“What do you mean you have to leave, Matt?”
“It’s August. School is starting up, and I have to go back. You knew that.”
“But what about—what about our show?”
“Oh, you’ll come up with a new guy.”
As if! The act was based on this chemistry that we’d cultivated over months. Too bad, Matt was gone, and I had to regroup.
I talked to my friend Chris from high school, and he suggested we rebuild the show all around me, with more of a sidekick than a full partner. And he had a real brainstorm. “You sell cars with your dad, right? That’s the world you know, so build your comedy around that experience. We’ll call it ‘The Closer’s Corner,’ and your thing is, you’re always trying to sell something. That kind of comedy writes itself. So the first thing is, you go infomercial-style.”
I said, “I like the way you think.” Everybody saw late night infomercials, and it was a medium that cried out for parody.
“The second thing is, you’re going to go on location, just like you did with Matt. People love seeing you in recognizable local spots. Maybe in these segments you’re trying to buy something instead of sell it. You might even work in a magic trick in the least expected place.”
“Okay—yeah,” I said, the wheels turning in my head already.
“And third, we’ll do something with you going back and forth with your cohost.”
“Who’s my cohost?”
“I have an idea about that.”
He explained his idea, and I said, “Hey, I know a guy.”
There was a guy we knew from middle school named Randy. We found him sitting on the sofa smoking and drinking. Perfect. “How’d you like to be a star?” I asked.
“Okay,” he said calmly, taking another swig. “Except I don’t like talking or nothing.”
“That’s the best part of the whole thing,” I said. “You don’t have to.”
“I’m in,” he said, and belched.
We dressed up Randy in gold Elvis glasses with the cheapest leisure suit we could dig up, and bought him a six-pack of Schlitz beer. He’d come out to the song, “Lit Up” by Buckcherry, climb a ladder, crack a beer, and down it before taking a seat on his couch where he’d do his thing, which was to quietly smoke and drink the entire time. No dialogue at all, though I’d play off him and work him into the conversation.
The audiences loved every minute of it. I wouldn’t consider it appropriate now, and we’d find it politically incorrect to be sure. Alcoholism is no joke. But this is where I was, and certainly where downtown New Orleans was, in the late nineties.
My theme song was “Eye of the Tiger.” Music blaring, I’d walk out in a full suit with blue-shaded, silver-rimmed glasses. There was nothing else like our act on the bar scene.
Soon we were selling T-shirts and videos, bringing in extra money, and packing the place out. People regularly stood outside the bar just to catch a glimpse. Then Gene added a cover charge. That sounded like good news to me. “I’m not making any money at the bar,” I told Gene, “because obviously I can’t work that while I’m performing. So what’s my cut of the door proceeds?”
He looked at me as if I were crazy. “You’re joking, right? Answer is zero. I just hired you as a bartender.”
“After the way I’ve built this audience? And on Sunday nights, when you had almost no business? That’s not fair at all, Gene!”
He shrugged. The way he saw it, he was the owner and everyone else worked by the hour and for whatever tips they could manage.
“Well, if that’s how it works,” I said, “then I’m nothing special. You could just hire another bartender to write and perform a show. Because, if you don’t give me a cut of the door, I’m gone before next Sunday night.”
I guess you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em. He said “Okay” and wished me luck.
Gene called my bluff, and that was the end of my rock-star-of-the-bar career. I’d burned through another identity and was right back at square one.
Before I closed down that act, however, there had been a particularly big show. It was Labor Day weekend, and the place was packed. On a holiday weekend, the city was always rocking. Knowing it would be a great night, I’d invited my family to come and see what I did. I knew they’d be proud of their son who was making all these people laugh.
What I hadn’t thought at all about was that the main skit required me to wear cheap spandex tights in an attempt to sell a workout video. The outfit was highly unflattering in the worst way, and I looked out and saw the sadness in my mother’s eyes. It was embarrassing, and it wasn’t the reaction I’d been going for.
In that moment, in a flash of insight, I saw myself as my family saw me—a clown who would do pretty much anything in the world for a laugh. What kind of acceptance was I going for? Didn’t my parents give it to me?
Of course they did. They loved me lavishly, unconditionally, perfectly. In their eyes, I could do no wrong. I didn’t need to be anything other than who I was. Yet I stood now in my skintight spandex, debasing myself for the applause of inebriated strangers.
For one instant, the look in my mother’s eyes caused me to step outside of myself for a touch of true perception. A clue. A wake-up call.
Then the moment evaporated. The show must go on. I delivered my next line, waited for the laughter, and continued the performance.
Chapter 6
An Absolute Wreck
Why do things come
