Alana Petridge

Everyone has encountered one in their lives, someone you need to watch your back around. I was still new to comedy when I met mine. Alana Petridge was the real life version of Reese Witherspoon from Election, except she had pitch black hair. However, it was the same manic smile and the same façade that secretly bubbled with evil underneath.

In the unairconditioned basement of an open mic where most dreams go to die, Alana was convinced hers were being made. Sweat dripped all over our bodies as terrible punchlines were being slung from the stage. This was in fact the first layer of hell.

We were soon transported to the second when Alana Petridge marched onto the stage. Her huge smile showing off rows of pearly whites, she stated she was from Oyster Bay, graduated from Boston University, and was working at MTV with dreams of being on SNL. Translated, she was a nauseating cliché and she hadn’t even started her act. Next she began what was her act, a series of jokes that involved drawings on a poster board. Some jokes were okay, others were lame.

As she did her bits, I noticed the first signs of laughter from the catacombs. Looking over I saw a tribe of people dressed in white, WASP refugees from the Hamptons. Then it clicked, Ms. Desperate had brought her entire family. Yes, it was mom, dad, a reluctant brother and sister, and her grandparents. Mom was filming this disaster. I told myself not to be so hard on her. My parents were far away and maybe I was just jealous.

After the show, I decided to introduce myself as she was another woman, and maybe very lost. I walked over to her and the WASP refugees and said, “Hi, I’m April, good stuff.” It was a half-truth, some of it was decent.

“Alana,” she shook my hand in a way that felt like she was snapping it off, “Listen, do you book shows?”

“No…..”

“It was nice meeting you,” she said, big fake smile flashing. This encounter confirmed my instincts, steer clear.

Over the next month, I crossed paths with Alana at least twice a week. She brought her WASP refugee entourage dressed in white, and they always sat through the shitty open mic sitting silent until their princess took the stage. Alana always did the same routine, never varying, which meant she wasn’t writing. Each time she always re-introduced herself hoping I was booking shows, and each time I would curtly remind Alana we had already met. Finally, she got the message, I had nothing for her therefore I was no use to her.

Alana was vocal about wanting to find management and soon found it in the arms of none other than my ex Isaac Rabinowitz. A trust fund kid, Isaac was fulfilling his lifelong dream of opening a comedy club he christened The Universe. His father, a real estate mogul, spent a small fortune on billboards to attract big name talent. Isaac, a self-proclaimed impresario, was dipping his fingers into talent management, his first client being “the beautiful and talented” Alana Petridge.

As I saw the social media post, I marveled at both Isaac’s hubris and the ability to think with his dick. The fact she thought he was going to make her a star and the fact he thought he could were the funniest thing either of them had ever done. In the time I had dated Isaac, he had run a theatre company into the ground, managed to alienate every woman he ever encountered, and every joke writing instinct he had proved to be completely and utterly wrong. Isaac couldn’t even manage himself, oh what a gas.

The Universe opened, and despite the musing of big names the only headliner was Alana Petridge. Each night, she did 30 minutes, 5 which contained the tired bit with the picture board, and 25 written by Isaac. Comedian friends of mine told me tales of the utter horror and bloodshed that occurred onstage. I will say part of me delighted in this trainwreck, because these were two people I disliked immensely.

In the early fall I got my chance. Isaac, eager to make amends for all the crap he pulled when he was busy messing with my head, and as an olive branch offered me a spot on a show at The Universe. Despite our tricky past, Isaac had always cheered me on when it came to reaching the next level with my comedy. Plus again, I wanted to see the trainwreck for myself, so I confirmed the spot.

The night of the show The Universe was packed. Planets painted on the walls with glowing decals of stars lined the room. Sure, Isaac was Isaac but I had to admit I was impressed. The emcee was a skinny Jewish kid named Bobby Greenbaum who warmed the room up and they were ready to go. He sat in the back with my friend Paul Thompson, a cynical divorcee turned comic, and myself.

“They are great,” I said.

“Oh, crowds here are always.” Paul said.

Overhearing us, Bobby interjected, “That is until…..”

