The folks running the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest tell us that the first round, featuring all twelve contestants, will start at two PM.
The second round will start at five.
Yep. There are going to be two stages! I have to do two routines.
Or maybe not.
Because you don’t make it to the second round unless you’re one of the top six in the first.
While Uncle Frankie (and everybody else) heads off to a restaurant called Legal Sea Foods (I guess that means they don’t smuggle their clams) for a quick bowl of “chowda,” I head backstage to check things out.
And guess who’s in the dressing room?
One of my all-time favorite comics—Boston’s own Billy Creme. He’s wearing the same black leather bomber jacket and white T-shirt he wore in his first HBO special.
You’ve probably seen or heard Billy Creme in movies. Like that one where he’s the night watchman at an art museum where all the paintings come to life and he has that cream-pie fight with the ghost of Vincent van Gogh. Or that cartoon where he’s the voice of the octopus in the sunglasses whose catchphrase is “Let me lend you a hand, pal. I’ve got eight of ’em.”
He’s also one of the best stand-up comics on the circuit and a major headliner in Las Vegas.
“Excuse me, sir,” I say, “I don’t mean to gawk, but, well, I’m a big fan. You’re one of my idols!”
“Thanks, Jamie.”
“You, uh, know my name?”
“Sure thing. Caught a clip of your act on YouTube. Funny, funny stuff. I can see why you won New York.”
“Gosh, thank you, Mr. Creme. Coming from you that means the world to me.”
“My pleasure, pal. Can’t wait to see what you lay down today. I’m rooting for ya.”
“Really?”
“Sure. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll take third or fourth.”
“Huh?”
“Either that, or Mr. Congeniality. Lots of luck with that.”
Before I can figure out what just happened, a kid who looks exactly like a Mini-Me version of Billy Creme, down to the bomber jacket and T-shirt, shuffles into the dressing room.
“Hey, Little Willy!” says Billy Creme. “Meet Jamie Grimm. He’s, you know, handicapped.”
“No,” says snarky Little Willy. “What gave it away, cousin? His wheelchair, or did he show you his IQ test?”
Billy Creme laughs. “Good one, Little Willy.”
“Hey, Jamie. Your hair. What’s up with that? Are you auditioning to become the Dutch Boy on the paint cans?”
My former idol, Billy Creme, is cracking up.
“And what’s with that vest? Is it 1974 in here or something? No. Wait. I get it. That’s a life jacket to stop you from drowning in your own sweat. Maybe you can use your seat cushion as a flotation device, too!”
I have no idea what to say. A guy I really looked up to just threw me under the bus, and now a mini-version of him is backing the bus up to finish me off.
You know that four-and-a-half-hour drive from Long Beach to Boston?
It’s gonna feel a whole lot longer when I head home a loser.
And we haven’t even started the first round yet.
Chapter 39
FUNNY MEETING YOU HERE
I’m waiting in the wings, feeling nauseous and wondering why my fingers are tingling while my head is throbbing. Might have something to do with my heart racing along like a jackrabbit that drank way too many Red Bulls.
The first round has already started. Little Willy Creme is onstage, killing big.
“They say that in thirty years, one out of every three American schoolchildren will be obese,” Little Willy snarls like he could care less. “The other two will be starving, I guess, because the fat kid ate all the food in the cafeteria. Totally Hoovered out all the serving pans.”
The audience is laughing like hyper hyenas.
And then things get even worse.
I see her.
“Hey, Jamie!” she whispers.
It’s Judy Nazemetz. She was in the New York State contest with me and was very nice and extremely funny—sort of a Tina Fey Jr. She’s also the star of a new Disney Channel sitcom.
But somehow, in the New York State competition, I beat her.
Which leads me to wonder: What the heck is she doing here?
“Hey, Judy,” I whisper back.
“Guess you’re surprised to see me again, huh?”
I do my best What? Me? Surprised? face.
