Nyack-ety-yack (Don't Talk Back)

Had a gig in Nyack, NY this past weekend.


We carpooled, with Luke driving,


me back-seat driving,


and Matt Little, Kevin McCaffrey, and J-L Cauvin in tow.

The show was Comedy Night, in a cozy Latin fusion cafe with a theme of religious relics. A section of the crowd, one table up front, were Comedy Night regulars, and apparently their tastes were a little refined. Each of us had completely different material, and none of it was to this table's liking. Out of the three men and three women seated together, two of the women were stone-faced, one woman had commentary for every performer, two of the men stared down and sat with their hands clasped over their mouths. The third man turned his whole body away from the stage to show his distaste. The entire show.

Some of us went blue, some of us were clean, all of us talked about life experiences which differed from one another. Here were the topics that did not go over well with these people:

Being raised by a single parent
Being raised by both parents
Dating
Being single
Being engaged
Being black
Being white
Being black and white
Having a job
Being unemployed
Being religious
Hating religion
Happy that Obama is in office
Not liking that Obama is in office
Ambivalent now that Obama is in office

These people were like Teflon. Nothing stuck to them. Nothing resonated with them or seemed to come close to what they live through each day. Apparently they were cleverly disguised aliens from another planet. Talking to them did not help, ignoring them did not help. Finally, we squeezed a few chuckles out of them.

Here's what did well, or at least inspired one woman in the front to start talking loudly with us:

Dogs
Ad-libbing about the objects in the room
Asking what they wanted to hear about (answer: Spring time. Unfortunately this answer came at the end of the last performer's set)

But what do you want? It's not the Big City. Like I said, their tastes are little refined.