NY Day 2- Friends, Funnies, and Fine Arts
Today started with a trip across the street from my friends' apartment in Brooklyn to a place called the Bagel Pub. I was very pleasantly surprised that the rumors about New York having truly exceptional bagels were completely true. I got a garlic bagel with gravlox (whiskey marinated cured salmon) and bacon-chipotle cream cheese. It was tremendous. So much flavor in such a perfect dense little carb package.
After that I transitioned to some different friends' apartment in the Upper East Side. My friend Dan is pretty active in the NYC comedy scene and was my primary trustwrothy source for which mics are genereally better than other. Mike did standup with us in college, but hasn't done as much since then because he's been doing more writing work than performance work. With the exceptions of my roommates, Mike was probably my closest friend from college so it was really great to get to see him and just geek out about comedy, books, music, TV, and everything.
After dropping off my stuff with Dan and Mike and chatting for a bit, I went to the Met. The museum is pay what you want which is a steal. It's possibly the largest museum I have been to that was all one building. It was impossible to see everything in one outing, but everything I saw was incredible.
I started with the Ancient Egyptian art, which was stunning. There was a totally reconstructed tomb that visitors could walk into. They also had preserved figures and models of ships and everyday scenes that had been discovered in a secret room of a tomb and were one of the first examples archeologists had found of ancient cultures building scale ships and houses. My favorite thing was a blue hippo that had been uncovered in a tomb, and it was across from another blue hippo sculpture made more recently and the description was just labeled "Conversation Between Two Hippos".
After Ancient Egypt, I saw a hall of drawings by a surprising number of great American artists including Mary Cassat, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
From there, I walked through halls of Sculptures. I walked by more modern European sculptures in the courtyard first and then the hall of ancient Greek art and then the hall of ancient Oceanic art. The latter was probably the most interesting to me in that is an area that I don't see as frequently represented in museums both in terms of ancient artifacts and more modern art.
From there it was on to modern and contemporary art. This exhibit was organized around stylistic themes in modernist art. Very cool lay out and curation. There were incredible works by famous masters as well as some less well known people. My personal favorite was a work just called The Pigeons by a guy named Harry Koerner.
I also really liked this guy Charles Demuth, because his paintings ranged from really intentionally cluttered, anxious looking paintings to totally sleek. I like that this picture of the number 5 was done as a portrait of the poet William Carlos Williams, who's native Paterson, NJ I've driven through.
On the top floor of the museum was more contemporary stuff, and then European art up to the 20h century. I kinda rushed through this section unfortunately because i was trying to get to an early afternoon mic, but there were some really beautiful works. There would be whole rooms of one incredible artists i.e. Rodin, Renoir, van Gogh to name a few. Courbet whom i liked before in the few times I've seen him really stood out as increidible.
The early mic was kinda rough given the time but not bad. It was at a bar called the Stone Creek which was really nice, and they there own house beer which I really enjoyed. As for the mic, it was almost the opposite of the late night mic which had a very rowdy and engaged crowd but cruder more rough material, this was definitely better material but for a much groggier crowd.
One comedian joked that it was a crowd that didn't really like set up-punch line jokes, but I think it was kinda true. I thought my friend Dan was very funny, but he did more joke jokes than story jokes, and the crowd was less receptive than i felt he and similar comics deserved. My favorite comic of the afternoon was comic named Jonathon Bend, who did have some great jokes but the most laid back delivery in the world, so I think even a more energetic audience might have missed some of his deadpans. His one joke that absolutely killed everyone though was: "White people are just bad at pretending that things are over. I've been hearing that cats the musical is going to close fore 13 years."
Some other highlights included a guy named Matt Maron who was an amateur pro wrestler. None of the more traditional jokes quite worked but the stories were so funny and interesting you wanted to hear more. And there was another guy named Jake Verve who did a whole five minutes about sex robots, but he focused on the social niceties of purchasing such a ridiculous thing rather than the cruder elements and it was just hilarious.
My own set went pretty middle of the road. I got some decent laughs but nothing great. I think I tried a different order of jokes that diminished both jokes so I have now learned my lesson.
From there, I went on to another mic at a place called the Branded Saloon in Brooklyn. It was voted the Best-Not-Quite-Gay-but-almost Gay Bar in New York, which I'm told the competition was pretty steep for. The food and drinks were a bit pricey but super good. I got shrimp and grits because it seemed the salooniest option. I was surprised by how good the cherry tomatoes were. They're not normally my thing but they must have been in season and also doused with delicious cheesy grits which helped.
As for the mic, it was easily the friendliest and most solid mic so far. l had lots of fun, I thought the hosts were great, and I felt like the crowd was really supportive of one another. My own set did really well, which probably biases me a bit, but it was super validating because I was worried that maybe i couldn't hack it in NYC and the material i thought was good before really wasn't. That kind of head space can be pretty debilitating fr a comic, but it all seemed to go okay which helped build up a little well of confidence in me.
My favorite comic of the night was a guy named Ryan Fleming, who told a really funny story about giving a girl a watch, and then asking for it back, only to have that bite him in the ass. I also liked a guy named Alex Patak who did much sillier material including a funny bit about how his bosses at work always eventually start to sound like a disappointed dad.
Between the two mics, I'd say that the NYC scene does definitely have a preference for more story driven material, but sillier bits can still be well received if they're strong enough. THere's also a lot of regional humor about public transit and things, which can sometimes feel hacky, but after taking the MTA for a little bit I get how it can be an endless source of inspiration.
Favorite Line of the Evening: From a guy named Dan Yang- "My friends said it would be really funny if I grew out a fu manchu mustache. But that's not really the goal of my face.
Favorite Random Sightings: Someone with a tote bag that just Protein; Canine Styles Pet Salon (They couldn't use Doggie)
Regional Observations: I feel like kids in New York are much more independent than in other cities I've been to. Like lots of elementary school kids were just much more confident using the subway than I was.
Albums Listened To: Funky Kingston/In The Dark by Toots & the Maytals; The Fury of the Aquabats! by the Aquabats! (I was so surprised by how much I still love this album. It was basically all I listened to in late elementary/early middle school. I would say it's the best work Travis Barker ever did); Future Games by Fleetwood Mac; The Future is Unwritten by Various Artists
People's Favorite Jokes:
I didn't get any today so here's a joke of the day from the internet.
Q: Where can you find the biggest amount of the largest sized women's lingerie in the world?
A: In Africa: there's thousands of Z bras.
Song of the Day:
