Under the Sea & AXS TV

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• January 26, 2015

On the sandy floor of the ocean, off the coast of southern Florida, I let out what was left of the air in my lungs so I could be still for a moment longer, taking in the serenity of the fish swaying with the currents on the coral reef.  To my left, a barracuda eyed my earring that caught rays of sunlight.  It didn’t phase me at all.  It’s here, where I’m out of my element, unable to breathe, that I feel calm.  Relaxed.  That godforsaken word.  I understand it down here.

Rewind.  Only four days prior.  I’m standing on a taped marked spot on the floor of Gotham Comedy Club, ready to make my national television debut as a stand up comic.  I was nervous.  I’d been sick all week from a sinus infection.  I was terrified that my throat would dry up on stage.  I lost four pounds that week from being ill and perhaps, nerves.  I’d been to a few AXS tapings before.  I knew how hot the crowds were.  Sinbad was on stage, joking with the warm up comic during the commercial break.  Sinbad.  And he was about to introduce me.  “Just take a deep breath before you go up,” comedian Carol Montogomery said earlier in the green room.  Okay.  I can do that.  And Joe DeVito, a good friend and also on the show had leaned in and said to me, “you are here because you deserve this.”  Yes… After hundreds of shitty open mics, and bar shows, this was the reward.  Do you want to know what it feels like to have your dream come true?  It feels like you’re going to throw up.

“This is her TV debut,” Sinbad announced, “Lori Palminteri.”

Deep breath.

I don’t know why I thought it was even possible that I’d forget my jokes.  I’d done some of those jokes literally hundreds of times.  And I’d been running the set verbatim all week.  Don’t try to enjoy it, enjoy it.  This is your reward.  After the first two jokes, I settled.  Oh yeah, this is what I’ve been doing almost every night for five years.  I’m good at this.  This is the best.  And it was.  It was the best.  The feeling of enthrallment ran through my veins.  I’ve been a junkie for five years getting high off comedy, but this was the next level.  I’ll be chasing this feeling my whole life.  I’m totally screwed.

This is why eight hours after my television debut I was on a plane headed to Florida.  Life has been overwhelming–in the good way–but I’ve been going non stop for months and I just needed to put the brakes on myself to comprehend it.  Plus, I’d been having reoccuring dreams about going to the ocean, surfing, and having conversations with sea animals.  A manta-ray told me I needed to go in the ocean.  I was taking following my dreams very literally.

The timing couldn’t have been better.  One of my good friends is a medical student in southern Florida and she was actually off for a change.  I’d be fresh off what was essentially one of the greatest nights of my life, and both of us would have time to chill out, and be our silly selves.

After the show, I was all adrenaline and endorphins.  My parents were so proud.  Sinbad had repetitively called back to my joke about my Dad being a rapist.  But my Dad has an unmatched sense of humor and he thought it was hilarious.  Between my family, friends, and fellow comics who came out to the show, and the amount of text messages I was receiving for support, made the experience all the more enjoyable.  Comics are insecure people.  At least, for the time being, all the doubts I ever had about pursuing comedy disappeared.  What made it better were all the people cheering me on.  Despite all the times I’ve felt completely alone in my journey, I never was.

Only hours later, I stood in the airport watching the sunrise, all cotton candy pink.  I’ve spent the majority of my life making up stories in my head for the people that I observe.  I turn them into characters and envision their lives, and what it’s like to be them.  Often times, wishing we could swap places, even if everything I knew about them was a lie I made up.  The sun crawled over the horizon, and I was happy to be Lori Palminteri.  I’d like to be her for a while.

The sea cleansed my sinuses.  For the first time in months, I could breathe freely from both nostrils.  Fucking New York winters.  It is my firm belief that the ocean cures all, from physical ailments to mental.  The answers are always at the beach.  In Florida, I slept a lot, I ate well, I swam and exercised, and spent quality time with one of my favorite people on the planet.  If we had restart buttons that were only accessible by a small needle, I had pushed mine.  Life back in New York would be rapid fire, as usual.  Cold, little sleep, working my ass off, too busy for a dating life.  I love that lifestyle.  I have plans.  I have ideas.  I need to give birth to them.

It is more than likely that the highlight of my year has passed.  You’re on top of the world one day, then at a shitty open mic the next.  That’s comedy.  That’s the game I’m in.  It’s likely things are going to get worse before they get better again.  I felt like I needed to accept this before I went back.  And my anxiety and panic attacks (panic attack free almost five months!), and manic depression, they’re bound to make a comeback at some point.

On my last day in Florida, my friend and I rented a kayak on the Loxahatchee river.  We wanted to go snorkeling again, but it was a bit overcast.   We asked the girl at the rental place, who was about my age, if it was possible to snorkel in the river.  “Oh no,” she said, “you don’t want to do that.”  Okay.  I handed her my New York State driver’s license for the rental, and we went on our way.  Despite being a jaded and cynical New Yorker, I’m also a bit of a nature hippie, and kayaking on the river was awesome.  I joked that we needed a John Williams soundtrack (oh, the irony!) along with our kayak journey, as we paddled for about an hour north up the river.  We saw some fish jump here and there, crashed into some tree roots during some of the more narrow and winding parts of the river, and then we turned around.

I spotted something in the river.  I stopped paddling studied the water, excited to see something cool.  That’s when the reptilian humps of something huge emerged to the surface briefly before disappearing again.  My heart stopped.  It looked like a dinosaur.  “Marissa,” I uttered, my eyes not averting from the water, “was that a fucking alligator?”  She wasn’t sure.  She hadn’t seen it as well as I did.  But it was likely.  After all, we were in Florida.

I didn’t want to panic.  I knew, at least with spotting sharks in the ocean, the worst thing you could do was to splash a lot.  So, as gracefully as we could, we paddled the fuck out of there.  I was doing a horrible Australian accent, narrating as a voice over would on the Discovery Channel of how an up and coming stand-up comedian and writer died horribly from an alligator while glancing over my shoulder to see if we were being followed.  My friend and I laughed.  Humor, my defense against one of the most ancient creatures still crawling the earth today.

After getting my ID back, I asked the girl behind the counter, “hey, are there alligators in the river?”  Casually, she said, “Oh yeah, tons.”

Tons?  Are you fucking kidding me.  You didn’t think to open with that when the idiot from NY asks if she can snorkel in the river?  Here’s an idea: PUT UP A SIGN.  Beware, Alligators!  There were two little girls running towards the river.  Do they know about the alligators?  I started laughing hysterically, but I was genuinely pissed.  Also, I felt a bit like vomiting.  Alligators are in my top five most feared animals (sharks are not).  Getting eaten by an alligator/crocodile is a frequent reoccurring nightmare I have, second only to being committed to a 1970’s mental institution.

And just like that, I was ready to go back New York.  Back to my chaotic life, and all the uncertainties and exhaustion that comes with it.  Because no matter what the rest of 2015 has in store for me, I’m pretty sure it will not include getting eaten by an alligator.  Unless, of course, there are actually alligators in the subways of New York City, and one eats me.  That would be unfortunate.