I bought the audience ice cream last night.
photo: Melissa Gira Grant
I headlined at an event called Comedy in the Park last night in Brooklyn.
Comedy venues are usually deep dark womblike basements. This was the opposite.
Nothing to contain the “room” but you. And of course, it’s tough to be more interesting to look at than the Manhattan skyline or the occasional unremarkable Burg hipster modeling with a fox mask on.
I was standing on a rock using a mic and little guitar amp with a wire run from the booker’s van. It gave you exactly the same delicate tones as the guy on the street corner screeching you into Jesus love through Spanish language hell and damnation.
So I did a little Jewish version of what our evangelical sound would be and almost as if on cue a Hasidic men (orthodox Jew) wandered right in front of me and my bare shoulders and knees.
There was nothing to do but buy an audience member a coconut ice from the ice cream man going by and up the absurd with a wedding story that really showed some promise. I was grateful to have finally found a NY ‘room” where you could actually work out long material for my interactive style because I really was able to bring people in and connect in that space. It was like the comedy equivalent of ankle weights.
((tag: stand-up comedy, Williamsburg, Jewish, wedding, absurd, fox))
