A very funny and super nice comedian friend and I where at the tail end of a very long and somewhat boring stint at a hotel in Saskatoon. The staff at that particular hotel are all fabulous people and made the long days and nights much more easy to handle but on a whole being in any hotel for a month is gonna melt your brain a bit.
When the opportunity to do a gig somewhere other than where we were serving our mutual hotel prison time arose the other comic and I jumped at the chance. Now, we didn't really realize at the time it was at least a six hour drive in each direction but regardless we set out. We rented a car for this gig as the other comics vehicle was being fixed. We packed ourselves up, grabbed a coffee, he got a traffic ticket and away we went.
The Toyota Yaris is a fine car. It really is. However this is winter (near as makes no never mind anyway) in the frozen North and the Yaris, good intentioned though it may be, really isn't built for it. My friend once described the car as being built purposefully for a sixteen year old girl's birthday. We had a blue one that at some point in it's forty thousand kilometers had been rented by either a Brama bull during a three week drinking binge or Bruce Banner who sadly forgot to exit the vehicle before he got too angry.
It was a bit beat. However, we were on our way and things were grand. We got to the venue shortly before the show. Now in order to illustrate how this venue is laid out I've supplied you with this wonderful, well illustration:
Now, obviously I'm an artistic genius. Before you ask, no I won't free hand draw you and your loved ones for your wedding pictures or to commemorate important family occasions. It's a delicate gift and I don't want to pervert it for financial gain.
On the raised section to the left of the stage (Left in the drawing above. It was on our right while we were on stage, let's not split hairs here.) there was a drunken Christmas party for employees of the former owner of the very bar we were in. Needless to say because of his previous importance in the pyramid of power that is the Whisky Creek Pub in Medicine Hat his party was allowed to get somewhat out of control.
When you hit a gig like this you never know how many people are actually there for the show. It's an unknown variable. That close to Christmas, on something of a snowy night will we have people there? I dunno. We did. I'd say there where anywhere from thirty to forty people not including the twenty something drunk ass Christmas party goers belonging to the former emperor of beer or whatever the hell he was. A turnout like that, the chance to do a bar show when all we had been doing was behave yourself corporates, well this is gonna be a fun one. Especially after all that time in the lunch box of a car we rented to get there. Okay. Let's do this.
The other comic goes up first. Dude's funny. Really. He's also an old school style comic. This guy knows the road and he knows how to play to pretty much any room out there. This is no freshly enlisted comic just sent to the front lines of bar gigs and sad hotels. Nope, this guy knows how to handle himself. The crowd, well, the crap party is pretty rowdy but I know this dude and I know he's gonna nail them down no problem. As he started his set a young man with a puffed out chest and shaved head, going for something of a softer gentler skinhead* look, began a game of pool at the table near the DJ booth. I was standing there, I evil eyed the guy. If I wasn't so afraid of Nazis I would surely have talked to him more sternly aside from my cowardly croak of "Hey man, could you wait until after the show to play?" or whatever it was I said. Then I put beer in my face. Conquering the Nazis is thirsty work. He picked up the cue ball, put it in his hoodie pocket and walked away with a a dirty look. Whatever baby Goering.
They say for a comedian there is little funnier than watching a good comic, particularly a friend, bomb. It's great. When you know they're good and for some reason they're having a rough time it's really funny. Just watching the flop sweat, like watching a man drown in slow motion but even funnier. Well, that got dark. Anyway, they say that it's hilarious and usually it is. This wasn't that. He was having a rough time for no reason other than the table of drunk morons simply had no idea there was even a show going on. They just kept going, a heckle here or there maybe but mostly just an arrogant ignorance. This served to not only irritate and annoy the comic on stage and the staff but most importantly the people who actually paid and wanted to see the show. Nothing pisses me off more than not being able to do a good show for people who want to see one. If it was just a room full of idiots then that's one thing but when it's a few ruining it for the many, that drives me up the wall.
The comic on stage pulled every trick in the book to get them to pay attention but after about half an hour it was obviously not going to happen and so he left. At this point the audience that wanted to see the show had started to heckle the drunk idiots, the staff had got on them for being loud and so they got a lot louder, all hell was breaking loose.
YOUR NEXT ACT, SIMON KING!
