Living the Free Life

Last night Meredith and I headed to downtown L.A. (or was it Cerritos? #insidejoke) for a free comedy show at Club Nokia. Mer is on some sort of list where she gets free tickets for shows if they don't sell out. Sweet!!

Having learned my lesson before, we did NOT park at L.A. Live for >$30 (are they serious?!) and instead parked in one of those lots nearby...for $6. Thrifty geniuses, we are. 

Walking up to Nokia, we passed a tasty looking food truck and decided to grab a bite before the show.

We each ordered burgers and something called Wachos...which were advertised as waffle nachos, but the ones we got were really just cheesy fries. #notcomplaining. 

The food was really good and we enjoyed a hearty and heart attack risky feast on a small wall behind the food truck overlooking an abandoned lot. We classy.

I still marvel at HOW MUCH Downtown L.A. has changed in the last 7 years. When I first moved out here...I lived downtown (long story) and there was NOTHING there. Ok, there was very little there. None of this L.A. Live stuff was there except the Nokia Theater and Staples Center. There were not tons of fun and cool restaurants, bars, or lofts. The place was like a ghost town after 5pm when all the office buildings closed. I kept expecting to see tumbleweeds rolling down the streets. It was the weirdest city I'd ever seen. I had two choices for dining...some chicken restaurant and California Pizza Kitchen. I got pretty sick of both. 

Back then people were saying, "Buy now in Downtown. It's going to blow up." and I wanted to! I did! But I do not have a million dollars. :( It's like now in Santa Monica. "Buy now in Santa Monica Downtown. The train is coming. It's going to blow up." But I do not have TEN million dollars. :( Darn it!! I could be tripling my money if I was already rich. It's not fairrrrrrr!! I'm always sitting broke on a real estate gold mine. Curses!! 

ANYWAY. There's a definite trend in my blog of going off on crazy tangents. :P

We walked from our delicious burgers and cheesy waffle fries over to the theater...which was closed. It was also now the 'Microsoft Theater' and not the 'Nokia Theater'. Luckily some random guy called out to us and directed us to the right spot. Thank you random comedy guardian angel. 

Not where we were supposed to be :P

The club let everyone in pretty quickly. Meredith and I were able to snag some comfy seats near the back! Excellent. Then we waited...for like an hour and a half. Boo. There was a DJ though and the music was pretty good. Meredith got us some drinks and we sipped on those and talked a bit. 

Finally the comedians came on. The host was someone we had seen at ANOTHER comedy club for Meredith's Birthday in January. Weird coincidence. I feel like L.A. is big enough for this not to be happening. :P 

I can't remember his name, but we'd heard most of his jokes already. My favorite is that when ordering stuff online how ridiculous it is that Afghanistan is first amongst the list of countries from which to choose as your country of origin and then we have to scroll wayyyy down for United States. Haha. He said America should always be first since we are the Capitalists. We have to be buying the most online. Lol. 

Retelling jokes is never funny. I'm sorry.

The next person to come out was Kelly Landry. I'm sorry to diss on her since we are in the Kelly club...but I didn't find her funny at all. I never even cracked a smile. The next comedian was Brian Monarch. Also not very funny and kind of gross. His jokes made me feel uncomfortable because a pre-teen in the audience had gotten his attention before the show for a photo together...and his jokes were NOT pre-teen approved. At least not by me. Eek. 

Then this guy Theo Von came out. He had a great Louisiana accent and was apparently on Road Rules. He was super funny and somehow did this whole molester bit that was hysterical and I felt bad laughing. There was also a great story about meeting Brad Pitt. 

The headliner was Bill Burr. He was ok. There was definitely more energy in his stand up and he discussed a lot of current topics. I didn't find his wage gap stuff all that funny. He went on and on about how men SHOULD be paid more because they pay for more in relationships. Hahahahahahahahahah. Now THAT'S funny. Maybe in the beginning, but even then...I pull my own weight. If you buy dinner...I at least buy coffee or something. #Equality. #IneverusehashtagsexcepthereandonlybecauseIfinditfunny

I can buy my own dinner thank you very much. Now please pay me what that guy doing nothing is getting.

One thing he did say was that it's all women's fault, because we are banded together AGAINST men, but not WITH each other. I know he was 'joking', but I couldn't agree more. My favorite thing he said was that as women...we should be randomly high fiving other women and telling them that they are crushing it. Haha. That would make my day.

Crushing it

The last comedian was Hannibal Buress. He was ok. We ended up leaving halfway through his set, because we are old and it was late.

The moon was beautiful as we were leaving downtown, but I was sorry to have missed the peak of Jupiter and Venus coming together. They were sort of dim by midnight. Womp wa.

Happy Hump Day. :D