530 Wasted Miles

Tuesday August 26th, 2008 - Decatur, IL/Rockford, IL/Lake Villa, IL

For as much effort as I put into being an intelligent person and making smart decisions I sure can pull off some world class stupid things. Today was one of my finest hours. It will be a long time before I can top this one and I hope it is. This was one for the record book.

I’ve got two one nighters booked for this week. One is at the Holiday Inn in Decatur, IL and the other is at a place called LT’s in Rockford. I’ve done them both probably a dozen times over the years and it should be no big deal. I have worked for John Yoder for years. He’s the guy that books these two places and it’s about as easy of a transaction as there is.

He sends me an email asking if I’m open for the dates. I say yes. He puts me in and then sends me a confirmation with an itinerary of the information I’ll need like time and place and date and contact numbers, stuff like that. I show up and do the gigs and get my pay.

That shouldn’t be an issue at all and for the last however many times I’ve done this run there have been no problems at all. I showed up and did my show and even though some audiences were better than others there were no problems like I had to deal with tonight.

For whatever reason I stupidly went to DECATUR today rather than Rockford. I knew Decatur was always on a Wednesday but I totally had a brain pan malfunction and went a day early. I had lunch with Marc Schultz and everything and I told him I was heading out to Decatur and it never crossed my mind even once that this was Tuesday. I just blew it.

My drive was leisurely and actually pretty relaxing…until I got to the Holiday Inn and asked to check in. The guy behind the counter looked at me and wrinkled an eye brow as he asked ‘You want a room TONIGHT?’ I said ‘Uh…yes please.’ He then said ‘You’re a COMEDIAN?’ I pointed to the poster for the show and said ‘Yes. That’s me right there.’

He said ‘OK but the show is TOMORROW night. We do our comedy on Wednesdays.’ That’s when it hit me like a cement boxing glove to the face. My eyes got big and I knew I blew it. I laughed about it with the desk clerk and then made a mad dash back to the car.

If Decatur was tomorrow that must mean Rockford was TONIGHT. It was 7pm and I’d have to really hustle to make it on time for a 9pm show. I called the club in Rockford and got the worse news that their show started at 8pm. Gulp. There was no way I’d make it to Rockford, IL from Decatur by show time so I asked if they could hold the show for a bit.

As I was asking my phone ran out of juice and shut off. I have no car charger right now because my new phone doesn’t fit on my old charger. What a scam and I didn’t spend the $40 to get the new one because I just don’t have an extra $40 right now. So I’m screwed.

This is when the frustration sets in. I needed to be in Rockford and it was far away but I was the one who made the mistake so it was up to me to fix it. I cranked my Honda up as far as it would go and I risked life and limb at 95mph to hopefully make this all go away.

It’s amazing how quickly the tide can turn and completely change everything. Just a few minutes ago I was relaxing and preparing to take a nice shower and get ready for the show and now I’m like a NASCAR driver in a cross country race hoping to make good time.

I didn’t follow my rule of wearing something that I could wear on stage in a pinch while I drive because I wasn‘t expecting this at all. Everything I ‘usually’ do was not done today and I laughed about it because it was pretty funny. When it rains it pours but this was way bigger than just a rain storm. This was a tsunami of stupid and I was the one who did it.

USUALLY I have my phone charged up. USUALLY I know where I’m going and what day to be there. USUALLY I show up on time. This was not a usual day but all I could do since I couldn’t call anyone was try to get to Rockford and do damage control and hope to be able to salvage a show and not have the owner call John Yoder and cause a big scene.

One thing I did right was keep my wits about me in all this commotion. I didn’t panic at all and thought things through as I sped up I-39 toward Rockford. Would this affect me in the big scheme of life? No. Would it ruin my career? No. What’s the worst thing that may happen if I miss the gig? Well, John Yoder might get a call. I can live with that. It’s ok.

John is a reasonable guy and he’s been booking comedians for 30 years. I’m sure he has had comics miss shows in the past and the world is still spinning. If I have to pay him his commission out of my pocket as a penalty I’ll do it but I doubt if he’ll stop booking me.

With all those things going through my mind I knew this wouldn’t be a crisis but only a minor inconvenience and whatever consequences there would be I’d be able to accept the final outcome and move on. I was a little angry at myself for being so stupid but I moved past that too after a short time. The damage was done and being angry wouldn’t help any.

The reason this happened is that I’m TOO familiar with the circumstances. I’ve been at this for so long that I didn’t check the details like I would normally do. I ‘assumed’ and it is never good to do that. Well, the ‘ass’ this time was just ‘me’. There was no ‘u’ at all. It was my fault and I claimed the mistake and didn’t dwell on it after a while. I felt ok then.

The smart thing to do was keep focusing on good things so that’s what I did. I pictured myself onstage rather than getting yelled at by the owner. I pictured him giving me money rather than having me write a check to John Yoder. I totally focused on that while I drove.

Then when I got to LT’s I saw another guy on stage. I figured they must have called one of the locals in and it was actually relief to see the show going on. As it turns out I was on the wrong night here too. LT’s does comedy TWO nights a week and I’m booked for their show on THURSDAY instead of Tuesday. I dodged a bullet but what a bad way to do it.

I could have stayed in Decatur and relaxed because I had tonight OFF. What a dummy I am for not looking at that itinerary closer. Here I drove a total of 530 miles when I should have stayed home and relaxed all day. I sure learned my lesson today. Read the itinerary.