ME Day 3 - A Hippie Sandwich: Kayaking, Racist Jokes, and Portland
I guess it would technically be a racist sandwich because the hippie things would be the bread and you don't usually name a sandwich after the bread. but the Maine Italian is named after the bread so I think it works. Anyways I digress, here's a video:
I started the day by kayaking on Wilson Pond right in the backyard of my friend's house. There are several islands in the pond, one of which happens to be called Joe's Island. The story goes that there was a man named Joe who, while uneducated, amassed a good sum of money working with his hands, and developed and cultivated a farm on this small island. Meanwhile, on the shore was a wealthy businessman who also developed a farm and was choosing to live as a hermit, despite his riches. His name: Joe. And these two Joes hated each other, even though at the time they were probably the only people within a mile of each other.
The family I stayed with also happens to run a philanthropic organization, so besides knowing all these great local stories, they're really doing some good in the world. If you want to help fund environmental efforts and arts/music programs in the state of Maine please check out the Onion Foundation.
After that I stopped at a gas station to try a Maine Italian (pictured below) on the way to the Weary Club. There I was told my first really racist joke of the trip. I'll still put it down below, but it was a doozy. I kept talking to the guy though, because it's not really my role to be judgmental, especially if I actually want to learn about people. I think the joke itself is pretty gross, but I'll say that talking to the guy, it seemed like the kinda joke inspired more by "small town racism" than true hatred. The idea of small town racism is pretty familiar to me and probably anyone else that grew up in primarily white region, and I think it's marked by just a total lack of awareness and understanding of people from different backgrounds (racial or otherwise) more so than ill will or malice. I think a lot of people will then write this off as "harmless", which perhaps on a 1:1 individual level could even be true, but I think widespread acceptance of small town racism increases the potential damage exponentially. I had a joke in one of my stand up sets, that just doesn't really fit in anywhere, but if you think that well-educated, socially conscious, otherwise caring white people can't also be racist, go to any white public middle school where they're starting to read To Kill a Mockingbird, and look at the glee in the little white kids' eyes when they realize they can say the N-word in class without getting in trouble. It's horrifying. Here's a nice sandwich:
Having seen the more conservative side of Maine, the rest of the day was very much more of the hippie side of things (the Vermont to this morning's New Hampshire). While there wasn't anyone to play cribbage with at the Weary Club, the rest of Norway, ME proved to be filled with unexpected pleasures. I got a fresh apple from a local co-op, bonded with another customer over Norm Macdonald in the Nomad Cafe (the name seemed fitting, and the coffee was local and excellent), and then I hung out with a big dog who works at a used record and book store called Food for Thought. Norway's not too far from Portland, so I'd really recommend checking it out and confusing your friends by saying you're visiting Norway. The fact that it's basically right next door to Paris, ME is pretty great as well.
After that came Portland, which is a really cool city. It feels both touristy and really local, and it's deceptively big. The Old Port is the hip center of things, but there's a lot of businesses in the Greater Portland Area. Some of it's very hipstery, but the prices are a bit better than a lot of similar hipster city centers I've been to. I'm looking at you Cambridge.
The Allagash Brewery was slightly a hike away from the downtown Old Port region, but the fact that your first flight is free makes it totally worth the 20 minute drive.
My friend recommended Dobra Tearoom right in the Old Port. She described it as "the most relaxing business" she'd ever seen. The vibe of the decor really is pretty mellowing, and the tea selection is huge and varied enough to appeal to just about anyone. They also have lots of pastries and light vegetarian meals. I enjoyed the chowder that I got at the Fisherman's Grill, but I regretted not eating at Dobra, as everything seemed really good and affordable. I could not resist the allure of a coconut macaroon though, and it did not disappoint.
I showed up way too early at Bull Feeney's Irish Pub for the Wednesday Night Portland Comedy Showcase. Luckily, the bar is great and the staff was incredibly friendly and happy to chat with me while I waited for other comedians to show up. I tried a wild Maine blueberry mead, which was very good, but probably too sweet for me to want to try more than once. I also heard some other patrons raving about how the bar makes their own BBQ sauce. The vibe of the place felt the rare American Irish Pub that has actually managed to capture the community aspect of actual Irish Pubs.
The comedy was really strong as well. The set up of the event is a showcase of local booked talent followed by an open mic where performers only have one minute to perform and at the end they poll the audience by applause and pick a winner of the open mic and give them one dollar. I liked this set up, because honestly brevity is a valuable skill to learn when performing in open mics and the fact that that you get to watch a good show before hand takes some of the stress out.
There were six featured performers counting the host, and this was the first show I've seen thus far to have a totally equal number of male and female comedians which was really nice to see after the past two show I've seen were entirely male.
The crowd skewed younger, and though it wasn't huge it was pretty receptive to just about any kind of jokes. Political stuff went over much better for this crowd than any I saw in NH, though it's possible (even likely based on my earlier encounters) that Portland might just happen to be a particularly liberal city and thus not totally indicative of what Mainers think is funny. This doesn't necessarily say anything about their sense of humor, but the audience was also very friendly before the show and I ended up having a really cool conversation with couple guys about Garth Ennis comic books, and Brendon Small's music and cartoons. His show Home Movies is an underrated gem, and just about everyone on it except Brendon Small is either Louie CK or on Bob's Burgers so the success was just a little delayed.
