My Latest Mistake

Tuesday June 16th, 2009 - Bowling Green, OH

My life has been one continuous steady stream of questionable to poor personal choices in combination with plain old rotten luck. That little winning combo platter has gotten me to exactly where I am today. Still, I did manage to squeeze in at least a couple of halfway smart things along the way and that’s what’s keeping me among the living as I write this.

I sure can be pig headed and stubborn when I want to be and today was yet another fine example of that. I know I should be turning down low paying one night hell runs but I did another one anyway. I ended up losing money in the deal and I’m the only one to blame.

The gig I did was in Bowling Green, OH which is about 25 miles south of Toledo. It’s a place called “Grumpy Dave’s Pub” but there’s minimal grumpiness as Dave is actually an easygoing laid back guy. I’ve done the gig several times in the past and it’s been decent as far as one nighters on a Tuesday go. It’s not a career maker but I knew that going in. Fine.

For all my life my policy has always been if I have a choice to work or not work I’ll do the gig even if it’s less than stellar conditions and/or pay. I like to practice my craft and if I can get in front of an audience or stay home I’ve almost always chosen to take the work.

Those times are now over. There are such things as too long of a drive or too low of pay and tonight turned out to be both. I hadn’t been here in a while and it was WAY longer of a drive than I’d remembered. Plus, I’d decided to take US Highway 6 to save tolls which would have taken an even bigger bite into my final numbers but it slowed me down a lot.

I showed up right at show time and there were 14 people in the joint. The opener was a guy who called himself (no joke) “Uncle Dick”. He’s probably close to my age or even a little older and has only been doing comedy for nine months. He was happy to get the gig and said he’d heard very good things about me and wanted to work with me. That’s nice.

How could I not be flattered by that? I know he meant it too because he sat and watched my whole show beginning to end and was laughing out loud the whole time. That’s not an everyday occurrence. Most openers try to score free drinks or chicks or both but not him.

Pat Duax was the feature act and I’ve known Pat for many years. He’s from Chicago but moved to Florida twenty years ago and we’ve worked together many times in many towns over those years and when we tried to remember them all we both started drawing blanks.

I like Pat personally and he’s a road veteran like me who never ‘made it’. We both have survived and made a living and in many ways that IS ‘making it’ but not in the eyes of the public I suppose. Neither of us has had a sitcom or big HBO special or anything like that.

I have to believe the HBO special would be much easier than trying to entertain a group of 14 people at Grumpy Dave’s Pub in Bowling Green, OH on a muggy drizzly Tuesday night in June but we did it anyway. We’re used to it. That’s what we’ve done for years.

After the show I received the door proceeds and was instructed to distribute the money. I never like doing that but that’s what the deal was tonight. The booker is a comic named Steve Sabo who is doing a month of USO shows in Iraq and obviously couldn’t pay us so the honor fell down to me. I opened the envelope and noticed right away it was a bit light.

The instructions said to count up the cash and if there was a shortage Steve would pay it out of his pocket when he gets back from Iraq. I wasn’t expecting that at all but I’ve been on the road long enough I’ve seen just about everything by now. The right thing to do was pay Pat in full, which I did. He’s from Florida and is out for six weeks and needs it more.

I need mine too but I took the hit this time. Steve is a very honorable guy and he’ll take care of it but I don’t want to have him pay it out of his pocket. My gas will probably come to about fifty bucks and with a couple of meals maybe $65-70. I’d rather have him pay me that and have him owe me a favor than bleed cash out of a guy’s pocket. I know how it is.

I’ve lost money on shows too and the honorable thing is to pay the comics off but that’s not always easy to do. Normally Grumpy Dave’s has enough people to cover it and make a few bucks for Steve but tonight wasn’t one of those nights. I don’t have a problem with any of that. My problem is with myself for even taking the gig. THAT was my mistake.

I have to get it in my thick marble skull that I’m past doing gigs like this. No offense to Grumpy Dave’s or Steve Sabo or Bowling Green or anything like that. I’ve graduated the low minor leagues and it’s stupid for me to keep going back there even if I could use the few bucks on a Tuesday. It’s more expensive than that. It took up a lot of my work time.

I still tried to make the best of it all the way out by writing out my plan of attack for my comedy class fall sessions and also some Uranus Factory Outlet ideas and that was useful but I totally could have done that at home five feet from my bed. I didn’t need to drive out to Ohio 312 miles one way to stand on stage for an hour and five minutes for 14 people.

Those people were actually very nice though and they laughed and I shaped some of my new bits and used the time as wisely as possible but in reality I could have easily stayed in the Chicago area and gone to any Zanies and got on stage for a few minutes and tried a bit there too. I wouldn’t have gotten an hour but I probably would have had more of a crowd.

Then to make it worse it started pouring after the show so any thought of driving home was zapped. Good thing they have a hotel for us so I used it. It was a very nice and newly remodeled Knight’s Inn and I got the last room which turned out to be the Jacuzzi suite.

I was going to sit in it but I couldn’t help thinking of the poor maid who’d have to scrub it out in the morning so I decided not to. I know it’s ’her job’ but she’s got enough trouble in her own life I’m sure so hopefully me not sitting in it made her work day a little easier.

I learned my lesson today. These types of gigs are fine but not for me at this time in life. I’ve paid my dues and if I want to open up bigger doors I have to stop playing with these.