Chrissy
My friend Chrissy Haberman passed away last week. I met her 25-years ago when we performed in the “The Belly Room” at The Comedy Store. In those days the whole Comedy Store felt like the underbelly of comedy. (Maybe it still does?) It was a little creepy. And Chrissy was a sweet and vulnerable and kind of dirty. I remember her joke about an encounter in a CVS/.99 cent store (I forget which) parking lot. I won’t go into detail, cuz it’s her joke and it was kind of disturbing, but liberating and hilarious. I also never forgot her philosophy to life (circa 2000s): WWMD (What Would Madonna Do). Sometimes the comics with the biggest open wounds are the most sparkly and brilliant and she was all of that and more.
The last time I spoke to her we both had unpublished books sitting on our computers, haunting us with their incompleteness. I published mine on the fortuitous date of March 5, 2020, but hers still waits to be published. I can’t wait to read it. I had not seen her in ten years at least, but upon hearing the news I felt so gutted, like I lost a steady friend I spoke to every day. We shared the intimacy that comes with doing something so vulnerable as writing and performing comedy. But we also shared a Ross Glam sensibility, a hoodwink to the world that we loved our $10 outfit. I want to think she got me, that our connection was special, but I think she got a lot of people. She was really the one opening the door.
I love Chrissy. I still can’t believe she’s gone. But besides the lesson her passing brings – the same lesson all deaths bring – to appreciate everyone today, it also reminds me that the quality of a friend is in the interaction, not the length of time. Chrissy connected with a part of me, she felt like someone I had known forever. I’d like to think it was just me. But she was that for a lot of people.
Comics are their own animal, there are no rules and it’s so much about expressing who you are, that when you know a comic, you know them through and through, every crack and break, every light of ray that breaks through.
Finally, I just have to say this: this death thing has to stop. Is this the rest of life? Losing all the people that you collected over your life? If so, that sucks. This is not what I signed up for. I hate to be the dreary voice of reality (or maybe I love it?) but why didn’t anyone tell me that this is what we are all working towards?
RIP to a sweet sparkle who told dark jokes. I will miss you.