Ta-Ta Tulsa

Saturday December 1st, 2007 - Tulsa, OK/Rolla, MO

Another glorious night in Tulsa. Thanks be to God it’s my last. This whole trip has put a whammy on my good vibe and I must say I’m back to the thought of putting a bullet in my head. How did I slip that far in such a short time? I don’t know but I absolutely did I am in a terrible mindset. Everything is going wrong and I am by myself in a hotel that has one of THE stupidest people I’ve ever crossed paths with in my life as the person in charge. I had all I could do to stop myself from taking the Christmas tree in the lobby and beating her to her merciful death so she wouldn’t pollute the rest of the guests with her flaming stupidity.

I really tried my best to be polite but she had the mental capacity of a gerbil. Wait, that’s an insult to gerbils. She was lost behind the counter and I think it was her first day and if it wasn’t she needed to be fired because no human life form can be that ignorant. Can they? I was not in the mood for it and I really do try to be patient and polite when I can but in this case it was a major challenge. The room is paid for by the club but she didn’t understand it and tried to get me to pay for it and I kept telling her that I don’t pay. She wouldn‘t stop.

It was like a bad ‘Who’s On First?’ routine until finally I asked her to call her manager. I stood there as she tried to figure out the phone system and then called the manager and we got it settled but it took about half an hour out of my life I’ll never get back. Then just as I was hoping to end the nightmare she said ‘I’m sorry for the trouble. I’m new here in town. I just moved here from Milwaukee.’ That made me start laughing and she asked me why.

I told her that was my hometown and then she went off on how much she misses it and I stood another ten minutes listening to her babble on about it. This whole trip has been an exercise in holding my temper and not physically beating anyone to death and I could feel I have fallen totally out of the sync I was in with the universe. This was a painful reminder.

Choices have consequences and choosing to take this week of work has trickled a whole lot of them down on me. I will think carefully next time before doing this again. I was on a great mental roll for a couple of months but I’m off of it now. As soon as I’m done here in Tulsa I will make a beeline back to Chicago and hopefully shake this whole experience off.

The show tonight was in a ballroom in a very swank hotel. There were about 500 people for a company holiday party and the big boss was a big time God squad member and made it clear there were to be NO swear words, no George Bush jokes and nothing too ‘racy’. I can do all of that but what’s the exact definition of ‘racy’? It’s different with everyone and I had about ten minutes to put a set together before I went on. This was NOT easy at all.

The audience was a little older and to make it worse there was a big Oklahoma football game on TV in the room while I was on. I did my thirty five minutes and got strong laughs and didn’t say one swear word, even mention George Bush or get ‘racy’ and they loved it. Then I waved and smiled and politely walked out and got in my car and realized I’ve been really ripped off by the booker for this run. That gig alone should have been for the money I got for the week and I thought about it for 300 miles until I got my hotel in Rolla, MO.