L. knew someone involved with the show, but apparently he wasn't performing -- introducing the performers, rather. It was supposed to be an amateur competition, but not everyone participating was an amateur (the professionals weren't competing, so there ended up being only two contenders, neither of whom performed while I was in the room). The first guy I saw when I arrived was really young, but apparently often performs in NYC, for a living. The second guy was (so they said) quite famous, performing at the Wilbur in NYC the next night -- his name was Gary Gulman. As he was being introduced, I was of course texting to coordinate with E. about his arriving and so, given that I was at a comedy show, I was quite easy prey for the guy doing the introductions, who called me out on it immediately. L. of course had the courtesy to let me know, and I laughed it off.
However, when GG himself came on, he made the same joke -- now, either he just really adores being mean or wasn't paying attention before. I was willing to be it was the latter (now I think he might just not be that smart and really does adore being mean), and so he called me out on it -- again (with much more vim and vigor). Wanting to stand up for myself I said, "Oh come on, the other guy already made that joke" and was met with lots of hushing from the audience.
So he went on.
About how entitled I was, about how I sure was effing entitled, and shame on me, and shame on my parents for being the kind of terrible people who would raise a child that way.
Alright, fine. He was being mean. It's cool. And it was so pulled from nowhere that of course it wasn't actually offensive to me (and my parents would probably both have the common sense to ward off such offenders by paying attention at a comedy club).
However, I wasn't his only target -- in fact, at the end of the show, when he was counting his targets, he got to two - and excluded me. That's right buddy. Pick your battles :). But more interestingly, the second girl he pissed off was actually defending him -- someone had tried to hush some people who were talking, and GG thanked her. Then this second girl remarked, "I'm glad you praised that girl over there just now for doing that -- I thought you were pretentious, at first."
Not the right thing to say if you don't want to become a target. He immediately started saying that she could call him arrogant, an asshole, a jerk, whatever -- but she had no grounds to call him pretentious, and was probably jealous. "What shitty safety school did you go to? I'm guessing you weren't at Tufts?" he asked her. A quick google search told us he had gone to BU -- not exactly a "shitty safety school", but not exactly Harvard (or even Tufts), either. She left the room and didn't come back until he was gone, after he had apologized, saying, "This would be at least the fourth girl I've made cry at the Burren."
I left happy with the Burren but unconvinced that comedy shows of this nature were for me.
