Actually, it's more like, last month in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. What was I doing there? Well hold on, give me a second, sheesh. I went to the Blind Pig in order to see the Comedians of Comedy! But weren't there any stops on the tour that were closer than Ann Arbor? Listen buddy, you gotta stop interrupting me. Yes, they were also appearing at Buffalo State college on this tour, but after weeks of trying to find tickets online I gave up and finally called the place. Turns out, the student union or mafia or whatever the hell it was, bought up all of the tickets in advance and were giving them out for free to students. Sweet! Yet another reason to never return there ever again.
Interesting story: The first time, and hopefully now the only time, I went there was to see Zach Galifianakis (a member of the COC). I went there to see him, but I didn't actually. Turns out he was filming a movie, Out Cold 3: Old Man Winter's Revenge I believe, and he couldn't make it. Add to that; the ridiculous amount of armed police, metal detectors, having to remove my belt, having my lighter confiscated, the stone cold stupidity of the students organizing it and just the general cluelessness of the campus, and a 'raper' on the loose. It was a veritable goulash of fuck.
So yea, I was more than willing to go past God's back in the opposite direction to Michigan. I don't think I really need to go into much detail on what a culture shock it is crossing the border these days. But let me just say that going from Windsor to Detroit is like driving through Agrestic into Old Town. Thanks to Google maps, a subsidiary of this blog, I was able to locate the place easily and joined the hundreds of people already lined up. I could overhear people talking about whether or not this was a line of people who had tickets or were waiting to buy them. I thought, good friggin' luck if you're lined up to buy tickets, because I'm pretty sure it's already sold out. Turns out it wasn't exactly, but only like 20 or so people were actually able to buy them at the door, and the rest of the dumb schmucks were turned away. I was really happy to hear there would be 5 comics in the show tonight, but if my ankles had ears they wouldn't feel the same way, as the show was setup like a typical rock show. Also, if my ankles did have ears, I think that would look pretty darn cool. So Patton Oswalt came out first to warm up the crowd, and he got the laughs going fast and furious, like a NOS injected sports car from the movie of the same name. But seriously, he interacts with the crowd really well and most of his jokes came from such interactions; such as the extroverted comic book artist, the non-profit telemarketer, and the beauty salon owner. Doug Benson came up next and his potent one-liners and stoner logic was a big hit with crowd. The BCIM crew feels that Doug calls to mind the late, great Mitch Hedberg, both in material and delivery. It was really nice to see Maria Bamford get such a huge round of applause as she stepped onto the stage. She was arguably the funniest person that night, with her style of crazy yet intelligent humour. Her best routine, in my mind, involved the mockery of cheesy female comics, done in one of her many range of voices. Eugene Mirman followed her and his observations on the general idiocy of the world were a hit. In his laid back/sarcastic approach he discussed a newspaper interview with a reformed crystal meth user. "Two smarties, now who's ready for fart jokes?" Brian Posehn quipped about his position in the lineup for the night. And tell fart jokes he did, in all of his nerd rage. Of course metal fans came out in abundance for him and some even helped him write jokes, "This audience writes jokes for you!" By this time you could tell that the crowd was tiring, but leave it to Patton to keep the funny going. It was cool to see the other COC members watch him and laugh along. That seems to be the M.O. of the group: getting together with like-minded friends and enjoying the different ways in which they like to make people laugh. Thank goodness they came together and hopefully they continue to spread humour across the country. After all was joked and done, they had time for autographs, during which Maria turned out this little gem;
How do you end such an amazing night? I'm glad you waited to ask this time. Well, other than a 6 hour drive home, you get questioned by the border patrol on what on earth you were doing in Ann Arbor for 5+ hours that didn't involve buying anything. So you give him a relatively truthful answer, neglecting to mention the carton of cigarettes you have underneath your passenger seat. And to that he asks, "Were you performing?"
Thank you, goodnight!
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