He Who Laughs Last

He Who Laughs Last

The Evergreen State, circa 2010. All objective metrics presaged an uphill battle. The Southwestern mesa-sized stage, while perfect for larger-than-life musical productions, would be wasted on a lone, stationary, monologist. Said stage's hypoxic height would preclude making eye contact with the crowd, never mind meaningful connections made through shared eye gaze. The domed ceiling overhead, stratospheric at its apex, ate laughter like Langoliers eat space-time continuum leavings. As mirth making was the trade I plied, I'd be forced to gauge audience response by ear. Under such circumstances, a “killer” can be made to feel like he’s fighting for his life, while a comic on life support can be made to feel like a casualty.

As a Floriduh comic, I cut my teeth in empty coffeehouses, midweek open mics, and dive bars masquerading as “comedy clubs” one weekend a month. I grew strong. I picked up my pace. I was forever trimming fat from my act, while simultaneously fortifying it with tags. Though it pains me to admit, the minor leagues were my wheelhouse. While Gatlin-gunned one-liners soothed savage bar beasts well, that selfsame style tended to fail the further afield of my “comfort zone” I strayed. While theatres are, by and large, more prestigious, and better paying, than clubs, many comics consider comedy club dynamics (low lighting, absent décor, engineered intimacy) far more conducive to achieving their desired end result. I was, and I remain, one of them.

The show’s emcee was green as a juvenile iguana. He was too young for the room by 2-3 decades; Hell, at 35, I was a decade or two too young for it my damn self. Irksomely, novice comics, mostly those in their 20s, more so those formed from XY chromosomal pairings, frequently conflate “too young for the room” for “too cool for the room.” The emcee spoke at, rather than to, the crowd, a crowd already miffed that standup was standing in the way of the region's premiere middle-aged functioning drunk dance party.

By the time I’d stepped off the stage, the hall had reached capacity. The only open seat was at the far end of a table on the theatre’s outskirts. Five of its six occupants bided time sipping beers. Six was a handsome woman in her latter forties. In SoFlo, or SoCal, she’d be first pick for third place in a trophy wife pageant. However, in (INSERT JERKWATER TOWN NAME HERE, INSERT FLYOVER STATE NAME HERE) she was the bee’s knees. Six fidgeted like an ADHD-afflicted child sitting through Sunday service. Seconds past before she turned to her neighbor and sighed, “This is boring.”

From the moment I made my stage debut, attractive females became my second least favorite crowd constituency. Not being the focus locus was alien to them; they’d instinctively act the fool to summon the spotlight. My least favorite assemblage were bachelorette parties. More often than not, hen broods would waltz in thinking that they were the main attraction, and the show their warmup act. [act like trailer trash at a fine art exhibit featuring an open bar] Years ago, a nascent online calumny forced my friend and former colleague John to defend his professional reputation. Without forewarning club staff, or the headliner, the aforementioned patron stormed the stage wielding an inflatable elephantine phallus, in the middle of the main draw’s act. She wanted the headliner to autograph her tasteless toy. Her attention-whoring met with silence first, antipathy next, and a fast pass exit last. John, in the most diplomatic delivery possible, rebuked the author’s slanted, and sanitized, chronology, explaining that commandeering a live comedy show for her own ends was a defenestration-worthy party foul. But, I digress.

Not 10 minutes passed before Six piped up anew: “When does the band start?” She fired a third flare shortly thereafter. Though she never acknowledged my presence, she saw me sit down seconds after my set lapsed. Dumb luck had placed her atop an asymmetrical power balance, and she jumped at the chance to shine by shading someone else. She shielded her mouth and spoke to her neighbor while shifting her eyes to and from me in the kind of conspicuous arcs mean girls give homely new girls in hand-me-downs.

What, I suspect, had salted her wounds was that, within minutes of supplanting me, Roy was killing it. He turned that borderline-hostile crowd around, earning himself 2-3 applause breaks in the process.

I recognized her behavior: Years before I’d shared a house with two dogs, both dumb as they were disobedient. Hercules was a miscreant, wall-eyed pug. BJ was a British Bulldog, boasting the brains, and brawn, of a Jersey Shore cast member. BJ never allowed Herc to indulge human attention lest he was allotted an equal, or greater, share. Once, hoping to quash BJ's selfish instincts, I ignored him wholly, while cradling Herc lovingly. Incensed, BJ fired off ear-splitting keens, each one louder than the last.

What I wouldn’t give to be there when that first AARP newsletter lands in Six’s mailbox! What I wouldn’t pay to be a fly on the wall the first time she can’t recall the last time cockteasing a bartender paid for her drink, much less her tab. No amount of Botox will suffice to veil her chagrin when the currency that’s carried her since puberty achieves insolvency. He who laughs last…