The way I see it, the Religious Right Wing owes me money. Since the FCC's vague and oppressive crackdown on radio, the road can be even more lonely than ever. Where I used to do maybe 5 or 6 stations in a given market to promote a show. Now I'm lucky to get one or two - and half of those are pre-recorded to make sure they don't border on funny.
Reason being, the FCC provides no defined rules on what is obscenity. Therefore, the station doesn't know where to draw the line until after they have been raped, fined, fired and put out of business. So radio isn't taking any chances, especially when it comes to people like me.
I do less radio, less people know I'm in town, I make less money. This is bad.
The only radio I could do in Shreveport - oddly enough - was Gator & Cher on KRMD. Hardcore conservative country. Gator told me they don't even want them saying "hell" on the air. So rather than burn the bridge and jeopardize their jobs, I said everything their listeners wanted to hear. Go George Bush! To Heck with Michael Moore! We need to think about the Troops! Screw the left-wing liberal media. Sure, I may use strong language in my show but sometimes you need strong language when you're talking about OSAMA BIN LADEN!
And the phones at the club lit up. Book another table of four under the name "Walkout". All weekend long we'd watch the people line up and pick out the ones that were gonna walk. Red State Payback. It's one thing to tell an asshole how you feel about their political insight but to make them pay to hear it is a whole different level of catharsis.
Your bullshit family values have cost me a lot more than you spent tonite but thanks for making a small contribution in return.
Better still was watching them sit through Brett Erickson pounding them with some of the best Jesus jokes ever written, cringing and thinking that somehow I'd make it all better. Don't get me wrong, I don't like walking people. The inevitable hatred I get without trying wears at my soul like snowtires but this weekend we'd decided to embrace it. Invite it, even.
This gave more adrenaline to the prospect of drinking downtown after the shows, since you never know just how far the walkouts opted to walk. The closest we came to actual problems came about 3:30 in the morning ( you can drink til 6 am in Shreveport and we may have) at a bar I wouldn't recognize today if I owned it. The blurriest of memories at best.
There's a table of three military guys, the dumb and self-congratulatory type that punch each other in the chest after they masturbate in a huddle. Ooo-Rah. They want to tell me that I ruined the Man Show. I'll drink to that. Next thing I recall is me blathering on with my long-winded and under-educated points of view about how they all got fucked. Either it's not coming out right or they just didn't agree but it's turning into -
"Are you trying to tell me that what we're doing over there is worthless??? Are you trying to say that we weren't attacked on September 11th???"
I'm certainly too drunk to debate and I'm forgetting what I said seconds after saying it. I walked away once and they called me back over. Meanwhile there is a very small man next to me that is trying to ask me about getting into comedy but can't get words in edgewise over the meatheads that are trying to elevate this conversation to an Abu Ghraib situation.
I was keeping it light enough to avoid violent confrontation but that probably wasn't going to last. Seeing this, Brett Erickson stepped in and did what any guy would do to get a friend out of a beating. He came up behind me, pulled my head back by my hair and plunged his tongue deeply into my mouth. For a while. For several silent, prolonged beats. You'd think a terrifying display of shameless man-love would cause a negative reaction but it quelled the situation immediately. Maybe it confused them, maybe it excited them. Either way, I don't remember them ever saying another word.
Just like me to brag about fucking with rednecks when my next gig is in Macon, GA. I'll be the Theo Van Gogh of comedy. Let me know if you got my back. Not in the Brett Erickson way, of course.
December 1st I'll be pulling a name off the Mailing List for a private party of legendary proportions. Get on it, whore. And start burning off them CDs and DVDs. 2005 will be memorable, I guarantee. But the mailing list may be the only way you'll know about a lot of the shit.
Did you get your tickets for the Emerald Theater in Detroit yet? It's my last show before I go to Costa Rica, meaning it's my last show without AIDS.
Hey Brendon Burns -
I was going to plug your CD but you don't seem to have a fucking website. What up with that? I'll tell folks they can buy it off your Mum.
Was I drinking during this update? Perhaps. Read The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. You'll be drinking too.