(Sunday Paper, Year IV, Issue 17)

In case you missed it, I spent the beginning of this week in Greensboro, North Carolina for the North Carolina Comedy Festival.

Why did I go back to that festival for a second time?

Well, that picture at the left pretty much sums it up - the festival organizers (organizer, really) do (does) a really good job of taking care of the performers and making it worth one’s while.

That picture shows a monitor at the airport - it’s one of the first things I saw when I got off the plane in Greensboro.

That’s a nice feeling after you travel to a city - to know that the thing you’re traveling there for is being advertised to everyone arriving in the city.

And I enjoyed my short time in Greensboro.

The comedy portion of my time in Greensboro went well. I think the first show I was in on Monday night went better for me than the Tuesday night one - but I tried out different material each night and I got a good feel for which jokes of mine work well and don’t work so well in a different part of the United States.

So that was all worthwhile. (I should probably note: I was only able to swing Monday and Tuesday of the week-long stand-up portion of the festival, so my two shows were on the back-to-back nights.)

It was also cool to see the new venue. The comedy club where the festival was centered - The Idiot Box - moved since last year. and It was a really nice new space.

But what I really loved about my experience this year was being in another city.

I stayed in a different part of Greensboro this year than I did last year, so I got a good feel for a different area. Last year, maybe you remember, I worked at a Starbucks one afternoon, then Kevin visited and we went to a Wake Forest game and I minimally explored Greensboro.

This year I didn’t do much on Monday. After arriving I worked a bit in my hotel room, and then had the show. But on Tuesday I set up in a coffee shop and got so much done before the Tuesday night show. And I really enjoyed being able to be so productive in another city.

I’m not sure I’ll be doing the festival for a third time…though I don’t know for sure and it’s too early to make that call. But I’d love to perform in Greensboro again, maybe if I can work it in to some kind of southern swing of shows.

(See the ‘Notes’ section below for a couple of other Greensboro-related items.)

Writing

*The different atmosphere lit a bit of a fire in me with my work this week, so that was good. And I spent a lot of time thinking about my work and how I can spend my time in the summer and beyond. I feel a little rejuvenated and I’m happy with how productive I was this week with the writing work.

Comedy

*Other than the festival there wasn’t much comedy to speak of this week. I did the teensiest bit of comedy writing and some other logistical comedy work while I was traveling and towards the end of the week, but no performing other than the shows on Monday and Tuesday. This week there’s not a ton lined up (it’s the start of May and family stuff is about to get bonkers, but I’m trying to find the balance so I’m not totally neglecting comedy in favor of what’s happening at home), but I do have The Comedy Studio on Wednesday night, and I’m looking forward to that. Ticket info is at the ‘Comedy Shows’ link above…maybe I’ll see you in Somerville.

Running (or Things Kevin Helped Me With This Week)

*This week I really and truly left Kevin alone to his end-of-semester busy life. (aka The Reason He Couldn’t Take The Time to Drive To Greensboro And Hang Out With Me) As for running, I packed very light for Greensboro, but I made sure to bring clothes to run in, anticipating good weather. Tuesday morning I was able to run for 30 minutes around the streets of Greensboro - including around the ballpark where the Grasshoppers play. (The most unfortunate part of my trip was that the Grasshoppers, the Marlins’ Single-A affiliate, were not home while I was there.) So I got my ballpark fix by jogging around that block and getting a glimpse of the inside of the park during the season. (Last time I was there I was looking into a quiet park in mid-to-late February.)

I fully intended to go for a 60-minute run on Saturday, but at the time I expected it to be low-to-mid-50s and sunny it was low-to-mid-50s and overcast and really windy. And I did not like the idea of running 30 minutes from home and getting caught in unpleasant weather and having to run 30 minutes back. So I didn’t run - maybe Monday?

Running requires great discipline…and kind of a lot of time. An hour is a big chunk out of my day. These will be the two biggest challenges for me.

Notes

*I have a couple of other crazy notes to give you from the North Carolina Comedy Festival. I’ll go bullet-in-bullet for those here:

First of all, I finally downloaded Lyft. I am old school - I use taxis if I am ever in need of transportation in a different city. (And I drive around Boston for the most part.) But even going as far back as my time in the Cleveland Comedy Festival (which was November 2016) I’ve constantly thought I should download a ride share app. It became clear in Washington, D.C. after the Opening Day game that I should have done it then. I made sure to have it before I went to North Carolina. (I rather liked it.)
And this was the craziest thing - before I was in Greensboro for six hours I had met two people who had connections to Astoria, New York - where I’m from. One of them was another comedian on the show I was on Monday night - not a surprise, since many New York comedians live in Astoria and I wasn’t shocked to run into a comedian from New York at the comedy festival. But the other one was the first person I talked to in Greensboro - my Lyft driver! He had just moved to Greensboro four months before (and he was also new at Lyft!) from Astoria. It was crazy. I don’t even remember why we talked about it - he might have just told me he had just moved there and I asked from where. And he might have said Queens. What a small world.
Also worth noting, I forgot until the night before I left that I had a layover on the way down. I had about an hour and a half in New York at LaGuardia Airport. And, it is obviously a mess from the outside, but they’re doing a nice job on the inside with the renovations. It was my first time inside one of the new terminals they’re building and it was quite lovely. It was also funny that I was five minutes from home in between my flights in North Carolina. I wish I could have planned that out better and stopped in to give my mom a hug hello.

*I don’t remember if I wrote about this yet: I’ve been on a bit of a Neil Gaiman kick lately…I felt like he was an author I should know more about, so I read American Gods and then part of a book of essays and speeches and such, and then on the plane back from North Carolina I read Coraline, which I think is his best-known children’s book. My biggest takeaway was that I thought I knew what Coraline was all about, but I didn’t. I can’t say I over-the-top loved Gaiman’s stuff, but I was very impressed by the writing.

*I’d love for you to follow me on Twitter, if you’re so inclined. Also, I would love for you to Like my Facebook page, if you are similarly inclined. Thank you.

*As you probably remember, going back to the North Carolina Comedy Festival was one of the ‘challenges’ I introduced for 2019 back in February. This is probably a good time to check in on the others: I mentioned the running, so that’s in first place as far as commitment to a challenge right now. Yoga is 100% in dead last. I don’t even know where I’d begin with that. And cribbage is slipping fast - I haven't played in a while and I hope I don’t forget how. Let me know if you’d like to try to strike up a game.

*Maybe I should have made ‘re-doing the yard’ one of my challenges for the year. Because that is going extraordinarily well. I have been keeping busy back there and I think I might write about that next week.