Comedian Charmian Hughes is married to magician David Don’t.
Today is David’s 50th birthday. Last night, he had a party in Peckham.
I ended up sitting at a table with London-based American comic Lewis Schaffer.
“How are your flaps?” I asked him.
The last time we met, he was telling me he has sleep apnea and has old-man flappy-flop flaps inside him.
“Flaps are inherently funny,” I said. “They’re like bananas. Flaps and bananas are inherently funny.”
“I’ve been using a mouthpiece,” said Lewis Schaffer. “If you want to see something inherently funny, it’s a 57-year-old man wearing a plastic mouthpiece in bed so he can sleep. It keeps my mouth open.”
“You don’t need an artificial aid,” I told him.
By this time, London-based American comedy force of nature Karen O Novak and her husband Darren had turned up.
And, by this time, the music was very loud.
I could not hear across the table.
I handed Lewis Schaffer my iPhone.
“Just talk to each other,” I told Lewis Schaffer. “I won’t hear what you talk about until tomorrow morning, but it will give me a blog. Keep up the American act.”
Lewis Schaffer took the iPhone. This morning, I transcribed what they said.
KAREN: I’m one of the few people here who actually knows for a fact that Lewis Schaffer is not a caricature of a New York neurotic Jew. I actually fucking knew you in New York when you were just…
We just called you ‘The Neurotic Jew’ at that point.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Was I mental even for New York, do you think?
KAREN: Yup.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: So was I a character even in New York, do you think? Because you, Karen, you were a character in New York too.
KAREN: I think we’re all characters in the great big…
LEWIS SCHAFFER: No, Karen. You were a memorable person even then. You were over the top. And you weren’t even a Jew. You were like a fake Jew.
KAREN: I’m Jew… ish.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: You gotta come up with a better joke than that.
KAREN: I’m Jew by injection. I kept my first husband’s Jewness. I got it in the divorce.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: What town did you grow up in?
KAREN: Roxbury, Connecticut.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Where’s that near?
KAREN: It’s near a lot of Jews. Stephen Sondheim lives there.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Were you like me? People think my family had money when I was growing up, but we never had money.
KAREN: We had money.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Did you inherit any of it?
KAREN: They’re not dead yet.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I think your husband Darren loves you even without the money.
KAREN: He would have to.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Yeah, he would have to, cos you’re very annoying. I say that as a misogynist and a woman-hater.
KAREN: You’re very good at both those things.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I like the idea of women.
KAREN: You like the shape of them. The curvy squishiness…
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Even that can get on your nerves.
KAREN: … not so much the brainy part.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: A lot of my friends are women. I actually respect women. You know that about me, Karen.
KAREN: I know that.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: That’s what people can’t believe. I actually spend a lot of time with women talking about how much I hate women.
KAREN: You spend a lot of time with women without your penis out. Probably the women insist on that.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: My penis doesn’t come out. It’s an ‘innie’. How long have you lived in Britain?
KAREN: About 15 years.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Same as me: 13 years.
KAREN: I don’t have any English children, though.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: John says I’m not allowed to discuss why I’m here on a Saturday night. I was supposed to have the kids tonight, but the mother is punishing me for not loving her.
KAREN: If it was me, I would punish you FOR loving me. You are SO not worthy.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: That’s why you’ve kept Darren around for so long. That’s the key to keeping a man happy. I say to women: “When you make love to a man – right after he reaches orgasm – you should slap him in the face and say: Get off me, you disgusting pervert.”
KAREN: That IS what I do.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: (TO DARREN) Is that what she does?
DARREN: But I AM a disgusting pervert, so that’s fair enough.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: (TO KAREN) You probably think about going back to New York every day?
KAREN: Never. I like New York. I miss my friends there. But I don’t miss the city. The city itself is a shit hole.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: But you had a lovely apartment. It had a garden.
KAREN: We used to have some great parties in that flat.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Did he make a good living: your first husband?
KAREN: Why on earth would I have a husband who didn’t make a decent living? I’m not an idiot.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Are you calling my ex-wife an idiot? Is anyone who has sex with me an idiot?
KAREN: Pretty much, yeah.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I think so too. I like this. We’re almost having a little relationship here.
KAREN: I think we could do a podcast.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: You were on my radio show.
KAREN: Yeah, but we didn’t get a good rapport going because there were too many other people there. And we weren’t nude.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: That was the early days when the shows weren’t very good. They’ve gotten better now. I’m a more generous host. That’s the key.
KAREN: Are you a generous lover? That’s the key. When you make love to a woman, you have to give and give and give.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I bring her an extra portion of fish. What does it mean to be generous?
KAREN: Exactly. You don’t even know what it means to be generous in bed.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I DO know what it means and I AM generous because, the more I give a woman, the less she has to pay attention to me, the less she’ll notice how I don’t care, how I’m unable to get an erection. How, even when I get an erection, it’s not noticeable.
KAREN: You got an ‘innie’?
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I got an ‘innie’.
KAREN: It’s more like a vagina, really, than a penis?
LEWIS SCHAFFER: Yeah. It’s like a penis, only smaller. Is your husband a generous lover?
KAREN: He’s very generous. He gives me his paycheck every month.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: (TO DARREN) How much do…
KAREN: (TO ME) You know what? John Fleming should write his own blog. He just talks to other people and then writes it down.
LEWIS SCHAFFER: That’s what he does. He’s gotten so lazy.
ME: Have you given me a good blog? Have you mentioned Lewis Schaffer’s flaps?
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I’ve got an ‘innie’.
ME: What?
LEWIS SCHAFFER: I’ve got an ‘innie’.