Bill Dawes

Spooning: An Educational How-To Film

Teaspoon, Tablespoon. They're not just culinary units of measurement, they're the fundamentals of non-coital slumber. HI! I'm Troy McClure...I mean, Bill Dawes! You might remember me from such films as "Netchix: Renting Chicks from the Internet just got much easier" and "Sex With a Tiger: The Dangers of Method Role-Play". Today, we're examining the foibles and challenges associated with that time honored tradition among those godless bastards among us who dare cohabitate with a member of the opposite sex before marriage: SPOONING.

Funny Or Die / Cobb's Comedy Club San Francisco

Two things:

First, I have a new video up on Funny Or Die. It's called Netchix. It's pretty funny for only having taken a couple hours to shoot.

Vote Funny. OR DIE!! Get it? See what I did there?

Second, I am at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco this weekend with Jamie Kennedy. Email me at bill@billdawes.com for free Rudius tickets and come support some stand-up comedy. I don't say that like some charity case, don't get me wrong. I'm fucking awesome on stage. Hope to see you there. Here are the details.

WHAT: Motherfucking Stand-up Comedy
WHO: Jamie Kennedy and Bill Dawes
WHERE: Cobb's Comedy Club, 915 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA
WHEN: November 1st (8pm, 10:15pm) & November 2nd (7pm)
HOW: email me (bill@billdawes.com) or GO HERE TO BUY TIX

Going to The Maul: Conclusion

'Maul her,' he said.

'What?' I said.

'Wait until she has to go to the bathroom. After about a minute, go by the entrance. When she comes out, just maul her.'

He went back to eating. He said it like he was explaining where the frozen food section in the grocery store was located. I got the feeling my interaction with Rob was going to be short - i.e,. he didn't seem like he was dying to talk to me about something he considered obvious - so I lasered in and demanded he proffer more information.

'What do you mean?'

'She comes out, grab her by the back of the head and kiss her. Push her up against a wall if there's one. Just maul her.'

I laughed. This was sexual assault. He was fucking with me. Right?

'What if she freaks out?'

'There's a fifty-fifty chance she'll smack you. But anybody would play those odds in Vegas.'

Then he winked and went back to work on his penne.

What the fuck? My pragmatic, engineering mind needed more data, more parameters, more booze.

'But what about seduction, leading her in, taking it slow?' I asked with a half-joking face, but 1000 percent deadly earnest.

He laughed like I was a Mormon sitting there in nothing but my magic underpants.

And that was my one and only exchange with Rob Lowe.

I asked Chad about it later. Of course, he knew about 'The Maul' and felt it was, by far, his brother's best piece of advice about getting women. He even let me in on some of its finer points. For example, if the maulee DOES get offended or push you away like yesterday's meatloaf, you can be sure that she was NEVER going to hook up with you anyway. If she giggles or turns a cheek, buy her a drink and give her an hour to let it all percolate.

I didn't maul the girl that night. I didn't maul anyone for years, to be honest. At the time, I was locked into this rut of serial monogamy. Plus, I kind of thought Rob's 'advice' was frivolous. It definitely didn't have the same cerebral French courtier feel you might find in Robert Greene's 'Laws of Seduction.' It just seemed trite and comical.

Over the years, however, the one thing that stuck with me was when he set the odds on The Maul: '50/50... Anybody would play those odds in Vegas.'

It made me laugh that Rob Lowe would use some sort of crude numerical analysis to describe the likelihood that one stranger could successfully lie in wait for another stranger outside a public restroom with the intent of surprising and then making out with said stranger. He actually assigned a mathematical probability to it. And it wasn't 60/40 or 70/30. Nope, it was fucking 50/50, straight down the middle. It reminded me of a great video clip I once saw where some redneck with a lottery ticket was asked by the reporter if he knew what his chances of winning were. He thought about it for a second and said, 'Fifty/Fifty - either you win or you lose.'

Either you make out or you get rejected. Simple as that.