The three of us tried to muffle our laughter, “That bad?”

“I would rather spend time with my ex wife than see her do comedy,” Paul said. Wow, that said a lot. Paul’s ex wife had tried to run him down with her car.

“I call her Tel Aviv because it’s the only place where anyone could bomb that bad,” Bobby said, as he then turned to give the comic onstage the light. As Bobby ran to the edge of the stage, I could see Alana on Isaac’s arm like a Dollar Store Christmas Ornament, glaring at us. I flashed her a fuck you smile in return. After all, I wasn’t the whore no one could stomach.

My name was called, and the set was insane. May Wilson went off script and flashed the audience. They were drunk and off the wall, but it was helluva fun. Bobby gave us the light and we were sad to go. He gave me a pat on the back and whispered, “Get ready for Tel Aviv,” and then made an exploding sound.

Reluctantly, Bobby took the stage, “Ladies and gentlemen, your headliner has been on MTV. Please put your hands together for Alana Petridge.”

Paul whispered, “MTV. I didn’t know it became a TV credit when it was just your foot.”

“Then you could use that Subway Commercial,” it was true, Paul’s foot was in a Subway Commercial. It helped get his SAG card.

Alana started her set. It was 5 tragic minutes of the poster board and drawings. Without her band of WASP refugees dressed in white, the jokes got pity laughs. From there, she went into the material Isaac wrote and then was greeted with awkward silence. I didn’t know what was worse, the fact she was tanking or the fact it wasn’t even with her own material, “If you’re going to blow someone, blow someone funny,” Paul said.

As this big wet abortion went on, several audience members began to leave, always a bad sign. Finally, one super drunk dude who I loved during my set yelled, “Hey Baby, show us your tits like that puppet did! That would be funny!”

“I had no idea the puppet tits were funny,” I said to Paul.

“Puppet tits are always funny,” We both tried to muffle our laughter. Upon hearing this, Alana looked at the audience, tears in her eyes, and then burst out crying and ran offstage. Everyone looked at each other, baffled as to what the hell had just happened. Then suddenly we all burst out laughing because we were apparently sick and unsympathetic fucks.

The drunk yelled, “Now that’s funny!”

Barely out the door Alana countered with, “FUCK YOU!” which made us all laugh even harder.

As Darlene the waitress was dropping checks she passed us and said, “Good, that girl’s such a pain in the ass.” Damn, when the waitstaff doesn’t like you that says everything. Stick a fork in her, she’s done.

Walking out at the end of the night, I heard Alana screaming to Isaac, “You promised to write me jokes! Your jokes suck! Just like sex with you!” Damn, Isaac was who he was but this was way harsh.As she continued her assault on Isaac, I passed.
Alana, full of venom screamed, "And fuck you April Brucker! You and your unfunny puppet drained the crowd and ruined my night! If it wasn't for you, I would have had a good set!"
Looking at her, May Wilson in suitcase, I said, "Tomorrow, I hope to be funny, but you Sweetheart, will still be shrill and obnoxious." Then I gave her the bitchy smile matched with the bitchy wave and departed into the night.
As I walked away Alana yelled, “I HATE YOU APRIL BRUCKER! I HOPE YOU DIE!”

The next morning I woke up with a message from Isaac apologizing for Alana and telling me he had severed all ties with her. I told him not to worry, things happen, and I looked forward to performing at The Universe again. Days later, the buzz on social media was that Alana’s big time lawyer father was suing Isaac for both sexual harassment and breach of contract. The suit was ultimately thrown out of court, because Isaac’s brother was a big time lawyer, too. While The Universe Comedy Club would stay open a while longer, Isaac retired from personal management forever which was for the best.

After that, Alana went off her birth control, entrapped a successful writer, and tricked him into marrying her. Everything went bust after that, and the divorce was a shitshow. From there it was radio silence until I decided to look her up on facebook.

Alana is living with her parents back on Long Island. The aging stick didn’t just hit her hard, it beat her to a bloody pulp. She, her family, and her son are all dressed in white, smiling as a group of WASP refugees happy in their hive. In another post she announced after a long break and a lot of therapy she wants to return to comedy. Part of me wanted to encourage this, because I wanted a sequel to the shit show she had given me for free so many years before. Than I thought nah, the world has enough depravity and sadness as it is. 

