The Cochino Comedy Show filled up The Starting Gate, a dive bar in Los Alamitos, on Tuesday, and like the alcohol-stenched stains living on the floor, the laughter in the crowd was abundant and established itself under the neon lights.
The dance floor to the far left was modified with enough tables and chairs to accommodate a hundred or more, which still wasn’t enough for the billowing crowd.
A little man with a big smile walked out on stage. Host of the night, Cochino Rojas, cracked a fast joke about Latinos and Asians in college that bubbled up the audience, then chatted up a couple of people in the seats who became part of the show; there was the off-duty cop, the tough Cholo on a date, the Texan in the bull pen and even the giggly birthday girl, to whom he offered a free drink, then generously got her a cup of water.
Jokes and good-natured teasing shot out like bullets, keeping the audience warm with laughter. With his last joke still bouncing in the crowd, he roared out an intro for the next comedian on his way to the stage, a statement that was answered with loud hollers and slurred cheers.
The Cochino Comedy Show is a no-cover-charge, weekly stand-up act with a kind of lineup you would expect to get from an uptown comedy club. It’s just ten minutes away from campus, and it changes from salsa night to a chili cook-off contest in the same week.
“[Performing] was exhilarating, but I was a little frantic,” said Mimi Nguyen, senior journalism major at CSULB, after the show. “There’s also a lot of pressure to set the stage or mood … if I’m not able to make anyone laugh, it makes it even more difficult for the next person to make the audience laugh.”
Despite her worries, Nguyen opened the show with success. She started with a crude number that originated on campus from unfortunate personal experience involving a cheating ex-boyfriend and his tastes.
“I thought the show was really funny,” said CSULB senior political science major Nicolas Rodriguez who attended the show. “The comedians that went on stage were of a wide variety … I thought that was a pretty unique find from such an unexpected comedy club.”
Of course, not everything was peachy keen. The drinks and food were as overpriced as any bar in town, and the surroundings look as suspicious as a penguin in the Bahamas.
While the food’s price left much to be desired, it’s actually the variety of dishes that was deeply impressive. Instead of the usual peanuts or chips, The Starting Gate has a fully stocked kitchen that allowed patrons to feast on hearty meals like spaghetti, country fried steak and even fancy crab-cake benedict.
Together, The Starting Gate and the Cochino Comedy show go together as beautifully as salt and lime. The bar’s crowd is happy and willing to cheer on growing comedians while the act is happy and willing to lend them the stage every Tuesday night.