“Nah,” I say. “You were fantastic at that gig in New York.”
“You were funnier. But it turns out the judges got to pick a wild card contestant.”
“Really?” I say, wishing my voice hadn’t cracked on the ee part. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. Me neither, till last week. My agent got a call from Joe Amodio.”
Oh, boy. Joe Amodio is the big-shot executive producer of the whole Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic competition.
“It’s like that TV show America’s Got Talent,” Judy continues. “All the judges from all the state competitions in the Northeast got together, looked at tapes, and ta-da—they picked me to move on to the regionals.”
“So you get a second shot?”
“Yeah. Of course I had to beg the people at Disney for some time off from the show so I could prep.”
“Of course,” I say, like I know what it’s like to have my own sitcom.
“I just hope I don’t bomb.”
“You won’t,” I say.
We smile at each other for a couple of seconds.
Then she gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Good luck out there, Jamie. Knock ’em dead.”
“Ditto!”
She bounds off. So now I have Little Willy and Judy, the girl with her own TV show, to worry about.
Maybe this is why I’m sweating so much.
And why I can’t remember a single punch line or setup.
This is not good.
Because Little Willy just finished up and the emcee is calling my name.
Stevie Kosgrov is about to have his fondest dream come true.
He’s about to see me die onstage.
Chapter 40
WILL JAMIE CHOKE? FIND OUT NOW!
My mouth is totally dry.
But my forehead and armpits are spritzing like a berserk watering can cursed by an angry garden gnome.
I roll out to center stage and fiddle with the microphone, lowering it and realizing that in my chair, I am even shorter than Little Willy.
A dusty white spotlight is beaming at me from far off in the distance. I sort of wish it were the bright headlight of an oncoming train that could put me out of my misery. But there’s one good thing about being up here in the spotlight: It totally blinds you. The audience becomes a murky silhouette of bobbing heads. I can’t see Stevie in the front row. Or any of my friends. All I can sense is that there’s a beast out there, one that comics call the Audience. And it’s a beast I have to slay.
“Uh, hi. I’m Jamie Grimm.”
“Woo-hoo!” shouts Gilda, off in the darkness to my right. I recognize her voice. “Go, Jamie!”
“Oh, great,” I ad-lib. “My mother’s here.”
The audience laughs. They don’t know my mom is dead, and I’m not about to tell them because, like I said, they’re LAUGHING!
I decide to play it safe. Go with the stuff I know works every time I drag it out.
“You see me in this wheelchair and I know what you’re thinking. Man, he must save a ton of money on running shoes.”
More laughs.
“You know, I have to wonder, couldn’t they come up with a better name for this thing?” I point at my wheelchair. “I mean, come on. Wheelchair? How lame is that? Oh, I see. It’s a chair. With wheels. We’ll call it, oh, I don’t know, how about the Wheelchair?”
More laughs.
So I put on a stilted voice with a thick accent like I’m someone who’s just learning English. “ ??
?Wheelbarrow. Wheelchair. The wheels on the bus go around and around.…’ ”
I do my bit about how great it is to have handicapped parking, even though the guy on the sign always looks like he doesn’t get enough to eat.
“Check this out,” I say, holding up a handicapped-parking placard.
“I mean, how does that skinny little pencil neck even support the guy’s bowling ball head? Actually, he looks like one of the little pinhead people you stick in your plastic car when you play the Game of Life. Except his arms come out of his stomach. How handicapped is this dude? And how do we really know it’s not a sign designating parking for people squatting on beanbag chairs?”
Since they’re still chuckling, I take the crowd on a guided tour of what’s inside the hidden world of the handicapped bathroom. “You roll in, a lady offers you hand towels, a guy hands you breath mints. There’s also a Jacuzzi, free snacks, and much fluffier toilet paper.”
Then I do another bit I’ve done before about what the world looks like from my point of view.
