Drift Reality

Yesterday afternoon I was browsing through the weekend section of the Post when I read that a Korean-American comedian named Steve Byrne would be performing at the DC Improv. I had never heard of Byrne, nor had I been to the improv so it was certainly a bit of a shot in the dark. I checked out some of Byrne’s work on YouTube and it looked like what you would expect from an asian-american comedian - jokes about Bruce Lee, imitating his Mother’s fobby voice, etc., yet it still looked good enough to bare. After all, Byrne is a hoppa like myself and we have to support one another.

At any rate, I headed over to the show with a small group and we sat at the front table. We watched the host come out and perform a pretty solid routine before giving way to Ahmed Ahmed, who performed admirably himself.

Finally, Byrne came on and from the first minute I was pissing my pants from laughing so hard. His routine covered a wide spectrum of material, and it did as the YouTube clip indicate, cover his asian-american heritage - but that was far from the focal point of his act. He covered various aspects of relationships, culture, race, gender - always with a very distinctive fast-paced, physical presence that he managed to maintain through an act that must have run in excess of an hour and a half. From start to finish, he maintained that same energy and had the audience absolutely engaged and laughing themselves into a stupor.

Byrne made great use of the audience, bantering on several occasions with various people and even bringing one on stage for a ’sexy-stare around’ contest.

Well, here is a short (best I could find) clip of Byrne from YouTube - I’d recommend checking out his show if you get a chance.

Back when I was living in Korea, I decided I wanted to go to film school and become a filmmaker, so I took the GRE, kicked ass, and applied to USC and UCLA film schools.  I was summarily rejected from both - two great additions to my litany of failures in life.

At any rate, if I had gone to film school and made it as a filmmaker I would have made the greatest movie ever made and I would have called it “The Greatest Movie Ever Made.” 

Why would it be the greatest movie ever made?  Because I would cut all the bullshit and give people what they want: The Redskins, Wolverine, the little man from Willow, a naughty schoolgirl, and the alien from Contra. 

It is probably better to show you rather than tell you, so here it is:

Back in the day when I was at Georgetown, there was a place called Champs.  Champs was a filthy establishment where Georgetown jocks would mingle with drunken freshmen girls, and beer was the drink of choice.  I hated Champs with a passion and was relatively apathetic when it finally went out of business and was replaced by Blue Gin, which in many ways seems the antithesis of Champs.

Switching gears for a moment, I want to talk about Shabeh Jomeh.  Shabeh Jomeh refers to the beginning of the weekend for Persians and traditionally is a night for socializing.  In the US, there are numerous Shabeh Jomeh events where Persians meet up at bars, have drinks, look for spouses, etc.

So I’m on a mailing list for Shabeh Jomeh in DC and normally disregard the e-mails (to this date I have yet to actually attend one).  I received one this morning that did pique my curiosity a bit.

According to the e-mail, the Shabeh Jomeh coordinator met with the Blue Gin promoter to discuss terms of the Shabeh Jomeh events moving forward.  As the story goes, the Blue Gin promoter stated, “As you know, Georgetown is a predominantly white neighborhood.  Blue Gin hired me because they want to cater to that predominantly white crowd and they know that I can bring them that crowd. . .D.C. is different than New York.  In New York everyone hangs out together, but D.C. is segregated.  Latinos hang out with Latinos, blacks hang out with blacks, and whites hang out with whites.”

The end result of the conversation being, that the Shabeh Jomeh crowd could hold events at Blue Gin but they would be restricted to the second floor because they wouldn’t “blend” with the predominantly white crowd that normally frequented the establishment.

The incident is currently under legal investigation, and the attorneys recommended an ‘opinion poll’ be distributed.  Err…I think they mean a ‘push poll,’ but that’s okay, I don’t mind the push polling because otherwise I wouldn’t have found out about the racism at Blue Gin.

Anyway, Blue Gin sucked to begin with.  It almost sucked as bad as Smith Point.   Now, I can guarantee with 100% assurance that I will never return there and I have good reason to dissuade others from going there.