Thursday, April 29, 2004  

Red Sox; Blueberries; Northeastern Burrito

So I'm sitting at Boston Beer Works, watching Curt Schilling positively rape the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and drinking a large, dark beer that had, for reals, a fistful of blueberries floating in it, and I'm wondering how exactly my plans to check in on the Boston Comedy Festival have gone so haywire. It should come as no surprise that Sam Walters was the culrpit, having decided in true Waltersian fashion that my recon mission was "proposterous" and that I was "wound way, way, way too tight" and that scalped tickets for bleacher seats would cure whatever nerves and ennui were eating me before tonight's preliminary comedy contest round.

So I find myself on the Green Line, clickety-clacketing towards Fenway, jammed up against a woman who smelled like raspberries and who was a very real reminder that there's nothing sexier in this world than a chubby girl in a Sox jersey...except maybe a chubby girl in ONLY a Sox jersey. At each stop it gets more crowded with excited fans, and I'm pressed so tightly against my raspberry ladyfriend that I'm making a point to thank Jesus for each and every lurch in the B Line. Then suddenly I'm in a crush of people heading up into the sunlight of Kenmore Square, and Sam's there, making me eat some more McDonald's. We plot the Bush administration's downfall over Big Macs and then it's off to the park, where we have exactly zero luck finding tickets. The scalpers, most of whom are so shady that you get the impression they might have actually scalped somebody at some point, are asking 40 bucks a pop for bleachers in THE THIRD INNING.

We turn up our noses on general principle and make a mental note to rekindle our friendship with Danny Kischel. Then we head to the brewery with the blueberry beer, which is in-fucking-credibly delicious, so we have lots of them. An old comedy friend is there, and he gives me a textbook LA brushoff on his way out the door, but it doesn't matter, because Curt Schilling is God and Sam and I are buzzing and chomping on lager-soaked blueberries. When the game ends, we realize that we can still make most of the BCF contest at the Charles Playhouse, so at Sam's insistence, we walk from Fenway to the Charles. Sam claims it will take 10 minutes. Spatial awareness is not Sam's strong suit.

We get there much later, in time to hear that Danny Bevins and some other guy have won, and then it's over to Remington's. We pass a beautiful Kelly Macfarland on the way, who's coming home from her contest set, which apparently didn't end with her moving on, which is clearly a travesty by any reckoning. We have a couple more beers while I blown off by a Canadian manager of someone's, and then Nicole Luparelli drives us to Sam's car and then Sammy gets me home in time to sack out. Luckily, Jude's night terrors seem to have taken the night off, so I can crash guiltlessly, the sweet sounds of Coast to Coast lulling me to dreamland.

I dreamed that my wife and Paul Day were married, and that somehow I still had to pay all their bills. Sam and this woman I know that has cancer were also in the dream, and he and I moved sod around her hard while she whipped nickels at us. I blame the blueberries.

So here I am, chomping on a Harvard Breakfast Burrito, trying to soak up some beer and keep myself busy until my contest set tonight. Sam was right; I feel better about life and about comedy than I have in a long time. His combination of pep talk, tough love, and Dionysus seems to have been exactly what I needed. I'll go do some jokes, and forget about the rest.

God, this burrito is good.