This weekend I headed up to the DC Comedy Festival with some friends. We caught a show of four African-American stand-up comedians, which I believe was called Four Shades of Black. Although each comedian had a joke or two in their routine that was genuinely funny, none of them had the kind of pervasive personality and always-on delivery of a true comic genius; nor were they so damn intelligent and/or weird that their great heights more than overshadowed their missteps. In other words, I wish them well, but I’m not going to bother trying to find clips online to point you to.
Due to a massive (kind of) cockup afterwards, we missed the main event we had hoped to see, namely a group of comedians competing to get on Letterman. Instead, we took the metro to another venue and caught two improv groups and a musical comedy act. Because of this, I now realize that improv is not my thing.
The second group was particularly painful. Before they began, they took a “suggestion” from the crowd: the word matriculate. Except for the first two or three minutes of their act, there was no matriculation to be seen. They must have decided to unmatriculate, I guess. It didn’t help that the woman in the three person act kept using a grating voice that wouldn’t have been funny for a minute, much less fifteen. Their performance reminded me of why I gave up on Mad TV.
The highlight of the evening was entirely unexpected–Lounge-zilla, a gay-bi-lesbian-transgender-(whatever) singing Asian. Before he came out (zing!), we had no idea what his act was going to be like.
(I remember him being introduced as having won “best of the fest” at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. I’d never heard of the Fringe Festival before, but I was able to put two and two together enough to start to think, “I wonder if…” Before I could finish the thought, Lounge-zilla walked onto the floor in a frilly, florescent feathered robe and started doing his thing; my unasked question was answered.)
The act was kind of like The Birdcage meets Hedwig meets… I dunno, a couple of other things, I guess. If he hadn’t been a decent performer, it would have been a train wreck. As it was, I found the whole thing pretty interesting and generally amusing. At least one of the people in our group seemed to be very put out by the act, though. To each their own.
All quibbles aside, that one evening at the fest was fun, and I’m glad I went. My only disappointment is that I did not find another Mitch Hedburg to keep an eye on.
RIP, Mitch!