As I thought more on it, I began to realize that 50/50 odds were not so random. Although it struck me as arbitrary when Rob first said it, it started to seem... perfect. The marital success rate in America is just below 50 percent. The success rate of relationships in general is WAY less than 50 percent. Most good NBA players shoot just under 50 percent from the floor. If 50 percent of registered voters vote for Obama, that negro wins in a landslide! Shit, it seems that in ANY life situation where the outcome isn't entirely up to you, 50/50 are THE ABSOLUTE BEST odds you can create!

In other words, The Maul has the best odds you can hope to get in a similar situation and it already incorporates failure into its parameters. No one can think The Maul will always work. At best, it will only work half the time. But when accounted for as part of the gamble, the potential for loss is not only reasonable, it becomes part of the fun. Without the high risk, there's no point in even doing it. The possibility of a punch in the mouth is almost as exciting as the possibility of a nipple in the mouth.

If you can stack the odds to reach 50/50 at the blackjack table with some sort of Ben Mezrich MIT math club scheme, you would dedicate your life to blackjack. 'Anybody would play those odds in Vegas.' This started to sound less like a lark and more like Einstein's elusive unifying field theory as it pertains to the slippery slopes of sexual dynamics.

I finally broke free from my monogamist cycle when I got dumped and didn't instantly park my residual emotions in the vagina of someone who'd do in a pinch. Rob's words immediately circled back to the forefront of my brain.

I decided to give The Maul a try. I didn't get slapped in the face. We made out on a sidewalk in an awkward bit of PDA that climaxed as I pushed her up against the corrugated steel covering the façade of a closed Petland Discounts store. They say you shouldn't use a hammer when you need a scalpel. As we walked away holing hands, shyly wiping the wetness off our mouths like we just left a Tyler Perry reunion barbecue, I still couldn't help but laugh at the hammer-like bluntness of 'The Maul.'

Since then, I have been pushed away, received a few turned cheeks and, once, a hearty laugh in the face from Kim Cattrall on the set of 'Sex and the City.' (hey, I was improvising during the scene, it was a choice!) One girl even bit my tongue until it bled and a drop of pee gurgled out of my penis. True story.

But I have YET to be slapped in the face. Apparently, I'm beating the odds.

Over the years, I've had to perfect my own 'Maul.' It can't be a face-rape, but it also can't be a slow, REO Speedwagon on the dance floor, romantic comedy, swirling cameras as the crowd slow-claps type of embrace. You can't grab her around the hips and dry hump her like a Persian at an LA dance club. You have to make eye contact, take 3-4 steps, then come in close for a last nano-second systems check (i.e. she might recoil when you get close) before placing your hand at the back of her head and proceeding. Don't eat her face. Procure it, and make the kiss gentle but firm like you're slurping up an ice cream cone.

Typically, you'll get at least 2-3 seconds leeway before they exercise the slightest bit of reservation or judgment. They might push you away and laugh or peer at you with that quasi-'how dare you' look. Let them. You made your interest known as clear as you possibly can. Let it sit with them. If she doesn't have too many hang-ups and if your breath wasn't corpse anus-y and if you didn't kiss her like a Roger Corman, brain-eating zombie, then most of the time, the opportunity comes back. If not, she was just hanging out with you because she thought you were gay.

Even if you get rejected right away, you shouldn't lose heart. It's rare that I go for The Maul and don't at least make out at SOME point that night - that is, if they're drunk enough to stick around. And I have found that far from being offended, women are into it or are, at least, flattered and titillated - flatterlated, if you will.

Best of all, The Maul saves so much money on appetizers, dinners, drinks, and Pinkberry. Make your intentions clear, expose her for wanting you too, and 'just maul.' Do it right and, guess what, maybe she'll start paying for her own goddamn meals!!! Don't get me wrong, I have no real problem with paying for my dates. It's just that, when all is said and done, I think part of me prefers the Rob Lowe Key Hand-Off. Less gas. More ass. I'm running for President in 2016 on that platform. That, and "Hillary Clinton is a Monstrous Cunt"

In reality, I just haven't had the opportunity, or the balls, to do the key hand-off, Plus, like Chad, I'm not fuckin' Rob Lowe.

