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Truth or Dare
This is the story of my worst show. It was my first or second year as a street performer in San Francisco. Those were the early days when being a comic juggler was actually a novel idea. There were only two of us--three, really, but the third guy sucked.
Mind you, comedy wasn’t king yet. Saturday Night Live was yet to be born. Robin Williams placed second in the San Francisco Stand-up Comedy Competition and the top sitcom on TV was Eight Is Enough. Real people still quoted from Rowen and Martin’s Laugh In--the hip ones from Monty Python. As I saw it, competition for being “the funniest guy I’ve ever seen” was between me and George Carlin.
I guess I never took this show biz thing too seriously. Maybe that's why that other juggler became famous and owns real estate in four different states, and I’m still trying to make rent each month. I never did do that brochure or promo-mailer thing. In fact, I just recently got around to geting a business card. These days I feel desperate.
But I digress. Let me preface this story (again) by telling you I am not at all like the person you see on stage. I am not funny. Never have been. I don’t think of funny stuff when I’m alone or with others. I couldn’t find a quip in a barrel of retorts. When you get to know me, I’m boring. It’s as simple as that.
It was dusk, it was windy, and it was cold. The fog rolled in. Perfect summer ime weather in San Francisco. The crowd was thin at first, but I took my time with a prolonged prop set up and after awhile, we reached the “I can do this” stage.
It was one of those “everything started to go wrong early” experiences. I turn on my Pignose amp, it squeals like a real pig. Shit, I think. Quickly I readjust the squelch and start a tape on my “portable” Wollensak reel_to_reel_nothing. “Fuck,” I mutter, a little too audibly.
In those days, I usually warmed up the crowd with a few hat tricks, training them to clap every time the top hat hit my head. It gets them involved, makes some noise, and a crowd draws a crowd. My first trick, I miss the arm roll. So what! A flip, a twirl, and a twist_I recover. It’s not as hard but it looks good and I never miss. They clap -once, but hardly together.
“No, no, no! Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said, “Together!” I do the easy front single-flip, but the wind grabs it. I do manage to catch it, albeit barely and way off center; my head cocked 90 degrees.
Reluctantly they clap together with a sincere lack of enthusiasm.
“Thank you, Thank you--both of you,” I’m forced to respond.
“You’re welcome,” comes from somewhere in the crowd.
Now, there can be times when a heckler is a good thing. Particularly if he isn’t drunk, knows when to quit, and can take a joke. Unfortunately, this never happens. As a consequence, most, if not all, comics arm themselves mentally with “heckler stoppers.” These put-down lines are meant to make the audience think the comedian can actually be funny in an unrehearsed situation. Luckily for Robin Williams, it works.
I’m ready to rumble, “Hey, fella!” I shout, “I like doing my act the way you like having sex--alone!” In retrospect, it’s a good line, if a little too harsh, a little too early. But the line never even registers a reaction, because here comes a perfectly timed response from the opposite side of the crowd:
“ You mean you’re not coming over tonight?” This gets the first real laugh of the show, and it’s from heckler #2.
I know now I’m in serious trouble.
I try not to panic. “You got the right town--but the wrong guy!” The line kinda works, but without thinking, I start running rapidly through my rehearsed stuff. My timing is way off. The audience smells blood.
I’m just into my 5 ball routine when a third heckler enters the fray: “Hey, I saw you on TV_(he poses just long enough to sucker me into a gratuitous smile)_and turned it off!” My brain goes into overdrive. I blurt out, “Yeah, and if I had 17 more of you I have a golf course!” But I’m really thinking: these guys are good!
The barbs fly fast and furious. I lose track of the bits. Somewhere in there, I do a diabolo, devilstick, club routine_but I remember none of it. More heckling, this time from the back.
“You suck!”
"You talking to me or the guy next to you!”
“I’m glad you came--too bad your father did!”
“At least I have a father--not 100 suspects!”
I want to die.
I heard somewhere that the best defense is to be very offensive- something like that. So I fight back with everything I’ve got, both barrels blazing, sparing no one, women and children first. Lines like, “You should be at the airport, sniffing luggage” went back to back with “Hey kid, I’m your real father!” It got ugly.
In a street show, you don’t want to peak too early--your “hat” depends on it. Now it was time for my unicycle finale, where I ride uncontrollably through the crowd. Soaking wet with perspiration, I grab the unicycle just as this teenage punk yells “get a real job!” I snap. “Shut up!” I shout, “I could've been your father, but the dog beat me over the fence!” I sense I’ve reached an all-time low.
I roll weaving into the crowd. Wild, out of control, I scream, “Look out! Look out!” They scatter like flies. I make a semicircle,cycle to my stage area, and_gone! Everything is gone! Everything! Five clubs, three torches, machete, meat cleaver, axe, balls, rings, devilstick, diabolo_everything_my backpack, amp and tape player, even the rose (and vase!) I use for my closing hat-pitch trick! Everything! I can’t believe it. It would’ve taken at least ten or fifteen people to steal all that stuff so fast. I’m stunned.
I don’t know what to say. I start my hat pitch, then realize: I don’t even have a hat. Dripping with sweat, panting, out of breath, I’ve got nothing left. I’m a beaten man. Weakly I ask for some money.
The first person to approach me pulls my hat out from behind his back. He is smiling that smirky smile you sometimes see on a teenager’s face when he farts. Others follow, each one with that same shit-eating grin. Everyone has something of mine. I am surrounded. I ask, “What’s going on?” as all my equipment is stuffed into every crevice of my body.
“We’re all up here for the stand-up comedy competition, and we heard from this other juggler that we should come down and see your act.”
“He said you were good with hecklers!”
Not one of them gives me any money.
There are regular audience people behind them, but they can’t get to me. I’m surrounded by forty-two stand-up comics who think it’s funny I’m not making anything. I beg them, “Go away. Please leave.” They comply slowly, but the damage is done. Most of the real audience has left already.
I make a total of about eight bucks.
The crowd is almost completely gone as I survey all my equipment at my feet. It’s so cold my sweat is steaming. The comics are still milling around about fifteen feet away, imitting occasional small bursts of laughter. Then they leave as a group. They are almost out of sight when one guy yells back,
“You were real good, man. That other juggler sucked!”
I manage a feeble “Fuck you.”
Just before they turn the corner, I hear,
“Fuck me and you’ll never go back to women!” and one final burst of laughter.
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