Another Great Moment in Small Talk
Charlie Schroeder
Suzie Lechtenberg
DECEMBER 15, 2007
- Charlie and groom
- (Charlie Schroeder)
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We arrived in Mexico in the middle of the afternoon and it was the Puerto Vallarta airport. And Jay who was hosting the wedding was there and I sort of remember greeting him and the very first thing I said to him (in the Borat voice) was "happy times; its your wedding its very nice." Foot hit the tarmac and I was Borat.
A scene from the movie immediately entered my head. "Yekshimash, my name ah Borat. Thisa my country Kazakhstan."
I was possessed.
Jay says, he doesn't remember the first time I did it, but that it started very early.
"I wish we like knew the opening date of the movie, it was probably like three weeks before I would say. It had already kind of caught on and everyone was doing Borat. So, when Charlie was doing it I was like seriously you're going to do Borat?" Jay said.
The thing about the wedding is that my wife and I knew Jay and Rebecca, the bride and groom, but we didn't really know that many other people. And when I'm in a situation like that I go into entertainer guy mode. You know I didn't really realize how much it was getting out of control because there was another guy there from New York. The two of us would sort of encourage each other.
"Hello how you doing?" I said.
"Very nice," he said.
"I'm good," I said.
It was like we would sort of feed off of each other.
I apparently told Jay that I thought I was killing that weekend.
"He thought that people loved him, but were all just rolling our eyes hoping it would go away," Jay said.
I would say that in my waking hours I was using the voice, with strangers, a good 50 percent of the time and not even aware of it. I was literally not aware of how often I was using it.
We had a Thanksgiving meal while we were there at the wedding. And they brought around the turkey and of course I couldn't resist.
"I like dark meat. I like green beans, very nice," I said in my best Borat voice.
Jay says he remembers it getting out of control.
"Everything was like "anybody wanna go surfing?" Jay recalls.
Jay said that even after the wedding, when everyone was giving their congratulations, I was still doing Borat.
"High five, hey!"
I didn't really have any idea that my Borat imitation was causing the kind of reaction that it was until about a month later when Jay and I were playing golf.
He just kind of turned to me and said, "Charles why were you being such a tool at my wedding?"
I didn't know what to think. All this time I thought I was mister entertainer.
When Jay said to me why was I being such a tool doing Borat I immediately stopped doing it. Every time after that I started doing it I immediately bit my lip. Since then I really haven't done any impersonations - at all.
Borat, he will not be coming out at all ... okay, maybe once, just a little, to get a laugh, but that's all.
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01/14/2009
I was at that wedding and can confirm that the above story is entirely true with the exception of "I was using the voice, with strangers, a good 50 percent of the time."
It was more like 80%. Ian was damn near 90% (the other 10% was his impression of me.)
Happy times.
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