DOING STANDUP DURING A STANDOFF

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

This past week, the British ITV Network ran a three part series dramatising the case of a July 9, 2010 incident involving a psychotic by the name of Raoul Moat. Moat was incarcerated for domestic violence, but had served his time, and once released, stalked his ex-girlfriend, killed her lover, and shot her, though she survived. He went on the run, shot and blinded another policeman, and the day he was finally cornered by the police was the day I would be performing at The Hyena Club in Newcastle, only about 25 miles away from where Moat was.

The idea of performing comedy when there’s a major drama unfolding is not an easy call. Especially in the age of mobile phones where most of the people in the pub at least have them on to see if this lunatic would either get away or get blown away. I can almost guarantee there were people in that venue who, as noted in the ITV drama, looked on Moat as some kind of martyr or hero, and were hoping to see him blast his way out of the situation. Then there was also the anticipation of seeing an old time western shootout. I was overall pretty pleased by how attentive the audience was, even given the distraction of what was going on.

The standoff began at about 7:00 pm that night, about 90 minutes before the show at The Hyena was going to start. I was closing the show, but throughout the evening the other comics were asking the audience for progress reports, but nothing changed. And so it went for the whole evening. It was hard to even joke about it, but I remember at one point chastising the audience and saying, “Why do we give a shit about this waste of human flesh? Fuck him, let him blow his goddam brains out and we can get on with our business!” I knew not everyone would agree with me, but at least nobody vocally defended the guy.

I shared with the audience some reminiscences of a similar incident I experienced in California 16 years earlier. It was July 17, 1994, and I was driving up Highway 101 from LA to a gig I was doing in Ventura, about 50 miles away. What was riveting the world’s attention that night was a low speed car chase going up and down the 405 Freeway, where former football star and now accused murderer O.J. Simpson was being driven in a Ford Bronco by his friend Al Cowlings while O.J. was poised in the backseat, supposedly with a gun pointed at his head. The obvious difference here was that this was a very famous individual who was now a murder suspect. Raoul Moat never had that sort of notoriety. O.J. was equally obsessed with his ex-wife as Moat was with his ex-girlfriend, and as in O.J.’s case a totally innocent friend of the main target was an unfortunate victim.

I was facing the same thing in Ventura as in Newcastle, but the difference being that not many people in 1994 had cellular phones, and certainly the portable phones of that era didn’t have the multi-faceted capabilities today’s phones have. I remember following the whole car chase on my car radio and when I reached the venue in Ventura, the bar had all its TVs on. What was unusual about that was the car chase was interrupting Game 5 of the basketball finals between the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets. There were some TVs that showed the game on the main screen but with an inset following the car chase, and others putting the game in the corner, but the LA affiliate gave up entirely on the game, probably since no LA teams were involved.

As I would deal with 16 years later, I had to yield to the notion that the audience’s mind was in a different place. I did amuse them by relating what I had heard on the radio while driving there. The news station was interviewing the sports announcer Al Michaels, who had shared the broadcast booth with O.J. for several years on Monday Night Football telecasts. In the middle of this interview, a guy got on air who claimed to be a behavioural psychologist, and had them fully convinced that he knew what was going on in O.J.’s head. Then he said, “I think he’s heading home now so he can see the debut of Howard Stern’s latest Butt Bongo Fiesta video, BaBa Booey.” Al Michaels and the newsman had been pranked. Telling that story to this audience, many of whom were fans of Stern’s syndicated morning radio show, there was laughter of recognition.

But back to the mobile phone issue. Because the people in Ventura didn’t have the easy access of mobile phones, if they wanted to follow the O.J. drama, they would have to actually leave the show room and walk into the bar. Happily, most of them opted to concentrate on the performers on stage. By the time I finished my set in Ventura, O.J. had already surrendered, whereas the Raoul Moat drama didn’t conclude until 1:00 am, about two hours after I’d finished my set in Newcastle.

Little did I know in that summer of 1994, that a year later, I would be living in Brentwood, the very area where the whole O.J. drama unfolded. Where I lived on Barrington Ave. was equidistant between O.J.’s mansion and his late wife’s house on Bundy Drive. As I would drive by the Bundy house, I remember seeing tourists taking pictures of themselves on the front walkway where Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s bodies were found. I don’t even WANT to know what the Raoul Moat fans did to pay homage.

April 21st, 2023



Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.