Best Medicine with Eric Brown: Is there a good place in Asheville for toddlers to race dogs?

It’s my favorite time of year at Xpress: Best of WNC. I’m one of those people who likes to think I am not inherently competitive, but really that is not the case. I’ve got opinions on everything, and fortunately I’m always right. (Kidding, of course, though I am fairly confident that my superpower is good taste.)

That said, I don’t want to seem biased in this issue, so I can’t tell you who earned my vote for this year’s Best Of — no matter how much I want to. And trust me, I do want to. In fact, it pains me to not be able to tell you, dear readers, about my favorite record store located in Marshall with all its cool imported Japanese records. And I wish I could reveal to you my favorite bookstore in West Asheville, the one next to the plant store. And goodness, does it break my heart that I can’t praise my favorite coffee shop — the one in West Asheville that’s between Firestorm Books and the fire station, and has a name that rhymes with Dizzy’s.

No, I won’t be sharing any specifics. Instead, I’ve invited some of my favorite people from the improv comedy scene to discuss what Best of WNC categories they’d like to see added to next year’s contest, as well as some of the best places that no longer remain in Asheville and the upcoming Asheville Improv Festival, which runs Wednesday through Sunday, Oct. 9-13.

Please welcome Laurie Jones of Adesto Theatre, Gillian Bellinger of Misfit Improv & Acting School and Karen Stobbe of Reasonably Priced Babies (which earned the top votes for Best Improv Group/Comedy Troupe of Series).

Eric: Every year we get two whole issues of the Best of WNC, but is it enough? Can we truly cover all the great things our mountains have to offer in two issues? I say thee nay. I suggest we bump it up every other week. That’s right, 26 Best of WNC issues every year. Assuming I can make this happen, what are some categories you would like to see in Best Of next year?

Laurie: “The Best Crunchy Experience.” Asheville has all sorts of lovely crunchy options, and we should probably lean into that. I always considered myself more of a basic b*tch than a crunchy hippie, but here I am in Asheville, where you can get a necklace made out of your own breast milk and/or hire a cat communicator. Between you and me, I’ve embraced at least one of these.

Gillian: I propose two new categories. First, “Best Place to Contract MRSA” — MRSA being a staph infection that is resistant to several antibiotics. Of course, the French Broad River will always win the entry. But that’s OK because the category will function like a gentle PSA reminding locals who are tempted to tube down the French Broad that they aren’t the only ones floating that river.

Second, “Best All Around Bear.” Asheville is really missing the boat on choosing a city bear mascot each year. With this category, locals could submit bear candidates from their neighborhoods and backyards. We could even break it up into multiple categories for most effective garbage rooter, most photogenic and most likely to stand up on two legs and have a full conversation. It’s really about time we recognize all that the bears do for Asheville.

Karen: Here’s my pitch: “Best Residents of Asheville with One Job.” Those are the true unicorns in Asheville. In the almost 18 years since I transplanted here from the frozen tundra of Milwaukee, I have never met someone that says, “I’m a nurse.” Period. It’s always, “I’m a nurse. … Oh, and on the weekends I teach Hula-Hooping.” Or, “I work in banking and I play in two bands.” Or you meet a real estate agent who does stand-up comedy at night. Then there’s the neuroscientist/potter. Or the grocery store manager and maker of organic elderberry cough syrup. When it comes to “Best Residents of Asheville with One Job,” I bet there’s only three in all of Asheville.

Eric: I have a few categories in mind. I’d like to see the “Best Coffee Shops to Read Three Pages of a Book Before You Inevitably Get Distracted by Your Phone,” but it is admittedly a pretty broad category. I’d also like to see “Best Breweries to Race Toddlers and Dogs At.” Let’s face it. Every brewery is chock-full of toddlers and dogs, and both the toddlers and dogs are equally bored. I say we make them race each other to keep active and engaged. Obviously, nobody is currently doing this at these establishments. Yet … if we make it a category, I think people will think it’s a trend and launch their own dog/toddler racing leagues. Maybe the toddlers ride the dogs? I dunno.

Eric: One of my favorite things to do is reminisce with other longtime locals about how that kombucha shop that used to be a dog spa that used to be a microbrewery was originally a transmission repair place. (Asheville fact: Every building in city limits was at some point a transmission shop.) What’s your favorite “Best Place to Have Left WNC?”

Laurie: For me, it’s the closure of The Magnetic Theatre’s River Arts District space. The location was a home for so many artists and produced such a variety of shows. It also hosted touring artists and many of my close friends from other cities got to experience the magic there. New plays had a space to grow. It was a gift.

Gillian: Oh Asheville, you cagey little minx. You flirt so overtly with the arts, and yet the almighty dollar seems to call the shots. I, too, miss the Magnetic Theatre’s RAD location — a place of exploration, creation, joy. There are so few small theaters in the middle of Asheville anymore, and The Magnetic offered a space for new work, for splatter plays and cocooning yourself in the darkness of a theater. It also had the required creepy basement staircase in the green room that struck fear in many performers.

