Submission 22

Comedian Bio

There was a time when John E. was making his living convincing people to gamble with their health and finance ratios, a.k.a. selling supplemental health insurance. Then he was accepted into The Other Side, an improv comedy trope that’s title took on a metaphorical meaning when he reevaluated his personal purpose in this world, quit his job and dove deeper into the comedy arts by joining the sketch comedy trope, Changing Channels. That title also took on yet another metaphorical meaning as he developed the multimedia production company, PARALLELLOGRAM. This lengthy, slightly misspelled word became the moniker under which several comedic short films were created. Then, in 2010, just as his unsatisfying occupation had led him to the creative arts in the past, frustration toward societal hypocrisies led him to performing stand up comedy. Since then he’s developed a friendly, irreverent, satirical style that challenges the status quo of comedy by taking on divisive topics like the military/industrial complex, nipple equality, government secrecy, and perhaps the most divisive topic of our time, Kanye. Since John E. is a Wilmington, North Carolinian, he hails the Dead Crow Comedy Room his home club. He has opened for several of his comedy heroes there, including Myq Kaplan, Ben Kronberg, and Ryan Singer.

Story

I got into stand up comedy with the best intentions. Sure there was a narcissistic need for validation that inspires so many to get into the art form, but my main motivation came from the need to speak free. There are very few places in this world that truly encourage free speech, and the world of stand up comedy is one of them, with the caveat that it has to be funny, or at least interesting. The topic that I desired to speak about the most: hypocrisy. Stand up comedy became an outlet for me to hone my complaints about society’s many hypocrisies in a humorous and purposeful. This is a much more fulfilling than the whiny complaints to my family and friends that I was doing previous to this. With every bit that I’d write and perform, I’d ask myself “How can I point out these hypocrisies in a way that will get people giggling but also get them thinking”. It’s been an evolving process to find that balance, especially when I’m attempting to make divisive points that are difficult to convey much less make hilarious, some include “taxation is theft”, “9-11 was an inside job, maybe, there’s so much government secrecy who’s to say, except for the government, but they’re not saying”, “the sun is a racist against white people because it’s always burning their pale white skin”, “how little sense it makes to have fluoride in the water supply since there’s a paste you can rub on your teeth that has that in it already”, “every cow in America is a slave that will most likely be murdered by a hit man that was hired indirectly by anybody that orders cheeseburgers”, and finally, “white people can say the word “nigger” cause if you say a person can’t say a word because of the color of their skin, then you’re not only being a racist but you’re being a wordist.” This last one has caused me some strife, partly because I’m white and partly because there are a lot of wordists out there. Hey wordists, check it out, all words are created equal. No word, as a word by itself, is bad. It’s about how that word is used; it’s context, but most of the population has been indoctrinated into this concept that there are “bad” words. In fact, despite the Constitution of the United States of America stating in it’s very first amendment that all have a right to free speech, the federal government, the very organization that wrote that document, contradicted that amendment in a big way by creating an organization called the Federal Communications Commission that created a whole list of “bad” words that could not be said on radio and television. Included in that list of words is the word “nigger”; a word so heavily discriminated against that it was taken out of new printed editions of Mark Twain classics and changed to the word “slave”, which as far as labels go, sounds way worse to me, but it’s a good example of how much hatred for “nigger” (the word) that we’re dealing with in our society. I’ve certainly felt this misguided discrimination multiple times while performing this bit. One time I was performing for a crowd of 99% white people and one black guy, who I knew, named Tim. We weren’t best friends but we’ve had a couple of decent conversations in the past so I went up to him after the show to say hey, and I could tell by his cold response to me that he was not pleased, so I asked if he thought that it wasn’t cool that I did the bit that I did, and he said “yeah”, and then turned his whole back to me and started talking to someone else. We didn’t talk since, but a year