Happy Columbus Day at the Comedy Club

check your buckets of red paint at the door

Happy Columbus Day!





Incidentally, I know that this holiday is becoming more controversial with every year, but these are brand-new dockers I'm wearing, so please resist the urge to throw buckets of red paint at me tonight. If you must throw buckets of paint, at least make the stuff light blue to match the color of these expensive trousers of mine.





Besides, I don't believe in guilt by racial association. And even if I did, my ancestors came from Russia, thank you very much, and they were no doubt peaceably tending to their fields when the Genoan-born Christophorus Colombo took it into this head to find his so-called shortcut to the east. Moreover, in 1492, my family and I were just emerging from two and a half centuries of Mongol rule -- it would be a fine time for us to "hoist anchor" and head for parts unknown, now that we finally had a chance for a little self-government out there in our beloved Steppes. (Ahh! Our beloved Steppes!) I mean, we Cossacks may have been agricultural workaholics, but our mothers didn't raise no dummies.

Anyway, it's all about fun tonight, so be sure to pick up your free bottle of Columbus Pale Ale at the bar -- or, if you can prove that you're a conscientious objector viz. the celebration of today's holiday, I'm told they'll give you a glass of Bell's Oberon instead, "everybody's favorite spicy and fruity draught beer from Kalamazoo, Michigan." (Hey, it must be true: It's what it says right here on my carefully typed index card!)





Yo, Bart. (Bart the bartender, ladies and gentlemen.) Bart, how do they prove that they're a conscientious objector with respect to today's holiday? What's that? They just have to give you "a sour face?" Oh, you are such a push-over! Of course that's very generous of you, old man, but you do realize what's going to happen now, don't you, given the popularity of Bell's Oberon (at least when compared to the admittedly somewhat pedestrian Pale Ale in question)? Everybody and his brother is going to approach you tonight with a dour countenance, regardless of their personal politics, just so that they can get a nice big "tall one" from Kalamazoo.





In fact, I'm tempted to drink one myself, although I'm obviously busy at the moment being up here on stage and all. Is it all right if I send someone up there for me, Bart, so that they can give you a "sour face" on my behalf?





Not that there's anything wrong with Columbus Pale Ale, of course -- in fact, just to show you how open-minded I am, you can go ahead and give me one of each tonight, Bart: That's right: one Pale Ale AND one Bell's Oberon for the almost improbably funny man on the stage here tonight! Whoo-hoo!





Now, now: no boos from the political hardliners in the audience: I'm a Cossack remember -- or at least my great great great great, etc. etc. grandfather was on my father's side.





Of course, I know what you're thinking: My ancestors threw off the yoke of serfdom to the khanate, only to become willing servants to the nationalistic jingoism of the czardom.





I blush to say that you have a point there. Still, however painful that truth, you have to admit that my ancestors, the many probable black sheep included, were at least half a world away when Columbus controversially hit New World paydirt in 1492.






Incidentally, this is neither here nor there, but I'm sure there's a movie out there somewhere wherein the first thing Columbus says upon sighting Hispaniola is an anachronistic "Yes!" a la sports commentator Marv Albert. Never mind that Marv popularized that interjection during 20th-century basketball coverage. Even motion picture cavemen these days are likely to cry "Yes!" whenever their primitive arrows successfully pierce the hide of an antelope. Chances are they'll even accompany the declaration with a sharp downward pull of their right fist, in an equally anachronistic imitation of Macauley Culkin's trademark gesture from the 1990 movie "Home Alone." This begs the question: who's handling (or rather failing to handle) "continuity" these days on the Hollywood set? Fortunately, however, this topic has so little to do with Columbus Day (apparently nothing, in fact) that I'm under no obligation whatsoever to answer it here. So there!





Anyways, Happy Columbus Day -- whatever you may think of Queen Isabella's pet navigator.





If nothing else, you got the day off on his account, yes? -- unlike certain luckless stand-up comedians around here, who had to hobble this act together for you instead, when by rights they should have been enjoying a three-day weekend at some seaside resort, where they could watch some OTHER comedian make a fool of themselves for a change, and maybe even drink a little Bell's Oberon for their ownself for once in their life! Humph!





Speaking of which, where be me grog?! Bart?! Hasn't anyone frowned at you yet on my behalf?

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