Jessica Walking

Dos Gringos Mexican Restaurant 8000 S. Priest Dr, Tempe hosts a great mic every Tuesday.  Jill Bryan’s Comedy Fiesta, makes sure that if you show up, you go up. She allows five minute sets most of the time, seven minutes with a crowd that is listening and receptive.  These “Taco Tuesdays” are a comedy night favorite at Dos with their hard shell beef tacos $1 being a very tasty value.  The wait staff provides the best service on the open mic trail.  A very good mix of mic-ers, first timers, and paid professionals show up at this Comedy Fiesta.  You never know who will show up, and tonight’s line up was no different.  Being the first comedian up for the night at a mic is my favorite position, and tonight it was available.  Perfect, just working my five minute set, nice and easy. Now, I just need to write a couple of Christmas jokes before my family arrives in town next week and we head off to Copper Blues Tempe’s Ugly Sweater Open Mic Night. 

Now for the week’s real comedy adventure!  Jessica Watkins walked into the valley with a 31-mile day on the 87 from Payson into Fountain Hills on Wednesday afternoon.  She has walked nearly 1800 miles from Delaware to a planned finish on the coast of California at Christmas.   She’s been doing comedy where she can find a show, pushing a 3 wheel baby running stroller the whole way.  To make it look all that more homeless, she has restarted an old cigarette smoking habit along the trail.  She stayed with me in Chandler for five days and was quickly back on the road to continue her journey. I enjoyed hearing about the matter of factness to her adventure.  She said that everything changed daily, so she didn’t linger on any trouble for too long. While in town I tried to give her plenty of room to get her things done and to recover from the 24-hour virus she got to experience (unfortunately, I too shared with her.) It kicked us pretty hard for about 48 hours.  I had it earlier in the week and thought that I had sterilized the environment, so I felt bad; it sucked. She’s a very talented comedian-- I enjoyed listening to her material that she is just getting started on.  She will have nearly 9 months off experience on the road to pull material from when she get back home and starts writing. 

Thursday evening she got a guest spot on the booked show at Monkey Pants. Cristin Davis does a nice job of keeping the spirit in the room right and usually books about six weeks out.  It was my first visit to Monkey Pants with Cristin producing the show.  Following the Cardinals Game, the room filled with appreciative listeners.    Jessica enjoyed the Potato Skins and had a good set of material from the road that she is working through. Gomez Dickerpuss is a great host that runs a nicely paced show and is quite the fancy dresser.  It was hard to sit through the show and not do a set.

The Comedy Spot Scottsdale offered Jessica the opportunity to do a set in the first show, and she did such a good set Gene extended the invitation to include the 10:00 show.  Chris Sisneros had a great set, solid laughs on every effort.  I failed to see the headliner as I tripped trying to duck under his camera that was taping his set.  I managed to fall into a chair and have my nose explode like Duane Bobick’s when he was fighting Foreman in the 70’s. 

Saturday we had a brunch show at Frankie’s Famous Pizza.  Rob Greenspan produced and hosted the 12:00 high noon event.  Got to hear Steve Moreno, Rick Olson, and Dave Thurston all do short highlight stand up sets.  Jessica took questions about her trip which she had wanted to do.  I’m thinking it might have been a low point of her trip as she failed to record an event for the first time since she left Delaware.  We really all enjoyed performing, and it’s never bad when you get compensated in pizza, garlic rolls, and fresh Gilbert backyard grown tangerines which Donna enjoyed.  If I get good on the pizza parlor trail, maybe a bag of tangerines some day?

The Rick and Rob Podcast invited Jessica to be their guest this week.  Recording took place following the noon show at Frankie’s.  Rick Olson and Rob Greenspan did a great job of asking insightful questions about her trip, writing style, writing habits, and post walk production plans.  Jessica enjoyed doing the show and will use it as a spring board to the Sklar Brothers podcast Sklarbro Country which she’s scheduled to appear on January 13^th.  We enjoyed hosting Jessica at the house for a few nights and look forward to following her as she concludes her trip near Christmas,  jessicawatkinscomedy.com check her out.

I did try to write a joke about Jessica for the show at Frankie’s titled “Jessica Walkin” on the set list…

I recently met this comedian who is walking across the United States doing shows. It’s remarkable to me because, some days it’s an effort just to get the mail at the end of the driveway.  What struck me as we talked was how matter of fact she had gotten by this point in the walk, leaving all the doubt back in Pennsylvania. Things like” I met a lady going the other direction last week.” I got to thinking “How many people are doing this?” really, it’s just a few.  If I was matter of factly about my week, last week it would have included conversations about drinking a cup of peppermint mocha swirl, or maybe the lion display at zoo lights, or getting that colonoscopy scheduled.