Monday, May 23, 2011

Road Journal Part 2: Pacific Northwest Continued

5/18/11 It’s been a few days because Seattle’s kept me on the busy side. Odd Duck Show on Sunday went well, Monday night I hosted the open-mic at the Comedy Underground. Hosting the Monday is something out-of-town comics usually do when they’re coming back through, so it was cool to come back through for the first time since I moved. It was cool to see Seth doing his thing managing the club, and it was great to see some familiar faces, although well-over half the comics I didn’t even recognize. Tuesday I hosted a gong show in Lynnwood, WA which was a good time as well. Tonight, unfortunately, the Thurst gig got cancelled. It used to be on Thursday and this was the first week it was on a Wednesday. Message must not have spread because there were only 3 comics and no audience. I’m one of those people that takes a canceled gig pretty hard. You bled to get where you’re at, the show must go on. Even if it’s an open-mic, hell, let’s just work-shop on stage together, anything to avoid canceling. I remember winter last year when the huge snow storm happened, nobody really left home for about 5 days. Finally, people could get out and I had something scheduled at I believe the old Funnybone and it was canceled due to no audience. I needed to get on stage that night, it was withdrawal. I ended up going to every bar in the Southside that was supposed to do open-mic that night, everything was canceled because people still weren’t coming out. Finally, after the third attempt, I went back into the bar with the canceled open-mic and asked the bartender, the only other person besides me in the establishment, if I could do five-minutes for her. That’s how much I hate canceled gigs. But, I don’t like to step on people’s toes or have them think I’m crazy because I think we should just deal with the hurricane and maybe just shave 5 minutes off everybody’s set before the stage gets demolished. Besides, there were several bright spots: I got to record another segment thanks to Brett Hamil letting me use his audio segment, and then Brett, myself, and Owen Straw hung out for awhile, which was awesome. The closest bus I caught back to where I’m staying let me off over 30 blocks away from where I needed to be. I put my head down, my hood up and started up the hill. I wasn’t hanging out with friends anymore, so I had nothing but the weight of a canceled gig on my shoulders, no distractions anymore. When it comes to comedy, I’ve learned to take the good in with the bad. There’s nights where you feel like you’ve got the world by the balls and then there’s other nights where taking a toaster in the bathtub doesn’t seem like a bad idea, any other way and it’d be boring or fake. I got home to find an e-mail from my mom that they’re likely going to have to put the old family cat, Blizzard, down. He wasn’t the world’s friendliest cat, but he’d been around since I was 13, it’ll be weird without him around. Besides, I’m drawn to cats partially because they have somewhat of a fuck-you attitude towards humanity. Nothing wrong with a little critical thinking and nothing wrong with critical concluding, if I ever brought life on to this planet I’d want my kid to be the one that questioned what they were agreeing to while being taught the pledge of allegiance. Anyway, needless to say, crappy news on top of a crappy occurrence. I’m trying to shrug the night off, tomorrow’s another day. All-in-all, so far so good. Shows have been solid, with exception to tonight of course, and I’ve got to re-connect with a lot of people, which has been awesome. Here’s to sleep and a new day.



5/19/11: Yesterday started rough but then ended amazing. I woke up still relatively bummed out about the whole situation with Blizzard which made me reflect on my old roommate, Kimmie, who’s part of the reason I ended up in Seattle, who I discovered had passed away last year. But, I had a great day which helped me get through the depressing parts. I started off doing Mike Cumming’s podcast. We talked about comedy, academia, politics, family life, my relationship, the Northwest, the Midwest, the Who, Pink Floyd, movies I hadn’t seen, Joaquin Phoenix and that’s all I can remember off the top of my head but there was oodles more. How does it all tie together you ask? You’ll have to listen to the podcast when it comes out! Oh, podcasting, we talked about that too. Later I met up with my good buddy Ed and had lunch. It was great to see Ed doing well and enjoying living in Capitol Hill and working in downtown Seattle. We talked about the east for awhile because Ed’s from Boston. Later I met up with Karen and she got a snack and we headed to the Comedy Underground. I did a quick set and got to catch up with Derek Sheen, Rory Scovel, Seth Lazear, and Carl Wormenhoven. It was great to see everybody and it was really great to see Carl after he had had his stroke. Carl seemed in great spirits. First thing I said to him, “Carl, how are you feeling?” “How am I feeling? Or, what am I feeling?” Carl even returned to the stage not too long ago. I did my set but then had to split for dinner plans with friends. Had dinner at my favorite spot in Seattle, Brad’s Swingside Café. Was amazing to see Brad and spend a relaxing evening with friends enjoying good food and wine. Next time I come out this way I need to make sure to schedule a few days with no gigs at all I can enjoy nights like these more, it’s important. Ringo said it best, I get by with a little help from my friends.



