South Carolina Day 1 - Exercise, Eclectic Art, and Enormous Fire Hydrants
I started out my first day in South Carolina by getting coffee at the Cool Beans Coffee Co. in Columbia. It's sort of the unofficial coffee shop for the University of South Carolina so it was absolutely packed with college students, but the coffee was pretty good so it was worth the wait. I also got a bagel to tide me over for a bit which was not as tremendous as the bagels from yesterday but still quite good.
After breakfast, I started to head out to Greenville where the night's mic would be. Before I got out of Columbia though, I simply had to stop at Busted Plug Plaza the home of the world's largest Fire hydrant. It's designed to look all bent out of shape, but it's actually over 675,000 pounds of concrete and steel strong enough to withstand a hurricane. My favorite little detail is definitely the No Dogs Allowed sign. It really ties the whole thing together.
Along the way to Greenville, I stopped at the Hub City Art Park in Spartanburg . It was free, and most of the museums in Greenville are closed on Mondays so sneaking in a little art and nature at the same time seemed like a fun pit stop. It was not very big, but there was a good number of statues by local artists to see while walking along the trail. My favorite was one of a robot holding painted wheels that looked like balloons. He just looks so happy, even if it's just how's he programmed.
There were also all these weird cryptic messages on the walkway. I'm not really sure what they were going for there, and I'm still trying to figure out if the pictograph one means anything at all. Old Face Wagon Ear? What could it mean?!
After the art park, I finally made it to Greenville. My cousin had recommended specifically as a cool artsy town. While the museums were closed, the town still lived up to this description with plenty of cool smaller art galleries showcasing local artists. I love the variety of styles, tones, and techniques that emerge even in a relatively small but nourishing artistic community.
After the art, I had lunch at a place called Smoke on the Water. While I'm sure the Deep Purple song played a role in giving them this name, it also refers to the fact that they're right on the water and there specialty is smoked meats and BBQ. I also love that they advertised themselves as a "saucy tavern". I ordered the Beer Butt Chicken, which is half a chicken smoked in the "most undignified position" of being mounted on a beer can to infuse it with different malty flavors. For a side, I got the beautiful and disgusting loaded potato cake, which consisted of mashed potatoes stuffed bacon, scallions, cheese, and breadcrumbs and deep fried. I loved every atery-clogging bite of it. To wash it all down, I got the Smoke Snout Stout from Thomascreek Brewing which was as fun to drink as it is fun to say.
After this massive delicious slice of Southern Cooking, I did the unthinkable: Exercise. I had read that Swamp Rabbit Trail was a must see in Greenville, and it was a beautiful day so I figured I'd make the most of it. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that all along the trail was free public exercise equipment including ellipticals, leg presses, pull up bars, and special benches for doing crunches. When nature itself is telling you to exercise, even I've gotta listen. I tried all the machines, and honestly it was a lot nicer to be out in the fresh air on a lovely day than inside in some gym. Maybe this whole being active and healthy thing isn't such a bad idea. Then again I immediately crashed and fell asleep in my car when I got back to it, so maybe it's not sustainable. Fun Fact: If you look at the picture in the top left corner in the grid below, those two people didn't know each other until their dogs started playing, and now I'm pretty sure they're married because that is how Meet Cutes work.
When I awoke from my physical activity coma, I went to Methodical Coffee to re-energize. It was super sleek and hip, and it made for a nice place to sit down and write for a bit.
Unfortunately it was closing not too long after I got there, and the open mic was on the earlier side so I just went to the venue and hung out there. It was at a place called the Coffee Underground, so naturally I got even more coffee and also I was underground. The cafe is in a basement, and contrasting the cool sleekness of Methodical, it had much more of a warm, cozy, best friend's basement kind of vibe. They also had a lot more than coffee, including beers, sandwiches, and most exctingly for me: milkshakes. I had to pace myself though because I was probably gonna be there for a while since I was early to be there early to sign up for the mic.
The mic proved to be a really nice introduction to SC comedy with some very nice, welcoming, and super funny comics.
There were two hosts on the night I was there, Justin Hartman and Kyle Nolan. They both seemed like really good guys after chatting before the show and they started things off well, getting everyone into the Christmas Spirit by doing some back and forth riffing on everything weird about the movie Home Alone. It was fun to watch them play off each other, and set each other off on tangents and diversions. I liked in particular a line about being traumatized by going to see Jurassic Park in theaters as a kid: "I had land before time expectation!"
Some other lines I really enjoyed from the night:
Lea Beauford (sp): My mom still spells out S-E-X whenever she talks about sex. I wish she'd stop doing that, or at least talk about something else.
Craig Holcombe- My dick is like Christmas Morning 1992. You get a sega genesis instead of a Nintendo. It's not what you want, but you can still play with it.
My favorite comic of the night was a guy named Cody Hughes, but he did such a surreal rambling improvisational set that I'm not sure I can capture it in text. I think because the hosts knew him, and it was his first time back in Greenville in a while they let him have a little bit extra time, but he thrived on it and really knew how to work the audience. I think the line that made me laugh the hardest though was him transitioning out of a really gross improvised bit about using dirt as lubrication by just abruptly saying "Hey when did brunch get so weird?". I don't know how that looks in writing, but it was great play on the audience's expectations.
My own set started out a little shaky, with the audience being polite but kind of bored by my attempt at a slightly longer story. They really came around though on my shorter punchier stuff, particularly my jokes about mayonnaise, and I was able to finish really strong. For whatever reason, it seemed like every comic's jokes about food this night did a lot better than non-food jokes. Not sure what that says.
Favorite Random Sightings: Strings Attached Guitar Repair; "Ladies Shoot Free on Wednesday!"; Sweet Temptations Bakery right next to the Youth Suicide Prevention Center, possibly the worst unintentional pairing of buildings I've ever seen
Regional Observation: I saw a lot of Christmas themed billboards for guns which seemed tonally strange to me. For example: A billboard with the slogan "All I want for Christmas is You" and a big picture of an assault rifle.
Albums Listened To: Long Live the Vortex by Destroy Babylon (I had forgotten this album by a little punky reggae band from Boston, but I really liked it); Los Lobos- Kiko 20th Anniversary Edition by Los Lobos (probably their masterpiece); Lost and Found by the Slackers
People's Favorite Jokes:
"I'm the most unfunny person there is. I can't even remember the last time I laughed."- My barista said this to me and then instantly started laughing
Songs of the Day: