Spamalot, and meeting Stephen Colbert’s “Black Friend”

Alright, so the exciting thing that happened last night didn't really pan out as I'd hoped. But it still makes a good story. At the comedy club last night, the first comedian to standup was introduced as recently being featured on "The Colbert Report". I was shocked and wondered who he was ... turns out he was Jordan Carlos. For those unfamiliar with the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert has frequently made mention of his "black friend Alan". In more recent episodes, Colbert found out that Alan was at some sort of student rally, which made him unhappy so he was no longer his "black friend" but rather just an aquaintance. This is where Jordan shows up - he plays the character Alan on the Report, in an episode that happened within the last couple months! So it was rather a shock to see him perform his standup routine at this random comedy club we just happened to have chosen. After the show, I talked to him, and made mention the fact that we were from Canada and got my picture with him. He offered to try and get us tickets to the Report which we had tried to do before but couldn't. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get us in, but that would've been super cool if he could have!

Anyways, that's that exciting story. This morning Mike S and I slept in since our plan was to sleep in and head straight to the Spamalot show we had bought tickets for yesterday. The other members of our crew headed out early in the morning for their own endeavours. I was happy to sleep in though since my cold had worsened.

After we finally got up, we went down to the deli down the street that has become one of our new favourite places to eat. After having a big slice of NY style pizza, we continued on our way. I stopped at a drug store to grab a kleenex supply and some water before we caught the subway down to Times Square. I'm starting to get pretty tired of the area - its just *so* over the top, and so constantly crowded that its just not interesting to me anymore. Oh well. We had some time to kill so we walked around a bit and I bought a gift. And then it was time for our show!

The Shubert Theatre is absolutely stunning. I don't really know how to describe it, but I was quite happy to enjoy the scene before the show started. We were seated up on the upper balcony, but only 3 rows back so we had a pretty good view (I had no reason to complain anyways). They packed the seats pretty tight back there, but a couple hours of a little discomfort isn't new to us from flying so much in recent memory.

Spamalot was awesome! The show was roughly based on Monty Python's the Holy Grail, but with several twists and turns that didn't exist in the original movie plus a couple throwbacks to the other Monty Python shows. Sweeeet. Of particular note, they sang "Always look on the bright side of life" which was pretty awesome. Also a lot of fun was the Camelot scene where they made it as if they were going to Vegas ... and the memorable quote "What happens in Camelot, stays in Camelot!". The other hilight for me was several songs where they made meta references to the show. In both love songs of the show, the song goes (roughly) "Once (twice) in each show, there comes a song where we sing and kiss... this is that song". Pure awesome self referencing music!

Mike and I were totally entertained throughout the show so I think its safe to say we rather enjoyed it. We joined up with Mike and Nolan afterwards and headed out to dinner where we tried a Peruvian place (food from Peru). It was pretty good, though I really wasn't sure what I should order.

My cold had been bother me all day, so after dinner we headed straight back to the hostel though Nolan stayed out to do some shopping. Now I'm thinking about heading out to that deli again for a snack before I crash. Hopefully by the time I get back Nolan will be back and I can fall asleep without worrying about being woken up again when Nolan comes in.

Tomorrow is home time, and I'm quite glad to say so. Its been a long trip. Good, but I'm quite happy to get the chance to return home to my sweety and to the comforts of home which are seeming quite attractive at the moment!

Heraldk