Baghdad, Part 8: The Nestle Knockout - October 4, 2007

With our stomachs full of selections from the U.S. military's third world food court, we were informed it was time to leave for the 7pm show at Camp Liberty, our last show in Baghdad. Before boarding the shortbus, I took a moment to look around. We had been bounced around so much all day, I never really got a chance simply to stand there and tell myself, "You know what, Bill? You're in fuckin' Baghdad."

I knew I only had two or three minutes before I was corralled and gestured to and barked at, so I just stopped in the dirt parking lot and looked around, studying a terrain I knew I would never see again, consciously telling my brain to take stock of everything I sensed and find a way to cram it into the memory pockets of my temporal lobes. The setting sun was just about to dip into the desert and the breeze seemed to come out of hiding from underneath its sandy carpet. It whipped around the sounds of distant (but hearty) laughter and circling vultures. An insect seemingly composed of nothing but legs crawled over the front of my left combat boot. It looked like a caricature of an insect. Like something out of a Chernobyl dump site or Men In Black. Apparently, it had shit to do on the other side of the parking lot. I could barely make out the scent of charcoal as troops we would never meet cooked up barbecue at various spots around the base. In an ironic visual doppelganger, a column of silent black smoke rose far off on the horizon, somewhere outside the wire. If an exploded bomb was the source of the smoke, the sound got lost somewhere in the sweep of the wind. None of the troops seemed to take notice of the billowing funnel, and I pointed it out to Stu, who just shook his head, concentrating on the tendrils of his own personal plume issuing forth from his Camel light.

"LET'S GO, GUYS!"

It was Katrina. Simultaneously steadfast and soft.

Katrina (steadfast and soft) w/ me, Bill Dawes (just soft)

The bus ride to Camp Liberty was remarkably and uncharacteristically silent. The FIDM whore catastrophe, the crooked dick fiasco, and the unofficial Official Ban of the Nestle Knockout (I told everyone separately and sotto voce, like a gossip girl) sobered us up immeasurably. None of us were sure exactly what the bejesus we were allowed to talk about anymore. I thought about my upcoming set and found myself butted up against the same fears I had in Kuwait. Should I be family friendly? COULD I be? Scared off from sexual and racial subject matter, I found myself devoid of a closer and conversational fodder. Is it a testament to my shallowness, my stupidity, both, or something else altogether? Why was I such a dirty, racist, classless motherfucker? Madame Dawes and Herr Dawes raised me good, right?

People shifted in the stiff seats of the shortbus. Paul picked his nose and talked on the phone to his wife (his cell phone bill from the trip had to have been larger than the GNP of Costa Rica), and everyone else either slept or listened to iPods. It was like a couple's bedroom after a fight, when the old "I'm just tired" chestnut is used to convince the other party they are just sleepy, not tense, hurt, or on the edge of apoplectic rage. "Safety," Casper offered in now smelly silence. I punched him hard anyway. What was he going to do? Dance me in the face?

Although I had already popped my cherry with my first armed audience, I was nervous about the Camp Liberty show. Tracy's thinly veiled threat/caution/recommendation was still stumbling around my brain, trying to find a place to sit comfortably. I have a lot of "purple" material, I thought, am I in danger of pissing off and isolating troops and ruining my chances for a repeat visit with the USO if I give in to the dark side!?

My manager has been trying for years to mold my comic abilities into saleable, cookie-cutter form in the hopes of manufacturing a sitcom career. Unfortunately for him, my inner child can't help gravitating towards the stuff that either puckers the crowd's collective asshole or results in a death threat (two to date--allegedly the only comic other than Andrew Dice Clay to get a death threat delivered directly to Jamie Masada, owner of the LA Laugh Factory). I have also been fired as the lead in two different plays because that same inner child hates being told what to fucking do. And here I was, potentially in trouble again, because of that motherfucking brat. I was starting to think that maybe my inner child wears a helmet and drools on his coloring books. Still, even though I recognized my petulant immaturity, it didn't free me from the familiar sense of emotional claustrophobia the "rules" were giving me; the same claustrophobia I developed as a child when my brothers thought the ultimate lark was to pin me down and fart on my face. I was pinned, the fart was pending, and my options were to throw a fit or lay still, stoically, and take it. If I threw a fit, I might get beaten down and perhaps subjected to a more painful pin and longer duration of poot inhalation--this time maybe with the stamp of an anus grind. If I didn't do anything, I had to live with the fact that I was a bitch to his bottom any time he pleased. Either way, it sucked and I could never force myself to be zen about it. Tracy's words were sitting on my soul and beefing SBD's.