later I happen to get into a heated public Facebook post discussion with a black comic. The heated discussion became about how this comic made some sexist comments to a woman friend of mine while he was onstage and she ended up walking out. Then out of nowhere, Tim chimes in. “Why would anyone heed what John E Gray has to say, he thinks it’s cool to say nigger on stage”. This let me know two things. One: I’m wasting my god damn time on Facebook, and two: Tim didn’t even hear the point of my bit cause I lost his attention right after I became a white person that said “nigger”. I should, at this point, add that I actually never say the word “nigger”. I say, “nigga”. I do this not out of fear of the crowd’s response to that hard “er”, (not to discredit the significant difference, those two “er” letters definitely inspire a harsher reaction) but because my way of getting into the bit is to talk about the song “Niggas In Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye West, and how it’s my favorite song. This usually seamlessly segues from my comedy bits about Kanye and Kim Kardashian, (two more divisive topics) and hopefully gets me to the parts of the bit that the audience really enjoys, like when I talk about being raised by wordists (my parents). Then I list all the bad words that weren’t allowed at my wordist parent’s dinner table and how those are the same words that the federal government deems as “bad” words, and so they were just taught how to be wordists by the government, and what happens when the FCC adds to it’s list of “bad” words the real bad word that ever one knows is bad, the word “moist”. I’ve been told many times that “moist” is a bad word, I’m still not sure why. I know it’s got something to do with vaginas, but in my experience if you’ve got moisture and vaginas together, that’s a winning combination right there. Anyway, that part of the bit typically does well. Then I rap it up with making my point that words aren’t bad, it’s how you use them that can be bad, and if I ever use the “N” word, its either to refer to my favorite jam, “Niggas In Paris” by Jeezy and Yeezy, or to refer to my friends, and I’ll say, “even though I don’t know most of you here tonight, ya’ll seem cool, and I’d like to be your friend, so I hope y’all consider me to be your nigga.” I did this bit in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and a man in the back yelled “YOU AIN’T FUNNY”, it was a black man. I asked, “did you say that because I’m a white guy that just said the “N” word. He said, “Yep! Get the fuck off the stage, dude.” That happened to be the last part of my set, so I said, “you’re right, bye”, and got the fuck off the stage, dude. On the walk home I could tell my newly girlfriended girlfriend was not pleased with my performance either. I could tell because she said, “that wasn’t cool for you to say that, there is a lot of painful history behind that word”. Then I said, “no there’s not. There’s pain projected on to that word, but the real historical pain in the black culture comes from being kidnapped away from their homeland, and the century of slavery, and the institutional inequality and discrimination. These are vile atrocities, the later two still in full effect with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that states that slavery is abolished unless the person is in prison and the War On Drugs insures that butt loads of people are gonna be taken to prison, and most of those people happen to be black. Meanwhile it’s the word that gets vilified, not the actions. Words, just like people, are all created equally, its discrimination that created “nigger” in the first place, as a way to discriminate, so if black people want to own the word “nigger”, they’re trying to make “nigger” their slave. How twisted is that?” My then girlfriend said, “you should make that part of the bit”. Then I smacked myself in the forehead cause it is a part of the bit. I had totally forgotten and left out all the words that would have allowed me the freedom to set that slave word free. I forgot to free my own speech. 

Submission 21

Comedian Bio

Louis Bishop has been performing Stand Up for 8 years. Based out of Wilmington, NC. Louis has performed in many festivals including Laughfest, NC Comedy Arts Festival, Cape Fear Comedy Festival, Norfolk Comedy Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, Hilarity for Charity, Wine and Chocolate Festival, and Flops Comedy Festival.

Story

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Submission 20

Comedian Bio

Jordan Bench has been doing standup comedy for four years. He has been on two cross country tours and has preformed in more than 15 states. Jordan has opened for Eddie Ifft, Nate Craig, Ron Funches, Joe Zimmerman, Jon Rineman, Quinn Dahle, Joe List, Ian Edwards, and Big Jay Oakerson.

Story

I’m a 26 year old standup comedian by the name of Jordan Randolph Bench. I am originally from a rainy desolate waste land overrun with social justice warriors, moral police, tech billionaires, and homeless “no one cares,” otherwise known as Seattle, Washington. My comedy journey began in Wilmington, North Carolina however. Wilmington is quite a genial little beach town if you don’t mind tons of heroine and everyone you know having a DUI. I moved there in the summer of 2012 to attend the University of North Carolina Wilmington. This move was both the best and worst decision of my life. I say best because I started doing comedy there and comedy, for lack of a better word, “saved” my life. I say “saved” because before comedy I was wandering through life like a rebel without a brain; aimless, perfunctory, and incredibly depressed. I say it was the worst decision of my life because comedy eventually led me back to Seattle where I thought it would be a hilarious and groundbreaking idea to get hammered, pull my dick out of a trench coat, and subsequently get tackled off stage by a brain damaged owner of the club. Oh, and also I failed out of college in my senior year. Party! It’s not as though pulling my tiny, rarely used meat hammer (more of a meat tack hammer) and petite, although unwavering set of balls out of a trench coat in a room “full” of about twelve people was a spur of the moment idea. (I say “full” because as any comedian knows most open mics clear out about halfway through and all that’s left is bitter, exasperated, just ready to go home fellow comedians.) Believe it or not exposing my Rick Moranis like unit was something I had been considering for a couple of months before it actually happened. I was in Venice, Florida two or so months before the incident, as my aging parents had just bought a retirement home in the gulf coast beach town. What does one do in an elderly paradise such as Venice you may ask? Hit the golf course and get stuck behind a foursome of 90 something’s who take 30 minutes to find a ball they only hit ten feet? Wander about downtown on a rusted out beach bike from 1993? Take a dip in the Gulf of Mexico and get ravaged by a pack disgruntled manatees? Fuck that, you go to the second hand clothing store and make out like a bandit. Venice is where rich people go to die and either they were so old their kids are dead too or their still breathing children didn’t want to rummage through their closet full of 1940’s trench coats and evening wear so they just said fuck it and donated everything. That’s where I come in. I didn’t walk into the second hand store with trench coats on the mind but when I saw it I knew I had to have it; Khaki in color, double breasted, and too big to the point where it looked cartoonish and ridiculous on me but I could still wear it without the coat tail touching the ground. So I bought it, smelled like old man sweat, only fifteen dollars, what a steal of a deal! My originally plan when I got back to Seattle was to make a black and white short film about a trench coat flasher terrorizing his neighborhood. I wanted to have close ups of me sneaking around trees and through bushes and a shot of me whipping the trench coat open in dramatic fashion. The shot of me ripping the trench open would be from behind so the audience wouldn’t see my twerpie genitals but they would see the victim’s reaction. The idea was to have all the victim’s be startled at first and then fall into fits of hysterical laughter once they realized how unthreatening my manhood is, all the while the song Yakety Sax would be playing in the background. This would happen to a couple different “victims” until I would eventually walk home disheveled and broken with my tail between my legs and the song Old Violin by Johnny Paycheck playing in the background. I never got to make the movie, not that I didn’t have the time I just didn’t put in the effort. So the trench coat sat on a coat rack next to my front door waiting to be pried open to reveal all my glorious disappointment. I guess I did get to live the experience of the movie though. Oh the foreshadowing. (If you haven’t heard Old Violin it’s both astonishingly depressing and accidently hilarious, a masterpiece) About a week leading up to the incident I had a recovering meth addicted homeless comedian, who prefers to go unnamed, living on my couch. Because he was in recovery and I’m an incredible decision maker I decided we should drink beers to excess every day for about three or four days. We’d have bonfires in the back yard at night accompanied by an eighteen pack of Rolling Rocks (cheapest beer the 7/11 next store sold) then I’d play Madden 11 on Xbox 360 till I fell asleep at around four or five in the morning. You know, the usual. Then one night I looked over at the trench coat perched on the coat rack and in a drunken haze the idea swirled into my toilet bowl mind. I said, “Dude, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I wore that trench coat with nothing under it to the open mic tomorrow and did my whole set with my dick out?” I don’t remember exactly how he replied but it was something like, “Haha, yeah that’d be pretty wild.” Not really all that enthusiast but it was enough for me. I’d like to say that I’m not blaming him in any way, shape, or form. It was my idea, he probably thought I wasn’t even being serious, and had he said it was stupid I’m almost certain I would have done it anyway just to prove him wrong. The next night we go to the open mic at Laughs Comedy Club in the University district of Seattle, me with trench coat in tow and already a belly full of beer. The date was August 23, 2017. The only reason I’m absolutely sure that was the date is because it was the day before my 26th birthday. Go figure. So we get to the club somewhat late and all the other comedians are already there and waiting in line to sign up, which means I’m going up somewhere near the end of night. I was very thankful for that because I was nervous as fuck and now had plenty of time to calm my nerves at the bar across the street. I went to the bar across the street because Laughs, like most comedy clubs, charges way too much for beers. So I guzzle booze at the bar across the street for about an hour and a half and then another friend who knew I was about to release my trouser worm to the world, but once again will remain nameless, came over and told me there was only a few people left and then I was up. I apprehensively went into the bathroom and stripped down to my natural, God given form. I put the trench coat over myself and it was so big on me you couldn’t really see my bare ankles or tell I was in the buff. I stumbled across the street and as unassumingly as possible made my way to the back of the room. Sweat was beading down my brow, my chest, and just about everywhere else. I told myself in the beginning that I was going to go through with it no matter what though, and I was sticking to that. That was the whole reason I had gotten shitfaced in the first place. So I wouldn’t back down no matter what. That and I really like to get shitfaced. Then out of nowhere the brain damaged club owner comes over to me asks what’s under my coat. (I call him brain damaged not as insult but because he actually suffered a traumatic brain injury, but hey two birds one stone if ya know what I mean) I say. “Nothing, I’m naked.” With a sheepish grin on my face. He tells me in no uncertain terms that I can’t go up that night and walks away to erase my name from the list. My first instinct was relief because I was still as nervous as a tight clamed nineteen old about to give birth for the first time. Then my drunken idiot self chimed in and remembered that I had promised myself I was not backing down no matter what. I was like Leonard Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street when he decides mid speech not to leave his corrupt business. “I’m not leaving! I’m not fucking leaving!” I didn’t say this out loud or even in my head but it was the same attitude. I wasn’t fucking leaving. I leaned over to my meth head homeless friend and said, “Should I go up anyways?” This time he enthusiastically said, “Yes, do it!” I still don’t blame him, I made my own bed and I’ll grudgingly lye in it. I got up just as the comic currently on stage was about close. I walked toward the exit near the stage as if I was about to leave. The comic closed, the host came up and introduced the next performer. I said fuck it ran to the stage while the other guy walked. I mounted the stage and went right up to the microphone, all fear and anxiety gone as I grabbed the mic stand and in my wacky high pitched voice said, “If there’s one thing I consider about being nude!” The with the word nude I pulled the trench coat apart exposing my tatter tot sized cock to the awe struck crowd. Not a second later. WHAM! The brain damaged club owners big meaty paw slap punched me in the chest with a force only businesslike angry can conjure. He grabbed onto the coat and with all his might judo style, hip tossed me over his back and onto my head. He then picked me up and rushed me out the door. I don’t remember if I got away from him or if he let me go once we got outside but once I was far enough away I trued around and yelled, “fuck you!” That’s the last thing I remember of the eye-popping and liver melting evening. The next morning I woke up in my bed and didn’t really think much of it. I knew I was banned for life from Laughs but didn’t care because I didn’t really go to that club very often anyways. Then I picked up my phone and I had a message on Facebook messenger. This was the beginning of end for me as a comedian in Seattle. I once again won’t reveal the person’s name but I will say she runs a show at Jai Thai, one of my favorite places to do comedy in Seattle and she has a lot of pull throughout the city. The message reads, Jordan. I’m sure you’re not surprised I’ve heard what happened at Laughs. In fact, the owner texted me within hours. Word travels fast. You’ve gotta know that exposing yourself to a crowd is some really entitled and predatory behavior. Even if it was fake, no one in that crowd knows that, and I can only imagine how uncomfortable it was for them. I honestly don’t know what you were thinking. Perhaps you can shed some light for me, I’d be willing to hear it. But I should tell you that I’ve thought about it at length and my mind hasn’t changed. You are no longer welcome on our stage at Jai Thai. You have proven that you can’t be trusted to respect the rules of a venue, an open mic, or common decency. Maybe you think that “anything goes” under the umbrella of comedy, and