Christian Finnegan's Two For Flinching Tour: Hamilton College

(Comedian Christian Finnegan is driving a Kia Sportage around the country on a massive campus tour. We asked him to keep a diary of his escapades. Here is the 5th entry in Christian's Two For Flinching Tour Diary.)

SHOW #6: HAMILTON COLLEGE, FEBRUARY 10th, 2007

The day started off with Nick, The Hammer (our tour manager, Marisa) and myself making the trek from Cincinnati, OH to Syracuse, NY.  FYI, there are no direct flights from Cincy to Syracuse‚Äîkeep this in mind when booking your vacation plans.  Anyway, after 107 hours of air travel, we dug Megasus out of a snowdrift and drove another hour to lovely Utica, home of many of your favorite microbrews.   We stayed at the historic Hotel Utica, which looks like something straight out of ‚ÄúBilly Bathgate‚Äù (available at your local Blockbuster).  Seriously, every moment spent at the Hotel Utica is a moment spent expecting to see someone burst through the door, firing a ‚Äútommy gun‚Äù.

From there, we drove to Clinton, home of Hamilton College.  From the moment I stepped onto campus, I knew it was going to be an interesting show.  Maybe it was the friendly student body, maybe it was the beautiful surroundings, or maybe it was the fact that I got a contact high the moment I stepped out of the car.  Based on our brief visit, Hamilton College seems to be one of those schools for, um, ‚Äúlaidback‚Äù smart kids.  You remember those kids you went to high school with who were inordinately bright but couldn‚Äôt be bothered to do anything resembling extra credit?  That seems to be the Hamilton student body in a nutshell.  My prediction is that half of them will go on to become wealthy doctors and entrepreneurs and the other half will end up working in head shops.  To give you an idea of what I mean, here‚Äôs me with a Hamilton student who (for reasons unknown) demanded I draw on his naked torso:

Hey, what‚Äôs that sound?  Oh, just the sound of your collective Gaydars going off.

One thing that made this show unique was the lineup—me, Nick and the inestimable Reggie Watts.
For those of you who don‚Äôt know Reggie, it‚Äôs really difficult to describe what he does.  With the help of a small audio sampler, Reggie composes spontaneous rap/funk/sci-fi etudes.  It‚Äôs hilarious, weird and musically impressive. He‚Äôs also a swell dude.  Here‚Äôs Reggie and Nick at the Griffin Pub, the lovely Utica dive bar we visited after the show:

This was actually my second visit to the Griffin.  I stopped in there a few months ago with my good friend Jesse (who‚Äôs doing a couple of shows later in the tour, incidentally), and became friendly with Jimmy, the very good-natured bartender.  Here we are posing with the lovely piece of stained glass ‚Äúart‚Äù behind the bar:

Check out the crotch on that leprechaun.  What the hell is going on there?  Is that some sort of medical condition?  Luck of the Irish indeed.

Christian's Tour continues through April, with new dates being added all the time. Find out if he's coming to your town, buy tickets, and enter to win his Kia Sportage here.

Related: Christian on MySpace

Earlier: Previous Two For Flinching Tour Diaries