Damn, was this place hard to find. I can't blame the venue though, they've actually got some good info on their website to address the fact that the venue has as much parking lot as a phone booth.  I mistakenly trusted Google maps' directions, which got me on the same street, but from there I struggled mightily. With the sun passing through my dirty windshield and into my eyes, I was practically blind. I must have circled the place six times before I parked nervously in the lot of the Goodyear tire shop next door.  I shouldn't have been so nervous - after reading Rooster T. Feathers' website, they advised to do just that. Good for them for thinking of their customers.

One more thing about Rooster T. Feathers: I was a little surprised that all the single people were ushered to their own table; it seemed a little like adding insult to injury, banishing us to a little island of lost souls. I have to think there is a practical reason for it - there are very good reasons for comedy patrons to be seated in certain ways.  For example: grouping an audience toward the front has long been known to create a better "energy," or group dynamic. I'm just not familiar with the thinking on this one.  I must look into it.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Though I would have preferred a seat closer to the stage, the people at my side of the table were very cool, and knew their comedy, which made for some fascinating discussion and networking. I learned about comics and podcasts and radio shows I'd never have heard of otherwise.

About 40 minutes before showtime, I looked up from my table conversation and saw none other than Marc Maron, strolling through the place. I'd heard that he made himself available after the shows, but I wasn't about to take the chance and miss out. I bolted from my chair with as much composure as I could muster (admittedly, not much), and patiently waited for him to finish with the patron he was speaking with. I shook his hand and in one sentence utterly devoid of punctuation, I blurted an introduction and my gratitude for the personal, open nature of his podcast and wished him continued success. To his credit he didn't shrink away from my sudden ejaculation of pent-up zeal, but I thought I recognized a brief look in his eyes as he tried to determine just what medications I was on, or which I lacked. He was gracious and patient.

At 9:20pm the show began, with host Chris Garcia kicking things off with self-deprecating jokes about how his bearded appearance makes all his photos look like dated photos of the Doobie Brothers. His demeanor was placid and calm, playing it straight with some setup/punchline structure and longer form, anecdotal stories that were also a lot of fun. He finished his 10-minute set with an enjoyable guitar piece sung in Spanish, which he then translated to English. Good stuff.

He then brought out Joey Devine, a calm, bespectacled comic with an alt vibe who had a very respectable 7-minute set with topics including people in San Francisco and Yaz birth control pills. My favorite bit of his was how movies would be totally different with the advent of new technology, specifically the effects of cell phones on the movie "Die Hard." Great stuff.

Next up was Sam Morril, a New York comic who had a strong showing tonight. Sam started off with clever material on bourbon: "strong enough to put hair on my chest AND my back." Then it was a natural transition to rejection, a twist on family-style restaurants and race-based jokes. What I liked and remember most about Sam Morril was his his delivery, his demeanor. It's so fitting that his name sounds like that of a mushroom. His cadence, just half a beat slower than normal, and his closed-lipped, knowing half-grin gave him a knowing presence that hovered between thoughtful stoner and subway slasher. His demeanor bordered on the subtly creepy, and made his comedy that much more compelling.

As the clock struck ten, it was time for our headliner, and Marc Maron unassumingly took the stage in a blue and white plaid shirt and blue jeans. He started by describing his visit to the Google compound in the region, expressing disbelief at how what he saw could be worth a billion dollars, and imagining "the Google" to secretly be a single, massively overstuffed human being hideously connected to the Internet via cybernetic cables. While I've heard specific, "what-happened-today" material discussed as almost an expected bit of a road performance, I still appreciated the inclusion of this locally-based material. It breaks up the impression of a rote performance and the audience is wordlessly assured that it is unique.

Maron's material touched on the preciousness of his cats, (and the decided lack thereof of your cats), the tediousness of Atheists, and unsurprisingly, how to get out of your head.

Having owned and enjoyed his latest CD, I was able to recognize and still enjoy some of Maron's funnier pieces therefrom. Most of his performance was new to me on this night, and the inclusion of some familiar bits was actually a thrill, like seeing your favorite band play some of their number one hits.

As Maron fans might expect, Marc's performance was unique to his style. With much of his ethic and appeal relating to authenticity and a trueness to self, Maron's delivery was what any fan has come to know and love: angsty, personal, raw, honest, neurotic, slightly self-absorbed and reflective; all of that. I got the feeling that if you charted the highs and lows of all the other of this evening's performers (and most comics), the build-up and crash of their setup/punchline cadences would resemble the jagged peaks and valleys of an EKG. I like that.

Marc Maron's performance, on the other hand, was a smoother, mellower journey; more like the flowing of a sine wave, reaching highs just as high and lows just as low, but with a rolling fluidity that neither jerked upwards nor crashed downwards.

I couldn't help but notice the effect of celebrity on my perception of the show. Having been a fan for a while now, my enjoyment was definitely colored and perhaps magnified by my enthusiasm for and recognition of Maron's backstory, his struggle with and against the Hollywood machine, his past comedy and his current work with the WTF podcast. Not long ago his podcast even included a voiceover with the words: "He's not for everybody." His most recent CD (linked above) even offers his (paraphrased) plaintive question: "I'm 49, I'm filling half a house, that's good, right??"

While he's still not for everybody, it seems like he and his audience have finally begun to find each other, much to their mutual benefit.