The host, Ali Simpson, opened with a strong stand-up set, and continued to be a really affable, fun host throughout the night. She kept things moving but always had at least one or two really solid jokes of her own in between other comics. Her style was self-deprecating, and more social commentary oriented than a lot of the NH comedians I saw. You could tell this was a pretty liberal batch of comedians and audience members, and I was impressed at the way Ali and a few of the other comedians would seem to be going into potentially offensive territory but always turned the joke back around on themselves instead.
The second comedian, Dawn, was funny, but a lot of her set was jokes about Maine so I'll be honest I didn't really get them. The audience seemed to like them though, so that means that they were at least probably pretty good jokes about Maine. In general, regional humor was very well received and almost every comedian did at least one joke about Maine or New England. I used to think that kind of thing made for "an easy joke" but I started noticing that a lot of professional comedians I respect still do it, and I'm guessing doing a little thing about the town at the beginning of the set is probably the most efficient way of winning an audience over so that they'll go with you for less "safe" material. Dawn's jokes about raising her kids were more universal though, and very funny. I had talked to her a bit before the show, and for someone who's only been doing stand-up for a very short time she had pretty impressive stage presence.
The next comic, Mike Day, might have been the strongest overall with both material and stage presence. He's got a clear character, wearing a t shirt from a metal concert and keeping his hair very long, and a distinct voice for dark absurdist humor. He did a bit imagining the office politics of the porn industry being just as banal as any other office job, that was really clever and funny. He also did an impression of Trump on mushrooms, that was surprisingly good and distinct enough from other Trump impersonations I've seen that it totally worked.
The fourth comic Leah Douglass also had a pretty clear character. Her day job is as a teacher, so a lot of her jokes were about sex and dating, with a kind of educational or intellectual bend to them. I thought her material was really strong, but I think it's tough to be the middle comic of a showcase because that's when the audience energy is most likely to dip, which clearly happened for a bit judging by very mild crowd responses to very simple audience questions. I think she may have even cut her set short a little bit to keep things going.
The fifth comic, Mike Levinsky, did a lot more one liners and absurdist stuff. I think this might have been the first crowd I saw that really seemed to prefer story driven stuff to one-liners. I thought Mike had some really great material, but he seemed super nervous and didn't deliver everything with a ton of confidence, which unfortunately buried some otherwise strong jokes. He still had my favorite joke of the night though: "I bought a repressed memory foam mattress. I had rough childhood last night"
The headliner was a guy from Boston named, Brett Johnson, who I've actually seen a couple of times around Mass. I think the last time I saw him was actually only a few weeks ago at an open mic in Improv Boston, and his material tonight was all different which impressed me. He had really great natural stage presence, and did a very high energy, goofy set. I think he allowed himself to be a lot sillier than other comics I've seen thus far, but he was able to tackle a wide variety of heavy topics like religion, dating, and politics with a very light touch. I think his charisma really helped in that even if a joke didn't land super hard, he could almost always save it with some physical gesture. I talked to him after the show too, and his goofy nice guy-ness is not an act at all. He was super friendly and offered me a lot of really helpful advice.
After him came the One Minute Challenge, I did my mayonnaise set and won. I also went unopposed so it's not particularly impressive, but now that I have that dollar I can officially say I am a professional comedian. I kinda wished I had tried something new or done a less "safe" set, because I feel like this audience would have been more responsive to my social commentary bits than others. I'm not used to repeating the same set over and over, and as a performer it's not as exciting for me once it feels like I really have a set down, but I think I should keep doing it because it's much more interesting and indicative of crowd differences to see how different audiences react to the same jokes as opposed to a bunch of different ones.
Favorite Random sightings: Someone saying the sentence, "Enjoy the sandwich, bro"; Hug a Bug Preschool; A home brewing kit at the local co-op; A woman talking about her pug's instagram (oh yeah we're in Portland); the Blind Pig Barbershop; a sign at the bar saying "Thirst is a shameless disease, here's to a shameful cure"
Regional Observations: There are lobsters everywhere!
Albums Listened To: Arhur (or the Decline of the British Empire) by the Kinks; Ash Wednesday by Elvis Perkins (just the song While You Were Sleeping. Elvis is actually the son of the guy who played Norman Bates in the original Psycho and his brother is making really cool modern horror movies); The Ashes Play the Songs of Vic Ruggiero by the Ashes (it's free if you can find it!); Asia by Asia (just the Heat of the Moment); Ask Me About My New God by Maria Bamford (easily one of the best comedy specials of the past ten years. Smart, funny, and tackles mental health better than many psych lectures); Astral Weeks by Van Morrison; Astro Lounge by Smash Mouth (just All Star); At Ease by the Gadjits
People's Favorite jokes:
What goes "ha ha ha flop"? Someone laughing there head off
A guy walks into a bar. The next guy ducked.
*Here's the really offensive one* How many n*ggers does it take to shingle a roof? Depends on how thin you slice them? (someone just had no problem saying that to me, a stranger)
(this one's dirty, but you have to picture the sweetest old lady you ever saw telling it to you because that's what happened to me) A couple is going out on their honeymoon, and they just get to the bed room. The wife says "Take off your socks" and the husband said, "Are you sure? I had toe-silitis when I was young." "Doesn't he mean tonsillitis? " she thinks but he takes off his socks. "Take off your pants," she says. "Are you sure? I had knee-sles when I was young." "Doesn't he mean measles?" she thinks, but he takes off his pants. "Take off your underwear" she says. He starts to protest, but she cuts him off. "Don't tell me, small cox?"
The Norm Macdonald Moth Joke:
This is actually my favorite joke of all time as well, so right now it's tied for America's favorite joke.
How is a paper bag like a grape? They're both brown except for the grape
What do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you? Nacho cheese.
