Evergreen

After Portland we continued North to Seattle. Although the cities were noticeably different, they still felt related. Portland was like the younger brother still figuring things out whereas Seattle was the older brother who sold out and got a respectable job.

As with Portland, people in Seattle were surprisingly open to exploring the van. They had no fear jumping into a strangers unmarked vehicle. We’re not criminologists, but maybe that’s why murderers flock to the Pacific Northwest.

Reactions to the van are varied. Mostly good, occasionally bad, and sometimes we’re not sure. We had one recently where we told a guy we live in a van and he said “But you’re so clean!”. Really not sure how to take that. Our instinct was to take it as a compliment but it was probably a mean dig.

Ask me anything

There’s a huge divergence between the questions men ask vs. the questions women ask about the van. It’s like reaching a fork in the road where one path leads to a church and the other a brothel. The first thing women always ask is “Did you name it?”, whereas the first thing men always ask is “Have you banged chicks in it?”.

To answer the first question: NO. We did not name the van. It’s a hulking chunk of steel; an unthinking, insentient object. Why the hell would we name it? To answer the second question: we’re classy guys -- we don’t kiss and tell.

Planet Fartness

The people in the Seattle Planet Fitness were strange. We saw a weirdo walk into a bathroom stall with a can of Sprite. He must’ve figured he’d be in there a while and sensibly brought some refreshments. I was at the urinal when he let out the longest and loudest fart I’ve ever heard in my life. It started out as a yogurt splatter and finished like a rusty door creaking shut.

After the fart, he cracked open the Sprite to celebrate his world record bowel blast. He guzzled vigorously, gasping for breath between slurps. It sounded like a man drowning in a bowl of soup. For the finale, he unleashed a hellacious belch which rivaled the fart in both decibels and duration. It was the most nauseating sequence of bodily functions ever executed in public.

Reeding is fun

When we finished the workout and hit the locker room, we overheard (eavesdropped) a guy talking to his friend about all the books on tape he listens to. He acted like it made him really smart.

We don’t understand why any adult would admit to/brag about listening to books on tape. If you listen to books on tape when your eyes work perfectly fine, you’re an idiot. Just read the book. You may even learn a thing or two - like how to spell. We have a friend who does books on tape and brags about it. Reading anything he writes on social media is excruciating.

He once posted a picture after a tough mudder with the caption “I’m a gluten for punishment”. He was obviously trying to say ‘glutton’, but he’s a moron that ‘reads’ books on tape. We wanted to mock him with a comment like “Just train more, things will get breadder”, but he probably wouldn’t fucking get it. Maybe if we made a recording and let him listen to it...

Getting on shows

Before heading to a new city we usually reach out to hosts to get on shows. Our go-to’s for finding events are Facebook and Badslava. However, if a city is known for having a large comedy scene (think NY, LA, etc. where there are 100 mics a night), we sometimes get lazy and hop on shows when we get there. Most of the time it works out, but occasionally it doesn’t. Seattle was one of the cities where it didn’t pan out.

Seattle has a good ‘comedy city’ reputation. We checked their showcase/open mic website before going and it looked good - there were a ton of shows listed. We thought it’d be easy to pop on a show but we were wrong! All the shows were either booked or required advanced signup. It was totally our fault - we should have planned more in advance.

If any comics out there are reading this and are in the same situation, we’d recommend hitting any open mic you can. If you impress people at the mic, they are usually willing to put you on one of their shows at a later date. At a minimum you can make friends with other comics and they can give you the inside scoop on places to get up.

Across the pond

Because we overestimated the ease of getting on shows in Seattle, we had to go to the burbs. We drove an hour away to Bremerton. An hour makes it sound far, but really it’s directly across Elliott Bay. The trip could’ve been 15 minutes if only there had been some kind of futuristic technology, like, say, a BRIDGE for instance.

Showtime

The show in Bremerton was at a local bar. We met the host and other comics before the show - they’re always easy to spot at any venue. They weren’t used to traveling comics dropping in - they were excited just to hear new material and we were excited to deliver it!

The audience was a lot of fun as well. The population of Bremerton is not spoiled for choice when it comes to live entertainment, so everyone comes out when opportunities present themselves.

The first couple of comics had religion-heavy sets mainly skewering the catholic church. That got Dan and I thinking -- we almost feel bad for priests. When they started out decades ago, being a priest was a respectable profession. Now, religion is openly mocked and priests are regarded as child-molesting charlatans. It’d be like becoming a teacher now, and in 30 years being regarded as child-molesting charlatan.

Priests are basically failed standup comedians. If you’ve ever been to church, then you’ve seen priests going for laughs at every mass. Anything to liven up the drudgery that is prayer. The only problem is their material -- it's staler than the body of christ.

The thing that bothers us about their cornball jokes is they actually get laughs. We have to work hard and write good jokes, but these fuckers change one word of scripture and bring the house down. It’s understandable though - if we believed the penalty for not laughing was eternal damnation and hellfire, we’d laugh too.

We did really well that night in Bremerton. We ran new jokes which landed hard and spent the rest of the time interacting with the crowd. We’ll definitely be back.

After our brief stint in Seattle/Bremerton, we hopped on a flight to Anchorage.