David Alan Grier Loves Transsexuals

My girlfriend, C, heard David Alan Grier on the radio a few months ago and bought us tickets to a comedy show in San Francisco for that night.  She thought he was funny and I had remembered liking him from In Living Color.  It sounded like a fun time.

We had dinner at some little Italian place on Columbus Avenue, grabbed a little tea at Starbucks, then found some decent seats at Cobb's Comedy Club.

A local woman opened up the show and had some decent jokes.  Dave Siegel was up next and did a pretty good job.  He wove his recent relationship adventures into some pretty decent comedy.  C and I related to a number of the tales, including the need for toenails to be trimmed otherwise major screaming can be involved.  One of Dave's defining moments of his time on stage, though, was pointing out the difference between comedy and tragedy.

"Tragedy is your dog dying.  Comedy is your cat dying."

OK, I will admit, I laughed.  C wasn't too happy but probably laughed under her breath.  I'm sure that Dave likely distanced himself from half of the audience, but he did make a point.  Comedy and tragedy can sometimes depend on your point of view.

The final comedian was David Alan Grier.  I was totally ready to laugh my ass off.

Unfortunately, David decided to start off his act with a joke about transsexuals.  The bad part is that it wasn't even a joke, it was just a verbal bashing of a transwoman that he had seen earlier in the day.

"God didn't know whether to make it a man or a woman," said David during his little rant on transsexuals.

I swear, 1 out of every 2 comedians that I see in San Francisco who are not from the Bay Area tend to rip on transsexuals.  The jokes are typically classless and low, and it sometimes feels like any out-of-towner can come here and make fun of transsexuals.

I suppose many feel that transsexuals are the lowest rung on the totem pole.  There aren't many "below" us, and, thus, they feel it is easy to make fun of us.  After listening to David during his bit, one can easily surmise that David does not have a firm grasp on his own life.  It may be because his personal life is not so great that he needs to bash types of people that he thinks are lower.  It may be because he actually thinks his jokes are funny, who knows.

Either way, David probably didn't know that he had at least one transsexual sitting in the audience.  One kinda pissed transsexual.  One kinda kinda pissed transsexual who knows how to throw.

If I had had something soft at my table, I probably would have heaved it, but I only had a drinking glass. While it would have been comedic if I hit him, it probably would have ended fairly tragic for both of us.