Tour Update #4 – The Tour Goes Larping, Makes a Stop in Waterworld, Hightopps and The Beautiful Avalon Theater.
Howdy good people. We’ve had some more dates and some really fun times. I have to say this – I’m not sure I could handle an actual tour at my age anymore. This shit is exhausting. And we are only 6 dates in. I am kidding mostly. When you are on doing road dates on your own, you basically have to check into a hotel or the comedy condo, go do your shows and that’s it. It’s not really hard work or at least I don’t think it is – but this business of organizing everything and trying to cover every minute detail is very tiring. The biggest problem I am having is trying to remember to always be filming. I have missed opportunity after opportunity for great footage because I am running around like a lunatic trying to make sure everything goes off without a hitch and then sometimes I just get into conversations with the crew and we will be talking about something people watching need to hear and that would make the show so very interesting and then invariably someone will say, “we should be filming this.” Going forward, I really am going to make the extra effort to get everything we can.
So what’s a LARPer? Some of you may have no idea. LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing. I learned that the great people that engage in this hobby or event if you will – totally hate what I am about to say, but to a person that is not in the know, it is the best way to give you an idea of what LARPers do – If you have seen the movie Role Models where the “geeks” dress up in costumes and go hit each other with padded swords and shoot padded arrows at each other. Now that you have the idea, let me say this – first of all, these guys and their LARPing organization are NOTHING like the movie Role Models. They are huge in numbers – I think when we were there, it was probably around 200. But a majority of the group was not coming until the following day. The invite list was over 500. Second, I would not call any of these people geeks. They beat the ever loving shit out of each other and would probably kick your ass. Third, don’t ever ask one of them to hit you with their “padded” sword so you can see what it feels like. The padding is really just for show – those things fucking hurt – because they don’t tap you with it, they beat the ever loving shit out each other with them. You have to see it live. Which you will. We got lots of footage and Tim was having a ball. We arrived and were told to set up in the barn on the second floor. This was a rickety old barn with half a roof. The floor was sort of concave with a pool of stagnant water in the middle of it. There was a stage complete with cobwebs and some big fucking spiders. I think I got Lyme Disease just from being there. We set up and then went wandering. We talked to all kinds of folks and learned about the case of the mystery shitter. Some asshole that I think remains unidentified thought it was funny to just shit on the floor in the bathroom. It’s become an annual sort of prank. We’re pretty sure it was Tommy. At about 9, we filled the barn and began the show. We had a guest MC down from Philly named David Piccolomini a fellow LARPer and he was a perfect fit to open the show and set the tone with a lone heckler. David slammed the guy quickly. All of us except for Tommy of course were a little unsure of how this show was going to go. But everybody had great sets wrapped up by Tommy fully dressed in his LARPing gear. He was the king of his people on this night. All night these folks in addition to laughing would also pound the floor with their hands and feet – we feared imminent structure failure at any moment. These guys and girls were incredible hosts and were an amazing crowd.
Our Trip to Waterworld. Or Kalypso’s in Reston, VA as it is better known. If you have never been to this place, and I don’t even know what it is called, it is really freakin weird. Kalypso’s is a great little place, don’t get me wrong, but it is located in what I am guessing is a planned community that looks like some sort of old Siberian prison. All the buildings are solid brown concrete and everything is very angular. And it all surrounds some sort of inlet or tributary of the Potomac river or something. When we got there, there was a couple sitting in lounge chairs just floating around on what looked like there porch which they just ripped off their place and tossed in the water – which had a nice aroma of an old burrito and hot feet - It was a floating dock living room of sorts. There was a live salsa band and a hundred or so mostly Latin folks sitting about listening and dancing. The whole scene was just bizarre. Great sets by everybody and it was really nice to have some old friends I have not seen in a while come out to support us. My former boss Gil as there along with Melissa, Kelly and her new man Alex. Big thanks to Wayne Manigo for hosting us and putting on a great show. You really should go for the comedy he puts on there but also go just experience the place. It’s very weird.
