Arkansas Agony

Tuesday November 27th, 2007 - Jonesboro, AR

Oh oh. A glitch. Then another. Then the trifecta. Son of a glitch. Uranus Factory Outlet is looking better all the time. This week is turning into a nightmare and there isn’t much to do about it other than let it play out and go home licking my wounds. I’m not going to get upset because it won’t do me any good. I’ll take this as a subtle message from the cosmos.

The day started out ok. I got a call from my friend Max who sounded glad to hear I was in town. We made lunch plans and then I checked my emails. I saw that there was a glitch in the run this week and the Wednesday show in Fayetteville, AR was cancelled. Not only will I lose the pay for that show but now I have to find a hotel room and pay for that too.

Not good. The reason I took this run was because it was four nights in a row for decent pay. It was also to get in with the booker. These are the people I drove all the way over to Charlotte, NC to audition for a few months ago at my own expense. I’m finally starting to get some gigs from them and I thought it was good business to accept this week so I did.

Then a fifth night was added and I took that too and switched around some other stuff I had and on paper it looked like everything was going to work out. Now it’s all in disarray. Booking a five night run in Arkansas and Oklahoma is not a career move by any means. It will pay some bills and I am still of the mind set that it’s better to choose to work than not.

Now that theory is going to bite me in the shorts this week and there’s not anything I am able to do to change it. Driving home now would be stupid because not only would I blow my chance to get work from this booker again I’d lose what remaining pay I would get for finishing out the week. It’s a long drive home and I’m already here so I will have to eat it.

It would have been a lot easier if tonight was the night that fell out because I could have stayed at Max’s house in Springfield for free and visited with his family and had a blast. It would have been a mini vacation and then I could drive here and finish my work week but now I not only miss a night’s work I also get stuck with a hotel room. It’s all a big hassle.

Jonesboro is about an hour north west of Memphis. There is no easy way to get to it off I-55 so I lost time winding through small towns behind slow traffic. I watched my speed at all times because these small towns are ripe for nabbing Yankee speeders and I’ve had that ugly experience before not far from here. It wasn’t in Arkansas but it was close enough.

Finding the hotel was another hassle but I finally did. It was an hour before show time so I checked in expecting to grab a quick shower and go to the club. The hotel looked fine on the outside but when I got to my room it was disgusting. They had just cleaned the carpet and it was still wet to the point of being squishy. Yuck. Who knows why they cleaned it.

It could have been after they removed the dead body because that’s what it smelled like. I am about as low maintenance as it gets but this place is horrific. The stench of ripe funk punched me in the face as I opened the door but I was late so I tried my best to ignore it.

I put my bags on the bed and took my clothes off so I could grab a quick shower. What I didn’t notice is that there were no towels in the room and I didn’t notice it until I needed one. When it rains it pours. I ended up using a couple of hand towels and the bed sheet to dry myself off because I was in a hurry and needed to get to the show. It would get worse.

The name of the club is ‘Electric Cowboy’ and that’s a red flag. A Tuesday in Arkansas at a placed called ‘Electric Cowboy’ doesn’t bode well for a slick talking northerner. I was greeted at the door by a gorgeous hostess though and I thought I might be wrong. Nope. I walked in the room and saw a lot of both cowboy and baseball hats. Not good. Usually the rule is the higher the hat count the lower the laugh count. I could feel this wasn‘t for me.

The opening act is a guy named Jack Willhite. I really like Jack and we’ve worked many times together but all of them have been in brutal gigs. Jack has more of a Las Vegas style show and does characters with costumes and music and he really is good at what he does. It’s not straight standup but that’s ok. He’s a super nice guy and I respect him for doing a show he wants to do. A lot of ‘purists’ don’t like that kind of thing but who cares? He’s a guy trying to make a living and he works harder than anyone I’ve ever met because he has to set up all his equipment before the show and that usually takes a couple of hours to do.

The show started a half hour late because of technical sound problems and the audience was talking and drinking and getting louder and louder and when Jack finally went up they really loved him. He has loud music cues and plays a guitar and changes costumes and this was the crowd that was primed for that and they went nuts for everything he did. Glitch.

Everything was lining up for my slow and painful death. I felt it. A country/rock bar on a Tuesday night in Arkansas following a guy with loud music and costumes. Not only that it was a smoky hell and I felt my eyes burn as I walked to the stage. Not only not only that it got even worse because I have had a sore throat and I could feel my voice starting to go.

I never had my tonsils out and once in a while I get a nasty infection and it blows out my voice. I am having one of those now and when I got on the mike it sounded horrible. I felt like Bonnie Tyler singing ‘It’s A Heartache’ without a band and I probably should have as it would have gotten a better reaction. This was not my audience and I had a long evening.

I started off ok but I could feel them fading quickly. For whatever reason I was just not the right act for this place on this night. To make it worse I had to do 55 minutes because that’s how long the booker wants on a two man show. I did my time but it wasn’t easy to stay up there in the smoke with my voice going out having to follow a loud musical act.

It doesn’t get any more difficult than this. Pulling off 55 minutes on this night was a big achievement but the only people who appreciated it were Jack and me. The crowd didn’t and that’s fine. I shouldn’t be taking bookings at a placed called ‘Electric Cowboy’ at this time in my life and career. I did it for the money and I learned a lesson. I’ll finish out what I said I’d do and thank everyone for having me but in my mind I will be focusing on being the King of Uranus and I won’t let this get me down. Let’s see if I can keep that promise.