So...Tuesday I met BJ Novak and, I have to admit, he was a little more like Ryan than I anticipated. I knew Mindy was crude, but I always sort of thought of BJ as not needing crudeness (which has always seemed a little like a cop out) to be funny. Once I got over the shock that he wasn't this polished Harvard grad, it was a lot of fun!
He had several segments to his performance - some classic "conversation" jokes, readings from his book, a trial sort of thing where he tried out some new jokes on us, and Q&A. The whole thing felt really casual and light which was fun!
Some of my favorite moments from his routine were :
1. When he said "after this I'm going to Sky Bar" in a completely satirical way!
2. The dud joke of "This one time I saw a guy who was drinking water with ice cubes in it and I thought - man! That guy must really love water!" Hilarious and Awkward.
3. When someone asked him what making out with Mindy Kaling was like and he said "on or off screen?"
4. When someone asked for John Krasinski's number and he said "let's just call him right now!" He instructed us to shout "WE LOVE YOU JOHN KRASINSKI" when he either picked up or got the machine. Someone shouted up to him "put it one speaker!" and he said "duh. what am I? stupid?" As he was dialing, we got the answering machine and the automated voice started saying the phone number! BJ quickly took it off speaker and then once we got the machine gave us our cue. We shouted excitedly our lines and BJ hung up. Only to tell us that he had actually called Rainn Wilson. HILARIOUS!!!
5. Someone asked which character on the Office he would've wanted to play if not Ryan. His answer was Toby because he thought it would've been fun to play a guy who Michael hated. Cool answer! Then he kind of chuckled and said "I really like Toby."
So then obviously I had to meet him.
I bought his book and got the bright idea to give it to you!
While I was in line, I was flipping through the book and noticed a chapter called "No one goes to Heaven to See Dan Fogelberg" or something to that effect. Naturally this made me think of all of the fun we have had with the name Dan Fogelberg.
I had to write the name I wanted on the sticky note, but I kept thinking of things I wanted him to write to you. Once I got to the front, I had written "Parrish/Pizza "Hi Ryan"' and had planned to ask him to write Dan Fogelberg's name.
He greeted me politely with a hello and I said Hi - I have a specific request for you. My sister and I use the name Dan Fogelberg as an expletive. Could you write it here? He said "wait, explain that to me - how did that get started." I told him about when we were little we were just listening to a Christmas TV station and we got a kick out of that name because it sounds like a name that needs to be said with emphasis. He was dying laughing. I just thought we must've been the funniest sisters in the world to have done something to make a famous comedy writer crack up!
Next I asked him to write your name (though he thought Pizza was funnier, so he wrote that) and "Hi Ryan" which we say all the time. He thought that was funny too because out of all the hilarious lines in The Office, we like "Hi Ryan."
Needless to say, BJ Novak is now a Mary Mason and Parrish fan.
I can't be sure, but I'm pretty sure he was checking me out here.
Sideways, but here's the signature!
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