Ball Buster - September 14, 2006

I was recently kicked in the balls. Not just metaphorically, either. I literally got kicked in the balls. For a week, I had a dull throbbing ache that extended from the bottom of my pubic bone through the taint to the first crease of my starfish. It felt like I was wearing a maxi-pad of pain. I had a bruise on my right ball and when I got home that first night I pee'd a little blood. Seriously.

Wait, let's unkick this ball for a second...

A couple Thursdays ago, I was at a moveon.org event at the Crobar in NYC. I'm not a Democratic activist by any stretch of the imagination, and I think Moby is a test-tube baby, but there's always free booze at these things, so I try to make a point of attending and showing my support for grassroots alcoholism.

Plus, I need the alcohol to dull my conflicted feelings about the Democratic Party. On the one hand, whenever I get an email from John Kerry saying something like "We're going to get back the White House in '08!," I think "Yeah right, loser!" DELETE. I kind of lump the Democratic party emails in with the "check out the new Friendster!" emails (i.e., report as spam). On the other hand, I've had too many ex-girlfriends pee on sticks in my life not to think "Go Blue Team, go!"

On this particular occasion, my thirst for free hootch was magnified by the fact that I was in a horrible mood. Earlier that week, I had been under serious consideration for the role of Thurman Munson in a new series about the Yankees. In a fit of stupid generosity, I pushed a friend of mine to go in for the SAME role because I thought he was better suited for it. I pulled some strings to get him the audition and my asshole friend ended up booking it. I wanted to be happy for him, but, alas, found myself way too fucking immature to trick my brain into believing that shit. My attempt at altruism led me to the following conclusion: fuck philanthropy. In order to feel better, I told myself that my deed would result in good "karma" - that old stand-by!

Apparently karma was on vacation that week because two days later my cat died of pancreatic cancer. I first noticed something when her stomach started expanding like that annoying blueberry bitch in "Willie Wonka." I thought she might have gas. When I took her to the clinic, the vet said bluntly, "She probably has about 5 days to live." It took three. At the end, I held her in my lap until she sputtered out a bubbly last breath. I wrapped her in a red bath towel and took her to the animal hospital at 4am where I donated her body to the research lab. I tried to convince myself that I didn't really like that stupid cat. She always jumped on my skull at night and made the smelliest shits. When I got back from the vet, I didn't want to stay in the apartment by myself so I walked back outside onto West 47th Street, sat on the curb, and cried like a bitch.

I decided to treat the fundraiser like a wake for my cat and committed myself to gulping down the open bar pain-go-bye-bye juice like a good trailer park Irishman.

I was there with my ladyfriend Rachel and her ex-boyfriend, Chris. That may not SOUND like fun...and it wasn't. They were excited about being in the VIP section with the Matthew Modines, Michael Moores, Mobys and other celebrities with "M" names, but I just wanted to drink the day into the night.

The three of us went into a private VIP section where we met up with a few other entertainment folks, because that's where semi-famous people and their friends should be while attending a Democratic fundraiser for the less fortunate - away from the riff-raff.

At one point, two people from our group went to get cocktails, and some horrible looking man barged in, grabbed Rachel's purse off a seat, flung it across the booth, and plunked down. He had circular, red-tinted sunglasses and longish black hair that crept backward off his high forehead. He wore a purple shirt that clung awkwardly to his heavyset frame and when he sat down he collected himself by pulling his hair back into a pathetic, frizzy ponytail. He looked like the love child of John Lennon and Barney.

His presence was weird and unsettling, but I chose to ignore it.

Chris, Rachel's ex, couldn't. He told the stranger that we were saving the booth for our friends who had just gone to get drinks. The guy spat back, "Whatever. I can sit where I want. I'm press. I work at the AP!" (Associated Press)

Suddenly, my eyes focused. All my navel-gazing self-pity vaporized. Finally an emotion I could deal with: Hate. Why be miserable inward when you can hate outward? It was so much more tangible and visceral, and this guy was stirring my personal cauldron of disdain, which was already at a slow boil by the time we arrived at the club.

Ponytails are okay if you're under 30, and you play jazz or teach yoga. Anyone else is just a fucking asshole. The truth of that stereotype gets played out time and time again in my life. It's the same way with really fat people. There's no such thing as happy, self-fulfilled fatties. Obese people are miserable wretches.

Listen: "Shallow Hal" would've been more realistic if unicorns farting pixie dust were prancing around in the background. "Heifer with the heart of gold"?!? Nigga, please! "Pretty Woman" was more believable. When you see a huge fat person smiling at you it's not because they're happy to see you, it's because they are thinking about eating you. That's not a smile. They're baring their teeth. True story.

