Princeton Fever

It’s Saturday and I am mostly in a vegetative state as I sit in a coffee shop typing, drinking coffee (a popular activity in such places), and contemplating mostly nothing other than my desire to strangle some of the other people in the coffee shop for talking on their cell phones and engaging in other non-Dave-approved activities. As far as my plot for world domination goes, recent excitement includes spending Thursday night in scenic Princeton, New Jersey, where I opened up for my friend Tig at a comedy show for approximately 704 Princeton undergraduates/future leaders of America. My dad went to Princeton several decades ago, so it was nice to go there and be all like “My dad went here!” to pretty much anyone who would listen. I had been to Princeton once or twice before for one of my Dad’s class reunions but I didn’t remember much other than all the big gray buildings and the free ice cream (a common distraction device used on ten year-olds at college reunions), and stuff.

As shows go, I’d put my Princeton debut maybe in my top 3 worst shows ever. I blame this not on the audience but just on my inability to make the magic happen that night for some reason. Even before I said a word I could sort of tell it just wasn’t gonna happen for me that night. Something in the air, I guess (or maybe it’s just the fact that 18 year-olds in general would rather be out drinking beer or fingering each other than listen to me talk in the dark generally speaking. I know I would. And 18 passed me by long ago) or maybe that I just kind of suck or something. I still managed to have a fun time despite, you know, probably not winning many new MySpace friends or anything though. Tig was really funny as always and I had a good time sitting and watching her too. It was a strange night though. The show was in a gym so the sound echoed all over the place. As I spoke it felt like a I had a delay on my voice or that I was speaking at a Nazi rally in olden times or something. And I may as well have been saying Nazi stuff because my material went over about as well as that would have. However, I did meet one nice person after the show who actually knew who I was and everything so that kept me from wanting to cut myself or run into the traffic (of which there was not much since it was late at night and whatnot).

Before the show, one of the deans at the school took Tig and me to dinner with his wife at the Blue Bottle, a really good restaurant about a ten minute drive from the school. I had the wild boar trio (I think that was the name but can’t be sure. If it is not, the restaurant should consider it- it’s catchy), which- as hinted in the name- involved wild boar in three different formats- sausage, steak, and something that resembled pulled pork. It was pretty delicious. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the Blue Bottle is a boar lover’s paradise (even though I had never had boar before that night and admittedly am not qualified to speak on the topic). If someone from the Blue Bottle is reading this right now and wants to quote me and totally put that in their newspaper ads or something, I have no problem with that. I am happy to create a spike in sales. It is my way of giving something back.

After the big show in the echoey gym, Tig and I headed back with the dean to the palatial guest house on campus that they were nice enough totally let us stay at for the night. It was a cool old house with rooms that looked not unlike the one on the box for the board game Clue (lots of old books, plaid, and chairs best occupied by large balding men in three-piece suits). Our friend Lucy had just finished playing a show nearby and stopped off to visit on her way back to the Big City, so the four of us sat up and talked about such things including but not limited to students on the verge of a nervous breakdown, the filming of the popular Russell Crowe vehicle “A Beautiful Mind,” and whether or not there would be a Continental breakfast until it was totally late and we were super tired. Then we went to sleep in big rooms with high ceilings and adjacent bathrooms that were almost as big as my entire apartment. Good times.

The next morning we woke up, drank the fuck out of some coffee, and headed back to the Big City. I also ate a croissant with bacon, egg, and cheese- a rare occurrence for me- and I now have a better understanding of the popularity of the popular breakfast snack.

In other news, the plaguelike symptoms mentioned in recent entries seem to be returning. I wonder if I should go out and save a baby or something today so people will remember me as having been heroic just before my death. Or maybe I will just call people on the phone and say highly quotable things of great importance. Or maybe I will just take a nap. It is tough to say as of this writing.

Dave Hill