Belly laughs.

In late March, a co-worker of mine was buying the all-access pass ($65 including fees) to the third annual Bridgetown Comedy Festival here in Portland. The day he was doing this was the same day I had closed my Chase bank accounts, in favor of a local credit union. Since I had $63 burning a hole in my pocket, and before I could change my mind, I said, "I'll go with you! Four days of stand up comedy? Sure!"

I have seen a fair amount of stand-up on TV, but that's like saying you've been on a BluRay tour of Paris; it's not the same as walking the rues of the City of Lights. I've only been to 2 or 3 stand-up shows and I though, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound and I might as well go whole hog.

Well the festival is here! And in the interest of full disclosure, I can say that it has won, and I have lost. That is: I am skipping the fourth day out of sheer exhaustion, but after three nights/days of comedy, I have a handful of observations to mete out.

After the first night of two shows - the first featuring one comedian at length with a small panel of four comedians as the peanut gallery, and the second featuring six comics and one band - I observed two main themes:

• People who are gay, or might be gay, or are called gay, and/or how dumb people are who gay-bash.
• What it is like to be Jewish in America.

Stay tuned for other themes as they develop(ed).