Comedy shows are weird.  Why does every cabaret/dinner theatre-type venue situate the seating perpendicular to the stage? No matter how you sit, you have to twist your neck. And smelling the food is strange too—it’s like watching a stand-up inside a Chili’s. All three openers had genuinely funny moments, but you feel awkward when they have to pitch the nachos before saying goodnight.  To the rescue was Doug Benson’s fantastically lengthy headlining performance. The evening was being recorded for a comedy album and also featured material referencing his new film Super High Me, so much of his material was restarted/repeated for editing purposes. Without his hyper-relaxed demeanor and large catalog of seriously fucking funny material, this could have gotten a little tedious, but the crowd seemed to be floating on non-stop giggles. Although it was billed as a ‘stoner comedy’ evening, topics ran the gamut of fast-food rage, medicinal usage and ultra-blue pick-up lines, to romance and politics. Except not really romance. Or politics. All-in-all Doug Benson’s skills pulled the evening through, and just about everybody in the packed and surprisingly mixed audience seemed more than amused.  I hope more comedians follow artists like The Comedians of Comedy (Patton Oswalt was a blogged-about no-show for tonight’s event) and book rock venues like the Troubadour or Spaceland—it just seems more natural.  Also, breaks between sets when urination and smoking are permitted are nice too. Although I suspect it truly was ‘business as usual’ for many patrons of both locations, and I wasn’t really aware that 420 Day was celebrated, between this show and the John Wiese/Sissy Spacek installation (earlier in the evening/down the street at Family Bookstore), it was a pretty good day to be high.

— Zac Bouvion