Post-Roast Post
Thanks very much to all those who came to my roast, and a special thanks to everybody who roasted me, and a REALLY special thanks to Bart and Tara for not only hosting this thing, but also for spending hours shopping, cooking, carpentering a mini-podium and rearranging their house into a roasting forum. The turnout was much higher than expected, but more amazing than that was the quality of roasting. I'm going to second Meg's assessment that this was funnier than a Comedy Central roast (OK, maybe not Shatner's). I think if I were to name my favorites I would be inadvertently delivering a putdown to anyone I didn't identify, and I like my putdowns to be advertent.
In that vein, I'm attaching my counter-roast to the end of this entry, so that those who were tragically unable to attend can still get a nibble of the comedy feast we enjoyed. As I promised, no video was made, because 1) things would have been floating around the Internet that are not great for my career and 2) Roasts have historically been private affairs -- Comedy Central has been televising (and thus commodifying) them for a few years but I think of myself (and us) as more in the Dean Martin tradition than in the David Hasselhoff tradition.
If you have notes for your own material, I encourage you to post 'em here, so there will be a record of PART of the brilliance that flowed from your brains that evening. I can hide this journal entry so don't worry about incriminating stories.
You know how sometimes there’s a book or a movie or even a line of toys, in which the first iteration is brilliant, and the second one is somewhat less so, and by number 3, it’s absolute crap, devoid of any original ideas? Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our Roastmaster, Frank Ivan the Third. All of Frankie’s girlfriends, in my estimation, have been bitches, shrews, cows, and snakes. It only makes good economic sense that he would start dating a veterinarian.
I’d like to thank our hosts. Bart, you’re looking good, man. I hardly recognized you when I arrived yesterday. I thought, “Man, the cave troll from Lord of the Rings has really let himself go.”
And Tara, so hospitable, so talented, so lovely - and I only wish all of you guys could know how good she is in bed. Oh, wait - you do.
I’m not going to devote a lot of energy to burning people who aren’t here. Janet, you walk like a duck. CC, you’re a premature ejaculator. Ping - wait a second here - Ping - we’re RIVALS? Ping, we are rivals in the sense that Germany and Belgium are rivals. I may have knocked you down once or twice on my way into France… “France” being “pussy”.
Meg, you surprised me with Chaucer. It’s hard to counter a Chaucerian roast. That is of course unless your opponent has estudied his Lord Byron… which I have. (at this point I gave Meg a rather poorly edited description of Dona Julia from _Don Juan_ including “She read some French romances here and there, although her mode of speaking was not pure; for native English she had no great care; at least her conversation was obscure” and “some women use their tongues - she looked a lecture”.
I’m glad to see Nancy here tonight. She wasn’t going to come, but I assured her they had couches in Gainesville. And what a musician, folks. She’s got a great voice. And by “great” I mean “large”. You know loud is the new good.
Jenny, I love it when you play acoustic bass. It’s so quiet. And what’s with the freckles, girl? It looks like you started to apply a spray tan but the can ran out. If I hadn’t met your parents, I’d assume that a horny Irishman got it on with a she-jaguar.
Zac, I’ll always remember the first time we met. I opened my McDonald’s happy meal and there, between the chicken McNuggets and the fries, you were. Great roast, buddy. When we get back to Richmond, I’m going to give you a dry cleaning bag to play with.
Jeff, you make getting old easier, because I look at you and think, it could be worse. I could have been fat and bald when I was seven years younger. Both of my lawyer friends are smart guys - they plan ahead. For instance, some people wait until after they have their law degrees to become total sleazeballs.
Rush (here I extemporized a story about a course I taught in which Rush was a student, and, feeling himself in no danger of failing, attended sporadically. I estimated 4 times. Richard said it was more than 4 because there was a girl in there he was trying to bang. I had promised him an A. I ended up giving him a B because I could not fit the word “bitch” in the space provided. )
Katie, my notes call for me to refer to you as the Bride of Frankenstein, but I don’t want to besmirch the character of Frankenstein, since he is present (nod to Andy). But mmm. Making love to you, girl… it’s the closest I ever came to a homosexual encounter.
Finally, Doug, it’s good to see you tonight. I haven’t seen much of you ever since the Headless Horseman chased you out of Sleepy Hollow. And I knew I could put you last, even without clearing it with you first, because I knew you could close out the show with a bang. You’re the world’s most literate Scotsman. I’m sorry, did I say “most”? That was supposed to be “only”.
And finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the time at which I announce the winner of Best Roast of the Evening. (I pick up and rustle a sheet of paper, then turn said paper toward the audience. On it is scrawled the word “ME”. Drop paper, two middle fingers to audience, thunderous applause.)
