It is really really hard to stay still.

In effort to try to drum up work, I call this corporate entertainment booker every once in a while to “check in”. Every time I speak to him it sounds like he is in the middle complete chaos – locked inside a cage filled with a gang of killer parrots and dodging a wrecking ball that is flying through his home office. He speaks in half sentences, seems to be out of breathe, and the phone call always ends before anyone says goodbye. Trust me, if the guy was more professional and polished sounding I’m sure I wouldn’t have the gumption to keep calling back, but because this guy is such a fuck up, the pressure to impress is off. Finishing a thought seems impressive.

Recently I received a cryptic phone message from him that said “…Florida…Ritz Carlton…one night…$800…all expenses paid.”
I immediately left a voice message and then emailed again asking for details, how much time I’m supposed to do, who the job is for, what the setting is like…
It’s Monday and I’m supposedly flying on Friday and I don’t have one stitch of info. So I call him up again. He just asks me to drop by the office tomorrow to go through the job and he can explain the costume to me.

The WHAT? The WHAT? Oh no no no…I do standup. I don’t do costumes. I don’t want to get dressed up like a big burger or a sassy cigar girl or a bottle of Paxil. I just want to show up in nice jeans and tell some safe corporate-friendly jokes that won’t offend anyone! Well they’ll offend women with babies a little, but that is it.

The problem is… I have a huge issue with saying no. Or rather – I can’t say no. I don’t want to disappoint, or rock the boat, and if I got myself into this predicament, it is my job to see it through. Maybe it won’t be so bad. I hate it when sentences like that pass through my head. It means I’m minutes away from being dressed up as a giant goofy pineapple.

I get to his office. It is exactly like talking to him on the phone. Utter chaos. Strange people are running around the shared office, many different phones are ringing, papers are strewn everywhere and yes, and there are two large mean looking parrots. Two big evil parrots sitting there, mocking whirlwind of activity with loud obnoxious squawks. I hate those parrots. He tells me he only has fifteen minutes before has to run to a meeting while dragging out a big green duffle bag. The costume is inside – the suspense is killing me – just how much of a fool am I going to be making out of myself?!!! Then the reveal comes. I feel a drop of sweat trickle down the back of my knee. The job is not to be a mascot, a character or a cigar girl…it is being a moving statue. A moving statue. Like the guys on the street who are completely spray-painted silver like robots or made up like comedia dell’arte dolls – and they wink at you or wave if you give them a quarter? Yeah. Like those.

The idea was that I, Ophira Eisenberg, would be dressed as a gold marble Grecian statue – there was a wig and a toga, garlands of grapes and everything - and I would be standing in the middle of the reception room where the members of the large corporation would enter to sample wine at 7pm and mill about before they went inside for a big dinner and dance. I would stand frozen like a statue, and do a little physical comedy with people as they entered the room. Quickly switch into another position, like give them the thumbs up or look at my watch, and then back to the statue pose. People go crazy for that stuff. Someone out there dreams of this job. It’s just not me.

But I get it – it’s not shoveling manure. But I can’t do moving statue. I mean shoveling manure – let’s face it – like it or not I CAN DO IT. Moving statue – don’t people go to mime school for that? Don’t they spend years perfecting it as a real craft?

I walk into my apartment with the huge duffle bag in hand, and my boyfriend diligently asks “so did you get the details of the gig?” I can hold back the tears of frustration and embarrassment no longer as the facts have settled in. I have spent the last ten years of my life working on telling jokes only to drape myself in fifteen yards of splattered painted fabric for $800. It was going to be great.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I spent most of the day worrying about the gig. What happens when I break a pose every 10 minutes? Will they escort me out? Can I train myself in two days to do this? Imagine if someone said to you – I’m going to pay you to do a back flip in 6 days. You have never done a back flip before. What would you do? Can I get my body to do something it has never done before in 2 days? I thought about placing ads on craigslist and at performer hangouts for a moving statue, asking that person to pose as me – even if it was a guy he could probably get away the name Ophira, or say nothing and claim that it’s all about getting into character. But in the end, because I am a sucker for punishment, I took a taxi to the airport and boarded a plane.

I arrive with the duffle bag and get into the hotel van and I find, two good looking guys who are booked on the gig as well. But not as moving statues. Thank fucking god. No they are part of a singing act where they pretend to be waiters and then mid dinner, put down the trays and burst into opera! People go nuts for it. The guys seemed cool; one even seems to be flirting with me, in between talking about his girlfriend. It’s driving me mad that I can’t tell them that I’m not really moving statue but a stand-up comic and a pretty good one at that – but maybe not so good or why would I take a moving statue gig?

We finally arrive at the Ritz and it’s quite beautiful for the first 5 minutes and then I start realizing what it really is – just another façade. I feel like I can see the seams. I go to my room and while trying to make a desperate call to my boyfriend, my cellphone flies out of my hands and lands under the bed. I scurry to get it and find an entire emptied bag of barbecue potato chips living there. The fakeness of the glamour of the Ritz Carleton is compounded by my presence in it. Many more layers of fakery.

