How My First Ever Celebrity Crush Seduced Me Into Stand-Up Comedy

(This title is misleading)

It’s 1983 and I am utterly in love with Cynthia Rhodes. My whole extended family has gone to see Flashdance when it’s released on April 15th, and then again three months to the day later we go when Staying Alive hits theaters. I don’t really understand these movies, after all I’m only 7, and actually 6 when I see Flashdance. The plight of Pittsburgh steel workers and the adult relationships therein have me baffled. At a more mature 7, I get what these adults in Staying Alive are doing a bit more. After all, the British lady is very pretty and has an alluring accent, but Cynthia Rhodes who I’ve now been in love with for 3 months is even more pretty and much sweeter and her voice is so lovely too and I don’t get what John Travolta is thinking. The choice is obvious. I think what really draws me to these two films is the music. Possibly my introduction to synthpop, Irene Cara even sings my name - ‘in a world made of steel, made of stone’ - on the theme song. A song that still fills me with joy to this day. I played the hell out of those two soundtrack albums at that age. Though I don’t think I’d ever willingly put on the Staying Alive one again. I do remember one afternoon friends of mine and my sisters being over and for some reason us all being left unsupervised for about an hour, whereupon we invented this insane dance routine trying to mimic the film, the boys slashing our bare chests with red lipstick, and being really excited to put on a show when the adults came back. They were then even more baffled by this than I had been at Jennifer Beale’s romantic entanglements

The music then. And of course Cynthia Rhodes. I would watch these and just be gaga over her. And she only really had decent parts in four films, all in the 80s. Three of which are very meaningful to me. The fourth, Runaway, should be, and I’m not quite sure why it isn’t. Probably because I didn’t see it until a few years later. But I remember being kinda disappointed by it because Gene Simmons was much different than his KISS persona. But each of the other three has a story attached, that I’d like to relate these now

Dirty Dancing will always be special to me because seeing that in the movies was the first time I ever held hands with a girl. I’ve always loved all that 60s music anyway, it was played constantly around the house ever since I can remember, so this was like the ultimate experience for an 11-year-old romantic. And Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs’ Stay is so perfect. Only a minute 37 seconds. To this day that song encapsulates something about love for me. And wow, Jennifer Grey

Flashdance. Despite just the overall oddness of a six-year-old being obsessed with this film - and let’s not even look at the fact that Cynthia Rhodes becomes a stripper at one point - when the film is released on VHS, I save up $36, a freaking fortune back then, and go to our local video store, Video Vinny’s, to buy the tape for myself. My mother still recoils in horror whenever she tells this story - ‘I don’t know why I ever let you do that!’. Writing this, I realize this would’ve been before me even buying my first album with my own money (Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry), and thus beginning a lifelong obsession with collecting the important stuff - music, movies, books…

And now for Staying Alive. But first we need to detour into Chinese Metaphysics. I’ve never been huge on New Year’s resolutions. I’ve made a few in my life, but by no means do I do so every year. But in 2018, my New Year’s resolution was to try stand-up comedy. Something I’d been thinking about for years actually. As I sometimes do, I then promptly forget about this until the end of August. Time is running out. But! Driving across country in the spring I had begun talking a story into my phone, losing my mind as one so often does on solo cross-country drives. So I had some material. Now I just had to go do it. I’d been studying Chinese Metaphysics for years with a couple different masters and there’s a discipline known as 'Date Selection’ that I’m currently learning about. The idea being that if you’re going to start something important - a business, a move, a marriage - you want to choose a day where the energies are most in line with and beneficial to your birth chart. Being prone to self-mythologizing, I consider me giving stand-up comedy a go worthy of inclusion in this list. I won’t bore you with the details but I knew I needed to do it before the Dog month kicked in on October 7th that year and anyways the Rooster month right before would be great for me, as Roosters so often are to Dragons. After much calculation I decide October 4th will be the ideal day for this. Now to find an open mic. I consult all the listings in Nashville where I’m living at the time only to find there are no open mics that day. But! There is one in Memphis. 212 miles away. If I’m gonna do this, do it right. And Memphis has so much history - Elvis of course, and Ardent Studios, where countless albums I love have been recorded. This is shaping up nicely. I message the guy running the mic that I am “going to be in town” and want to do a set, not mentioning this is my first time or that I’d be driving there specifically. He says he’ll put me on. And so I set sail, a bundle of nerves and excitement, listening to the audiobook of Darrell Hammond’s autobiography. I arrive at the P&H Cafe, a great dive bar, right before start time and note the giant velvet painting of Elvis hanging above the stage. Right. Fucking. On. This is totally a sign from the Universe. The host comes over to inform me I’ll be going on sixth. “What’s your name again?” “Young Southpaw.” He shakes his head in dismay. It’s rough going that night. There aren’t many laughs for the first five comedians. And then it’s my turn. I will never forget that feeling of stepping up to the mic. No guitar to hide behind, no bandmates for support. Just me and my words. And when 30 seconds in, I get my first laugh, there is nothing like that adrenaline rush. Which keeps going as the laughs keep coming for the rest of the 5 minutes. The story I’m telling starts off with a Britney Spears Crossroads joke, then moves onto the Ralph Macchio film of the same name, and keeps the road theme going - Randy Rhoads, Nick Rhodes, Cynthia Rhodes… And finishes to wild cheers. When the host shakes my hand afterwards, he thanks me “for getting them laughing”, and this compliment keeps the good vibes going. Making my way to the bar with plenty of pats on the back and compliments, people telling me how they loved the whole surrealness of it, the stream of consciousness. By now it’s late, after 11, and I have a 3+ hour drive home and work in the morning. But at the door of the P&H, I remember that final scene in Staying Alive, the exchange between John Travolta and Cynthia Rhodes after they kiss. “Do you know what I wanna do?” “What?” “Do you know what I wanna do?” “What?”

“Strut.”

And I strut all the way back to my car, on Cloud 9 from how all this went

Now far from the bliss of holding hands with Kim and watching Dirty Dancing, it’s almost 33 years later. March of 2020. The month before, after 167 sets in New England & New York in 2019, I have just moved to Los Angeles with the intention of giving my bizarre brand of stand-up a proper go. Only the world now looks like it’s about to go berserk, I still don’t have anywhere to live, and staying in LA looks very scary indeed. I’m supposed to be flying to London on the 24th to perform my first ever hour-long shows and friends I haven’t seen in ages are all coming. But this is looking highly unlikely. I check where in the US hasn’t been hit by the virus yet. Idaho has only had 3 cases and I can drive there in a day without coming in contact with anyone so Twin Falls it is. Checking the date of the below video, it’s March 22nd, the day I had to call the airline and officially postpone the trip, and I spend an hour on the phone getting that sorted. And then this pops out. I know that if I don’t keep being creative, I will go insane. This rant about a hidden time-travel subplot to Dirty Dancing - the only thing that would make sense of I’ve Had The Time Of My Life, Hungry Eyes, and She’s Like The Wind being in the film - kickstarted a freakin’ tsunami of Southpaw stories that at least give me focus and provide much amusement for the long lonely spell to come. For the next nine months I will not be in the physical presence of anyone I know

I’ve listened to some of the Southpaw stuff again recently. My god, it’s all completely INSANE. I mean, we all knew that at the time haha. But there are lines that make me laugh in a way nothing else ever has, and I love it for that

Anyway, this is all by way of saying I remembered my Letterboxd account a few weeks ago and am greatly enjoying trying to remember every film I’ve ever seen and when I saw it, so follow me if you’re so inclined