Maine Day 1- The Day I Accidentally Prioritize Lobster Over Improv
Little Video:
Today was a good day for eating and for impulsivity. Shockingly, I was not super well rested after a night of sleeping in the old Toyota Scion, so I was very much looking forward to/ in desperate need of my first coffee of the day. Luckily Elements Books Coffee and Beer delivered in spades. Great coffee, one of the best bagels I've ever had, friendly service, and what better place to sit for a few hours to write a dumb comedy than in a comfy leather couch surrounded by books? And I never would have even found out about the place if I hadn't been too tired to keep driving the night before.
The train of impulsive decisions kept on a-rolling as I stopped at two more tourist-y attractions. Eartha, the world's largest rotating globe, is really cool to see and located at Garmin headquarters in Yarmouth, ME. Not much else to do but look at, but it's free so that's not too bad.
In Freeport, ME is the Desert of Maine, which I was honestly expecting to be another lame tourist trap, and I was kinda kicking myself for paying the $12 for a tour, but in the end I was glad I did. The story of various businessmen trying to figure out what to do with 40 acres of sand in the middle of Maine is really entertaining, the biological and geological facts about the sand and the wildlife growing out of it are surprisingly interesting, and the tour guide is a really fun character. I don't know if he does all of the tours, but he did at least on the day I was there. He looks like an ol' grizzled, Maine Lobsterman, and he's always quick to joke and take the piss out of the passengers. The fact that he would just casually make fun of Trump the whole time with pretty good responses, was a sure sign that I was no longer in New Hampshire. The narrative of the tour might be better suited for older folks as the humor of it is fairly dry, but the fact that whole place is a giant sandbox should appeal to kids (it sure did for the little guy on our tour) so it's a a nice unexpected spot for vacationing families.
After my desert tour, I went with a friend's advice and checked out The Gelato Fiasco in Brunswick. I really liked the town of Brunswick. Slightly bigger city in Maine, but feels like a small town. The central street is called Maine Street, which I think says a lot. The gelato was delicious, and the place had something I never saw before: a device that was just there to let you give a $1 tip if you were paying with a credit cards, at the request of the patrons. That's a sure sign that you're business is doing well, if the community asks you to install something that lets them give you more money.
Leaving Brunswick, I drove along Rt. 1 to Bar Harbor, which is easily the prettiest road I've ever been on. New Hampshire may have had some lovely greenery, but the sheer variety of vistas is unreal. I definitely didn't realize how much of the coast is actually loosely connected island, inlets, and peninsulas.
Impulsivity again took the reigns, as I accidentally stumbled into what is ranked as one the Top Ten Places to Get Lobster in Maine, Young's Lobster Pound. I personally have never had better, and the place is right on the water so the views are incredible and you know everything is fresh.
Unfortunately, because of my lobstery detour, one of the main(e) roads to Bar Harbor closed for construction while I was eating, and I ended up being a little late to seeing ImpovAcadia. I called ahead, and they were really friendly and very accommodating.
The improv show was all ages, and the crowd ranged from young kids to seniors. The comedy was thus the most family friendly of anything I'd seen so far, but the safeness of it didn't diminish the humor and if anything, to me at least, was more impressive. I don't know about other comics, but even if my material is already clean the idea of having to be clean always gives me a little mental block that throws off my rhythm.
This crowd was really into it, and I think they probably would have laughed at anything honestly, which makes it tempting to just pander, but the show was actually very good. There were three performers and an accompanying musician who participated in a few bits. I overheard one of the performers say that they'd been working together since 2004, and that built up chemistry really showed.
They were a short form group, doing a couple games that Whose Line viewers would recognize, and also a few that I had never seen before, including an improvised Shakespeare play and an improvised romance novel. Their musical improv game was particularly strong, and the whole group really shined whenever they did anything involving singing. The romance novel game was their closer and another real highlight, partly because of the audience volunteer they got for it. They asked a member of the audience to describe how they met their long-term partner, and the guy they got just had a really interesting story. He and his wife met in college, did long-distance for a bit, broke up for a bit, decided to get back together and move to Arizona together, were on again off again for a while, and eventually they met at a Shoney's and said "we either need to get married or one of us has to leave town". 17 years later, they've been married ever since. The kicker: They got married on a leap year to just add another layer of whimsy to their story.
Improv's interesting because I feel like some people get into it through acting, some for comedy, and a few for both. This group seemed like they were probably actor's first. They were really good at scene building, adding mannerisms and accents to characters, and while they were very funny, it was more character driven humor than funny dialog. People that are primarily comedians and get into improv, I think struggle more with the character stuff, but can just cram tons of jokes into every scene.
Improv isn't for everyone (I once had a girl on tinder ask me if I did improv, which she promptly followed up with "Improv is the lowest form of comedy tbh") but I'd say ImprovAcadia is about as close to improv that everyone can enjoy as it gets. I think the Improv, I've seen in Boston was probably a little bit funnier but definitely less family oriented.
After the show, I had my first stay with someone from the Couch Surfing App. He was an exchange student from Turkey, and he studied psychology in college as well so we bonded over that. It was cool getting to learn about a country I'd never heard much about before. I felt bad for him though, that his first experience in America was working housekeeping jobs at hotels in Bar Harbor. Not exactly Americans at their best.
Favorite Random Sightings: Big Al's Fireworks Emporium; Dairy Queen's with Happy Hours; Yeti Authorized Dealer (I'm sure it refers to some kind of product but I like the image I have of what this is); Bat Houses; Funky Jim's
Helpful Hint: If someone on Tinder puts that they pina coladas and getting lost in the rain in their profile, asking them if they like making love at midnight and have half a brain is probably much funnier to you than them. What a weird song to become a cultural touchstone.
Regional Observation: Maine has much more interesting license plates than any other state's I've seen before
Albums Listened To: Angel of the Morning: the Best of Nina Simone (Disc 2); Animalisms by The Animals; Animals in the Dark by William Elliot Whitmore (the first song "Mutiny" is so good that I think it unfortunately overshadows the rest of the album, even though none of it's bad); Another Country by the Cheiftains (cool mix of Irish and American folk traditions; Another One by Mac DeMarco; Anthology: The Best of Chuck Berry Discs 1 and 2
People's Favorite Jokes:
Why did the golfer wear two pants? In case he got a hole in one
What's at the bottom of the ocean and shakes? A nervous wreck (My first repeat. As of now this is America's favorite joke)
A man is speeding on the highway and a state trooper catches him and flashes for him to pull over. The man drives away instead, but the state trooper catches him. The trooper says, "Look It's the end of my shift and I want to go home. If you can give me a good reason why you ran off that I haven't heard before I'll let you go." The man says, "Well a few years ago my wife ran out on me with a state trooper, and I was worried you were the guy and you were trying to bring her back."
