Comedian Jenée: People are Idiots

And The Winner Is… Me!

For the last five years I’ve bartended at the Academy Awards without having seen many (some years, any) of the best picture nominees beforehand. This year I decided to make the event more interesting by watching them all so that I wouldn’t accidentally shoo away another best actor nominee. I got through four of the five pictures when, naturally, something better came along and now I won’t be working the Oscars- that’s because I’m going to Afghanistan instead!

Ok, so “better” is a matter of perspective.

This is something I begged to do the day after 9/11 (otherwise known as 9/12) but the company I’ve done overseas gigs for in the past never booked any tours in the area. So it’s been a long time coming. Who wouldn’t turn down the Oscars for a gig where the booker spends half an hour trying to talk you out of it because of the potential danger involved? Good times.

The plan is to entertain the troops in Afghanistan for two weeks, after which I’m going to hit Paris and London for a little vacation. I say “plan” because I still don’t have a full itinerary for the Afghanistan part of the trip and my plane leaves in three hours.

Obviously, my friends and family aren’t quite as excited about the trip as I am. One of my friends asked if I was afraid of getting kidnapped and raped or possibly killed. Death doesn’t scare me too much (though, suffering beforehand does). I figure if I died my family would get the raw end of the deal, not only would they be sad, they’d be angry that they had to shovel all my useless crap out of my apartment afterward. As for the kidnapped and raped scenario, I think I’d be more upset if I were kidnapped and they didn’t at least try to rape me. If some cave-dwelling, freedom fighters didn’t want to tap this, it would totally destroy my self esteem.

I’ll try to post daily updates with photos, at least for the Afghanistan portion of the trip. In Europe, I plan to be so intoxicated on French wine that it may not be in my best interest to post in that condition. But if I puke off the Eiffel Tower (and I intend to), I’ll be sure to get footage of that and post it when I return. Oh, and my movie reviews for the four films best picture nominees I saw will be coming soon.

I’m outta here- wish me bonne chance.