Nightmare Gigs: The Most Mortifying Things That Happened To Me In Comedy + Some Takeaways
I'm talking being paid in sex toys, food poisoning, and giving "try the chicken" a whole new twist
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Over time, every comedian will gather a few garbage bags’ worth of bad gigs. It’s a numbers game. The more shows you do, the more will leave you scratching your head wondering, “What the hell just happened in there?” or “Where are my shoes?”
I’m not just talking about bombing, which is, by the way, a painful, necessary and even kind of beautiful part of the stand up process. Bombing is its own aspect of what bad can be or feels like. I’m not talking about not getting paid, heckled, or getting lost and missing the gig altogether, although those things are also bad. No, I’m talking about the unbelievable, the outlandish, the holy-crap-I-can’t-believe-this-is-my-life-right-now kind of true “only in comedy” adventures.
I have many awful stories (as mentioned above), because my mic-in-hand minutes are very high, and for a long time, I had a strong reluctance to saying no to any stage time, ever, which in itself, I’ve learned over time stops being the right move at some point. But when you’re first starting out, I think it’s important to say yes more than no, because it will build a solid foundation of “more just like this” and “oh, no, never this ever again.”
Today, I’ll share this one, which occurred back at my old stomping ground on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, NYC, at the confusingly named Boston Comedy Club.
That dark little comedy cave was my home base for a long time; my church, my home away from home, my school. I spent hours on that stage, winning, bombing, hours in the back, writing bits, watching my heroes, tearfully wondering what went wrong with the jokes I’d so carefully crafted and practiced, and hours on the street, hollering for people to come inside and watch me figure out what the hell I was doing on stage and calling it comedy. (While I was “passed” at the club, I did kind of enjoy “barking” audience members in, which most newbie comedians had to participate in, from time to time.)
On one particular night, the house was fairly full. It was a week night around 10pm or so, and I was excited to perform for the always rowdy mix of college students, bridge and tunnel folks and drunken maniacs who were ready to get even crazier.
I told a really dumb joke that I used to tell on stage a lot that I don’t even remember anymore (where is my Phyllis Diller / Joan Rivers style card catalog of jokes?!), but it went something along the lines of how I eat meat solely because I hate animals, and cows are ugly or something like that. Usually the joke got a laugh, and on this particular night, it did, as well. But then, a face in the crowd started hollering at me. A young, drunken white woman stood up and loudly, verbally berated me about how it’s bad to eat meat, and she’s a vegetarian, and it’s her duty to stand up to animal cruelty, and etc. As a new comedian, I was rightly mortified, and didn’t have a ton of experience with being heckled. We had a little back and forth, and I had the microphone and I’m a comedian, so I won, and security (probably just the largest comedian there) came over and asked to leave, or quiet down, and thankfully, she did.
After the show, the girl’s friend, another young, somewhat intoxicated white lady waved me down and complimented my set. She apologized for what had happened, and the lady who’d yelled at me also drunkenly apologized—Alicia Silverstone.
Takeaways:
- I remember being distraught at the time that a very famous actress had yelled at me from the audience. I imagined being blackballed from the entertainment business, or her agent calling me and yelling at me, or PETA being sic’d on me, or worse. But none of that happened, because ultimately, our fears are usually worse than the actual monsters they represent.
- Heckling is tricky; it’s rarely as bad as the videos you see online. As the person with the microphone, we have all the power in the situation, most of the time. It’s usually pretty easy to talk someone down. I think a lot of comedians automatically jump to a defensive standpoint, and I get it. Being heckled is annoying; it breaks up the timing of a joke, it can ruin an otherwise good video / set, and it’s generally rude and annoying. But it can also turn into some big laughs, make the comedian a hero and leave everyone feeling good when it’s handled in the right way. While it’s not always so easy, over time, I have learned to try to stay positive when being heckled, instead of taking the bait of annihilating the heckler, which is easy to do and sometimes very fun (and often deserved).
- Celebrities in the audience are just as unpredictable as (and even more so than) anyone else!
Epilogue: The woman with Alicia was an actress who ended up becoming a friend of mine, Sarah Solemani. We spent many hours bopping around New York City and London together, drinking, laughing and hamming it up. I still adore her and enjoy watching her acting career bloom. She’s the best! Last I saw Alicia, she was starring as the mom in a Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie. My husband, who’d crushed out on her as a kid (like millions of others across America during that time) was so sad to see her “all grown up.”
Have you had a nightmare gig? Comment below or email me at jess delfino at gmail and tell me about it.
Daily Musings:
He used to do stand up until he got a death threat | AV Club
What ever happened to Alicia Silverstone? | The List
How Marc Maron’s Career Got A Lift | Cracked
Your ad to 9k comedy lovers here; $10/day, $40/wk | jess delfino at gmail dot com
Purchase this comedy PR class for $70, get access to every Museletter for a year
Call for pitches! Send your outrageous comedy tales | jess delfino at gmail dot com
Arrivederci, dear reader.
When I started out as a comedian I was hired to perform at a singles event. Bad idea. Nobody was there to listen to a comedian. So they weren't paying attention (and of course no stage or stage lighting, which would've helped a bit).
Afterwards some jerk came up to me and said "You need better material."
I went off on him- I said no, my material is funny. I write jokes for late-night TV. I know what I'm doing. The fact that someone like you would come up to me and say something so rude demonstrates that what I actually needed was a better audience.
Now I know, and have the freedom, to turn down bad gigs. Interestingly last year I was at a singles event (as a participant, not as a comedian) and they'd hired a comedian. With no stage, no stage lighting and No Sound System. She struggled even to be heard.
Someone asked me what I thought. I said this is a terrible environment for comedy, and if she had more experience she'd have known to turn down the gig.
I later found out who it was, and remembered working with her 15 years ago. So unless she'd stopped doing comedy for a while during that interval, she should've known to say no. Or maybe she just really needed the money.