Another bizarro-world quality of that evening was that I had to walk around apologizing to people I didn't insult. For the most part I roasted people who had just roasted me and I even skipped a couple of those because I didn't want to stand up there talking all night -- there was drinking to do.
In that vein, I'm attaching my counter-roast to the end of this entry, so that those who were tragically unable to attend can still get a nibble of the comedy feast we enjoyed. As I promised, no video was made, because 1) things would have been floating around the Internet that are not great for my career and 2) Roasts have historically been private affairs -- Comedy Central has been televising (and thus commodifying) them for a few years but I think of myself (and us) as more in the Dean Martin tradition than in the David Hasselhoff tradition.
If you have notes for your own material, I encourage you to post 'em here, so there will be a record of PART of the brilliance that flowed from your brains that evening. I can hide this journal entry so don't worry about incriminating stories.
You know how sometimes there’s a book or a movie or even a line of toys, in which the first iteration is brilliant, and the second one is somewhat less so, and by number 3, it’s absolute crap, devoid of any original ideas? Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our Roastmaster, Frank Ivan the Third. All of Frankie’s girlfriends, in my estimation, have been bitches, shrews, cows, and snakes. It only makes good economic sense that he would start dating a veterinarian.
I’d like to thank our hosts. Bart, you’re looking good, man. I hardly recognized you when I arrived yesterday. I thought, “Man, the cave troll from Lord of the Rings has really let himself go.”
And Tara, so hospitable, so talented, so lovely - and I only wish all of you guys could know how good she is in bed. Oh, wait - you do.
I’m not going to devote a lot of energy to burning people who aren’t here. Janet, you walk like a duck. CC, you’re a premature ejaculator. Ping - wait a second here - Ping - we’re RIVALS? Ping, we are rivals in the sense that Germany and Belgium are rivals. I may have knocked you down once or twice on my way into France… “France” being “pussy”.
Meg, you surprised me with Chaucer. It’s hard to counter a Chaucerian roast. That is of course unless your opponent has estudied his Lord Byron… which I have. (at this point I gave Meg a rather poorly edited description of Dona Julia from _Don Juan_ including “She read some French romances here and there, although her mode of speaking was not pure; for native English she had no great care; at least her conversation was obscure” and “some women use their tongues - she looked a lecture”.
I’m glad to see Nancy here tonight. She wasn’t going to come, but I assured her they had couches in Gainesville. And what a musician, folks. She’s got a great voice. And by “great” I mean “large”. You know loud is the new good.
Jenny, I love it when you play acoustic bass. It’s so quiet. And what’s with the freckles, girl? It looks like you started to apply a spray tan but the can ran out. If I hadn’t met your parents, I’d assume that a horny Irishman got it on with a she-jaguar.
Zac, I’ll always remember the first time we met. I opened my McDonald’s happy meal and there, between the chicken McNuggets and the fries, you were. Great roast, buddy. When we get back to Richmond, I’m going to give you a dry cleaning bag to play with.
Jeff, you make getting old easier, because I look at you and think, it could be worse. I could have been fat and bald when I was seven years younger. Both of my lawyer friends are smart guys - they plan ahead. For instance, some people wait until after they have their law degrees to become total sleazeballs.
Rush (here I extemporized a story about a course I taught in which Rush was a student, and, feeling himself in no danger of failing, attended sporadically. I estimated 4 times. Richard said it was more than 4 because there was a girl in there he was trying to bang. I had promised him an A. I ended up giving him a B because I could not fit the word “bitch” in the space provided. )
Katie, my notes call for me to refer to you as the Bride of Frankenstein, but I don’t want to besmirch the character of Frankenstein, since he is present (nod to Andy). But mmm. Making love to you, girl… it’s the closest I ever came to a homosexual encounter.
Finally, Doug, it’s good to see you tonight. I haven’t seen much of you ever since the Headless Horseman chased you out of Sleepy Hollow. And I knew I could put you last, even without clearing it with you first, because I knew you could close out the show with a bang. You’re the world’s most literate Scotsman. I’m sorry, did I say “most”? That was supposed to be “only”.
And finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the time at which I announce the winner of Best Roast of the Evening. (I pick up and rustle a sheet of paper, then turn said paper toward the audience. On it is scrawled the word “ME”. Drop paper, two middle fingers to audience, thunderous applause.)
Another bizarro-world quality of that evening was that I had to walk around apologizing to people I didn't insult. For the most part I roasted people who had just roasted me and I even skipped a couple of those because I didn't want to stand up there talking all night -- there was drinking to do.