DC

All 50 States Day 20:

Maryland!

Another photo fail post! I’ve performed in Maryland and had an overnight non-show stop in the state, but sadly I could track down no pictures. So I’m going to cheat a little and include Washington D.C. pictures in this post, since DC sits on land ceded to the U.S. government by the state of Maryland (Virginia ceded some land too but they asked for it back in the 1840s).

But I have definitely been to, performed in, and spent the night in the state of Maryland, first hitting the state in 1999 for a show at Towson University. The only other college show I’ve done there was at Washington College in Chestertown, a very quaint colonial-era town on the DelMarVa peninsula .

In late October of 2000 I played the Mid-Atlantic NACA Conference in Ocean City, and was treated to the experience of being in a summer beach town in the creepy off season. A lot of restaurants were closed for the winter, the town was desolate, and my oceanfront hotel room was mad cheap—I wrote down $39 a night in my paper calendar that weekend (57.98 in Feb 2020 dollars).

My non-comedy trip to Maryland was to meet one of my best buds as he was visiting his homeland of Baltimore for his parents’ anniversary party. I stayed with his family near the harbor and we checked out a few bars, We watched part of a Ravens game at a local, and the Ravens lost in painful fashion at the last minute and the bar was like a morgue. We kept our conversation low and tried not to show any outward enthusiasm for life, lest it be misinterpreted as taunting and incur the wrath of the upset (and drunk) Baltimorians.

As for DC, I took a weekend school trip there in junior high, performed in the D.C. Comedy Fest in 2007, and took the bus down from New York for the Rally to Restore Sanity in 2010. Because we thought 2010 was insane. <sigh>

• On a wooden ship in the Potomac, junior high school trip
• The Awakening, sculpture, pictured here in the early 80s in DC. It’s now in Maryland so it counts!
• Me in front of the White House, 2007, while in town for the DC Comedy Fest
• The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, 2010