CT Day 2- Biblical Themes, Beers, and Barroom Comedy
I'm glad I got to spend more time in Hartford this morning. I started out going to Sarah's Coffee House. There was a really good vibe, the coffee was good, and they had a partnership with a pub next door which looked pretty cool, but wasn't exactly open at 10 in the morning for some reason. I got to talk to a cook there about his life and how he ended up going to Hartford from Arkansas after finding it tough to get jobs post military. He says he never looked back and that Hartford is only on the rise, though Arkansas is apparently beautiful so I look forward to proving him correct.
From there I went to the Old Connecticut court house. I didn't even realize that it would be a museum of Connecticut history, because my primary interest was the Museum of Natural and Other Curiosities on the top floor. All parts of the museum delivered. The bottom floor had Mark Twain's bicycle and another model old-timey bicycle. The type with the really big front wheel and the small back wheel. My biggest regret is not getting a picture of me on it.
The next floor was mostly about the Armistad court case, which for those who aren't history buffs was one of the first big blows against slavery in the North as a group of slaves who mutiny-ed against their captors and were found innocent.
The top floor was the curiosity exhibit. It was mostly stuffed exotic animals, but some of them were pretty out there.
On the way out, I ended up talking to the receptionist for a while about working with the disabled and the movie Manchester By the Sea. She was great!
I got lunch at the City Stream Brewery Cafe. The restaurant is multistoried with beautiful views of the city, they make their own beer, and they have $7 soup and sandwich lunch deals. The lunch deal sandwich when I visited was beer battered cod, and I got a side of clam chowder. The chowder didn't have the huge chunks of clam that the chowders in Maine and New Hampshire did, but the broth was rich and peppery, which made it preferable to the other chowder broths I had which were a bit more watery. My choice of beer was the Mule's Mild which was an English style bitters and a really good light lunch beer. The meal, atmosphere, and price were all beyond approach. I was a little bummed though that I heard the bartender and some other patrons talking about how weird I was after I asked for her favorite joke. I get that it's not always common to try to make small talk at all let alone ask a kinda weird question, but most people haven't really minded yet and I don't make anyone give me an answer if they can't think of one or would rather not. I've got a pretty thick skin, and I'm sure they thought I'd left but it was a little disappointing.
After lunch began one of two oddly biblical themed excursions. The first was to the Cathedral of St. Joseph, also in Hartford. The cathedral is noted for it's massive stained glass fixtures from Paris. I'm not particularly religious, but even still the interior was breathtaking.
The second biblical excursion was to Holy Land USA, a run-down former Bible themed amusement park. I'm not sure what terrifying cults compounds look like, but I think it might be something like this.
Properly skeeved out I decided o cleanse myself in nature by visiting Dinosaur state park. The park is known for having been the site of an unprecedented number of of unearthed dinosaur fossils. There is a museum and a hiking component, unfortunately both of which were about to close when I arrived so instead I watched an episode of Norm Macdonald's podcast in the parking lot which was nature adjacent.
Yearning for the real thing, I went to Wickham Park in Manchester near where the open mic would be. The park was expansive containing several gardens and an aviary. I always forget how hideous the sounds geese can make are. The coolest garden to me was the sensory garden which was curated to have different sections with different plants that most appealed to each of the "five senses". There I also got to do something I haven't really done all trip which was to just sit down and read for a bit. It was a much needed recharge of my mental batteries.
The open mic was in a bar called the Hungry Tiger which is known more locally as being a really good music venue. The host of the mic, John Shea, was a super affable guy and we chatted about comedy, day jobs, and how bad 80's music was.
The mic itself was very small, only five comics and the host, and they were also the main audience. There were more people at the bar but they didn't even turn around in their seats so they weren't super into things.
One of the comics described his own sense of humor as "bitter" and I feel like that would sum up the general theme of the night. That's not to say the comedy was bad, just mostly rooted in various discontentments mostly professional and romantic.
Because it was so small I don't really wanna single out anyone as the best and instead am choosing to highlight a favorite joke from each comic
John Shea: "please drink responsibly by which I mean tip your bartenders"
Flim Jannery- "I was a teacher but then I realized that school is so much like a prison I was basically just a guard who really like algebra"
Brian Glass- I have OCD so I could never commit a crime. If I murdered someone they'd say "did you find any fingerprints?" "Yeah 17 on every surface"
Mo Green- " white people don't understand that for a black comic to make other black people laugh you gotta open your eyes real big on the punchline" (I'm sure this one doesn't translate as well in writing without the visual but it was really funny live)
Richard Orpheus- "I'm very pro affirmative action. I just think that as long as the klan is still a thing, we haven't gone far enough that we don't need it"
I felt like my own set went pretty well among the other comics if not the bar-goers. Because there were so few of us, we all got a good amount of time. This meant I got to try out a lot of material some new and some old. In general I think this crowd was more into my social commentary jokes than the more one-liner-y ones which was the flip side of last night.
After the show, I got to talk to Richard and Mo a good amount which was cool because Mo is currently trying to be a professional comic and Richard had some professional success earlier but burned out. They offered a good view into a couple of options for the future. Mo offered some good advice about not getting fooled by promoters and getting paid what you're entitled.
Richard and I talked for longer, mostly about the state of things in the world, but he also helped me out with one of my jokes. He said that in general the Connecticut scene isn't very supportive of one another, so he was surprised that I was okay with him giving me tips. He wasn't rude or anything, but just thought one of my set ups was unnecessary for the punchline which was actually great advice. I think sometimes being critical is the best way of being supportive, so I was really glad for the opportunity.
Favorite Random Sightings: High School Inc. (sounds like a bad 80's movie); "Seafood Night with Clam Man"; Professor Tooth; TeenVelocity; Corey's Catsup and Mustard; A Bumper Sticker that said "Remember when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous"
Regional Observations: Hartford reminds me a lot about Boston, but smaller and things cost a lot less
Albums Listened To: Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen; Born Like This by DOOM; Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen (A nice Boss-Doom Sandwich); The Boss Harmony Sessions by the Slackers
People's Favorite Jokes:
Two Irish guys walk out of a bar. What? It could happen
What gets wetter as it dries? A towel
