- Jason Traeger
- Janeane Garofalo, hero.
If curtsying lessons are a thing, I would like to take them from Jen Seaman. Comics are tic-y people, but the LA-based stand-up’s adorably 19th-century curtsying interludes were a true highlight as she hosted Saturday night’s Hey Ladies! showcase to a packed Bossanova Ballroom at Bridgetown. Seaman’s quippy set covered the prospect of dating someone shorter than you when you are barely over five feet tall, which turned into a geeky discussion of the perks of dating Tyrion Lannister (pro: you’d never have to buy your own dinner again, because Lannisters always pay their debts). Yep, Jen Seaman is imaginary best friend material for a certain subset of nerdy ladies.
Most of the comics of the night were solid, but an absolute surprise was Chicago’s Sonia Denis, whose set was one of the highest-energy and charming I’ve seen so far. She discussed a terrible job spent selling STD treatments online, which translated, she said, to “playing Dr. Ruth to someone’s salad tosser in Seattle” from Chicago, and in a festival so far deeply saturated with jokes about Portland from out-of-towners (LOL BEARDS LOL TATTOOS LOL FRIENDLY), she compared public transit in Portland and Chicago in a kind of gross, stark way that blew those other more topical jokes out of the water.
Meanwhile, 12-year-old me was so amped to see Janeane Garofalo, and she did not disappoint. In interviews, Vickie from Reality Bites can sometimes get a little didactic these days (for example, when she appeared on Sara Schaefer and Nikki Glaser’s podcast, You Had to Be There, she told them to say “like” less, which, while probably sound advice, was an “Oh, you kids!” moment nonetheless). I NEEDN’T HAVE WORRIED. Garofalo’s conversational, argumentative tone is just perfect when she’s doing stand-up, and whether she was spewing the dreadful platitudes of Bobby Flay or sharing her reluctance to embrace the floppy sweaters of Eileen Fisher or talking about the ramifications of leaving passive-aggressive notes for her neighbors (“it creates an atmosphere”), Garofalo’s mid-show set was everything I dreamed it would be.
As my date pointed out, a lot of the humor of the night skewed towards Cathy-ACK!-sad-single-cat-lady jokes, which always make me want to shout, “IT’S OKAY TO ORDER TWO PIZZAS FOR YOURSELF WITHOUT PRETENDING YOU HAVE FRIENDS OVER. YOU SHOULD GIVE YOURSELF A PRESENT EVERY DAY!”
This trope appeared in several sets, including Paige Bowman’s, which told the god’s honest truth about eating Oreos for breakfast (um, it’s GREAT), but slid into some pat self-deprecation around ordering too many pizzas for one person. Luckily, Bowman’s material is bigger and better than that, and she also pontificated on reverse cat-calling (“If guys can’t nut up and treat women better, women should treat men worse”) and false cat-food advertising.
Amber Preston, who I also saw at the First Timers Club Friday night, closed the show with a set of all new material. At the First Timers Club, she’d leaned a little heavy on jokes about being from the Midwest. This time around, she did no such thing, instead grousing good-naturedly about people who wash their hands thoroughly in public restrooms, realizing that “my body type is Silence of the Lambs,” and the sense of smugness to be gained from eating vegan food (“[It’s] giving me that feeling of superiority that listening to NPR just couldn’t”). It was standing-room only for this show, and it was worth it. If you left right after Garofalo’s set, you did indeed miss out.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to order two pizzas. FOR MYSELF. Just kidding, not yet, right now I’m going to go see even more comedy. My new home is a picnic table outside of Boogie’s Burgers. Will somebody bring me a Gatorade?