The Night Nothing was Funny!

The pieces came careening at me like a cosmic puzzle. I hadn’t realized it yet, but I was walking into a stand-up comic’s nightmare!

I had just come from the finest comedy club in America, The Comedy Caravan in Louisville, KY (Great money, six days work, nice stage, decent housing, and friends). Happily, I began the next week’s work on a tour of twelve different cities in two weeks. If you can’t do the “A” clubs, one-nighters (long drives, cheap or no motels, bad stages, and some venue managers reluctant to pay) are the easiest shows for most comics to book.

As the particular establishment in question is still open, with nasty lawyers, I decline to mention the name of the business, or the city. The truth: if I made fun of him and he caught up with me, a certain humongous bouncer promised to erase my scrawny butt from the planet. I write this with the safety that he’s certainly not an Internet user, because he probably still can’t read.

The first piece of the puzzle worked its way into the picture unobtrusively. The rat of a booking agent told me the names of the other two acts. They were from Detroit and I didn’t know them. That was only the first of many red flags that I would completely miss. My quasi-official world record for performing in 1000 cities in ten years had left me with a working knowledge of most of the knuckleheads, who, like me, were criss-crossing America.

I’m a LA comic. I hoped they spoke the same stand-up language as me.

The next two puzzle pieces cartwheeled past me like a horny cheerleader. My itinerary revealed the show that night was at 7pm, and was at the same address as our accommodations. This is never a good sign for a tour like this. Doing a comedy show at 7pm? It’s my experience that a drinking crowd is at it’s most uncontrollable; either very late or very early… a 7pm show?? Also, when you do a show in the same place as you stay, everybody knows in which rooms of the motel the comics stay. Hope you like visitors!

After I checked in with the motel, they told me I would be in the Pat Paulsen room. No big deal, he was the act appearing last week, so I got the same room.

The fourth piece of the puzzle slapped me in the face as I walked into the adjacent bar to inspect the stage. There was a brass pole on the stage, and I now knew there was going to be trouble at the show tonight. If you don’t get it yet, brass poles mean there are strippers nearby. Strippers?? That’s not good for Mr. Jokey-boy! It’s especially not good for Mr. Jokey-boy, if he wears Red Shoes.

I wandered back to my room to see if the other acts had checked in yet.

Nope!

I found the washing machines and dryers and washed everything I owned. When one is on the road, one doesn’t know when one can wash their show clothes and daily wear next. I thought I was just staying ahead of the curve. When I came to change my stuff into the dryer; I just about had a hissy fit. Everything I owned was a cute, light pink color!

Another piece of the crazy puzzle fit into its place.

Frantically, I dashed off to buy some new clothes for the show in two hours. I’ll never curse K-Mart again. I found some Levis’ and a button-down shirt. A thought hit me: “Why is this night different from every other night?

I went back to my room and found messages from the other two acts. One was from a Miss Gwen Sarrong and the other was from Peter and Billy. I returned the calls. Now, just thirty minutes before the show began, I was informed my opening act was a transvestite, and my closing act was a ventriloquist!

His dummy told me not to do any cat jokes, and the transvestite warned me not to wear my Red Shoes. Exactly why I do not take ventriloquists seriously, much less some guy in drag.

I went to the showroom early to check in with the venue manager and discovered the audience was primarily from some lumberjack outfit, with some stragglers streaming in from the local slaughterhouse. Not counting our opening act; there wasn’t a woman in the house. I was sure all the pieces of the ambush puzzle had fallen into place, then I saw the headline stripper start a backstage catfight with our visiting trans-gender type person. Great, Gypsy Rose Lee vs. Betty Boop on steroids.

I stepped between the scantily clad combatants and reminded Diana, or Larry, or Miss Whoosis, the comedy show started in ten minutes. To this day, I’m not sure which of them left that powder handprint on the seat of my new pants. But they separated and we each went to our various dressing areas. Mine was the janitor’s closet, which was OK, because the smell prevented any visitors from popping in.

I checked to see if I was still presentable, and wandered out to judge my opener’s competency. The slaughterhouse guys weren’t buying it, and they weren’t laughing. The lumberjacks offered to do a sex change operation right there using their axes!

But, they were laughing and in a good mood, so I steeled myself for an interactive show. At the ten-minute mark, he/she/it started crying and rushed from the stage. Maybe his multi-sequined gown with the plunging back was just pinching too tight.

I prayed for luck and marched to center stage. I announced there would be a raffle to find out who got to drive the stripper home, after she beat the crap out of Diana! This seemed to please the meat packers and lumberjacks, as well as the guy who had to pay me. Hardly a killer start, but I had everybody going!