Dreaming is Free (Blondie)

When I was thirteen I was at the end of my rope. School was hellacious. I got made fun of all the time. Between a weight problem and an acne problem I was a mess. At the time I was on this face medication that made my lips bleed. I tried wearing make up to sexy myself up. My blush was orange and my lipstick was more or less purple. I looked like a pumpkin. On top of that I wore this water proof mascara because at the time I was embarking on a failed career as a diver. Well I was not only a horrendous diver, move over Shamu, but I was allergic to water proof mascara. So my eyes swelled shut. Did I mention my mother picked my clothes? On top of that I had top and bottom braces with rubber bands, or gum bands as we call them in Pittsburgh.

I had bullseye all over my forehead.

School was a nightmare and I didn't want to go. I wasn't skinny and pretty like the popular girls. The guys didn't want me. If they asked me out it was as a joke.

Then my family got cable television. To make a long story short I was from a family of readers and educators. My dad was the first of seven, the first to get a college degree and the first to not only get an MBA but also to go to law school as well. His father had been a steel worker who had not graduated from high school, but when my dad was older went to school at night to obtain his GED in order to get a promotion. It was an odd father/son bonding moment but they did it. My dad was big on education because he had grown up poor and realized life without it sucked and made you a slave. My mom was a teacher and told us to aim high, as in Ivy League. So the week was reserved for reading and homework, and the weekends television. We didn't have cable because we were not big television waters. But when Friday came, it was television time.

My friends all had cable and were on the up and up with the MTV. My brother, sister and I, in the damn darkness. On a bus once we were talking and the subject of Coolio came up. I didn't know who or what a Coolio was and needless to say that ended in a barrage of terrible jokes.

But my brother Wendell was embarking on a football career and my dad wanted to watch the high school games. This required getting local cable. To get the local channel this involved getting thirty others. Finally we had cable. I had arrived. Yeehaw!

Immediately I became addicted to MTV. The pop culture on the screen, the musicians and the actors, opened my mind up. I wasnt as academic as my siblings Skipper and Wendell. I was more creative. These artists spoke to me. They were creative, thought out of the box, and were changing the world. When they spoke about school they all talked about how they were awkward and made fun of. This seemed to be a theme. I was creative, awkward, and made fun of. Suddenly I had a plan and a goal. I wanted to go to New York, to entertain people, and to change the world. While it sounds cheesy, MTV saved my life and my sanity during those terrible, crucial years.

As a part of this package we also got AMC. On the screen I saw Mae West, my idol and my hero. She had come into vogue during the flapper era, a decade of tall and willowy women. She was short and curvy. Mae West broke the mold by writing pieces for herself. She pushed the boundaries, going so far as to go to jail. She was an inspiration to an adolescent struggling with her weight in a place where different meant deadly. I suddenly didn't feel this stifling need to conform. Instead, I felt like different didn't make me wrong, but rather it made me right and special. I didn't have to be like the pretty popular girls. They weren't better than me, I was better than them.

From there I had a mission. I practiced in front of my mirror to death with my Groucho Marx figure. My parents worried about my loner ways, meanwhile I dreamed of a career as the next Edgar Bergen. I brought home ribbons in forensics as a master storyteller. I wrote stories and eventually got published in a local paper. I took acting classes and volunteered as well as produced a show on public access. I was on my way. So much so I just started a bunch of sentences with the  pronound "I".

I went on to move to New York City, and was even featured on F'in MTV Blocks. In addition, my puppet children and I have been on TV and we are beginning to fulfill our mission of reaching people. The producer for my audio book was exchanging emails with Naughty By Nature, a band I wasnt allowed to watch when they came on the TV. Lauryn Hill's former sound engineer stole my book. I had a convo with Deborah Harry. I live down the street from Broadway. I am writing a damn musical. People have recognized my puppet children and I and often ask for photos. A song I recorded was number one on internet radio for five weeks. Essentially I am doing every thing I set out to do. This is just the beginning.