it’s your right to let your freak flag fly out there, but I can assure you: your actions have consequences. I think you have a lot to learn from this community, but you and your friends have an insular little think tank that keeps you grinding against the values of our scene. If you want to come out and watch shows, support your peers, and learn from people, I’m not gonna stop you. I, as a producer, can’t take business away from the restaurant. But at the same time, I can’t guarantee your peers will be happy to see you or make you feel welcome. I’m gonna leave that in their court. Something I CAN guarantee though: if you ever pulled something like this at Jai Thai, you will be 86ed permanently, we will call the cops, and you will face charges. Comedy is an amazingly powerful art, but it’s tricky because technically anyone can do it. And what people do on stage on any given show affects how that audience feels about watching stand up in general. I hope you do figure out how to be funny without being hurtful or gross. But it’s not gonna be in my room. Sent from my iPhone This was the moment I knew I had royally fucked up. I had been banned for life from Laughs which made sense and honestly I knew that would happen going in. But now I had been banned from one of, if not my favorite place to do comedy in the city. Then the “life time” bans just kept rolling in day after day. Seattle Underground, Tacoma Comedy Club, The Local 907, Trenchers, and Scratch Deli. I didn’t receive messages to find out about those ones though. I either heard I was never again welcome at a place through word of mouth or showed up somewhere and was turned away at the door. That was when the darkness unequivocally began closing in on me. I would go to shows that would allow me to go up and most of my comedic peers wouldn’t even look at me. It was one of those moments where you really find out who your real friends are, as hacky as that may sound it was true. I’m genuinely grateful for those true friends that stuck with me and for those acquaintances that just didn’t give a fuck and thought it was what it was; a stupid joke. The funny thing about it to me is the people that were most furious with me weren’t even there when it happened. They heard about it and that was enough. What’s even funnier is the few people that were there told me they thought it was incredibly stupid and reckless but none the less pretty funny. The hatred far outweighed the understanding though. I was on stage at an improv mic called Naked Brunch, where I was thankfully still welcome. This was about two weeks after I’d pulled out sonic the small hog and I decided to talk about it at the mic. There was a group of about seven female comedians sitting in the middle row of the audience. Once they realized who I was one of them yelled out, “You’re the dick guy!?” I had met all of them several times before but it took my door stopper sized cock for them to remember me. Then all seven of them proceeded to turn their chairs to face the other direction. People were figuratively and literally turning their backs on me, the figurative turning of the backs hurt far worse. I actually thought what the seven girls did was genuinely humorous even though I know they obviously meant it to be hurtful. I had never done comedy to the back of someone’s head before and it was downright thrilling. Nearly gave me wood, or twig I should say. The most painful repercussions, the ones that made me regret it the most were the times I would be allowed in a venue to watch but not to go up. It was such a stark contrast from people saying things like, “good set!” or, “funny stuff.” And now they were saying, “you’re horrible!” Even though I hadn’t been on stage that night at all. People would also simply walk away when I would join a circle of former friends talking. I did genuinely fell bad that I could have cost Laughs Comedy Club their liquor license though. I sincerely didn’t know that a bar can lose their license in Washington State if there is full nudity in the venue. Laughs did apparently call the police after I had left though. For a long time I was worried there was warrant out for my arrest. There was never and still isn’t a warrant out for me. Would have been a pretty good, “what you in for?” story though. When I think back on it the police probably showed up and said, “what happened? A guy pulled his dick out at a comedy show? Ok we’re gonna go arrest real criminals now, have a nice night.” Almost everyone I considered a peer disowning me did have quite an impact on me though. It thrust me into a dark hole I still haven’t fully dug my way out of. I know there is no one to blame for my actions but myself but I didn’t expect it to rile people up to this degree. I can’t fault them for feeling how they feel though. To sum it all up if you’re going to do something and you go into it with the “I’m not leaving!” mentality, be prepared to be picked up by a brain damaged business owner and throw out the front door onto your head. And if you’re going to pull your dick out onstage make sure you have a big meaty gargantuan throbbing purple headed warrior, not a small pinky and the brain (brain being my balls). Or just don’t do it at all, but then again who am I to tell you what to do. Full story can be heard on the podcast Unbothered by Thia Rivera

