2008 – Young Love

Addresses: SE 15^th and Ash; SE 52^nd and Clinton

I Fired!

As I should have expected, I was fired from Holman’s. The blur of trauma from being conned had me crying at work, using my cell phone when I was supposed to be on the clock, and reaching out to everyone I knew (which wasn’t a long list and included all of my coworkers, some of whom were immediately sick of my shit).

The owner told me some excuse about how it was because I was shutting down the grill too early on my late night shifts but it was definitely because I was a wreck, and obviously unhappy. Much of being at Holman’s reminded me of being conned, as some of the worst realizations came while I was flipping burgers there. I’d also once been seriously injured by burning both of my hands on the flat top grill, and once opened a finger on the meat slicer. I wouldn’t miss the Saw movie I had been living.

The apprenticeship at Wine Down would end poorly, as Gregory Scott Wakefield was still out in the world, telling his fake story about cancer, and adding a footnote about how Evan and I were not to be trusted, had abandoned him in his recovery. Greg ended up in the bad graces of the owner of Wine Down, Stuart, and since I was associated with him I was branded untrustworthy and not invited back.

Kate and I kindof drifted apart around this time. I think it might have been my shame, not having work. The trauma had ended, and now came the healing. But when we reflect on it, we’re not exactly sure how we ended up apart, so much as it just happened and neither of us recalls one precipitating event that made it so. Perhaps the con job, a few traumatic occurrences with Kate’s roommates (two of them turned out to be on heroin), and a couple bad evenings were the thing. It’s a sort of a shrug. We don’t regret dating, and we don’t regret breaking up. It all just was.

II Fifteen-ish Comedians

I had found a friend group, thanks to comedy, and so I wasn’t lonely when we separated, and I focused on feeling better about the world, and my place in Portland. Starting comedy, I met Shane Torres, Jesse Allison, Tim Cornett, Whitney Streed, Keith Wallan, Richard Bain, Kyle Harbert, Rochelle Love, Auggie Smith, Susan Rice, Ron Osborne, Richie Stratton, Phil Schallberger, Arlo Stone, and Virginia Jones. I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple others, probably many others who are forgettable. But my point in making such a list is to illustrate that when I started comedy in Portland in 2007, there were about fifteen people who considered themselves comics, and we all hung out basically every night. Occasionally we’d have visitors from out of town, like the remarkable Ron Funches, who would roll into Portland with the dearly-departed Will Woodruff. Occasionally we’d have some of the more eccentric drop-ins come to a mic – Kelly Snow (RIP) would do a stream of consciousness from behind a thick mask of drug use. An out-of-towner who knew Dax Jordan would drop in at Suki’s, where Dax hosted.

Jesse and Shane had convinced me to keep coming to comedy last year. This year, they convinced me to help promote a new festival that their friend Andy Wood was putting on. I helped Shane and Jesse hang posters on telephone poles for something called the “Bridgetown Comedy Festival.” I remember not liking the name.

One day while smoking weed with Jesse, Shane, Phil Schallberger, and Richie Stratton, Phil pitched a joke: “If I had a dollar for every woman I’ve ever slept with…” He wanted help finishing it. My punchline won, and I got to keep the joke. “I would send it to her, because I’m a responsible dad.”

My years as a rapper prior to coming to Portland were all about finding a unique place in a musical scene in Pennsylvania that was predominantly made up of emo, metal, and punk kids. I liked all those bands, but I wanted to make politically relevant hip hop music. I made the decision to stick with it at an open mic at Holman’s, after I was fired. Shane had warned me not to say anything about the venue, and I stuck to my material, mostly jokes about George W Bush being a bad president, espousing vaguely anarchist ideology, mostly liberal outrage at Republican incompetence, and nodding to obscure conspiracy theories that made people laugh. Portland’s other twenty-something political comic, Kyle Harbert, approached me. Kyle, whose rapid-fire political obsessiveness was inspiring to me, was the first comic I looked up to in Portland. He came up to me after my set at Holman’s, which was pretty good, and said, “please keep coming out.” And he shook my hand. So that’s what I would do. Portland’s only other comic with primarily political material, Arlo Stone, wasn’t around that night.

