Oct
Posted on 27th October 2009
It’s been an action-packed past few days and I am still pulling myself together after all the action referenced earlier in this sentence. The mayhem started this past Thursday night at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, where I broke out another installment of my popular nightclub act, the Dave Hill Explosion. The legendary Dick Cavett was my guest on the show for the second time ever and I was also joined by the legendary Gordon Gano from the Violent Femmes and his backing band the Ryans. The legendary Carl Arnheiter was also in the house. It was a super fun show highlighted by Dick Cavett calling me peculiar- something you never expect from someone you have watched a lot on DVD- and later joining Gordon Gano and the Ryans for an extended improvised jam during which he free-formed some Rudyard Kipling verses. It was a stone cold gas. That is a picture of me and Dick Cavett having a really nice time above (photo by Beowulf Sheehan). And below is Dick Cavett blowing minds with the band. Whoa- that shit was historic in nature.
Friday, the mayhem continued as I headed down to Washington, DC for the Bentzen Ball, the excellent comedy festival curated by the excellent Tig Notaro in conjunction with the excellent folks at Brightest Young Things. I missed Thursday, the opening night of the festival, because of the stuff mentioned in paragraph one of this entry, but I was able to be a part of the magic for the rest of the weekend and I was one glad motherf@#ker about that.
Friday night, I did the later show in the back bar of the Black Cat along with the great Steve Agee, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Natasha Leggero, Hugh Moore, Ben Kronberg, Cynthia Levin, and Courtney Fearrington. My brain wasn’t fully functioning as a result of post-show mayhem from Thursday night, but I still managed to hold myself together enough to not get pelted with anything during my set. It was a fun show. Afterwards, everyone went over to the offices of Gibson guitars in Chinatown for a post-show shindig that included free burritos, guitars hanging on the wall, and a really loud DJ. I don’t know why DJs always turn the music up so loud that people can’t easily have a conversation but they seem to be really into that sort of thing for some reason. Me? I’m against it! It all worked out though- most people just went outside on the deck where they could hear each other and exchange anecdotes from life and tell each other how it was nice to see each other, which it was.
On Saturday, I was a little beat up from all the good times and also the free burrito mentioned in the previous paragraph, so I slept in super late and then ate some cereal, which was delicious, especially to me, a guy who really likes cereal. Then I headed over to see the live taping of the Sound of Young America show they were having over there at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC, our nation’s capital. It was really fun and included great sets by Chelsea Peretti, Hugh Moore, and Matt Braunger. Also, excellent host Jesse Thorn interviewed DC punk legend Ian Mackaye, a man I greatly admire for a whole bunch of reasons. It was a really fun and interesting interview. After the show, I cornered Ian to say hello and take the above photo with him. Something tells me I was a little more excited about the photo than he was. I can’t put my finger on it.
After Ian and I had a great time posing for that photo together, I headed up to the cake and champagne party put on by Cake Love, a delicious cake company founded by Warren Brown, a great guy I totally went to grade school with. I hadn’t seen Warren probably since the ‘90s, so it was fun to catch up with him and try his delicious cakes. If you live in DC and like cake, you would be motherf@#king crazy not to get a cake from Warren. He has made cake his bitch.
I was pretty wiped out from eating all that cake, so I had to go take a nap. I took my pants off and everything. That’s how tired I was. Sometimes when you are really tired, pants just get in the way of things. That’s just science.
Refreshed from my nap, I headed over to the Studio Theatre in Northwest DC to do a fun show with the great Todd Barry, superfox Mary Lynn Rajskub, sultry Lizz Winstead, Matt Braunger, David Huntsberger, Adam Cayton-Holland, Randolph Terrance, and Eli Sairs. It was a super fun show. Well-rested and full of cake, I had a much better set at this show than the night before. And I had a blast watching all the other comics when I wasn’t trying to pull myself together in the weird rapey, bathroom with blue lighting they had at the theatre. I’m always suspicious of bathrooms with mood lighting, especially when that mood is really rapey. “Let’s put up rape lighting- that’ll be good,” someone must have said at some point. And then someone probably just looking to get through the day went ahead and put that rape lighting in. Life.
After Saturday’s show, a bunch of the folks from the festival went to a late-night party in some warehouse kind of space where there was free Mexican food and also a really loud DJ again. I hung out for a while and talked with friends and also ate a fajita before I decided I just couldn’t wring any more fun out of the evening and headed back to go to sleep.
Sunday, I woke up early to go to a Renaissance Fair in Maryland, something I wouldn’t have expected to be typing right now. My friend Bob, a pickle magnate, asked me to be in a video he is making so I totally went out to the Renaissance Fair and played a part in the video. I am not really a Renaissance Fair guy, but I like to see other folks having a really nice time so I’m all for it. Things went south quickly at the Renaissance Fair though after I ate something called “sausage on a stick,” which- as hinted at in the name- was a large sausage on a stick. That’s the thing about sausage though, you never know if you’ve made a mistake until it’s too late. I guess it’s kind of like being a contestant on the Price Is Right or something.
I was pretty wiped out from the Renaissance Fair and also that sausage, so when I got back to DC, I totally needed a nap again, so I took another nap before pulling myself together to head over to the 9:30 Club to see Sarah Silverman, Laura Silverman, Steve Agee, Chelsea Peretti, and Tig Notaro close out the Bentzen Ball by putting on a seriously awesome sold out show. Before the show I threw down some mozzarella sticks at some bar across the street, which put me in a somewhat compromised state but I ended up having a super delightful time anyway because everyone was super hilarious and I also ended up getting kind of drunk because I lead the party lifestyle.
Now I am just sitting here on the Amtrak back to New York City and wondering what’s next. Who knows- either way I’m sure my hair will look incredible.
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