| Written by JR Brow,
on 07-03-2008
|
Views : 572  |
 You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. You can also cram as many riverboat casinos as you want onto the shores of a southern river town, but it still doesn't take that town out of the south. "Boomtown" and "Sam's Town" are right near downtown. The "El Dorado" has a lot of empty parking spaces, and that makes me suspicious. I decide to play Texas Hold ‘Em at the "Horseshoe" because it's the closest. Maybe it will help me to forget (at least for a couple of hours) that I am in Shreveport, Louisiana. Two hours later the long, empty pocket death march to the parking garage brings me back to sad reality.
In an elevator full of other losers, an older man wearing a dirty baseball cap breaks the silence with a short but audible fart. Great, two more floors to go! Two country girls try to control their giggles as the old man asks, "Which floor would be the easiest one to jump into the river?" Haw-haws are heard. A long toothed black man responds, "You need to cool off b'cause you hot?" The fartist replies, "Yeah, from them bastard dealers who took me fer a hunnerd bucks!" I exit the elevator, shake my head and wonder what I'm doing here. I'm $200 lighter, and 100% pissed off. I'm compelled to run back on board, raise anchor, crank up the engines to this floating, white trash cash machine, rip it away from the dock, and troll as far north as the river takes me.
The river in Shreveport isn't so much a body of water as it is a
hotspot of commerce. All sorts of businesses adorn its shores,
including the fully revamped Funny Bone Comedy Club. It is in the
newest part of town known as "The Boardwalk". It's so new that locals
don't know it's there. It fits right in, actually. The area is very
Corporate America, with a "GAP" and "Banana Republic" situated right up
front, for drawing power. And the Funny Bone is a chain, so why not?
There are several other chain stores, a few not-so-chain stores, and
restaurants to assimilate variety. That's the wave of the future. Build
a megalopolis, put familiar logos all over it, and people will come. As
trends go, the comedy club is a perfect addition. It will undoubtedly
gain popularity and prosper, as more and more people begin frequenting
the complex.
If you happen to be the owner of a night club, whether it's a sports
bar, a watering hole or (in this case) a comedy club/bowling
alley/piano bar located underneath a rave dance club, your main concern
is the number of asses in chairs. The more asses in chairs you have,
the more staff members you can keep on a shift. To a comic, asses in
chairs is relative to the types of people they are attached. A comic
wants people that let the people on stage do the entertaining. They
want asses whose faces laugh hard at their punch lines.
If you're the club owner, you couldn't care less. Your goal is to
maximize your profit and your staff's tip potential. You aren't
concerned with individual IQ scores, or the multitude of effects
alcohol has on some people who shouldn't be in public in the first
place. In fact, you expect your manager to seat that entire group of
happy, chatty people (quickly labeled ‘drunk table' by the staff) as
close to the comic as possible.
Your DJ is sure to tell every crowd that any heckling or table talk is
not permitted, and violation of this policy is grounds for removal. In
fact, the disclaimer is embedded in the announcements! However, you
never expect a drunken crowd member to outwit your staff. Nowhere in
the rule book does it state that a man (who's been asked to be quiet
three times) can't take his shoes off and pick his toes in defiance. In
his mind, at least he ‘ain't tawkin'!'
The comic convinces the drunken asshole to put his shoes back on and
try to focus for the remaining fifteen minutes. Your manager hopes the
rest of the group behaves, and he tells his bouncers to go over to
‘shush' them one final time, but when the headliner (yours truly)
screams "Shut the fuck up!" at the top of his lungs, your floor room
boss finally makes an executive decision. He decides that the asses in
these chairs must go now, and there are only fifteen minutes before the
show's over! The comic thanks your manager, picks up where he left off
and the show comes to a somewhat dismal but safe closing.
After my disastrous Thursday show, I make my way back to the condo,
contemplating retirement. SUV's, Hummers, giant pick up trucks, and
several Ford Expletives block my view as I scan the parking garage for
my tiny Civic. On my walk to the car, I realize that I am in complete
denial about something. I stop and take a look of disgust at all the
airbrushed flames, oversized tires and colorful logos, thinking, "These
people are idiots! Who gives a shit about Dale Earnhart, Jr.? Let it
go!" Then it comes to me. I am here among them, and the only thing that
separates us is my choice of vehicle.
Be careful what you mock, they say, for you may some day become exactly
that. Or something like that. As I exit the garage, I pat the dash of
my trusty Honda, fire up Sirius Radio's "The Roadhouse" music channel
and Eddie Rabbit sings the last bar of, "Driving My Life Away." Maybe
next week I'll get a bumper sticker with the name of my dead hero and
put it in my back window, so rednecks can get behind me in traffic and
think to themselves, "What an idiot! Who gives a shit about George
Carlin? Let it go!"
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