As we were about to arrive, Tracy suddenly piped up: "Hey guys, there are a few Navy SEALS who want to take you out shooting tonight, so if you're interested after the show, let me know."

"Shooting where?"

"Wherever they want to take you."

"Fuck yeah" was the general consensus, and we all disappeared into our own private worlds about what we might be shooting at. I secretly feared they would take us on some meth-induced commando mission with them for shits and giggles.

Heavily armed and extra dark chocolate-skinned Africans manned the posts coming in to the new camp. They were humorless and relentless; inspecting the bus, scouring our faces, and examining all of the documents twice. Originally, I didn't know why these posts weren't manned by US troops, but now I got it: these mercenaries for hire would show no favoritism, no partiality, and no mercy. Everyone was a threat until proven otherwise.

When we pulled in, I almost couldn't believe what I saw.

There were no more than 200 people in front of the large, outdoor stage, just standing around. What happened to the 7000 troops?!, I thought. Was this thing going to be a bust? It was already a quarter till seven and the huge lot in front of the stage was basically empty. This venue was completely different from the ones in Kuwait and Camp Victory. This place had a huge stage with an enormous empty lot in front of it and none of the folding chairs or metal high school-style bleachers that adorned the previous setups. It was standing room only. Circumscribing the lot were tall spotlights, giving it a kind of prison yard vibe. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that dozens of storage containers defined the space into a large rectangular, and armed soldiers were alternately standing and sitting on them, legs dangling over the sides. It was hard to tell if they were sentries or just spectators hoping for a better view.

We filed back into a small building behind the stage that would serve as our green room and post-show meet-and-greet area. The atmosphere inside the building was decidedly... ghettofabulous. All of a sudden, I felt like I was doing a show on the other side of 8 mile. There were dozens and dozens of black dudes milling around, gold chains, Fubu, down jackets (in Iraq???), Timberlands, grills (with a "Z").

I leaned into Casper, "Where the hell did THEY come from?" For a moment, I thought they were local African-Americans (sorry--African-Iraqians) and I half-expected to hear Nigerian accents or something, assuming they were just co-opting black American culture like many Africans do when they come to The States. You know what I mean: those men who are so black they are blue and they ALMOST look hip-hop but give it away with one or two huge ghetto no-no's? Like, they have the sideways baseball cap, gold chains, basketball jersey, dress shoes... and a job? Well, these guys weren't like that. They must have been imported thugs. At least they sounded and looked ghetto. They were so authentically American black, they even had chubby white chicks with them, nestling their backsides up against the folds of their baggy jeans. I assumed they were just off-duty troops in the green room to play pool, and were, what's the proper military jargon, "chillin.' "

Within minutes, Joey got his cue to start the music-mixing extravaganza. When he left to go onstage, I smacked my head, realizing we had never worked out what exactly my entrance cue would be. I had the same tortuous pre-set confusion in store as the previous two shows. This was one of those moments where a little Grey Goose might have come in handy, although my head was already in such an altered state from the bizarreness of the situation. I knew I wanted it more out of habit than need. I popped open a Coke and walked out of the building into the area behind the stage to search for the time and place to make my entrance.

"Holy fucking shit," I said, to no one in particular.

The place was packed. Somehow, in 15 minutes, about 6000 troops showed up and crowded right up against the front of the stage. The tops of the connex containers were now packed with soldiers, sitting and standing. The growing thug/gangsta/who the hell are these people? crowd was milling around the side and back of the elevated stage. I definitely caught a whiff of some chronic off in their direction. Jamie came out and we just looked at each other, shrugging at the strange juxtaposition of combat and Compton.

Kind of like this, except without the German trucks or all the brown people

I let DJ Joey Nicks do his thing, now just finding it humorous that another crowd was getting restless at his ADDJ'ing. Finally, after a few more entreaties from Joey to "get the party started!" and a couple more whiffs of the wacky tabacky in the cool night air, he brought me up: "This guy coming to the stage has been killin' it all week and is really hilarious! Show your love for Bill Dawes!"

Finally, he gave me a good goddamned intro. I ran up on stage and, this time, politely received the microphone from Joey, who seemed appreciative that I didn't call him a Beaner or ask him how many strawberries he could pick in 60 seconds.

