My Feature Gig

So as y'all know (well, those who bother reading these), I had a 20 minute paid set in Jersey last Saturday night at The Comedy Shoppe. I found out how to get there, I memorized the order of my jokes, my name was on their website, I was psyched.

The show started at 10 and I wanted to make sure I got there in time so I left my apartment at 7:30 to catch an 8:14 train out of Penn. It got to the station at about 9. I asked a cabbie there where the place was and he pointed the way, explaining that it was about a twenty minute walk...with time to spare I figured why not. So I started walking.

I walked alongside a highway, past what looked like a long-deserted church, past a cemetery. By the way, there was no sidewalk - I was walking on dirt and grass - and few lights besides that of cars passing me. After 15/20 minutes, I was still walking through a winding residential area, with no hotel (the club was located in a hotel) to be seen. I started to panic.

What if I walked the wrong way?

Deciding to cut my losses I started to run back to the station (though first texting Bronwen to tell her I'm lost in the middle of nowhere). I made it back to the station in a bout five minutes, seeing the driver who gave e the initial directions. I got in his cab, sweating like a pig.

As it turned out, I was going the right way, I just needed to walk another ten minutes.

I got to the hotel and found the "club." It was more like a bar with a stage set up on one end. The producer, James, greeted me when I walked in.
"Hey Harris, yeah, looks like the holidays are gonna keep the crowd down."
Still sweating, I looked around the room. There were forty seats set up in front of the stage. They were all empty.
"Umm, I see," was all I could muster as I wiped my forehead with my hat.

The comics joked about the train wreck of a show that we were about to embark upon. They tried to get people from the bar to sit by the stage but only five or six people obliged (there were only about 20 by the bar). We agreed to each do ten minutes and get out. They turned up the mic so the comics could be heard over the bar crowd. Since I had the longest trek home, I got to go first (after the MC).

As far as my set goes, let's just say that my best laugh was when I joked after asking if they were taping it, so I could send it to Comedy Central.

With no crowd, naturally, I didn't get paid.

The most bizarre thing occurred when I was trying to make my train though (one that runs once every hour at that time)...I made it without a minute to spare. All in all, a decent evening.

Rock On,

Aitch