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Road Comedy Recap: The Return to St Paul

This weekend I returned to St Paul, MN for some shows after a 6 year absence.  The last time I was in St Paul at the same location it was the final resting place of the Joke Joint, a wonderful, welcoming club that gave comedians like me a chance at headlining.  Then the pandemic hit and since 2022 I have been trying to get booked at the club.  Thanks to a persistent fan, three very big headliners who wrote me recommendation emails (there is a formal process to be considered by the booking agent), and more persistence by my fan it only took me 20 months to appear at Laugh Camp in St Paul.  I have said many things about comedy, but one of the truest is that it is better to be a bad comedian with an agent than a great comedian with no agent.  But was the effort worth it? Absolutely – let’s get into the recap.

The Polar Express (Wednesday-Thursday)

After working out, mailing some Make Prison Great Again hats, shaving, showering and making necessary use of my bathroom before beginning a 33 hour bathroom fast, I hopped on the Amtrak from Newark to DC. When I arrived in DC I ate a salad at Chopt (the last nutrition my body would consume for 5 days) and got on the Capitol Limited (the DC to Chicago route).  The train attendant was nice, but as my Patreon fans know, the gold standard is Carlos and I did not have him.  I settled into my roomette and noticed something very odd on my train.  Exceptionally attractive women.  Normally there are only four demos on the long distance trains: the elderly, the disgusting, the Amish and the 6’7” bi-racial comedian (though I currently might be double dipping in the disgusting demo based on my current fitness).  But for some reason the woman directly across my sleeper was hot. Like adult film actress hot, but apparently she did not need a pizza, plumbing work, a desire to make her husband jealous or a desire to have a bi-racial stepson, so we never interacted. There was also a Latin woman who had an attractiveness level I refer to as “third wife of billionaire after second wife dies in mysterious accident” hot.  So the trip seemed on pace to be a great one.

Why yes ladies, I have my own Amtrak place. It’s a rental

I slept an uncomfortable 2.5 hours on the way to Chicago and then walked around Chicago for an hour before getting on the Borealis (the new Chicago-St Paul route that Amtrak added).  As part of that walk I walked to the Whole Foods .8 miles from Union Station (no one may be more familiar with the 1.5 mile radius around Chicago’s Union Station than me at this point) and at 10:40 am went to their deli to order a sandwich.  Whole Foods across America consistently have the worst deli service.  It is a combination of incredible slowness delivered with an enthusiasm usually reserved for informing families of a wartime death (LA, Chicago, Newark have all delivered the same level of service).  As I stood there with my sandwich order sheet they told me the deli station was closed.  Because why should someone be able to order a sandwich at 1040am on a Thursday?  I then picked up a box of pumpkin spice sandwich cookies and decided that that would be my lunch/vegetable for the day.

When I got on the Borealis I was a sweaty mess.  I was in a long sleeve t shirt and sweatpants, my travel uniform which is not too warm, but can provide some comfort in the unlikely event of overpowering air conditioning.  But Chicago was about 80 degrees so I looked like a finalist on The Biggest Loser by the time I boarded.  But the AC was glorious in business class and I sat down and quickly cooled off. And then an hour into the trip my nipples could cut diamonds – we had now become the Polar Express and for the next 5 hours I shivered on my way to St Paul.

Food Truck Party & Springhill Suites (Thursday Night)

When I got to St Paul the hotel and club were only a 9 minute walk and as I walked I saw a massive concert and food truck assembly. So I said once I get to my hotel and greet the toilet like a troop reunited with his family I will come back and sample the food truck fare.  Well when I got back around 745 the lines were super long for all the trucks. So I decided to walk to the closest Chipotle, which I learned as I got to the door at 8:03pm, closed at 8pm.  Always an ominous sign for attendance at comedy shows when the town’s food shuts down at 8pm on a Thursday.  So I made my way back to the food trucks where the lines were much shorter. I had a pulled pork sandwich (satisfactory) and then decided to wash it down with a milkshake from a truck called “The Cake Shake.”  The Cake Shake’s product was a soft serve milkshake layered with pieces of cake and then blended together into a crack-like delivery system for diabetes.  I got chocolate (they give you a very girthy straw to make sure you get the cake through the straw) and it was a delight after every gulp of chocolate shake to be greeted with a heavily frosted piece of chocolate cake.  I finished the night with one of the longest showers of my life as the funk of Amtrak washed down the drain.

Other than this distinctly anti-J-L signage, St Paul was very welcoming

Friday Fun

When I woke up Friday it was J-L media day in St Paul. I started the day by looking at my hotel gym (excellent) and then skipping it because.  I did the Tom Barnard Show in the morning (crushed it) and then appeared on Brittany & Kendall in the afternoon (crushed it).  Then it was time for the show.

As I walked to the club I saw someone walking in front of me wearing a Making Podcasts Great Again t-shirt. So that felt good.  The crowd at Friday’s show, while not packed, was more people than I had at the 2 shows I did in 2018, combined.  The show went great and I chatted with TC, the fan who began the journey to get me there (It Takes a Village, a fan, multiple headliners and persistence to get J-L booked).  I also met three guys who live near the club I am performing at in Chicago who will be at the Trump show October 18th.  Locking in that future business is key – it sustains the delusion that one might have a viable path to comedy success.  I went back to the hotel and had a nightcap of a Snickers ice cream bar to celebrate before falling asleep.

