20 Years Ago — The Future Decided For Me

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

While my first trip to UK in August 2000 was mostly a showcase to see how audiences took to me, and how I related to them, the real test would come for two weeks at the end of October. It would not only mean spending my 50th birthday in Cork, Ireland, which I’d never heard of before, but experiencing the 2000 US Presidential election from afar. As a result of that election, I began to look forward to spending much more time in UK than my birthplace, but more on that later.

Happily, the trip in August was enough of a catalyst that I could think of nothing else when I got back to LA except how to get back to UK. My newly acquired agent was based in London and had an in with immigration services so that he could get the work papers for foreign acts that other agents seemed to have difficulty getting. He gave me a full diary for my first venture, including one Saturday where I had three gigs, but they were spaced so that taxis were the only way I could guarantee actually getting to them. I wound up spending my entire wage for one of the three gigs just paying for taxis. The third of those gigs I remember was at a place I really wanted to do, as the club had the great name of Heckler’s. It was in Leyton, which is sort of Northeast London, but I was coming from a gig in Ealing, at another great-named venue, Ha Bloody Ha, on the Western end of London. After a 45 minute, £30 ride, I got to Heckler’s just in time to literally jump out of the cab and onto the stage, only able to do 10 minutes because of strict licensing rules, and getting docked a few pounds for showing up so late. In spite of the anguish, all three of those gigs were really fun. The opening set at Hampstead, also in North London, was intimate, the crowd was fantastic, and I would do that room frequently over the years.

The night before that marathon, I had showcases at the two most important rooms in all of UK. The first one was at The Comedy Store, which made me get giddy about being able to play both the one in LA and the one in London, the London venue having a long running feud with the LA venue because the LA owner didn’t get an international copyright on the name, so unfortunately for her, she was unable to sue the London owner, who all but admitted stealing the name. Sadly for me, the London Store didn’t happen for me, partially because I had to do a 10-minute showcase following another act with a guitar who totally demolished the room. I didn’t bomb there, but obviously didn’t do as well as I hoped, because the owner’s assessment after I was done was, “I need to figure out how to fit you in,” which to me was a pretty obvious no, though he added, “and you were excellent by the way, but you know that.” I did wind up working some of their road rooms, but never the London one, which many comics said was the best room in UK. I would never know. However, that same night, I had a showcase at Jongleurs, a chain which had about 12 rooms throughout the country, and their feeling, as expressed to my agent, was “How soon can we book him.” By the time I started working for them, about three months after this showcase, they had expanded to 15 rooms, and would open several more in the coming years, plus several one-nighters at various regional theatres.

The following Tuesday after my upper/downer Friday was the Election, and my girlfriend, whom I had met in the US in September, and was American but lived semi-conveniently in Germany, was visiting. We stayed at an absolute shithole of a B&B, which I had booked only because I was looking for what I could get for £50 a night. About the only good thing about it was the location, in a rather central part of London and accessible to pretty much everything. We woke up on the Wednesday after the election to find that they were unable to process the results from Florida because of some deficiencies in the ballots. Remember the phrase “hanging chads?” Al Gore had conceded to George W Bush, but then had taken back his concession pending a further recount.

This recount would go on for the remaining days I was in UK/Ireland, with it going to the Supreme Court, who then put it up to the Florida legislation. The Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, was a Bush supporter, and since the ball was in her Court (literally), she quickly declared Bush had won Florida and was therefore elected president. I felt a little guilty, as it was the only time in my life I had ever voted 3rd Party. I voted for Ralph Nader, mostly because I didn’t like Gore, as he and his then-wife Tipper were behind a crusade for what amounted to censorship in the music recording industry several years earlier. How Nader won me over was his answer to a question about his candidacy damaging Al Gore’s chances. He said “If Al Gore can’t beat this yahoo from Texas with a horrific voting record, that’s HIS problem.”

So America wound up with 8 years of Dubya, and it strengthened my resolve to spend as little time in the US as possible. Compared to what’s there now, Bush would be almost a blessing. I’ve never hidden my utter disdain for the current mango-faced idiot in the White House, and four more years would just make it that more likely I’d never live in the US again, unless California secedes, which I could also see happening. If you haven’t voted already, what the fuck are you waiting for?

October 28th, 2020



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