“Belt buckles and belly button jewelry. That’s what you see when you live your life at waist level. I hope I never go to Texas. Have you seen the bling in some of those cowboy belt buckles? A guy like me could go blind. And trust me, you don’t want to be sitting at butt level on Beanie Weenie day in the cafeteria.”
I end by talking about my dream wheelchair.
“One of those electronic numbers with the joystick on the handle. That way I can roll up the sidewalk and play Madden NFL Football on my Xbox at the same time.”
That gets a laugh and applause, so I quit while I’m ahead (or at least not dead).
“Thank you! I’m Jamie Grimm! You guys have been great. But I gotta go. Seriously. Somebody point me toward the bathroom with the Jacuzzi!”
Okay. I know I wasn’t great. I might’ve even broken my own rule and played the pity card—doing an entire set about me and my wheelchair.
I have to admit—I was psyched out by the Return of Judy and Billy Creme’s Mini-Me, Little Willy.
And yes, it didn’t help that there was a kid from Maine who actually dressed up like a monkey with cymbals and told insult jokes.
Fortunately, Monkey Boy came in seventh.
And I came in sixth.
Which means I barely squeaked my way into the second round.
Judy Nazemetz and Little Willy?
They were number one and number two.
Chapter 41
NO RISK, NO REWARD
We take a one-hour break between rounds.
“So long, Grimm,” says the boy in the monkey costume as he packs up his cymbals. “If you want some of me, you know where to find me. I’ll be in the audience. Cheering against you.”
Yes, reality is definitely starting to feel pretty unreal.
But I’m not dreaming. I’m competing, as Gaynor, my corner man, reminds me when he comes backstage to give me a pep talk.
“Yo, dude. Not bad.”
“Not bad?”
“Totally. But you know and I know—you can do a whole lot better.”
“What about Judy Nazemetz and Little Willy?”
“They were funny. But, dude, they weren’t Jamie Grimm funny.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. If, you know, you can be serious about comedy. Just go for it. Don’t hold back. Fly like a bird. A free bird.”
And then he diddles out an air guitar solo. (That old Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Free Bird” is Gaynor’s favorite.)
I know he’s right.
I didn’t get this far by playing it safe. Hey, if I wanted safety, I would’ve never had this crazy idea that, no matter what, I could be a comedian.
So I decide to risk everything.
When round two starts and the emcee calls my name the second time, I go out and do nothing but brand-new material. Stuff I’ve never tried anywhere. It’s a little like doing a high-wire act blindfolded while juggling chain saws. Very scary, but totally thrilling.
I make up a bit about Godzilla moving to the suburbs to become a “sanitation engineer” who guzzles Dumpsters full of garbage and uses his powers for good instead of evil. That leads me to a tangent about other out-of-work movie monsters.
King Kong gets a job washing skyscraper windows.
“He licks the Empire State Building clean in like two minutes flat. Buffs the windows with his fur. Gives it a good coat of gorilla wax.”
Bruce, the shark from Jaws, pulls himself together and goes to work for Bubba Gump Shrimp.
Then I start talking about how I can’t wait till I’m sixteen and get to go cruising with hot chicks like my hot friend Gilda in my hot red Staaang. I hit the word hot a lot. Get into a rhythm.
“Hot cars used to have cool names,” I say. “Mustang. Corvette. Thunderbird.” I milk each name. Linger on it. “People used to sing songs about those cars. Nowadays? Hello, is anybody writing songs about their Prius?”
I say Prius so it sounds sort of prissy and sing a little jingle I make up on the spot.
“Come see-us, in our Pri-us. Wouldn’t want to be-us, in our Pri-us.”
People are holding their sides, slapping their knees.
“How about that Nissan Cube?” I put on my suave voice. “ ‘Hey, baby. Wanna hop in my Cube? It’s so square, it’s six squares in one.’ And then there’s the Chevy Avalanche. A car that sounds like it’s falling apart before you even buy it…”
The audience is laughing so hard, I don’t really even hear them anymore.
