Wednesday June 8th, 2011 - Ann Arbor, MI I’m still disturbed by that hellish situation last night. I’ve done plenty of one nighters in questionable locations before, but this was downright brutal. It was a decent enough joint, and that’s what made it so scary. It wasn’t a sleazy biker bar or anything. It was a bar that was just remodeled apparently. Those were the stupidest people I’ve seen in a long time. What’s most frightening is the fact that they’d consider doing comedy at all. There was no cover charge which is always a red flag, but as these times go, I was thankful to get the work. Back in the day, one nighters were the backbone of the whole business. They’d pay for the travel expenses, and then a weekend two or three night run was the profit margin. Most of the one nighters were in smaller towns, but at least the people would listen and enjoy the show. That bunch last night acted a lot more animal than human, and they were drunk. Is this a commentary on location, the times or society as a whole? I don’t know. I do know that I’m SO done with these kinds of scenarios, especially when a long drive is involved. Did I get paid? Yes, but it’s not worth it to my dignity to have to fight a mob of disrespectful monkeys just to get their attention. I refuse to do that after all these years. I’m not going to mention the town or the joint or the booker because none of it matters. I actually liked the staff, including the owner. The booker is a good guy and just trying to keep paying gigs alive for comics. I’m upset with the rude behavior of a drooling public. It’s too bad it has all de-evolved to this level. The next generation of comics need those one nighters to polish their craft. These nightmare gigs don’t help anyone grow. It’s more of a babysitting situation and that’s not productive. Maybe comedy is too overexposed for it to be like it was. I know change is inevitable with anything, but this is a big train wreck. Ann Arbor will be fine, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy my weekend there. The pay is a little low, but that’s part of supply and demand. A lot of good comics want to work there, so they’re able to keep their expenses down and still have solid shows. That’s business, and I get it. I’m in business too, and that’s why I accepted the one nighters to piece together a week of work so it’s financially worth my while to be out on the road. Had I chosen to walk off stage last night, I’d be out the pay for last night, tonight since it’s the same owner, and not in good standing with the booker - a fellow comic I like and respect. So, I stayed up there. Nobody in that room knew how difficult that was, and more painfully nobody cared. It’s difficult enough doing a show for people who are paying attention, not to mention yelling random incoherent drunken psychobabble for 45 minutes. It seemed like double eternity. Tonight wasn’t much better. We did a different location of the same restaurant, and the crowd talked most of the way through the show here too. I had a verbal altercation with a cage fighter and his slut bag date, and it got tense for a while before I called their bluff. That could have turned ugly in just a few seconds, but I’ve learned after this many years of facing all kinds of bullies that backing down doesn‘t work. The way to win in that type of situation is to get right in the grill of the idiot and show the audience who’s in charge. I was finally starting to get the attention of at least the majority of the room, and then he piped up with some half witted comment that took me out of my rhythm. I offered him an opportunity to say his piece so everyone could hear him, but he tried to turn it against me. Not smart on his part. He tried to launch his pathetic little verbal BB scud missile, but it didn’t even reach the stage. I didn’t hear it, but I could tell by the tone he meant it to be an attack and I couldn’t allow that. If I’d lost control of the situation it would have been over right there. I’ve been in scenarios like that before, and split second decisions are needed. He had enough scars on his face to let everyone in the joint know whether he’d won or lost his cage fights, he didn’t do it the easy way. This gimoke had a puss that looked like it had hail damage, but his old lady looked worse. She had that distinct trailer park/crystal meth addict look that apparently all ham and egger martial arts wannabes seem to fall for. I hit him with a few heckler lines and made sure I let the audience know I wasn’t afraid of him, even though I had no idea how drunk he was and/or if he was planning on taking any swings or kicks. He probably could have torn my heart through my throat and shown it to me before I died, but by then it was too late. I’d made the first move and was all in. In a perfect world, I don’t want to have any altercations with anyone. I want to perform standup comedy and let the audience forget their troubles for a while, not create my own or any for the club. I warned them both to be quiet for the rest of the show and said if I’d hear one more word the show would be over. He immediately started in so I left the stage. Talk about power. Even though nobody paid a cover charge, by then it was me against a drunken martial arts fighter, and the audience saw that I wasn’t going to back down. I sat down at a table with the opening act Kate Brindle and comedy writer Bill Mihalic who’d stopped in to say hello. The looks on their faces were priceless, and everyone else waited. The silence was deafening, but I was in charge here. I knew the people were having fun, and I’d gladly finish a show for those who wanted to hear it. But, I wasn’t going to let the situation slide and I demanded the two troublemakers get kicked out before I’d continue. The guy got up and tried to get in my face, and I could see he probably was the real deal as some kind of fighter. He had scars and smelled of B.O. and then started making threats of hurting me that everyone else heard. I knew I was ok because he’d threatened me first. Had he hit me, I probably could have sued someone, and I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it so I reached into my pocket for my car keys and had them sticking out through my fingers so I’d have at least some defense. They ended up leaving and I ended up finishing my set, and then it was all over. The audience loved it, but not me. This could‘ve been very ugly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment