My Day With The Comedy Goddess

My friend, Lisa Landry, Comedian extraordinaire, blew in to town last night, and literally, blew everyone away.  She is going across country with her young son and her mom.  And because they overslept, in Omaha, they made it to her show, minutes before she was to go on.

In this picture, she finally, "opens" at, The Garage Ma Hall, where her picture has hung for two years.  It's a picture of Deb and I with her at the taping of her last DVD in Denver a couple of years ago.  It is hanging right under a, "Witch Crossing" sign I bought in Salem, Massachusetts a few years ago.  She thought that was hilarious, and had to take a picture of that.

And, yes, those are her legs.  Comics are like Adult Probation And Parole Agents.  They only work at night.  I think in the time it took to take this picture?  She got more vitamin D than she has gotten all year.

She worked last night and tonight (Saturday) at Wiseguys Comedy Club in Trolley Square.  Then it's off to Los Angeles.  So I offered her an opportunity to come over to the house,  do some laundry, get her car serviced at a local dealer, let her son play in the park next to our house with his Grandmother, and I would take her to run errands.  Being on the road is hard.  Literally doing it on the ROAD, in a car, with your young son?  Much harder.

I love to make, Lisa laugh.  There is nothing better for a frustrated, wanna be stand up than to make his friend who actually does it for a living, laugh.  But the highest praise, is when I say something I like to think is funny, and Lisa says, "That's funny."  No emotion, no guffaw.  Just, "That's funny."

She says it like she really thought about it.  Not like two friends goofing off, but like the Zen Master praising her student.

I got a couple, "That's funny's" out of her today.  And it was good.

We took her car to the dealer for the routine service that was due and then we went shopping.  I hate to shop, but I offered to help out a friend.  So, in for a dime, in for a dollar.

First, it was, Toys R Us.  Her son had outgrown his car seat, so she needed a booster seat.  Something in her bag, set the theft prevention device off as we came INTO the store.

The lady at the counter just laughed it off and waived us through.  If I'd really been on my comedy toes, I would have said in a really loud voice, "How do you do that coming IN.  We haven't even STARTED to shoplift yet!"  That WOULD have been funny.  But I'm not that quick.

Probably got us thrown out of there, too.

Mission accomplished, booster seat bought.

When we were parking, she was telling me how bad her skin felt as she had run out of her moisturizer a few days ago.  So I told her I'd take her where ever she needed to go to get it.

My friend, from Louisiana, said to me, and I shit you not, "You couldn't help me here.  I'd need a Nordstroms or something like that."

Well, shucky darns, Mz. Landry.  We just hillbilly's and hicks out here in Utah but we got a, "Nordy's" a block from here!  She was blown away, that there was a Nordstroms in Little Old Murray.

Then I took her there.  I haven't been in that store but once since it opened.  I bought my UGG boots there.  Someone my size?  The only thing in Nordstrom that fits me is cologne.  But we found the cosmetics counter and she got her Dr. Gross moisturize (Gross Skin Care?  OK).  While I'm standing there she misplaced something and actually said, "Oh, fuck."  Then looked at the sales girl and me and said, "Oh, sorry!"

Really?  I was AT your show last night!  You do a joke about your toddler son in Disneyland that the punch line is, "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!"  You're sorry?  No you're not.

That's funny.

I told her, "I hate to shop.  You are very special that I would bring YOU in here.  I don't even bring my WIFE in here!  I haven't been in the mall since my daughter got her drivers license."  That was the first, "That's funny."

Took her to Starbucks and then home.

This gracious, accommodating woman even agreed (without calling her Agent to see what she should charge for it) to do an on line commercial for my friend, Jeff's car dealership, just because she had made fun of him and his son at her show last night.  So we spent some time in the park, with Lisa being funny in front of a muscle car.

The term, "Good Sport" doesn't go far enough.  She's a gem of a human being.  I am privilaged to call her a friend.

When she found out last night, that Jeff had brought his 13 year old son to the show, it kind of threw her off her game for a minute.  Not right away.  When he said he was 13, she looked out at the crowd and said, "Don't you people have water parks?"  It was a great line.  But she had to compose herself for a second after that revelation, as blue as she had been working.

After that, Lisa, her son and mom, and Deb and I went to lunch at, Red Rocks over at the mall.  We had planned to go to Park City, but she had to pick up her car by five o'clock and it was getting late.

Deb loves this.  Late lunch/early dinner=I don't have to cook tonight!  I told this to Lisa, that this was a best case scenario for Debra Jo.

So we had a nice lunch, and at the end, as I was paying the bill, I looked across the table at Deb and said, sarcastically, "So, whats for dinner?"

Off to my right I hear, "That's funny".  Made my day.