Read Online Almost Interesting by David Spade - Free Book Online Page A

aspirins. Well, they didn’t go down. And I choked. Then I ran to get water. Then I tried to hawk it up because one was now stuck in my throat. That didn’t work, either. Then, somehow, the aspirin moved up into my sinuses and was burning. I sniffed and hawked and after a few minutes it came flying loose in a massive loogie. So disgusting, and such a project. Now I was exhausted and my heart was beating from fear of dying and my headache was twenty times worse. All of a sudden . . . I got called to the stage. For the first five minutes of my adult life I hadn’t been thinking about comedy. I was just trying not to die. Now I realize I lived through this fucked-up sitch, but at the time I had to change gears really fast and do the most important audition of my life.
    You can probably guess how this story ends.
    I did my dopey little act for Mitzi Shore before a modest crowd of forty or so and then scampered out front on Sunset to wait. Louie came out a few minutes later.
    “She’s passing. Sorry.”
    “Holy shit.” What a horrible feeling in my gut. Could I be way off? Do I suck? “I thought I did pretty good. No major fuckups.”
    “She liked your stage presence, but she doesn’t think you’re ready. Sorry.”
    Silence. I just stared. Then I said, “Cool. Cool. Okay . . . um . . . ya, well, thanks for setting it up, sorry it didn’t work.” (Trying to sound undevastated.)
    I drove home in a daze. Holy fuck, one of the key puppeteers of my career just said no. What the hell was I going to do?
    Turns out I didn’t have too long to figure it out. I had to go to the Improv. This was my second and last hope.
    The Funny Boys had set up an audition so this time around I didn’t have to wait in line on amateur night with my props in a shoe box and my name in a hat. That meant I had to be ready to perform, because if they passed I couldn’t audition again for another six months. And when I did, I would already have a stink on me from getting passed over. I was staying on Jim Vallely’s couch, and every night I was quietly freaking out as my audition crept closer. I am overthinking my act completely. I couldn’t really practice because no one will put me on. So I said it out loud in the bathroom, in the mirror, and I can safely say, it wasn’t killing.
    The night of my audition, we all headed down to the club. I was twenty years old, not quite twenty-one. I looked fifteen. The chalkboard outside the club included the name of the evening’s performers, and for the first time, my name was up there. I had gone there so many times to hang out, to have a drink and try to catch a glimpse of the great comedians I had seen on television so many times—people like Jay Leno, Paul Reiser, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Nealon, and Dennis Miller. All on the lineup. They all seemed to be about thirty-five, which to me was the oldest age I could think of at that time. I thought my only chance was that I was twenty with long white-blond hair and a lot of my jokes were about looking young. That would set me apart because Reiser, Seinfeld, and Leno all had a sort of similar “comedian” look, in my eyes. So I tried to use my different “Arizona” look to help me stand out.
    I think that night I opened up with “Hi, I’m David Spade and I’m ten.” That would usually get a laugh. Then I held up ten fingers and said, “That’s this many. My mom just dropped me off. She’s at Safeway. She’ll be back to pick me up at nine.” The set went well, and I went back into the bar super-adrenalized because I thought I had a chance of getting a weekly spot there. We sat at a big table and then one of the Funny Boys got word I passed, so we ordered a round of shots. Bruce Willis happened to be there that night and knew the guys so they invited him to join us. I was shitting my pants then because I was sitting with Bruce Willis. I almost forgot about making the Improv, until the waiter came back with the booze.
    After he handed us the