Unexpected Break
Hey, you guys. You may have noticed that I've been gone from the blog for a week. At least, I hope somebody noticed. Did anyone notice? A few of you? Hello?
Well, there's a simple explanation. It's not the fact that I was a teensy bit writer's blocked. I swear it's not that.
Also, it's not that I was serving as a witness in a hit-and-run trial that ended up taking forever, and the witness room was freezing, and I was stuck in there with three beat cops, whom I totally admire for their service and putting their lives on the line every day, but boy oh boy were these three a bunch of dundering Hercs.
And, it's not that I missed a week of writing because I was hustling trying to get my storytelling show, Real Characters, back on its feet. (Which I totally did, by the way!!! The next one is July 14th at McNally Jackson bookstore in SoHo, and the line-up is great. You should come out!)
The plain and simple truth is that I failed to update my blog, because I was kidnapped by a group of Bolivian drug lords, who snatched me off the sidewalk at Broadway and Canal and flew me back to Bolivia. I guess I happen to look exactly like their recently-murdered leader.
They were keeping his death a secret, and they needed me to pose as him for a week to root out the CIA mole in their paramilitary cartel. So, they dressed me in his fatigues, and I had to carry this real heavy machine gun everywhere, and it was so humid. Also, I had to Just For Men my blonde beard brown, which was sad.
Have you ever seen the movie Dave, where Kevin Kline poses as the President? Well, it was kinda like that, except Dave, itself, is a take-off on an older Richard Dreyfuss/Raul Julia movie called Moon Over Parador set in a South American dictatorship. I had never seen it, but the Bolivians were all about it. The whole time they were explaining the to me the posing-as-their-El-Jefe-thing, they kept referencing Moon Over Parador.
And, I'm like, "What's Moon Over Parador? You mean Dave?" And, they were all like, "WHAT?! You've never seen Moon Over Parador? But, it has Jonathan Winters and Sammie Davis Junior! You have to see Moon Over Parador!"
So, we Netflixed Moon Over Parador and had a movie night in one of the tents. And, honestly, it was a really solid movie. Dreyfuss chews the scenery a bit, but when does he not? I mean, that's part of the fun. And Raul Julia? God, he was great. Wasn’t he great?
That same night, some guy named Jorge tried to garrote me with piano wire in my sleep, and I thought we had our mole. But, the Bolivians said that that's just how Jorge is sometimes. He was drunk and thought I was his brother.
This is kind of a long story. Is this too long for you guys? Because, as it was happening, it seemed so exciting; but as I write it out, it seems kinda long. Anyway…
Turns out the mole was my mistress/nurse, Elena, which should have been obvious looking back on it. Man, she was a great dancer, though.
Once the Bolivians killed their mole, they were going to shoot me as well and toss my body into the small village they were burning down. But, I did this funny impression of Richard Dreyfuss’s impression of the Paradorian dictator. And, I guess it was good enough that instead of killing me, they just tied me up in a duffle bag and threw me into the river to drown.
But, I’ve told you guys about attending Magic Camp the summer after sixth grade, right? I haven’t? Oh, well that’s a great story I’ll tell you about later. Point being, I have escaped literally dozens of times from chained, underwater duffle bags. So no big deal.
I hitched a ride back to New York inside a crate of fair trade coffee. It’s a good thing the drug-sniffing dogs couldn’t smell me through all the coffee beans, because holy baloney I reek of drugs. And also the death of innocents.
So… long week, you guys. Sorry I didn’t update the blog more. I wasn’t getting very good wifi on my iPad in the camp. Plus, all the comedy I was writing was about Montezuma’s revenge, which is hacky and played out. They say, “write what you know,” but I deleted it.
[sigh]
Alright, well, more soon. Glad to be home.
— Andy