Comedy had a lot in common with rap music, I observed often. I needed to memorize something precise, deliver it with gusto, wait for the audience to react, use wordplay, speak with a clear rhythm and cadence, properly annunciate for audience clarity, use a microphone correctly, dress the part, make the fullest use of a short amount of time, and learn from my mistakes. I had a leg up on other newly-starting comics in that I never really had issues speaking into a microphone at the proper volume and distance, I didn’t really have stage fright, and I was already confident that I had something to say of value. I had my voice figured out before I had material, which is to say I did basically the opposite of what most comedians do.

III The Spicy Pickle and Sukis

I was unemployed and on food stamps for a short while. I had made enough in the half a year I was at Holman’s to enjoy a bit of freedom, but I quickly applied for work and found it at the Spicy Pickle, a sandwich shop in downtown on the first floor of the Key Bank tower. The day of my interview, I was the first person to arrive at open, and the only other candidate had a two-foot blue mohawk and said to the interviewer, “if you wouldn’t hire me with this haircut, I wouldn’t work here.”

The Spicy Pickle was owned by a nice Republican lady named Jill who enjoyed being the den mother to a kitchen of twenty-something men, and a counter staff of 19-to-22 year old women. One of those women, Jeana Weddle, is in a constant competition with herself to try and sexually harass me into bed, which I find endearing and fun. That was the arrangement, and it seemed to go okay. But I quickly came into conflict with the kitchen manager, Alex, who was a bit of a know-it-all and who enjoyed trying to play the staff off of one another to increase productivity.

Eventually, I would embarrass Alex in front of a regional manager of the franchise by being an extremely competent manager (even though I wasn’t a manager). During a store visit by corporate, I took over and aced a food safety exam in front of Alex, and the owner, while he stood slack-jawed and she gawked, and Alex walked off the job out of frustration. Me and the gang from the Spicy Pickle celebrated after work with drinks and high fives. We’d slain the dragon.

I was now doing comedy regularly, and as such I was learning about new shows in town all the time where I might get a few extra minutes of stage time. There was a place near downtown called Suki’s, a dive bar in the first floor / basement of a Travelodge, that had a Tuesday night comedy show, and I wanted to check it out. As it turned out, there was also a Craigslist posting for cooks wanted, and I decided to bring my resume by and apply around late-March. I got a call about coming in to interview in early April, set up the interview on April 14^th, and I was hired for my second job on my birthday, the day I turned 24.

Comedy at Suki’s was a wild, crazy time. The bathrooms there were disgusting, infamously so. The bar was known as one of the smokiest dives in town, continuing my trend of working places that would reinforce my smoking habit. But what really affected me at Suki’s was the karaoke. It was one of the least-known, yet most highly-celebrated karaoke clubs in Portland. On my fourth shift, cooking when there wasn’t much cooking going on, I sang Pulp’s “This is Hardcore,” to Shadoe ,the birthday boy. Shadoe was a major part of a large crowd of regulars who I’d only describe as “theater people” or perhaps more accurately “sexy, dramatic weirdoes.” They would be in every weekend, singing and cavorting and wife-swapping and having a marvelously inebriated time sweating along to dance songs, performing musical numbers with titillating themes, belting out hilariously-reenacted versions of Monty Python, and doing choreographed dances to KJ Dick’s nightly ritual: every night, at “just about half past ten,” Dick (an effeminate gay man who loved to make innuendo on the microphone) would sing “It’s Raining Men.” I loved it, just like I learned to appreciate the dulcet tones of intoxicated college students banding together to scream-sing “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which Dick would ever-so-subtly pitch-shift to be one note lower, and slightly slower. The singers wouldn’t have fun, the song would drag on endlessly, and nobody else would try to sing the song again – at least for that night.