Next, I told them I was Lue Deck, The Comic in Red Shoes, and I’d skin any dude here who believed I was a sissy like Diana/Larry! More laughs from the cheap seats. Hell, there was nothing but cheap seats in this place! I did best my sex and pot jokes, hoping that would fit the mood. It did!

More big laughs!

On a roll, I left the stage with a cordless microphone and started plowing my way through the now seventy or so souls in attendance. I did the old “play the crowd trick” asking individuals questions and lampooning their answers. I insulted every guy in the place, and they thought it was pretty cool.

Actually, I must’ve gone a little too far while laying into one heckler. He was the bouncer, and son of the owner who was dating the pugilistic stripper. I told the crowd I had seen him slipping out of the cross dresser’s bedroom before the show.

This young moron pulled a knife and offered to end my miserable existence, now. His raucous buddies restrained him long enough for the manager to approach the stage and pay me, while he advised me the hot head would bust loose soon. I took my bow, smiled and went back to my room.

I packed, checked out, jumped in my car and headed towards the next town. Welcome to the comedy trail, where just about anything can happen. Oh yeah, that ventriloquist…I heard later…they nearly lynched his dummy.

I smiled again, knowing I had barely survived the night when nothin’ was funny!

Politics Factzone: The truth about Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il, the leader of the free world, has decided to move on to more fertile grounds, leaving with us just the memories of 8-color rainbows, singing Korean women and couple of nuclear weapons. But who was this man whose next ambition would have been to get the next Nobel Peace prize? Here are just a few facts you should know about. more Top 5 Conspiracy Theories Related to John F. Kennedy's Assassination 26.Aug 2011 Since just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, conspiracy theories abou...read ISRAEL KEEPING GHADDAFI AFLOAT 10.Mar 2011 ...read Glen Beck Is NOT the Anti-Christ! 10.Mar 2011 Hurtful and fiery rhetoric is now media’s default setting! This slippery and m...read Recipe for A REVOLUTION! (10 easy steps - try not to get burned!) 28.Feb 2011 Rebellion is cooking in the air. People are mad as hell, and not going to take...read THE ASSANGE CASE. CIA INTERFERED WITH SWEDISH LEGAL PROCESSES EXTREME RIGHT POLITICS A DANGER TO EUROPEAN UNITY THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY. OUT OF TOUCH, OUT OF FOCUS, OUT OF CREDIBILITY AND HOPEFULLY, OUT OF THE DOOR Opinion World governments charged with criminal negligence (in response to Megaupload case) EARTH (thecheers.org) - Federal authorities of the universe have charged the governments of all the countries in the world as well as the operators actually in power in these countries with operating a criminal enterprise, the Galaxy warriors announced Today. more The Great OSCARS 2011 – or so it would seem 5.Mar 2011 So, how exciting......a morning off, the Academy Awards. I wish I could say the...read Top 7 Expensive Bordellos. Prostitution: Shakedown, Tier Down, and Priced Out 31.Jan 2011 According to a report of the Washington DC-based US Department of State, The Ph...read The Great Secret and Reason for the JFK Assassination 11.Oct 2010 The great question is why the great secret? On June 4 1963, President Kennedy s...read Don't Do it! The 3 Worst Times to Get Tattoos 4.Oct 2010 As a general rule, tattoos gotten after 2 am are a bad idea. But in a bigger pi...read

Travel Travel Warning 13 September 2010 - DO NOT TRAVEL TO IRAN 13.Sep 2010 TRAVELWISE has been watching the situation in Iran for some months in relation ...read more TRAVELWISE TRAVEL ADVISORY 5th June 2010. DO NOT TRAVEL TO ISRAEL. 5.Jun 2010 Given the recent incident whereby the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, used...read TRAVELWISE. 16 APRIL 2010. EUROPEAN TRAVEL ALTERNATIVES 16.Apr 2010 Travelwise issues the following advice in relation to cancelled flights to, fro...read TRAVELWISE 6 APRIL 2010. AUSTRALIAN AIR TRAVEL. THE BEST WAYS TO TRAVEL BY AIR IN AUSTRALIA. 5.Apr 2010 Regular readers might have seen and read the various advisory and no-fly notice...read TRAVELWISE 2 APRIL 2010. QANTAS. 2.Apr 2010 Some concerns have been raised in relation to some of the maintenance practices...read Sport No Payoff From the Playoffs $16.50 will Get Anyone in the Hall Mr McGwire Stupid Athlete Tricks Technology Think Big! Think the World's Largest International Trade Show Top 9 cool laptop accessories for laptop geeks Twittering: I'm not that interesting Cheers Jesus' Answering Machine Brown Couch or twelve midgets in the town square How To Be Happy Drugged Out Saturday Nights Muslim Decapitation: Bad, or Simply Misunderstood?