Quarter Life Project

“Communal bathroom time!” | March 2, 2009

Ever since seeing In The Heights (twice!) on Broadway a little more than a month ago, I developed a crush on Lin-Manuel Miranda. I loved his flow, and his comedic timing was so on point. I ended up acquiring the soundtrack within the week of seeing it just to listen to his voice. This musical has replaced my infatuation with RENT, which was pretty bad (the infatuation I had with it, not the musical itself).

In any case, when I really get into something, I have a habit of finding out everything I can about it, reading articles and finding other assorted information by google searching. Eventually I ran across his Youtube channel and watched a bunch of videos, one featuring this 10-year-old kid (I believe his name is Nicholas) who got to perform part of In The Heights on the set due to his videos of performing some of the lyrics in his home. I thought it was cool for Lin to do that, which only made me respect him more. But I digress.

I found out Lin-Manuel was part of a group called Freestyle Love Supreme, which after watching a few videos I thought was sort of similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but with beatboxing and freestyle rap added to the mix. I found out they were playing at Comix, so my new thing for today was to go see them, as I had never been to a comedy club, nor have I seen a comedy show before (or at least none I can remember).

Tonight’s show consisted of five members: Two-Touch (The host), Lin-Man, UTK the INC, Shockwave, and Wade Everiman. Arthur the Geniuses was on the keyboard. The music was great, the beats were awesome, and the comedy was priceless. One of the funniest things was an improv of a kindergarten-aged girl getting her hair cut in the bathroom and the repercussions from it, spurring some of the funniest lines, such as “communal bathroom time!” and “I should’ve never trusted that bitch in the bathroom… I am so alone.”

Now before I came to the show, I tried to learn at least one thing about each person so that I’d have something to talk to them about after the show. Instead, it turned into awkwardness. First, I wanted to talk to Lin and ask him a bunch of questions about the improv, about In The Heights- why he left it after only a year of it being on Broadway, etc., but I see this kid and I clam up. I couldn’t say anything to him. It was only after he was about to leave that I was able to muster up enough courage to get him to take a pic with me, and that was about an hour after the show ended. Seriously, you’d never think that I was a journalism major.

I tried talking to Arthur, bringing up the fact that we had a mutual friend in common. What I should’ve done was talk a little more about music after the fact, but instead the conversation died and became awkward. Awesome.

I got to speak to Shockwave, who introduced himself as Chris after we made some small talk. I thought it was cool, yet odd how he recognized my face  from where I’d been sitting, as I was close to the back. I was able to ask him about The Electric Company, but then the conversation sort of turned to stalkers. I’m really afraid these guys are going to think I am one, since I ended up going to this show by myself and lingered around for an hour, not really talking much and just observing everyone in the bar area after the show. I really looked like a loner.

The only person that I seemed to be able to hold an okay conversation with was Two-Touch, who introduced himself as Anthony. After speaking to him for a little bit about his comedic history, I decided to call it a night since I have an early day tomorrow.

I think the reason I was so awkward is because I went alone, and I think that’s something I have to work on. I don’t have problems opening up if I’m with someone else, but if I’m by myself I find myself out of my element. In any case, I plan on returning with friends for sure.