I turned to the sea of 6000 plus. Immediately, I knew that my first words were going to set the mood for the whole show. I should start slow and bring it down, I thought, and then just go into my clean stuff, allaying Tracy's fears, as well as the concerns of the USO as an organization. My heart swelled at the sight of all those eager faces looking up at me. These were my people, my countrymen, the ones who were dying so I could hang out in comedy clubs, drink for free, and turn down offers for sex and/or bjs on a weekly basis. It seemed for a second that all I heard and felt was my heart in my ears as I stepped down to the front of the stage. I needed to be a professional. I needed to keep my relationship with the USO intact. "How are you guys doing tonight?" a voice in my head recommended....

"WHAT'S UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. They roared. I was inexplicably angry at nothing. I was over-stimulated. I instantly felt like me wanted to smash things like Hulk do. I wanted to stage dive. I wanted to galvanize all of this energy and start a riot in the streets of Baghdad.

In short, it was on.

I went right into crowd work, seeing what type of turbulence I could muster. I am staying clean, I reminded myself, crowd work is a good way to stay clean. They started talking back. It was fun. It was fast, a blur. Then I saw a huge black guy off to my right and went with it...

"Look at you, you big ass motherfucker! You a pee-imp, right, playa?"

He let out an Arsenio Hall dog cheer.

"Whoa, are you the last black guy still doing that shit? Didn't that go the way of parachute pants? Are you gonna 'raise the roof' next? But people don't say shit to you because they're scared. Cuz you're big and crazy-looking with cornrows. You look like Flava Flav and Fat Albert fucked and had a baby on steroids!"

The audience reacted, laughter and maybe a little anticipation that I might get my ass kicked. The big guy wasn't laughing... yet.

"Don't look at me like that. I'll fight you, motherfucker! I almost got in a fight with a guy who looked just like you last week. I was driving and I got cut off, right, and I'm Irish, so I'll fight a black guy... that went to private school. I'm kidding... I'm not 100 percent Irish, I'm Scotch-Irish... well, my mother was 100 percent Irish and she was drunk on Scotch when she was pregnant with me. My point is--I'm a cheap drunk and I'll put up my dukes like someone was trying to steal me Lucky Charms. "

Nothing on Lucky Charms. It's cheap, but it's quick and I floated it out there with my passable Leprechaun accent. Hmmm, only a modicum of laughter...

"I gave the guy the finger! BAM! And it was badass...in my head. But then I looked at it and it was the gayest, wimpiest, most Caucasianest middle finger ever--it was shivering, it was straight up and down perpendicular to the earth, all the other fingers were all crunched up around it, my shoulder was hunched up to my ears. My other hand was doing spirit fingers, my eyeballs were bulging out of my skull. It was not threatening AT ALL.

"He busted his shit out and that shit was TIGHT! It was like this sideways, gat gun, 50 Cent Get Rich Die Trying, Ice Cube Boyz in da Hood middle finger like this (I busted out a cool sideway "fuck you" with a puckered smirk). Flav fat busted out one, and then another, pointed both of them toward his dick, and then gave me trigger thumbs. (A skinny black guy went "Oh Snap!" somewhere in the audience). And then, he started driving the car with his dick... just to rub it in... and he wasn't even hard. He was just showing off at this point!

"Oh come on, I don't want to make stereotypes while I'm here. That's lowbrow. I'm above it... but let me know on the real--is it true what they say about brothers? Is it true?"

The dog cheer started up again, this time it was three people strong. A couple of these dainty debs I was trying to protect screamed out too: "Yes, it IS true!"

"Yeah? It is? Bad credit?"

A huge group of people exploded in laughter. Not the entire audience but it was a start. It opened up my next move.

I leaned forward to high-five a white guy in the very front. He rushed forward, excited, and I quickly brought my hand back.

"You racist motherfucker! I'm telling jokes! That's your LIFE you're high-fiving right there! That was a TRAP! Now I know where the closeted Aryans are clustered amongst the crowd. I know some of you white people would love to high-five me right now, but save it for the meeting next Wednesday!

"Calm down, liberals, I'm ALLOWED to say this stuff because I'm MIXED! That's right! I'm mixed, it's true: I'm half WHITE..."

I paused for effect. They waited for it. Good sign.

" ... and half TRASH."

A nice laugh, not really a punchline. Fuck. Tag it, Bill...

