People Are Unappealing: Even Me
Sara Barron
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 0307382451
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Born the child of a homo and a hypochondriac (Okay, okay. Her dad’s not really a homosexual. He just acts like it. Her mom, however, really is a hypochondriac), Sara Barron never stood a chance of being normal. At age eleven, she starts writing porn (“He humped me wildly with his wiener”). At twelve, she gets mistaken for a trannie. The pre-op sort, no less. By seventeen, she's featured on the Jerry Springer Show. And that’s all before she hits New York.
People Are Unappealing tells the strange, funny, and sometimes filthy stories of Sara Barron’s twisted suburban upbringing and deranged attempt at taking the Big Apple by storm–first as an actor (then a waiter), then a dancer (then a waiter), then a comic (then a waiter). It’s there that she meets the ex-boyfriend turned street clown. The silk pajama-clad poet. The OCD Xanax addict who refuses to have sex wearing any fewer than three condoms.
Barron has a knack for attracting the unattractive. People Are Unappealing is her wickedly funny look at the dark side of humanity.
titled “Funny Thoughts!” then break from my creative exploits to tackle my toilet with Ajax. My lack of focus, skill, and originality is the only excuse I can give for what I came up with: jokes at the expense of Gwyneth Paltrow and Britney Spears (my “topical” material), in addition to tirades I'd hammered out about dating a man with the last name Hitler or, conversely, a Hasidic Jew. I wrote my Gwyneth bit around the time of the ‘02 Oscars, an event to which she'd worn this odd Lycra top sans
grinds. I'd seen them in action, and the way it works, basically, is that one girl is put in charge of getting drinks while the other squats on the bar shoving her crotch toward the customers until her thighs burn too much to keep going. When this happens, they encourage the female patrons to get on the bar to dance along with them. A daunting task, but one with sweet rewards, as the random Janes who agree receive free shots and a lesbian kiss for the sole purpose of titillating male patrons.
suggested we kill some time on a nearby park bench. “My girlfriend's on her way, but she won't be here for a bit,” he said. “Wanna sit and wait?” For seventy-two hours I'd been consumed by the question “What happened to Daniel Stewart?” Well, that flipped in an instant to “Who dates Daniel Stewart?” I expected a bearded lady or one-armed ventriloquist, but five minutes later a shockingly beautiful Bolivian woman arrived. In timid, accented English she muttered, “Oh. Hall-oooo,” while grabbing
Olive Garden and made reference to my “vivacious personality,” because after a ten-minute interview, this manager offered me a job. “Welcome aboard!” he said. “And welcome to the family!” Speaking of the family, my parents had less enthused reactions when I called to inform them of my new, gainful employment. My father pointed out that technically I'd be working on Broadway, but my mother yammered on about my six-figure college tuition. “Do you know what that money could've done in my Roth
served only to mess up my bangs. IN NEW YORK, some people hear the Olive Garden and think: midtown nightmare. Others think: rehearsal dinner. Years ago, the marketing genius behind the company wanted to broaden the appeal and created the slogan “The Olive Garden: When you're here, you're family.” It's got a nice ring to it but conveniently omits the details of exactly what kind of family it is that you're about to join. The campaign suggests a boisterous Sicilian bunch with phenomenal