- We were, like, face-to-face right here,
and she was like, "Yeah, this is,"
you know, blah, blah, blah, and I was like,
"Oh, it's really pretty,"
and then she looks me right in the eye,
and I swear to God she says, "I want you to come in my face."
[dark electronic music]
♪
[cheers and applause]
- Hello, everybody.
Welcome to "This Is Not Happening."
I'm your host, Ari Shaffir,
and tonight it's all stories about romance.
[cheers and applause]
All right, ladies and gentlemen,
he's got an amazing podcast in iTunes
called "Tuesdays with Stories."
Please give it up for Mr. Mark Normand, everybody.
[cheers and applause]
- So here we go, story time.
I--I decided I wanted to go to film school in New York City,
so I moved there and moved to Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
with 400 bucks in my pocket.
It was a horrible year.
I got mugged three times in a year,
my landlord died of AIDS,
and the first day I got my apartment,
there was a pigeon in there.
Yeah, probably should have closed with the AIDS, but yeah.
So if you don't know Crown Heights,
it's this crazy neighborhood way out in Brooklyn.
It's got a highway dividing it.
It's all Hasidic Jew on this side,
all Caribbean black on this side,
so obviously, I moved into the black side.
Yeah.
There were two apartments available,
but I'm not gonna live with Hasidic people.
I mean, come on.
What's going on there?
I don't want-- how many landlords do you want?
You know what I mean? Like, Jesus Christ, you know.
And nothing against Jews. I love Jews.
My ex-girlfriend's Jewish; I love Ari,
you know, show business, ahh, but, you know,
I would come home drunk a lot at, like, 5:00 in the morning,
and these Jews would pull up in their minivan,
and they'd slide the door open, like,
"You're on the wrong side. Get in."
And I was like, "I'm not Jewish."
And they would just peel right off.
Yeah, they were a tough bunch.
They're very loyal.
So I lived in this apartment, the worst apartment of all time.
Periodically, the hot water would go out,
the electricity would go out, and the heat would go out.
It was the dead of winter.
So I'm going to film school every day.
It's, like, an hour commute back to Manhattan every day
from my apartment, and I wake up one Monday
to go to school-- no hot water.
I was like, "Eh, I didn't shower all weekend,
"but I can go one more day.
It's cold out," you know?
I go to school.
Tuesday I wake up, no hot water.
"Eh, I can't take a shower in cold weather with cold water.
I'll just go to school."
Wednesday rolls around, no hot water.
"Ah, I'll be all right."
Now I'm the smelly guy at school, you know?
I'm the--it was brutal. I was that guy, you know.
So I'm kind of getting desperate.
Thursday comes, zero, no hot water, nothing, no heat.
It's like, "Ahh," but I'm late, so I just go to school.
Finally, Friday, I get desperate.
I wake up early.
I'm like, "I'm putting water in a pot,
"I'm gonna boil it, and I'm gonna just take a whore bath
right in the kitchen," you know?
Yeah.
So the heat's out, the electricity is out,
and the hot water is out, so I just go, "Ah, God damn it."
So I'm in the kitchen in the dark
just pouring water into a pot.
I start boiling it, you know, in the dark,
and I just kind of start bathing myself, and it felt amazing.
I was so gross, and the lights click on just then,
and the pot had been used by my roommate
to cook Stove Top Stuffing in the night before.
So now I'm--not only do I have terrible B.O.
I'm covered in 11 herbs and spices, you know?
I got--I got all these little things on me,
little green things, and garlic here.
It was a mess, so now I'm desperate.
I run to the train. I have no time to clean up.
I'm already late. So I run to the train.
And I get on the train. It's packed out.
I'm the only white guy on the train,
and all these black guys are sniffing me,
you know, like, "What is that?
"Is this hobo Thanksgiving? What's going on here?"
So I'm like, "I don't know. Somebody probably farted.
It is November. I don't know."
Yeah, so I get to school, and now I'm desperate.
I'm going around asking everybody
if I can shower at their place, you know,
teachers, students, whatever.
I'm just freaking out.
Everybody says no. I'm, like, a weirdo.
People are looking at me funny.
And eventually, I get to Mrs. Fritz.
Now, I'll paint the picture of Mrs. Fritz.
She was the-- the horror makeup lady.
She, like, did all that horror shit,
you know, and she was a kooky gal, you know.
She had, like, a beehive hairdo, Lisa Loeb glasses.
She would have, like, watermelons on her dress,
and then watermelon earrings.
You know, she was a full-class kook, you know, like,
half art teacher, half hipster, all nutjob, you know?
She was fun.
But she was attractive in her own right.
She was probably 40, 41 years old, nice lady,
and I was like, "Hey, Mrs. Fritz,
"you're gonna kill me, but just feel free to say no.
