They've Got Jokes

We were seated in the third row. And we were afraid, very afraid. Because the closer you are to the stage, the higher the chance the comedian is going to shit on you. With jokes on your outfit, your choice of companion, your very being. Luckily for us, we were sitting behind one of opener Paul Mecurio's relatives, so he generally shied away from our side of the theatre. The other side, not so lucky.

There was the tanned, hirsute gentleman accused of being a terrorist. There was the Siemens Medical executive blamed for everything that's wrong with healthcare today. There was the fun-loving older woman asked to share how much gin she'd had to drink that day. Then there was Alistair. Poor Alistair. Who'd had the misfortune, not only of name, but of having fallen over the handlebars of his bike earlier that week. Mecurio had a lot of fun at Alistair's expense. In fact, we all did. Dudes named Alistair who try to outjoke the comedian deserve to be laughed at. Heartily. And with relish.

Mecurio was hilarious. His sharp riffs on the audience members were like the comic version of freestyle. He pulled an old guy out of the audience who was wearing nuthuggers and tried to convince the guy to hold up his leg so everyone could see his balls. If you've read any of our posts, you'll know that this humor is right up our alley. We couldn't breathe by the end of his set. At times the racial humor made us a bit uncomfortable, but maybe we're just too PC these days.

Then came headliner Brian Regan. We must admit that we were not familiar with his work, so we were surprised when he got a standing O just for walking on the stage. And because we hate everything the masses love, we tried to resist him. But we couldn't. He was funny. The stories he told about his family life and his childhood were charming and relatable. We waited in vain for him to take it low brow, but he's a clean comedian. Not an f-bomb in sight. No matter; he was funny enough without it. He even took requests. People knew his routine well enough to shout for certain stories or jokes, such as "A cup of dirt."

And despite having heard it before, they laughed raucously as if they were hearing it for the first time. People were watching him with such adoration we thought pairs of panties and boxer briefs were going to to be hurled onto the stage.

Image credit: Brian Friedman