Suki’s also paid extremely well. The Spicy Pickle paid something like a $9 minimum wage plus a share of the tips based on hours worked – usually around $30 on a good week. Suki’s paid $9 to start, and in a given, single evening of Karaoke I would walk out with $40, plus they’d give me a few free drinks and I could eat what I wanted to eat. I worked both jobs for about 4 months, having only one day off per week. I built a savings doing this, as I didn’t have time to spend my paychecks, let alone the large pile of cash tips that was building up next to my bed.

IV Taylor Gray

One day at Suki’s, I was bringing ice to the bartender. A cute girl is sitting at the bar, smoking a cigarette. She smiles at me. I smile back.

An hour goes by. Again, I bring ice to the bartender. The cute girl has moved to a booth, and she is joined by Shane Torres, bartender form Holman’s and one of the only friends I have in town.

“I was wondering what a cute girl was doing by herself, but now I see you’re hanging out with this piece of shit,” I said to her. She and Shane had gone to high-school together, and been best friends since. Her name was Taylor.

She smiled. He laughed. I let them get back to their conversation.

A half hour elapses. I walk past their table again. Shane sits there alone, and gets my attention. “Hey, man. She’s really into you. Do you mind if I give her your phone number?”

No, I don’t mind. My dating life essentially consists of messaging people unsuccessfully on OKCupid, and feeling a sense of longing for someone who doesn’t mind that I smoke and do comedy. The only person I’ve successfully met online, Julia, basically just wanted to trade long emails and send each other links to music to check out. But here sits Taylor, smoking, with her best friend, who is also a budding comic.

Shane also says, “She’s my friend. Be good to her.”

May 16^th, I went to an El-P concert (I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead tour) with one of my coworkers. One of the openers, Busdriver, ends up becoming one of my favorite rappers. I ended up drunkenly making out with Erin Garza, a Spicy Pickle coworker, on the couch at another coworker’s house, where I proceeded to buy a bag of really smelly weed. Then, on my bus home, I pass out, drunk. Around 165^th and Sandy, the #12 bus driver wakes me up, saying “last stop.” I stumble off the bus to call a cab, and I see flashing lights. “Hands over your head! I can smell it from here!” The cop has obviously been tipped off to the weed smell coming from my pockets. I try to reach for my wallet and he screams, “do not put your hands in your pockets or I will shoot.” I didn’t even realize he had a gun drawn, it was dark and beginning to rain. “Do you have any needles in your pockets?” he asks. “NO!?” He pulls the weed bag out of my pocket. “Okay, kid, listen. This is a small amount. We can do this two ways. You can turn this in now, get a $350 ticket, and spend the night in jail. Or you can dump this out, grind it up on the sidewalk, and go home.” Without thinking, I open the bag, dump it on the wet sidewalk, and grind it to dust with my shoe. The cop leaves, the flashing lights are gone, I look down at what’s left of my $50 bag and see a pretty substantial nugget untouched by rain or shoe. I grab it, throw it back in a bag, call a cab, and head home. The cabby knows I’m drunk and not familiar with this part of town, blasts the heat, drives slowly in a few circles as I fade in and out again, and it ends up costing me nearly $45 for the trip. Still cheaper than the ticket.

After Taylor’s and my first date, we part ways – primarily because the night prior was the El-P concert and near-arrest. On our second date, just a day later, she had packed a toothbrush in her purse. We start seeing each other often. She stays at my house while I’m ending my late shifts at Suki’s. I let her borrow my keys. Marcy, a wise elder woman who works the bar at Suki’s, is my relationship coach. She tells me that she can tell Taylor and I are in love, and tells me to be cautious. I tell Marcy I’m going to marry Taylor, and she laughs. “Be cautious,” she repeats.

One day, while bored in my bedroom, Taylor counts the huge and growing pile of money next to my bed, and I realize I’m sitting on several thousand dollars. I decided to take Taylor out for a few wild nights – expensive meals, strip clubs (her choice), and all the drinks and smokes and tokes we can handle. We pay a stripper extra to slap Taylor in the face. I buy new clothes to upgrade my look, I become vainer and get haircuts more often. I want to look good on stage and I want to flirt with the theater people at work to make my tips increase. I wear cologne to mask the cigarette smell, and the fryer I work in front of.

