This weekend I travelled to Hartford, CT for gigs at Brew Ha Ha Comedy Club at City Steam.  This is one of the most convenient and best set ups in the whole country.  The shows are Friday and Saturday, so one does not have to take any days off from the day job to work the club if you are in NYC. The hotel is a Holiday Inn Express, which given current comedy club accommodation standards, ranging from no room to body fluid stained comedy condo, is basically the Ritz-Carlton to a comedian.  The hotel is 400 feet from the Amtrak station and a ten minute walk from the club.

Interestingly enough, the hotel has a free breakfast, but no waffle iron, which is a big problem because as any comedian knows, the waffle iron has been the great equalizer in comedy accommodations.  “Four people were murdered here last week,” used to be what you would hear at a comedy club condo/hotel, but it now sounds a lot better as “Four people were murdered here last week, but our continental breakfast features a waffle iron.”  Like the personal computer for individuals, the waffle iron leveled the playing for hotels. The Econo Lodge closed the gap with the Gansevoort thanks to the waffle iron.  There is also a Subway near the hotel so that you can eat something halfway healthy for lunch and the club provides free food and a few free drinks per show for dinner.  In other words it is the perfect set up for a comedian looking to have a comfortable weekend.  When I was at the club in Summer 2012 I had three great shows and was happy as could be.  But this is 2013 and I am working on a new hour, which will set the world on fire, but as a majority of the crowds taught me this weekend, it is not for everyone.

The Friday show was the worst I had all weekend.  It still went well, but I blanked on several bits (including two of my new best) and had to retreat to some older bits to keep the flow going, which is exactly what I did not want to do.  And I felt guilty since two of my 28 nationwide fans, Jon and Laura (it was fate J-L has fans J and L) were at the show and I had promised newer material.  They still thought it went well, which was probably them being nice.  But most people greeted me nicely, except for a group of girls who sprinted past me, well sprinted might be generous – they waddled in a frightened manner away from me.  The only really awkward thing about City Steam (aside from the fact that half of the ceiling over the stage is too low for me to stand under) is that merch sales for features is at a narrow corner right next to the stairwell, which creates a gauntlet for audience members to pass through.  I shook many hands and was told “good show” by a lot of people.  I sold very little and got the awkward exchange that would become the theme of the weekend.

An elderly couple walked up to me and said, “Very funny stuff, but I just don’t believe that you are half-black.”  I have not figured out the right way to react to this.  I literally spend 5 minutes of my set recalling the unique experience of being half black, but generally looking white (or at least not-half black, even if some other ethnicity).  Now perhaps comedy audiences no longer believe they are getting humorous truth on stage anymore because of all the geeks and act out-specialists that comprise comedy now (of course the audiences all believed the headliners Mad Lib-esque bits where he simply placed me into interchangeable stories of smoking weed on the road, even though we met for the first time 2 hours before the show – THOSE were all believable to the audience as they kept asking me about our “tour.”).  But do people think anymore?  There are only two possibilities to the statement/question about my ethnicity – either you are calling me a liar or a panderer or you are saying my parent’s’marriage is a fraud (it is full of hostility, but it is not a fraud).

Saturday I recounted the story on stage to some laughter (mostly from the 10% non-white crowd members) on the early show.  Then after the show a guy came up to me and here is the exchange:

“You don’t look half-black.”

“I know.  That is what the bit was about.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Well, really funny stuff man.” (he said this sort of nervously because the look in my eye was probably that of a half-Black Panther)

See the problem with the material I am working on is that it is not for everyone by definition.  Speaking of all the subtle and not so subtle racist things I still experience and observe to audiences where half the people could be guilty of some of the experiences I recount is not a recipe to winning a whole crowd.  But instead of laughing or not laughing the mirror has to be turned on me instead of on themselves.  Because if I am making up my race for material then the jokes have no relevance or meaning.

As if this was not enough of an annoyance, there is also the “your wife is being uncomfortably flirty with me right in front of you dude” scenario.  After the first show Saturday, which was my second best set of the weekend, but my lowest audience response, a woman came up to me gushing and not removing eye contact for a good 15 seconds.  I did the thing I always do in these cases which is shake her hand and then immediately engage her husband with a hand shake and a “thank you.”  But this guy who was a pretty big guy in his own right gripped my hand and he had some serious paws.  They weren’t longer but his hands were very thick and engulfed mine.  I can palm a basketball, but this guy felt like he could deflate a basketball with his hand.  Then he said, “not very big hands for a big guy!”  I replied like a court jester, “Well that is why I am telling jokes instead of playing in the NBA!”  What I wanted to say was “You know what they say – mediocre hands, mediocre cock, but that does not seem to be stopping your wife from wanting to ride on it.”

This is the joy of my career until I can draw my own audience – people either question my race without thinking of how weird/offensive it is or they need to drag me off of my high horse of feature work in cities like Hartford.  Either someone is telling you that their friend is really funny too, so you know that they know you are not special or they get into a pissing contest because their wife or girlfriend enjoyed the show.  The headliner is accorded a decent level of respect (not always, but odds are better), but the middle is the best place to deposit your issues for any audience members.  And don’t worry I also got a hearty helping over the first two shows of “pretty good,” the worst compliment in entertainment.

But there is a happy ending to this story.  I banged that guy’s wife.  Just kidding.  No, the final show was fantastic.  The average age of the late crowd was 30 instead of “Do Not Resuscitate” and they appreciated the new material.  And even though no one bought merch after I received no “pretty good”‘s, and no “are you really half-black”‘s.  It was nice to end on a high note.

And then like a horror movie, where you think all is well but a horrific thing happens at the last minute, as I was leaving, and standing right next to the emcee, a woman walked by, in front of the emcee and 4 feet from me (hard to miss – my action comedy movie biopic title) and said to her, “You were the best one.”

Well played Comedy.  Well played.

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