LM, Episode 1146, 2/6/23, Management Monday

Last week I mentioned it was the 20th anniversary of my first set in a comedy club. I had no thought of doing stand up. I had been speaking a few years and wanted to get funnier. My thought was I’d do it for a couple of years to learn the craft, then never set foot in another club because they are awful places.

In those days people smoked during the show. In fact, by the second show Friday and Saturday night, the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see the back of the room from the stage. After doing open mic nights for a couple of months, I came down with my first sinus infection ever. When the doctor and I were talking, we decided it was because I’d been exposed to so much smoke from the club.

Club managers are some of the worst human beings on earth. I think many of them wish they could be comics, but they aren’t funny, so they have chosen to manage a club and exact their revenge for not being funny by being mean to comics.

During one of my first weeks emceeing, the manager in Oklahoma City says, “You’re not having a very good week.”

I defend myself, saying, “Other than the two minutes of new material, I’m doing fine.”

She snaps, “I’m not paying you to do new material.”

The next night I show up at the club and she says, “Stand at the door and take tickets.”

I ask, “Are you paying me to do that?” I’m making $25 a show, what do I care if I get fired.

One Saturday night in Little Rock, as I am performing, a drunk woman at one of the front tables passes out and slides out of her chair under the table. Her boyfriend gathers her up in his arms and walks out of the club. As I am coming off, a woman stumbles back to her table from the bathroom, stands over her punch bowl size glass that had once contained her drink, and pukes. The most amazing thing was every drop of puke went into that glass.

I’m standing at the back of the room and the bouncer, a hefty guy named TLove, walks by me with a bar towel and he’s heaving. When I ask what’s the problem, he replies, “I have to get that glass of barf and I’m afraid I’ll puke.”

I grab the bar towel, saying, “I have children, I’ll go get it.”

Our son, Keith, came to the show and when we got to my hotel room, I said, “This is my last week. I hate this. I’m quitting.”

Keith says, “Dad, you have no idea how special it is you can make 200 strangers laugh.” That was the encouragement I needed to persevere and today I’m glad I did.

Today on Management Monday remember that your words can help or harm others. Choose your words wisely, you never know how they may shape one of your employees’ futures.

And to Keith, thank you for your counsel. You reminded me that night how much laughter matters.