Mark Growden started off his cabaret event last Saturday night at the Cat in the Cream by screaming “check, check, check, check, check, check, check” into the microphone. This motif was then repeated on a different syllable, as he screamed “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck” in a song that showed his ability to string curse words together relatively artfully. Another lyrical highlight from this song was the verse, “kick away the chair and watch me hang.” It was this particular clever song that once got him kicked out of a teenage church band, The Joy Group.

Not surprising, there were other noteworthy songs on the program that also featured the word “fuck.” The last two songs, referred to as “the nasty ones” by the performer, made use of the word “fuck” many, many times, much to the audience’s delight. Those in the audience who stayed until the end about half were treated to other sex-soaked lyrics such as, “I miss doing the nasty doing the nasty doing the nasty with you” and clever rhymes about his high school Spanish teacher and doing things on the rug in her office.

One of the very best songs in the show, however, did not include the word “fuck.” Instead, this song was about birds. In short, birds have apparently been taking cues from the Cat in the Hat, as they now fit neatly inside each other like Russian Babushka dolls. “Inside every bird,” Mark crooned to an eerily appropriate accordion accompaniment, “there’s another bird.” “And inside that one,” much to the audience’s surprise, “another bird.” According to the second verse, waves work the same way.

But it would be unfair to leave out the less exciting parts of the show, as there were so many of them. Throughout the first set of thoroughly clichÄd rock blues songs, the audience slowly trickled towards the door. Mark had apparently decided to reward only the truly loyal audience members with his sense of humor in the last few songs.

The first few songs were major disappointments, filled with bad lyrics and too much foot stomping. The lyrics included such gems as, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t teach him to fish, blow out the torch with a whisper and a wish.” The foot stomping did little to improve upon or drown out these lyrics, though it did tempt at least one unfortunate listener to throw things at the stage (such as flasks).

In one of the high points of the show, Mark placed a long-neck banjo in front of his face and began to sing into the back of it. The aural effect was mildly neat, but the visual effect was infinitely neater. From the audience’s point of view, the guy had a banjo for a head. And that’s what counts.