5/21/11 Carmen’s was a blast as expected. I love that club. It’s obvious that Carmen’s in it because she loves comedy and truly cares about the club she’s running. I wish I could say that about every club owner I’ve met, but that’s definitely not the case. Earlier today I got to attend a Hawaiian jam session with Kermet Apio, who headlined the weekend at Carmen’s. I’ve never sat in on anything like that before so it was a fun cultural experience. The place we went to for the session was a Teriyaki restaurant run by some people who were at the show on Friday night. They gave us our lunches for free which was incredibly kind of them. I regretted not bringing my camera to the event to get some photos. Anyway, the shows went great, crowds were fun and energetic, decent sized especially considering summer’s lurking in the shadows. Tomorrow I head to San Francisco in the evening and should probably get to bed.



5/22/11 The N Gate at Seatac Airport has the worst food options known to man. 5-ish hours ago Kermet and I had Thai food in Issaquah which was excellent, I’m hungry again and had I known that my food options would be this lousy I would have eaten elsewhere in the airport. There’s a Starbucks and a Burger King, I don’t mind Starbucks but it’s not all that helpful when I’m looking for food, and there’s a place called the Bagel Bakery and some other restaurant called Big Foot or something original like that and they feature dishes that revolve around baked beans. They should re-name this gate the culinary abortion gate. First, the bagel place. I’m all about bagel sandwiches but this place has bagels that look like they’ve been sitting for a few days, topped with meats, add-ons and condiments, however don’t worry, portions are small enough so that it doesn’t bleed over the bagel at all. That’ll be $9 please. The other restaurant revolves around baked beans…enough said. Even if you like baked beans, you don’t start a restaurant that revolves around a food that’s most commonly associated with transient people and a campfire. Whoever came up with the idea for this moronic bagel shop must have also dreamt up the idea for this lame-ass baked bean train-wreck. I refuse to accept that the notion that there are two different people breathing on this planet who are capable of such shitty ideas. It’s one guy who lives in the San Juan Islands, listens to John Melloncamp daily and blames all of his problems on Obama. If you ever find yourself near that dude’s house please feel free to take a whiz in the flowerbed. I’m going to have to choose between a rock and an over-priced bagel turd soon though, because I’m dizzy with hunger. In closing, it was wonderful to return to the Northwest, I definitely need to be getting back here at least once a year. It was amazing to see so many wonderful people both in comedy and personal friends. Thank you all very much. It’d be too monotonous to name everybody, and I’m sure I’d forget some people, ah…what the hell. Thank you/it was awesome to see you and you’re great/it was awesome to meet you in no particular order to: Adam Norwest & family, Brian & Cherin, Brett Hamil, Owen Straw, Billy Wayne Davis, Jen Seaman, Andrew Rivers, Solomon Georgio, Barb Sehr, Derek Sheen, Rory Scovel, Ian Edwards, Jonas Barnes, Quincy Jones, Mark Walton, Charles Dorby, Emmett & Kate Montgomery, Joe Fontenot, Brian Boshes, Seth Lazear, Carl Wormenhoven, Mike Cummings, Carmen Garrison, Kermet Apio, Doug & Kermet’s jam buddies, Benee Kent, Tracy & Linn, the Garrison crew, Anthony Calderon, Tom at One Eyed Jack’s, Sunday night karaoke crew, Ed Cleaves and the legendary Brad Inserra, it’s been way too long, and last but certainly not least, James and Karen, you guys are the greatest. If anybody reading this feels they’ve been left out blame Gate N for holding me without nourishment against my will.

No comments: