by Bobbie Brown
“They don’t sell to just anybody. You have to have a wholesale license and all kinds of shit. Anyway, we don’t need to get into a confusing saga—when the stuff arrives, I’ll just drop it in the mail to you. Cool?”
The clothing arrived, I opened the package, and it all looked great, so I sent Jamie a message letting him know his new threads were in. Instead of the profuse thanks I was expecting, I received a curt “Why wasn’t the cloth-ing sent to my home?” I told him I had already explained to his assistant that everything was coming to my address because this is where my online store is located.
“What store?”
Why is he asking me all these annoying questions? I thought. I explained that I have had an online business for years, selling vintage and designer clothing that I store in my garage.
“So where is this ‘store’ located, Bobbie—your bedroom?”
“No…” I said, annoyed to be wasting time on this. Nonetheless, I sent him a link to my website. “Look, see? What fucking difference does it make anyway? And by the way, you’re welcome.”
“Was I supposed to say thank you?” was his cold, rude response.
Yes, you asshole. Yes, you were!
“You do realize I got you a really great deal, and now, by the way, they’d like to sponsor you?” I wrote, my blood beginning to boil. “That was all because of me. But you’re being a jerk and I don’t know why I’m even trying to be sweet to you. It won’t happen again.”
Perhaps he was just trying to push my buttons. Perhaps I was pushing his. But what happened next was so ridiculous, so pointless, I’m still sort of confused by it. All I knew was that I wanted the last word, and I was going to have it.
“You can take your shit attitude and shove it up your ass, and then shit on somebody who deserves it, because I certainly don’t.”
I felt nauseated watching the little bubbles bob up and down on my screen as he composed his reply.
“Bobbie. You sold me clothes, I bought them. You know how many people offer me clothes? Lots. Relax. I have lots of sponsors. And you have mad entitlement issues. Just tell me the address to your ‘store’ and my assistant can come pick up the clothes, but I suggest understanding your personal issues before lashing out at people.”
The text box may have been blue, but by this point, I was seeing red. I didn’t understand where he got off saying I had personal issues just because I expected a “thank you.” This felt like a power play, and I knew I was falling for it hook, line, and sinker. He wanted me to lose my temper, he wanted me to make a fool of myself. But I had to set him straight.
“Just because I’m nice, it doesn’t mean I’m beneath you, or don’t deserve appreciation for my efforts I bestow upon you, my mistake. Oh, and that’s sooo great that you have sooo many sponsors. Just because you got mad sponsorship doesn’t mean that you should be unappreciative.”
Really, I ought to have left it there. That would have been the smart thing to do. But I’ve never been good at knowing when to stop.
“Oh, and if you’ve got so many mad sponsors then they’re SHITTY because your style ain’t that fly. You should be thankful. Geez, get over your fucking self and stop acting like a prima donna. Get a clue with your rude ass and relax, YOU MOODY FUCK.”
I hit “send” and threw my phone on the bed, seething.
And then a few seconds later I remembered I was supposed to be sharing a stage with him that night at the Dojo.
Shit.
•••
That evening I was at the venue having an early dinner with Jimmy. Tucked beneath the table, by my feet, was the bag containing Jamie’s damn clothes. I figured I would give them to him and we would make our peace somehow. Obviously, things had gotten way too heated, as they sometimes do via text.
“Things get lost in translation, don’t they?” I said to Jimmy, through a mouthful of noodles.
“Sometimes,” he said, shaking his head as I explained that afternoon’s unfortunate events.
I saw Jamie walk into the venue. He saw me too and walked right back out again.
“That was weird,” I said to Jimmy, who stood up, went out to the hallway, and came back a few minutes later.
“He wants to talk to you. He’s very upset, Bobbie.”
This irritated me. Why do I have to get up and leave my noodles for this shit?
“I’m eating, I’ll go talk to him when I’m done,” I said, grumpily.
Two minutes later, Jimmy came back. “Bobbie, we have a situation. He’s refusing to go onstage until you go out there and talk to him.”
