My wife said she wanted me to take her someplace she’s never been.


So I said, “How about the kitchen, you fucking whore?!”
– Henny Youngman Kinison (National Lampoon Magazine joke)

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Ah, the corporate gig.  An opportunity for a comic to get paid to say the same dick jokes we tell for free multiple times a week.  An opportunity to bomb, since you were booked by the one person interested in comedy, to perform for a large group of people who couldn’t care less.  But, you know, money.


I was once offered a wedding gig through a fellow comic, a Swede.  A friend of his was getting married and their guests were international, so they wanted a comic who could perform in English.  Said Swedish comic didn’t feel confident enough in his own English ability to handle it himself, so he asked me if I was interested.  Certainly I was interested in money I mean an artistic performance.


Mind you, I didn’t know the happy couple at all.  We bounced a few messages back and forth online, they gave me a general idea of what they were looking for, and we made plans to meet up for coffee.  Not surprisingly, this kept getting bumped and rescheduled and never actually happened, as they were far too busy with wedding planning to bother with me.

When the day came, I arrived at the venue- a lovely locale near a lake in Stockholm- and waited outside until it was my turn.  The groom was Swedish, the bride was Eastern European, and I listened as letters were read in Swedish and then again in English so that everyone could understand.


Finally, it was my turn.  I stood along one side of the horseshoe-arranged tables, the wedding pair sitting well off to my right.  It was my first time seeing them at all and they looked nice and happy.  I don’t remember my set, just that I kept it family friendly and ended with a corny line I stole from the speech my best man gave at my first wedding.


Afterwards, I went back outside and was quickly caught up to by a member of the wedding party, who happily asked me to stick around until the couple could come out to thank me.  It wasn’t long before they did so, smiling ear to ear.  The groom was a skinny giant; standing close to me while we talked, I had to bend my neck nearly ninety degrees backward to keep eye contact.


I didn’t have that problem talking with the bride.  If anything, I had the opposite problem.  I didn’t notice anything when I first saw them for the first time, seated at the table; perhaps she’d been sitting on a booster seat.  She was a little person, the top of her head barely reaching her new husband’s waist.  Sweet, though, and happy with my set, so I was happy as well.


As I left the venue, I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t met them before the wedding, because I knew that all I would’ve been able to come up with would be inappropriate jokes at their (her) expense.  In fact, I then proceeded to do just that.  I can’t remember them now, only that one was vicious and one was something about them saving money on the honeymoon flight since he could stuff her in the overhead compartment.  Of course I would go on and tell these jokes several times over the coming weeks, as part of my set at various clubs.  


A few months later, it was time for the Fall season premiere of my club, Crossfire.  It looked to be a good night, we actually had a crowd, which was far from the norm.  I hosted, as usual, and I got as far as, “This summer, I was asked to perform at wedding…” before locking eyes with the bride, sitting at a table across the room, her legs dangling off the floor.


Now, being the professional that I am, I quickly recovered.  “… and I’m not gonna talk about that tonight.”