Can I shower at your place?"
And she goes, "Yeah, sure. What do I care?"
And meanwhile, this is a 41-year-old woman.
You know, she's a teacher. People give her apples.
You know, like, I'm a 21-year-old idiot.
I've got, like, a propeller hat and a big lollipop.
I was nothing, you know.
So I was like, "Oh, my God.
Thank you so much. I'm so excited."
And I know people are thinking, like,
"Mark, your hot water's out for a week.
"You get no electricity.
Why didn't you just tell your landlord?"
Well, it's a little awkward complaining to your landlord
about hot water when he has AIDS.
Yeah, it's a tough one. What am I gonna say?
"I got not hot water."
"Well, I don't have an T-cells."
"Cool, all right, yeah, got it.
Yeah," so, you know, and this was--
he wasn't, like, Magic Johnson.
He was, like, fuckin' "Dallas Buyers Club."
He was, uh, it was a bad.
I'm talking "Rent," "Philadelphia,"
full-blown, baby, yeah, so...nice guy, sweet kid.
So I'm all excited.
"I'm gonna go to Mrs. Fritz's house.
I'm gonna take a real shower."
I hit the buzzer. She buzzes me in.
I go up to her place, amazing apartment, unbelievable.
She's was like a real adult.
She had pictures in a frame and curtains.
It was wild, you know.
Every light bulb worked, no stains, crazy, real adult.
And I go into her kitchen, giant table laid out,
you know, all these place mats, like, wine glass,
regular glass, two plates, forks, knives, the whole thing.
It was crazy; she was having a dinner party at 8:00.
So she was like, "Hey, you can shower,
but you've got to get in, get out," you know.
I was like, "No problem." It was, like, 6:30.
I was like, "I'll be out of here by 8:00.
You've got a dinner party. No problem."
So I was like, "All right, here we go.
Let's get in that shower."
She goes, "Well, have a glass of wine first."
I was like, "Eh, all right, you know,
I'll have a glass of wine."
Then I had another one and another one,
and we're talking about life and love and the arts,
you know, and I--you know, all this stuff,
and I just had got out of college,
so I had a couple tricks up my anal, you know.
I was ready to go, you know, and she...
just talking about everything.
We're laughing. We're having a great time.
And this is, like, a-- this is, like,
a real woman here, you know?
Like, I'm--I'm a 21-year-old drunk from New Orleans.
The only people I've hooked up with are, like,
bar skanks and cousins, you know,
nothing crazy, you know?
So...so I'm intimidated by her.
She's, like, successful and smart and clever
and interesting and all that; I was blown away.
And so we're drinking, and we're having a great time,
and she goes, "You know, I'm making some paella here."
She had, like, eight pots going, all this food.
And I'm like, "Well, like, I've got to skedaddle
"here, sister; I can't be eating.
You've got dinner party coming over, you know."
She was like, "Don't worry about it; you've got plenty of time.
It's, like, 7:00." I was like, "All right."
So I had the paella; it's amazing, unbelievable, so good.
Everything's great. We're laughing.
And she pours another glass of wine.
And I was like, "Look, it's 7:30.
I've got to get in the shower."
And she goes, "All right, all right, all right,"
and she had everything in there, you know,
like, soap, and so then I...
so...unbelievable, real adult.
So I'm like, "Oh, wow, this is great, all right."
So I remember, you know, laughing.
She hands me a towel. We're having a great time.
She's so nice.
And I remember taking a shower,
being in her bathroom just like...
"Am I gonna-- am I gonna fuck Ms. Fritz?
"No, no, come on. She's a 58-year-old woman.
"What, are you crazy? Get out of here.
She's got a dinner party on the way over."
So I was like, "All right, all right, all right, come on."
So I get out of the shower. I dry off real quick.
It's, like, 7:48 now. I'm freaking out.
So I get out of the shower; I'm like,
"All right, that was great." I put my new clothes on.
"I'll get out of your hair. This was a great time."
She goes, "Well, have one more glass of wine."
And I'm like, "You know, Mrs. Fritz,
"you've got people coming over.
This is, uh, you've got the dinner party."
And she goes, "Ahh, it's fine."
So she has another glass of wine poured, and she goes,
"Let me give you the tour of the house before you go."
It's like, "All right, eh."
[laughter]
Yeah, you guys know.
I didn't know what "tour" meant.
So I was like, "All right, sure, I'll take a tour, yeah."
I'm holding my glass of wine.
She was like, "Oh, this chair
"has been in my family for a million years.
This lamp is from the Byzantine era," whatever,
you know, all this shit, and she's like,
"This painting has been in my family for years.
Come--get on the couch. Step on the couch."
