Last week was a historic week for half-black people of America.  Barack Obama became the first two-term half-black President, breaking his own record of one term.  Then, just two short days later, I performed at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco for the first time.  You all probably know the story of Obama’s re-election so I will spend the remainder of the post re-capping the story of how a horrible trip to San Francisco became a terrific night of comedy.  Like the reverse of delusional right-wing pundits I started with horrible expectations and left victorious.

Seat 44F – The Worst Seat in the World

Being 6’7″ tall with knees that have been semi-crippled from a combination of basketball, squats and Dunkin Donuts the only seats that I can survive in on a plane are Emergency Exit rows, or, in a pinch, aisle seats, which allow me to crack my knees when I stretch them in the aisle.  And these are for flights of 3 hours or less.  As you may know, the trip to San Francisco from NYC is approximately 6 hours, which if my knees had a bladder, hearing that information would make them urinate involuntarily.  Then I looked at my seat assignment: 44F.

If you do not know, 44F is the last row window seat of a Delta 757.  It is literally the worst seat on the plane for various reasons:

• No reclining capability.
• Last to get off the plane on arrival
• In the movie Flight, only the people towards the back of the plane got severely injured (with exceptions of the crew)
• Enough legroom for a 13 year old version of J-L, but no older than that

I sat down for about five minutes, with the corners of the trays digging into my knees and my nuts crushing with the combination of the tiny width of the seat and size of my legs.  I then contemplated that there were only 300 more 5-minute increments (assuming the flight would take off on time) and immediately got out of my seat and begged the flight attendant to bribe another passenger with my money or her mouth for another seat for me.  Fortunately a kind, older Australian couple sat down in seats D and E next to me and offered to switch D and F with me.  I thanked them profusely and told the flight attendant she would no longer need to re-up her mile high club membership for my benefit.

Of course the flight was then 90 minutes delayed from that point as we waited for the food and beverages to be delivered (I would rather have that delay than the “checking out some mechanical issues” delay).  So I ended up standing for about an hour chatting up the two Atlanta based flight attendants.  This chat would subsequently earn me a free meal, M & Ms and free booze for the couple sitting next to me because the flight attendants felt so bad for my soon to be destroyed knee cartilage and so good about their Aussie benevolence.

Am I Dreaming?

When we finally reached our cruising altitude I stood up (I spent about 3 of the 6 hours standing) and continued chatting with the flight attendants.  I never got either of their names, so I will call one the 48 year old and one the 58 year old.  We began talking about television shows and the 48 year old said her favorite show on television was Breaking Bad.  And just as I was about to climax in my pants, the 58 year old one brought up Six Feet Under as one of her favorite shows.  (for the record these are two of my 3 favorite dramas of all time – The Wire being the third).  So as I am enjoying these entertainment-enlightened, free food and beverage goddesses they then asked me what I did for a living.  I told them I make my money in human trafficking because I constantly shuttle myself around the country to be underpaid and abused, but other people call it comedy.  They replied with “get out of town” type reactions and then started asking me who I enjoyed in comedy.  I told them Chris Rock and Bill Burr.  The 48 year old then told me that there was a “popular guy who everyone talks about, but she doesn’t really get all the hype.”  I then asked, with the same tone as a man asking a woman to marry him, who is unsure of the answer, if she meant Louis CK.  She said yes and said “I just don’t find him as funny as everyone.”

At this moment I slapped myself in the face because I assume the plane had already crashed (Lost style) and I was already in some sort of afterlife of goodness.  A Breaking Bad enthusiast, Louis CK skeptic flight attendant?  I have actually written a porn with these exact specifications for the female lead!

But the dream had to end and when I arrived in San Francisco it was time to say goodbye to these generous angels of Delta and make my way to Cobbs Comedy Club.

The Night I Blew The Mic So Hard Even San Francisco Was Uncomfortable With It

So the lineup for the Comedians at Law show for the night at Cobbs was CAL member Alex Barnett leading off, then a guest spot for a chick comedian, then me, then a guest spot for a guitar playing comedian, then CAL-er Matt Ritter closing.  So to sum it up I was between a woman and a guitar, two things I have been a vocal supporter of in comedy.  So I went up and was slated for 30 minutes.  I did 39.  One of the strongest sets I have had in a long time.  Did a new bit on law school relationships that I wrote on the the plane ride when I was not making wedding plans with the 48 year old flight attendant.  Did some other newer bits and a host of older ones and it was awesome (the new bit is basically that women in law school should lock up their law school man immediately because life is going to get worse for them and that men in law school should avoid getting locked up under all circumstances because life will get exponentially better for them).

So despite blowing the light so hard that Harvey Milk rose from the dead to support me the show was a huge success and I sold a bunch of CDs. I then got to hang out with some friends, including one of my best buds from law school.

Skyfall Day

I decided to stay an extra day in San Francisco to hang out with my friend, but as it turns out, like almost every other graduate of Georgetown Law Class of 2004, he has a day job so I ended up just walking around the shopping district of San Francisco and seeing a matinee of the new James Bond film Skyfall.  I then filmed my weekly movie review show in the guest room of my friend’s apartment, with his two gay fish as co-hosts.  Here it is:

The Myth of Preferred Seats on Delta

With nothing else of note to report from San Francisco it was time to fly back to NYC.  I had a 615 am flight and arrived at the airport at 410 am. I then noticed upon checking in that there were a few open seats in the “priority category.”  For only $29 I might actually have just enough room to sit only slightly uncomfortably?!  Amen!  So I bought the seat (27C) and got ready for extra leg room.

Side note as a tall guy.  I understand that the diminishing width of seats is my fault.  When I was trim seat width did not bother me and my love of cookies and hate of self has started to make it a more snug fit.  And I understand that airlines like Southwest want to charge double for fat people, because to a large extent (pun intended), weight is an issue of personal choices.  But height is immutable.  I am tall and cannot become shorter if I want. So why are all these airlines charge more money for leg room?  I NEED THOSE SEATS!  My height practically becomes a disability on airplanes, but am I allowed to board with other people who need special assistance?  No!  This sh*t has to stop!

Now when I got on the plane I was looking forward to my extra leg room, especially since I actually have bruises on both knees from my flight out to San Francisco (always suspicious as a heterosexual man to show back up to NYC with bruised knees after a few days in San Francisco). So imagine my surprise to sit down and see that I had no extra room whatsoever.  I asked the flight attendant why there was a mistake in my seat.  As it turns out I had only purchased a preferred seat (translation an aisle seat not in the taint of the airplane), but not an “economy comfort” seat (translation seat that would fit me), which cost $80 extra dollars.  At this point in aviation, there is going to be a guy whose sole job it is to ejaculate on 100 seats on an airplane and then there will be a “semen free seat” upgrade for $100 for those few seats without ejaculate on them.

Fortunately no one sat next to me so I guess it was a preferred seat, because I prefer to not sit next to anyone! BAM!

So that is the San Francisco recap. Videos from the show will be up on my site and YouTube page soon.