Tales of Professional Showbiz

I am posting the following in story to help explain why I’m doing a webcomic now after several years of making my living as a stand-up comic. The story, depressingly enough, is all true.

A couple of days before New Years my cell phone went off. It was a local event booker asking me if I was free New Years. As fate would have it I was…because my career was on fire.

Anyway, after the requisite game of phone tag with the booker and the client I was contracted to perform at a “private party” in Tacoma.

The morning of the show I get a phone call from a different promoter asking if I’m free that night. I smugly tell her that I’m booked. It’s a good feeling.

So, that night as I drove to the “party” I puzzled over the fact that it was being held in a theater. I figured either the guy throwing the party was so achingly wealthy that he could afford to rent a theater, or I had been lied to and was performing at a commercial event. When I arrived at the front door and saw that tickets were being sold for $25 a pop, I knew the answer. (The funny thing about this is that hiring a comic for a private party usually costs more than a commercial event.)

Once I talked my way past the ticket booth and a security guard with a wet, hacking cough, I found the person who hired me, who will thus forth be called “the Client.” He explained that the “guests” would be arriving any minute, and that there were 250 reservations. He went on to tell me that the plan was for “You two” to do the show at 9:30, as the guests finished dinner, after that there would be dancing. He then pointed out my opening act. A very good local comedy magician I’ve known for a couple of years. Turns out he got the gig that morning when the booker who I had turned down called him. This means that I turned down a gig opening for myself.

We sit and talk, and watch people slowly filter in. Very slowly. 9:30 comes and goes, as does 10:00.

At 10:15 the man in charge introduces the magician. By this time there are 2 kinds of people in the audience, people who figured they’d have seen the comedy by now and the dancing would have started, and people who deliberately came late to skip the comedy and go straight to the dancing. Not a dream audience.

The room is an old theater with a balcony. The seats have been removed from the main floor and replaced with dinner tables and a dance floor. The magician performs on the dance floor in front of the stage. It became clear immediately that the sound system was only sufficient to reach the first three rows of tables. After that it was a sea of people who could not hear the show and as such, talked amongst themselves, which only made it harder to hear the show. The magician fought them for a half hour and started to get some traction towards the end when he started doing shadow puppets. There was some major disruption at the back of the room, but I didn’t see what it was. Then the magician got his biggest reaction of the night by making the two “Shadow bunnies” hump each other.

I’m thinking “Great. He’ll close big with the humping bunnies, then I’ll sail up there with a lot of energy and steamroll this thing.” The magician finishes the humping bunnies routine and says goodnight. I’m revving up in the corner. The host/MC/Client goes up and instead of introducing me he announces that there will be a 5 minute intermission.

I ask why, and he tells me it’s to clean up. The disruption toward the end of the magic act was a woman having a seizure.

15 minutes later the audience is in a tizzy and the 5-minute intermission is just ending. The host goes up to the dark stage to introduce me. I wait for the stage lights to come up, but they don’t. The silhouette that is the host introduces me and I walk toward the stage expecting the lights to come on any second.

The first 4 jokes of my act were performed on a dark stage, with me taking a moment between each joke to beg the staff to turn the lights on. The lights do finally come on and I get through 3 jokes before I see a tall man in a Santa hat approach the stage. He walks right up to me on the stage and asks me to give him the mike. I say no and he tries to take the microphone away from me. I ask for security, but there’s no sign of them. I fight him off and ask him what he wants to tell the crowd. He mumbles 3 full sentences, but I can only make out the last two words.

“Man milk.”

I tell the audience “man milk” and that seems to satisfy him. I get through another 5 minutes of my act and Man Milk is back trying to wrestle the mike away from me. I ask for security again, but I hold no hope that they will help. If there is security in the room they are clearly rooting for Man Milk. Finally MM gives up and returns to his seat. I get through another few jokes.

The client walks up on the stage next to me and says, “Let’s cut this short.” I look at my watch and I have 2 more minutes to go before contractually they have to pay me. I reply that I’ll do my closing 2 minutes, end the show gracefully, give the DJ a chance to set up and then kick it over to them the client agrees with this and I start into my closing 2 minutes. I get through the set up, right up to the big punch line that always works. The one that gives me the momentum for the big finish.

I’m starting to say the big “saver” punch line when the DJ starts yelling, “Get off the stage! Shut the F up! Let these people dance!”

I tell him that I’m in the middle of my last joke and that I’ll be off the stage in about 30 seconds. He yells for me to get off the stage now. I look at my watch, and my time is just barely up. I say good night and get off the stage.


Out in the lobby I am surrounded with audience members who are telling me that they were enjoying the show, but that it was impossible to hear most of it. I tell them I know.

The host/client comes up and apologizes for what happened. He accepts total responsibility and tells me that it was not my fault. I tell him I know.

He hands me the check. The deal is that the check is made out to the booker and that she will pay me in a week. I look at the check only long enough to verify that the amount and the payee are correct. Then a security drone runs into the lobby and tells the host that they need him because “A speaker just burst into flames.

I walk out to my car, pausing only long enough to hold the door open so that they can hustle the smoking speaker out the door to the sidewalk.

The check bounced. The booker cornered the client and he gave them a credit card number, which was declined. They made a few more attempts to contact him, but for some reason he didn’t return their calls.

Finally, the booker called the police and filed the paperwork to have the client charged with a felony. That broke something loose. The client’s parents (Whom he LIVES WITH) heard that their son was about to get charged and they paid the amount owed.

All in all, it was a lot like that episode of Star Trek where the crew was terrorized by the all powerful Liberace look-alike and then found out that he was just a child.