Jessy Delfino's Blog

UNDERGROUND COMEDY FESTIVAL

This week from October 4th - 10th is the Second Annual Underground Comedy Festival. This started up last year as a small project brought to us by the mind and budget of one Mr. George Sarris. George is a dude who worked on Wall St. for a bunch of years and then, one day, he decided he was done with it and retired early. He started trying to perform as a stand up comic and then realized that it wasn't his cup of tea. So, he instead put his skills to work to create this festival. The first year it was pretty small. This year, it's huge, with over 100 events at dozens of venues around the city. I've been working with him on some aspects of the festival, and after seeing the amount of effort and the huge overwhelming response from Industry and Talent, I'm very excited to see what comes out of it all.

I'm performing on a few of the shows -

MONDAY at Village Lantern
8 PM
Bleecker btw. Sullivan and Thompson
with Zeroboy, Ross Bennett, Catie Lazarus, more.

TUESDAY at Laugh Lounge
8 PM (Chicks N Giggles)
Essex St. btw. Stanton and Rivington
with Erin Foley, others. All female!

FRIDAY at The Lion's Den
8 PM (8 O'clock Fridays show)
with Tom McCaffrey, others!

If you have never seen me perform before but you think you might like to, and you don't know which of those three shows to go to, but were thinking of going to see one of them, if you do go to one, go to the Monday one. Go to all three, they'll all be great, but if you have to pick one, let it be the Monday one. I'll tell you why the next time I write.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

I ride my bike everywhere. Sometimes I almost get hit. Sometimes I almost hit people. The other day, I got car doored. That is when someone is getting out of a taxi or what have you and then they cream you in the body and bike with the open door. It's a skill that requires both obliviousness and perfect timing in order to properly pull off. I got knocked off my bike and fell into/on a police van. The guy got out of the taxi (he was getting out anyway) and was very apologetic, but he was also foreign and probably scared that he might get deported or something. The cop, on the otherhand, was so blaze it was incredible! He at first didn't even say anything, even though his van had just been smashed into by a woman on a bike. After I started crying, he poked his head out of the window to see what was going on. He asked me if I was okay and I said yes. I got on my bike and rode away, banged up and irritated that I just had gotten manhandled by a car door.

A couple of days later I noticed them - the huge bluish/purple lumpy bruises that popped up on my right hip, my right knee cap and the inside of my left calf. The bruises were so big and dark that they kind of scared me. I thought they might come loose inside my body and float around like little boats or something. I had never had bruises that big before. The bruise on my hip was so huge that I couldn't lay on my side or else it hurt too much. I started to get irritated with myself for not getting contact info for the guy who slammed me. But what if I had? What are my rights in that situation as a bike rider who was going in the right direction and just happened to get whacked with a car door? He didn't break my leg or twist my ankle, he just gave me several large, ugly bruises. So he wouldn't be responsible for hospital bills or anything like that, but what about my god damn hot legs? Now I have these huge knots on my legs, it looks like the kind of thing that an ex-boyfriend (who I might have put a restraining order on) pushed me down a flight of stairs and then dragged me back up them again. So, I just have to go around like this and deal with it? I guess so. But I think it's bullshit. And now that I know what happens post car dooring, if I ever get car doored again, I am going to demand money. But I've created a method. I'd like to implement it. So, if you get car doored, stick to it. Soon, it will be the going rate and people won't be so quick to open the taxi door without taking a moment to look around.

This is what I've decided. I'm going to explain that though I look fine, I will be getting bruises. I'll say that I'll call them in three days and they can look at the bruises. For each bruise, I'm charging $100. If the bruise is a wierd new bruise color that I don't usually see, say, yellow, it's an extra $50 per color. If I talk to them in three days and show them the bruises and they don't seem sorry enough, that's an extra $100. If they seem really sorry, I won't charge them a pseudo-sorry fee. If any skin is broken, I'm charging $50 per inch of scrape or cut. If it's less than an inch, it's $50. According to my math, I'd have earned $300 for bruises, ($100 each) each bruise was blue, purple, yellow and red. Blue and purple are normal, but yellow and red? That's an extra $100 per bruise, so that's another $300. Then I guess the rest would have had to depend on his attitude. Also, I'd have gotten no scratch fees because my skin hadn't been broken.

In total, I would have gotten $600!!! Perfect! When you get paid $600 after getting car doored, it really takes some of the pain out of it. I could make a living getting car doored, I get knocked around by oblivious timely taxi patrons so often.

So if you ride a bike, write down the scale I came up with, and keep it in your bicycle basket for handy reference at the appropriate time!

(some of) MY VERSION OF BICYCLIST's RULES

1. Don't get killed by a car or bus.
2. Try not to get car doored, but if you do, use the handy fee schedule from above!
3. Say sorry or pardon me if you come too close to any pedestrian.
4. Try to respect the lights, but you can run a red if no one is around.
5. It's okay to spit on cars if they almost hit you or are careless.
6. It's okay to throw trash or a soda or pennies at a car if they almost hit you or are careless.
7. It's okay to punch pedestrians who yell at you for riding in the wrong direction because you almost ran them over, if they happen to be jay walking.
8. Don't ever ride your bike on the street in the rain. Use the sidewalk. It's too dangerous.
9. Riding on the sidewalk is okay if it's late at night, it's raining, it's evil rush hour traffic, or you are hurt or tired. If anyone gives you any shit about riding your bike on the sidewalk, it's okay to spit on them, or follow them home and spit on their pets.
10. Ignore bike messengers when they hit on you unless they're really cute. But they're usually gross.

There are so many more! I should write a book. Maybe I will.