There ARE Bad Audiences

Thursday March 26th, 2009 - St. Charles, IL

Today had all the trimmings of a great day but the show was terrible and that’s what I’ll remember. I took some time to prepare and I was in a very good mood but as usual it only takes a single wank pole to ruin it for everyone. It amazes me how some humanoids are.

I can’t stand it when this happens and it’s happened hundreds of times before. Some ass nugget gets into a comedy show for free and thinks he (or sometimes she) is ‘helping’ and no matter how much they’re told to stop talking nothing will get in their way of babbling.

The older I get the less patience I have with these situations but it really hasn’t bothered me in a while because I’ve had a string of very good shows lately. I’ve been on my game and when that happens I’m a difficult act to heckle because I talk fast and don’t allow for anyone to jump in and mess with me. Once in a while they still do and tonight was it.

It wasn’t just me though. This whole audience was goofy. Audience dynamics are very unpredictable, much like a jury. There are infinite combinations of possibilities as to how they will react and when they are all together they can do some unpredictable things. I am pretty good at reading audiences after all these years but sometimes even I still am fooled.

Normally I love working at Pheasant Run Zanies. The stage is nice and roomy and there is a nice sound system and the lights are good and usually I rock that place. Tonight was a situation nobody expected but we all had to deal with it and everyone is relieved it’s over.

The emcee this week is Mike Preston who has been doing comedy many years. He’s not a complainer at all and even he said he didn’t like them when he came off. The feature act is a young kid named Bryan Berrey who is really funny but is still a little green and hasn’t developed his road chops yet. He will, but tonight he had to deal with this situation too.

To his credit he did his time but his style is to do short and very clever one liners with a setup and a punch line. He doesn’t really interact with the crowd but tonight he needed to. I watched him struggle and it reminded me of the years I spent doing the very same thing.

I got up there and started to hit them hard and bring them into my rhythm. I used all my years of experience to get them in my groove and I had some spots where they were with me but I never got on a really good roll and part of it was because they were just plain old STUPID. Some people say there are no bad audiences but once in a while there just are.

What really made it unpleasant was a group of four halfwits right next to the stage who would NOT stop talking. They talked through Mike and then Bryan and halfway through my show I called them on it and they were smart asses and couldn’t believe I’d do that.

After the show the one who did it the most came back to shake Bryan’s hand and made it a point to not shake mine and make a snide remark I didn’t hear as he walked away and then shot me a glare over his shoulder like he ‘won’. Here’s hoping he gets a butt fungus.