Lunch with Brian and Steve
SEPTEMBER'S BONUS POST! (Just in time for 9/11.)
Comedian Steve Rannazzisi recently admitted that he lied about nearly losing his life in the World Trade Center on September 11th. Earlier this year, Newscaster Brian Williams was fired from NBC for lying about his involvement in several pivotal world events.
Trendy New York restaurant. One that serves kale and squid ink salad. One with mixologists, not bartenders. One where a famous rock star ODs in the bathroom... and they put up a plaque. BRIAN WILLIAMS and STEVE RANNAZZISI share a table.
STEVE Dude, thank you so much for lunch.
BRIAN No sweat.
STEVE I mean - you’re Brian freakin’ Williams!
BRIAN Exactly - you’d think we’d get a better table. Anyway, I wanted to reach out to you, Steve. I know what you’re going through.
STEVE Dude, it’s been Hell. I’m like hated, man.
BRIAN 9/11 is still a touchy subject.
STEVE I know and I feel real bad that I lied about being there - don’t even know why I did it - people say it’s ego...
BRIAN Ego?! No way. It’s the fog of memory. Take my situation. It wasn’t my ego, I didn’t want to mislead people - things just got mixed up, turned around in my mind.
STEVE Right? ‘Cause I’m actually a really humble person.
BRIAN As am I!
STEVE And 9/11 really did freak me out and it did convince me to move to LA, so maybe I lied but I didn’t lie lie, y’know? But now everyone thinks I’m the worst guy ever. BRIAN Not for long - in a day or two, another creep’ll shoot up a school. Because he can’t get a girlfriend but he can get plenty of guns.
STEVE I hope so - I mean, not that there’s a shooting but -
BRIAN Hell, no. Shootings are friggen’ scary - Jeeze - in Iraq? When my chopper was hit by that RPG? It was-
STEVE Wait, I thought you weren’t actually in the -
BRIAN No, I meant when I saw that Chinook taking fire -
STEVE But I thought you didn’t actually see it -
BRIAN Maybe not, but I have seen action. Lots of it.
STEVE Me too. Maybe I wasn’t in the tower but I was in New York that day and things got crazy - you don’t even know.
BRIAN Oh, I think I do. When the Berlin Wall fell? Shit went down.
STEVE But you were there the day after -
BRIAN Well, with the time change I was actually -
STEVE Because on 9/11 I was really close, like a block away -
BRIAN You were in midtown.
STEVE Close - like fifty blocks away!
BRIAN I was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit.
STEVE I rescued sixteen firemen at Ground Zero.
BRIAN I rescued thirty orphans in the lower Nine.
STEVE But it’s not about ego.
BRIAN No! It’s just life experience. For instance, when I was in Baghdad with Seal Team six -
STEVE I read that Special Ops said you weren’t -
BRIAN It’s classified. Just like my eyewitness account from the grassy knoll.
STEVE You were there when Kennedy was shot?!
BRIAN Shhh. So you see, it’s not ego - I’m not bragging, I’ve just seen some shit.
STEVE I hear ya. Like, I was in Haiti when that quake struck. Seven point oh! Port Au Prince was insane.
BRIAN Pfft. San Francisco in 1906? That was a seven point eight! I barely made it out alive.
STEVE At least there wasn’t a volcano right after! Shit, man - in Pompeii? I survived the quake but came thiiiis close to eating it when Vesuvius erupted. Lava everywhere.
BRIAN At least lava is warm. Try nearly freezing to death in the Atlantic ocean! The wife said “Oh, the Titanic sounds like fun” and then, pow, hit an iceberg and I’m clinging to a slab of wood for dear life.
STEVE Don’t mention oceans, man! Brings back Pearl Harbor flashbacks.
BRIAN You think you’ve got flashbacks?! I close my eyes, I’m right back in Hiroshima - oh, the horror!
STEVE That’s what I said when the Hindenberg when down!
BRIAN Who cares about a blimp? I saw both the Columbia and the Challenger blow up.
STEVE So did I!
BRIAN Yeah, but I saw it first hand at NASA.
STEVE I saw it from Mars.
BRIAN And then I went up in a spaceship and there was this black monolith and a bunch of chimps and I had a murderous computer named Hal.
STEVE Lucky! Could’ve used a computer when I helped Schindler make his list. Or when I had to tally the dead after the Black Plague -
BRIAN Black Plague - ha! Try counting the death toll after the Crusades - I mean, I was dealing with four hundred years worth of torture and murder and -
STEVE Torture? Try seeing that shit first hand! When they nailed my man J’s hands to the cross, I about lost it -
BRIAN No, I about lost it when that crazy MoFo walked out of the cave three days later. Mary Mags and I were both like What. The. Hell?!
STEVE What the Hell alright - what the Hell was up with that meteor?! Like one minute I’m dodging a T-Rex and then BAM! All the dinosaurs're just GONE.
BRIAN I was there when the first fish grew legs and crawled outta the ocean. L’il fucker walked right over my toes - I was like evolution - DAAAYM!
STEVE That was no biggie for me ‘cause I knew it was coming. When God and I sat down to design the Universe, He told me that -
BRIAN Yeah, yeah, old news. Who do you think combined matter and energy to make a big bang in the first place?! Like I said, I’ve been around -
STEVE Like I said, I’ve seen some shit.
BRIAN And what went down - we weren’t lying -
STEVE Hell, no -
BRIAN So don’t blame us! Don’t blame “ego.”
STEVE Preach, Brother!
BRIAN Blame a zest for life and a faulty memory!
STEVE Amen!!
They toast; sip their wine.
BRIAN Nope, not about ego at all.
STEVE No way.
(Beat)
BRIAN But I won.