I have been thinking about all the people who have made my life hellacious lately. It is because I receive a large number of fan letters from young people. Many are bullied. Bullying is an epidemic in this country and people are only beginning to understand the long standing psychological trauma associated with it now. One kid was even beaten into a coma by kids on a school yard. One recently sent me a letter that she was at the end of her rope and she needed hope.

So I posted something to this effect on facebook and this is what I would say to anyone. Growing up I wasn't allowed to watch cable television and everyone laughed at me. Now I am on cable television quite a bit as well as Netflix with my puppet babies, and hell I still don't own a TV. Because I wasn't allowed to watch television, I got good with making dolls talk and I developed an ability to write. Both are making me quite famous and quite successful. Kids made fun of me because I accidentally called the Notorious B.I.G. The Notorious Big. A year ago I hung out with one of this closest friends. I thought Snoop Dogg was a brand of kennel food and not only did he give me a pep talk when we met but he took my card. I thought a Fugee was a cold virus and Lauryn Hill's former sound engineer stole my book and is reading it. I watched a Deborah Harry rerun and I spoke to her in the hall. I not only walk passed MTV every day, but I have been on there. I walk passed Broadway every day, and I will be on there. I walk passed the Today Show every day with the people gathering at the front and smile because I know I have been on that show too. As for the mean girls they all got fat. As for the guys who asked me out as a joke, joke is on them. Maybe they laughed at me, but now they wish they had my life. I am getting the last laugh. So hang in there. It does get better.

Someone wrote me a sweet note back about how I shouldn't let people drag me down from my past and that there was no need to prove myself. And people over the years have also told me that junior high sucks for everyone.

But I would tell any kid in that place to just hang in there. Every dog has their day and their day will come. It does get better as I said. Now I only wish I could time travel and tell my thirteen year old self that. I wish I could show her my life now and give her a hug. Maybe that is why bullies make me sick and when I see that side of a guy he becomes so unattractive. Maybe that is why I stand by my friends, even when they do things like get arrested, because I know what it's like to be kicked by the world. Maybe that's why I don't exclude anyone. I know my thirteen year old self wouldn't believe it. She would tell me about her dreams, and I would tell her they would come true but she would have to work very hard.

Then she would ask me if I had any money. I would tell her, "Working on that."

Sigh, my bank account doesn't know I hang out with famous people. My bank account doesn't know who I hang out with. My bank account says I still need to save up for a TV and a bed.

But living the dream. And with the price of the suffering we go through, at least dreaming is free.

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
Paperback, 877-Buy-Book, Amazon.com
Ebook Kindle and Nook
Portion of the proceeds go to RAINN

Too Hip to Be A Square (Huey Lewis and the News)

When I was a kid my dad was pretty straight laced. He worked as a tax lawyer sometimes up to seven days a week and on top of that was a professor at a highly regarded business college. On top of that he was basically head usher at our local church and we never missed a Sunday. My dad also talked to us about the Bible on the way home from mass because he understood it better than anyone we knew. In addition my dad also instilled a work ethic in us by having us do yard work projects.

However my dad also had a fun side.

When I was twelve we got Cable. For years we didn’t have cable because my folks had regarded education very highly and wanted us to spend our time reading and writing and focusing on our future. My brother had recently started playing football for the school and the local cable station televised games. Wanting to support my brother in his quest for football stardom my father invested in cable.

My sister and I were psyched. We were getting MTV. For once we wouldn’t feel left out when people mentioned the Spice Girls and very quickly we learned the lyrics to their songs. My dad wasn’t quite sold on MTV. I was going through my attitude change and he attributed it to the network. My brother and I became closet Real World fans and simply didn’t let our parents know we were watching the channel. Then one day things all changed.

My brother and I were watching Beavis and Butthead. For years we heard about the twosome but now we were getting to see them in person. My sister, after a minute, decided she was beyond disgusted so she left the room. Being so entranced into it my brother and I didn’t see or hear our dad come down the stairs. As soon as this malevolent adversary, a well meaning fun police, appeared we moved to change the channel.

