John Hodgman at the Cedar, Minneapolis (27 September 2015)

Topics

Ghost of Jedediah Bloodmoon Cultural Center Intro: The Pixies’ “Where is My Mind” Hands Up! Beard Rural Massachusetts The Dumpmen and Jackie Brown Pay What You Can Therapy Swimming with Johnathan Coulton in the woods Building Cairns Vacationland Beaches of Maine Perry’s Nut House Maine Comedy Flurry the Dwarf Hamster Jimmy Steele Peapod Boat Old Retired People in Maine — Roadrunner (The Modern Lovers cover) So Much Wine (The Handsome Family cover) with Kevin Murphy

Tour Dates

 

American author, actor, and humorist John Hodgman just held his sold out Vacationland show at the Cedar Cultural Center on Sunday, September 27th.

Starting slightly later than advertised, the seated show started with a silly ghost of Jedediah Bloodmoon Cultural Center. The voice told us that he personally built the venue in 1909… scratch that, let’s go with 1910 as he liked round numbers. He was pretty sure he was murdered eating a falafel sandwich… and now his ghost haunts the theater. Jedediah warned us that there would be no flash photography or video recording or urinating at the show, otherwise he will murder you.

Then the music of the Pixies (“Where Is My Mind”) is played over the loudspeaker as John Hodgman walked on stage with his ukulele and matching tie and shirt patterns.

He spent a few minutes making the crowd hold up their hands. They were literally a captive audience, listening very quietly to every word Hodgman had to say.

Before Hodgman even started telling his stories, he asked if there were any young persons in the audience. A little girl said she was 9. Hodgman then apologized for his adult themed stories… mentioning that he will use the world marijuana once (excluding the usage in the warning).

The rest of the evening were just stories. Some of them seemed plausibly true, but obviously with some funny embellishment. We learned that Hodgman lived in Massachusetts and then in Maine (with the official slogan for the state as “Vacationland”). At one point, they owned two summer homes.

I thought the beard-bit went on a little too long. Even longer was the long drive to get rid of his garbage at the landfill. Technically since he lived in another county, that he was illegally dumping his garbage. If anyone asked where they lived, he was to tell them that he was staying with Jackie Brown in town. He did that for seven years and realized they never asked. Then Brown died, and he had to come up with another excuse…

His story about swimming and making cairns with singer Jonathan Coulton was pretty funny, and probably my personal favorite. You may recall that we caught his appearance at the Guthrie Theater in 2012 and absolutely loved his “Baby Got Back” cover, which Glee stole.

Anyway, the last half of his Hodgman’s set featured nothing but stories from Maine. He did a great job explaining “Maine Comedy” and what a “Jimmy Steele Peapod Boat” was (and how he accidentally bought one).

Closing out his show, Hodgman sang two covers with his ukulele, starting with Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner”. We’ve seen the “untrained genius” Richman a few times and absolutely love his storytelling songs.

The last song was a cover of the The Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine” with the great Kevin Murphy (best known as the voice and puppeteer of Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000). Again, an excellent band choice, although the Handsome Family is now known for the True Detective theme song, we caught them in 2013 and noted that their songs are about “stories and events.”

If you love hearing stories of Maine and Massachusetts, check out the “Judge” John Hodgman on this Vacationland one-man-tour. Get your tickets now before they sell out.