So we're standing on her couch looking at this painting,
and, you know, I was like, "Oh, this is nice."
She was like, "Yeah, it's Rembrandt's gay period,"
or whatever, and... staring at this thing,
and we were, like, face-to-face right here,
and she was like, "Yeah, this is,"
you know, blah, blah, blah, and I was like,
"Oh, it's really pretty,"
and then she looks me right in the eye,
and I swear to God she says, "I want you to come in my face."
True story. True story.
Unbelievable, so I go, "Well, I think I can do that."
[laughter]
And so we just start going at it on the floor.
We're making out like crazy. We're rolling around.
We knock over lamps. The cat's hissing.
[hisses] It was just hot.
It was wild! Crazy!
Teacher! Student! Paella!
What a night!
So we're going at it like animals.
I pick her old ass up,
I throw her on the bed, the whole thing.
Oh, my God. It was wild.
And she pulls some cord; all the lights go out in the house.
Something happened, so now we're rolling around
in the dark just going at it.
"Ahh," crazy, you know,
this is a 68-year-old woman I'm banging here.
This is wild, so it was just hot and heavy
and great in every way and all this.
I can feel her earrings dangling around me.
It was unreal.
So we're going at it. We're both naked.
"Ahh," you know, and I remember at one point,
we're probably 45 minutes into this,
we're going at it, and I was in the doggy-style position,
and I remember vividly thinking,
"Where the hell's that dinner party?"
[laughter]
Ahh, people cancel. Who cares?
Ahh, let's get back to it.
So we're going at it, blah, blah, blah.
Eventually, we got at it for a while.
Then we pass out; we're both wine drunk.
You know, we've had probably nine glasses of wine here.
So we're, you know, we pass out.
I wake up the next morning. The sun is beaming in.
The whole apartment's lit up.
I've got a crazy wine hangover.
And I was like, "Oh, my God.
What the hell happened last night?"
That was wild. Oh, man."
I look down; she's kind of nuzzled right here.
And I go to get up.
I look at the bed--
covered in blood
head to toe.
[laughter]
I mean, this was tons.
It was like a murder scene.
She must have lost tons of iron. This is wild.
I mean, I didn't know what to do,
and, you know, I thought, you know,
at that age, isn't that shit over?
I had no idea, you know, and she was so nonchalant about it.
She was like, "Oh, we should have put a towel down."
What are you-- that was a fucking tarp.
That's insane.
So I was like, "Oh, my God."
Just the irony here.
I'm coming from the cleanest I've ever been in weeks.
Now I'm covered in uterine lining here, all right?
It was unbelievable. I've got ovaries on my face.
I looked like a fucking Apache here.
I was, like, fucking war paint.
[whooping]
Oh, my God. It was crazy.
But I was like, oh, wow, all right,
well, I guess this is New York City,
yeah, yeah, so...
so I had-- you know, I was still in school.
I had school on Saturday back then.
So I was like, "I've got to get up.
I've got to go. What, are you crazy?"
And so I, you know, just didn't have time to shower.
I just put my clothes on,
and I remember my underwear was so gross,
I just put it in my pocket.
I just put my jeans on, yeah,
and put them there, jeans on, shirt on.
I just ran out the door, and she goes, "Hey, hey, wait a minute.
"Before you go, remember, I'm a fucking teacher.
"You're a student. Don't tell anybody, you weirdo.
We could get in trouble." I'm like, "Of course."
She's like, "I'm serious. This is real stuff here."
I'm like, "Of course, of course."
So I run down to the train, and I get on the train,
and I go to school,
and I immediately gather every male at the school,
every single one, you know, student, teacher, janitor,
whatever you are.
I had the goddamn mayor in there.
Yeah, so I gather all of them into the equipment room.
Everybody's hanging from the rafters.
People are sitting on the floor.
Everybody's like, "What's going on, Norman?
What's the big news? What's the word?"
I go, "You're not gonna believe this.
I banged Mrs. Fritz."
And they all go, "Oh, shut up.
"Get out of here. She's, you know, 71.
"What, are you crazy?
You're a liar."
And I go, "You don't believe me, huh?"
I pull out the tighty whities.
Yeah, so they were like, "Oh, my God."
Everybody's hitting each other, going crazy, unbelievable.
It was like that--you know when you have sex with a Greek,
and you put the sheet out on the window?
That was it.
That's-- look--Google that.
So yeah. Oh, it was great.
It was like "Sixteen Candles," but, you know,
with, like, a miscarriage in there.
Yeah, it was unbelievable.
So Monday comes around.
They--they fire Ms. Fritz.
Yeah, but they never told her why,
which is why I did this show.
[laughter]
It's cool. We're Facebook friends.
All right, thank you. Thanks a lot.
[dark electronic music]
♪