Funny How?

Um. So, yeah. If you want to see the kind of stellar local sketch comedy I was subjected to last night while I was at the 40th Street Stage with Joe and Al then go ahead and view at your own risk. Careful so that your eyes don't roll completely out of your skull.



I did, however, manage to flip my proverbial wig after the show, driving around downtown Norfolk with the guys and reminiscing about our slightly more Bohemian years living in Ghent during our inchoate music careers. First we took Al to see our old house from back in 1990 through 1993, a old colonial-style three-story affair where we lived with Goofy Steve and this usual character who pretty much had to be seen to be believed. A goth kid with a terminal drinking problem, he spent most of his early morning hours tanked on 40 ounce malt liquors and cranking Bauhaus, or lying on the living room floor on his back with his arms folded across his chest like an inebriated vampire. Years of intensive drug abuse had slurred his speech and thought process to the point where it constantly looked and sounded as if he were just waking up (S. used to refer to him as "The Logy Guy") and took an excuriatingly long time for a single sentence to escape his lips. Even when sober, which was rarely ever. Nearly burned the house down once trying to cook a pizza in the oven and then passing out, and once trying to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills, but waiting until he got to work at the grocery store to do it. Anyway, we had all parted company ages ago and had never seen each other since, but we spent the evening chattering away about all the strange things that went on in that house with the doped-up goth who spoke like a lobotmized Eeyore and staggered around Coley Avenue in black cloaks and beer bottles. Until around midnight Joe decided to show Al the Horse & Buggy, this deplorable dive down on Sewell's Point where Joe had his first DJing gig in 1988. We walked in, established that it still resembled the film set to the movie Barfly, and as we were leaving and walking back to our car we encounter a dark figure approaching us on the mean streets of Norview... and we were greeted with that distinctive slow drawl that neither Joe nor I had heard in 14 years. Our old roommate. Strolling down the street. After Joe and Al and I had just come from driving past the house where we all lived together. And he was heading straight for the bar where Joe used to DJ almost 20 years ago. We stopped and talked a spell, and it seems he's quit drinking and doing pretty well, though still very much slurred and "logy". Not something that seems bizarre or impressive when you're just reading about someone else experiencing it, but while he and Joe were chatting and catching up Al and I scuttled a few feet away and just gawked at each other speechlessly. Getting back in the car Alvin bellowed "SO DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD NOW, JOE?" which had me in stitches so hard I was back to coughing fits again.

Which was still a thousand times funnier than anything I had seen at the comedy show that evening.