I'm loud. It's sort of what I do. I'm loud and aggressive and don't usually have a hard time getting a room to focus. This doesn't necessarily mean what I do when I get there attention is that great but I can usually get eyes and ears on me. I tried everything. I really did. I went through every trick and technique in the play book. I talked to them. I ignored them. I shouted over them. I got quiet. I appealed to them. I even threatened them. Nothing.
I'm not Jewish. I'm not, there's a chance there may be some Jewish blood in my history somewhere due to my mutt like genetic make up but I have to say in every measurable way I would not be considered a Jew. I have a beard. I don't know if that makes me Jewish to some people but Santa has a beard and so does Mr. T and as far as I know unless the "T" is shortened from Thamblestein then I don't think beards are an exclusively Jewish facial hair. If I had ringlets with the beard, yeah I could see it.
The reason I bring up my lack of membership in the tribe is because early in my set, about five minutes in, the junior skinhead from the pool table said in a low slow sort of way "Jeeeeewwwwwwwwiiisssssshhhh."**
He didn't call me a Jew. He didn't say go fuck yourself with a Minora, nope. He just let this sort of weird low chant out of his mouth. Then he told me to put a Dreidel on. I corrected him and told him he probably meant Yamaka and then I left it alone for fear of an arrant cue ball to the side of the head when least expected.
This was how it was going. A stellar show. I burned through about thirty minutes of material so quickly that even I was surprised. I fought the drunks, every so often they would shut down for a minute and claim they where watching the show and then they'd go back to what they were doing. The audience turned on the jackasses something fierce. It was a mess.
At one point maybe twenty minutes in I explained to the drunks that I didn't need them to watch the show. I didn't need them to like me. If they wanted to go next door there was an empty bar just waiting for them to destroy it. Just go next door. It's empty. You won't have some chubby dude yelling and wrecking your good time. No dice. They were not going anywhere.
I've never walked off stage in my life. I've never just left because I really, really don't like to admit defeat. At about half an hour into what was supposed to be a forty five minute set I had the mic back in the stand and was about to take that step. At this time out of nowhere the waitress walked up and handed me a shot. I was focused on the idiots to my right so I didn't see her come up. She said it was from the guys at the door. Now, I thought I was being messed with so before I drank it I turned to see where it came from. It came from two very good friends of mine. Comedians in town for a separate show who had found out we where here and thought they'd come for a drink. They stood at the door with the comic who opened the show, all smiling. All loving this beating I was taking. I mean who wouldn't? It must have been hilarious to watch me sweat more than usual and spew impotent rage.
It should be noted as an aside to this story that the two comedians who had just arrived were both around six foot five wearing exactly the same black dress shirt, black pants outfit. It's not really important to the story but they looked like Russian mob trying to be inconspicuous and I found it very funny.
According to what one of the newly arrived comedians told me later it looked as though I had decided to fight an entire table of people. Like something snapped and I was taking a stand. A line drawn down the middle of a stage in a small town one winter night. Nope. Not me. I hate violence. Probably because I'm not that good at it.
I drank the shot and then said this "Alright, if they won't leave how about we do. Anyone who wants to follow me to the bar next door come on and we'll finish the show in there."
I walked off stage, through the doors to the bar on the other side and was followed by everyone aside from maybe five of the drunks. Even their table abandoned them.
I set us up on a the raised section at the back of the room. Everyone got drinks and seats. Not the best sight lines but I did about twenty five or thirty minutes in between the tables. No mic. No stage. No lights. Nowhere I'd rather be. One of the best sets I've ever had. From my point of view at least.
I went as long as I could before my voice left me under the strain of fighting the drunks from earlier and filling a room. I finished my set and thanked the audience profusely. I didn't even try to sell cds, it would have been gauche. Didn't want to wreck moment with the coarse capitalism of it.
Those audience members where amazing. They were respectful and so good and more than anything else they totally seemed to understand where I was coming from. We were all there together and that's amazing.
After the show one of the comics gave me a terrific compliment that I'll keep forever. It meant a lot. We went back to the hotel and drank and hung out until the wee hours.
My job can be pretty amazing sometimes.
Oh yeah, the next day we got a flat tire and there was no jack in the car so we were forced to spend hours in Medicine Hat getting a new tire and almost didn't make it back for our show that night. The story wouldn't be as cool if added that though now would it?
*this will be relevant shortly
**told ya
