You can't go home again

Last night was the "Northberg Reunion" show here in Columbus. The Northberg was a bar that ran a comedy open mic show for a little over 5 years, and was the first place I did a real show, after attending the workshop at the FunnyBone. When the Northberg closed I was pretty bummed, even going so far as to once create a web page that served as a memorial site to the show. I was there every tuesday for a couple years, and the closing of the bar marked the beginning of a very bad time in comedy in Columbus, when there were rarely any shows in town and the ones we did get had no audiences or support from the bars hosting them.

But of course everything is better in our memories and the Northberg is ultimately no different. While I did feel a certain level of glee as I stepped down the stairs and into the room, passing through that doorway as I did so many times before, it very quickly dawned on me that the place I cut my teeth was no longer there. Sure, it was shaped the same, and the comics hung out in relatively the same space, but it was not the Northberg, it wasn't even a bar. It was the downstairs party room for a pizza restaurant. The walls were cleanly painted, the pool table and dart boards were gone, as was the stage and the sound booth.

And of course, the thing missing the most was the crowds. Sure there was an audience, a decent one even. But aside from a handful, friends of comedians, probably looking for nostalgia as much as we were, the crowd was there more for the band playing or just because. The "reunion" aspect was a little flawed in this sense, as it was the same comics we still see at shows all over town, and ultimately it ended up feeling like just another long open mic.

And maybe that's part of the issue. At the time of the Northberg's heyday, it was sort of the only frame of reference I had for an open mic night, and in memory I of course upped its plusses and glossed over its flaws. But now, there are three regular shows in town, between tuesdays at the Scarlet and Grey, the first true replacement, Andyman's on thursday which is still finding its way but has a lot of promise, and of course the weds show at Surly Girl, which along with its predecessor at the St. James Tavern, is the show that for me now feels like home the way that basement on Frambes used to when I began. The place where I shape my voice as a comic.

On top of that, last night I did one of my worst sets in a long, long time. Not even bad because of any problem from the crowd, instead I simply managed to find some sort of brain freeze moment where, not unlike my worst dreams, I could not remember the next thing I wanted to say, trapped in a loop of trying to jog my memory and feeling the tension continue to rise. Odd of course for this to happen in the same room where years ago I would be in this same position just trying to figure out what I have to say to begin with.