MD Day 2 - American Art, German Food, and Capital Comedy

I started today by taking the train into Washington D.C. and I will say the trains in D.C. are much cleaner and more intuitive than the trains Boston. They do seem to be newer though so that might be driving that relationship.

When I got to DC, I got some coffee at Compass Coffee. I had a nitro cold brew, and I was happy that it was at least two dollars cheaper than it would have been in New York or New Jersey.

I loved DC! All the major museums are free, which is incredible. I didn't really take full advantage of this though, because I spent so much time enjoying the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum (they're in the same building). The museum is three massive floors packed with cool art. Portraiture isn't generally my favorite form of art, but the historical aspect of it was really cool and informative. It was fun seeing how the styles of portraits changed through the years as well.

The American Art facet of the museum was definitely more my style. My favorite thing was the folk art and the 20th century art. The folk art was really cool, becasue the majority of it was done by artists with no formal training so there was a fun rawness to it, and the 20th century art I liked because it included Hopper (the easiest way for an art museum to just get me) as well as other modernist, surrealist, and cool early video works. Check out this jaw-dropping piece from the folk art exhibit. It's a throne room made out of assorted found objects, because the artist believed that God was actually going to come to visit him and he wanted to be ready when it happened.

The special exhibits were also stupendous. There was one on Thomas Wilfred and his lumia, some of the earliest forms of light shows inspired by Einstein's work with light mechanics. The technology and visuals on display were totally mesmerizing.

There was a hallway filled with different exhibitons related to war. They were all cool, but the thing that just emotionally devastated me was a room that was entirely beautiful photographs of the empty bedrooms of fallen soliders preserved just as they left them. There were little bios of the soldier's and a truly saddening number were younger than I am. It was a simple but powerful collection.

The portrait gallery also had a cool exhibit focused on Marlene Dietrich. She was such an interesting performer and the photos of her were pretty far out at times. Here's her kissing Edith Piaf and then also her hanging out with General Patton. Not many ladies did either back in her day.

The other small special exhibit I liked a lot was a showcase of art by Sylvia Plath. I had no idea she was a painter as well and she wasn't half bad either.

After the museum, I had lunch at Gordon Biersch. They made all their own beers in house in the style of German Brewers. Normally flights are of six beers, but I guess my server liked me because he let me sample all 8 beers on draft. I had their seasonal Oktoberfest beer, the hefeweizen, the marzen, their belgian abbey ale (a spiced ale), their IPA, a Czech pilsner, their golden ale, and a stout. Everything was good, and I even liked the IPA. The stout and the Belgian Abbey Ale were my favorites, with the latter having a really different flavor profile than I'm used to but in a good way. For food, I had an amazing burger. There was bacon jam on it. I have no clue what that means, but it keeps the burger from being dry and it tastes like bacon so I'm not complaining.

After all that I got pretty tipsy and took a brief nap under a this tree in the national mall. I went to see a sculpture park, but I was a little too late in the day to see any more museums. I did have five minutes left to see the National Gallery of Art, so I essentially just had a five minute air conditioned walk through there to see the capital building. I'll have to go back though because it looked like a cool museum.

After seeing the capital building, I walked the length of the national mall and saw the Washington and Lincoln monuments. The only big touristy thing I missed was the White House, but there's still time.

I was a little early to get to the mic, which was at a bar called the Bier Baron Tavern, so i just hung out at the bar for a bit. It was great, and they had a huge beer selection. They were playing Big Mouth, the show I was previously raving about, so that made me happy. Also the two leads (and some of the funniest people currently working), John Mulaney and Nick Kroll, both went to Georgetown so they're local boys done good.

The other comics were all very friendly and supportive and wer hanging out before the mic, so it was nice getting to talk to them, and learning a bit more about the D.C. scene.

Overall the mic was really consistently strong and I think I laughed out loud at least once for every comic. The host, Phil Mike, did a great opening set, and kept the energy going throughout the night. The crowd wasn't huge, but there were two good sized friend groups and the collected comics so while it wasn't large, the crowd was very receptive.

My personal favorite comics of the night were Katherine Jessup and Adrian Rodney. Katherine had a really tight well-written set with a good deadpan delivery and a hint of darkness, case in point my two favorite lines "I don't mean to brag but I have co-workers" and "I'm allergic to cats so I just don't know who's gonna eat my face when I die". Adrian also had a very tight well-written set, but a looser light-hearted stoner vibe to it. My favorite line of his was "I don't know if any of you all don't work during the day, but if you watch TV during the day you start to think Mesothelioma is a much bigger problem than it is".

My own set was one of the best received sets I've done. Who would have guessed that constant practice would lead to improvements? I feel like I definitely am starting to have full sets I feel really good about performing, and I had a couple people come up to me after the show to compliment me. That was a huge confidence booster, and I'm excited about the rest of the DC comedy shows I'll be seeing and performing in this week.

My friend Scott got to come tonight, and he concurred that this was a particularly good night of comedy, lest you think I'm biased by my own jokes going well.

Favorite Joke of the Night: "Alabama is the third fattest state in the country, and number 1 in STDs. How?" (didn't catch the comic's name unfortunately)

Favorite Random Sightings: Expressway Pit Beef (sounds less than appealing); Lobby Market; A bus with "Lamers" on the side; Bathroom graffiti that said "Nazi Beatdowns given out"

Regional Observations: DC and Maryland are more humid than hot so it doesn't matter what you wear, you're gonna get sweaty.

Albums Listened To: Everyone Knows This is Nowhere by Neil Young & Crazy Horse; Everybody's in Show-Biz by the Kinks (great double album, half awesome studio work, half fun live album); Everyone Else by Slothrust (I'd never heard of them until my friend Hank invited me to a concert. The lead singer is a triple threat. She can sing, shred on guitar, and she writes really smart lyrics. Check out this opening line this great darkly funny kinda sick opening line "I told you once you were my son, because you grew inside me")

People's Favorite Jokes:

Nobody told me any jokes today, but two different cashiers complimented me on my King of the Hill T-Shirt so I think people here must have pretty good senses of humor

I did see this joke on road sign though so it still counts:

What kind of fish really loves hugs? A cuddle fish

Song of the Day:

A love song that's also about potatoes? Perhaps no song has ever spoken to me more