It Must Be The Shirt’s Fault!

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

When your average number of gigs per month has gone from 15 five years ago to 3 or 4, you hope to at least enjoy the ones you do get, and it’s mostly been that way for the past year. Last night I got a total thumping that I knew I was going to get well before I entered the stage. I was so certain, I even told the emcee to stay in the room, because I could see no way I was going to do my allotted time.

The gig sounded pleasant enough when I spoke with the show manager earlier in the day. He expected an audience of about 90, and that the age group would be mostly late 20’s to 40’s, with a few seniors. It all sounded fine, I just wish he had told me the one major obstacle: The entire audience was FEMALE! Now before this starts to sound like a sexist, misogynist diatribe, let me assert that similar problems would probably manifest themselves with an all-male crowd too, though it’s more politically correct to insult guys when they’re being idiots. What holds true for either situation is that in sameness there is strength, and the sameness is elevated when there’s a fair amount of alcohol and most of the people in the room know each other. As I watched the emcee, who was female, work very hard just to get focus, I knew I was dead meat.

This was also not the first time I’d ever worked to an all-female crowd. About 30 years ago, I worked a lesbian club in San Francisco, but it was with my partner Ruby. So even though I was “the enemy,” and given tepid response at best in my opening solo minutes, I was given some amount of respect after Ruby joined me on stage.

The other problem with last night’s gig was that the closing act was a Drag Queen! I knew that beforehand, and was reminded of the hell I faced in December 2011, my last run of Jongleurs Christmas shows, where the club chose to have drag queens emceeing their Christmas shows. When that happens, the show is not a proper comedy show anymore, and goes more to the level of Chippendale’s. Before the show started last night, I told the other acts of this one particular show I did that month where a group of 40 from a local bank pretty much commandeered the room, and when I first walked out on stage, one of the already plastered women from this group yelled out “Show us your cock!” Real class, huh! Guess what happened about 10 minutes into last night’s show? When this deja vu struck, I happened to notice the emcee give a look of disgust. Poor girl was going to have to be there the whole night. I knew from those four fateful words that I would be voluntarily ending this torture very soon.

My act encourages audience participation, but when the act they’re being primed for is a man in a dress being as risqué as legally possible, it should be no surprise that exposing myself would be near the top of the request list. The best I could do was find a song they could all sing, in this case Robbie Williams’ “Angels,” and let them make my job a little easier. That took care of about one minute, the other 12 or 13 were spent in crowd control. The one boost I got was after I walked off, when the show manager, clearly annoyed by the treatment I received, told me, “I wish they’d have let you do your act, I can tell you’re brilliant.”

Then as I looked down I realized I was wearing the same shirt I wore on the other “Show-us-your-cock” night. This multi-color striped shirt which Eileen bought me for my birthday 2011 may have seen its last appearance on stage. I don’t like to be superstitious, but after seemingly wearing it at more bad shows than good ones, I had to put it aside for awhile. Then I decided to do my best to remove whatever jinx the shirt seemed to carry, wearing it as often as I could, and even finding a few triumphs along the way. But after a disastrous night in Edinburgh, and my first ever bad show at Comedy Store La Jolla, both times sporting THAT SHIRT, I decided maybe it was my black cat, my #13, my walk under a ladder. I do still like the shirt, but after last night I believe I’ll have to relegate it to dinner parties and hope I don’t get food poisoning.

February 23rd, 2013



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