In general, I have a rule when I am performing comedy: Do not blame the audience if things are not going well. Too often, I have found comedians who have not done well get mad at a crowd and believe it is the fault of the audience when, in reality, they should be shouldering a lot of that responsibility themselves. If a crowd doesn’t laugh at a joke, I’m usually not one to blame the crowd. Maybe it’s not a great joke. Maybe I delivered it poorly that night. Maybe something happened earlier in my set that I failed to pick up on and now I’m seeing the repercussions of that. I find having this mindset (hopefully) makes me a better comedian and performer because it is always making me look at ways to improve my comedy.
There are, of course, notable and obvious exceptions to this rule. Sometimes an audience member has decided they are going to help the show by heckling. Sometimes an audience member is blind drunk. And sometimes a former co-worker tries to get your show cancelled before it even begins.
This story is about that last kind of example.
I have a day job. I understand that many of you just assume I live my life as a full-time blogger/comedian/nude model, and I wish that could be the case. Alas, that doesn’t quite fill all of the needs for my family’s income, so I also work in a distribution center, which is basically a big-ass warehouse. I work in DeKalb, Illinois and because I work in a big-ass warehouse, so do a lot of other people and a lot of those people live in Rockford, a city I have a great fondness for (more on that later). So, when I do a show in Rockford, I tend to invite the people who live out that way because when people I work with find out I do stand-up comedy, they are naturally curious. Here are the most often asked questions I get from my co-workers:
Do you ever tell stories about what happens at work? No.I do not.
How long have you been doing comedy? Since 2006.
Is it fun? Do you get nervous? I would be so nervous. Yes to both of those. It is both a whole lot of fun and also wildly nerve-racking, especially when performing in front of people I work with, because if I do poorly, I have to see all of these people the next day and then every subsequent day and that is fucking awkward if I eat it.
Seriously, though… how much do you talk about where we work? Seriously… never.
Is this why it seems like you’re hungover sometimes at work? Absolutely.
But do you tell people about the time at work when…? NO.
There was a dude I worked with in my department and we’ll call him Norman (not his real name). Norman was fired around 2020 and it is fair to say that, due to a myriad of political differences as well as wild variances on how we view the world, that we did not get along. I’m willing to accept blame for some of this and I’m also more than happy to place blame. Look, we all have people at work we have a hard time tolerating. You have Carla or Stuart or Kevin or Betsy. I had Norman and we’ll leave it at that.
Anyways, it is the summer of 2022. I am getting ready to perform at a show in Loves Park, Illinois, which is very close to Rockford. I make my social media promotional posts, including one in the Facebook group comprised entirely of my co-workers. I’ve always loved this room and have my dear friends Cameron and Emily opening for me. I get in the car and am ready for a really fun time.
Before I continue, I need to write a little bit of a love letter to Rockford and the Illinois stateline. If I’m doing a show in Northern Illinois, the odds are I am doing a Jared Corey show. And he is one of my ten favorite people in the world.
Fellow Fancy Boy Jack Baker and I met Jared a little over ten years ago when we started running a show at the Kryptonite Bar in downtown Rockford. Jared was working for the bar and immediately asked Jack and I what he could do to help. From day one, it was clear that he cared about putting on a great product and making performers and audiences feel like they were part of something special.
I got crazy drunk on the first show, mostly because Kryptonite has the ginger-infused whiskey that they sold for an insanely cheap price. I still remember Jared handing me a bag of potato chips after the show and telling me to drive safe. I’m not sure if the chips were supposed to help suck up the whiskey or if I was supposed to bribe any police officers with them. All I remember is that that bag of chips was one of the most fucking delicious meals I have ever had in my entire life. And I have eaten a lot of potato chips.
Anyways, since then, I’ve always loved Rockford. Something I particularly love about Rockford is their willingness to make fun of themselves. I do a joke where I say that Rockford is eight beautiful downtown square blocks while the fifteen miles around it looks like an abandoned factory that, while operating, made abandoned factories. You know who loves that joke? People in goddamned Rockford. They know who they are and what they’re about.
Rockford is the salt of the earth and I will duel anyone saying otherwise.
So, back to my story:
I’m driving to Hope & Anchor and I’m about a half hour away when I get two calls simultaneously from Emily and Jared. Both want me to call them and make sure I am coming to the show (I was) and that I didn’t have COVID (I didn’t). These are two very strange requests, but they make sense when you read the circumstances.
Apparently, Cameron and Emily had gone to a renaissance faire (I use the extra “e” because I’m fancy as balls) up north so they decided to just drive to the venue early and get dinner. While having dinner, a guy rushes into the bar and announces that the comedy show is cancelled. The bar staff and owner seem confused. The dude points to my picture that is on a poster, says that he is my business manager and that I have COVID so will not be able to make it, then leaves in a huff. The venue is, understandably, confused and Emily and Cameron are just fucking baffled, so there is a series of texts where we are just trying to get everything sorted out. I explain that I’m fine, will be there shortly, and increase my highway speed significantly.
When I arrive to the venue, it seems like the owner is pretty peeved. Since this mysterious man came and left the bar announcing my COVIDity, he has now taken to calling the venue and demanding we cancel the show because the headliner (me) has COVID (again, I don’t) and that he will call the media and announce the health crisis that is about to take place if I am allowed to perform. The owner is annoyed, and pulls out his phone which has the security camera footage from the building. He asks me if I recognize the guy who is doing all of this, and I do.
It’s Norman.
I’m not sure what led him to do this, because the last time I talked to him was the last day he was at work and that had been, probably, 18 months or so since that date and when the show was happening. It was all really fucking weird. But there were two takeaways from the whole thing I would like to leave you with.
First off, I’m guessing the hope for Norman doing this was that if he couldn’t cancel the show, he would throw me off my game. And I’m not gonna pretend I didn’t spend a lot of time before I got onstage thinking what a weird dude he was, but once I got onstage, it was just another set. My friend Scott recorded the set and I watched it recently. I had a great time onstage and the audience enjoyed me and everyone left having an fun night. I did my job.
The second thing is this: I’m just glad Norman thought I was so successful at comedy that I would have a business manager.
Fancy Boys Club 