Book review: "Big Dumb Eyes" by Nate Bargatze

I feel like I "discovered" Nate Bargatze. I first heard him in 2017 when he performed on "A Prairie Home Companion," the public radio show. Listening to him, I thought, "This guy's pretty funny." I made a mental note of his name.

After that, I started to hear, and see, more of Nate Bargatze. First, short video clips here or there. Then a full-length standup comedy special on Netflix. And then another one, and another. The mometum grew and suddenly there was Nate hosting Saturday Night Live. Twice!

I have been rooting for him along this journey. Not only is he funny, he's funny in a unique way. He doesn't curse or swear and doesn't tell dirty jokes. He doesn't do politics. 

He just tells stories from his life, sometimes making fun of others, but often making fun of himself. He can turn ordinary life — a visit to Starbucks, helping his daughter with homework —into very funny stories. 

And now Nate's written a book and a good one. "Big Dumb Eyes" doesn't contain that many outright laughs, but it has a lot of enjoyable, amusing stories, many of them from very prosaic topics. 

He talks about the difficulty he has choosing socks to wear. "Who are these animals out there, just waking up in the morning and throwing on socks with no planning whatsoever? It makes no sense!"

He recalls the time, as a child, when his father accidently left Nate's younger sister behind at a church event. "The first things my dad does is go, "Do not tell your mother.'"

There are stories on his life as a meter reader, how his mom outran the police, how he failed bowling in college, and how his barber became his physical trainer. 

My favorite story is about he and his family going to DisneyWorld. I'm not going spoil it for you here. 

The book is not an autobiography, but he does tell stories from his childhood, growing up and reaching adulthood. The thing I would have liked to know — but is not in the book — is what it was about standup comedy that interested Nate in the first place and why he stuck with it even when the paychecks were small. Did he know he would be famous? Was he waiting for me to discover him? 

Trivia night at O'Malley's on Main in Seal Beach

Four friends and I stopped in yesterday at O'Malley's on Main, a restaurant in Seal Beach, California, for trivia night. It wasn't our first time there, but it very well could be our last.

My friend Kay had called days earlier to reserve a table for our group. There had been a mxup on our previous visit and they somehow lost our reservation. We ended up with four people awkwardly crowded around a table that might have been big enough for three.

We didn't want that to happen again, of course, so Kay called ahead of time and the man she spoke to assured her that a specific table, perfect for our group of five, would be reserved for us. 

But when we arrived yesterday, the hostess knew nothing about our reservation. Sigh. We didn't get the table we wanted, and this time crowded five people awkwardly around a table for four.

The host gave us two menus to share among the five of us. After a wait of about 20 minutes, the server came by to take our orders. I don't expect servers to be bubbly or perky, but this waiter couldn't even manage half a smile. It seemed like he was being forced to do this job and only grudgingly taking our order. 

No one brought us utensils or napkins, so one of our group took some off a separate empty table. 

I had a blue cheese burger and it was the highlight of the evening — juicy and delicious. The fries were good too, but we discovered that the ketchup bottle at our table was nearly empty. With no server or other worker nearby to ask, we had to grab a bottle off another table.

We were there for two and a half hours and our waters were never refilled, not even after we asked our server to do so (and he said he would). He refilled the waters at the table next to us, but not ours.

Then there was the trivia.

Every bar has it's own style for trivia. I do like that O'Malley's has a good mix of topics and difficulty levels. They had questions on geography, music, history, sports and other topics. 

But it goes way too slow. After each question, the host plays a song to allow your group to submit an answer. But coming up with an answer doesn't take that long. Most of the time you either know the answer or you don't, and even if there is some debate in your group that takes no more than 30 seconds. You don't need the four or so minutes it takes to play a song.

As a result, there's not that much trivia on trivia night. At O'Malley's, they give you about 22 questions (and they give you a "freebie" answer to one of them). At other bars, trivia can have 40 to 45 questions on a given night. 

Also, the place was just plain loud. You might think that the one benefit of the long breaks between songs would be a chance to chat with your teammates, but the music and ambient noise of O'Malleys was so much you could barely shout, much less converse.

Finally, you remember that table we thought we had reserved? It was a perfect-sized table for five people. Unfortunately, it attracted a group of nine and they were seated right next to us. In fact, their overflowing group seemd to be sitting right with us. One of our group was getting bumped and jostled so much by this active group that he had to literally leave his seat and stand on the other side of our table.

All in all, not a great evening at O'Malley's.