Intense In Topeka

Sunday April 27th, 2008 - Topeka, KS/Kenosha, WI

Trouble in Topeka last night. I sure didn’t see this one coming. I was already packed for the drive home when I left for the club from the hotel. I was rested and fed and ready for a good show and then a long drive. I was relaxed and laid back and thinking good thoughts.

But as I walked into the comedy club I could feel a vibe and I knew it wasn’t good. I’ve been at this a long time and I can sense the energy of a crowd before a show. Usually it’s positive but sometimes it’s not. This was not. I felt that giant red flag sliding up the pole.

I looked around and saw an inordinate amount of ball caps and that’s never a good sign. I also noticed a lot of tattoos and odd piercing and that’s also not usually conducive to me having a good show. I could totally feel their angst building. I wasn’t expecting this at all.

The opening act was not the best match for me either. She’s pretty dirty and hasn’t been in comedy all that long and in this kind of a situation that can pour gas on the fire. It’s not a personal thing and I don’t have anything against her but in this situation it did add to the degree of difficulty of the situation. All the stars were lining up against me for this show.

To make it even worse the emcee was a twenty something DJ who hadn’t been taught to host a show and he was clueless as to how to set the tone for the night or introduce any of us. He didn’t make any announcements to keep table talk down and was totally useless.

The opener went up and she had to dig out of a hole from the first ten seconds. She then started swearing and took the show in a direction I was hoping it wouldn’t have to go but now it was and that set the tone. Again, it’s not my job to tell anyone what to do but when they’re opening for me I’d prefer they kept it clean. Most headliners want a clean opener.

That wasn’t in the cards. She had to defend herself and I can’t blame her for that. There was a bachelor party right up front and they wouldn’t let the show get started. There were about a dozen cocky drunken frat boy types and that‘s never good. This reeked of trouble.

They had been doing shots all night apparently and they felt they had to be the center of attention for the comedy show. I have seen these kinds of things get out of hand before so I carefully watched how it played out so I could hopefully just do my time and go home.

This particular place takes an intermission of about ten minutes between the opener and the headliner and no matter how many times comedians beg them not to that’s just how it works here. The booker has tried to get them to stop but they won’t so we just accept it.

If there ever was a night when an intermission hurt it was tonight. By the time I went up the bachelor party was even drunker and I could see I would have a touchy situation here. Some of the people weren’t back from the bathroom yet but the DJ just went up and gave me a horrible intro and brought me up. I tried my best to set a tone and build up a rapport.

I tried to focus on the rest of the people because I knew the party was trouble. The place was full and I hoped to get the others laughing and drown out the idiots. Ha. Nice try. The others were about as stupid as they come and for whatever reason I wasn’t able to get any kind of a roll going. Lines I know kill everywhere weren’t working and it was all over.

I’ve been around the block and can handle these situations because unfortunately I have been in them more than once. Once in a while it just doesn‘t work out. It was going to be a long night and I knew it so I just settled in to finish my time and fulfill my obligation.

That’s when it got ugly. One of the frat boys was checking his phone messages right up front and I had to deal with that. I politely asked him to stop and he shot back ‘If the show was funnier I wouldn’t HAVE to check my messages.’ That was it. I snapped like a twig.

He said it in such a condescending and nasty way it reminded me of my father. I started in on him and tore him a new bung hole right in front of his buddies. He wasn’t ready for that and didn’t know how to handle it. And of course the rest of the idiots loved all of it.

He then took a dollar out of his wallet and walked to the stage and dropped it at my feet and told me to ’take some comedy lessons’. I asked the bouncers to remove the table but I didn’t get any help. I tried going on and they kept yelling and I again asked for some help.

After the third time of asking for these halfwits to get bounced and getting no response I just walked off stage. No amount of money on earth is worth more than my self esteem or dignity and I’ve been doing this way too long to have to prove myself to pinhead morons.

I walked up to the security apes and the bartender and asked why they didn’t bounce the table and I was told ‘Because they work here.’ I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. I just got in my car and left. If I’d stayed I’d have said or done something I’d be sorry for later.

There is a deep seeded anger in me and I’ve struggled with it my whole life. Anger isn’t a bad thing in itself but if it takes the wrong path bad things can happen. I am getting a lot better at dealing with it as I get older but deep down that little spark is still there. Why fan those into flames by staying around that situation? Nothing good would have come of it.

Now I’m going to have to pay the consequences with the booker. He’s a good guy and I like working for him and the last thing I want to do is make trouble but he’ll probably get an earful from the club on Monday. Or not. Maybe they’ll understand and just pay me off.

Fat chance. There will be ripples from this but I will take it like a man and move on. If I never work Topeka or for this booker ever again I won’t starve. I hope it doesn’t come to that but chances are someone’s going to be a little irritable. But they’ll get over it. Me too.

This whole thing came out of the blue and it sure made for an unpleasant 715 mile drive back to Kenosha to do the Mothership Connection radio show today. I didn’t get a chance to sleep and went right to the station. We had a killer show and today I really needed that.