I marched into the hallway, holding the bag of clothes. Jamie was pacing in the back corner by the men’s bathroom. When he saw me, he held his phone up in the air, as though it was evidence of some crime.
“I’m not performing tonight because YOU ruined my day. YOU brought negativity to my day when you attacked me for NO reason, NO reason at all. You’re crazy, Bobbie. You’re insecure!”
I started laughing.
“This is serious!” he screamed at me.
“Whoa, slow down, dude,” I said, stunned by how angry he was. “You can’t just stand there waving your phone around acting like you weren’t trying to press my buttons with the things you were saying. You didn’t even say thank you!”
“I wasn’t trying to push your buttons. You’re just insecure and that’s your biggest problem, Bobbie.”
I flung down the bag of clothes. “Look, asshole! Bottom line is, you didn’t think that I deserved thanks for my efforts, and I don’t deal with unappreciative people, okay? That’s not my fucking job. I went out of my way to be nice to you, but that’s okay, you do you. Peace out, whatever.”
I turned to walk away, and he said, “Look at these messages! You attacked me!”
The MC was calling him to get on stage, and here we were, fighting in the hallway. I turned to him and snarled. “Just get up on stage and do your fucking job.”
His eyes darkened. “You don’t talk to me like that.”
“Why not? Who are you anyway? You rude fuck.”
He started yelling. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!”
“You didn’t do anything right, either.”
I went to the bathroom for a second and tried to compose myself. When I came out, I heard Jamie, on stage, telling the whole audience what had happened—from his perspective, of course.
“Crazy, right?” he said, as the audience laughed. “She asked me to buy her clothes, so I buy her fucking clothes, then she’s like, ‘You ASSHOLE!’”
He had turned our private fight into a comedy bit. I couldn’t believe it.
I had to see this with my own eyes or else I wouldn’t believe it was happening.
“Oh, there she is, right now,” Jamie announced, all heads turning to face me as I walked into the room. “Come on in, Bobbie Brown.”
I looked at him and shook my head. “Are you crazy?” I hissed. “Are you OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?”
The room was dead silent in anticipation.
“You think I’m the crazy one?” he said.
Disgusted, I walked into the hallway, and screamed, “FUCK YEAH, YOU ARE,” hearing the whole room erupt in laughter behind me. It might have been my greatest moment as a stand-up comic, and I wasn’t even in the room.
“Go get her!” I heard Jamie yell to the security guards. “You guys want to see a live fight on stage right now? Go get her!” The security guy came out into the hallway, looking for me, but I was too fast. I marched outside, uninterested in being publicly derided by a man I thought was my friend. He’s got the mic, and I’m going to look like an asshole if I get on that stage. I’ll never get the chance to explain myself. I sucked hard on my vape pen, shaking, and sent Jimmy a message, my hands trembling.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, “I don’t
know what happened.”
“Don’t worry, Bobbie. Are you okay?”
I wasn’t okay. I was too new, too fresh on the comedy scene to be having mad beef with established names. I still didn’t understand what had just happened. Why had Jamie acted like that? Rich and famous Jamie, with his 175k followers, his assistant, and personal podcast studio in his fancy fucking home. Why would he act like that?
It was my mouth again. My mouth had gotten me on stage, and it might well get me kicked off it, too.
Tilky, Caroline, and I sat around a steaming bowl of boiled shrimp and artichoke the next morning, deconstructing the strange events that had transpired at the Dojo the previous evening, which had apparently sent shock waves through our little comedy community.
“From a man’s perspective, what do you think that behavior was all about?” Caroline asked Tilky.
“Well, clearly, he’s a control freak,” said Tilky, frowning at the shrimp, the odors of which were not pairing well with his hangover.
“Bobbie, did you feel you were close to him?” asked Caroline.
“Not really,” I said, standing by the microwave, melting the butter into which I would soon mix lemon juice. “I mean, not physically. But I’m his friend. I got him a clothing sponsorship for crying out loud. Is nothing sacred?”
