Everything Is Awful
Page 20
“What the fuck happened?” she asked me, and I was like, “I still have no idea. I just want alcohol.”
She led me farther backstage, where a row of photographers took the obligatory pictures of me holding my award. I’m clearly sweating my face off in all of those photos, and my smile looks like the smile of a person who just strangled a man in a motel shower, but what beautiful memories I’ll have forever.
Afterward, we walked back to the greenroom. There was still no alcohol there, just Sharon Osbourne and a platter of brownies. I can’t be positive, but I’m pretty sure I ate approximately seventy of those brownies in that moment.
To top it all off, John Stamos—who’d won for some show he was in—walked into the greenroom and went to set down his own award next to mine. And I said something like, “Uh-oh, we don’t wanna mix those up,” and he looked at me, dead serious, and said, “You can have mine.” But then he smiled that Uncle Jesse smile, even though I was already furiously stuffing his award into my back pocket. And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for my goddamn Men’s Wearhouse suit.
• • •
When everything finally died down, Jeremy and I went to the after-party. The heads of the accounting firm that tabulates the results of the awards—those people you always see on television carrying the suitcases—came up to me while I was double-fisting champagne with my award under my armpit (yeah, you just have to carry it with you the rest of the night) and apologized for the mix-up, but they assured me the results were all very real and I’d really, truly won the thing, which in some small way was a genuine comfort, since a part of me assumed they had only picked me out of pity over my laughable chances. I told them thank you between mouthfuls of appetizers, and we all took a lovely picture together that I’m sure exists somewhere in the universe.
At this point, it was still only 8 p.m., but I was physically exhausted, and the only real famous person at the after-party was celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, so Jeremy and I left. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped and got tacos, and I dragged those tacos back to my hotel bed and ate them in my underwear with my award cradled beside me. And yes, I kissed her good night. And tucked her in. And was glad she was covered in taco grease, and not the juices of a cameraman’s skull.
• • •
The next day, I got a text message from a number I didn’t recognize, from a man named Eric who introduced himself as the man with the teeth who was sitting in front of me the night before. He asked if he could call me, and a few minutes later, we were on the phone together.
“I’m so sorry about what happened,” he told me. “I wasn’t even supposed to be in the audience, but I’m a vocal coach, and Jason is one of my students.”
Jason, I realize, was Jason Derulo.
“He was performing and he wanted me in the audience to watch him,” he said. “I had no idea why the cameras were on me, but they told me to smile!”
I assured him he did nothing wrong, it was the cameraman’s fault! And then I made him promise to give me vocal lessons. Because if this ever happens again, I sure as hell better be able to sing my way out of it.
acknowledgments
Sorry to my editor, Jhanteigh Kupihea, for missing just about every single deadline she assigned to me, for testing her abundant patience, and for mounting a serious campaign against her optimism. I hope I haven’t broken you completely. I understand if you have a voodoo doll made in my image and pierce it in the eye every single night. Honestly, if you don’t have one, I’d be disappointed.
Sorry to my literary agent, Cait Hoyt, for making you wonder whether I’d just been napping every time you tried to call me. (I was. I was napping every time.) She remains the only agent whose office I’ve nearly cried in, and I would be scared of her if she didn’t pay for every dinner we’ve ever eaten together. I’m convinced she would kill someone if I asked her. She probably already has.
Sorry to the entire team at Keywords Press, Atria, and Simon & Schuster, for all of my e-mails, questions, notes, and last-minute revisions. Sorry to Loan Le for having to decipher my e-mails to find the part where I was asking for more time past a deadline. Sorry to Ariele Fredman for all of my publicity demands, which include selling this book as a Happy Meal toy in every McDonald’s around the country. It’s a great idea and you should reconsider, if only for our nation’s youth.
Sorry to Koury Angelo and his amazing team for having to take photos of my face eating cold pasta, takeout noodles, and french fries for five hours. And sorry to Albert Tang and the rest of the design team at Simon & Schuster for having to look at all those pictures and turn them into an actual book cover. Sorry to everyone else who worked on my book, including Judith Curr, Jackie Jou, Kimberly Goldstein, Chelsea Cohen, and Dana Sloan.
Sorry to my own team, past and present, for making you check on me every day to make sure I hadn’t thrown myself off a bridge in the middle of writing this book, and also for everything else. Sorry to Courtney and Ashley for the fight I put up while they tried to convince me to take a chance on myself. Sorry to Vanessa, Adam, Andy, Andrew, Matt, Tess, Alexandra, Nora, Luke, and Josh for being a general pain in the ass.
Sorry to Harry Styles, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Liam Hemsworth, the guy from the Trivago commercials, Zac Efron, Taylor Lautner, Tyler Posey, Daniel Radcliffe, John Boyega, Nick and Joe Jonas but not the third one, Tom Daley, Jake Gyllenhaal, Oscar Isaac, Eddie Redmayne, Rami Malek, Bradley Cooper, Prince Harry, all the guys from Game Of Thrones, Ryan Gosling, Henry Cavill, John Legend, David Beckham, Idris Elba, Alexander Skarsgård, Matt Bomer, and Jamie Dornan for harassing you on the Internet.
Sorry to my friends for the anxiety I brought to the bar because I was supposed to be writing instead of drinking.
And most of all, sorry to my family—Mom, Dad, Anthony, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents—for subjecting you to almost three decades of my awkwardness and then turning you all into stories. I should’ve told you sooner that loving me came with a price.
MATT BELLASSAI is a writer, stand-up comedian, and winner of the 2016 People’s Choice Award for Favorite Social Media Star, which remains his only real accomplishment, besides graduating fourth in his class in high school and losing an election for student body president in college. After the success of his BuzzFeed web series, Whine About It, Matt embarked on a solo stand-up career, performing to sold-out audiences around the United States and at least one disastrous not-sold-out audience at a casino in Palm Springs, California. He is the host and producer of his new solo web series, To Be Honest, and anchor of the podcast Unhappy Hour. Born and coddled in the suburbs of Chicago, he currently lives the poor gay man’s version of Sex and the City, with none of the sex, fashion, or friends. He will almost definitely die alone.
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ISBN 978-1-5011-6649-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-6651-8 (ebook)