CHAPTER 150

Author: How did you come to write that joke? Was that deliberate? You thought it’s a subject you want to tackle?

Lynne Koplitz: I had a little paring knife under my bed. I live here in the Village, which is true, and I have for twenty-something years, and I was thinking, ‘I don’t really think this would keep me from getting attacked.’ My bed was pushed up against the window and I watch a lot of Law & Order and I thought, ‘I wonder what would help me? I bet I could love him. What if you loved him? I bet that would really freak a rapist out if you just loved him.’ I don’t have a really good streak with men, like, I’ve needy-ed and scared away men, and I’m like, ‘Hey, that’s one thing I do well is freak out men. I bet I could freak out a rapist.’ And I thought about how I would do it. And I was at The Stand or something one night and it was literally like somebody’s new joke night and I threw it out there, like, ‘You can’t rape me, I’ll kiss you on the mouth.’ And it got a huge laugh, like, way bigger than I expected. So I was like, ‘Woah, I need to write this.’ So I was thinking about it and thinking about it, and Estee and everyone will tell you, I don’t write like other people, I’m an actress at heart, so I’ve always been like … I watch and study and think and roll things around in my head and if I look at jokes it’ll freak me out, so sometimes when I need help on a premise then I’ll sit down and just, when the spirit moves me, I’ll just power drive through it and write it out longform and then I’ll come back and do it. I just keep …

Author: On a pad of paper?

Lynne: Yeah on a pad of paper.

Author: So that joke came about over a year or two years?

Lynne: It was probably starting to form for about four or five months. And we were at Montreal, and I was friends with Joan Rivers, she was like a mentor to me, and we were on the gala together and, oh, that was the other thing, I felt I had gained all this weight and everything was changing for me, I was getting older and the jokes that had worked in my half-hour special just weren’t working anymore, and I was on the road and I needed … And my TV shows were gone. I was getting ready to do the reality show with Joan and Melissa but I hadn’t gotten it yet and I was like, I’ve got to figure something out. And I’ve always been good at being authentic I think. And believe it or not I pray a lot. And I just prayed to God and I was like, ‘What do I do?’ And something said to me, ‘Tell them the truth.’

Author: Something said to you?

Lynne: Something in my heart said, ‘Tell them the truth.’ And I went out on stage and I wasn’t as pretty and I wasn’t as skinny, and I was like, ‘This is what you look like when you start giving up.’ And it got a huge laugh and I said, ‘I don’t know how funny I’m going to be but I’m full of information.’ And it got a huge laugh and I thought, ‘Well, I can work with this. This is better.’ So I’m going to Montreal and I do that and then I do … I close on the rape joke. And it wasn’t completely evolved yet, it’s way better now, but it had the rapist being the baby spoon, and it had putting baby kisses on his rapey hands, and it had the thing where I say, ‘I’m your girlfriend now.’ And I see Joan coming backstage across this mammoth gala stage with her assistant at the time, Graham, holding her orange Birkin bag, and Joan’s in this big fur thing that, you know, says Canada on it, it’s a Canadian flag, like a little Liberace with the hair, and I can see her with her arms out, just walking as fast as she can across the stage, and she gets to me and she goes, ‘That joke, the last joke, who wrote it?’ And I said, ‘I wrote it.’ And she said, ‘Did anyone write it with you?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And she said, ‘You wrote that joke all by yourself? Lynnesy, look me in my eye.’ And I said, ‘I did.’ And she said, ‘It’s a game-changer, you’ve got to get it on TV.’ And I said, ‘Well this is TV.’ She goes, ‘This is Canada.’ And it was so funny. And I said, ‘Thanks Joan.’ And she goes, ‘No, no,’ and she turned to Graham and she goes, ‘She doesn’t get what I’m saying. Do you understand why that joke’s great?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s a taboo topic.’ She goes, ‘No, no, no, no. That’s not why. You took a taboo topic and you made it funny, that’s what makes it a good joke, that’s what makes you a comedian. You know what makes it a great joke?’ I said, ‘What?’ And she goes, ‘You made it request-able. People are going to request the rape joke. That, kid, that’s a game-changer. I’m so proud of you.’ And then as she walked away I heard her say, ‘He’s the inside spoon.’

Author: So, have you done it on TV?

Lynne: Yeah a couple of times and now it’s on my special.

Author: On the Netflix one coming out? Congratulations by the way.

Lynne: Thank you, like the long version of it is on my special because it has a short version and long version.

Author: When did you do it on TV?

Lynne: I did it on Dave Attell’s …

Author: Oh, Comedy Underground, the one he filmed here.

Lynne: Yeah, and again it wasn’t completely developed.

Author: And when you started putting your address on it, when did that come about?

Lynne: Yeah, the Comedy Underground people freaked out because they were like, ‘We can’t. Standards & Practices called and said we can’t do the address.’

Author: Is it your real address?

Lynne: Here’s the thing, because I was doing my real address and they said, ‘We just can’t, she can’t do her real address.’ So I said, ‘Well can we do two doors down?’ Because what I like is people in the neighbourhood would see me in the neighbourhood and think it was my real address. So the NYU campus is right here, the law school, so they got me a law school address, but then Netflix said, ‘No we’re not even going to do the law school address.’ They freaked out and said, ‘You can’t even do that.’ So on Netflix I basically tell them that Netflix won’t let me give the real address but that I live near a coffeehouse on Sullivan Street.

Author: Is that recorded then?

Lynne: Yeah.

Author: And when you do that joke and give your address, it works best in the Cellar or Village Underground doesn’t it, because they’re round the corner, but if you’re going on the road?

Lynne: No, if I do it on the road I usually say what hotel I’m in, but I don’t ever give the real hotel. Well, I mean, I do give the real hotel, that’s a lie, I do give the real hotel, but before I go I find like a janitor closet, like some defunct room, and I give that room number or a floor that doesn’t exist.

Author: Have you had problems before with anyone following you home?

Lynne: No. And I have often wondered if I were to be raped or attacked how that would all factor in?

Author: Have you ever upset anyone with that joke?

Lynne: Yeah, many times. Millennials are very sensitive. At the Underground two millennials cried at two separate occasions, and then the Underground told them, ‘Well, we’re not going to ask her to not do the joke, we’re really sorry you’re sensitive.’ They’re really nice. The Cellar was nice. I mean, like, recently, this is so funny, just a couple of weeks ago some guy had his feet on the stage here at the Cellar, like, balls out, feet on the stage, wearing shorts, it’s summer, and I said, ‘Oh, you’re going to keep your feet on the stage? Unbelievable.’ I said something like that and I made fun of how the people who come to the Comedy Cellar … I say, ‘I know you people, you’re the people who go on safaris, you want to be this close to wild animals, I get it, but you shouldn’t … Like, I get that you want to see a rhino up close, but you shouldn’t put your feet on the window of the jeep. It’s still a rhino. Like, be ready to run.’ And so as I said that one of the managers here, Val, tapped the guy on the back and he goes, ‘I just got told to get my feet off the stage.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, because they care more about us than you. The animals are more important than the people coming here. Without the animals the zoo doesn’t run.’

Author: Did he stay for the show?

Lynne: Yeah, he wasn’t mad, but so he said to me, ‘I don’t get why they would ask me.’ Like he was more important.

Author: And with the two women at the Village Underground for the rape joke, how did they complain? Did they come up to you afterwards?

Lynne: Not to me. I was told later. And the club was upset, like, wait staff told me. The club was like, ‘You shouldn’t have been told.’ Like, they don’t want us to change anything, especially that joke.