TR SNIPPET LA COMEDY

I loved discovering the LA Comedy Club.  A groupon gave me a seat for $12 which was a bargain over the Sin City groupon which is $15 and then $9 (with tip)  more for that mandatory bottle of Bud.   Everyone was friendly and welcoming.  No bullying to buy a beer here.

I like the location too better than the Planet Hollywood location.  I was staying at the Gold Coast and delighted that I could take the Gold Coast shuttle to Bally’s, walk in to the theater, and then walk over to the Flamingo for some poker and take the 202 back in the early morning.

I can’t remember the names of the comics.  I did not have my pen that night.  The host was mediocre at best and some of his jokes were not very funny.  But the two other guys were very polished.

The first comic was an actor as well and made jokes about bit parts he had done places.  He had been a dead body in CSI.  He said it was a hard job.  He mentioned that other greats had done it.  In another movie he had been a blackjack dealer.  His delivery was just fine.

The second comic was overweight and he made some jokes about his own eating and his use of marijuana.  He talked about visiting his grandmother who has Alzheimer’s and how fine it was to visit her when he was high because they could tell the same story over and over for five hours.  He told how she would bake cookies and he would eat them and she would forget and bake more cookies and he would eat those too.  It was a clever comic juxtaposition.

Going to Catholic Mass with his mother on Christmas eve while high on marijuana was not as easy he said.  He would get all sorts of ideas, like rolling a bowling ball down the aisle, and the munchies had him dipping his wafer in salsa.

His real mastery was in making noises.  In my youth, noises made in the microphone was often used to create humor, but I have not seen that done as much in recent times.  Garrison Keillor has an entire skit each week on Prairie Home Companion where a story is backed up with noises.  That is the only place I've heard them lately.  So this was a unique comic angle.

This fellow did the annoying sound of a motorcycle running outside his window at idle speed.  He mimicked the sound of sneezes and made jokes about how sneezing was scary, doing varieties of sneezes and finishing with the fellow who held his sneeze inside. 
He did the sounds of a woman reaching orgasm as he paced across the stage to demonstrate how it was like walking up stairs.  He did the sounds he hears when his apartment neighbors fight through the wall, reproducing conversational inflections too vague to make out the words.

He said he was tired of being woken up early in the morning by the city trimming trees and he wanted to follow the guys home and wait until they were sleeping and then start….. and here he did a great chain saw with all the variations and the changes in pitch and bits of quiet that five hope only to be dashed by another loud outburst.  It was really very good.

He did not engage the audience except to quiet down a heckler in the first row.  An usher came and warned the heckler to stop.

LA Comedy said that they change comics every week.  I think they all draw from the same pool with comics moving around from place to place.  I have seen John Bizarre so many times and so many places that I call ahead now to see if he is playing before I go.  I love his act, but I have much of the material memorized. 

There was a good audience in the room for the laugher that creates the ambiance the comedy experience.  I wish I could remember more.  The only negative was that any talking at the bar could be heard during acts, so when the bartender and the second comic talked during the first set, it distracted me a  bit from the first comic's performance.  However, I might be a bit oversensitive to noise.  No one else seemed bothered.

So once the Riviera American Casino Guide coupon for two free tickets and no minimum purchase of anything are used up, a groupon for this place is a night of cheap entertainment.