After dating Taylor for a month, I buy a plane ticket home to see my family. While I’m back home, I start to get lonely. I realize that Taylor and I have been moving really quickly and that when I get back to Portland, I’m going to need to take a step back from our relationship. Marcy tells me to be cautious in a recurring daydream.

I’ve got so much excess cash lying around that I decide to stay back home for an extra week on a whim. I missed my family a lot, having spent the previous Christmas crying to them on the phone.

Jill, the owner of the Spicy Pickle, is not pleased with me for extending my trip another week while I’m away. Shortly after my return I end up quitting that job and going full time at Suki’s. The money isn’t great at the Spicy Pickle, it feels like a waste of my time, and my values are far more aligned with Suki’s – which may not be a great statement of my own values at the time, but the sense of debauchery – anything could happen there – was as intoxicating as the free drinks. And having more free time just sounded nice.

I asked Taylor to come meet me at Suki’s before my shift started. “I had some time to think about this while I was gone, and I think I want to be single again for a while. I am sorry but I hope you understand.” At the point I said this, Taylor was nowhere near understanding.

I break the news to Marcy that I’ve left Taylor. “Isn’t this the woman you said a month ago you wanted to marry?” I smirk. “I’m being cautious.”

But of course, just a few days later, Taylor and I get back together. We liked each other. It’s hard to have someone hate me, and makes me want to compromise on what I want, to make them happy.

IV Shut the Fuck Up Simon

My relationship with Evan became strained. He had very little ambition besides partying and playing video games, and that included taking care of the house or shopping for his own food. He ended up breaking the egg pan Mike had given me, which I used to practice flipping eggs. Evan broke my French Press making himself coffee, never replacing it. But worst yet was his entitlement to my stuff – my food, drinks, and possessions were his to use as he saw fit.

To wit: Evan would let his friends fuck on my bed without asking. I once turned on my bedroom light to find Evan’s friend Simon, pants down, getting his dick sucked on my bed by a girl he’d previously referred to as “the fat one.” I turned the light out, went to the living room, and waited for she and Simon to finish, which wasn’t long. But it was annoying and unnecessary. They could have just used the couch, so I could go to bed. Simon was a large oaf of a man, extremely unintelligent, huge muscles, square jaw. If Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers had Fry from Futurama’s hair, that would be Simon at age 20.

The last straw comes when Taylor is in my bed, waiting for me after work. She sends me a text message telling me that Evan came into my room, grabbed a bunch of my weed, and proceeded to smoke out the friends who are always over, Simon and Stephen. I come home furious, that my room is still not off-limits to Evan’s wanton lust to use things that aren’t his. I open his door, I yell at him. Simon, in the living room, tells me to stop yelling so he can sleep. My reply, callous but still cutting: “shut the fuck up, Simon. Why don’t you go face fuck a fat girl on my bed?”

You know an insult is effective when the person you’re insulting laughs. That’s knowledge I’ve carried with me since my battle rapping days. I tell Stephen he is far smarter than Evan and Simon and I don’t know why he hangs out with them, except that he gets to smoke my weed for free. “I hope it’s worth it,” I say.

I blast rap music to annoy Evan. He bangs on my door and tries to force his way in. It’s a bad show, especially as Taylor looks on from my bed. I try to defend myself with my walking stick, one I had carved sitting on the stoop at our last apartment, but Evan is much stronger than me and twists it from my arm, hurting me in the process. I don’t need this anymore.

I moved out of that apartment, and into Taylor’s, a week after this incident. Barack Obama has just secured the nomination to be the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, essentially ensuring that the next President is going to be a black man. Political comedy at the end of the GWBush era was a mix of gleeful celebration of his leaving office, and yearning for the reconstruction of the United States after some serious failures – 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, Enron, Katrina. Optimism was in the air in America. It was okay to hope again. Everyone was doing it.