I feel them. It’s like I’m a surfer riding the waves, shooting the curls, almost wiping out, but fighting to hang on to my board.
It’s basically great.
When I’m done, I can’t remember half the stuff I riffed about.
But apparently, it was pretty good.
“You were awesome!” says Judy Nazemetz when she hugs me the second I roll offstage. “It’s gotta be down to you or Little Willy.”
“Yeah. He was funny. But so were you.”
She shrugs. “Meh. Maybe. But, Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“You funnier!”
Chapter 42
AND THE WINNER IS…
Turns out, Judy was wrong.
She comes in second. Little Willy is third.
And yes—that means what you think it means.
I won!
Thanks to totally winging my round-two performance, I am officially crowned the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest’s Northeast Regional Champion. I’m moving on to the semifinals in Las Vegas, just like Gilda said I would. And so is Judy Nazemetz. There are eight regions in the competition. Each one sends its top two comedians to Las Vegas for the semifinals. The judges also get to pick two of their favorite losers for Vegas wild card slots.
But that’s not what’s worrying me right now.
I just remembered. I called Gilda a hot chick in my act. I wonder if she heard me say it?
Uh, duh. Of course she did. I had a microphone!
I hope she wasn’t offended. I wonder if Gilda even knows how cute she is? I also wonder if I should be thinking this kind of stuff right now, especially without first getting permission from Pierce and Gaynor, my partners on the triple date.
“We was robbed!”
Billy Creme and his Mini-Me rudely interrupt all my Gilda thoughts. They have stomped onstage and are shouting at the panel of judges seated in the front row.
“Willy was way funnier than Nazemetz and Grimm combined!” shouts Billy Creme, whose next movie I’m pretty sure I’m going to skip.
“Way funnier,” echoes Little Willy. “How could you pick those two over me? You people are so dumb, you’re like an experiment in artificial stupidity!”
“See?” says Cousin Billy. “He’s still being funny.”
“And you?” Little Willy points to the judge in the middle. “If your brain was made of chocolate, it wouldn’t fill an M&M.”
For whatever reason, I roll onstage.
Th
e spotlight swings over to me.
“Um, wouldn’t that just be an M?” I shrug. “Just saying.”
And I roll offstage.
First the audience cracks up. Then they start to chant.
“Jay-mee, Jay-mee!”
I can hear Gilda leading the cheer. And Gaynor and Pierce and Uncle Frankie and Aunt Smiley and…
No.
Stevie Kosgrov?
“Jay-mee!”
Yep. That’s him.
“Our decision is final,” says the head judge in a dull drone, like he just woke up. When he stands, I recognize the curly tangle of wispy hair under his baseball cap.
It’s Steven Wright! One of my comic heroes and a Boston local!
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says, “my watch is three hours slow and I can’t fix it. So I’m moving to Los Angeles.” Then he peers over to the wings. Squints. We make eye contact. “Good luck in Las Vegas, Jamie. You too, Judy. I’ll be there doing my act at the Orleans. It’s kind of a magic show. I have the power to levitate birds. But no one cares.”
Awesome! Steven Wright totally talked to me!
And that wasn’t even the best part of the night.
This was:
Chapter 43
HOMETOWN HERO
Monday morning, back at school, it seems I have risen to full-blown celebrity status.
Instead of shaking people down in the hallways, Stevie Kosgrov is selling “official” Jamie Grimm whoopee cushions.
“He sat on each and every one. In his wheelchair, people!” he cries like a carnival barker. “Check it out. Jamie Grimm funny fart balloons. The toot that’s a hoot.”
Talk about awkward. Teachers, even some I have never met, act like I’m their favorite student of all time.
The local TV news is here, too, interviewing people.
“Oh, I always knew Jamie Grimm was destined for greatness,” the principal says into a reporter’s microphone. “I figured he’d be famous long before he left Long Beach Middle School.”