The Sounds and Sights of Hasbrouck Heights

A Journal Entry from a New Jersey road gig at Bananas Comedy Club from 7 years ago

Journal Entry:
November 2, 2017
Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

I was sitting on the subway across from a tall, bespectacled man reading a tattered old paperback of Dune. He wore a suit and a backpack. Who does that? He reminded me of the guy in Half-life who walks around ominously throughout the game before disappearing. Except he was wearing a backpack.

I checked my email between stations to find a hastily typed email from my agent. He was telling me this weekend I was to head to New Jersey to host 4 shows at Bananas Comedy Club. It's a “club” (converted conference room) inside a Holiday Inn Express alongside a highway. Without a car it’s a bit of a schlep, so it’s a good thing I enjoy taking the happiest vessel on Earth: The #163 bus to Hasbrouck Heights.

The Port Authority Bus Terminal smells like a hot fuselage of poo waft with a generous smattering of week-old piss, a sprinkle of cheap cigar smoke and the slightest soupçon of wet dog. A formidable perfume of failure that can only be found on 8th & 42nd.

I was the last to board, so I was squeezed snuggly between a hirsute gentleman in a tank top and a septuagenarian with a scorching case of halitosis. Everyone else on the bus looked like they were two stops away from snapping like Ed Norton in Fight Club.

The trip lasted an hour longer than anticipated on account of a crash on the highway. Everyone seemed to have a nasal infection of some kind, so the bus was a symphony of sneezes and snorts between the honks and screams.

Eventually we pulled into the Main Street. The door hissed open in front of a statue of a small boy glaring creepily at a man in a uniform. I was officially in New Jersey.

Upon arrival I checked in to my room at the Holiday Inn Express. Outside my door sat two martini glasses and a bunch of unopened milk. Someone had a good night in here.

To be honest, I’m kind of amazed I got booked for this gig again. The last show I did here, I bombed so hard UNICEF sent in aid workers. The silence in the room was so pronounced you could hear the guy in the third row listening to the Mets game on his phone.

I checked in with Denise and got my meal voucher before trying out the new seasonal "Warm Pumpkin Martini" at the bar. A warning: Never do that. Ever. It tasted like a warm, soggy clump of leaves marinated in cinnamon.

The feature act sidled up to me at the bar. A hilarious comic named Sean Morton. He tells me he’ll be headlining the Borgata for all of Thanksgiving week. He would have to change his shirt after each of the 4 shows as the lights on the stage were so blisteringly hot he sweated out my entire body weight in water.

The headliner, SNL's newest cast member, Chris Redd was insanely funny. He had Second City improv chops from Chicago, and it really showed when he managed to dig himself out of an anti-Trump chunk in a crowd of vocal Donald devotees. Quite the magic trick.

As the audience from the 7:00pm filtered out we reconvened at the bar and dissected our sets over whiskey. Much self flagellation and bullshitting ensued before we hurled ourselves on stage to an even drunker crowd for the 9:30pm show.

It was a mess.

Hecklers, a bachelorette party, a sobbing waitress, and a man who thought it would be a good time to pull down his jeans and show his hairy little penis to a table full of Christians.

I slunk back to the room and drank myself to sleep. The martini glasses were still sitting outside the door.

I regained consciousness in time for the final 2 shows on Saturday night. It was great this time. The audience were more polite, and not one person took their genitals out. (Can you believe it?) Chris and Sean both killed, and Denise asked me if I’d be free to come back in 6 months. (Editor’s Note: I never did play that club again.)

Before collapsing onto the bus back to the city Sunday morning, I stopped in at the local diner for a dose of good old American cholesterol. This dish was their “specialty”. It still tasted better than that fucking martini.