector, Scott chimed in with an idea.

“I want to do something on the three-minute dating thing.”

“What's that?” Ana asked.

“Ana, what's wrong with you? It was on
Sex and City!”
Chelsey said. “It's where you go to these groups where they have like ten men and ten women and they pair up, two at a time, and every three minutes a bell rings and they switch to talk to someone else. The idea is you'll click with somebody and see if you want to go on another date with them to get to know them better.”

“The scene will start at a bar so I can show off my cool moves.” Scott demonstrated his Roger Rabbit and Running Man moves. Because of his ganglyness, he was a natural at physical comedy. Just about any move he made was hilarious. “While I'm dancing, Jason or Ramiro can do a voice-over.” Scott imitated the voice of the guy that does every movie trailer ever made. “‘Chuck tried the bar scene. He took out a personal ad. Nothing worked. He was still just a lonely slob. Then he tried three-minute dating!' Then I'll sit at a table and interview you guys and you'll all just be awful and then the bell will ring.”

“What kind of awful?” Marin asked.

Scott looked at her blankly. “I don't know.” He thought for a moment. “Um, I need to flesh it out more.”

“Just a little,” Marin said.

“Why don't we all be in the sketch,” Ramiro said. “We could have one person decide she's found her soul mate and she won't let go. Jason could be the object of affection and . . . Ana could stalk him.” Here everyone tittered. Ana's long-standing crush on Jason was hardly top secret. The rest of them loved to razz her about it. “She could grab on to his legs like little kids do. We could do a bunch of sight gags with her popping up at different tables when he's got his three minutes with a different lady. She could dress up as a waiter and try to sabotage things. Meanwhile, Scott, you're going through all those horrible dates like you said. In the end, Scott, you and Ana end up together somehow.”