the bushwick firepit

For me, a free Saturday night is like the most seasoned chip at the bottom of the bag. It’s Wonka’s golden ticket, the twenty bucks found in an old pair of jeans, the free coffee the person in front of you paid for. A free Saturday is hard to come by and treasured when you do find it.

This weekend, my trip got canceled, so I got a free Saturday…. and Friday and Sunday, but those are stories for another time. Right now, it’s still 1:16am on Sunday.

I know I really built this up, but the truth is, sometimes even when all you want in the world is a free night… once you have it, you don’t know what to do with it. In New York the possibilities are endless. Almost like you’re at the Cheesecake Factory with that huge menu or one of those ice cream shops with too many flavors to choose from. How do you ever pick?

One of my favorite ways to find something interesting happening in the city, is to scroll through the famed and glorious EventBrite. Hear me out, on safari, you can filter your search to the burrow, type of activity, free vs paid activities, the time and date, you can even filter the language that the event will be hosted in. So, although EventBrite can be viewed as a catchall or endless pit of weird events- there are gems, and there are ways to find them. So, give the ol’ EventBrite a whirl.

For my night, I decided to try to find a fun event near me since I’m so often pulled to events away from my neighborhood. After some filter adjusting and scrolling, I found one that looked interesting. A comedy show around a firepit, hosted in someone’s actual backyard- with six dollar cocktails. Can you really ask for anything s’more? (Yes, they had those too.)

I thought about inviting a friend, but I wanted to be in my own company and potentially make some new friends. So, at 9pm I headed over. I also wanted to note my outfit, as dressing for Bushwick can be intimidating. You need to look cool, but not like you tried to look cool. Effortlessness. Then there’s the grungyiness- this can be swapped or combined with old school classics, but you need to have some type of unique/badass/timeless quality about yourself. I picked my baggiest boy jeans (not super baggy, but enough to claim some type of bagginess), a striped crew shirt, a brown light puffer jacket, and white socks with my black loafers. I also am rocking bangs right now, so I figured they with the loafers kind of equals effortless cool classic chick… or at least that’s what I was going for.

Upon arrival at the brownstone, I was ushered into the apartment and through the backyard. Smiling faces awaited with a few rows of plastic chairs. The firepit was tiny, but the s’mores ingredients were all there. There was also a table to retrieve Moscow mules in exchange for a six dollar Venmo. I grabbed a drink and a seat and started chatting with the guy sitting next to me.

For some reason, lately I’ve been really good at attracting 21 year olds? I don’t know what that says about me, a 27 year old, but they have all given me lots of flattery and told me I look “young for my age”… ouch. He was nice, though we never exchanged names. He lives in Fidi, where I go to school, and we talked about how young everyone at the school is. Well, except for me I guess.

I guess I should tell you.. I don’t really like comedy shows or comedians if I’m being honest. I have a very dark sense of humor and I don’t laugh at dry jokes or really anything unless it’s god-awfully inappropriate and in an ingenius type of context. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t laugh the easiest. Every time I’ve ever been to a comedy show, it’s always felt the same. It’s kind of like when you’re sleeping with someone who you really like for the first time and you realize the sex is bad. You want so much to like it, you’re making noises and confirmations even like you like it to try to fool yourself into thinking you do, when you know you don’t. It’s the same for me at comedy shows. What do you do? Do you fake it?

I don’t. 21 year old me probably would have, but what you begin to realize at some point in your twenties is that authenticity must be prioritized. If you don’t, it’s just like… what are you doing? You only have one life and you shouldn’t spend it pretending to like things you don’t or walking on egg shells for someone else. You deserve real laughs (and real orgasms too).

So all of this adds up to me not being the best comedic patient zero. To be honest, I saw cheap drinks and a firepit on the menu, said YES, and ignored the rest. So I didn’t know what to expect.

The host came on and I could tell this wasn’t going to be a typical comedy show. I mean, we are in someone’s back yard in the ‘weird’ part of Brooklyn. The guy quickly claimed that he was a sapiosexual (intelligence over hotness) and made a reference to baby Sheldon being jailbait. He then talked about how a woman in a previous audience slandered him on the comedy venue’s google reviews and insinuated that he was a pervert, to which he acquitted himself by outsmarting her. So basically, inappropriate + ingenious context = I enjoyed myself.

There were 7 different comedians in total, some of which were hilarious, some I could have done without, but is that not to be expected? Five of the comedians were guys who lived at that exact apartment either currently or previously. Men in their mid 30s, some who admittedly didn’t have day jobs and couch surfed when they needed to, so they could continue this dream of comedy. To me, that really said something about them. They’re just a bunch of friends, getting together and doing something that they love and that makes them happy.

The last comedian of the night was hilarious and by far my favorite. I did some research to find his name, Shaunak Godkhindi. Shaunak is one of those people who has to be a comedian, because he’s too funny not to be. His voice impressions, quick whit, and crowd work was hilarious and I wished he would have been on the stage longer.

After the show I made some new friends with the girls sitting next to me and chatted up some of the comedians. It was a fun night and I can’t wait to bring some of my friends with me to the next one! Bushwick Comedy Firepit = A++!