DE Day 6 - Just Farting Around Delaware
Remember fart= food+art. That's gonna be a recurring theme if you're in this blog for the long haul.
My food choices all came from Delaware Today's best of 2017 List. I started with Coffee from the Drip Cafe in Hockessin. The coffee was very good, and I'm guessing so is there brunch food because the place was absolutely packed. All the staff had on funny shirts, so I was into that. My favorite just said in giant letters "I don't even like coffee!"
From there I got the best burrito with the best guacamole in upstate Delaware at El Diablo Burritos, a local chain. I went to the location in Newark, and like any good burrito place in a college town it was pretty packed as well. I got pork with guac, pico, cheese, beans, rice, cilantro, and corn. I was completely happy with my meal, and the guac really did take things to another level, though I would recommend having a fork for back up.
It was a little weird being surrounded by college kids. It made me miss my friends, but a funny thing did happen because of it. A girl wearing an orientation committee lanyard waved at me after I accidentally walked by her twice because I'd overshot the burrito place. I think she thought I was a lost freshman, instead of just a dumb traveler.
After the burrito I got a flight of beer from Iron Hill Brewery. I got red ale, a porter, an oktoberfest, and a wheat beer. Unsurprisingly the porter was my favorite.
After that food came the art. The Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover is free on the first Satruday of every month, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Interestingly the coolest exhibit was the one that wasn't technically American Art. It was a collection of concept drawings and photographs of the work of Christo and Jean-Claude, a husband and wife team known for massive works of temporary environmental art. They made The Gates in Central Park, they put 3000 color coded umbrellas on the shores of California and Japan, and they had several forms of "wrapping" large monuments in colored fabric. Perhaps the most impressive wrapping was of all the islands in Biscayne Bay of Miami. It was just stunning the scope of the project. There was also a short accompanying documentary about how they secured the rights to do the project, and there was a fun and surprising amount of political wheeling and dealing needed to win over the representatives of Miami's city council.
The rest of the museum was all American artists from colonial time to the modern day many of the works being from local Delaware artists. It was tough to compete with the island wrapping, but something I thought was cool was the focus on curating rooms with period specific furniture as well as more traditional art. All in all it was a really great museum.
After that I got another coffee at Arenas Cafe in Lewes. It was the best of the day I'd say.
For dinner, I went to Grandpa (Mac) a place that specialized in mac and cheese. I couldn't believe today's special, the Chowder Head. It was elbow macaroni with clam chowder as sauce topped with bacon and green onions. I had to get it. God help me, it was incredible but I ordered the small sized one and I think anything more than that would have been the end of me.
After dinner, I went to see a professional stand up show at the Milton Theater. I'd say both performers belong to a subset of comedians who are funny people but aren't great comics. Whenever they were interacting with the audience they were good, but their written stuff tended to be kinda tropey and lacking in the life that they brought to their more natural bits.
When they were more personal both sets were stronger because these were more original and less easy jokes. The first comic, Tim Grill, grew up with spinal bifada and his jokes about growing up with a disability were pretty funny, particularly about how his uncle always refers to it as spinal syphilis. But when he started telling jokes about how kids today have it easy and women are different than men, they all felt too familiar.
The same went for the headliner Jimmy Graham, who told some great stories about his grand kids and going to the doctor's for hemorrhoids. I also really liked a bit about having a service dog that was high-strung and how antithetical that was, but every other written thing fell a little flat for me, and I'm fairly certain there were a couple bits that were just old stock jokes.
That being said as an audience member it's likely more fun to see funny people do sub-par material than to see people who aren't naturally funny do great material, and I think the audience all seemed to enjoy themselves. One big group had all come over from a senior center so it was really fun to watch them react to the dirtier stuff.
Favorite Jokes of the Night:
Tim Grill: We put my grandmother in a home. Bedbound and beyond.
Jimmy Graham: I went to the doctor's because my ass hurt, and I was lying in the emergency room. This kid came in took a look at my ass and said, "Oh yikes, you should see a doctor." I said, "Then who the hell are you?" and he just emptied the trash and walked out.
Favorite Random Sightings: A bumper sticker that said, "I'd rather live my life like there is a god and die to find out there isn't than live like there isn't and find out there is." (it's not so much that the message is funny, but that the bumper stick was absolutely gigantic to contain all of it); How Do You Brew; A bumper sticker that said, "I love my wife"; A car salesman with a giant sign of his own name, Matt Slap; "Wonderful Blueberries"
Regional Observations: In Delaware, it's Hardees. I wonder when it becomes Carl's Jr.
Albums Listened To: Escape from Monsta Island by Monsta Island Czars (features a lot of production and one track by MF Doom, it's a solid album but very hard to find nowadays); The Essential Allman Brothers; The Essential Bob Dylan; The Essential Clash; The Essential Sly and the Family Stone (Disc 1)
People's Favorite Jokes:
A bear walks into a bar. The bartender asks what he'd like and the bear says, "I'll have.........a beer". The bartender says, "Sure, but why the pause?" The bear says, "Oh these, I was born with them."
Why can't you give Elsa a balloon? She always let's it go.
(this was one that Jimmy Graham said but that I had heard someone say in a bar and forgot to write down) A guy walks into a bar and orders six shots of jaeger. The bartender says, "Whoah celebrating something?" "Yeah," the guy says, "My first BJ". "Wow," the bartender says, "I remember my first BJ. Tell you what, if you finish all of those shots I'll give you a seventh on the house" "No thanks," the guy says, "If six shots doesn't get the taste out of my mouth, I don't know what will"
Song of the Day:
Kong must be doing some Kenny G circular breathing to make it through the verses on this