Submission 19

Comedian Bio

Ryan Brown began doing stand up in North Carolina and became a fixture of the local scene before leaving for New York where he now pays rent on the Upper West Side. In addition to hosting and producing School Nite Comedy Hour, a monthly showcase at SideWalk Cafe, Ryan can be seen at bars and clubs all over the city including Comic Strip Live, New York Comedy Club and more. Outside of New York, he tours the east coast as one of the founders of Escape From New York Comedy and has been featured in the Cape Fear and Asheville Comedy Festivals. Over the course of his career he's worked with notable comics including Dave Attell, JB Smoove, TJ Miller, Charlie Murphy & more. He is also a contributing writer for the fitness satire website, The Overheard Press.

Story

There’s a bar in Clayton, Indiana, about 40 minutes outside of Indianapolis, called Doss Ranch. It’s owned and operated by my aunt and uncle on my mom’s side. A few years ago at a family gathering my aunt suggested I come do a show there. I’ve got a lot of family in the area that would surely come to see me plus she said she’d promote it to everyone that she could. On top of that, she told me I could keep 100% of the ticket sales, she was just excited to have me come do the show. So, we set a date and a few months later I flew from NY to Indianapolis to headline Doss Ranch. I was staying with my cousin in Indianapolis and on the day of the show we got in his van and drove past several cornfields, churches and liquor stores before arriving at this simple, no-frills establishment full of simple, no-frills patrons. The Doss Ranch regulars were working-class locals who came here to put away a few bud lights while passing thick thunderstorm clouds of nicotine vapor through their lungs. There was a small stage in the corner of the place that usually hosted karaoke or local country music acts. On stage stood a lifesize cardboard cutout of some nascar driver and the entire place was carpeted, which is odd for a bar. Even the stage was carpeted. The lighting provided by small overhead bulbs and a litany of neon signs on the walls cast a mood that can best be described as “after hours at the DMV”. I’d arrived early and as we got closer to showtime a lot more people started showing up. Mostly family members and their friends. They were people who’d driven from Indianapolis just like I had and probably wouldn’t find themselves at the ranch under normal circumstances. By the time the show started the place was packed and it was fantastic. I’d found a local comic to open for me with a quick 12 minute set. He seemed fairly green but they were patient with him and he did ok. Then I went up and did the best hour of stand up comedy I’ve ever done still to this day. My setlist was 4 or 5 years in the making, so everything was honed to perfection. It also included 10-15 minutes of the easy, lowest common denominator, sex, drugs and alcohol-themed material I specialized in as a young comic. That stuff helped to get the room on my side before attempting headier bits, which they were also on board with. It felt so good to present all this material at once and for it to all be so effective. And to do it in front of a huge group of my extended family made it even more meaningful. After the show my aunt handed me $700 cash as payment and I was on top of the world. I’d just crushed a headlining set and earned the spoils. I flew back to NY the next day as validated as I could ever be. Then a year later, I went back to the ranch. It seemed like an obvious thing to do. I mean the first time around was such an amazing experience. The only problem was that I hadn’t written a whole new hour in that year since the first show at Doss Ranch. No problem though. The solution was that I wouldn’t do an hour. I decided to bring two other comics with me from New York. One was my friend Frank Favia. Frank’s act is mostly about being a nice guy who strikes out with the ladies. He’s very likable and self-deprecating. The other comic I brought was Thomas Dixson. We’d started together in Raleigh, NC and had both moved to New York since. Before Thomas took the gig he’d informed me that he hadn’t done stand up in over a month. That’s an epoch of a hiatus in stand up time but I didn’t care. I knew Thomas would hold his own because he’s one of the most naturally gifted comics I’ve ever met. I also booked another local Indianapolis-based comic to host the show. I figured he’d do 15 minutes up top. Then Frank and Thomas