Sometimes, inexplicably, I get invited to do something by friends and I say no. It's inexplicable that I am invited, of course, but more inexplicable that I decline. I think it boils down to my introverted tendencies--which is not always on display after I decide to not decline.
When I used to play baseball, as a hitter it made the most sense to have a "yes yes yes no" attitude. Like, "Yes I'm going to swing, yes I'm going to swing, yes I'm going to swing, no I'm not going to swing." It's easier to stop swinging at the last moment than to decide to swing at the last moment. I have a similar, but opposite, approach to going out/doing things. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, OK I'll go" is not fair to my friends and occasionally leads to me missing out on opportunities, but it leaves my options open for urgent, last-moment napping and/or masturbation.
Anyway, yesterday I was invited by TM2000 to see a comedy show. The comedian was Doug Stanhope, an angry 42 year-old white man that has a penchant for offending people on purpose. Like me except the "42 year-old" part. And the "on purpose" part.
Normally, I'd hem and haw and hesitate and whatever other verb that starts with "h" indicating a delaying tactic I could think of at the time. There were a pair of reasons, though, where I was pressed into immediate decision-making mode.
- There wasn't much time. The doors opened at the Showbox Sodo at 8:00 and TM2000 and I were chatting at, like, 5:30. I had to shower, get ready, pick up the tickets from Flowers, and hopefully get a bite to eat.
- I felt a divine push to go to the show. Not really. Well, kind of. Originally, four people were supposed to go: Buddy #1, Flowers, TM2000, and TM2000's gf. Through a pair of (seemingly unrelated) odd occurrences, Buddy #1 and Flowers both ended up in the hospital Friday night and were unable to attend the show Saturday night. I am considering getting Untouchables on God (He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue) but I have difficulty getting the motivation to clean my dishes; I'm not sure I have the energy to declare war on an omnipotent being.
Yes, I just blasphemed in a tremendously puerile fashion. I think that maybe I have been influenced by the Stanhope show I saw last night.
Of course, not entirely influenced. If I were regurgitating his bits, there would be a lot more uses of the word "cunt". There would be populist politics with hints of underlying racism. There would be a loathing of humanity in general.
And it would probably be funnier than what I am actually writing.
I don't go to a ton of standup. I went to a comedy club with a chick I met online about 30 months ago. I have seen the guys from Stella a couple of times. I watch standup on YouTube occasionally.
The live aspect of standup is something that I still am not used to. In spite of the fact that I chat online about 27 hours a day (I usually am on a plane, flying in a westward direction, to get the most out of the days that I'm awake) and that chatting is one of the most interactive activities one can undertake, I still think of entertainment as a one-way deal: rock bands play, the audience listens. Comedians tell jokes and the crowd laughs. Or yawns. Or whatever.
Of course, comedians tell jokes/do material, but the crowd often chooses to do things other than laugh or yawn. Or at least some audience members do. They feel an intimacy, perhaps, with the performer that is consistent with real life but inconsistent with the unliateral performer/viewer that I'm more comortable with (and is probably formed from TV/blog/porn experiences that I've accumulated over time).
The comedy I'd seen before, there was some sort of MC. Some dude comes out and thanks you for entering the venue. Thanks you for spending your $20 and encourages you to get a drink. Maybe tells a joke or two, and informs you who you're going to be seeing.
Last night? This did not happen.
Last night some guy with big bags under his eyes and a Coors light in his left hand wandered out and started talking. He did material about drugs and death and rape and Christianity (shockingly, he's not a fan) and drugs and rape.
Did I mention drugs and rape?
In spite of the fact that I do not do (illegal) drugs and I've yet to dabble in rape (from any level of participation), it was pretty funny. Some people from the crowd were shouting out comments (punchlines? Drug reference-one-upsmanship? Drunken ramblings? Yes to all of the above...) and it was definitely material consistent with Doug Stanhope's style.
About five minutes into the 15 minute set (I think the guy, whose name I still don't know, since there was no MC who gave any sort of introduction, made a joke about the miracle of rape babies), I looked to my right. TM2000 was responsible, to whatever extent anyone is, for how offended his gf was at the show. I felt some responsibility for the fourth member of our party, a delightful female friend we'll call Heels.
Heels is cool. She has a great sense of humor. She's laid-back and she is about one of the last friends of the female type that I have that I would expect to get offended by anything at a comedy show.
I didn't forget those things. In the same way, though, that you'd run to check on a fellow officer who just got shot in the chest while wearing a super-duper-bulletproof vest, to see if he's OK, I kept glancing over at Heels to see if she was really not offended.
Rape babies. Is she offended? Elderly rape. Is she offended? Christian-bashing. Is she offended?
Miraculously, she was less offended than most of the people reading this blog probably are at the moment. Maybe she stopped listening at some point, or maybe she's the kind of chick that loves reading obituaries to make fun of people that have Jesus references in them. I'm not sure.
Doug Stanhope came out, wearing a glorious and odd pink and white collared shirt that looked like the kind of thing he was going to wear as a visual gag and then change out of after he got a laugh. But nope. He was actually wearing it. Like. To wear it.
His set went about an hour and a half. It was good. He was (seemingly) honest about his schtick at the beginning, when he talked about how his rage is often feigned, and that he doesn't really care about waterboarding or overpopulation or stupid people... but that it made for good material. That honesty (or feigned honestly; I could see him adding to his bit next time, about how he sometimes pretends not to really care, because it's funnier that way) was interesting and it sort of brought down the wall, for me, between performer and audience.
By the end of the show, all of the walls were down. Some drunk weirdo who had been chatting up people (in an obnoxiously loud fashion) throughout the evening got on stage for some reason. Another guy got up with his "bucket list" of people he'd want to have a beer with before he died, and Stanhope (who was on the list) had some fun with the rest of the list.
I got the distinct sense that control had been lost. It seemed that (other than the 11:00 quit time) the comedian had no idea what was going to happen next... it might have been an illusion, and he might have been in perfect control, but based on the amount of alcohol (Jager, beer, etc.) he'd consumed on stage, I somehow doubt it.
In any case, it was sort of fun to feel like the wheels had come off. I would imagine that the prepared material that he uses at close would have been funnier, but the haphazard ending is probably more memorable.
We managed to avoid the weirdos on the way out. There was no fighting/bleeding and no trips to the hospital. As long as I don't go to Hell for laughing at the stuff I did, I would say it was a pretty good night.
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