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Sean Rouse opens the door of his hotel room and a rolling steam of hot vomit smell embraces me like religion. Sean walks through the crippling arthritis, jointless until he is medicated which won't be until after he has eaten. He has blisters of sweat on his forehead and calm horror on his face. He has puked the bed in his sleep again and now he can't hold down water. Welcome to The Dave Attell Insomniac Tour in progress, Boise, Idaho. |
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Sean walks like Frankenstien on Romper Stompers to the nearest eatery as he tells me about the night before. All of his stories have the same formula and are cruel to the listener. He gives you the setting, the characters and the build-up and just when it starts to get good he tells you that's where he blacked out. He may tell you what is now missing from his pockets or what he found on his shoe and let you try to piece together the missing hours but the only truely good Sean Rouse stories have to come from an eyewitness and not from the source. Rouse says he's afraid he won't be able to keep food in his stomach and immediately orders trout tacos. You will occasionally feel an obligation to tell someone when they appear to be spinning out of control. Sean is not one of these people. Sean is in the smaller category of people I believe know exactly how out of control they want to be and your concerns will only annoy them. Nonetheless, I offered a suggestion. |
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I told him that possibly - and since they have video equipment readily available on the tour - that if he were to see some raw footage of how he acts when he is in his pints that it may horrify him into another run at sobriety.
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"Ya, I don't think that would make any difference..." he says quietly without pretense, "because the problem is that I don't really give a fuck." He doesn't and maybe he shouldn't. Either way the trout tacos don't sit well so he orders raw oysters. They hit the spot and he orders chicken quesadillas. These are a bit too spicey. He asks what they have for dessert. This isn't a man who needs advice. |
The tour bus is trashed like a bachelor apartment, not filthy but without ego. The audiences are - from what I can gather - generally unruly to the point that a polite audience seems rude. Shots are coming before Prime Time televison has even begun. Attell and Rouse are seasoned and can handle it far better than I can. Dave is seasoned all around. Sean can last into the late night. I fall down early but then again I don't puke the bed. Pick your poison.
Point is - this is fucking magnificent. For me. 20 minutes in the middle and no bullshit. How long this can be fun for Attell is something else. Attell built a popular show based on doing what he loved. Hitting the road, bar hopping, smoking, drinking and goofing with folk. And now he can't walk into a bar without a thousand cocks trying to eat part of his soul.
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It's similar to how comedy itself was ruined for most comics. I used to love Evening at the Improv when I was a kid, a teen. And once I got into comedy I saw what was hackneyed and what was a trick. I saw all the bullshit and the allure of standup - of watching it - dropped by 80 percent before I ever got good. Fame and buses are great if you dont see the garbage that you now have to go thru just to do what used to simply fill your day. This is the reality show I'd like to see. |
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Take a sampling of all these work-a-day fame-voyeurs that think "Celebrities is a bunch of whinin' babies who have it made" and turn them into Stars. Give them all the red-carpet treatment and limosine service that they masturbate to in still-born fantasies. And once they have grown accustomed, let them try to eat breakfast with everyone in the restaurant staring at them chew. Maybe someone laughs at you when you dribble some egg yolk down your chin. Another whispers loud enough for you to hear that they think you have hair transplants.
But that's just breakfast. This follows you around every public moment. And after 77 people in a short day of eating a meal and picking up your excema medication, you finally say that you don't have the time to someone, that person snaps and calls you "all Hollywood and shit". Now you wake up and the front page of the tabloid shows a blurry photo of you "berating a fan". You walk outside and have papparazzi mobbing your driveway asking you why you hate your public. You spew out some answers only to later see ET show the most prolapsed stuttered misquote taken out of context as proof positive that you have gone over the edge.
Now you think you have a better perspective on how it is to live this life and you have learned your lesson. But its too late. An ex-girlfriend comes out and says you beat her. This is that one cunt you met at karaoke and you fucked her twice before she went psycho on you and you never called again. Now she's making headlines that you punched her after she refused to get an abortion. None of it is true but you begin to realize that truth has nothing to do with business. You think you couldn't be anymore irate when you see them following your Mother down the street asking what kind of childhood you had that made you beat women. The next day here come naked photos of you in a hotel shower. Paris Hilton is quoted saying what a small penis you have.
And so on.
That would be a fun show to watch. Please make that show.
No, Attell doesn't have this kind of scrutiny. But he likes to hang out in dive bars and drink and hit on odd women. And that is - on some manner - ruined for him.
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Not to say there is no fun to be had, quite the opposite. The phrase partying like rock stars has never been more appropriate if rock stars only partied with awkward young male hangers-on all trying to bone the one fat girl on her period. Cocaine sunrises over a landfill sized pile of empties hurt hard enough without the shame of bloodstained sheets and a condom that fell off midway through. I've seen those mornings and was happy not to be in the hunt this time. |
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Drugs and pussy. Even if you're not in the market, you still feel bad if it isn't offered to you occasionally. No-pressure shows allowed me to have fun on stage. You can never tire of being on a tour bus, sleeping in a moving vehicle is the most restful sleep a restless man can get. Nobody is funnier than Rouse and Attell.
Thanks for having me along.
stanhope