Loring Park #14: Nothing Really Matters

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At the risk of sounding arrogant or self-promoting, I am the Funniest Person in the Twin Cities (allegedly). It is like Miss America, I think; You have a year to own that title, and it is up to you in regards to how hard you will work to make it actually mean something.

I am not famous.

I am not even quasi-famous.

I am not even local famous.

And yet, in the past week and a half, I feel like I learned everything I needed to about "fame".

I have been to The Saloon twice since winning. Some people congratulate me, and that is wonderful. Some people "like" on Facebook when I say I won this contest, and those same people will walk right past me without saying hello. Some people still don't know who the hell I am, but that is okay, because you cannot expect that everyone in the world reads City Pages' website or vita.mn's website. On a related note, I am no longer scared of Star Quarterback. The Sunday before the finals, I made a beeline out of the room every time I made eye contact with him. The Sunday after the finals, I was able to be in the same room with him without having a seizure.

Not even 24 hours after I won, I got advice from a local comic. Some of it was valuable. Some of it was harsh. I'm sure I needed to hear all of it, I'm just not sure that I needed to hear "Winning the Funniest Person contest doesn't really mean anything" the very day after I won the damn thing. That said, we went to the Townhouse together that night, and a go-go boy picked me up as if I were a rag doll, and said comedian lambasted me for referring to myself as a Pinto. I thought about baseball to prevent myself from getting a boner, although the (heterosexual) go-go boy later told me that such an event would have been okay, as we are both human beings. He allegedly models for Foot Locker.

The one boy I thought I would impress with this victory could have given two shits. I'm not even gonna say his (code) name because if you're a regular reader of this thing, you know whom is being referenced. And that is okay (no, really, it is!), because I was silly to think that someone who uses phrases like "promoted laterally" and "retirement account" would be impressed that I won $1,000 for telling gay sex jokes.

And I don't mean for this entire post to sound like sour grapes, because I am flattered, and very grateful, and maybe I really am somebody, and the ridiculously attractive dude in the Express polo that said "Good job" turned out to be an established comic in his own right, and there were 20 judges in this competition, from aforementioned professional comics to local journalists to executives, and I finally have an accomplishment that my parents can tell their friends about, and while I pretend to hate that I work a retail gig at the mall that will never promote me, I will say that had it not been for that job, I would not have met someone who knew someone who desperately needed a comedian for a fundraiser, and it was not only at that show that I first felt like a "real" comic, but also the first night that I met the characters on "Loring Park" that are Liam, Devin and Michael, and everything really does happen for a reason, and the world is quiet, but God whispers.