A Slut In Tulsa

Friday November 30th, 2007 - Tulsa, OK

Living on Tulsa time. That’s an old country song that my grandmother used to listen to. I never liked it then and I’m not fond of it now but here I am in the city of Oral Roberts. It could be any city in America and after traveling all these years it is. There is every chain of every kind of business imaginable and if I was dropped here blindfolded and asked where I was I wouldn’t be able to guess. Tulsa spelled backward is ‘a slut’ and that’s what I am.

I am only doing these shows for the money this week and I’m just trying to get through the rest of this run with minimal humiliation at this point. I already admitted it was a giant mistake to take this but that does not get me out of having to fulfill my agreement. I have two nights here in town but not at the same place. Tomorrow I’m doing a private show at a hotel and tonight it was booked at a joint called ‘Cowboy Sharkies’. No joke. I couldn’t make that up. After a week of ‘Electric Cowboy’ torture I flinch whenever I see ‘cowboy’ in the title of a place I’m supposed to attempt to do comedy. My trouble antenna was up.

I got there and it didn’t look too bad. There was a nice guy at the door who I think was the owner and he pointed me back to the comedy room which was also not horrible. I got there about 7:30 for an 8:00 show just because I had never been here before and wanted a cushion in case I got lost which I almost did. I sat in the back of the room and waited for a crowd to show up. By show time there were about 20 people in the joint and that was it.

The opener has been doing comedy about three months and used to be a motocross bike rider and an MP in the army. Those are both logical steps that precede moving to Tulsa to begin a standup comedy career. He was horrible and then the next guy was a black comic who set race relations back to about 1957. He was a nice enough guy but he also didn’t do anybody any favors. He was supposed to keep it ‘PG 13’ and of course started dropping a few F-bombs and I could see the few people that were there flinch while eating their food.

And that’s another thing that was a problem. They were bringing out full meals while we were trying to do a show and the waitresses talked loudly to their tables like we weren’t in the room. I wanted to club one of them to death with the mike stand so the others may get a little hint that they’re supposed to be quiet while a show is going on. They had no clue.

The customers themselves were pretty rude too. They kept on talking among themselves and I’m not sure if anyone even knew there was a comedy show in this place. It was brutal and yet again a reminder of what I don’t need in my life after all these years of slugging. It was humiliating and not fun but again I needed to get paid for my trouble so I did my time and ignored them after a while. One gang banger looking Mexican guy was talking on his cell phone most of the show and then in the middle he took his girlfriend and just left.

I felt like following him and getting in my car and driving back to Chicago tonight to get this nightmare over with but I have one more show tomorrow. I’m going to try and not let this get me down but it’s very difficult. Am I getting paid? Yes. Am I getting paid WELL? Not if you add up the miles and the aggravation and humiliation. I should’ve stayed home.