"That's right, my MOM was WHITE and my DAD...worked for the Bush administration. That's it! You thought because I dissed Democrats, you right-wing fascists were off the hook. Not so fast, Dick Cheney lovers! Now--"

There it was. I sent it out there. I covered it with a quick "Now" but it was okay, clearly many of these people hated Bush. Some weren't sure. I could care less, I was speaking 180 miles a minutes like a meerkat on meth, and, more importantly, I was on fire. I had just played a game of "just the tip" with my political stuff and it was time to add some cock and balls to the mix....

"I went into the computer room today and it was nothing but a bunch of guys typing LEFT-HANDED."

I gestured to a lone woman near the front, arms folded.

"Yeah, ma'am with the arms folded, that's a masturbation joke--they had their dicks in their hands, ma'am, that's what I'm saying!"

Arms still folded.

"Hey, ma'am, you do the online social stuff? You know there's an online dating site just for people with herpes? Yeah, it's called Myspace! Hey, some of you aren't laughing...you're itching!"

Another decent laugh. Enough for me to drop the microphone by my side and point at every fourth person I looked at.

"Any of you girls out there on Myspace?"

There was a big response from a small group of about 10-15 just left of center. In my head, I was saying, "I found the camp sluts!" But I censored myself. Instead I said, "Yeah, I bet in your default picture you have an M-16 in one hand and the other hand grabbing your booby like this!" I then stuck my tongue down to my imaginary nipple and imaginarily flicked it like a snake. "Check me out at www.myspace.com/soldiergirl!"

Over the last year or so, I have done some variations of the slutty default picture bit to varying responses. One of the sadder realizations I've had in that time is how people will instinctively laugh at abrupt and unexpected "movement." I call it The Robin Williams Effect. Even after Robin Williams lost all of his comedic genius (December, 1988), he still consistently knocks 'em dead on the talk show circuit by standing up from his chair, making random noises, and running pointlessly in circles, much to the cellulite-shaking glee of guffawing and fanny pack-wearing tourists in the live studio audience. With the RBE axiom in mind, I find that usually the shock of the quick transition into the booby grabbing, nipple licking pose is enough to get a decent laugh. When folks are buzzed, it can get a pretty big laugh. But the reaction this night knocked me back a little bit.

They went truly apeshit. It simply destroyed.

I tagged it by holding the pose, licking the nipple, and having her say, "Back home, I'm a kindergarten teacher!"

More crazy laughs, I'm not sure why. It was the sound of my popping the cherry of 6,000 dirty minds. A thousand sphincters just seemed to instantaneously unclench (including mine). They were cheering and laughing like I had just stumbled upon some base-wide inside joke. It rolled and traveled around the crowd. Splinter groups of guys nudged and pointed at each other, blaming each other for some invisible infraction.

What did I step in? I think it might have been pussy juice.

I covered my face and surreptitiously looked behind me. The random thugs were milling about in the back. Stu was there with his Cheshire grin, giving me a nod. I knew what the nod meant. It meant, "Fuck whatever you think you shouldn't do and just fucking keep killing!"

I turned back out to the eager crowd of 6,000 with an evil grin. I was, once again, ahead of them. I knew which dragon head to lop off in order to slay this Chimera.

I eased off the blue stuff and went back into my relationship material: conversations about dinner and role playing. Sprinkled throughout these bits, the word "FUCK" would pop up every now and then and the agro pot would bubble up.

Each time, I would turn around and look for some silent communication. Finally, I saw Jamie behind me. I arched my eyebrows and mouthed, "Should I do it?" He gave a quick nod. It was a pitcher/catcher moment in the bottom of the ninth. No risk, no reward...

I turned back toward the crowd and did the Nestle Knockout.

Here is the Nestle Knockout in it's entirety, transcribed nearly verbatim from my set. I present it with the caveat that none of the physical comedy is included and the vocal intonations can only be insinuated:

"We got some Latinas here tonight. Let's hear it!"

***(Huge response.)***

"We got some women from Puerto Rico? Let's hear it!"

***(Not as huge.)***

"I recently had sexual congress with a woman from the Rico of Puerto. That's right huckleberry honkey in the front, give me another high-five! Now you're scared? Okay, we'll just do it telepathically this time. I don't care, because, like I said, I'm not a racist--that's right, I'll fuck anyone. But she was really into the idea that I was a cracker. She kept saying, "Having sex with me is going to change your life! Having SEX WITH ME IS GOING TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!"

