Frisco Del Rosario (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} frdelrosario) wrote,@ 2008-10-08 00:52:00 |
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I met comedian Maria Bamford after her San Francisco show Tuesday to buy CDs. I said I'll take one of each, and how much do I owe you.
"Twenty. Two times 10. Seven. Where did that come from?" she said, taking my twenty.
I blinked at her, partly in agreement that "seven" is an odd number to barge in on that sentence, and partly because I still wasn't sure how much I owed her. Was 'two times 10' a description of our transaction, or the price of a single CD? What if she thought I was trying to cheat her?
"I don't make sense sometimes," she said. "Would you like me to sign a special card for you?"
"Please do," I said, and she took a Sharpie to a picture postcard of herself that includes FAQ, a Mad Lib, jokes, and helpful advice.
While she was marking, I said at a breathless fanboy rate: "I left my notebook lying open on the table in front of me, and it might've looked like I was a thief and a horrible person!"
"Oh, no, you could not be a horrible person wearing that mouthful of hardware."
"They confiscated my notebook!"
"Did they return it?!"
"Yes."
"Are you a comedian too?" she said. Which I'm sure was a 100% nice question, but in this teeny-tiny, narrow context of the conversation — during which I said club management thought I might've been a plagiarist — I was a little shocked.
Someone with some guilty conscience might've said: "Jesus fuck no! Is this a test!?", but I said "I'm a sportswriter."
"That's a lot like what I do. Everybody has strong opinions," she said.
I laughed. "It *is* a lot like what you do, just not ..." I was gonna say "... as funny", but then I thought "What a suckup fanboy thing to say" and my voice trailed off.
"Hecklers," she said about our shared work experience.
I laughed, and I took off. I was all set to get home to write about my cool meeting with Maria Bamford — the postcard makes it official: "I officially met Maria Bamford. She is a comedian. She was pretty nice — if not slightly distracted and highstrung."
There's a page missing from my notebook.
***
Want to know what I was writing all night?
When I said I re-created the 1981 Phoenix Suns season with Statis Pro Basketball, friend Petrel (I think it was Petrel) said he did the same with the 1988 Golden State Warriors. Statis Pro Basketball is just the best tool for that type of long-range simulations, according to me and another guy who didn't go outside ever while the simulations were running.
I wondered how much Statis Pro boxes are selling for these days. I did some web searching.
I discovered a guy who develops Statis Pro card sets for the NBA annually (Hasbro/Avalon Hill stopped maintaining Statis Pro Basketball a dozen years ago), and also the WNBA.
I made a hypothesis:
I believe that the 2008 Phoenix Mercury's record would've been better if rookie Brooke Smith had played in more than 10 games.
I suggest that if I re-created the Mercury's season — while simulating 700 minutes played for Brooke Smith — I would win more games on paper (I improved on the real-life 1981 Phoenix team's record, yay).
I also made some wishes for the Pacific Tigers. On the page that's torn out of my book, I wished that forward Whitney Price shoots better than 80 percent from the line, which would improve her contribution in two ways, I think: 1) Whitney would get more points from the line, and 2) After opponents knew that consciously or not, I bet they'd be more reluctant to foul her, and she might get a little more space to create her floor shots.
And I wrote down a question for the drink waitress: "Have you ever spilled a tray from laughing?".
Food and drink servers astound me with their understanding of balance. Watch them shift glasses around on a tray before removing one. And how they walk around without spilling shit! But what happens if someone on stage just nails some joke that's of deep personal meaning for the waitress? I wrote that in my book to remind myself to ask the waitress later.
Halfway through the headliner's set, the floor manager peers into my notebook with a flashlight, and tells me that he has to take it. I nodded, and as he disappeared, that's when it hit me he thought I might have been stealing.
I was a bit freaked while my notebook was out of my possession. Was he gonna dig through *every* page looking for incriminating material? What's in that book?!
He returned it, and said: "If you have to write anything down while you're here — even if it's a note for yourself — take it outside."
Of course I agreed with that, and put the notebook away. At the end of the show, I looked for the manager so I could apologize (which means I didn't look for the waitress to ask her if she's ever lost her balance to a punchline). "I'm sorry," I said. "That must've looked horrible!"
"It's OK," he said, and I got in line to meet Maria Bamford, thinking no more about the episode until I opened the notebook here on my desk.
Cripes, dude. I jotted a question for your waitress — who did a great job, but I don't like the cream liqueur you've put in place of Bailey's — and reminded myself that I wish a forward in Stockton to improve both of her shooting percentages. What's offensive about that to you personally, or club management officially?