Karen: Closed places? Well let’s see, my improv group, Reasonably Priced Babies, has had residencies in a number of spots that are no more: the original Magnetic Theatre, the backroom of Lexington Avenue Brewery and The Altamont Theatre. We’re currently in Asheville Pizza & Brewing, which is for sale. We’ve been there for almost two years. Before you ask: Yes, we do good shows and, yes, the owners love us. But obviously, we have the mark of the beast when it comes to closing great locations. We have a show at The Grey Eagle coming up … and we’re sorry ahead of time if our performance closes it down.

Eric:  I have very fond memories of Fred’s Speakeasy on College Street. It was a crusty, dirty basement dive bar with punk-rock vibes, which made it the perfect bar for the crusty, dirty punk-rock kid I was in my early 20s. The well gin was always cheap, and I always had a fun time. I went to all kinds of shows and karaoke nights, and I particularly liked going on off nights when it wasn’t busy. I don’t know who owned it or how many years it was there. All I know is that any bar that has dollar PBRs and a Nintendo NES Game System where you can play “Super Mario Bros.” is OK by me. Like all fun spots from your 20s, you take it for granted, and then one day it’s gone. I think that was maybe the first bar I loved and lost. Of course, I eventually figured out I had a drinking problem, and I lost all bars, so I guess there’s that.

Eric: I had a slight ulterior motive in preparing this column. The 2024 Asheville Improv Festival is coming up in October, and everyone in this week’s “Best Medicine” is participating in it. So, let’s talk improv. Panel, how did you come to Asheville and its improv scene, and what is your favorite local improv memory?  

Laurie: My husband, Paul, and I moved to Asheville from Los Angeles for what we thought would be three months “while the pandemic passed.” Four years and two kids later, we’ve found our home. We thought we’d be grieving the improv we were missing in LA, where we did improvised full-length plays, but we discovered this amazing community here that has embraced the art form with us. Paul and I started Adesto Theatre to further explore this combination of improv and theater. My favorite moment so far was after our first night of “Improvised Horror,” when I looked at the talented cast all laughing and having fun, and I realized my dream had come true.

Gillian: My husband and I moved to Asheville from LA in February 2023. My mother is from North Carolina, and my father is from South Carolina, and they have had a home in Waynesville for 20 years. Because my family had such a connection to the area, I started building connections to the improv scene before we moved. I played a few shows when I was in town and taught at the 2019 Asheville Improv Festival. When we moved here, I began looking for a way to become more involved and felt that opening Misfit Improv and Acting School would be a way to keep building an inclusive performance community.

I would say my favorite Asheville improv memory is when I started to realize I don’t know everyone in the Misfit community. With the help of a ton of people, including faculty members Marlene Thompson and Joe Carroll, we have started to grow so much that there are folks in our classes I have yet to meet. There are folks that come to our shows that feel connected to us that I haven’t seen before, and I love that. I love that improv is finding its way to people who have never done it before, and it is bringing them joy.

Karen: My husband, Mondy Carter, and I moved here in 2006. We were looking for a group or others who wanted to perform improv. We found Tom Chalmers, or he found us. And Tom brought in Josh Batenhorst. Then Aaron Price joined us on keyboards and, lucky us, then came Kim Richardson. We’ve been improvising once a month for over 13 years.

It’s really hard to pick a favorite moment. In improv what is now is the most important thing. Whether you just said the dumbest thing ever or you just made the whole house shake with guffaws, both of those moments have to be left in the past. They are not now. That being said, there have been moments when I’m off to the side watching a scene and realize I’ve basically forgotten I’m in the show because I’m laughing so hard while watching the exchange. Then there are other moments where everything is just fluid, and everyone is basically “in the zone,” and you want to hug and high-five at the end of every scene but hardly remember much of it. It’s a lot like life.

Eric: I’m a bit of a rarity in the comedy scene here. I’m a local. My dad’s side of the family was here since the late 1800s at least, and my mom’s side was here before the Revolutionary War. I guess you could say I come from very unambitious families. We got this far into America and said, “Well, we’re out of money. This place looks pretty good.” In keeping with my “no money” roots, I got into comedy here, and I’m proud to say I’ve made tens of dollars doing it professionally in Asheville ever since.

Most improvisers I know say they kind of blackout onstage and don’t really remember what they did. Not me. I’m painfully aware of everything I do up there — good or bad — and I’m seemingly cursed to remember things I’ve done onstage instead of important things like birthdays, passwords or therapy appointments.

That being said, I think my proudest comedy moment wasn’t even improv. I almost never do stand-up, but the original writer of this column, the fabulous Morgan Bost, asked me to be on a roast. It was themed around Nickelodeon cartoon characters, and I played Ren from “The Ren and Stimpy Show.” I was so nervous about being up there with real stand-ups that I admired. I didn’t want to be the improv guy who bombed at the stand-up show. And I didn’t. I absolutely crushed it up there. I feel like I could’ve read the phone book and gotten laughs that night. I guess it helped that I was playing Ren. Ren’s a gross, chaotic rageaholic, and it helps to play what you know.