Hit the ol’ dusty trail

With Cincinnati in the rearview mirror we chugged westward to Kansas. In a perfect world  we’d’ve already completed the Midwest and begun the final eastward leg of our trip, but things didn’t quite work out that way. We still had Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming to cover. We circled the wagon and headed back, preparing for a prosperous trip.

Constantly traveling and facing challenges as they crop up really does make life feel like The Oregon Trail. If we get right down to it, the van is basically a modern-day Conestoga Wagon.

One difference is we don’t have to do any hunting - which is probably for the better. It’d be unsettling to discover we had the same insatiable bloodlust in real life as we did in the game. Hunting in the Oregon Trail really brought the worst out of everyone -- it turned regular people into homicidal maniacs. You wouldn’t hunt to satisfaction; you’d hunt to extinction.

The wagon could hold maybe 200 pounds of rations but your hunt would yield 2,339 pounds. If you even tried storing that much meat, the axles would snap and you’d get typhoid. But that wouldn’t stop you.

The slaughter would continue well past the point of reason. You’d massacre the food chain from top to bottom, starting with buffalo and working your way down to squirrels. Hell, you’d even shoot birds. After the ammo was out you’d dry fire at any animal with the gall to cross your screen. Your only regret was being unable to plug each and every last creature.

A glimpse into the past

If you were to review the history books, you’d see Two Dans in a Van is not the first duo to travel the country doing comedy. We drew inspiration from the ol’ frontier comics Two Barts in a Cart

The Barts roamed from town to town, entertaining bewildered residents by the dozen. They even coined the term ‘killing’ as it pertains to comedy (getting huge laughs). You see, in those days laughter wasn’t the only thing contagious. Following punchlines, wet chortles rattled out of consumption-ridden lungs and spread countless germs through the air. Entire towns were routinely wiped out or left gravely ill.

Before moving on, the Barts would tack reviews onto wooden beams in the town square (much like a modern day blog).

Their causes of death were consistent with most who died in that era: one from a snake bite, the other from autoerotic asphyxiation.

Back to the future

We found ourselves once again in Kansas. We had previously performed in Kansas City Missouri, but not in Kansas itself. We checked around for mics in the big cities (Wichita, KC, Olathe) but didn’t come up with much. Luckily we found a club called ‘Clint’s Comedy Stop’ In Overland Park.

It was a nice little club and the owner, Clint, was a supremely nice guy. He had been a comic, managed clubs, ran shows, and was familiar with all the in’s and out’s of standup comedy. He had seen it all, and as a result was a pleasure to deal with.

Showtime

About 10 people performed that night. Most of the comedians worked out of Kansas City but there were a few out of different reaches in Kansas. Dan and I were the only ‘true’ out of towners. The crowd seemed very midwestern (e.g. extremely polite) because they’d clam up whenever we used profanity.

Clint was nice enough to give us a few extra minutes and we used the time to test new jokes. Overall the show was fun, and it was amusing to run wildly profane jokes to a crowd that blanched at ‘the C word’ (crap).

A huge rainstorm began pelting Overland Park as we were finishing the show. We didn’t want to spend the night trapped in the van - sheet metal amplifies delicate raindrops up to eardrum shattering decibels. We burned rubber outta town, outrunning the storm on our way to Wyoming.