"...Brother Stair, this pro-choice, vegetarian feminist loves you..."
Damn You, Flyover States!, Dec 19, 2000
I wasn't supposed to sit in his row, but I had no elbow room, despite an aisle seat, because the guy in the center seat of my row was sort of large. His body flapped over into my space and so I moved to the empty aisle seat opposite me, quietly, so not to wake the man sleeping against the window. He was an older black man, perhaps in his seventies but it was hard to tell, wearing a dark pin striped suit and a hat.
I threw my newspapers in the empty center seat and opened my Powerbook. The passenger in front of me leaned his seat back, forcing me to hold the keyboard against my chest, with the screen in my lap. I coded web pages like I was playing an accordion.
When the man woke up during the food service, he asked to borrow the front page of the Times and his voice was very sweet and gentle. He took a cane with him when he got up to the bathroom, apologizing for making me get up. As we were landing, we started chatting. He was a singer, he told me. Really!, I said. He pulled out a flyer and here I was, sitting next to jazz singer John Rainbow. I'm a comic, I told him. Really!, he said. I pulled out a ratty notebook full of to-do lists and Aspen set lists. I was on my way to Cincinatti for a gig, I told him. And you, I asked him. I'm going to my brother's funeral, he said, in Cleveland. I told him I was sorry and he said thank you. He pulled out a CD and gave it to me.
The show was cancelled Wednesday night, due to weather, and so I went to the gym and it was John Rainbow's voice that accompanied me on the elliptical trainer, while I watched on the Bally's tv sets as Al Gore conceded the election to the spawn of Satan. His voice was clear and nimble, John Rainbow's that is, and first I almost cried because this voice was at a funeral and then I almost cried because Al Gore was eloquent and human even if I did vote for Nader. (In California, where Gore won easily).
Among the nuts on talk radio that night was Brother Stair, a ham radio Christian out of South Carolina, who was commenting on both the Gore and W speeches. How can either of them invoke the name of God, asked Brother Stair in his elderly twang, when both have been a friend to Lucifer for lo these past years.
Amen honey.
I'll take an evangelist over a right wing talk show host 365 days a year, because nothing is as interesting as a true believer. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk do it for the advertising money. They sell ties and books and befriend Lucifer. Meanwhile, the Brother Stairs of the world barely pay their electric bills and yet they preach on, tithing their meager earnings to the tongue-speaking churches of their choice. Brother Stair, this pro-choice, vegetarian feminist loves you.
I didn't have a single cosmic show this week. Good but not great, liked but not loved. Not once did I connect in ecstasy with the audience (although Sunday was close) and I do believe the Midwest is the hardest region of the country for me. Southerners are conservative on the outside, but once you get a few drinks in them, they befriend Lucifer and then they are mine. Liberal coastal crowds are already swinging with the Devil and the West is up for just about anything except second hand smoke. But those Midwesterners are conservative when they're buzzed and partying, and conservative when they're sober. They constantly confound me and I haven't figured out how to completely get under their skin.
What's the difference, I've been thinking, between nearly effortless shows in cities like Albuquerque or Houston or Seattle, and various places in the Midwest like Des Moines or Akron, which require excessive charm to sell even the simplest of bits? I was told once,
well, our audiences don't really like female comics.
None of us? How can that be?
I know some female comics do fine in the Midwest, so I can only say it must be the way
I am a female comic. I have great shows in places where the audience waits to see what I have up my sleeve. It's a two way relationship onstage. The audience is my dance partner and they have to want me take the lead. I don't have great shows when the audience has already decided what a female comic is and is waiting for me to fulfill that role. They are a little bit disappointed if I twirl left instead of right- like they thought I would when they bought the tickets. And so I end up having shows that are "good for a girl" instead of plain great.
It's a bit of a downer. I don't know what I can do about it, in this anonymous state. I was looking at a few clubs' web schedules last night, seeing which female comics are headlining some midwest rooms. Brett Butler is coming to a Funny Bone near you. Brett Butler is an unabashed feminist. She is political and she is smart and not only does she read WIlliam Faulkner, she understands him. She does not hide these qualities. If she weren't famous and an average audience member came down to the Ladies Night Out at the comedy club, s/he would be dismayed. But Brett Butler's famous, and she'll bring in a crowd of Midwesterners that wants to hear a smart, political feminist talk about the world and she'll have plain great shows.
Are you with me ladies? Men are idiots, who's with me?
So what to do- pursue the Midwest? It's not fun to feel merely tolerated because a club owner is self conscious about a continuous all male calendar. I don't want to be Rosa Parks, I want to be Elvis Presley. It's not a good feeling knowing I'm going to spend a week entertaining a crowd that expects a show I don't do.
Ladies, don't you hate taking your man to the mall?
Um-hmm.
At
Go Bananas, vips and friends of the club sit in the Banana Lounge, a couched area above the rest of the showroom. Above it hangs a metal art piece, a banana with splotches of unexpected color and jagged shapes. It was made by Dave Peet, who used to be a doorman at the club. I'm sure I met Dave, but I can't remember. Dave was just twenty when he was car jacked last year outside a fast food restaurant by a nineteen year old man and his seventeen year old accomplice. One has been convicted of Dave's murder and the other is still on trial. A plaque hangs below Dave's art work, commemorating his life.
He was the nicest guy, Mikey the club manager told me.
People always say that kind of thing, he said,
but this time it's true- he really was the nicest guy.
