This trip was a bit of a mixed bag, comedy wise, but let's get into it.
We arrived in NYC late Tuesday so Wednesday was our first opportunity. Ambush in Williamsburg looked good, listing as it did producer Josh Johnson, Shane Torres and one of absolute favourites Sean Patton. However, there were a couple of drawbacks on the bill and the show can run long and the room be quite warm, neither of which is great if you're a bit jetlagged. An alternative was found in a new-to-me show called The Village Idiot at a place called The Juke Bar in Manhattan. Other than Shane Torres (again) it was full of unknowns.
The comedy was in a side room of the basement bar. Worryingly they made no attempt to close the curtain to the bar when the show started so if you were in the bar, legitimately having a conversation, you were now, sort of, at a comedy show. The standard was pretty grim but Shane Torres was exceptionally good. When he finished, we were at the end of our fully-priced but quite small beer and that seemed like the ideal time to make an escape.
There was nothing hugely exciting on the horizon for Thursday but my girlfriend had access to almost-free tickets to Eastville's 8pm show. Again, there was a minor problem with the line-up but offsetting that were Myq Kaplan and more importantly Monroe Martin. I used to love seeing Monroe at Stand NYC but I don't see him listed so often in the city so perhaps he's relocated or is concentrating on the road.
We spent the afternoon in Brooklyn and gradually made our way to Eastville's vicinity, having a final stop-off at the nearby Hollow Nickel. There was an annoying woman there (this will be relevant shortly). When we finally made it to Eastville we realised a) There were going to be less than half a dozen audience members b) The annoying woman was one of them. We looked at the beer prices and decided that we didn't want to run up a huge drinks bill watching an atmosphere-less gig. At this point Myq Kaplan walked in using a stick. I felt a bit bad abandoning the gig when he'd obviously made an effort to get there but not bad enough to hang around.
On the Monday I was swithering between two different shows on the Upper West Side. The earliest one was a free show, (billed as three hours long!) called Monday Night Mob at Stand Up NY, a place I usually avoid as the drinks bill (again) can really mount up. However, there was a promise of "$5 specials" which is hard to turn down. The other one was a bar show at a pub called E's. As this second show started a little later, we decided to try to visit both.
After some debate with the Stand Up NY staff regarding where we should sit, we got $5 beers (which were a crazily-high alcohol percentage) and settled in. It looked like a pro-am night, so not quite an open-mic but bordering on it and was pretty well attended. One of the first people up was Matthew Benjamin who was coincidentally listed at our second show of the evening. We sat through a few other acts and by the time the beer was done we opted to switch to the bar show.
E's only decent draft was $9 before tax, so with tip and conversion to UK sterling, you're looking at £8.20 per pint. The performance area was at the back of the bar and wasn't a textbook example of a comedy-friendly space. The show started late and the compere and the first two acts were unremarkable. Knowing that one of the remaining acts was the bloke we'd just seen at Stand Up NY we made the decision that we'd rather spend the rest of the evening (and our dollars) back at the comedy club.
On returning the greeter started to explain the situation and I attempted to save him time by saying that we'd been in earlier and had left to go to another show. Initially he assumed we'd gone to The Westside Comedy Club but I said it was a bar show at E's. "How was it?" he asked. "Well, we're back here!" I replied in lieu of explanation. The wine was also $5 so we spent the rest of the evening there. I'd definitely go back to Monday Night Mob.
Tuesday night was to be our first visit to Stand NYC. There was an early show in the smaller, upstairs room called "Allagash Brewing Presents: inFamous Rays". Other than the fact that there were two people called Ray on the bill I didn't pay too much heed to the details. The headliner was to be Mark Normand but Jay Jurden and Josh Gondelman were also listed. Mark and Jay were great, Josh didn't show and the rest of the line-up were best forgotten, ESPECIALLY the two Rays. It's a monthly show and the Allagash tie up meant that (somehow) free beer was available but that wouldn't be enough to persuade me to return.
Wednesday was yet another visit to Ambush in Williamsburg. Once again, we politely declined their generous offer of a free Miller Lite in favour of cans of Montauk and once again we failed to win the pizza raffle. The main draw was Ian Fidance but producers Josh Johnson and Lucas Connolly were also listed and it was those three that had the most success. Ian was particularly good discussing a breakup and the consequent loss of a beloved cat called Beanz. JF Harris was also reasonable and will get added to the list of "not terrible" people.
The next night we were back at Stand NYC. Aaron Berg, Ian Lara, Onika McLean and headliner Shane Gillis - what's not to like? It was pretty successful, though Onika was a little flat and Shane did some material (Trump being funny) from his YouTube special. Other than the fact that they still don't have any decent beers available in the main room (requiring me to go upstairs to the main bar each time) we really enjoyed ourselves. And I still hold some sort of weird credibility there, possibly (or according to my girlfriend - certainly) due to mistaken identity.
Said girlfriend unexpectedly chose to go to a terrible play on the Friday evening leaving me comparatively little time to find something interesting on one of the trickier nights of the week. Tight Knit - A Comedy Show was ticking several boxes. It was around the right time, wasn't in the arse end of nowhere, was free and had at least one confidence-inspiring name against it - Josh Gondelman. On the plus side it was an interesting, if slightly over-lit, place to watch comedy (a bookshop called P&T Knitwear) and Josh was very good. On the minus side, there wasn't too much else of interest on the bill, but beggars can't be choosers.
On my way to the bookshop, I had been prevented from entering through the subway turnstile because Colin Quinn was exiting. When I met my girlfriend in The Olive Tree (above the Comedy Cellar) after our respective shows Colin was holding court at the comedians' table at the back. I didn't mention the turnstile to him. Good story Steve.
Trip Stats
Shows entered - 7
Shows left early - 3
Shows not even started - 1
Expenditure - $35
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