Is this thing on? by Alan Watt

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:30:36 -0500

Of all the years I spent criss-crossing the U.S. and Canada, telling jokes in dive bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and discos, my best memories are of sitting in bars late at night sharing war stories with other comics.

We tried to outdo each other with tales of how bad we bombed, how we got ripped off by club managers, and how we got involved with the wrong woman. We shared stories of freakish happenings at the comedy 'condo', laughing at things that made ordinary 'civilians' pick up their drink and move to the end of the bar.

We were twenty-five, and already grizzled vets, but for a less noble cause. I've had beer steins thrown at me, and a hundred Junior A hockey players screaming 'Get the f#@k off the stage in unison.

One night, while playing a fern bar in northern Saskatchewan, a drunk native Indian woman shot out of her seat and threatened to kill me. My young fiance (at the time) watched from a bar stool in horror as my cockiness evaporated into desperate pleading and apologizing.

Two weeks later, the engagement was dead, but I had four new minutes of material. Nothing makes me laugh harder and recaptures the mad, irresponsible lifestyle of my twenties and early-thirties than a good road story. Nothing connects me to my degraded, yet hopelessly idealistic brethren than a tale of horror from beyond the grid. If you have one, please send it immediately.

Road kill

Is this thing on? by Alan Watt