I was like, "Why?....Do you have AIDS?"

Because that's a pretty scary comment. I'm not going to have unprotected sex with someone with AIDS. At least, not again. "Unprotected sex?" That's right, ladies, I don't wear condoms--that's why God invented lower backs and Kleenex. She kept trying to intimidate me: she was cracking her knuckles, stretching her quads, saying, "I'm going to tear your ass up, Papi! I'm going to rip you in two, Papi! You better buckle up, Papi!"

I'm like, "What's a papi?....Is she calling me a type of bagel because I'm so pale?"

Finally, we get to her place and we start doing the deed...

I'm doing the pinball flipper--slamming the sides, yelling "MULTI-BALL" every so often--when suddenly, in the middle of it, she says, "YOU LIKE THAT PUERTO RICAN PUSSY!?"

What? How do you ANSWER THAT QUESTION? You have to say, "Yes, I do. Thank you very much. I like it a lot."

You can't say, "Hmmmmm... I actually prefer pussy from the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC! I like a little less SALSA and a little more MERINGUE in my vagina, personally."

And I had to do everything I could not to LAUGH.

My ADD kicked into hyperdrive and I kept thinking "What IS a 'Puerto Rican' pussy?" I mean, seriously, what does that mean? I pictured this vagina flying through the sky with a flapping red cape with a PR on it solving crimes, leaping over tall buildings. Is it supposed to be a particularly FIERY, SPICY brand of vagina, is that it? So what, does that mean fucking a white girl is like fucking a TRISCUIT? Asian pussy? It's GOOD, but you never know what MEAT it really is? Indian pussy? TASTES LIKE CURRY! Of course not! No, I agree! I agree! I'm uncomfortable with it too.

My penis hears me laughing and starts doing the slow shrink like a heroin junkie.

She can tell what's going on, so as a quick fix she says, "Come on! Do me from behind and pull my hair. Do all that shit those little white bitches won't LET you do!"

I'm thinking, "Like WHAT? Pay for dinner?"

Because I don't know what white women won't let you do! The craziest women I've met in my LIFE have all been white. White women are the craziest people on the planet! The whiter, the crazier!

Let me tell you something: the last time I tried to stick my finger in a black girl's behind, she was like "What are you doing?... Oh no, you di-int!!"

The last time I tried to stick my finger in a white girl's behind she was like "What are you doing?.... Stick your whole fist up there! Fist me motherfucker! FIST ME and PUNCH ME IN THE FACE!! FIST ME AND PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, MOTHERFUCKER! I WANT THE NESTLE KNOCKOUT!!

***At this point, I burrowed my chin into my neck and got closer to the microphone so my voice got a Satanic gravel to it. I rolled my eyes into the top of my head, turned my face beet red, and started to make my face and body vibrate...***

"GIVE ME THE NESTLE KNOCKOUT! I WANT THE NESTLE KNOCKOUT, YOU FUCKING FAGGOT! RRRRRRRRRRRRRR! YOUR MOTHER SUCKS COCKS IN HELL! GIVE ME THE NESTLE KNOCKOUT AND GIVE IT TO ME NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!

(suspension)

And she was a KINDERGARTEN TEACHER!!!"

(release)
________________________________________________________________

Whether it was the callback or the sheer wrongness of the joke, they exploded. It wasn't comedy club had-a-rough-week exploded. It was something else--visceral, cathartic, overwhelming.

Deep down, I know the joke isn't that smart and it isn't necessarily that funny. I'm sure in the next few years, I will retire it, allowing some 20-something year-old upstart to surreptitiously steal it from me for years to come. But this night I needed it. What's more, it felt like they needed it. It was the first time in my entire year of touring with Jamie that I truly felt sorry for him following me. When I introduced him and brought him on stage, his ambivalent look told me he knew it too. He would have better luck with a mop.

Sometimes, at its best moments, I can feel like a rockstar doing standup. But tonight, even though it was perhaps the best response I had ever gotten performing, it really wasn't about me at all. Something magical happened. Something bigger than me. Something I swear to and I live by. Something that makes what happened subsequently with the powers that be at the USO utterly irrelevant.

And that is this: Because of me, a full six thousand people had just, for an infinitesimal moment, completely forgotten that there was a war going on....

Posted by Bill Dawes at 11:22 AM

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Posted by: Eugene at October 4, 2007 02:56 PM

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