Hello my name is Martha Kelly and
I'm the host of Cap City's new comedy series called "In
the Can with Martha Kelly." The series includes
video interviews of your favorite comics, a live "In
the Can" show once a month at Cap City,
and a "bloggish" column you can find weekly
at this website. I've tied all of this together with a
string of awkwardness the likes of which the world has
not seen since we all got up this morning. So get ready
to relax, lean back or forward and feel awkward.
May
31, 2009:
It's Hard Being Bionic
When I was around 7 or 8 yrs. old the
show "The Bionic Woman" was a big hit. I wanted
to be bionic so I tried to run as fast as Jamie did whenever
I ran with other kids. It seemed to me like I hit bionic
levels of speed pretty quickly. At the time I assumed it
was because I was actually bionic, but looking back it was
probably because none of the other kids knew they were being
used as a control group. I'm sure if any of my classmates
had known I was testing myself against them to see if I
was bionic they would have kicked it up several notches.
Which is exactly what happened one day.
Before we get to the new girl at school who shattered my
dreams of living in Ojai and working for the government,
let me throw this at you: at one point during my bionic
phase I raced another girl during recess and I won by a
landslide. As we ran past the other kids one of them gasped
"she must be bionic!" I remember feeling vindicated
but also putting on a little false modesty for the sake
of decorum.
Now I realize that the kid who said that
wasn't really outing my bionic-ism, he was only a fellow
"Bionic Woman" enthusiast. Just like the kids
who went around saying "Aaaayy!" weren't really
ladykillers from the 1950s, but only fans of "Happy
Days." Still, I experienced my first real high in life
when that kid called me bionic. It lasted until the aforementioned
out-of-towner shat on my parade.
She was new to the school and was pretty
athletic. It was suggested that we race against each other
at recess, since I had built a pretty solid reputation as
someone who could win one race and be called "bionic"
by another kid.
From what I recall the race wasn't even
close--she left me completely in the dust and it was pretty
humiliating. Weeks of certainty about my body's true robotic
nature were thrown in the scrap heap in favor of the new
super human ability to gossip and make fun of people. I
wasn't a totally nice kid for a while after that, and if
you want to put the blame on somebody, I suggest you call
Lindsey Wagner.
