Boston

Despite buying our bus tickets in a Chinese bakery and only paying $15.00 for them the ride to Boston was uneventful, this is not always the case though as we learned later.

My main purpose for this entire trip was to see a couple of comedy shows in Boston (Somerville actually, just outside of Boston). On Friday night doktor cocacolamcdonalds, Eugene Mirman, Todd Barry and Emo Philips performed. On Saturday night The Walsh Brothers, Morgan Murphy, Jim Jeffries and Patton Oswalt were on the bill.

I’m a huge fan of Todd Barry, Emo Philips and Patton Oswalt and Toronto isn’t exactly a comedy hotbed so I figured I could kill three birds with one stone by going to Boston.

The other comedians were amusing though doktor cocacolamcdonalds was a little odd (hard to imagine based on the name).

The Walsh Brothers did their entire act about the Fung Wah Bus Company. Apparently, the bus has run out of gas on the freeway, caught on fire on more than one occasion, lost an axel, rolled over a few times and left many passengers stranded at McDonalds in Connecticut. They closed the act by performing a theme song they had written for the Fung Wah. One Walsh brother changed into a yellow jumpsuit a la Bruce Lee in Game of Death while the other wore a karate gi and a giant ceramic Hello Kitty head while “floating” around the stage. It was a catchy number.

As I mentioned, the venue was located just outside of Boston, so, not knowing our way around the city we took a cab there. The cab ride cost $20 ($10 each). This was only $5.00 per person less than the ride from New York to Boston. When we got to the theatre we realized there was a subway stop right beside it. We took the subway back but had difficulty figuring out how to buy a pass. We eventually got one and the plan was for me to go through and then pass to card back to Auntie Monkey so she could go through. The entrance is not a turnstile but doors that open like in Star Trek. You put your card in the front of the machine, it slides through and pops up, once you take the card back the doors open and you run through. We didn’t realize any of this was going to happen so once the doors opened we panicked and both ran through. After getting a taste for the criminal life we decided we might as well do this the next time we had to take the subway (plus, since I was always going through first, it would be Auntie Monkey’s ass they hauled off to jail and not mine). Total cost of two people taking the subway three times, $5.10.

The only other thing of note that happened in Boston was my running into the FBI. I was waiting outside a store when I saw a small group of Midwesterners standing around and two boys around 15 or 16, also Midwesterners, walk up to them pointing at their brand new baseball hats. Both hats had FBI written in large letters on the front and, wait for it . . . written in small letters just beneath, Female Body Inspector. I think George Washington wore a hat like that when he first crossed the Delaware. This proved to be the height of hilarity for not only the boys but the entire group. There were high fives all around, mixed in with tears of laughter.