Bash Compactor: First Time’s No Charm
Sex was the topic on everyones lips at The Village Pourhouse last week during the book launch for Shawn Wickens How to Lose Your Virginity ( and how not to). But they werent talking about just any sex: the chatter, like the book, was about the generally labeled awkward First Time.
After the 1,000 face-to-face interviews he conducted for his book, Wickens, a self-proclaimed late bloomer, is pretty much the authority on virginity and first-time experiences. [When I interviewed,] I pretty much just said, well, everybodys first time had sort of a nervous quality toward it, but Im interested in everybodys story. Hes a heavy hitter in the improv comedy scene, and the material from his interviews has served him well there. I did these things where I dressed up like Abraham Lincoln, and I called them Lincoln Logs. I just told Vagina Monologue-esque stories, and one of the stories was inspired by interviews that I did, he said.
David Levin, an actor who resembles a bald Zach Galifianakis, went on the northeast leg of the trip with Wickens. I challenged him to describe his first time in five words or less, which was apropos, since the general consensus is that first times last five minutes or less. He rose to the occasion immediatelyprobably not unlike on that special day: Couldve happened sooner.
A survey of the room revealed a variety of under-five-word responses: Mom found red pubes. Grounded, said raven-haired Mausumi. She did all the work, declared Magnet Theater improv comedian Eden Gauteron. Dark, fumbling, unsatisfying miserable ordeal, said Andre Perkowski, who had accompanied How to Lose Your Virginitys photographer Emily Bryan to the party.
After I collected his five-worder (In Barcelona, as a favor), former Wall Street Journal staffer Keith Huang drank a beer and jokedI hopeabout the moral fiber of pesky reporters. Ive never met a journalist who, at their core, wasnt a degenerate.
Levin stepped in just then, flashing his smartphone. Im playing Uniwar, and this lady just rejected my peace offering, he said. So I schooled her, and now shes begging for mercy.
Wickens didnt quite meet the five-word quota, but his response should encourage his fellow late-blooming brethren. Gets better as time goes by.