Going to The Maul, Part 1

"Women like confidence! That's why when I'm at a bar and I see a girl I like, I say, 'Hey, let's take a look at that snatch!' They're always like, 'Wow, you're confident. Ok, what do you think of this?' 'Hmm, looks a bit gamey, but I'm in a pinch, so saddle up, Seabiscuit!'"

--- Daniel Tosh (from 'True Stories I Made Up')

-- --- -- --- --

When I did "Burning Blue" - the play from which I was fired for being patriotic and having a large penis - I worked with Chad Lowe. At first I bristled at the prospect of this once-upon-a-time TV star coming in as the lead. I'd been doing theater professionally for six or seven years by that point and not only had he never done a play but, judging by the first few rehearsals, he'd never learned how to memorize lines. A few weeks into the process, however, my tune began to change. Chad, I discovered, possessed the one personality trait I find most endearing in the people I encounter in my daily life:

Chad Lowe was fucked up.

Don't get me wrong, he struck me as a good man, always tryng to live right and do the right thing; but when I knew him, he was tortured, confused and drowning in a vexing marital quagmire that quickly dissolved into divorce. On top of that, and despite growing up with all the trappings of an upper-class lifestyle, Chad is the quintessential recessive gene sibling. Even before I knew him, I felt bad for him. Sure, he is an exceedingly charming, funny, intelligent guy, but it's not hard to notice that his DNA's spiral staircase is missing a few more steps than his brother's. I always imagined his would be difficult shoes to walk in. I have two older brothers who were "valedictorians" and "certified geniuses" and "loved by my parents", but they aren't fuckin' Rob Lowe. I never had to see MY brothers bang two hot underprime girls on primetime TV.

Once we got comfortable enough with each other to talk about personal things, I asked Chad the obvious question: "Hey, was it tough growing up with a brother like that?"

Chad chuckled and replied, "Wait until you meet my dad."

A few weeks later, Chad invited me to dinner with most of the Lowe clan at Joe Allan's on restaurant row in Manhattan. Chad's dad-- let's call him Pimp Lowe--is what the ladies like to call a 'silver-haired fox.' He is absurdly handsome in that George Clooney/Sean Connery/Viagra-commercial-guy way. You know, that ruggedly-slick or slickly-rugged quality younger women always seem to confuse for maturity and integrity? That quality which, to the trained eye, screams "I am going to fuck your girlfriend's mother to get to your girlfriend, and even when I get caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar, I will not get in trouble for it?" Yeah, that. Not that Pimp Lowe hadn't been attractive in his 20's or 30's, but you got the sense from looking at him that his salt-and-pepper hair, leathery skin, and crow's feet combined as the perfect accessories to his alpha male tendencies.

I remembered Chad's admonition, so I made sure to scrutinize his father throughout the meal. The man was indeed a pimp - in that white, upper-middle class way. This silver-tongued patriarch could teach any self-proclaimed PUA a thing or two about a thing or two. He didn't use tricks and lines. He simply commanded attention and commandeered the conversation with his formidable presence and a twinkle in his eye that tightrope-walked the line between mischievous and scary.

Not unsurprisingly, he was divorced from Chad's mom, who was also at dinner. Awwwkward. The casual and playful banter between the two of them involved, among other things, Pimp Lowe's alleged infidelity; a topic that would have made my head explode Scanners-style had the dinner taken place during my first year in New York when I was still fresh from suburban Virginia. Luckily, it had been 7 years for me in the big city, and I was... maybe not jaded, but muted.

"All those times you thought I was out sleeping with other women," he said/joked/whatever'ed at one point, "I was working!" He kind of laughed his way through it, and like many good comics, the gregariousness of his delivery made me (and everyone else at the table) semi-laugh along, even though I really didn't know what was so fucking funny. Chad confirmed that his dad did, indeed, cheat incessantly on his mom. He had known about it since he was a teen.