Tilky came up with a solution. “I’ll beat his fucking ass.” Then he thought about it. “Actually, maybe he did you a favor. Because everyone in that room will be like, whoa, Bobbie Brown.”
“No, I think that’s an optimistic view of events,” said Caroline. “But I do think this is probably the first time in a long while that someone’s treated him like a normal human being, Bobbie. You called him on his attitude and now he totally hates you.”
Caroline saw this as another great story for us to write about, but that’s my problem. My life was full of great stories that were funny to the outside world but awkward as hell for me. I mean, Jamie was the closest thing to a real comedy boyfriend I had. I was just benching him for a bit while Tilky took up my attention. But I still wanted him around. I didn’t want him to hate me. He was supposed to give me neck snuggles one day, and then we’d live funnily ever after.
Tilky looked at Caroline. “Who are you, by the way?”
“She’s my cowriter and friend, Caroline,” I said. “We’ve been working together for a while—six, seven years?”
He cocked his head to one side, sizing her up. “So, you just came all the way from Europe and…”
“Yes, and now I live here,” Caroline said, looking at him. They observed each other for a moment, silently.
“Have you ever considered writing a Christmas movie, Caroline?” Tilky asked.
“No.”
“I have this idea called Santa Cruz Christmas. A Christmas surf movie.”
“You mean like surfboards and Santa Clause but there’s vampires, like Lost Boys meets Elf?” she asked.
“I don’t know about the vampire part,” said Tilky.
“You’re wrong,” Caroline said. “Santa is definitely a surfing vampire.”
“You’re going too far with this, Caroline…and, by the way, did you know you’re beautiful?”
Caroline, caught off-guard, blushed a little. “Oh, me?”
“Not just because of this”—he made a sweeping motion that indicated her face—“but because of this,” he said, tapping his temple. Tilky the panty dropper had struck again. He just couldn’t help himself.
Caroline cleared her throat. “Anyway…so, uh, what happened next, Bobbie, with Jamie?”
I sighed, setting the melted butter on the table. “What happened next is that I haven’t heard from him. He didn’t call to say sorry, and even if he had I wouldn’t know because I blocked him on all platforms.”
Caroline shook her head, surprised. “You blocked him? Why?”
Truth is, even though Jamie overstepped the mark—I mean, he ripped me onstage and still took the fucking clothes home—I blocked him because I was afraid of what else he might say to me, and that it might ring true on some level. I didn’t trust myself to stay calm if that happened. Bulldog Bobbie is real, something Jamie had picked up on from the first moment he met me. Blocking him was not just a way to avoid him, but to avoid inflaming the part of my soul that still feels wounded and cornered by life. The part that snarls and snaps when it gets hurt. The part that has to have the last word, even when it would be smarter to just walk away.
Caroline frowned. “He’s quite well-known, isn’t he? Will this affect your comedy career?”
“I don’t know, maybe?” I replied dejectedly. I really hoped not.
“It won’t, Bobbie” said Tilky, supportively. “It’s going to blow over, then one day you’ll cross paths and it’ll be cool.”
I smiled, grateful for his optimism. Grateful for him.
Sad Clowns Versus
the World
I read a biography of Marilyn Monroe in which the author described walking down the street with her, how she purposely drooped her shoulders and stared at the ground so that nobody would recognize her. Then, after a few blocks she said, “Watch this.” She pushed her shoulders back, pouted her lips, and unleashed her strut. Within minutes, she was mobbed. “Marilyn” was a character Norma Jean played, and she could turn it on and off at will. I wished I could do the same with “Cherry Pie Girl.”
For years, I felt like when people met me, they expected the character Jani and I had created in that video. The freewheeling sexpot with dozens of lovers, playful and coy; she’ll make your fantasies come true, like some kind of walking, talking blow-up doll in a red bustier and denim shorts. But that’s not really me. (Though, truth be told, cherry is actually my favorite pie.)
