WAKE UP OR WALK OUT!

On October 11th I jumped on a plane to head down to a club I’ve only been at one-time before but was one of my favorite places that I’ve been. The Boardwalk Bowl in Orlando, FL.

Saying Comedy “Club” almost sounds misleading in a lot of cases for comedians, because the places we play aren’t actually stand-alone comedy clubs. More often than not, our weeks get filled up with “rooms” versus “clubs”. It doesn’t matter to the audience, to them it’s a “club”, but to a comedian, there is a difference, if only in terminology. The Boardwalk Bowl in Orlando is a huge entertainment center that consists mainly of bowling and arcade games. The bar section of this venue is where they have a Friday & Saturday night comedy show at 8:30pm produced by one of my favorite companies “Bonkerz Comedy Clubs”.

I was last at this club in September of 2017, just a few months after I recorded “I Plead the First” - and I was starting to sell my CD’s at the shows. I was excited to be back just about 2-years later with a brand new hour of material to share with the audience. I had built my mailing list around that part of Florida a little bit and knew that I would see some familiar faces in the crowd throughout the weekend.

This show started at 8:30pm both nights, but the venue wants the comics there by 7pm. It’s not uncommon to have to be at a show a little early to ensure that the venue can cover anything that might go wrong if a comic isn’t going to make it. However, it’s not common for comics to have to be at a show 90-minutes prior. When you’re a comic, the “waiting to go on stage” becomes torturous. People ask me all the time “do you get nervous before you go on?”, and the truth is that I’ve done this for so long now, that I don’t get nervous as much as I get anxious. I am comfortable ON stage, I am uncomfortable OFF stage. I just want to get the show started so I can feel normal.

I quickly made friends with the other comedians on the show David Noboa, and Charlie Bowie. Comedians bond quickly on the road as they are stuck in a foxhole together on night one and go to battle against the audience. Even though, deep down, the audience wants you to do well and not bomb - to the comics it feels like we are “against them” until we win them over. There were two younger comics on the show that night that we also had go up and do guest sets. As a young comic, that is often the way you can get work at the club or meet other comics who can help you get into other gigs, so I was happy to be able to accommodate them.

The Friday night audience was a weird bunch right from the start. The room was pretty full, but the audience was comprised of a lot of large groups. This can be fun if it’s the right group of people sitting together. Or, it can be hell if it’s the wrong group of people sitting together. Unfortunately, for me, I felt like it was the latter. All of the comics had ok reactions from the audience, but it just seemed like the audience wouldn’t jump on board for anything. However, the feature comedian Charlie Bowie got them rolling pretty good. He’s a funny act and worked his ass off up there to win that crowd over. One of the big issues was that the speaker in the back of the room, behind the bar, where a large part of the audience was, had been left unplugged for some reason. This caused a lot of distance between the sound of the comedian and the audience, which left the back of the room unable to hear much, which then left them talking to each other. I went up on stage full of optimism, as I had destroyed at this room a few years prior. Throughout my 50-minute set, I had a section of the room that absolutely loved what I was doing, but was shouting their delight back at me all throughout my set. They were saying stuff like “THAT’S RIGHT”, “WE AGREE WITH THAT”, “NO KIDDING!”, “ THAT’S HILARIOUS, SHE DOES THAT TOO!”. They weren’t heckling, but sometimes this loud agreeing is even worse than heckling. The reason being, when someone heckles, they are audibly rude to the comedian and the crowd can hear them being rude, which justifies it when a comedian knocks their dick in the dirt with a great comeback. When the crowd is agreeing loudly with you, they are still interrupting the flow of the show and it’s still audible to the audience, but they aren’t being rude, which doesn’t allow the comedian to show they’re frustrated and/or silence the noise without seeming like a dick themselves. This is just one of those situations you have to learn to live with as a comic. However, that was only one half of the room. The other half of the room absolutely hated my guts. It was just a group that didn’t get on board with my ranting, never saw the value in what I bring to the stage, and just stared at me with a stupid, blank-face, like I just fucked their sister right in front of them…and they’re jealous. One person had enough listening to me and made the decision that was best for both of us; they got up and walked out of the show. Having people walk out of my show is nothing new to me. Over the years of ranting and loudly expressing my opinions on stage, I’ve had more than my fair share of walkouts. Most of them are handled politely and without a scene. While I don’t like having people walk out and not enjoy my show, as that’s not the point of comedy, it doesn’t bother me as much as you would think it would. The reason being is that I feel that my material has a distinct point of view and that I am speaking the truth and funny about what I believe. I don’t always agree with everyone else and I don’t expect everyone else to agree with me. Well, in this case, there was a trickle-effect of walkouts. After this one person left, slowly but surely, that entire side of the room started to empty out. I wouldn’t even mind the mass walkout as much if the entire group got up at once and made the collective decision to leave. This was a little more painful as it seemed like someone else would walk out every two-minutes from there on out, like the fucking Royal Rumble. This is a case of being polite/rude. They don’t want to make a scene or be rude by walking out, so they pretend to take a bathroom break, never to return. That works when it’s a party of two at a table; I still notice when it happens, but it’s more tolerable. Having a group of twenty people walk out throughout the course of your show, slowly and methodically, is a nice humbling kick-in-the-dick. Anyway, after the show, the other comics and I laughed about the ridiculousness of the night, my wife text and said “did you have a good show?”, I said “no”. and she said “lol”…so, there’s that. My wife is amazing and is always there for me. However, when it comes to my comedy, she has seen her fair share of good shows over the years, now she looks forward to the train-wrecks more. She likes watching me scramble and squirm on stage…that keeps it fun for her.

Saturday was a new day, a new show, and the same venue. I’ve learned to have comedy amnesia over the years, where you basically have to pretend the last show didn’t happen, whether it’s good or bad. Because, neither one overly have a bearing on how the next show is going to go. I was excited for Saturday night as I had some people coming out to the show that I knew, and I was excited for them to see the new material that I have been working on. I walked into the venue at 7pm and saw that the speaker in the back of the room had been plugged back in, and I just knew the night was going to go better already. The other comics hit the stage and had great sets with an attentive crowd that was there to listen and laugh versus talk and balk. I murdered through the entire show and had the audience in the palm of my hand. I closed on an important piece of material that is the closing on my new album “Vincesectomy”, and the material is about Gay Marriage. I defend gay marriage and the idea of acceptance without judgement. This material has become a staple of my act over the past two-years while I’ve been writing this album and I’ve had countless numbers of that community as well as their parents come up to me and thank me for this bit. The idea that I can bring an important topic like that to the audience and make them laugh, while also make some others in the audience laugh and open up when they weren’t originally open to that idea, really helps keep me motivated in what I am doing. Towards the end of the bit, closing in on a 55-minute set, I had two audience members get up and walk out. This has happened throughout the country the past two years when I get to this bit. After my final joke, I decided to talk to the audience for a minute. I shared with them why I do this piece of material, what it means to me, and what it means to others throughout this country. I acknowledged the two people that walked out and shared my thoughts on what that means to the rest of us, which is NOTHING, and I thanked the audience for being there. My show ended with a standing ovation.

That’s why I love stand-up comedy. From 20-people walking out one night, to a standing ovation the next night. Same venue, same comics, same time, same material, different reaction. THAT is what keeps me going almost 20-years into the business. After the show I got to see my friend Mike and his wife Stephanie. They have been fans of mine since my early days of performing in Aurora, IL. They just moved down to Florida this past year and it was awesome that they took the time to come out and see me. After the show on Saturday, I saw the back of one of the comment cards that said “VINCE IS MY SPIRIT ANIMAL”. From comedic to animistic, I’ll fucking take it!