Pittsburgh - The Sequel

Friday September 4th, 2009 - Pittsburgh, PA

Here’s something I didn’t expect - I’m back in the Pittsburgh area for the second straight weekend. Same owners, different location. This is at the Four Points Hotel by Sheraton in a northern suburb called Cranberry. I’ve been to Pittsburgh quite a bit but never this part.

The same brothers who own the other Funny Bone I worked last week decided to open a club out here and happened to have a headliner opening this weekend. I found out about it when I talked to one of the owners and we ended up cutting an oddball last minute deal.

Basically we‘re gambling on some business. They just opened the place and it’s located in a room adjacent to a sports bar and restaurant in the hotel complex. It’s a nice room for comedy and I think it will eventually work but so far they’ve had rather weak attendance.

They’re coming into the strong business time now but Labor Day weekend can go either way. Last week they did ok and there was a Steelers game on Saturday night. It’s only one show a night on Friday and Saturday and that’s an easy gig. There’s no Steelers game this weekend so we thought there might be a good chance of drawing at least a few customers.

The deal we cut is that I will be paid for my expenses to get out here and back and if we get enough people for shows we’ll work out a split of the take. Last weekend they did two shows with football on Saturday but this week there’s no football so I risked it and came.

At the very least I’ll stay in a fantastic hotel for the weekend and even though that’s not a thrill anymore it could be worse. It was a last minute chance to make a couple of bucks and I’m grateful for the opportunity. I used the drive out here as my mobile office and got a lot of business done in the car. I caught up on all my phone calls and I needed to do that.

I even got a few bookings I didn’t expect. Jim Stone from WXRX in Rockford called to ask if I could put a show together in October for some UAW workers. Of course I could. I also heard from a guy way up north who wants me to open for some band at a casino on a Thursday in late September for decent pay. Gigs coming out of the blue like this are great.

They won’t make me rich but they will take some pressure off as I continue to work on filling my calendar. I still need to make the rounds with all the club bookers I like and am hoping to work for either again or for the first time. I’m weeding out the leakers and only going to approach those I want to work. Still, that’s a lot of places and I need to get to it.

It’s always a chore to keep up with bookings but as I found out the hard way not doing it leads to big holes in the calendar. With clubs closing and the number of comics getting bigger or at least staying the same it becomes a game of musical chairs. It’s all numbers.

Of course there were only four people tonight and they cancelled the show but I knew it would be a risk when I took the gig. It was at the last minute and I got a lot of productive work done in the car today so I’m not upset at all. Some people tomorrow would be nice.