Scavenger Hunt

...alternatively titled "How I stalked Robin Ince."

Before the Beginning: Who is Robin Ince?

Robin is one of my 5 favorite comedians (the others being Ricky Gervais, Josie Long, Lee Camp, and Derek Hughes). He got a lot of fame from opening for some of Ricky's tours when Steve Merchant edited a documentary of how that experience nearly killed him. In fact, instead of talking about his career, Ricky pretty much just uses his blog to alternate between making fun of Karl Pilkington's head and Robin's thumbs.

But Robin does a lot of great innovative stuff with comedy. He has a great podcast with Josie Long. He does a book club, which is comedy, literature, interpretive dance, and accordian music all in one. He's done some acting (ie The Office), and he writes for TV (ie Skins). Oh, and his standup is hilarious, at least when he's making references to things I actually understand. He's very high brow most of the time, talking about philosophy, science, and religion. His gimick is that he talks really really fast. In fact, that's why Karl can't stand him. I never expected to see Robin live because it seems he mostly tours in the UK.

The Beginning

On Robin's Twitter on Monday night, it said that he'd be doing a gig in a bookstore in NY tomrrow night. I live in New York! But wait--there are tons of bookstores in NY and apparently none of them were listing him on their events list because I couldn't find ANYTHING on the web about him doing a gig on Tuesday night. This caused much despondancy, but determined I attempted the following:

1. Called his agent
2. Emailed his agency, who said the agent was in the air on his way to NY to see the show, and no one else knew the location of th gig
3. Asked on a RI Facebook group about it
4. Facebooked Robin's neice, who texted Robin, who said he didn't remember the name of the bookstore either, which explains why he didn't post it on Twitter.

Right when I was about to give up, believing that God doesn't want me to go and see this atheist comic, Housingworks Bookstore posts on their Twitter that they just added Robin to the list of comedians they're having at their weekly Tuesday comedy night Punch Up Your Life. Miracle! I had actually checked their website earlier that day because they're the only bookstore I know that does comedy. I'd been there once before. I'm in!

The Show
The audience was in a mood, probably because they made us stand in the rain for half an hour while they set up the stage. This annoyed me because I wanted to browse their books. But anyway, it was Pete Holme's birthday, and he was co-hosting as usual. Rob O'Reilly was there. I think it's the third or fourth time that I've seen him perform just out of coincedence. The girl after him wasn't getting any laughs, probably because she was sick and having a bad reaction to mixing Sudafed with beer. She said, "Why are you all being so weird? You do realize that we judge ourselves on how much you laugh."
I thought Oh, great. I wonder how Robin will do. He's about 10 years older than all the other comedians, there's a cultural difference, he's high brow (compared to Rob O'Reilly who makes awkward sex jokes), and he makes obscure references to stuff.

Turns out, he totally broke down the walls. He had people laughing finally. I think part of it is that he has SO much energy. First, he apologized for doing a gig in his coat. "I don't usually do a gig in my coat, but I couldn't find a peg. I'm 41 one years old now, and I can't just leave my coat lying around." He started with Descartes' Cogito and I thought "Oh good, here we go." He said "Everyone's heard I think therefore I am. But some people don't think and they still are! Annoyingly those people seem to be the loudest." He went on to talk about his amazing 2-year-old son who said "fuck" in context before he was two. Then inevitably went on to talk about politics (A country with gay marriage is a country on its knees. Ooo, cheeky republican.) and briefly touched on evolution. It was a very good show.

After/During the Show

I really wanted to go and say hi afterward and it looked for a moment like he'd ducked out, but I was happy to see that he came back. I left partway through the show because it was almost ten and there were still 2 comedians to go. I live over an hour away and had to get up for work this morning. So on my way out, I went over and introduced myself and said I was a fan and got my photo with him (above). He said "Sorry, that show was a bit manic. I haven't slept!" He was really nice and pleased to talk to me even though the show was still going on. How cool.