Night of a Thousand Scowls
Hmmm, post a picture of Patton Oswalt or Sarah Silverman? Which will get people to notice this post more?
April Fool's Day for 2006 saw me volunteer at 826's comedy show. Jimmy Kimmel, Tom Rhodes, Al Madrigal, some local guy who was funny 50% of the time, Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt all came out to raise money for the writing program by making people chortle and guffaw.
My job ended up being giving out programs to people as they walked in. Without me how would the audience know how many times Patton Oswalt had done Conan O'Brien's show or that Jimmy Kimmel is the executive producer of The Andy Milonkas Show? Also there was an envelope to donate even more money to our charitable organization. It was kind of like church (the show was held on Church Street) but instead of a priest blabbing about God you had Sarah Silverman talking about the similarities of Black youth and old Jewish people ("they love track suits...all their friends are dying (audience groans). They're not all funny people, sometimes they're serious!").
Seeing Silverman was awesome because I had enjoyed her work for so long but had only known her through TV prances. Live she really delivers, especially when a whole audience seemed to be in love her from the start. Seeing a multiracial audience laugh at an attractive Jewess tell off-color jokes about race and sex filled me with happiness, but that's probably because I'm crazy.
I had seen Al Midgral before when Tom and I saw Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Lynch. Midgral was the MC. He's someone who should be much more famous than he is. He's got a storytelling style, somewhere between David Sedaris and David Cross. One of the best things about seeing comedians in SF is that when they talk about living here they name actual locations and routes. I had seen Madrgial talk about going to French school as a boy, but did you know he took the N-Judah? I take that train to Amoeba where Golden Gate Park kids offer me weed! Now I feel like I've known Madrigal my whole life (see, told I was crazy). Also, Patton Oswalt's "shoot whitey/stab whitey" living location was the Lower Haight. Think about that next time you go to The Toronado to drink one of their 78,000 beers.
Oswalt was funniest than anytime I had seen him before. Inspired by Larry the Cable Guy the Health Inspector he was trying to market some catch phrases that he would sprinkle through the act. "Put the Puppy in the Bucket" was a crowd favorite. Oswalt has also eclipsed his Robert Evans bit with his take on Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. He breaks down the movie making process with this absurd film, made in 1977 but never released until it came out on DVD in 2003. Try to see Oswalt live just in hopes that he'll do this bit.
Now here's the weird part. Before the show all us volunteers had to drop our coats, backpacks and whatever in this room in the book (this show took place in a huge middle school). After the show I go to get my backpack so I can leave with out realizing I forgot my belongings a half-hour or hour after I left, which is what I usually do. So I go to the room in the back and here a voice that was familiar. It was Sarah Silverman's. I'm looking all over this room for my backpack and I realize that I walked into the "green room" where all the talent is. Jimmy Kimmel and Patton Oswalt are talking about cult films on DVD and I'm just thinking to myself "where's my backpack?" I saw other people's backpacks but not mine. Then it hit my slow-moving mind that maybe the room where us lowly volunteers put out stuff was not the same room where they put the people they flew up from L.A. I go the room that's next fucking door and get my backpack and go. I also congratulated myself on not being a starfucker when in the green room, which is something I'm always worried about being brought up in the Los Angeles area. Why should I let a close encounter with some of America’s funniest people stop me from reminding myself how absent-minded I am?
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