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“FUNNY... FOR A GIRL” by Kira Soltanovich
I love lesbians. Who doesn’t right?
Not just the Portia de Rossi flavors either. I love the Melissa Etheridges of
the world, the Billie Jean Kings and the newly inducted Cynthia Nixons.
Without lesbians, who would have checked me for scoliosis during 8th
grade gym? So, when I was in Indiana a while back Headlining a club, I
encountered a new breed of lesbian: The Racist Lesbian. I know they’re out
there. I mean if there are Gay Republicans anything is possible, right?
She was the feature comic opening for me. She was a hard core,
motorcycle riding, Boys Don’t Cry swaggering broad. Cool, right? Well, I
was cool with it. I grew up in San Francisco. Not that that gives me some
sort of cool gay pass, but I’ve seen it all. You’re not going to pitch me
anything I can’t swing at. BTW, she never addressed being a lesbian on
stage. This was Indiana, so her short, dude haircut was not that strange on
the streets of Greenwood. But come on, was she fooling anyone? She
wore a leather bomber jacket on stage. Oh, and I met her girlfriend.
I also love Jews. Who doesn’t right?
Let’s be honest, a lot of people.
I love the Woody Allens of the Jew world and the Yasmin Bleeths equally.
Unlike the lesbo, I do talk about being Jewish onstage. I do a bit about
marrying a hard core Irish Catholic guy and how we’ve decided that now
I’m going to convert... to alcoholism. I talk about immigrating to the US from
Russia, and how my Jewish parents ruined us kids with ridiculous
superstitions, and food that looked like it had already been chewed. Oh,
and I look Jewish... kinda like this chick looks... well, you get it.
After the first show, I got off stage and the MC, myself, the lesbian and
some other staff shuffled into the adjoining bar when “IT” happened. The
locals swarmed around me like hyenas inching in on a kill.
“So, you’re really Jewish?” The Lesbian asked cornering me up against the
bar’s blaring trivia machine.
My eyebrows leapt up to my hairline. “Yup! Not something I would make
up.” I smiled while holding my tongue.
Who would pretend they were Jewish? Are there comics out there looking
for a new gimmick or “hook”? Pun intended.
“We don’t got much of your kind around here.” The Lesbian snorted at me.
The entire bar’s volume clicked on mute. The waitresses, the bartenders,
and the scary inbred karaoke singers all stopped. Really? It’s 2008! Don’t
these people have cable television?
“I can see that.” I answered with a patronizing tone. “You wanna touch my
horns?” I asked somberly. This made the lesbian tense up with fear. “I’m
kidding! I don’t have horns!” Her fists unwound. Then in a whisper, “I got
them removed when I was a kid.”
She leaned in and lowered her voice the way old jewish women do when
there’s an unwed chick in her 40’s in the room. I could smell the annoyance
on her breath. “How does it feel to be different?”
“Funny. I was going to ask you the same question.” I quipped back. This
chick was one flannel shirt away from testicles and she’s asking me what
it’s like to be different. I could see her Adam's apple actually growing during
this inquisition.
“Jews, they’re different. And they’re mean.” She clarified for me.
“And they cheat!” A Fattie screeched out from the other end of the bar. This
woman had three sections of chunk where her vagina would biologically be.
Looks like she knew a little something about cheating herself... on a diet at
least.
“Like in board games? Because I will admit that when I was a kid I did
move my battleships when my brother was close to sinking them.” I
wisecracked. All the while trying to keep this encounter civil and burningcross
free. I had an entire week at this club, and I’m not going to run a
Learning Annex course on how I check WHITE on applications too.
The more shit they threw at me from their un-evolved baboon asses , the
more I swatted it away. Even after the Fattie chimed in that Indiana was the
home of The KKK, even after the Lesbian’s girlfriend told me that Italians
also have big noses (that made me feel better) and even after the one kind
soul from behind the bar said he was a huge fan of the show Seinfeld. I
was proud of myself that week. I was confronted with anger and bigotry,
and consistently joked my way through the entire episode.
I was one of the few female Headliners that club had ever seen, something
the staff reminded me of several times, and yet they tolerated my
disgusting jewy ways. The Lesbian and I actually hung out one day. I
allowed her to quiz me periodically about my immigrant background, never
bringing up to her that she might know what it’s like to be a minority as well.
It was a strange learning experience, but one that I don’t regret. Even
though I felt like I was living in a parallel universe all week, I strangely
enjoyed this painful experience. Like an evening of crude S&M ... with the
safe word being “Ben Stiller!” The crowds were good, they laughed when
they were supposed to and they heckled me with racial epithets in all the
right spots. All in all, I learned a valuable lesson that week: Sometimes it’s
better to be a bearded lesbian in Indiana that is it to be a Jew.