Even for those of us who lack the glowing, pulsating, infectious crotch colonies of a pledge sister, it’s nice to have a photographic record of where we’ve been and what/who we’ve done.

For example, on Tuesday I was at the Royal Lounge Comedy Night down in Washington state’s capital city, Olympia.² I’m grateful to MC Manus  and other impromptu praghotographers who helped me memorialize some fun that I had already forgotten about the very next day.

The first was my triumphant discovery of The Evergreen State College Most Granola Hipster Couple Ever. Behold…

HIM: Long-haul trucker, or irony-drenched undergrad?

HER: Getting slightly more of my personal attention

I enjoy talking to people after comedy shows because I can usually get away with saying some pretty outrageous shit, as long as I immediately play it off with “Ha ha, joking! Comedy guy!” This one was taken after a frank observation about their collective grooming:

All I said was that if they look down during sex, it must look like
the banging together of two giant tumbleweeds

Good times. So try to bring a cheap camera to your shows, is my point. I’ll bolster it soon with part 2, from that gig, once I’ve figured out which photos won’t irrevocably damage the lives of everyone involved.

1. Why not just use a phone? Because your phone is actually important and shouldn’t get beer dumped on it or be grabbed and passed around by strangers for an hour. I’m talking about cameras, btw, not sorority girls.
2. Olympia is the state of Washington capital city, and that’s capital with an “a”. It contains the government’s capitol building, which is capitol with an “o.” The reason for this is that English is a fucking mess.

And what could be more fun, for a conquering hero’s holiday homecoming, than to book the prime comedy clubs and venues in their old stomping grounds?¹ These are typically some of the best-attended, highest-quality comedy shows of the year, and are a lot of fun for the local comics who get booked in the opener slots.

There’s a catch, though: the seasonal influx of national headliners temporarily swells the local talent pool, so everyone who’s not a national headliner gets temporarily bumped down a rung. In practice this means that the regional headliners get bumped down to feature gigs; features are bumped to host and MC work, and the local host/MCs… well, we go back to the open mics.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing about the holiday season: the open mics also tend to be really, really crowded.

The holidays aren’t all bleak bookings and bump lists, though; yes, stage time and bookings are scarcer than usual, but they also offer a number of great opportunities to meet, watch, and learn from professional comedians. This type of off-stage socializing can be tremendously valuable, even more so than the stage time.²

1. Of course, booking this type of “working vacation” is also smart calendar management — and good business. This is one of the reasons they’re a successful headliner!
2. And remember, you can still have a productive open mic experience even when you don’t get to perform.

Talk about a tough crowd (click for bigger pic)

On the one hand, look at all those hungry, beautiful tigers. And on the other hand, look at all those hungry, beautiful tigers.