I spent damn near every weekend of last year performing in the same few clubs every weekend, and it was great. Crowds came and went, hecklers came and went, my creativity and motivation came and went. I learned a lot and was able to try a lot as well. I will forever be indebted to those clubs for giving me opportunities that most clubs would not. But lately, I have been getting some very interesting work on the road. In fact, I became an official road comic last weekend by staying overnight in a little motel in between gigs. Allow me to begin from the beginning.
I booked two shows for the weekend that were in different parts of PA. Friday night was a show in Danville, PA. I left Philly at 5:00 hoping to get there around 7:30. Mapquest.com said that it would take about 2 hours, 17 minutes. That is, of course, without rush hour traffic on the Friday of a three day weekend. D'oh!! After doing 80 mph trying to make up for lost time I make it there just before 8:00. The show starts at 9:00, so I decide to go check into the room that was set up for me. It was a room at the Red Roof Inn. Not a bad room, but it was clean and had everything I needed. Just before I checked in, I see Alan Marx, the headliner that I will be performing with. We decide to go to the show together. Peggy Wink, another funny comedian and Alan's girlfriend, joined us. We walk in, and there are about 30 people. By the time the show is supposed to start, there are 14. We do the show, the energy level never gets above 0, but some folks still come up to us and ask for our autographs and say that they enjoyed the show. Fine. Kinda crappy? Yes. Still getting paid and learning from each experience? Hell yeah. Moving on.
The next day, Alan, Peggy and I went Geocaching. That is where you have the latitude and longitude of some sort of treasure. It can be anything from a child's toy to something rather valuable. Once you find it, you are supposed to leave something in its place. And you are supposed to find it using a GPS locater. It is a high tech treasure hunt. Very cool, especially while you are on the road with nothing else to do during the day. So this hunt led us to a very small cemetery with about 30 or so graves many dating back to the revolutionary war. We found the lock box, and it was full of all kind of stuff like childrens toys, playing cards, and money. The dollar bill that was in there was one that was registered on WheresGeorge.com. So Alan took that to update it on the internet, and left some kind of child's watch that Peggy's daughter got out of a happy meal. It was a lot of fun and a great way to waste time while on the road.
Saturdays show went much better than Fridays. It was for about 100 people in Chamberburg, PA. Very nice people and great laughers. The headliner, Keith Purnell never showed up though, even though he had confirmed with the booker two days before. From what I was told, he always shows up early, so I hope nothing bad happened to him. The middle act, John DelVecchio stretched out his act and made up for Keith not being there. The audience had a great time, and so did I. It was a great way to end a performing weekend.
