Comedy Cafe, The Onion putting things into perspective, and the return of baseball

My friends and I go to JD's Comedy Cafe every couple months. That's because the Comedy Cafe has this brilliant marketing ploy in which they have patrons fill out little cards to enter into a contest to win a "party" at the Comedy Cafe. The party consists of the winner and up to 19 guests getting in for $1 cover instead of the regular $12. There's still a two-drink minimum. If you go with a group of, say, ten people, somebody in your group will win a free party. Every time. It lets them fill the seats for every show and they still make their money on drinks. And it's good for us too, because we feel like we're getting a deal and it's always a fun time. I'm a big fan of stand-up comedy, especially when it's live. The lineup at JD's usually starts off with the MC. I don't know his name, but he has super thick glasses and a few funny jokes about fried chicken. He's warmed up the audience at most of the shows I've been at and does a good job of it. Although, by now I've heard every joke he has. MC Big-glasses is then followed by a trio of touring comics. The first one usually blows. The second one is usually pretty good. The third one is usually someone that has done Leno and Letterman, and maybe even Craig Fergusen. The third act is usually very good.

Last night was sort of strange. The party that Former Roomie B won started at this bar called Victor's, where we got some free appetizers, before a bus took us to the Comedy Cafe. Victors is affectionately referred to as Victims. It looks like a Vegas lounge from the 1970s where down-on-their-luck businessmen go to pick up prostitutes. It has a reputation for being full of cougars. Considering all the stories I've heard about Victims, in the few times I've patronized the place, I've never had a bad time there. We ate our fill and then boarded the bus to JD's.

MC Big-glasses put on a fine show. He was followed by a woman who's first joke started like this, "when I told my dad I wanted to be a comedian, he said 'why do you want to be a comedian? Women aren't funny.'" I don't know how this joke ended, but I think her dad was right.

But the second act was sort of strange. He was this 45 year old white guy. He was a little overweight and had a goatee. He started off making jokes about pot and stuff like that. He was really funny and totally had the audience with him. But then he segued into some racial humor. At some point, he went off script and just started telling stories with no real punchlines and at some point soon after that, he started to look visibly frazzled. He was tiptoeing a line that few white comics dare to go anywhere near. It was a mixed crowd but it didn't seem like anyone was close to bustin a cap in his ass or anything. Anyway, it was a little weird. But then he went back to pot humor and jokes about his gay son and all was forgiven.

He was followed by a young black comic that made jokes about beating his kids and locking his students [he was a "staff member" at a middle school, but not a teacher] in his trunk. He was also very funny. Afterwards, we returned to victims to pick up some cougars eat some pizza. All in all, it was a fun night of Comedy.

_________________

I'm not sure I've mentioned this on here before, but I'm having a mid-life crisis. This is scary for several reasons, most notably that if this is mid-life, I'll be dead at 55. My pop tells me that everyone gets like this in there first few years out of school, so I'm probably just being melodramatic. Either way, a friend of mine sent me this old Onion article today and I found it very appropriate:

Temp Hides Fun, Fulfilling Life From Rest Of Office

BOSTON—Ty Braxton, 23, continues to hide his fun and fulfilling life from the full-time employees of Hale & Dorr, the Boston law firm for which he has temped since July.

"At a job like this, where you're surrounded by angry, perpetually stressed-out lawyers who are working 80 hours a week, it's important to hide the fact that you're enjoying a normal, balanced, happy life," Braxton said Monday. "People get really pissed when they hear stuff like that."

Braxton, who earns roughly one-fourth of what the firm's lowest-seniority full-time employees make, said he has no desire to make his coworkers feel bad about their "boring, shitty lives."

"If somebody complains about how bad it sucks to work overtime five days straight, I just nod and agree," said Braxton, who spends his weeknights at parties, at concerts, and playing basketball in the park. "No point in rubbing in the fact that no matter how busy things are, I leave at exactly 5 p.m. every single day.

...

This really makes me go hmmmm.

______________________________


After like 4 horrible days without baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers and I return to Miller Park for a game against the Colorado Rockies. Awesome.

Have a good weekend jerks.