At the San Jose Improv, August 2018
This past Saturday my buddy and I drove down to
San Jose to see Norm Macdonald at the San Jose Improv. It’s about 6 hours from
Ashland to San Jose but it was totally worth it.
We’ve been surrounded by various forest fires this
summer and our air has been fair to hazardous every day depending on the wind.
But the air was great down there and my lungs recovered almost instantly.
We had tickets for both of his Saturday night
shows and they were both really great. And I’m really glad we got to see both
as they were similar but not the same. Norm is one of my very favorite
comedians so this was sort of a bucket list check off for me.
We stayed at the Marriot just a few blocks from
the show and that was cool too. No in town driving or any of that shit. We just
checked in and walked around the neighborhood. We got in line at the Improv at
4:30. The doors opened at 5:30, so we were second in line and ended up right at
the stage just a few feet from Norm! Really cool. I'd never been to a comedy
club before. All the many comedy shows I'd seen were in concert venues and to
be right up close was fantastic. I mean, he was looking at right at me at times
and I felt like he was really looking, not show-biz looking which was very
cool.
The first show was a dinner crowd and second more
of a drinking crowd. The first show, he had some time pressure and the second
show not so much so he could relax a bit more. Really really great stuff...funny,
smart, absurd, philosophical...especially the second show. It was totally worth
the money and the driving...and since we didn't go to Bandon for a T’ai-Chi
retreat this year, it served as a bit of a vacation.
As a student of comedy it was great to not only
laugh at a master comedian but also great to see how he worked, especially over
two shows. My sense was that he had some things he wanted to talk about but no
set “act”. Some of the jokes he repeated but the timing would change, sometimes
even the punch line was different. He’s just so funny and so relaxed and
confident in his delivery, he could talk about practically anything and make it
kill. The overriding theme seemed to be the inevitability of death and
suffering but he talked about all kinds of stuff. Most of it was offensive.
Unless of course, you like comedy. We laughed our asses off.
My buddy has an Audi so the driving both ways was
smooooooth. On Saturday morning we started off smoky as hell, passed through a
few different smoke zones from different fires, but then we got down far enough
south and the smoke disappeared which was great. But man. Ho. Lee. Shit. The
traffic down here was just nuts. Five or six lanes each way, people driving
like maniacs, and as we got closer to San Jose and Silicon Valley, so many
BMW's, Mercedes, and expensive sports cars, including Ferraris. Just a huge
amount of money down there. And once in the city, very multi-ethnic, especially
the downtown scene where the club was. Everyone seemed to be getting along fine
though. It was party central down there when we finally got out after the
second show. Expensive cars, people lined up outside of clubs, music throbbing,
all that shit. Fun to take a peek at, but I am no longer a city-boy in any way.
I hardly go to cities anymore. Just briefly once or twice every year or so. I
can't even believe I used to live in New York City or even Seattle. We crashed hard in
our hotel room and got up the next morning for the drive back.
It was a great little trip and it was also great
to get back home safe and sound, even if the air was pretty lousy with smoke
once again. After a brief pit stop, I got on my bike and rode out to the
regular Sunday night open mike at the Wild Goose Café & Bar, had a great
set and rode back home and slept like a rock.
Final note: The San Jose Improv is a great place
to see comedy. The room is good sized, seats over 400, but is still intimate
and cozy. No bad seats really. The staff was friendly, the food and drinks were
good and the general vibe was positive and lively. They had a deal that with
certain drinks you get a free souvenir glass. So I did that and now I have an
Improv glass to go with Doug Stanhope’s rocks glass that I took from the club
here in Medford where we saw him a few years back.
For a review of that show, click here:
For a review of that show, click here:
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