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March 7, 2006- "Heroic Hooter Girls and how I closed down McDonalds."

I’m heading up to San Francisco this week. The last time I was there, I had a pretty eventful Sunday night. I worked with a great comedian, Bil “with one L” Dwyer, we had great crowds making for a fun week. So on the final day, I checked out of my hotel in the afternoon on Sunday and had a few hours to kill before the show. I stopped in to a bar to watch the AFC championship game. At the far end of the bar, one lady was so drunk that she fell off her barstool. The bartender picked her up off the floor and called her a cab. In the meantime, another woman- just as drunk fell on the floor as well. What are the odds? Now here’s the great part. So the bartender calls taxi’s, when the cabs arrived both woman got up quickly at the same and rushed for the stairs, one woman turned back to get something and they both smashed into each other face first, both going to the floor like the end of Rocky II. It was sad and hilarious at the same time. I just thought that it was so great that two drunks smashed into each other instead of injuring sober people separately. It’s like if two drunk drivers smashed into each other on the highway, it felt like there was justice. The bartender then called an ambulance. Now some of you might think I’m evil for enjoying such a scene, that’s because you have no sense of humor. So I leave the bar and look to get something to eat. As I’m walking down the street, there’s a bunch of little chain restaurants including a “Hooters”, “In N Out Burger” and a couple others. As I’m walking I see “The Bushman” getting harassed by a couple of teenagers. I’m confusing you, let me explain.

On Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, there’s a famous guy called “The Bushman.” He dresses up in camouflage, dark sunglasses, sits in front of a garbage can and hides behind a small tree branch. As tourist walk by, he yells, jumps up or just shakes the branch and scares the crap out of people. The people in turn give him money for scaring them. Is that a great gig or what? The kicker of the whole thing is that there’s no tree’s within miles of this place, so for someone to see a tree and not think something strange is going on is funny to me as well. It also shows you how cool it is to live in California. All you east-coast readers know that if someone hid behind a garbage can in New York City, jumped up to scare people they would get punched in the face. But in California we embrace the creativity.

Back to the story. So “The Bushman” has been around so long, and makes so much money, that he apparently has an apprentice or two who cover the shifts for him. So as I’m walking by “Hooters” one of the apprentice Bushman is getting harassed by kids, they are starting to get a little violent and mean spirited. I was starting to get worried, I almost had to step in myself and help him, but just then two Hooter’s girls blast through the front doors like a couple of superhero’s and scream,”Leave him alone! We’ve already called the cops so you better get the hell out of here!” The kids scatter and The Bushman ducks into an alley safely. The hooter’s girls save the day! How about that?

I then go to the club and eat despite being excited about so much weird stuff happening around me. As I walked past the bar I was in earlier, I see the two women being loaded into ambulances.

So I tell both stories at the Sunday night show, then I begin my drive home to Los Angeles through the night. I see a few lights off the exit so I stop to eat. I get to a McDonalds drive thru that takes FOREVER. There’s only one person working in the whole place. I finally get to the window, pick up my food and begin to drive off, with a long line of cars still waiting behind me. As I start to make the corner of the drive thru exit, I notice the car ahead of me is not moving. It’s only a one-lane road so I can’t go around it. I flash the high beams and notice that everyone is getting out of the car. Looks like trouble. They weren’t mad at me, it turns out that the car had somehow missed the turn and had it’s front right wheel off the road. The parking lot was about five feet below the road so this car is teetering on the curb. In the car are three teenagers, two girls and a guy. They are freaking out trying to figure out how to get this car back on the road. The call me to help them push the car back on the road, but in the process we almost flip the car over onto the parking lot below.

I can see that there is no way to get this car back on the road without a tow truck. The guy starts gunning the gas to try and get the car back over but is coming dangerously close to backing the car right in the McDonalds lobby. One of the girls is like,”How much will a tow truck cost?” I said,”I don’t know but it’s better than totaling your car.” So then, I have to go back to the McDonalds drive thru window, tell the lady to call a tow truck. Meanwhile, there’s no way to get out of the drive-thru, so the one lady working at the McDonalds has to close the whole restaurant down. They let me back out, and everyone who was waiting in line for their food is S.O.L. What a disaster! So after losing an hour at McDonalds I jumped back onto the highway and headed back to LA.

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On Valentine’s Day, I got to perform on the prestigious “Comedy Death Ray” show at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater in Los Angeles. It was a special “Win Their Approval” edition, which means that four comedians perform and are judged by three more well known comedians. It’s all hosted by the hilarious Jimmy Pardo and basically comes down to an hour and a half of comedians insulting each other’s performance for the enjoyment of the audience. The judges were Paul F. Tompkins, Eddie Pepitone and Carol Ann Leif. The comedians were myself, Jen Kirkman, Henry Phillips and Nick Swardson. It could not have been a more fun show to be a part. Everyone had great sets, the judges were all great (Paul F. Tompkins was born to judge) and my thanks to everyone involved for letting me be a part of it. It was by far the most fun show I’ve done in Los Angeles! Here’s a few before and after pictures, thanks to Scott Aukerman for taking these pre-game shots. I'll try to get some video of my performance and put it up on the media page. Thanks as well to Tess Rafferty, Chris McGuire all the comics and anyone at the UCB who was nice to me.

Thanks for reading,

Paul Morrissey