NH Day 4- Satanic Mischief, Poetry, and Manchester Open Mics
Little Video:
So the theme of my non-comedy travels seemed to be places where the old puritans who lived in New Hampshire believed that Satan had been up to no good. I love the idea that those folks really did believe that the Devil was both constantly waging a war against the forces of good, but also had enough free time to try to tempt people with beans.
The Robert Frost farm, while perhaps an outlier in terms of suspected devilry, is actually also supposed to be haunted so even the more innocent excursion had a touch of the occult. I really liked the Frost Farm though, and I had a particularly nice chat with the park ranger there who told me a joke, talked literature, and then gave me genuinely helpful advice about grad school. It was like we were old pals by the end.
I tried to sit down and write a poem in the style of Robert Frost, but all I came up with is:
I sit and think and think to sit
Must surely be the sweetest thing.
To lay and rest so lazily
And see what nature has to bring
While it is slightly similar in that, it is very traditional rhyme scheme and is about being on his farm, the key difference, I believe, is that he is actually a good poet.
After the farm and another spot of Satanic debris, I met up with a friend in Manchester. We stayed at an Econo Lodge, which really proves the idiom, “You get what you pay for.”
Manchester seems like a pretty nice college town, more of a city than the other places I’ve been to thus far, but not nearly as busy as Boston or New York. There’s also an absolutely beautiful river that flows through the middle of the city that just seems kinda out of place aesthetically with everything else, but in a nice way.
Since the open mic, possibly the only regular pure comedy open mic in the state based off my research, didn’t start until fairly late my friend and I tried out a couple of local bars. I really liked the Central Ale House, which has a gimmick where you can pour your own pints, sort of like a frozen yogurt place. It wasn’t available when we were there, because “the new liquor inspector doesn’t understand it but he’ll come around”. What was available was there Wings Wednesday deal, for 10 wings 25 cents each with a drink. The Teriyaki Garlic sauce was absolutely incredible.
After the Central Ale House, we went to Murphy's Taproom where the open mic was. When I read online that they had 140 beers on draft, I thought it had to be hyperbole but boy was I wrong.
My favorite was the Great North Aleworks RVP (Robust Vanilla Porter)
They also do a thing where, because there are so many taps, there's always a couple dozen beers they're trying to finish off before the end of the night, so you can ask the bartender for those beers, and the pints are only $1! People say last call is a dangerous phenomenon but this seems like last call on crack. I certainly wasn't complaining though. If you're not picky about what kind of beer you drink, it's a great way to sample a couple on a budget. The bartender also said that porters tended to be the least popular beer, so if you like those this is a great place to get good quality porters really cheap. I actually really like porters, and I hate IPAs which are very popular so rarely a $1 pour, which means that while hipster have ruined the beer selection of most independent movie theaters with their hoppy nonsense they've finally done me a solid.
The Laugh Free or Die Open Mic:
I really liked the host of this open mic, Tyler Morrow, and thought he might also have been one of the funniest comedians there as well. I think it's funny that I feel like professional comedians would absolutely not want the host to be the funniest person at the show, but that it's actually super helpful at open mics because no matter what happens they're able to bring the energy back up. He was super nice and helpful to talk to before the show as well.
He did make a quip in his opening set that because people are trying out new stuff a lot of it will be "very offensive and not all that funny" which proved to be fairly prophetic. Most of the comics were actually pretty funny, but I think there was a lot more envelope pushing at this open mic then I've tended to see in the past. Rape, school shootings, the mentally handicapped, and having sex with homeless people were not off limit topics. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing though because that's what open mics are for. It's pretty hard for comedians to get a feel for where the line is unless they have a safe space to go over it a few times. I don't believe any topic should be inherently off limits, but I've always felt that if you want to do a joke that is likely to offend someone, it has to be either twice as smart or twice as funny as a less offensive joke. I think some of the more questionable met this criteria and some didn't, but the audience seemed to react accordingly so the ones that fall flat will either get worked on or dropped from sets more than likely. There was also a couple jokes throughout the night that relied a bit on racial stereotypes ("Asians are bad drivers" was essentially one punchline), but I felt that the stereotypes were so cliched that they really make the comedian seem more lazy than actually racist.
The crowd was also younger than at the previous venues I've been to so jokes about sex and references to Nickelodeon shows (particularly iCarly, don't know what that says about NH though) went over much better tonight.
My own set went alright, with my jokes about mayonnaise getting probably stronger laughs than the last open mic,. The jokes making fun of white supremacists landed but not quite as strongly as at the Stone Church. It's interesting to tell the same jokes over and over and see what things get different reactions. At the stand up shows, I did in school I never repeated a set because I wanted to push myself to come up with new material, but now I'm learning how to refine it. Something I noticed is that because the comedian before me had a more low energy style, if I had done the more high energy mayonnaise set first as opposed to starting with making fun of white supremacists, both bitts would probably have gotten better reactions just because of the contrast. I think it's really easy for comedians to think so much about their own bits and hitting laugh lines, that it's easy to forget more macro things like where you're placed on a set list and the audience tendencies can really make a huge difference. Comedy's so strange in that it really does require this sense of both precision in delivery and word choice, but also total flexibility in adapting to a changing crowd. It's not really like anything else.
Favorite Joke of the night: Joe Mitchell "I have a rotisserie oven. It's always set to 360 degrees"
Favorite random sightings: Pizza by George
Albums Listened To: Ain't No Saint: The Best of John Martyn Discs 1-3. This is one of my dad's favorite artists, and while he's a really great guitarist and cool singer his 80's synth phase made this collection the hardest listen so far.
People's Favorite Jokes:
Two carpenters from Newfoundland are working on a roof. One of them kept hammering a nail, throwing out the next one, hammering in one, and throwing out the next one. His friend asked him "Why are you throwing those ones out?". "The heads are facing the wrong way" he said. The other carpenter throws up his hands and says, "You idiot! You'll need to use those ones on the other side of the roof."
How do you make a hormone? Kick her in the shins
What do you call an alligator wearing a vest? An Investigator
What do you call an alligator with good hearing? An Ear-igator
What do you call an alligator that's had too much to drink at the club? A Lit-igator
What's the difference between pissing and a garbanzo bean? Nobody pays to have a garbanzo bean on their head.
What's the difference between a fiat and a Jehovah's witness? You can close the door on a Jehovah's witness.