My phone rings. It’s the event organizer. He’d like to meet and go through some details with me. Divine. I can’t wait to invest even more time in this ridiculous project. I meet Jeremy, a very nice, very gay, event organizer from the Boston area. We talk and he immediately asks me about the strange scar on my head. Most people don’t notice the scar on my head, or maybe they do, but they don’t say anything. I tell Jeremy it isn’t a very pleasant story and he says he doesn’t care, so I tell how I was in a car accident when I was a kid, flash him the operation scar on my stomach and tell him about my friend not making it. He listens with interest and compliments me at the end by saying “just be happy that you’re attractive enough to pull of scars.” No one’s ever said anything like that to me. How long have I been doing moving statues? Great now I have to start lying. There is no good way to say I’ve actually never done this before. And I’m sucked in because now I like him. Now I don’t want to let him down.

I go back room and stare at the TV until it’s time to go downstairs and start putting on the makeup and getting ready for my gig. I am so nervous. What series of poor calculated decisions brought me to here? Where should I start tracing back so I know where to alter? Please don’t say day one.

I walk into Meeting Room A and the singers are there snacking on the food that has been put out for the artists and staff. I grab a chair from a tall stack and situate myself in front of a mirror they brought down from me so I can start the work of mixing gold and black face paint together and cover my face, neck, arms and any other exposed flesh. “Don’t forget to cover your ears” keeps running through my head. It feels like a layer of creamy peanut butter on my face and I know every pore will be festering a teenager’s red pimple when I remove it. I surprising do a great job of the makeup. Maybe I am naturally gifted in theatrical makeup? Maybe I’m losing my mind. I get into the body suit, which, as luck would have it, is slightly too small and therefore pulls really hard in the crotch area. I pull on the wig and with a full face of metallic makeup and costume, I don’t even recognize myself. I have disappeared.

I get on my little platform and my eyes connect with a jazz guitarist, hired also for the event to provide smooth ambient jazz for the corporate world to nibble on hors d’oerves to. He has this sad look on his face that says – sure I may have to play Kenny G covers, but at least I don’t have to wear a ridiculous costume. I strike my pose – and hold. This isn’t too bad. I can do this. Whatever – this is easy. The first few people filter in and I shift into tapping on my watch looking exasperated and then swoop back into my pose. One women jumps and another lets out a scream and then they all giggle like rich people do when they realize they’ve been had. I had no idea it would freak people out. What do they think – that I am actually made of marble? That the company just strangely decided to place a big crazy looking statue here? I continue. Some people laugh, lots of people jump and scream cream, a few idiot guys that didn’t get enough attention, even in their frat house, try to “fuck with me” – but I made it through. Thankfully I can’t compete with an open bar.

My arms are getting crazy sore and shaking and keeping them up in the pose is excruciating. I shift my pose to the other side, but within minutes that side was pulsing with pain. How long I have been up here? I glance towards the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes? I’m supposed to be here for an hour!!! Sweat runs down my forehead as I hold my pose for a few minutes and have to figure out a way to switch. What if I faint? I try my best, but I have to keep switching my pose every couple of minutes because my body is falling apart. And then my toga falls off to expose just me in an ill fitting unitard. The jazz guitarist snickers. Fuck. I decide to just get, wrap it around me, and go back into the pose. What else am I going to do? And then I feel a tap on my foot. It's Jeremy. I can’t tell if he’s angry with me or not but he’s here to tell me that I am done. I help usher people into the dining room and then run to my room. The rush of relief was like ending a horrible destructive relationship that went on for two years longer than it needed to. I taste the freedom of knowing that I will never ever ever ever have to be a moving statue again. I feel high.

I take a hot shower, wash off the gold and black makeup from my face, ears, back of my neck. I put on fresh clothes and go back down to the event, hoping to take advantage of their open bar as no one would know that I was once the moving statue. The boys were singing when I hit the ballroom and the corporate freaks were going mad for it.

After only three sips of wine I felt like I had been drinking for hours. Maybe it’s the endorphins, maybe it’s the Florida air or maybe it’s the fact my skin can breathe again. The boys finish and seem just as thankful as I am that the gig was over. We uncorked some wine together and started a long debaucherous evening. You know those evenings when you’re away from home, maybe you’re on a vacation, or maybe you’re just having a night on the town after you finished a big project – that moment when your reality has shifted and you feel connected to…nothing – except the moment? That’s how that evening felt – like there were no boundaries. Anything was possible as we ordered another round on the master account. Somehow the conversation moved to anti-depression and anti-anxiety medicine. I have never been much of a pill popper myself, but Jeremy produced a vial of what he claimed were the mildest nicest anti anxiety pill on the market. It would make you feel just a little mellow but really really nice. He offered them to the group. I took two, swallowed one and saved the other one for later.

The rest of the evening - was a blur that I don’t feel anxious about not remembering.

I went for a walk to the ocean, hung out with the singers, lost my socks, gathered a handful of email addresses, and woke up in my hotel room with gold and black makeup all over my pillow. Getting up that day just seemed extra hard. I was stiff and sore, moving any part of me ached including my brain cells. The wind hurt blowing on my face. It was good training for being a moving stature. I gathered my stuff, my costume that I so wanted to light on fire as my final statement on the weekend and I got on a plane back to home.

I saw Jeremy as I was boarding the airport van and gave him a hug. “I’ve worked with a lot of moving statues but you’re my favorite!” You’re so fun to hang out with!” And that’s how everyone gets ahead in this world. I, the worst moving statue in the world, could steal work from the famous Gold Elvis guy from Fisherman’s Wharf because someone deemed me fun to get drunk with. And I took his pills. Lucky for the other moving statues of the world I hugged Jeremy and thought “there is no way I will do this ever EVER ever again”.

It's way to hard to stay still.