Over the years, this has put me in a lot of awkward situations. I’d go on dates with guys, and they’d act disappointed when they realized I wasn’t going to let them cover me in whipped cream so they could lick it off. Mostly I would make silly jokes and offer them a sandwich—things that I think are nice.
But guys don’t always want nice. They want the hotchacha, the fantasy. They’re not interested in my sense of humor, my conflicted feelings toward fame, the way I teeter-totter between supreme confidence and crippling insecurity. That’s the stuff that doesn’t make sense to them. The stuff I usually keep inside.
Only a handful of people “get” the real me, and one of them is Tilky. As soon as he moved in, with his little suitcase and the first month’s rent check in hand, we were official—two sad clowns versus the world. He fell quickly in line with my off-color banter and we’d spend hours going back and forth, playing quick-fire mental ping-pong. We’d wrestle for a while and round out the day with a facial—or maybe we’d color our eyelashes. I never thought I’d be able to feel any kind of closeness with anyone after my break-up with Josh, my accident on the 134, the unraveling of it all, yet here I was laughing, completely at ease with this person. When Tilky turned to me and said, “You’re my best friend,” I believed him. I didn’t see anyone else in his life showing up. And I sure didn’t have anyone in my life making me feel like he did.
“Do NOT sleep with him,” Sharise said, emphatically. “You can’t let yourself get emotionally involved with Tilky, okay?”
I assured Sharise that sex was not on the table. As for emotional involvement, “Well, it’s too late for that, Sharise,” I said.
Tilky and I had already talked about what was happening between us, and like Sharise, he had concluded that sleeping together would be catastrophic. He was quite firm about that, whereas I, love junkie that I am, was offended that he didn’t want to throw caution to the wind and embark on some ill-advised affair. I took it as a sign of my declining sexiness. I sobbed, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, I’m not pretty enough, am I? Suddenly, I reminded myself of the pageant girls I used to laugh at back when I was a teenager. Back then, I
wondered why they cared so damn much about how they looked, why their confidence was so fragile.
I totally get it now.
It took a few days for my ego to calm down. Then I realized that I had no real interest in disrupting our happy little friend zone. I wanted something better with him. I wanted to be buddies until the end of time. I wanted to play with his children one day, befriend his wife, be an ally and barbecue copilot. I just wanted to help him and make him feel better, and he could do the same for me.
This is meant to be, I told myself. Clearly, he needed my help, that’s why I was thinking about him so much that day. And I needed his help too. If he hadn’t moved in here, I would have lost my home.
Despite the safety and stability I’d given him and the healthy decision we’d made not to become lovers, Tilky was still making me feel a little nervous. He was charmingly liquored up most days, in a scruffy 1950s beat-poet-on-a-bender kind of way.
“It’s okay. I can slow down. I can stop myself. It’ll be okay,” he reassured me. He was still heartbroken, he said, but soon it would get better. Being the daughter and ex-wife of drinkers, it was incredibly hard for me to believe he could actually just stop one day. I had to force myself not to panic, not to mother him. I had to stay focused on comedy. Because I had become very distracted since Tilky showed up in my home.
“You’re not here on stage often enough,” Jimmy told me. “If you really want to do comedy you have to get up each and every night.”
I knew he was right. He had been doing comedy for thirteen years and he still did it three times a week, though he claimed even that was not enough.
But three times a week? I didn’t know if I had that much funny in me.
“What would you say to someone who wants to be a baseball pro but never came to practice? You’ve got all the talent in the world, Bobbie, but where are you?”
•••
Sharise and I were at my place, recording The Sweet and Sour Hour—a brand new podcast we were launching together. Tilky had made a little video of us, which I posted on my Instagram. You could clearly hear Tilky in the background speaking to us. Josh, who was now stalking me through a new fake Instagram account, saw the video and in a gesture of pure spite, tagged Leven in the comments, and sent me a bitchy DM.