Irish Raconteur David Nihill Talks a Load of Blarney

On Sunday night despite March Madness going full throttle, little thwarted a full house that turned out for a "slagging" from David Nihill. At the Raven Theater in Healdsburg, Nihill sauntered up to the mike wearing worn out jeans and a brown, buttoned down shirt. His layback attire belied his fast jabbering diatribe that went into overdrive. The long winded, rambling gab felt rehearsed and somewhat ambiguous and scattered. Titled "Self Help: Reading Recommendations," Nihill's ramblings referred to his upbringing in Ireland, his disastrous schooling, an obsession with sharks and a healthy thirst for Coors when low on stout. Any doubt on the what, why or where is he was headed hoodwinked by his clever windup.  The show was more orchestrated than one would think. In fact, it proved a bit heady by the end. Nihill talked 90 minutes non-stop. He evoked a deceptively intelligent nonstop chatter that was clever and touched on various matters: getting arrested, racial segregation, political elections, personal confessions and moments of sparkling revelations "I didn't see coming." Nihill is a motivational speaker, standup comic and self-proclaimed bibliophile. His humor wasn't the robust LOL type. But, he managed to keep us all fully engaged in his banter. For most of the show, his incessant blabber seemed full of blarney. Nevertheless, he turned the tables on the audience with a circuitous roundabout routine that roused plenty of skepticism. The milieu of manuals Nihill referred to ranged from Ireland's literary giants, Joyce, Ibsen and Beckett to novels "Catch 22," "100 Years of Solitude," "The Alchemist," Gladwell's"Tipping Point" to Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman." I surely thought Nihill was pulling my legs when he said, "I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried." David Nihill possessed the luck of the Irish having a gift for the gab.  Me thinks perhaps Nihill protested too much when he claimed "public speaking terrifies me." Or, perhaps I imbibed more than I should. Regardless, Nihill made good on his outlandish gibberish. Still, Nihill should refrain from his fetish with fish.