Dateline: Denver, Friday the 13th - Josh Blue, 2006 winner of “last comic standing” makes his homecoming performance at the paramount theater in lovely downtown denver. sounds like a good time so i got tickets, and first and foremost let me say that josh was as hysterical as ever. yay, josh!

HOWEVER, it was an unpleasant reminder that, oh my god people suck!! not that i had forgotten, i had just forgotten why they (people) are to be avoided!

when you attend an event in a large venue, or any venue bigger than your own living room, you have to expect that there is going to be at least one person in your general vicinity acting like an ass clown and potentially ruining the experience for every one around him. but at the risk of sounding like an intolerant uber-bitch, let me give you an idea of what we were dealing with.

mr. laugh mcloudsky, who has this ridiculously loud laugh and apparently this was the first time he had ever heard anyone tell a joke because he laughed at everything, occasionally interjecting “oh shit,” or “oh no,” and other stuff. and his date whose laugh once she got to that uncontrollable place where you have completely lost it and can’t stop laughing was so piercingly high-pitched it could have broken glass. if it had just been these two i really wouldn’t have much to complain about because at least their behavior was appropriate to the situation - they were at a comedy show and they were laughing. good for them, they got their money’s worth. it was just a little frustrating trying to hear the next joke when they were drowning out the last joke. but that was nothin’..

then there was the older, hearing impaired gentleman directly in front of me whose poor wife had to be the constant instant replay. literally every 45 seconds or so he leaned over, “what did he say?” and i’m sure he thought he was being quiet, but you know how it is when people can’t hear themselves. and she would reply, “..because i rode the short bus.” and she had to say it loud enough for him to hear it. OMG!! again, i’m missing the next joke because they are still on the last joke. and she was having the same problem, occasionally when he would ask what he missed she would have to shrug and shake her head because she was behind in her relay. dude, get a hearing aid!!! i’m sure i will need one thanks to my mis-spent youth. we like to quote campbell scott in “singles,” shouting after leaving the club — “Tinnitus.. club disease.”

so things are not going well when Textie, who hasn’t showered recently even tho it was about 97 degrees that day, sits down beside m and will NOT stop fucking with his cell phone! him and his friend next to him just keep flipping open their phones with their distractingly glaring screens in the otherwise dark theater, presumably checking for and/or sending text messages. eventually m asked him to please stop, to which he said, “uh, sorry” and stopped for about a minute. geezus! if you can’t be out-of-touch for an hour and a half, you should really stay the fuck home and answer your phone! i would think you would need to save your money to pay for all the excess texting anyway!

but the winners for the biggest jackasses… the young couple in front of m who took turns getting up to get more drinks and the more they drank the louder they got, and they never shut up, and they weren’t laughing at josh or even heckling him, there could have been bears riding bicycles on the stage for all they knew.. they were talking to each other!!! ok, this wasn’t the case in the beginning but the more beer they consumed the better this date was going apparently. but if i’m not mistaken you can drink beer and talk anyfuckingwhere!! are you kidding me??

i couldn’t take it any more!! i became “the shusher”! i finally leaned forward and actually did the, “sshhhhhh!” followed by, “seriously, you guys, you’re louder than he is!” to which the dude said something like, “what are you, deaf?” and m said “unfortunately no,” to which he said “me neither.” — what?? dude, whatever just shut the fuck up!!

it was truly unbelievable, like a comedy in and of itself, but the kind that really isn’t funny at all!

so in conclusion.. people suck!!!

btw, we’re going to cirque du soleil later this week. should be interesting.