Friday, January 23, 2015

Fervid fans....

A recent visiting photog friend lives in Seattle. 

Well, his house is there but he works overseas. In Germany.

Frequently he has relatives come from Washington state to visit and he conducts mini-tours all around Europe.

Now I know he also stuffs his Seattle Seahawks Fan Flag in his backpack. 

Driving him around taking pictures on the Isle of Palms, he had me jam on the brakes in front of a house painted - to me - an unsettling shade of green.

Bet the neighbors love that person!

He gets back home to Seattle several times a year but happened to be in Paris when his team came from behind to set their sights on a back-to-back Super Bowl.

Just after the horrific terrorist attack there, police and nerves were on edge so he was discreet as he quietly celebrated with his team.  

In his backpack, he also carries a smaller "12th Man" banner with him.

I appreciate that kind of fan loyalty and wonder if the symbol right now for the New England Patriots is a deflated football?

That would easily fit in someone's luggage or
backpack.

Speaking of avid fans, I enjoyed the three comic headliners brought in for the Theatre 99's 12th annual Charleston Comedy Festival.

The Sotille Theater was the venue for all three and gave me different experiences for each show.

Hannibal Buress came out and immediately told us that people walk up to him and say "you're that rapist guy!"

He corrects them and says "Bill Cosby is the rapist."

He had mentioned Cosby one time during a comedy bit and said the man should stop worrying about young men wearing their pants too low and, instead he should keep his pants on!

The now well-known tale of a younger Cosby allegedly doping young ladies and abusing them sexually is what prompted Buress' reference. 

A video of him saying that surfaced on You Tube and went viral.

He mentioned it several times this night at the Sotille and added people said he should "protect" Cosby's legend.

To that he responded "Well, OK, regarding his legacy, let's stop calling the date rape drug a "roofie" and start calling it a "cosby."


 The mainly young crowd seemed to like that and applauded.

Naturally, as usual, I believe I was the oldest person in the audience and perhaps had deeper appreciation of Cosby humor as a stand up comic, long before his hit tv family series.

Remember "Noah?"

Buress presented an interesting stage presence.

A DJ was set up onstage for 30 minutes before the show started, playing rap.

He remained there at the back of the huge, deep stage bringing up sound bites as part of the innovative take on different rap artists ...repeating just a few words of the tag line.

Guess you had to be there.

Two ladies came out at the end to dance around,  doing ballet-type moves and the strange mixture oddly enough all came together nicely.

The next night I saw a more "traditional" stand up comic in 32-year old SNL alum John Mulvaney.

As the link explains he worked with
Bill Hader to create the Stefon character.

He came out and looked at the wooden stool with one bottle of water on the floor and another atop the stool.

"Ah, just the way I wanted it... in case I happen to fall down during my presentation," he quipped.

The house lights were kept up as Mulvaney had us laughing so I tried to time taking a picture of him looking away.

Comedians really don't like cameras and videos.

A good routine that ends up on You Tube takes away some of the spontaneous comedic impact when performed again later in another venue.

They also don't like to have their concentration broken either.

I respect that.

The third headliner - Doug Benson - was a delight on many levels.

The audience was high on Doug and, possibly, vice versa.

He encourages his fans to tweet - during the show  - and he looks around the venue and calls out names of those who tweeted!

Then reads what they said and gives a comic ad lib reaction.

Hilarious!

On his movie podcast, he has people compete to be the last one standing in naming movies by a particular actor.

Six fans in the know came with prepared signs and banners to be selected to go up on the stage.

 They were challenged to name the different movies starring  DenzelWashington. Wow, there were a lot and they did well.

Eventually a single guy holding an ALF doll was the winner of a red sack filed with weird gifts.

Throughout the show Benson was enamored of the logo and name "Kickin' Chicken" that was on the cup he carried and sipped from.

He asked the audience to shout out alternate names for the local eatery and decided he liked Rockin' Rooster.

Did I mention all of his humor was marijuana related?

The Sotille is a non-smoking venue.

Of anything.

But he suggested some entrepreneurs go out and start a restaurant named after the rooster.

Maybe he was getting the munchies?

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1 Comments:

At Sat Jan 24, 05:39:00 AM , Blogger Elvin said...

Chuck: Thanks for posting photo of me w/ my 12th man flag next to Seahawks green-painted house. I just purchased another flag, the same one shown in this post (tri-striped with "12" in the center). Probably will not receive it prior to the Super Bowl. Go Hawks!!!

 

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