MD Day 4 - Good Food, Gonzo Beers, and Going to two mics in the same night
Today I spent the day exploring smaller towns in Maryland. I started by getting coffee at Bean Hollow in Ellicott City. The coffee was great, but I was really enamored with the scenery. The city used to be a mill town but now the historic Main Street is home to lots of hip shops and restaurants. There were two comic book stores on the same street so I felt at home. And the natural beauty and old fashioned architecture would appeal to the less nerdy out there
From there I went to Lawyer's Farm which is not where they grow lawyers. It's a farm in northern Maryland in a town called Thurmont, and it is home to a giant trash sculpture and the largest corn maze in Maryland. Unfortunately the maze was closed, but my trip to Thurmont was still worth it because I got to go to the Thurmont Kountry Kitchen and get a Chesapeake burger. That was a burger with cheesy crab dip, lettuce tomato and a pretzel bun all for $10. It made me very happy.
After lunch, I went to the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick. All the art for the brewery and their beer logos are done by Ralph Steadman, who is probably best known as the artist who made the covers for the work's of gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson. I got a flight of their imperial porter, the oyster stout, the abbey ale, and the their seasonal imperial pumpkin ale. Everything was very good but the pumpkin ale and the porter were my favorites.
From there, I went back to DC for my first open mic of the day. I stopped at my friend Olivia, who interned at the capital's, favorite bakery/coffee place Baked and Wired. She said they had the best pastries in D.C. And after the peanut butter cookie/ chocolate Ganache cookie sandwich, I'd say they're certainly going to be hard to beat. The coffee was very good as well
The first open mic I went to today was a happy hour open mic which is a first for me. I think that led to a distinct two halves of the show feel. The first half everyone was just out of work, just starting to drink, and excited, and in the second half I think people were just tired after a long day. This suspicion was confirmed at the second mic I went to (more on that later) because I saw a few comics who performed in the back half of the happy hour mic do the same jokes and get much better reactions.
My own set at the happy hour mic didn't go over great or terribly. I was in the second half, but I also think my delivery was off and I gave up on a few bits halfway through when continuing might have helped hard to say. I tried some of the shorter dirtier jokes that had been going over well, but they weren't totally landing so I just jumped into the mayonnaise jokes which did go well and I tried a new joke to close with which wasn't my best.
There were some pretty great comics in both halves though. My favorite was probably a guy named Noah Crowley who did an extended bit about the porn category "Barely Legal" and what it would be like if that name applied to non sexual things that were also just barely legal. It's a little too long to totally do it justice but he has the place roaring.
Another comic named Kevin Lance Murray did one of the smartest, yet silliest political bits I've seen someone do so far with a bit about how people getting mad at confederate statues being taken down is the same as someone going into subway and saying "Where are all the pictures of Jared? Sure he did some horrible things but he is a part of this stores history"
My favorite single joke of the mic was by Jamie Benedi: "the inventor of the red solo cup died today. They found him crumpled up on the floor of a frat house"
All in all it was a fun mic, with good happy hour deals but not quite as good as the one i had been to before. I found out basically as soon as I walked out of the bar that there was an open spot for a mic I had emailed about earlier in the week at 8 so I drove over to the Reliable Tavern. It was run by Underground Comedy which is pretty well respected in the area so even though it was a bar show there was a decently sized young, receptive crowd which was great.
They actually did take a little warming up but the host did some fun crowd work and got them pretty loosened up for the rest of the comedians. He also did some really funny jokes about the difference between buses and planes (which seems super hacky in writing but they really were good jokes).
Between the happy hour mic and the Tuesday mic I'd done there were a lot of familiar faces, but I thought this was probably the strongest version of people's sets that I'd seen before and the new people (new to me clearly not at comedy) we all great as well. One of my favorites for the night, Martin Phillips, was the host of the happy hour mic and also at the Bier Baron but something about his delivery and material at this show just totally clicked and he had a really tremendous five minutes. He told a joke about his mom sending a card with happy birthday in quotation marks that killed me.
The last comic of the night, Martin Meaney (might not have the spelling or any of that right) was also probably the best. He mostly just told stories about his dad being an ice cream truck driver getting into turf wars with other ice cream truck drivers so it's hard to write out the jokes but he was a natural story teller and the actual content was so silly that it was hard not to love it
My own set did much better but I did a totally different five minutes so i honestly could think the delivery, content , and audience energy were all better so It's hard to pinpoint what drove this set doing better than the first one but either way doing well is always a nice palette cleanser to not doing well and it was nice doing it right after the first one so my shame didn't have to linger for a whole day.
After that I met my cousin in a cool bar called the Looking Glass Lounge. There was stained glass, weird art, and outdoor patio so I was happy there. My cousin is a police officer in DC and actually my mom's cousin but we have a big family so it's easier to just call everyone a cousin. He was in the navy and not around MA too often while I was growing up so it was really great getting to catch up, and share stories and drinks. We didn't end up going to bed until 6 in the morning, which is definitely a first for me post-college. Worth it though.
Favorite Random Sightings: The Clayground; Seachrist Road (Land Christ Road is totally different); A wifi network called "Wi Believe I Can Fi"
Regional Observations: Northern Maryland is exponentially hillier than the rest of the Maryland, and I don't know if the state has different laws about using blinkers when merging because not a whole lot of the drivers were doing it.
Albums Listened To: Exile On Main Street by the Rolling Stones (probably my favorite album of theirs, country boogies, horn arrangements, and casually vulgar lyrics what more could you want); Exodus by Bob Marley; F**k Christmas (single) by Eric Idle; Face to Face by Freddie Hubbard and Oscar Peterson; Face to Face by the Kinks; The Facts by the Facts
People's Favorite Jokes:
All the bills I have to Pay
What did Cinderella say when she got to the ball? *gagging noises* (honestly surprised I've gotten this one more than once)
(warning: not in the best of taste) What's the quickest way to get a Jewish girl's number? Look on her arm.
Great horns, country boogies, and casually vulgar lyrics. What a great album.