Hightopps! The home show for the home crowd. We rocked the joint. Everybody just crushed it and we had special guest Mickey Cucchiella join us for this show. I can’t accurately describe all of the events of this particular show due to the fact that I was completely fucking wasted. Everything after about 12:30 is a blur or just plain black. I forgot to eat dinner for the most part and was just having so much fun and the drinks kept flowing and well, that was it for me. I can say this: It was the longest show in DTWF history. Those of us on the tour did about two hours – then Mickey did two hours. I was told that the majority of the crowd stayed for entire show. That is how good it was. People don’t sit through 5 hours of comedy unless they are having a really good time. I’d say we probably had a crowd of about 200 roll in and out throughout the night. It was incredible. To all of you that came out to that show, I can’t thank you enough. It was amazing how much support we got from all of you.
The Avavlon Theater. This is hands down my favorite show on the tour so far. The Avalon is a first class venue. It is a beautiful, historic art deco theater originally built in the early 1900’s and was one of the premier showplaces of its time. And downtown Easton is such a Norman Rockwell type of town. We filmed this show for the DVD for this very reason. The interesting twist on this show was the crowd. The Avalon (I am guessing) has a group of season ticket buyers or just a really dedicated list of people that regularly attend shows there. The issue? These are mostly middle and older folks. And we are all pretty filthy. It is not what you would call our “target market.” You know who’s target market it was though? Mine. My fellow middle aged peeps yo. I am the old guy, the fat guy, the single guy and the tall guy on this tour and most of our crowds are much younger. I had fun with them and they were a great crowd. You might be surprised to learn that the youngest on the tour – Drew – had the set of the night. Others not so much. Chris was not happy at all really and that was one of the conversations back stage that we really should have gotten on film. It was very “real” for lack of a better term. Tommy said “meh” of his set and Jay seemed to be fine with his performance. The people were very nice and many of them made it a point to stop and tell us how much fun they had on the way out. I also can’t thank the staff enough. Andy Smith – thanks so much for booking us and being such a great host as well as Suzy and Ryan. You guys were wonderful! I would also like to thank Kathy and the gang from Evolution Brewery for being part of the show and serving up some delicious craft brews that helped the crowd get good a liquored up before the show. It was a key element to the success of the show!
PRODUCTION NOTES: Tim is still toiling away. We probably have over a hundred hours of footage at this point. That’s a total guess. It could be twice that or half that. I just know it is a lot of gigabytes. Our concentration at the moment is getting the DVD finished so we can sell it at shows to bring in some more money. We hope. As for the DVD, due to the events at the Avalon taping, we have decided to make the DVD a little bit differently from a standard straight concert film. We are going to do cut scenes of each comedian’s favorite performance. Basically, the comics will pick their favorite set from the tour so far and that will be the set on the DVD. As Drew pointed out, it will look like Chris Rock’s concert film from 2008 where he was filmed at three different venues. It’s going to be cool – I promise.
Also, we have sort of lost Matt Baetz. Matt was always more of a special guest that was going to make appearances here and there than a regular on the tour - unfortunately for us, Matt lives in NY and has a job and a wife and he got cast in a play and he has just not been able to catch up with us at all. We are going to NY for a show and we may get him there and there’s a chance we might get him at the wrap party at Magooby’s – but at this point, his appearance will be more of a cameo and we are going to work a little storyline with him into the show just for fun and because he is an awesome guy and a great comic.
I am attaching the thank you note that Andy from the Avalon sent us. I thought it was really nice of him. And he’s invited us back which I fully intend to take him up on!
UPCOMING DATES:
Lancaster PA - The Comedy Zone - 9/20
Frederick MD - The Cellar Door - 9/22
Richmons VA - Emilio's Comedy Cabaret - 10/4
Baltimore MD - Jilly's 10/5
That’s it for this edition. Sorry it was so long and if it rambles, forgive me, I am super tired. If you have any questions for any of us, send an email to [email protected].