In 1982, the comedy club mushroom cloud from the explosion of stand-up comedy was still rising. New clubs outstripped the supply of comedians. Sometimes while you worked in a comedy club, another nearby club called, hoping to save that airfare. That's how my one week booking at Giggles in Columbus, Ohio turned into a six week Midwest Winter Tour.
One of those stops was East Lansing, Michigan. It was one of those places where a guy had been to the big city, seen him a comedy show and come home to get his buddy into trying it at his bar, The Senseless Beating Inn. Even under the best conditions where the stage was well lighted, the sound system clear and loud, and the room policed properly, standup comedy in a bar resembled a lynching more than an art form. The crowds in the big city clubs like Cleveland and Detroit were familiar with the concept of laughing at a funny joke, but some of the smaller cities and towns needed training to get the proper involuntary response of laughter. You sometimes had a better chance of eliciting laughter by scaring them.
As soon as I walked into this Lansing bar I knew this was definitely going to be an away game. All the lighted Beer signs had been moved to the stage. That was the lighting. There was a stage, set next to the bar, where the waitresses and customers shouting for orders, and the drink blenders provided maximum distraction. The four pool tables, also near the stage, and the metal chairs on concrete flooring promised to fill in the cracks in this bar's wall of noise. The only thing not near the stage was the crowd. The tables and chairs were twenty feet from the lip of the stage. I was told it made the transition to post comedy dancing easier. There goes the last joke, laugh and now crank up the Seeger these folks got some sexual tension that needs releasing.
My main concern was the pool tables. I came from bars with pool tables. I didn't want to compete with the noise or the players who cracked the colored balls. I knew from personal experience that holding a cue stick gave one a bad case of the Loud Wise-Ass.
The club owner, Joe, assured me the pool tables were shut down before the show. Later that week-end he gave me a bad check, teaching me a valuable road lesson – get paper money or one road monkey don't do no show. At that moment I didn't know about Old Joe's dishonest nature and had a much more valuable lesson to learn before the cash only policy.
When I took the stage the place was half full and one of the four tables was still being played. After a few minutes of colliding pool balls scratching my punch lines I asked Joe, who was seated at the bar, next to the stage, why these guys were still playing. He didn't say anything, but shrugged his shoulders, a weak gesture that I interpreted as "Hey, I tried but…"
I tried to lighten the tension by narrating the pool game, hoping they'd get the hint. The pool players got real surly, "Just do your act." I decided to be more direct and began commenting on their choice in rock as reflected by their tee shirts… something clever like, "They sucked then. They suck now. And they'll suck when they bury you in that tee shirt." That got one of the local mullet heads to stop playing pool. He threw down his cue stick and rushed the stage.
I had been in a few bar fights and knew this guy was a chump when he threw down the cue stick and theN came after me. His second mistake was expecting me to wait for him to get on the stage before starting the fight. I got in the first few punches as he attempted to climb and cast him in the Ned Beatty role in my impromptu reenactment of a scene from the movie "Deliverance." The audience is screaming and cheering as I hump him and yell, "Squeal like a pig!"
That got a big laugh, so naturally I start playing to the crowd, forgetting there was still a fight going on, and I was one of the participants. The heckler rallied and put some good hits onto my dumb head. This went on for a few minutes and everyone including Joe, the bartender and the bouncer had the decency to let it go on, as of part of the show. I finally tossed him off the stage. The audience applauded. I interpreted that as "We like you, funny man. Please describe more of your misshapen childhood." What they were really applauding was the end of the fight, "You win. Now somebody start playing some Seeger." Jacked up on fear and testosterone, I resumed my act. The crowd immediately stopped cheering. I continued pushing for a laugh until I convinced each and every person there of my lunacy - not the ha-ha funny kind of lunacy, but the uh-oh scary sort. I learned a valuable lesson, most bar crowds might enjoy a good bar-fight on an elevated stage with decent sight lines but a comedian with a torn shirt and bloody face, not so much.
