Paid And Grateful

Saturday February 23rd, 2008 - East Peoria, IL

Another night in East Peoria. The old vaudeville term that asked if an act would appeal to the masses was “Will it play in Peoria?” In my case the answer would be yes. I can get laughs in many situations and tonight I pulled off two shows for two very different crowd types. The early show was chatty and drunk and the late one was small but very attentive.

The staff here could not be any more friendly. The club has only been open a few weeks and that will probably change if I should return but for now it was much appreciated. The bad thing is there weren’t enough customers to keep any of us in business for very long.

This is a tricky situation. There’s already a club here that’s been open for years. It’s way across town but this is Peoria and it’s not a very big one. Some towns are just one comedy club towns and this may or may not be one of them. One club can get along fine but when there’s two then both of them suffer. Time will tell if that’s the case here but it’s possible.

Lenny C. is a comic who used to host over at the other place for years. I’d heard of him and the club itself but for whatever reason I just never got booked there. Now Lenny has a silent partner who owns the building and he runs the comedy part. On paper it seems like a great deal but life isn’t lived on paper. This weekend’s shows were lightly attended.

Originally there was supposed to be five shows for the week and the money was not bad at all. That’s why I said yes. But then the Thursday got cancelled and we didn’t do the late show yesterday either. Tonight’s early show was ok but not great and the late show had a good audience but it was very small. I know somebody lost some money this weekend.

The physical building is very nice and the staff is friendly and Lenny has been hosting a show in town for years so on paper this place should be a hit. I felt bad that there wasn’t a lot of people but I am also in business and we made a deal. I did shave a little off what the original deal called for and would have taken more off but Lenny insisted I take my pay.

That was very straight up of him and I appreciate it greatly but I hate to see anybody get burned so early in the game. I met his partner and he seems to be doing alright but still I’d feel bad if the room closed before it got a chance to get going. Normally I don’t feel guilty taking any slime ball club owner’s money but these guys aren’t that at all. They’re honest.

I wish I had a way of paying them back. If I was a draw I could put some butts in here to help make them some money too but right now I can’t do anything but thank them for the cash and move on. There have been many times when I’ve taken it in the shorts but this is a time when I didn’t. I got paid what I was promised and we negotiated down after that.

These are the kind of people who deserve to succeed but unfortunately there aren’t any guarantees of that. I didn’t necessarily enjoy the audiences here because they were a little drunk and rowdy for my tastes and I’ve been through it too many times before but I would certainly come back here if it would make Lenny money. He and the staff were fantastic.