could do 20 minutes each and I’d do a mostly new 30 minutes to close it out. From the jump, things were different this time around. The Wednesday before the show I came down with a cold that was getting worse by the day. Come Friday, when we all met at the airport to fly to Indy, I had been sapped of all my energy. I was just hoping I could make it through the gig on pure adrenaline. It wasn’t ideal but I assured myself that if the crowd was as supportive as they’d been a year prior, everything would be fine. We got to the venue at 7:20 and the show was supposed to start at 8. Just like the first time, the bar was full of locals drinking their bud lights, periodically disappearing behind giant vape clouds. It got to be 7:50 and there were about half as many people in the room as there had been the year before. 8:00 came and the cavalry of friends and family never showed. My aunt felt bad about the turnout and suggested we delay the start just a little because surely more people were on their way. A few more trickled in and we finally kicked it off at 8:30. Our host took the stage and did his 15 minutes. The audience response was tepid. Frank went up and did his 20 minutes. The room was beginning to loosen up but they never fully yielded to Frank’s affable charm. He was getting laughs but there was a tightness in the air that refused to dissolve as he cruised through his material. Then Thomas, a black guy, went on stage for the first time in over a month, in front of this rural, drunk, all-white room and opened with this: “So… I’m aware of the fact that, in this town, my skin is kinda like an away jersey” It crushed. His being the only black person in the room, and possibly the area code, was on everybody’s mind and he exploited that tension masterfully. Within 5 minutes he had them all under his spell and could do no wrong. The tightness Frank had endured was long gone. However, thanks to our late start, the crowd had been drinking now for about 90 minutes and it was starting to show. They were getting rowdy and Thomas’s spontaneous, high-energy set was throwing fuel on the fire. He started doing crowd work, setting a dangerous precedent that it’s okay for the audience to become a part of the show. By the end of his 20 minutes people were sending shots to him up on stage and he was taking each one to thunderous applause. They had become an unruly drunken mob. To be clear, I don’t blame Thomas for this one bit. He was doing what he had to do to survive up there and he absolutely destroyed. These people would’ve voted him into office. He left the stage and Doss Ranch was on fire. I wasn’t sure how I was going to follow him. I knew I needed to be loose and in-the-moment but my head was in a fog from the cold I’d been battling. I didn’t feel quick on my feet. I didn’t feel sharp. I didn’t feel funny. I decided that if any opportunity to riff popped into my head, I’d just go with it. I had a feeling, after watching Thomas, that the more I went off script, the better. These were not my people and I was not their comic. In the year since my first appearance at the ranch my style had become smarter and more subtle. It required a lot more reading between the lines. These were blue collar, salt-of-the-earth folks and here I was with my quippy observations about working in an office or a bit about how if I lived in the middle east I could probably be peer-pressured into joining ISIS. Honestly the set was a blur. For 25 minutes I alternated between doing material that was met with half-hearted chuckles from an audience that couldn’t relate to me and attempting crowd work with a room so drunk they would interrupt one another while trying to respond to me. What made it even more surreal was that they were all regulars so they knew each other. At one point a guy in the back yelled something indecipherable and someone across the room scolded him by name, “Shut up, Gilmore!” It was a mess. I walked off the stage defeated. My aunt handed me about $450 dollars this time, not nearly enough to cover the cost of the three round-trip flights we all took to get there. I was prepared to break even but this was a huge loss. We hung out at the ranch and drank for a couple hours after the show. Thomas was swarmed by newly minted fans who wanted to take a pictures with him and buy him drinks. I receded into the shadows happy to put the whole experience behind me and Frank went out to the parking lot with Gilmore to smoke weed in his truck. Those are the highs and lows of Doss Ranch.