“What is it you’re watching?” My dad asked.

“Nothing!” I told my dad.

“Come on.” He said expecting it to be something heinously sexually explicit. While Beavis and Butthead were by no means G-Rated it was not Real Sex 17.

“Beavis and Butthead.” My brother blurted out.

My dad sat down, looked at the TV and studied the two cartoon miscreants for a minute. We handed him the clicker. Defeated we believed he was going to change the station thereby ruining our fun and then ordering a decree that this show was a no no. My parents were more strict than most segregating weekends to TV because weeknights . Instead my dad began watching. In the first minute he was nodding his head. Within the second minute he was laughing. “This is pretty funny!” My dad exclaimed. “Who are these guys?”

“Beavis and Butthead.” My brother explained.

“Oh, the ones everyone wants to take off TV? I don’t get it. These guys are too funny.” My dad said again chuckling. At that moment he tried to do the laugh.

 “Is it like this?” My father demanded to know trying to master the low pitched, slacker faux guffaw.

Glancing from side to side, my brother and I exchanged a disturbed look. Sure it was wonderful our father was hip but this was coming as a surprise. Who was this alien creature and what had he done to our dad? That’s when my dad exclaimed that he liked the show and wanted to see more episodes. We spent that Saturday flipping between football and the Beavis and Butthead marathon.

Soon my father began to watch Beavis and Butthead regularly. It was a weird bonding activity that my brother, my father and I shared. The second it came on MTV the three of us would sit, glued to the TV while my mother and sister stalked out in utter contempt of this mindless toilet humor. At the dinner table my brother and I would pull our shirts to the top of our head as Cornholio while our father would sing the show’s praises as “just too funny.” At first our mother protested but it was keeping my father’s blood pressure down. Like Mills Lane she decide she would allow it. 

My father finally came out of the closet to his friends about his Beavis and Butthead fanage when he was at dinner with some friends of his who were big wigs in the business and legal world. At the time my mother was horrified. My father had worked his whole life and career for these contacts. To my mother’s surprise and chagrin, my dad’s friend confessed to watching Beavis and Butthead with his children as well. The two apparently began to recap their favorite episodes complete as well as their favorite awesomely bad music videos that Beavis and Butthead critiqued. According to my mother, she and the other wife exchanged a sympathetic, knowing glance. While they loved their husbands they were being overgrown man children.

Then the final episode came in 1998 when Beavis and Butthead were to die. At first my father was devastated. How could they kill off cartoon land’s most prized residents, the only ones he liked? So long had he abhorred the Flintstones and only merely tolerated the Jetsen’s. Oh and let’s not even get into Scooby Doo. My father called Scooby Doo, “Mindless drivel that only retards could tolerate.”

Then we watched the episode as a family.

When Beavis and Butthead didn’t die my father at first was happy. Perhaps Mike Judge would bring them back for sequels. But then it sunk in, there had been advertising that they would die and the viewers had been let down. My father looked as us as the credits rolled and said, “They didn’t die. That sucks.”

My father voiced his disappointment and that’s when my sister, being the voice of reason said, “Dad, they are cartoons. They can come back.” After a few minutes my dad recovered as well as my brother and I. We would be gearing up for the reruns no doubt. By now my mother had surrendered. In the last leg of the show my sister had embraced the cartoon misfits who would never score. My mother was still not quite there.

Now Beavis and Butthead are back on the air. Is my dad watching? I have not had the courage to ask. However the other day he did call Mitt Romney a poser. I didn’t know whether to give him the cool crown or ask him why he felt the need to use slag from 1999. Still it did make me crack up because he has used the word six times since then.

At the time I was surprised my dad liked Beavis and Butthead but maybe I shouldn’t have been. After all, he and his brother’s loved the Stooges as kids to the point where they were bopping each other on the head so often my grandma banned it from the house. And did I mention “NYUK” on AMC was family viewing too much to my mother’s chagrin?

What can I say? Maybe you can put the man in the suit but you can’t take the man out of the man. Hey, I lucked out. My old man’s pretty awesome.

Love April