instead of slugging away in those shithole comedy clubs?” I couldn’t quite agree with him but agreed that Tad, in their heyday, must’ve been something to see.
I drove around that afternoon in my rental car, visiting friends and seeing the sights. I flipped around the AM dial and found “Topical” Tommy’s right-wing radio show. He’d lost none of his anger but, now that he only had to remember six or seven catchall phrases that were guaranteed to set his listeners frothing, he spewed them with a venom that Ian MacKaye would’ve envied. Maybe all those years of silence, and stares, and dismissal from the crowd had secretly eaten away at him, and now he loved knowing he’d always get a positive response. At the mid-point of the show, he and a caller agreed, angrily, about how the blacks had blown all their chances for social justice and reform after the Rodney King verdict.
“I used to do comedy, and I remember trying to reach out and say how disgusted I was with that verdict, and this idiot in the audience was too stupid to know I was agreeing with him! Started shouting at me and threatening to kick my ass . . .”
The caller said, “That verdict was totally fair! They didn’t beat that guy enough!”
“Thank you,
exactly,
” said Tommy. I wanted to call him and bring up the Time-Warner merger, but my cell phone wasn’t getting a signal.
That night at the club, the manager came back to see me in the greenroom.
“Hey, Blazer!” I said, jumping up and hugging him.
“You want any kind of special intro music?”
I said, “
You
pick something. Your taste is better than mine. You turned me on to the Kinks back when I was an open-miker.”
He showed me pictures of his new wife and kids. The son and daughter were athletic and coltish, respectively. The wife was cute, in a sunny blouse and slacks, a tattoo of an ankh on her wrist. The tail of a larger, more elaborate tattoo barely peeked out from the collar of his shirt. The picture was taken at a soccer game in the suburbs.
The emcee introduced me. The Kinks’ “Come Dancing” played as I took the stage. I looked out over the room. In the back, standing trim and happy in his sport-coat-over-T-shirt ensemble, Blazer smiled, lit by the blue light of the bar.
The Tonight Show
was forever gone, forever receded on his horizon. But he’d expanded his endpoint to take in every second of every day, and he’d honed his life down to pure reward.
The Victory Tour
In October 1993 I was a finalist in the San Francisco International Comedy Competition.
Because of this, I got hired by a club owner named Reed * to headline his comedy club in Vancouver, Canada. Which turned out to be in Surrey, which is a suburb of Vancouver the way boredom is a lesser state of excitement. Sorry, Surrey—but I spent the shittiest eleven days of my comedic career in your town and surrounding environs in the immediate company of Reed, the human equivalent of rancid clam chowder. †
At the time, I couldn’t have been more excited. Headlining. In Vancouver. All of my friends gushed about the city, about the cool people and bars and music clubs and the chess players near Burrard Street. I’ve since visited Vancouver many times and love it.
I visited Surrey in the early fall of 1994, and I would return only if I was tasked to kill a demon to save the world. Maybe not even then. Sorry, Surrey. Sorry, world. Yay, hypothetical demon.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1994
Reed meets me at the airport. He’s picking me up, taking me to the Smile Hole, his club. Where am I staying?
“I figured I could take you to the hotel after the show,” he says, sniffing wetly every third word.
I say, “Well, I kinda need a shower.”
“See, we haven’t sold a lot of tickets. We haven’t sold
any
tickets.
You
haven’t sold a single ticket.” Reed can deftly make a declarative statement and follow it with amended, directed blame. “You’ve got to go do some radio. There’s a bunch of
I drove around that afternoon in my rental car, visiting friends and seeing the sights. I flipped around the AM dial and found “Topical” Tommy’s right-wing radio show. He’d lost none of his anger but, now that he only had to remember six or seven catchall phrases that were guaranteed to set his listeners frothing, he spewed them with a venom that Ian MacKaye would’ve envied. Maybe all those years of silence, and stares, and dismissal from the crowd had secretly eaten away at him, and now he loved knowing he’d always get a positive response. At the mid-point of the show, he and a caller agreed, angrily, about how the blacks had blown all their chances for social justice and reform after the Rodney King verdict.
“I used to do comedy, and I remember trying to reach out and say how disgusted I was with that verdict, and this idiot in the audience was too stupid to know I was agreeing with him! Started shouting at me and threatening to kick my ass . . .”
The caller said, “That verdict was totally fair! They didn’t beat that guy enough!”
“Thank you,
exactly,
” said Tommy. I wanted to call him and bring up the Time-Warner merger, but my cell phone wasn’t getting a signal.
That night at the club, the manager came back to see me in the greenroom.
“Hey, Blazer!” I said, jumping up and hugging him.
“You want any kind of special intro music?”
I said, “
You
pick something. Your taste is better than mine. You turned me on to the Kinks back when I was an open-miker.”
He showed me pictures of his new wife and kids. The son and daughter were athletic and coltish, respectively. The wife was cute, in a sunny blouse and slacks, a tattoo of an ankh on her wrist. The tail of a larger, more elaborate tattoo barely peeked out from the collar of his shirt. The picture was taken at a soccer game in the suburbs.
The emcee introduced me. The Kinks’ “Come Dancing” played as I took the stage. I looked out over the room. In the back, standing trim and happy in his sport-coat-over-T-shirt ensemble, Blazer smiled, lit by the blue light of the bar.
The Tonight Show
was forever gone, forever receded on his horizon. But he’d expanded his endpoint to take in every second of every day, and he’d honed his life down to pure reward.
The Victory Tour
In October 1993 I was a finalist in the San Francisco International Comedy Competition.
Because of this, I got hired by a club owner named Reed * to headline his comedy club in Vancouver, Canada. Which turned out to be in Surrey, which is a suburb of Vancouver the way boredom is a lesser state of excitement. Sorry, Surrey—but I spent the shittiest eleven days of my comedic career in your town and surrounding environs in the immediate company of Reed, the human equivalent of rancid clam chowder. †
At the time, I couldn’t have been more excited. Headlining. In Vancouver. All of my friends gushed about the city, about the cool people and bars and music clubs and the chess players near Burrard Street. I’ve since visited Vancouver many times and love it.
I visited Surrey in the early fall of 1994, and I would return only if I was tasked to kill a demon to save the world. Maybe not even then. Sorry, Surrey. Sorry, world. Yay, hypothetical demon.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1994
Reed meets me at the airport. He’s picking me up, taking me to the Smile Hole, his club. Where am I staying?
“I figured I could take you to the hotel after the show,” he says, sniffing wetly every third word.
I say, “Well, I kinda need a shower.”
“See, we haven’t sold a lot of tickets. We haven’t sold
any
tickets.
You
haven’t sold a single ticket.” Reed can deftly make a declarative statement and follow it with amended, directed blame. “You’ve got to go do some radio. There’s a bunch of