 V How Not To Get Married

Taylor and I dated for a month, then were apart for a couple weeks during my vacation, then broken up about a week, and then got back together. It wasn’t long after that I was moving in with her, to evade the 18 year old who smoked all my weed and destroyed many of my kitchen utensils. It’s late-Spring. Taylor and I go out to comedy shows, hang out with Shane and the other 25 comedians in Portland, and we get along famously, if recklessly. Our relationship worked. She was short and feisty. Her energy was positive and sunny, sarcastic and cynical. She was really into Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson, and she would compare me to them. Flattery is a great way to get me to stick around.

Taylor had some boundary issues once we live together. She snooped through my phone and emails. She finds in my computer the emails Julia and I exchanged – several of which happened during mine and Taylor’s relationship, and within which I expressed some of the doubts about the relationship that led to my breaking it off. She feels betrayed that I maintained connection to Julia, though we’d become more friends and pen-pals than love interests. We’d never met, or attempted to meet.

I got hit on at work constantly. More than once I had to tell drunk people hitting on me that I had a partner to keep them at bay.

I remained faithful to Taylor. She’s a good partner, and I have no desire to hurt her. But herein is the problematic dynamic that will end up defining the next few years of my life. I will express as a brief conversation a dialogue that actually took place over several months.

Taylor: I’m afraid you’re going to break up with me again.

Me: No, I’m not. That was a mistake. I love you.

Taylor: Okay but I’m actually still afraid you’re going to break up with me like you did last time.

Me: No, Taylor, I promise you. I’m gonna love you forever.

Taylor: Look Shawn, I read your emails, I saw what you said about me, you broke up with me once before. I’m afraid that’s going to happen again.

Me: Taylor, I promise you we’re always going to be together. I will always love you. We’re going to get married some day.

Taylor: Shawn, look, I know how you really feel even if you’re not saying so and even if….

This proceeded. I was still sitting on some heaps of cash. I was walking in downtown Portland one day, and walked past the Ben Bridge jewelry store. I thought to myself, “I wonder if maybe this would help her believe me.” The next thing you know, I’m carrying a ring in a box out of the store, my wallet is $350 lighter, and I call her on the phone.

“You’ll never guess what I just bought you.” It was early September.

This is not a good way to get married, I will come to find out.

Standing in line at a courthouse waiting to pay a clerk for a sacred marriage license, we noted that there was simply a box on the form asking, “what will the bride’s name be after the marriage is complete?” and a similar box for the groom – this of course in the era of gender-restricted marriage. Neither of us had a particularly good relationship with our father, yet both of us bear our fathers’ names. A decision was reached.

George W Bush announces an economic collapse is happening in late September. My tips have already begun to dry up at work, after a spike mid-summer where they’d reached somewhat absurd levels – some nights I would pull in $150 or more in tips. Liquid cash became harder to come by. I started obsessively reading the partisan political news, and following economic indicators, and studying economics in my spare time.

Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in November. I cried. We ran out of the Bagdad Theater, where Arlo Stone was hosting for the night. We ran back and forth across Hawthorne, banging on pots and pans and high fiving strangers. This was the peak of the moment of America congratulating itself for ending racism. We all felt it.

That night a McCain supporter almost accidentally ran over me and Danny O’Brien-Bravi with his car. It was not a good day to be a Republican.

Taylor Blair Gray and Shawn Lee Fleek were married in a private ceremony at the house of Daniel O’Brien-Bravi and Jennifer Sonntag (who served as the officiant) on December 21, 2008. In attendance was Shane Torres, who introduced the couple, and Mister Bear, the white stuffed bear Shawn has had since Christmas 1993, who served as a ring Bear-er. Afterward, the couple are now known as Shawn and Taylor Gray-Fleek.

The wedding fell in the evening on the snowiest day of the Winter of 2008 snowstorm. We hiked from our house on 52^nd and Clinton to Jenn and Danny’s apartment, about six blocks away, in two and a half feet of snow. After the ceremony, we ate, had a few drinks, and made our way to North Bar, on the corner of Division and 50^th. There, we closed out our night holding hands and gazing boozily into each other’s eyes.