Fort Dodged A Bullet

Friday November 9th, 2007 - Fort Dodge, IA

Up early to pack my freshly dented Toyota and head to Jim McHugh’s house to pick up Jim and Bill Gorgo so we could head to Fort Dodge, IA for a Chicago Style Standups gig.

I live up north in Lake Villa and Bill is in Chicago not far from where I used to live. Jim is out west in Hoffman Estates so Bill and I had a rush hour challenge to make it on time. I got there at 7:30 and Bill got there at 7:45 and we were packed and on the road by 8:00.

Lots of people car pool to work but not many do it for a 350 mile boring drive to Iowa. It was good to have two guys to talk to and that’s part of the fun of comedy. We stopped at the Field Of Dreams in Dyersville, IA on the way because Bill had never seen it before.

Jim and I had both been there several times before but since Bill hadn’t we had to let him experience it. He loves baseball and has seen the movie so we knew he’d appreciate it. We took some pictures and lumbered around the bases and soaked it all in on a gorgeous day.

The show tonight in Fort Dodge was electric. The whole idea of Chicago Style Standups was to work in bigger venues in smaller towns and be an event. When that works we blow the roof off the joint and tonight was one of those nights. There were five of us and every one of us was on our game. Besides Bill and Jim and me there was James Wesley Jackson and Paul Kelly. Between us we have way over 100 years of total experience and all any of us have to do is about 12-15 minutes tops. We can cherry pick our very best bits and kill.

It’s like a night off. We are all on stage in director’s chairs and we take turns at the mike for a few minutes and then sit down and let someone else go. There’s no real order and we go back and forth as we feel like it and when it flows like it did tonight it’s fun for us all. It doesn’t even seem like work and it isn’t. It’s fun. The work is in getting consistent shows.

This was a door deal tonight. I can’t stand door deals and even though we did well on it I am not going to continue doing them. There is no incentive for anyone to help sell tickets in a deal like this. This show was promoted by a local radio group so they helped pack the house but it was very iffy right up until yesterday. There were management changes and it could have been a complete disaster. We dodged a bullet tonight but this has got to stop.

The group idea is very fun on stage but promoting shows is a huge hassle. No comedian wants to do anything more than show up and go up. We really don’t care about how all of those people get there but that’s what pays the bills. I joined the group as a soldier. I don’t want to run it and the other guys aren’t very good at business. It’s been too disorganized.

Nobody knows if the group is going to break up or not. The concept is great but getting it to work every night is another story. This may not be the exact right group of guys but I still love to do shows so I took this week and next. If this is the way we’re going to go out it was worth the drive. Tomorrow we are at a casino near Mason City and it could be back to disarray again but for one night we were treated like stars so we let ourselves enjoy it.