Saturday: Packed and Productive

I woke up Saturday on a mission. And that mission was to do something other than eat junk food. After my hotel breakfast of Belgian waffle, banana, yogurt and coffee I proceeded to re-write my entire part in a Trump musical show  (no singing for me, but a lot of talking) that films in 3 weeks.  It is amazing when you turn off your Wi-Fi and phone how productive you can be.  I then went to Mass nearby for the 5pm vigil. I passed various unhoused, drug-owning gentlemen on the way to Church and then felt weird with an armed security guard at the service. After Mass, feeling comedically and spiritually productive I decided to go to the building gym.  I had a great workout while children in the hotel pool gawked at the NBA player/The Rock struggling through a workout.  Obviously, the camera removes 60 lbs of fat and adds muscle kids.

The Saturday Show was packed. There were Pete Dominick fans, a Black Guy Who Tips fan and a lot of people who for sone reason were fans of me. But as I explained to them – they were producing more laughs than Friday’s crowd, but their laughs per person average was way down.  Some bits really crushed, but some fell flat after doing great the night before.  But all in all it was another fun and rewarding night and the kind of weekend I thought I was going to have 40 times a year after the pandemic.  Sadly, it has not been in the cards, but it felt great to have good shows and a majority of the audiences specifically coming out to see me.  Hopefully some St Paul fans see this and know that I appreciate their support.  And check out this nice gift from Lisa (a fan):

Some nice local beers!

Epilogue

I am now on the Pennsylvanian, the last leg of the three trains to get home. I slept 45 minutes last night so hopefully tonight I crash and sleep well before getting a dental implant tomorrow morning. I look forward to Cookie greeting me enthusiastically this afternoon, assuming she has not heard the news about Haitians eating their pets.

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Minnesota Recap – Cold Weather, Warm Reception

My headlining stint was a rousing success at Joke Joint in Lilydale, MN (a few miles from St Paul – one of the twin cities, so Lilydale is like the chick that St Paul has sex with when Lilydale thinks it is actually having sex with Indianapolis).  Of course on this blog, the phrase “rousing success” is a relative term.  It means I had three really excellent shows, one decent one and one that was eh.

Joke Joint is a comedy condo club, meaning that you live in an apartment that the club owns or rents, versus a hotel.  But unlike most condos, the Joke Joint one was pretty damn cozy.  It features a full kitchen stocked with snacks (and tons of bottles of 5 Hour Energy – in case the headliner is a raging douchebag), a television and DVD player and two bedrooms – one for me and one for soon-to-be dead hookers.

Being a big walker and non-owner of a car I like when accommodations are near eating and shopping areas.  Well, the condo was a mere 1.7 miles from a Walmart/Panera Bread/etc. and considering that I once walked 4.1 miles each way in a suburb of Denver to see a movie each day, this was no problem.  Except that was Denver in springtime.  This was Minnesota in Winter (think Game of Thrones and how terrified those dues are of Winter).  Each walk would start with me having a penis and by the time I arrived at Panera Bread I was using the women’s bathroom and removing a finger dead from frost.

I managed to see one movie while in Minnesota.  The feature – a woman named Wendy – was given the unenviable task of chauffeuring me to and from the shows each night agreed to bring me along to the movie she was seeing with the two teenage daughters of a friend.  Of course this felt like some sort of set up.  I thought I was getting Silvio Berlusconi’d.  But something far more offensive was to happen. We went to see Hugo.

I was lukewarm on Hugo.  On the plus side it was directed by Mr. Eyebrows Martin Scorsese and has been receiving rave reviews.  On the downside I had no real fu*king interest in it.  But the critical mass was so good that I decided I wanted to see it.  Whoops.  Here in as concise a fashion as possible is my summary of Hugo:

  • Well acted
  • Boring
  • Really boring
  • Fell asleep boring (literally)
  • Nice looking movie
  • Takes place in Paris, every actor (both English and American so it was intentional) using British accents
  • Long
  • Too long
  • Never cared very much about the characters
  • Every revelation of past events that have led our characters to be the way they are fails to deliver as much significance – it is as if JJ Abrams decided to direct a boring family movie (and critics – please stop calling this a family film – no kid, let alone a kid from the ADD 21st century will enjoy this or have the patience for your ode to cinema)

But the point of this whole trip was not to see movies or experience shrinkage on an unprecedented level – it was to do comedy, or as I described it to the crowd to run a Ponzi scheme on myself.  And the crowds were really good.  The Thursday crowd and the two early Friday/Saturday crowds were great.  Enthusiastic, smart and great laughers.  The late show Friday was tough and featured a lot of Usain Bolts (this is what I call a person who sprints out of the showroom, for fear that even looking at me may force them to acknowledge my existence or buy a CD).  The Saturday late show was tough, but still a net positive.  Here is one of my favorite newer bits I dropped on the crowds:

So I managed to sell a few CDs, got a lot of laughs, avoided junk food at the airports (Midway one of the underrated airports in America – can’t beat Potbelly for airport food!), did not get arrested, did not die in a plane crash and immediately sent every penny I made to the credit card, phone and cable companies!  Comedy!  Thank you to the fellow comics, staff and audiences at Joke Joint.