It begs the question: how did Pimp Lowe's offspring evolve through this situation? Chad and his brother were the progeny of a man who admittedly cheated on their mother and had the live-and-let-live attitude to joke about it in a public setting with strangers. I watched Chad look away and act like nothing had been uttered. My thoughts immediately drifted to his own struggle with marriage. I noticed that Rob wasn't really engaging his father's hubris either and I wondered how he was handling his own wedded bliss. Can you make a perfect marriage from that background? And, in particular, can you do it after being a notorious playboy most of your life? I thought back to a story Chad had told me earlier that week about Rob from back in his ear-ringed 'Youngblood' days:

Rob was at airport security (mind you, this was the 80's so that line was a fucking breeze) and he made eye contact (through shades) with a beautiful woman in a security line across from him. Beep. Empty your pockets, sir. They played the public peekaboo thing a bit, she biting her lip coquettishly and he half-smiling and turning away behind the protection of his designer sunglasses. They went through their respective lines, converging on the same egress point. Rob silently strode up to her. She was probably waiting for a line. Or at least a 'hey' or a 'my name is' or a 'wanna have a drink?' or whatever cold-opening lines mere mortals use. Instead, he gave her a key to his hotel room m.o.s. (mit out sound, as they say in the biz) and walked away. Sure enough, an hour later, the gorgeous stranger appeared. She was probably going to say 'I usually never' and 'I just came here to talk' to de-whorify her choice in her whorified brain, but he pulled her brusquely into the room and nary a word was spoken until the love-making was done.

"And you are...?"

I know what you're thinking: So what?! That had nothing to do with how he grew up! He's a fucking movie star! It's Rob Lowe!

Obviously, being a movie star is what allows him to get away with it successfully. But being the son of Pimp Lowe is probably why he thought the idea was a good one in the first place. Of course his exact approach won't really help most of us humans who yield to gravity and taxes, but it doesn't change the fact that the idea is still... enticing. You have to admit there is a sort of primal economy to it that makes the method worth attempting at least once. As I sat there at the table digesting my dinner, I couldn't help but think how the moral of Chad's story might apply to my current predicament.

There was a girl in the group of people at this dinner that I kind of wanted to "get to know better," as they say in the personal ads. We had only exchanged brief flirtatious glances and even briefer conversation throughout the night, but there was a definite 'something' between us. If you're an asshole with a ponytail you might call it 'energy'. If you are an asshole with a ponytail and a receding hairline, you'd call it a 'vibe'. I mentioned the attraction to Chad, who mentioned it to Rob, who looked at me like he was Dr. Ruth and I was asking what that stuff between my legs was. He paused and quietly relayed a simple piece of advice that, in light of Chad's story, made perfect sense.

'Maul her,' he said.

"What?!"

Why I Became a Fucking Comic, Part 2

(Why I Became a Comic, Part 1)

I got fired from 'Burning Blue,' ostensibly, for calling a woman a 'cunt.' But that's not all the calculus in the equation.

Let's three-arrow-bloop-bloop-bloop TiVo rewind from the dropping of the cuntomic bomb to the previous night, where I got another anonymous and petty note, this time about my underwear.

The costume designer had quit the show several weeks ago, so we actors, for the most part, were left to our own devices in terms of wardrobe decisions. Considering I'm naked and/or half naked throughout, I bought a pair of goofy American flag boxers to wear in the second act as a comedy call-back to silly Smiley-Face boxers I sported in the first act. "Shit, I'm stripping and naked and wet in November, the least these fuckers could do is let me have a little fun with my underpants," I reasoned. Again, the bookended boxers got a big laugh plus they completely worked with the irreverent mischievousness of my character. However, it wasn't written in the play, hence the note that Thursday - despite the fact that I had been wearing them the whole week.

The new directive confused and frustrated me, so I asked the stage manager why I couldn't wear them. He didn't answer; he simply smiled sarcastically and left in a spritz of gay smugness. When I went to my dressing room, I was further chagrined by the fact that my underwear had literally been HIDDEN from me.

