The Unneeded F...

Mary Catherine and I were in Raleigh two days ago, to see Jeff Dunham... If you've seen many of his shows, or clips on YouTube (and I may have posted a couple here in the past), you'll get the joke with the post title... For those not in the know... look up the routines with Peanut (or get the "Spark of Insanity" DVD... you'll laugh your head off. Just be sure to pick it up again, so you can laugh some more). Here is the recap...

(** Note - I did not take a real camera with me, but I was moved to take a few pictures with my phone, just for the purpose of using them here... Picture qualities not the greatest for that reason...)

We popped out to Raleigh early, and hung out at the mall - window shopping and catching up with Chris, even doing lunch. In the process, this sand sculpture was on display inside the mall:

Which leads me to say: Go Canes!

We got to the RBC Center, which was set up for about 2/3 occupancy for the event (large black sheets hanging for an endstage setup. Our tickets were for section 4, on the floor... and one of the staff led us to our seats... As it turned out, though, he seated us wrong, and put us in section 7... once this was discovered, another individual led us further forward to our real seats.

The opening act was "Guitar Guy" Brian Haner (who, it turns out... as he mentioned during his 30-ish minute set, is the father of Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold)... Not too bad, including a number where he plays in several rock styles (including Van Halen, and Hendricks - complete with behind the head playing).

After a brief intermission, Duhnam took the stage at about 6pm, with a short solo routine (telling of a story that happened when flying to a west coast gig... about having to land at an alternate airstrip [due to weather], that turned out to be part of a military installation)...

After the solo section, out came Walter.

Followed by Achmed (which included the bluesy song, "Blow Myself Up Blues" with Guitar Guy).

Peanut was next, with a brief appearance by Jose Jalapeno (on a stick). After burning up a "Taste of China, taste like Fish" joke (try saying it in the stereotypical manner of folks working at a Chinese restaurant, and you'll shake your head when you get it), Guitar Guy came back out to provide some more musical accompaniment.

For his encore, he came back out bearing Bubba J - whose two favorite sports are "watchin' NASCAR and drinkin' beer". He said he had gotten so many emails (which MC was curious if it was after a show he did in the last two months out in Winston Salem) about not seeing Bubba J, that he felt he had to bring him out.

The creepy (cool) thing was when he started going through his routine - which he admitted was rusty, since he hadn't been using Bubba J regularly lately. As he would ask the questions, most of the crowd would repeat Bubba J's response back to him. He played it off well, with Bubba J commenting "it feels like we're at some kinda church or sum'n... Communion will be Budwiser and Corn Dogs.... and I will now read from the Book of Bubba, chapter 4, verse 5..." (I think he used different chapter/verse numbers, but you get the idea)...

Afterwards, he came out with some t-shirt shooting air guns (and Guitar Guy was sporting a Hurricanes' jersey), launching 8-9 shirts around the stadium (including getting some all the way to the back upper deck).

All told, his set ran for almost 2 hours (about an hour and 45 minutes, and another 10 minutes or so to pop off the t-shirts). We waited for traffic to thin out a little bit before making out way back to the car, and heading home. We were both tired by the the time we got home, but it was worth it.

In talking with other people the next day (yesterday), people were asking about our tickets. I had gotten them back in November/December at a very reasonable price. By the timepeople were looking at similar seats on the day before the event, they were going for upwards of four times the price I had paid. Ahh, yes... the joys of planning things months in advance...