A Sea of Wonder

We took some time to warm up after freezing in Concord. It took about two weeks for us to thaw out, but as soon as we could move again we hit the road toward Baltimore. Our excursion began with a trip to the aquarium. We both love Planet Earth and were pumped to see wild animals like in the show.

All told, we were both underwhelmed. We didn’t see any entertaining exhibits, but we were thoroughly entertained by the laughably unscientific fish names plastered above each tank. In most branches of biology, names are given through systematic classification - but when it comes to fish, it seems names are given by drunken pirates. Slimehead, Oriental Sweetlips, and Blotched Upside-Down Catfish were but a few of the bizarre names. I can’t make this shit up.

I'm actually surprised that Slimehead and Oriental Sweetlips made it up the naming chain of approval. One sounds like what a child would call a friend at a playground, the other sounds like what a grandpa would call a waitress at P.F. Changs. A good rule of thumb should be “don’t select a name that would return porn in a google search”. If someone saw you looked up ‘oriental sweetlips’, I doubt they’d think you were curious about fish from the Indian Ocean.

Setting the why aside, a more important question is how did the scientists decide on the name? “Oh, I’ve frenched a good many fish and I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, this one has the sweetest, (heavy breathing) most delectable lips (twists nipple) in the sea (ejaculates on table)”.

Jawsome

We reconvened at the shark tank. Next to us stood a couple of guys having a heated conversation. The one guy asked his friend “Dude, what would you do right now if you fell in?”. Without a moment's hesitation the friend said “If a shark bit me, I’d just punch it in the nose”. Why does every idiot think that’ll work? It’s a 400 million year old apex predator. Do they really think sharks have a Death Star-like weakness where they just explode if you hit the right point?

The guy answered that question with the utmost sincerity. He truly believed if a shark clamped down on his leg, he’d give it a knuckle sandwich and walk off. It was hard not to laugh out loud. Like - that’s what you’re gonna do? You’re gonna give this ten thousand pound killing machine a bop on the sniffer? A little slap on the snoot? Why not give it a Wet Willy? They hate that.

It’s hard enough to punch a human on land, but you’re confident you can KO a shark under water? A shark's nose is mere centimeters above its mouth. And in case you forgot, the nose comes to a point. It’s just a slippery slope into its mouth. You’re basically just feeding your arm to the shark.

These guys kept running through hypothetical scenarios - each more implausible than the next -  in which they crushed every imaginary challenge. I love listening to that kinda stuff. It’s the perfect way to identify how full of shit someone is. The quicker the answer, the fuller of shit.

I wanted to follow these guys around the aquarium to eavesdrop for more material, but we had to get to to our first mic of the week.

Hurry up and wait

We’ve discussed this in prior posts but when there’s a lottery system for performing at mics, one of us always gets picked in the first five, the other in the last five. If you’re one of the first five performers, it’s great. The audience is fresh and you get useful feedback on jokes. If you’re one of the last five, it’s the opposite.

The two main drawbacks of going up late are 1.) everybody leaves - the only remaining people are the 2-3 frustrated comics still waiting for their turn, and 2.) there’s no anonymity, which means fewer laughs. Anonymity makes everyone more comfortable in their actions. If you don’t believe that, then you’ve never read comments on the internet.

If the connection between anonymity and laughter is still unclear, imagine the following. It’s Friday night and you decide catch a comedy show. The club is packed and dimly lit. When edgy jokes start flying, you feel comfortable laughing because you’re a grain of salt in a sea of strangers. But now think about the same comic doing the same set for a corporate gig at your well-lit workplace. You’re sitting at a table with your boss and coworkers. When the comic hits that abortion joke, do you think you’d howl with laughter?

I went fourth that night, Dan C went second to last. By that time it was only me, the host, and the final comic in the audience. Tough to get good feedback with such a small crowd but that’s just how it shakes out sometimes. Live to die another day.

Back on the horse

We did another show later in the week. It started out great - there were a lot of comics and non-comics in attendance. However, it pretty quickly went off the rails. A table of obnoxious people in the middle of the room got totally hammered and either heckled or too-loudly-laughed their way through a bunch of sets. The host set them straight several times but the damage was done. The crowd was alienated and a bunch of people left.

The audience was pretty sparse by the time we got up. Dan went first and managed to wring laughs out of the crowd. It was impressive - the energy in the room was totally dead and few remained, but he made it work.

I was excited to riff and playfully shit on the table who had been drinking and heckling. I have a couple of drinking jokes that I knew would hit. But when I was walking to the stage, that whole table was leaving. Without those people to connect with, I bombed. I ate shit for five silent minutes.

Kicked off the horse

We went to IHOP after the show to drown our sorrows in syrup. After eating, we pulled into a Planet Fitness parking lot with bellies full of garbage and had a terrible nights sleep. By morning the van was buried in snow and we still had to get back to Philly. In case anyone is curious about how to double the duration of any trip -- just try driving in a blizzard.

Afterwards, we went to Pittsburgh.