Killing Time or The Majority of Events Spent on the Road

Killing Time or The Majority of Events Spent on the Road

     Feature comedians are not rockstars. As much confidence as we have in our ability to perform well and captivate an audience, we are still just the middle act. We are a glorified warm-up. It is our job to make sure that the crowd is good and warmed up for the headliner so when they take the stage it is easy to burn the roof down and walk out with their heads held high. 

     And as negative as that may sound, it's not, because I wouldn't trade the time and experiences for anything. The ability to hone your craft while getting to work with some of the best comics on stage right now has been an invaluable experience for me. (I guess I need to clarify that I have only hosted shows for these guys, but still awesome...i can do feature work if you need me to. Seriously, it's real good too.) I have gotten the chance to pick the brains of some of my heros in the business, and really be able to listen and observe what makes a great comic in this day and age. It has taught me a lot of the fact that we are all just people trying to make sense of this insanity that we all call life, or the human experience. 

     But there is a very lonely and boring side to life on the road. What to do with the other 23 hours that you aren't on stage during the day. For example, I have two shows tonight and then I am going to make the hike back to Raleigh as soon as I am done. But the problem I ran into is that I had to check out of my hotel by 1 pm. So right now I am sitting in a Barnes and Noble in some part of Charlotte (seriously I have no idea where I am in relation to anywhere I need to be in the city later this evening.) and I am trying to burn away maybe 2 more hours before I head down to the club to have my traditional pre-show beer at VBGB's. (seriously if you live in Charlotte, love craft beer, and have never been there...then I just don't know what you are doing with your life.) 

    The truth is though that most of the time on the road is spent trying to find ways to occupy the hours in between shows. Headliners get to go and do media in the mornings and then nap in the afternoon and wake up for show time, which is more stressful than it sounds. But hosts and middles just sleep till we wake up (which is awesome) but then have to entertain ourselves for the whole day. It's an interesting thing to try and do when you really don't know the city you are in. You end up watching a lot of tv, and it is never good Tv. It is middle of the day, basic cable tv. It's odd how quick I can get sucked right into an episode of Maury just to find out if any of 27 dudes this girl has slept with is the father of her baby. There was one on yesterday where it was a white girl with a little mocha baby, and they were testing two white guys. I am not an expert on the human genome, but I think I can tell you those guys from the park more than likely aren't the dad of that kid. 

     I really don't understand why Maury and Springer are still a thing. Everybody knows these shows are fake, and the actors aren't even good anymore. Nobody believes that this skinny awkward guy was tricked by that giggling tranny. (The name of the episode was "Tricked by a Tranny"...like there would be any question what the episode would be about.) Seriously, who could be tricked by this tranny, he wasn't even a good one. He looked like a guy in a bra. That's it. Picture that. Do it. Really picture it. 

     I'm not sure how I got on that tangent, but as you can see I am just trying to fill the time by reflecting  on the events of how I spent my day yesterday. 

     This may have been my longest blog post to date. Has anyone else noticed that really don't say anything in these blogs? It's just mental vomit. That's how you know it is a good blog.