Postaday for June 13th: Hear No Evil. Tell us about a conversation you couldn’t help but overhear and wish you hadn’t.
I don’t have a memory for that sort of thing.
I used to frequent Overheard in New York, which was funny before it got kind of trolly and judgmental. But, it’s been a while— maybe it’s good again? Itself spawned Overheard at The Beach, Overheard in the Office, Celebrity Wit, and, I just discovered on a recent visit to make sure it’s still there, Overheard Everywhere. So that’s those places covered.
And then there’s Kids Say the Darndest Things, and Shit My Dad Says, and a number of subreddits dedicated to people saying stupid stuff. TumblrInAction and ThatHappened, for example, getting back to the trolly and judgemental.
The truth is, no one will ever top the Lewis Black joke which includes the line he allegedly overheard: “If it wasn’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” Having done some stand-up myself, I know there’s nothing sacred and that things don’t have to be true to be funny. I also know that sometimes you can’t beat the truth. Whichever the case, Lewis Black wins, when it comes to overhearing something insane.
But like I said, I never remember that kind of thing. I would have been a terrible landlord on Three’s Company. I would not have overheard any conversations, would not have misinterpreted them, not jumped to any conclusions, and there would have been no ensuing hilarity based on that awkward misunderstanding. The show would have flopped in a matter of weeks. Jack Tripper might not have ever gotten that bistro started. And that would be a shame because, the way I hear it, Jack made a mean cassoulet.
Man, I do love a good cassoulet.
On the other side if things, I can be a little hyper-aware of other people around me when I’m talking about something controversial, and I find I add too much mitigating language. You know, so as not to offend someone who may have strong opinions about proto-feminist evolutionary jargonism in Super Mario Bros 2. (I drink a lot; sue me).
Maybe I should go the opposite way. Maybe I should have fascinatingly stupid conversations with people, just so that folks who overhear it can go tell their friends, or blog about it, or best of all, start a whole website.
“So I’m sitting in this bar drinking a Lime Ricky, and not loving it at all because they used Hayman’s instead of Monkey 47, I mean, for the love of Krist Novoselic, do we live in Seattle, or is this the Pearl District. Anysquare, I’m trying to get through my drink, when my phone dies— so much for the Daily Bugle podcast I was listening to. Just when I was thinking I should get up and go browse the car repair store across the street— you know, to make an ironic blog post about it— I overhear these two people behind me talking about chess, if you can believe it. And one guy’s like, You know, in the Spanish Opening, and the other guy’s like, You mean the Ruy Lopez? And the first one’s all, No one calls it that. And the other one says, Well, Spanish Opening sounds racist to me. And the first one’s all, Then what do you call d4 Nf6 c4 g6? And he goes, I would never play that. And the first guy’s like, Why, because ‘King’s Indian’ sounds racist too? And the guy goes, No, because Bobby Fischer played it, and he’s an anti-semite, and the first guy’s getting mad, and he says, But you played the Scotch Game through five tournaments! And the other guy goes So? And he’s all like, That was Kasparov’s favorite opening! And the other guy goes So? And he’s all, Kasparov is from Azerbaijan! They’ve been charged with human rights violations out the ying-yang! And it was all I could do not to turn around and scream at the guy for using ‘ying-yang, I mean, talk about racism, why not channel a Chinese version of Rachel Dolezal, ya Nazi?”
Meh. Probably never happen. No one I know knows that much about chess.