Two Turntables and No Microphone

If you want to be cool, I have some shows this week that you can check out. Wednesday I will be at Willie and Reed’s in Bethesda. It’s a benefit for a local theatre. Tickets are $5 and there will be some great comics on the show. Thursday I will be at Wiseacres performing on my friend Rob Maher’s cd release party/show. The show has a great line-up, including Rob and Andy Kline. And it’s only 6 or 8 or ten dollars. On Sunday I’ll be doing a guest set at the DC Improv with Mike Birbiglia. Mike is a comic genius and he’ll be recording his new cd this week for Comedy Central Records. COME TO THIS SHOW! It’s only $15 and Mike is going to be huge in the near future, and I can probably talk him into allowing you to touch him.

Now, onto other things, tidbits if you will…

-This is a weird tidbit. I have a cat named Spiderman and sometimes I try to confuse it by meowing. Usually her ears perk up when I do this, which has always led me to believe that I can speak cat. But it just occurred to me that maybe her ears are perking up because I sound like the equivalent of an American person pretending to speak Chinese, which usually just sounds racist. So she may think I’m racist against cats. I’m going to keep doing it anyway.

-I don’t watch much TV. I don’t listen to the radio. I only watch a movie if I know it’s going to be good in advance. So, if you make a pop culture reference, chances are I’m not going to get it. If that happens, don’t think you should explain the reference to me. That’s something called “annoying.” This happens all the time. I’ll be hanging out with someone and they’ll say something like, “That’s just like in “Parent Trap” when the parent sets the trap… you know?” No, I haven’t seen the movie. “Well it’s pretty good. Underrated, to say the least. It’s basically a story about a…” Shut your face. If I didn’t see the movie, the explanation is just going to make your reference suck even worse. Don’t do it.

-Last night I was a part of two things that happened for the first time ever. First, at my show at the DC Arts Center, there were only 12 people in the crowd. And there was a DJ with two turntables. That’s a six to one, audience member to turntable ratio. There’s no way that has ever happened before. There also was no microphone. We went a capella.

-Second, I went to the Improv after the show to hang out with some friends. As I was leaving I went to shake Rob Maher’s hand. I have a good, firm handshake, but I will admit that my approach is a bit slow. So, oftentimes, people will go to shake my hand and before I can get my hand in position they’re just squeezing my fingers, which makes me feel and look like a loser. This happened when I was shaking Rob’s hand. Now, I’ve known him for years, but I don’t think we’ve had that many handshakes, so I didn’t want to leave him with the fish hand, so I asked for do-overs. And we re-did the handshake and it was marvelous and firm. No one else has ever asked for handshake do-overs. It was amazing that I had the courage to request do-overs.

-On Friday, I went to one of those Japanese restaurants where they cook on your table. It was there that I realized that the chefs at those restaurants are the best comics in America. They kill every show. All of the material is clean. No easy sex, drugs or race material. They do use props, but no one is perfect. The opener who came to get our drink orders wasn’t very funny, but she was likeable and fused the crowd so that we would be engaged when the headliner, Soshimu, came out. All I’m saying is that ten years from now, people will be like, “Richard Pryor? Who? You should see Soshimu.”

If you haven’t been to one of these places, you should know that in order to fill every table, they seat you with total strangers. My favorite moments of the night were provided by another guy at the table. He was wearing a red mock-turtle neck and a white sweater vest decorated with poinsettias, and was killing Mai-Tais like they were the Viet-Cong. He seemed a bit too gay to have a wife and kids, but nevertheless he had them. By the way, I’m not saying he was too gay to have kids. Gay people can have kids. I just think it’s weird for gay men to have wives. A wife is a very hetero thing for a guy to have. It’s actually second to a motorcycle in the hierarchy of straightness. Anyway, he was yelling at his daughter, Julie, to make sure she got all of the jokes. Julie was only eight, and she was watching Soshimu, not Sinbad, so she wassn’t going to get all the jokes. One time, Soshimu made a row of sesame seeds on the table and said, “Look! Sesame Street.” It killed, of course. But little Julie didn’t get it. So King Mai-Tai turned to her and yelled, “Get it? Sesame Street? Because those are sesame seeds… Yeah, they’re in a row… like a street… Sesame Street…. Yeah, like Big Bird!!! HOLY COW… WOOOOO!!!! Yeah. [Looking at everyone else at the table] DID YOU GUYS SEE HER FACE WHEN SHE GOT IT? WOOOOOO PRICELESS! Julie, slow down on your Shirley Temple. Daddy isn’t paying for refills tonight.”

Tomorrow, I will post my opinions on movie trailers.