Now's probably a good time to mention that, besides being a great party trick, dressing down people with snap judgments is what I do for a living(ish). That means when I look at assholes like this I'm really just gathering data for a potential can of verbal whoop-ass. Porky McPonytail had more openings than the Tora Bora cave complex. And I was still pissed about my stupid cat. He really shouldn't push me.

For a second, it looked like everything was going to blow over, but Chris pressed it with the AP photographer, "We have like 4 more people coming back, dude."

He retorted, "I don't give a shit, 'dude,' there's room."

I took a step in and started, "What's going on?"

"What's going on with YOU?

"What's your story? Are you a dick or are you just weird?"

"Whatever, what are you doing wearing a red Polo shirt? What is this, an 80's party?"

"What are you doing with man boobs? What is this, a Weight Watchers convention?"

"Fuck you, asshole, I just got back from covering the Katrina anniversary."

"Motherfucker, you were down there shoveling beignets in your fat face, not floating in a raft looking for family members, you self-righteous asshole. I mercy-fucked an ugly chick from New Orleans after Katrina happened -- you don't see ME bragging about it!"

"Why don't you just shut the fuck up with your red Polo?"

"Sorry Michael Kors, I thought this was a fundraiser, not a Project Runway audition. Why don't you just do everyone a favor and jiggle your Jabba the Hut titties out of here."

At this point, Rachel stepped between us and pushed me back a bit. I conceded and retreated a couple of feet. Once you've outed someone's "moobs," you've pretty much won.

At this point, the other two people from my group got back. One of them handed me a Scotch, and I took a long victorious sip. Bill 1, Heckler 0.

Suddenly:

"I know why you wear that shirt - you're just Southern white trash trying to dress up?"

And with that, something snapped inside me. Like Marty McFly with "chicken" in "Back to the Future," that phrase is particularly offensive to me. Mostly because of the fact that I AM Southern white trash.

I took a step closer and Rachel stepped in again. She pressed her right hand hard against my chest and her left against his floppy C-cups.

"Tell this whore to get out of my face."

Without thinking, I threw my drink in his face.

The last (and only other) time I threw a drink in someone's face was at a "Widow's and Orphan's Benefit" for the Policemen in San Antonio after a screening of my film "Evenhand." After signing t-shirts, hats, and posters for over 4 hours, I found out that the cheap-ass producer, Joe Pierson, grandson of Nelson Rockefeller, was going to put the "donation" money into his production company, Cypress Films (only the exorbitantly rich, I find, can ever be THIS dishonest about money).

I told him the proceeds should all go to the "Widows and Orphans Fund." He said "Some of it will go there." I said, "All of it should go there, you cheap bastard." He said, "Fuck you." Drink in his face.

It would have been poetic and humiliating for him, except I had just finished my drink like a good Mick, and all he got was a single sloppy ice cube on his coat sleeve. Pretty much all of the ice, dregs, and backwash landed on my co-star, Bill Sage, who didn't talk to me for two years after that incident.

This time, the drink splashed fully into and across the photog's fat face. It looked like some zany Starburst commercial.

The guy smiled at me, wet and smug, as Chris and Rachel pulled me away. Just then, Nick Jarecki (from the ridiculously talented and weathly Jarecki family--founders of "Moviephone," makers of films like "Capturing the Friedmans" and "Why We Fight") stepped into our section and I, 60 to 0, went into casual schmooze, maybe-this-guy-will-get-me-a-job mode. We chatted for a bit. I told him I was friends with his brother, Eugene. He told me that he and Eugene don't speak. Uhhhh... I furiously ransacked the archives of my brain to come up with a clever save.

That's when I got a thunderous jolt in my first chakra. It took me a second to realize that I had been sucker-kicked in the balls. According to my friends, Mooby McWetface got up to leave, feigned an exit, wheeled and kicked me squarely in the nuggets.

I had been metaphorically kicked in the nuts that entire week, so I guess it was only fitting I get physically kicked in the nuts as well. This definitely wasn't the "karma" I was hoping for.

There was a brief suspension of time and space, like those fight scenes in "The Matrix", before the real pain set in. It was excruciating. My knees buckled. You know how when you got racked as a kid and you'd get that little stomach ache afterwards that would make you double over? Well, this wallop gave me a sore throat.

I looked up and locked on this guy like the Terminator -- red data flashed urgently on either side of my peripheral vision, calculating the force and trajectory with which to punch him in the skeleton. As I reared my fist back, another one of the guys in our group got between us and drove me back against the wall. I quietly told Jabba the Nutcracker, "You have 10 seconds to leave the room."

For a brief moment, I was tough.

Mostly what came out of my mouth after that was some variation of "Ohhhhh, my balls!", "He kicked me in the balls!", and "Ohhh, my balls, I can't believe he actually kicked me in them!"

Chris and Rachel sat me in an empty chair at a busy table and Rachel held my hand with a vise grip until security ushered the guy out of the section. Essentially immobilized, I managed to strike up a very pleasant conversation with Nick Jarecki at the table across from me about his upcoming documentary on renowned letch and filmmaker James Toback. I can't wait to see it! Toback's a dick!

A couple times during the conversation, I wondered about the state of my balls. I wondered if they had broken up into a bunch of littler balls. Were there still only two? And if so, had they become drastically misshapen like the subject of a Dali painting? Was the right one squished like a grape? Is it possible there's just a ball seed floating around in a gelatinous glob of ball sauce? I was too afraid to check. I had a dull ache, but luckily the pain-go-bye-bye juice was doing its delicious job. I made a mental note never to get kicked in the balls while sober.

Twenty minutes later, I was getting ready to leave to go perform at the Laugh Factory when the AP photographer came back, complaining that I "destroyed" his "$800 camera" when I threw my drink! He had black guys in suits with him. A black man in a suit usually means one of two things: he's going to church or he has the authority to beat up a white person.

The head of security at Crobar (the biggest of the black dudes) shoved and escorted me outside where he told me to wait for the cops. I had a standup comedy spot to get to in 10 minutes, and for some bizarre reason, it became incredibly important that I get to it. Seriously. The spot was only 15 minutes onstage. It only paid $25. But I needed it like a junkie needs a fix. At that moment, I would have blown someone for stage time.

I contemplated making a run for it, but my preconceptions about black people told me that not only would they catch me, but they would tackle me and then kick the holy hell out of me while I was on the ground. See, some stereotypes serve a good purpose, don't they?

I decided to get security on my side by calmly explaining to them what happened.

They kept wincing whenever I mentioned my nuggets, and witnesses to my testicular demise kept coming out of the club to vouch for my side of the story and corroborate my theory that the AP guy was a freak. Eventually, it became clear to security and everyone working at Crobar that Mantits McTrollerton was fucking nuts. Not just fucking up nuts.

They agreed to let me leave before the cops arrived, but said they had to take my info because the AP guy wanted to sue me for the damage to his "$800 camera." That's a cheap fucking camera for a professional photographer. In retrospect, maybe I misheard him. Maybe he actually said, "I work at the A&P." Hmmmm...

The head of security went over to talk to him for a minute and the next thing I knew, the fucker was hailing a taxi.

"What happened?" I asked when the security guy walked back over to me.

"I asked him if he wanted to be arrested for assault when the cops come. I mean, dawg, you were the one who just got kicked in the nuts." We winced in unison.

"You don't have to remind me," I told him, "they're killing me. I might not ever have children again!...I don't know if I should sue him or thank him."

The security guy laughed and I invited him and his crew to my show at the Laugh Factory. I handed out complimentary tickets from my backpack.

He said, "Don't fuck with us if we go there."

I said, "I don't fuck with black men in the audience unless they went to private school."

He said he'd try to make it and lifted the burgundy velvet rope. I literally took off running east on 27th Street to catch a cab up 10th Avenue to 42nd and 8th for my show. It was 8:38pm. The show was supposed to start at 8:30pm and I was the opening comic.

I walked through the doors to the famous ex-strip club, familiarly flanked on the jog up the long steps by pictures of the famous comics who started at the Laugh Factory in LA: Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, the Wayans Brothers, and Jamie Kennedy (who I'm touring with across America, check back soon for more details -- okay, I wrote this paragraph just to set you up for a cheap plug, sue me).

It was 8:44pm. The show was going to start 15 minutes late. The second I walked into the showroom I nodded to the floor manager, which meant "start the announcement"; then I turned and nodded to the bartender, which meant "Scotch on the rocks."

I grabbed my drink and walked onstage to "Billllllllll Daaaaaawes!" from the sound booth. I took a sip. I was home.

I smiled at everyone, walked up to the mike stand, and started:

"Hey guys, I just got kicked in the balls."

Checking my balls while onstage

When I got off-stage, Gary Gulman was in the comic's lounge. He was the really tall, neurotic Jewish guy from "Tourgasm" and "Last Comic Standing." He wanted to know if the story I told about the nut-smashing was true. I said it was and that it had happened about 40 minutes prior. He thought that the drink in the face was a little 1900's bowler hat days of yore. I assured him that I would definitely have slapped the guy in the cheek with a powdered glove and said "Good day to you, sir!" if I could have. What can I say, I'm old school gangsta that way.

I went home after the show and sat naked in my living room watching Sportscenter and fondling my pills. They were still incredibly sore, but I could definitely make out the distinct shape of two unique nuts--not seven, like I feared--so that was good. One may have been a tad deflated, but I was sure it would regroup.

I don't know much about the healing process of a testicle, but if I know God, and I'd like to think I do, he wants the world peopled with attractive whites and will magically heal my baby-makers.

I'm going to the doctor today, so the medical prognosis and the wisdom of my faith in God's testicular healing power remain to be seen. I will say this about a swift kick to the lima beans, however. I almost forgot about my stupid cat. Almost.

I went to the doctor's office a week later.

When the nurse asked me what the purpose of my visit was, I wanted to be erudite and technical, but found that there is really only ONE possible way to accurately describe the situation that I experienced: "Uh...I got kicked in the balls."

I sat in the examining room and looked at all the pictures of male genitalia. They were everywhere: cartoons of gonad cross-sections showing all the layers, bits, and tubes that make up a testicular structure; peach penii illustrated on posters; little rubber penis facsimilies on the table (I later found out these were used to show people how to put on condoms?! Who is so responsible that they are going to a urologist to get checked out, but so chromosome-deficient that they need a goddamn puppet show to figure out how to roll on a condom?); and then actual photographs of penii that had been ravaged by various and sundry VDs (these pictures were obviously from the 70s because these guys had huge afro bushes - it looked like The Jackson 5 were playing hide-and-go-seek in their crotches).

The "urologist" knocked lightly and came in. He had an eyepatch. I found that slightly disturbing. He also had a ponytail - I'm not even kidding -- which I found deeply disturbing. It was either another instance of karma rearing its stupid Middle Eastern head or just plain irony -- I'm not sure which. I assured myself that he was a trumpet-playing pirate so I could feel comfortable enough to show him my kiwi fruit.

The doctor unfurled a white paper towel along the length of his rich Corinthian leather table and told me, "Take off your pants."

"Not without dinner and a movie first!" I nervously quipped.

He didn't seem to find the slightest humor in the comment, and merely gestured to the table.

I paused briefly, reflecting on the potential residue of the bowel movement I had earlier in the day - I didn't want to frame his bird's eye view of my balls with a brown track striping down my white boxers. Luckily, I hadn't had any Frappucinos (or, as I call them, "Crappucinos"), so my bm had been clean, darn near wipeless.

I hopped on top of the thick paper and awkwardly tried to shimmy off my drawers (why didn't I do this when I was standing?), noisily crinkling the paper all the way down. I tried to get them off quickly, but fumbled with my belt buckle. It was uncomfortable. It felt like the night in my dad's Taurus when I got my first blow job, except this time I wasn't going to make a mess all over the change cup.

He put on a white glove and started feeling my balls. I felt like a Puerto Rican boy at the Neverland Ranch. My stupid penis stirred a bit in reaction, so I had my brain tell it I was neither gay nor an 11-year old latino child in order to quell the swell.

HOLY SHIT! He squeezed my right bean and said "Does that hurt?" I guess the watering eyes and screaming in agony tipped him off.

"Well, you definitely have a bruise."

YOU THINK!?!?

..."Is it going to be okay?" I asked.

"Probably. The testicle seems intact. There's no way to tell now. If it starts to atrophy (fancy talk for shrivel up and die) in 4-6 months, then come back and we'll deal with it."

I then showed him a large blue vein that runs along the bottom of my Christmas sack. I asked him what the fuck that shit was.

"That condition is known as an LBV. That's unfortunate."

My head shot up like a meerkat.

"What? Why? What's wrong? What's an LBV?"

"It's a Large Blue Vein." He laughed.

This motherfucker heckled my balls!

He told me that I was fine and to get dressed. I didn't want to leave empty-handed, so I had to act fast.

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't mind a script for like, you know, so I can see it's working properly and stuff."

"Well, if you're asking about the state of your erection, I could write you a prescription for Viagra if you're that concerned."

"How about Cialis? I hear it's awesome."

He gave me a look as if to say, "You just want party penis, don't you, fucker!?"

He said "sure" and gave me a wink. Or maybe he just closed both of his eyes shut, I couldn't tell.

EPILOGUE

As I write this, the ball is no longer swollen or black and blue. I've roped a couple imaginary cattle with the baby batter, so I'm optimistic about future reproductivity.

I still have the vial of Cialis capsules, pretty much unused. I took one pill when I got home from the doctor and walked around the apartment all day, knocking shit off of tables. At one point, I was relieved my stupid cat was dead.

She might have thought it was a new scratching post.

Posted by Bill Dawes at 3:19 PM

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Posted by: Emmaluscious at September 14, 2006 04:11 PM

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