DC Is OK

Saturday October 13th, 2007 - Alexandria, VA

Great day today on many levels. This whole weekend was fun and even though I’m only going to break even financially I’m way ahead in everything else. This was a paid vacation. I mainly came out to hang with my friend Jerry Thomas. He is a comedy lifer like me and I hadn’t seen him in a while. We met in Milwaukee when we were both writing jokes for the Alex Thien column in the Milwaukee Sentinel in the early ‘80s. How much we‘ve grown.

Jerry moved to LA for years and worked with a radio seminar guy named Dan O’Day. It lasted several years and when I would visit LA Jerry would show me around. I saw him on the first day I was ever in LA when I rode a bus from where I was staying to meet him for lunch. I didn’t know a soul there and to see a friendly face when I got off the bus meant a lot. I’m not intimidated by LA at all now but back then I had no idea what it was all about.

We’ve stayed in contact over the years and Jerry is now doing standup himself. He and I talked about the business and about all our years of knowing each other and just had a fun time hanging out in DC. His friend Kathy came along and we went to ‘the mall’ to visit the tourist sites and we all enjoyed it. I don’t know why they call it ‘the mall’ as there isn’t any Orange Julius or Spencer Gifts to be found but that’s what they call the place we visited.

I hadn’t seen these things in a long time and I really am glad I came. The weather was as good as it could be and there were a lot of people from all over the country doing the very same thing we were - appreciating our American heritage. It’s very moving to see all this.

It is for me anyway. If there’s one thing I will not joke about it’s how thankful I am for a life of freedom in America. My grandpa drilled that into my head from early childhood and I still feel it today. I don’t take my freedom for granted and today I got to celebrate it with several hundred if not a couple thousand other people who felt the same way. We loved it.

We walked from the Washington Monument to the World War II Memorial and got our picture taken by the Wisconsin section. There is a commemorative concrete slab for every state and all the territories too. I had never seen this Memorial before and it was beautiful. I saw people with World War II American Legion caps who looked like they were former soldiers and I couldn’t help but think of my grandfather. He served in the Air Force during World War II but didn’t have to go over and do combat because he was in his 30s then.

The Vietnam Memorial wall was very moving. Seeing all those names of those who died was really sad. Those were all someone’s baby once or sibling or neighbor or classmate. It also brought back memories of my childhood. My father rode with the Outlaws and I have memories of sitting with some of the bikers who told of the horrors of Vietnam. They had been over there and talked about it and to hear that at age nine or ten was quite disturbing.

The Lincoln Memorial is a lot bigger than I remembered it and it was packed with people taking pictures and looking at the inscriptions. It was a feeling of respect and gratitude and I wasn’t the only one who felt it. No amount of money could have made me miss this day.

I think every American should see these things at least once in their lifetime. Seeing it on TV or online or reading about it in a book just isn’t the same. Seeing the actual places live and in person puts it all in a whole new perspective. I hadn’t been here for a while so I got to reflect on life and it gave me a whole new appreciation of getting to live life in America.

After we finished enjoying everything we walked back to my rental car and found a nice fresh parking ticket flapping in the windshield wiper. There were no parking meters nearby and I suppose I could have been angry but I thought even for $20 I still would have gotten a lot out of seeing all this so I will just pay it and shut my mouth. In Chicago it would have been $50 so I guess I got off cheap. In Russia they’d probably have sent me off to Siberia.

Jerry lives in Alexandria and there’s a frozen custard place called ‘My Dairy Godmother’ right by his place. That’s a great name and the owner is from Wisconsin. I strutted in with my Packers sweatshirt on and she said ‘We’re going to win tomorrow, aren’t we?’ We got off on the right foot and it got even better when we had our sundaes. They were very tasty and to top it off she had Sprecher root beer in bottles. I felt like I was back in Cheeseland.

For all the time I’ve spent traveling in my life Wisconsin is always going to be my home. I grew up there and know the culture of Milwaukee and even though I don’t always enjoy memories of my past when I’m this far from there and have some frozen custard it feels as though I do love at least part of my past after all. Jerry hasn’t lived there in years either so he knows what I’m talking about. Hearing someone say ‘bubbler’ makes us feel at home.

The show tonight was really good. It’s a place called ‘Floyd’s Bar and Grill’ but doesn’t look like the name sounds. It’s a very old building and has super high ceilings and a smart upscale clientele. They weren’t drunk and stupid and they were there to see comedy. Last night was a lot of fun but tonight was even better. This trip was worth it on many levels.

One show a night is like a vacation. I can do that in my sleep. I enjoy working and in my book we could have done three shows a night with audiences like this. I have always done well in the DC area because crowds are pretty hip as a rule. Places like here and Madison, WI and Ann Arbor, MI and San Francisco are all hipper than the average strip mall crowd.

The people that run this room had another show at another club for six years. This was a grand opening weekend of the new room and I was the first headliner. The married couple who run the shows both thanked me fifteen times for coming and couldn’t believe I didn’t play their other club in six years but I told them that’s how comedy works. There isn’t any guarantee that a comedian gets on a ‘circuit’. We all have to get work wherever we can.

The booker who put me in this weekend has a lot of other work as well. They’ll get the double thumbs up from the people here and I should be able to parlay this into a lot more work next year. These are the same people I drove from Flint, MI to Charlotte, NC to do a contest for a few months ago so now it’s starting to pay off a little all this time later. It’s how the comedy business works and when I did that contest I paid my own expenses and lost money. This week I broke even. Maybe next time I can actually make a few bucks.