First off I want to say, that as I was walking to class today, I gave my phone number to a homeless dude. He found out I did comedy, and now wants to manage me... Whatever.
NOW, onto the two shows.
Show #1: Piqua, KS. (The only bar in Piqua, KS) with a road comic: I got this show through a booking agent, it was a last minute fill in for another comic, and I didn't have anything better to do. So I went to Piqua, with the headliner, as in we rode together, as in someone else controlled how quickly I could leave a given area. I had to meet the headliner in Bartlesville, a place I had never been, and promptly got lost leaving. The first thing out of the headliners mouth should have let me know what I was in for... "They didn't say you were a black feller... Oh well, let's see what happens." WHAT?! Never mind, I need the money, and I am committed to the show. Let's get this over with, if I am lucky I will get home in time to get yelled at by the girl!
After some weird car chat, the smallest of small talk, we arrive in Piqua! Not that a sign or anything would inform you of such a fact... We get to the bar and to my horror I see the sign advertising the show, it read "100% pure redneck comedy!"Now I don't know if you've gotten a good look at me, but I am not even 80% pure redneck. I was required to do 30 minutes, which is normally not a problem. But to a group who, by their own admission, had never seen another black person, it was weird... Real weird. Like out of a movie weird. I got some pretty gnarly looks and mostly just talked at a crowd for a half hour. Get me the f*** out of here.
After the show the headliner wanted to stick around and sell T-shirts, you know because his life wasn't on the line. So I got to sit around and listen to all manner of "I didn't like that joke about interracial dating you told...." "Barack is going to take my guns" blah blah blah, get me the f*** out of here.
Another hour of bs and I got to ride home, and hear about other similar gigs the headliner could get me! YAY! I got back to my car, and promptly lost his number. Then my phone died and I got lost for 3 hours. Shows me.
Show #2: Addison Improv with Charlie Murphy. Have I told you how much I love hanging out with/performing in front of Charlie Murphy? Probably, so either skip this part or deal with it. Last week was my parents anniversary and they have NEVER seen me perform live. So the night before their anniversary, in lieu of buying them a present I asked Charlie if he could get them into the show, not only did he get them in he got them the best seats in the house AND let me do some time on the show**. Doing time at the Improv, in front of my parents was awesome, I did well, and got to perform at a club I have visited dozens of times.
Backstage the environment was just full of comedy and love, Steve Hirst (the MC and a friend of mine) was talking about all manner of hilarious Britishisms (which spellcheck considers a real word), FreezLuv was doing hilarious characters, and Charlie was being Charlie, vibing, improvising with FreezLuv, backstage with Charlie Murphy and FreezLuv is like listening to two funny guys who know each other so well they can just bounce ideas and comedy off of each other and it is all quality stage ready stuff, that will only get said back stage.
* Well onetime my mom saw me at Stanfords in Kansas City, it was a weird show and I got heckled throughout most of it, I ended up doing okay, but the show was kind of weird.
**Charlie is one of the few major comics in the world who doesn't mind letting a younger unestablished comic do some time on his show. This is an awesome thing he does, you get the feeling that he really cares about younger guys getting work. This means he is doing it for the comedy, and not the money, which I am positive he made a lot of.
Awesome read. You're the funniest "black feller" I know.
ReplyDelete