I don't want to go TOO DEEP into the specifics of the firing, but let me just say this: apparently, some women get offended when you call them 'cunts'. I seem to find, In particular, that cunts think it especially offensive. Although I understand the catastrophic power of the 'c' word, I think when used appropriately it can accurately describe the heinous behavior of a woman (or man) better than anything else in Webster's. Now there are some people who liken it to the 'n' word, and those people are 'STUPID cunts.' The 'n' word is a racial epithet, while the 'c' word strictly connotes behavior. In order for someone to get the label of a 'c', their behavior has to be 'c' - worthy, and it has nothing to do with color of skin or type of genitalia the person possesses.

This woman was 'c' - worthy, to say the least.

Without instructions about WHAT drawers to don and not having any other options provided by the production, I retrieved my funny boxers and wore them onstage the following night. As I came offstage for a quick change in the dressing room, the assistant stage manager - let's call her Twatty McStinkybox -- barged in and verbally accosted me in front of the entire cast for wearing the aforementioned boxers... loudly... during a show. Did I mention it was during a show?

I quietly told her to address it "after the show." She said, "Fuck you." I told her not to speak to me "like that in the middle of a performance." She repeated, "Fuck you." Target activated, C bomb dropped. Tada! Simple math.

Although I didn't get a chance to talk to anyone about the incident, the assistant stage manager ran to the producers that night and, thusly, without a conversation, chance for rebuttal or defense, I was fired on the spot due to the "sexual and incendiary nature" of that delicious and frankly, underused, word.

I know this all sounds ridiculous and it's just my side of the story. I mean, don't you wish you had a New York Post article about this scandalous incident and the subsequent firing? Substantiated by witnesses and written by a third, objective, and credible party?

Ok, here it is:

Click for the full New York Post article, "Naked Aggression"

As a caveat to the article, I think it's important to note that I don't have a HUGE penis. I sit comfortably somewhere between well above average and miniscule. Truth be told, some of my exes probably wanted to sue the post for libel. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm a lucky guy, I could have probably been a porn star... in Asia... but what's more interesting is the fact that the NEW YORK POST dedicated the entire front page of their entertainment section to my turkeyneck.

Let me break the silence as to why an article about the scandal of my dismissal became a meditation on my manhood.

My agent called me on Monday (I had been fired Friday) telling me that gossip mongerer Michael Riedel wanted to do a "piece" about my firing. When Riedel called, I said, "No comment." He called 2 hours later saying that the director, John Hickock, had PLENTY TO COMMENT ON, namely that the cast was unprofessional and 'violated equity rules by changing the blocking' and crap like that. He's THAT guy, with the rules and the cellphone clip on his belt. On the flip side, he also pierces his ears and only wears black jeans, a little too tight for someone in their mid-forties living in Westchester. You know the guy. The nerd/midlife crisis hybrid. Yes, he got short-sheeted at camp when he was a kid. But now he's just an asshole with a Miata.

Anyway, after hearing Hickock's tripe, I pulled what many college football aficionados call the Statue of Liberty play. I decided to "randomly" bring up his public declarations about my dick. Sure enough, the article about my firing took a left turn down lingam lane. The New York Post couldn't resist and unfortunately for John Hickok, the other actors had phones as well, which could be answered in order to relay the truth - which was a hundred percent corroboration about my grievances. That bizarre abortion of an article, "Naked Aggression," is the result.

Why is it the Statue of Liberty play? When friends of mine told me they read the article and I said, "the one about me getting fired?" they often responded, "uh... you were fired?" Look at lady liberty!

A piece about my firing became a piece about my piece. Tom Brady would have been proud.

Regardless, the genitalia junket was a Pyrrhic Victory. Being fired is a lot like being dumped. Even if it's a shitty situation and you want out, and even if you tell everyone you know how crappy and untenable the relationship is, when your power gets summarily usurped like that, and quickly, it taps into the most insecure 'mommy doesn't love me' childhood memories stuffed away into the deepest spaghetti folds of your mind. You can feign insouciance, but Proustian memories swell up that smell of epilepsy puke on an elementary school carpet covered with sawdust and a day of single-file silence down celotex interiors.

