Hello, Dolly!

If you’ve ever wondered, “Where can I go to watch tourists in minivans attempt to turn right from the left lane of a major thoroughfare?” then, friend, do I have an answer for you. It’s a place where dreams and coats of many colors are made of. It’s a little place called Pigeon Forge.

“Really? They turn? Abruptly? Without warning? Across four lanes of  traffic? To get to a go-kart track?” O friend. I’ve seen it more than once, in a little place called... (wait for it)... Pigeon Forge.

A Few Things To Do In Pigeon Forge, Tennessee:

• Enjoy Christmas, because IT IS CHRISTMAS ALL THE TIME IN PIGEON FORGE TENNESSEE.
• Stand next to the Dollywood sign and take a picture, if the $54 admission fee isn't in your tour budget.
• Jaywalk across 9 lanes of insane traffic to get to, say, a Baskin Robbins superstore. (This one's apparently popular with the locals.)
• Ride in the back of a monster truck. In a circle. Over a bump. The same bump, again and again. Even if you’re a child. A helmetless child.
• Celebrate disasters and gun violence. The Titanic is considered “Family Fun” in Pigeon Forge, at least according to the stage show they run at a model Titanic-shaped building with a genuine fake iceberg embedded in the side. Probably not the most sensitive thing in the world, but… no, actually, come to think of it, it's very insensitive. The same treatment goes for families who kept shooting at each other for generations: the Hattfield and McCoy Live Feuding Shotgun Dinner Theater is also a notable place to find some family fun on the Pigeon Vegas strip. 

All snark aside, the people at Dollywood were extremely nice, and we regret we didn't have the time or funds to see the whole place. The rest of the town has been built up with plenty of eye-popping destination -- we have sore necks from all the double-takes -- and it's all thanks to one very special lady with big hair and a big heart. We blasted Dolly's music all the way up to the park gates, and, as a traveling band of female entertainers, we took comfort and pride in her lyrics and her accomplishments. She's one phenomenal lady, that Dolly Parton.

In short: best detour ever.

The School of Hard Knoxville

Knoxville, Tennessee! We battled the winding roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains to get to our second tour city, and boy was it worth the ride. 

Our host, the inimitable Matt Ward, fed us delicious pasta with meat sauce and distracted us with his adorable baby as we piled out of the Corolla just an hour before show time. We arrived at the venue -- the gorgeous Preservation Pub -- with plenty of time to check out the roof deck before the show.

And that's when we saw it:

The SUNSPHERE!

At that moment, we knew we were in for an amazing night.

The show opened with Matt Ward bringing the crowd together, then we each took the stage, getting lots of positive energy from the room. They sure do love the Pink Collar Comedy Tour in Knoxville. Applause breaks galore. We even got a standing ovation at the end of the night, along with the offer for three free draft beers apiece from the bar! (We each had, um, less than one.)

We then followed some local comics to an open mic comedy show at a gay bar in a strip mall. That last sentence is definitely the best and truest of all possible sentences, and it fills me with such fact-based glee that I will now type it over again: We then followed some local comics to an open mic comedy show at a gay bar in a strip mall.

Don't believe me?

This particular strip mall gay bar is called eXile [sic], and it's next to a nail salon and not too far from a Chick-Fil-A [sic]. In case you get confused, you can tell the gay bar from the Chick-Fil-A because the gay bar is open on Sundays. We had a fabulous time at the comedy show, met some fantastic local comedians, burlesque performers, and homosexuals, and got offered three free drinks apiece for being famous touring comedians from New York City! (We each had, um, less than one. Again. But that did bring our free drink offer total for the night to TWENTY-FOUR. Yowza. Instead of changing our name to the Black Out Collar Comedy Tour, we decided to restrain ourselves.)

At the end of the night, we left marveling at the wonders we had witnessed, particularly this strip mall gay bar thing that I can't remember if I've mentioned yet. eXile is a fine name for such an establishment, I suppose. But, just in case you want to open your own gay bar in a strip mall that looks exactly like the place I took driver's ed as a cranky teen in Plano, Texas, please allow the Pink Collar Comedy Tour to help brand this future venture.

Excellent Potential Names for a Gay Bar in a Strip Mall:

Mattress Depot
TGI Penis
Michael's
Jason's Deli
Panda Express (that one's for bears*)
SuperCuts?!? Bitch, Please!
and finally, Carrie's brilliant moniker:
Chik-Fil-Gay

You're welcome, strip mall gay bar entrepreneurs of the future. Don't even mention it.

*a bear is a kind of animal

Doing the Charleston

Our nine days in Charleston were like a slow-motion whirlwind. Cobblestones and politeness surrounded us as we scrambled, limped, and tweeted all over that beautiful Southern city. Here are a few highlights:

We performed every night in Theater 220 at the Simons Center at the College of Charleston, and we thoroughly enjoyed our opportunity to work in a legit blackbox theater. Stand-up clubs are great, and rowdy bar shows can be even better, but there's something about a real live honest-to-crap theater that makes a comic like me feel like a true artiste. It's a class act, that Theater 220. Just like us.

All the locals welcomed us with such hospitality! From the impeccably dressed bartenders at Proof to the amazing crew at the theater (Robert, Brenna, and Corey in particular), from the lovely Margaret at Skirt Magazine to that guy Byron on the street who cracked Carrie's back, we sure did meet a whole lot of nice folks in our travels around Charleston. 

In our down time, we discovered our collective enthusiasm for the art of the pedicure. Prepare yourselves for a plethora of cotton-ball-and-emory-board-related blog posts. That's just how we do.

Alcohol, food, and healthy doses of get-to-know-you conversations combined to give us even more special memories, and by the time we stuffed the Corolla and headed out of town, we had already transformed from a semi-random assembly of colleagues into a cohesive gang of giggling goofballs. 

Onward!

G.L.O.C

I needed to find a replacement for Abbi for 2 shows before Jenny and Blayr could come down from NC. Lucky for us, Glennis McCarthy of G.L.O.C. (Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy) was performing late shows at Theater 99! She agreed to come and open for us and then run across the street to do her own show. Thank you Glennis!

Glennis is a stand-up comic based out of NY who founded G.L.O.C. and does so much to promote women in comedy. Their mission is to “create a community for women in comedy and to encourage women to take risks and share their voices to help change the course of comedy in the mainstream eye.” I could not be prouder to share the stage with such a kick butt, take names, comic. She opened the show in Abbi’s absence and brought so much positive energy and was so funny we were sad to see her go!

I look forward to working with the ladies of G.L.O.C back in NYC!

My initial impressions of Charleston, SC

1.     There are palm trees here?  I feel like I’m on vacation. I’m going to explore!
2.     This restaurant menu says there is a 10.5% tax on this side of town.
3.     Not crazy about the food here.  It tastes like too much tax.
4.     I hope everyone sounds like Leon Redbone, singer of the theme song to Mr. Belvedere.
5.     The people here sound like any given news anchor.  But the girl that checked us in had a deep drawl.  Worth it.
6.     This town loves its Art.  Art is the guy that sits by the fountain wishing everyone a blessed day.
7.     Our posters are everywhere!
8.     No one has asked me for my autograph.  Maybe they haven’t seen our posters.  But it’s weird because I’m holding one with a Sharpie.
9.     Does anyone here do the Charleston?  I’ll try it out in a bar.
10.  No one here does the Charleston.