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Reflections in a Glass of Chocolate Milk
My World and Welcome to It
Walk With Me
26th and Lexington: An Easter Morning Story
Breakfast in L.A.
Superficiality
An Unromantic's Romance
My Acting Class
College Dining on Broadway
Cookies
Epiphany
my father never took me to the races
You Breathe Softly
Facetious
Nights Like This
Irony
i thought i told you i called my brother
Springtime for the Jewish Horseplayer
wishes
False Starts



    my acting class


    my acting class annoyed me from
    the start filled as it was with
    other comics a couple of waitresses
    a housewife and joey -- fucken
    joey -- the agentcomic hybrid
    who handed out work to those
    slightly more deserving than he
    in exchange for the same
    which annoys me
    even now

    joanna our fearless leader never
    took to me told me i was lazy i did
    not respect my talent maybe just
    her way of making sure she'd get my
    20 bucks a week a few more months

    okay so i am lazy...

    at least i took it seriously unlike
    some of the other jokers who were
    making easy money and whose agents
    knew so well that all of the network
    people would be coming around the clubs
    offering development deals to anyone who
    looked as if they might turn out to be
    the next roseanne

    i know this is petty but i swear
    joanna picked on everyone who
    did not live in the city and
    yet i drove in every tuesday with
    my friends john and john the one
    now waiting for a kidney to replace
    the one his father gave him and
    the other now living in amsterdam
    with the money he made appearing
    at colleges and in a soap commercial

    one day after amsterdam john had
    left for LA one kidney john turned
    to me as we pulled into the parking
    lot and said to me with wisdom i
    still can hear it was so simple:

    sometimes you just have to leave

    well we laughed all the way
    through the tunnel we got out of there
    so fast we were home by what would
    have been the break and as he dropped
    me off john looked at me and said if we'd
    have gone to class right now one of us
    would have been sucking up to joey
    the other flirting with julie waiting for
    the chance to suck up to joey and
    that is no way to live your life and
    he was right again

    sucking up to fucken joey agentcomic
    neither agent nor comic laughing at
    a bad joke is no way to live your life

       *               *               *

    so about two weeks ago i'm helping one
    kidney john move into a new apartment
    and we talk about our letters from
    amsterdam john who says he's finally
    living in the moment which we never did
    in acting class and i told him how
    those words of his had stayed with me
    sometimes you just have to leave

    john said he knew i'd already made
    up my mind to quit and asked me
    when i knew and having no answer i said
    it was probably not until then but
    later i read something on the internet
    and the answer came to me

    two weeks before we bolted joanna
    demonstrated the mirror exercise with
    jerry finally the teacher's pet at the
    age of 36 and i wondered whom she'd pair
    me with it would have been fun looking
    into the insane mirror of jerry's eyes or
    julie who everyone wanted to fuck even
    though she never had a pleasant thought or
    the housewife from darien who bad or
    good would never do the same thing
    twice but i figured i'd get john

    joanna paired us often because
    we were both lazy and from long island or
    maybe because she was lazy and from ohio

    and when it was time to pair she matched
    the others up until only john and i were
    left which pissed me off too because
    it was like we did not matter and then fucken
    joey walked in late and she looked at
    him and said joey you work with dave
    john can work with me which must have been
    when i knew

    so i called up john and told him it
    must have been when she said i mirrored
    joey and john told me that during the
    exercise joanna kept walking away
    and we both laughed

    you see john and i have always known that
    looking in a mirror and seeing nothing
    is still better than fucken joey

-d


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