I was left reeling. All I wanted to do was sleep. In a fetal position. I did that for the full weekend. I simply couldn't get out of bed. Then I wandered the streets for the following week like a zombie, sleeping 'til 2pm and staying up 'til 6am watching comforting fodder from my youth in the 80's. Thank you, Saved by the Bell reruns.

Latent issues regarding my life and/or status as an artist were awakened. Here I was, in my late twenties, unhappy once again. Burning bridges and seemingly unable to stop myself, once again. Should I quit acting in the theatre? Did I even like it?

When I looked into some of my dissatisfaction, I noticed that often, in my career as an Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway actor, I felt like I was held hostage by mediocre writing and mediocre direction, despite the mythology that those venues were the crucible for "great work." Not that all theatre is like this, I just have often found that having an unbelievably rewarding theatre experience has to be a perfect confluence of cast, direction, writing, set, costume, lighting, you name it. Somewhere along the way, somebody will (usually) inevitably suck balls at their job. This play wasn't festering with ineptitude, but there was a certain axiom in effect that, I think, ended up serving as the flimsy asphalt paving the way to the hell this play was steering itself. (Did I just mix like 7 metaphors? Oh well, maybe I should be a playwright.)

The axiom is this: the playwright is God. The words of the playwright are immaculately shat from the turdcutter of Krishna and, by the sheer grace of universal divinity, we lowly actors are able to catch the nuggets onto our scripts. Any deviation from this axiom means only one thing: YOU'VE GOT A FUCKING ATTITUDE PROBLEM!

Playwrights' words should be respected. I get it. But sometimes, shit they write might not work. As a performer whose dedication is to service the production of a living piece of theatre, I don't feel the need to flog myself with a horsewhip like a Goddamn albino monk if I use the word 'this' because it flows better than 'the' in the moment.

I changed one word and got almost waterboarded by the playwright; I wore funny underwear and I was pranked and subsequently accosted. Both of my choices got huge laughs in places where huge laughs were required or at least needed. What was really going on here? What was I really coming up against? I didn't get.

I dolly-zoomed out and took an inventory of my life and reached a sad, and sobering, conclusion:
I had put myself $60k in debt from NYU grad school in order to worship at the altar of SACRED THEATRE and it was all... ego and bullshit. The curtain had been pulled back and the wizard was just a moderately talented gay dude with time on his hands and a script-formatting program.

These simmering thoughts fired up the tension that resulted in my immediate dismissal, as described by the New York Post.

What's the final result of all of this unnecessary drama and bullshit?

The spontaneous 'gobble' line set in motion an unrest that left me so disillusioned with SACRED THEATRE that I paid 5 bucks, stepped onstage at an open mike, and bombed for a deliciously opiate 4 minutes.

5 years later, I'm a closer and a beast. If you want to challenge me when I'm stage, you better wake up early. I have fun. I literally drink on the job. I say whatever the fuck I want and my only obligation is the sometimes slippery result of making people laugh. Once, I even did an entire audition scene for a movie from the stage to an audience member without anyone knowing what I was doing. Why? Because I can.

And the audience? Usually they love me, although some in the crowd are bored. Yeah, some even hate me. Every so often, I get a heckler. Once I even got a death threat.

But I have never EVER gotten the glow from a blue pen.

- - - - -

This May marked the five-year anniversary of my first professional gig as a comic. In a nice bit of serendipity, it also marks two years of my touring relationship with Jamie Kennedy. A meeting that has allowed me to travel to Iraq, South Africa, the Phillipines, and all over the world doing precisely what I love most. Well, with my pants on.

This summer also ends my time as the comic-in-residence and golden boy of the New York Laugh Factory. It has now changed names and ownership since my manager and mentor, Jamie Masada, has packed his bags from the NY scene.

Similarly, I am packing my bags and heading west. I hope I meet some of you out there and I hope you come to the LA Laugh Factory to see me perform.

And make sure you leave the notepad at home.