Comedy Sketchbook: The Sounds and Sights of Hasbrouck Heights w/Chris Redd, Sean Morton, & Melted Diner "Cheese."

A 9 year-old Journal Entry from a New Jersey road gig at Bananas Comedy Club

Journal Entry:
November 2, 2017
Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

A man in a tailored red suit and a backpack sits across from me on the subway, aggressively reading a tattered paperback of Dune. He looks exactly like the mysterious G-Man from Half-Life, wandering ominously through the simulation before completely vanishing.

I check my broken phone screen between stations, and suddenly, I belong to the state of New Jersey.

I check my cracked phone screen between stations. An email from my agent waits for me. I am booked to host four shows this weekend at Bananas Comedy Club. It sounds glamorous until you realise it is just a converted conference room inside a Holiday Inn Express on the side of a busy New Jersey highway.

I am forced to navigate the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It possesses a formidable perfume. It is a hot fuselage of passenger poo wafting through the air. You get notes of week-old urine, cheap cigars, and the slightest soupçon of wet dog. I am the last to board the bus. I squeeze snugly between a hirsute gentleman in a tank top and a septuagenarian with a weaponised case of halitosis. Every single person on this vehicle looks like they are two stops away from snapping like Edward Norton in Fight Club. Myself included.

A highway crash adds an hour to the trip. Everyone apparently harbours a severe nasal infection. The cabin becomes a dense symphony of sneezes and snorts. We finally pull onto Main Street. The pneumatic doors hiss open in front of a statue of a small boy glaring creepily at a man in a uniform. I am officially in New Jersey.

I check into the hotel. Two empty martini glasses and a pile of unopened milk cartons sit abandoned outside my door. I do not ask questions.

Honestly, I am amazed I am back here. The last time I played this room, I bombed so hard UNICEF deployed aid workers. The vacuum of space silence was so profound I could hear a guy in the third row actively listening to the Mets game on his phone.

I check in with the manager, Denise. I then immediately make a fatal error. I order the seasonal “Warm Pumpkin Martini” at the bar. Do not ever do this. It tastes exactly like a warm, soggy clump of autumn leaves marinated in cinnamon and piss.

The feature act, Sean Morton, sidles up to the bar. He is hilarious. He tells me the stage lights here are so blisteringly hot he has to change his shirt after every single show because he literally ‘sweats out my entire body weight in water.’ Our headliner is Chris Redd, freshly cast on Saturday Night Live. He is insanely funny. He uses his Second City improv chops to completely dig himself out of an anti-Trump chunk in a room full of vocal Donald devotees. It is an absolute magic trick.

We dissect our sets over whiskey. We engage in massive self-flagellation. We hurl ourselves back onto the stage for the late show.

It is a beautiful, unmitigated disaster.