Maria Bamford supports me in my journey of scribing notes about women's basketball in coffeehouses, elementary school cafeterias, and comedy clubs before the opener goes on.
"Twenty. Two times 10. Seven. Where did that come from?" she said, taking my twenty.
I blinked at her, partly in agreement that "seven" is an odd number to barge in on that sentence, and partly because I still wasn't sure how much I owed her. Was 'two times 10' a description of our transaction, or the price of a single CD? What if she thought I was trying to cheat her?
"I don't make sense sometimes," she said. "Would you like me to sign a special card for you?"
"Please do," I said, and she took a Sharpie to a picture postcard of herself that includes FAQ, a Mad Lib, jokes, and helpful advice.
While she was marking, I said at a breathless fanboy rate: "I left my notebook lying open on the table in front of me, and it might've looked like I was a thief and a horrible person!"
"Oh, no, you could not be a horrible person wearing that mouthful of hardware."
"They confiscated my notebook!"
"Did they return it?!"
"Yes."
"Are you a comedian too?" she said. Which I'm sure was a 100% nice question, but in this teeny-tiny, narrow context of the conversation — during which I said club management thought I might've been a plagiarist — I was a little shocked.
Someone with some guilty conscience might've said: "Jesus fuck no! Is this a test!?", but I said "I'm a sportswriter."
"That's a lot like what I do. Everybody has strong opinions," she said.
I laughed. "It *is* a lot like what you do, just not ..." I was gonna say "... as funny", but then I thought "What a suckup fanboy thing to say" and my voice trailed off.
"Hecklers," she said about our shared work experience.
I laughed, and I took off. I was all set to get home to write about my cool meeting with Maria Bamford — the postcard makes it official: "I officially met Maria Bamford. She is a comedian. She was pretty nice — if not slightly distracted and highstrung."
There's a page missing from my notebook.
***
Want to know what I was writing all night?
When I said I re-created the 1981 Phoenix Suns season with Statis Pro Basketball, friend Petrel (I think it was Petrel) said he did the same with the 1988 Golden State Warriors. Statis Pro Basketball is just the best tool for that type of long-range simulations, according to me and another guy who didn't go outside ever while the simulations were running.
I wondered how much Statis Pro boxes are selling for these days. I did some web searching.
I discovered a guy who develops Statis Pro card sets for the NBA annually (Hasbro/Avalon Hill stopped maintaining Statis Pro Basketball a dozen years ago), and also the WNBA.
I made a hypothesis:
I believe that the 2008 Phoenix Mercury's record would've been better if rookie Brooke Smith had played in more than 10 games.
I suggest that if I re-created the Mercury's season — while simulating 700 minutes played for Brooke Smith — I would win more games on paper (I improved on the real-life 1981 Phoenix team's record, yay).
I also made some wishes for the Pacific Tigers. On the page that's torn out of my book, I wished that forward Whitney Price shoots better than 80 percent from the line, which would improve her contribution in two ways, I think: 1) Whitney would get more points from the line, and 2) After opponents knew that consciously or not, I bet they'd be more reluctant to foul her, and she might get a little more space to create her floor shots.
And I wrote down a question for the drink waitress: "Have you ever spilled a tray from laughing?".
Food and drink servers astound me with their understanding of balance. Watch them shift glasses around on a tray before removing one. And how they walk around without spilling shit! But what happens if someone on stage just nails some joke that's of deep personal meaning for the waitress? I wrote that in my book to remind myself to ask the waitress later.
Halfway through the headliner's set, the floor manager peers into my notebook with a flashlight, and tells me that he has to take it. I nodded, and as he disappeared, that's when it hit me he thought I might have been stealing.
I was a bit freaked while my notebook was out of my possession. Was he gonna dig through *every* page looking for incriminating material? What's in that book?!
He returned it, and said: "If you have to write anything down while you're here — even if it's a note for yourself — take it outside."
Of course I agreed with that, and put the notebook away. At the end of the show, I looked for the manager so I could apologize (which means I didn't look for the waitress to ask her if she's ever lost her balance to a punchline). "I'm sorry," I said. "That must've looked horrible!"
"It's OK," he said, and I got in line to meet Maria Bamford, thinking no more about the episode until I opened the notebook here on my desk.
Cripes, dude. I jotted a question for your waitress — who did a great job, but I don't like the cream liqueur you've put in place of Bailey's — and reminded myself that I wish a forward in Stockton to improve both of her shooting percentages. What's offensive about that to you personally, or club management officially?
Maria Bamford supports me in my journey of scribing notes about women's basketball in coffeehouses, elementary school cafeterias, and comedy clubs before the opener goes on.
