Our friends MLK asked us last week if we’d like to join them for M’s birthday celebration. “Of course,” we said. “Where?” Turns out the birthday boy wanted wings, so we suggested the Crown & Dragon, a pub in our old neighbourhood famous for their wings. We met there last night, along with CBGB and some friends of MLK’s.

We knew they’d have generic beer and great wings, and that we’d have lots of laughs. What we (or, at least, I) didn’t know was that Saturdays at the Crown & Dragon are standup comedy night. And the mic was directly next to our table, in a…um, storage nook. Auspicious!

So we did wolf down many, many wings (14 pounds all told, I believe) and a bunch of meh beer, and we did have some laughs…though it looked shaky at first. No disrespect to the first couple of comics, but it was a little painful. But then it got better, and the host (who was quite funny) kept things moving and kept our party’s heckler in line. Some of the comics who came on later were very strong, especially Arthur Simeon and K. Trevor Wilson, who did a longer set to close out the evening. Wilson delivered what was, to me, one of the two funniest lines of the night: “It will be a thrust-kick of respect.” That won’t make a lot of sense out of context but it was damned funny. The other top line for me was delivered by Ryan Horwood, one of the pub’s very over-tired waiters who did a set but didn’t get too many laughs…and the awkward silences after his jokes led him to describe himself as “like, a big condor of weird.” That got a spit-take out of me.

Since one of the other comics (Becky Bays) was celebrating her birthday that night, at the end of the show they called Becky, Matt and some other comic whose name escapes me up to the mic where we sang Happy Birthday to them, and then all shared birthday cake. It was a nice little night. It was like serendipity, but with frosting. Four of our group left shortly after that, but MLK joined Nellie and I for one last pint so that we could introduce them to the Rebel House. We sat at the bar; M and I chatted about business strategy and east-coast life (as we often do), and who the hell knows what Nellie and L carried on about. We finished our pints and walked into the snow, wishing M the happiest of birthdays.

Cheers, buddy.