Let it snow, elsewhere

From Virginia Beach we went South to visit friends in Chapel Hill. We considered several cities for our next stop like Charlotte, Columbia, and Charleston - but we landed on Savannah. We’d like to say we chose Savannah for the strength of its comedy scene, a club audition, or some worthwhile reason, but it’d be a lie. We went there because we wanted to evade an upcoming blizzard.

Initially when choosing cities to perform in, we asked “Are there good places to perform?”. Now our only question is “Is it summer there?”. On our first test-run with the van we went South at the end of summer and North in the beginning of winter - like idiots. We baked from August to September and froze from November to December. It was basically navy seal training for vanners.

It’s embarrassing to admit that warm weather is our only guiding compass, but it’s the truth. We started with the best of intentions. Dan, being a math guy, analyzed cities by largest population. He measured distance with np-hard combinatorial optimization. He wrote a program for route mapping and downloaded a Canadian executable. Then the temperature plummeted to 30 degrees and we immediately scrapped the plan without looking back.

Change of Plans

The new route was wherever warmth was. We’re essentially moths drawn to flame. The reasoning is sound, though - why program in the cold when you can do it on a beach?

The new plan was simple: go South for winter and North for summer. From  Chapel Hill we burned rubber for six straight hours to Savannah. We slept at a Walmart for about 4 hours, then were awoken by the reverse beep of every construction vehicle in the state of Georgia. The beeping did not stop. Apparently we parked next to the world's only all-reverse construction site.

Doing comedy in Savannah (and all small cities/towns, for that matter) was a lot of fun. A lot of people think comedy only exists in big cities like New York and LA but believe it or not people in small towns laugh too.

One of the main reasons for hitting the road was to learn what makes people laugh in different parts of the country. A joke that could crush a liberal Northeast audience could be met with hostility in other states. Our goal is to play as many rooms as possible and be exposed to all varieties of humor. We want to be able to walk into any room and kill.

Showtime

The show in Savannah was in a microbrewery, and those are fun spots for shows. The atmosphere is relaxed, the space is intimate, and everyone is there to let out steam and have a good time. The crowds are usually loose and provide great crowd work material - even if unintentionally. For example, there was some dude at this show in the back corner that periodically hacked up his entire respiratory system every ten minutes, and that made for good riffing. That might seem mean, but if you come out and cough SARS all over everyone, you’re fair game.

About 15 comics performed that night and it was a great show.

The local comedians were a real friendly bunch and they told us about upcoming mics later in the week. We wanted to stay a few more days and really get to see Savannah but the weather forecast won out. We googled  “Florida weather” and saw temperatures in the 70’s - our decision was made. We drove straight to Orlando after the show.