Drugstore Bob

Sunday June 22nd, 2008 - Chicago, IL

Way back when I first started doing open mike comedy it was a place called Sardino’s on Farwell in Milwaukee. It was a music club and the place Al Jarreau started his singing career before me. They had a Monday night comedy showcase and that’s where I cut my teeth and started to learn my craft. It was a real education and tonight I earned my degree.

My mentor C. Cardell Willis used to host those Monday nights at Sardino’s much like I now host the Zanies showcases on Mondays in Chicago. We would go up and try to make whatever tiny gathering of people that showed up laugh and it was a part of paying dues.

There was a pharmacist who was a regular customer at the bar and everyone called him ‘Drugstore Bob’. Drugstore Bob had a nose redder than Rudolph’s and would get a snoot full and start heckling the comics. Sometimes it was sooner and sometimes later but there wasn’t a week that went by where that cranky old boozed up bastard wouldn’t pipe up.

He was very sharp and cutting and just plain mean when he wanted to be. Sometimes he was funny but most often he was right. He would critique the individual comedian and his or her jokes and many times he was dead on correct. He’d make fun of their clothes or the content of their act and more than several times he’d make an act leave the stage in tears.

My old man was a bully and I never put up with that kind of stuff throughout my life. It is probably my biggest pet peeve and I’ve gotten beaten up for it but I never back down to a bully. Most of them are useless and when confronted they back right down and shrivel.

Bob had stamina, I’ll give him that. He would show up late some nights and we thought we were off the hook but sure enough he’d start flinging insults toward the stage and then it was game on. He was pretty nasty when he wanted to be and I had no tolerance for that.

I can’t remember exactly when it was but one night I was doing pretty well and Bob had to get in on it. I was ready for him and laid him out with a few good lines and he held up a white handkerchief and surrendered. I didn’t let that happen and kept on giving him a face full to pay him back for all those other comedians he brutalized and the place went nuts.

After I was done Cardell came back up on stage with a look on his face like his son hit a grand slam to win the 7th game of the World Series. ‘Take THAT Drugstore Bob! I’ve got a PROTÉGÉ now!’ I thought Cardell was going to give me a hug right there. He loved it.

That was 25 years ago now and I’m sure Drugstore Bob is dead. He was old and boozed up back then but maybe it pickled his liver and he’s still around. But I doubt it. He liked a cocktail and judging from the crimson honker he called his nose it didn’t like him back.

As I came up the ladder at Sardino’s Bob would talk to me and told me he respected my determination and said he knew of all the rookie acts that I would be the one to finally get him to shut up. As goofy as it sounds I wish I had a picture of him and I from back then.

Nobody realized it at the time but Bob was a one man comedy training academy. He did his best to shoot down young up and coming comedians just to see we were made of. The brutality of it was not for the emotionally squeamish but to me it was ninja training class.

When I knew I could shut Drugstore Bob up it gave me my first pebble of confidence. It let me know that I may have at least a little aptitude for this after all. I still was far off as a writer of material but my heckling handling skills were very sharp from a very young age.

Over the years I’ve had to deal with more than my share of hecklers, drunks, idiots, bad seeds, losers, imbeciles, whiners, freeloaders, peanut heads, wankers and all the variations of those groups. I have gotten in trouble a few times - well more than a few times - but all these years later it takes a whole lot to rattle me up there. I’ve been through it all before.

Tonight was the last show for Jerry’s Kidders at Zanies. This has been a long week and I am not sad to see it come to an end. We did accomplish a few positives but I am still not thrilled with the numbers we did. I know it’s summer, blah blah blah, but I want to work.

Well, I guess I need to rephrase that because I did nothing but work tonight. I had to get 33 people from all over the country who felt like talking out loud to be on the same page. A big group of them were from Cleveland and they would NOT let me do my show at all.

I had to nail them with line after line and they laughed hard but it took every little bit of experience I learned from Drugstore Bob and every other dough head who thought they’d ‘help’ my show over the years. This was not a fun show and I had to keep my anger quiet.

I don’t know if it was so much anger as frustration. No, maybe it was exasperation. This week was humiliating enough without ending it on a sour note but that’s what happened. I am just not up for doing battle with a bunch of mouthy out of towners who won’t shut up. I guess I’m ‘good’ at it but what is good? I thought I had a pretty good act to give them.

For whatever reason my needs are not being met here. I used to love going head to head in verbal sparring matches but now I can’t stand it. I just want to do my show for a crowd like the second show Saturday who loved it and NOT like tonight or Thursday’s mud pit.

We didn’t make our goal this week but it still wasn’t a total loss I guess. We impressed a few people from the station and those who did come to see us loved the shows but I am having a difficult time focusing on that because of the frustration of tonight’s situation.

Tony Talley and Ken Rosenbaum came out to support us and that was great. Tony is an example of why I keep teaching classes. He loves to perform and has made an effort to be the best comedian he can be and that’s very satisfying for me to see happen all this time.

Ken is a great guy too but he did it for a while and now he’s just a friend. Tony is a peer because he‘s still out there performing. I respect that. I know he learned by watching what went down tonight and I hope it helps him. Drugstore Bob helped me get through tonight.