In the early and mid ’90s I was a stand-up comic. Not full-time — the vast majority of comics have day jobs — but I was out there several times a week in the clubs (primarily in the Boston area), hanging out, trying to get stage time, building my act and just seeing where it all would take me. Mostly it took me to a lot of Chinese restaurants where, for some bizarre reason, stand-up was an entertainment staple.

I knew the odds were long, especially for a guy who didn’t step onto a stage until his mid-thirties. Still, I was determined to give it my best shot. And I think, overall, I did — at least until I had to make some hard choices regarding family and quality of life. This is how it all began.

Washington, D.C., February 12, 1991

There was a biting chill in the air as I walked along a barren K Street that night, past the sleek and soulless office buildings housing countless PR shops, consultancies and lobbying firms — the commercial appendages of our federal government. I myself worked at an inconsequential non-profit a few blocks over on F Street, directly across from the National Press Building.

But “official” Washington was the furthest thing from my mind that night, as was the late-winter cold. My entire focus was on the mission: To perform my first stand-up comedy set. I was 35 years old.

It was Tuesday, when the now-defunct Comedy Cafe held its weekly open-mic night. The club was on the top floor of a three-story brick building on K Street. There was a bar on the middle floor, a strip club in the basement. I had been to several of the Tuesday night shows to check it out, and even had signed up once a couple of weeks earlier with the intention of making my debut. But on that particular evening things went awry.

What you do for an open-mic night is go in before the show, find out who the host is and tell him you want to perform. If you’re a regular, the host will give you whatever slot you want that isn’t already taken. If he’s never seen you before, you either go up first or wait until the end of the night with all the other rookies. (I operated the same way a couple of years later when I ran an open-mic night in Boston.) There were 14 comics ready to perform that night. I was the lone strange face to the club’s regular open-mic host, a jovial black comic known as The Fat Doctor, who scheduled me last.

A Future Star (No, Not Me)

In a way it was a relief because it delayed what I was anticipating with a great amount of dread. Truth is, I was goggle-eyed with fear. So I sat there and drank beer while one regular told a joke about going to Hershey, Pa. working in a reference to the “Hershey Highway.” (Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.) I sat through a set from a guy who called himself Frank Real and always opened his act with “I’m Frank Real, and I’m real frank.” I also sat through a set by a teen-aged black kid who The Fat Doctor always introduced as someone who was “going to be a star.” His name was Dave Chappelle.

(See riveting companion post, Early Memories of Dave Chappelle)

Unfortunately, all this sitting and waiting also included non-stop drinking. I got absolutely fucking hammered, so much so that I left the club in an effort to regroup outside. I was in the alley next to the building when I heard The Fat Doctor call my name (making fun of it in the process). I was humiliated and disappointed in myself. And still hammered. That’s when I learned one of the first rules of open-mic nights: Try to get on as soon as you can. It eliminates a night of anxiety, as well as any chance that you’ll get too drunk before the set.

Now it was two weeks later, and I knew if I didn’t go through with it this night, I might never. I had to make it happen. There was, however, one slight complication: I was wearing a neck brace and in a good deal of pain from a pool accident in California two days earlier. I had been visiting a friend in L.A. and dove into his pool, hitting the side of the pool straight on with my head. My friend reported that I emerged from underwater with what looked like a “Nazi helmet of blood.” It took seven stitches to close the one-inch wound. The real problem, though, was my traumatized neck, hence the brace. What the hell, I thought, maybe I could get a couple of jokes out of it.

‘You Wanna Do Something About It?’

A hundred feet or so from the Comedy Cafe, a homeless woman accosted me and asked for spare change. I told her I had none — a 100% accurate statement. (Remember, I worked for a shitty non-profit.) She proceeded to walk alongside me for awhile, persisting in her quest. After my third rejection, she gave me a little shove. A shove! I said, “Hey, what are you doing?”

She replied, “You wanna do something about it?”

“I’m wearing a neck brace!”

She repeated, “You wanna do something about it?”

The street is cruel to the injured and infirm. Since I was in front of the Comedy Cafe by then, and still wearing that neck brace, I just went inside. At least her assault redirected my anxiety for a few minutes.

In the club I looked around for The Fat Doctor, who was nowhere to be seen. Turned out he was caught in traffic and had called the club (probably stopping at one of those old-time “phone booths”) to ask Dave Chappelle to host the show. I can’t remember where I was in the order that night; somewhere between fifth and eighth, I think. I do remember the hack introduction Chappelle used, one I would see countless hosts employ in the next few years:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this next comic is a good friend of mine. His name is…(pauses, reaches into pocket to pull out a small piece of paper and reads it)…his name is ____ ______.* Give it up!”

(*Note: I was using my real name back then, not Bonedaddy King. For professional reasons, I need to keep my real name confidential. If I happen to lose my job anytime soon, I promise I’ll unmask myself the next day. After I update my resume.)

A Blur of Suckiness and Triumph

The next five minutes were absolutely surreal. I’m pretty sure I have a cassette tape of my set stored away in a box, though I’m not sure where. It doesn’t matter; believe me, I sucked. I recall sounding like I inhaled helium. I also remember being overwhelmed by the brightness of the stage lights. I was deathly afraid of “running the light” the club owner flashes to warn you when your time is almost up, but that never was an issue since I talked so fast I blew through seven minutes of material in about four-and-a-half minutes.

While I did work in an ad-lib about the homeless lady assaulting me — a fairly bold move for a first-timer — there was no real joke, just a restatement of the incident and some kind of “what the fuck” exclamation. As for the material I had spent weeks honing, it thoroughly escapes my memory. If I ever find the tape, I’ll let you know. I’m sure there were a few good lines mixed in with a lot of excessive set-up — the typical neophyte formula.

Nonetheless, the night was an unmitigated triumph, because I did it! And I even got a few laughs from the crowd of about 25 people. I was thrilled, and ready to go back the next week.

Oddly enough, I only did one or two more sets at The Comedy Cafe. A few months later I moved to western Massachusetts and didn’t do any stand-up for six months or more. But once I got rolling in western Mass., Connecticut and, later, Boston, I did 500 shows over the course of four or five years.

I became a pretty good comic. Maybe not one destined for fame, yet I developed the ability to put away a room on any given night for at least 20 minutes. Those are the occasions when a comic says he or she “killed.” I also was capable of bombing miserably. Those are the nights when a comic comes off the stage and laments (or laughs), “I ate my dick.” I did both, plenty of times, and I have a few stories to tell. I’ll do so now and then in this blog, because while some of the details have faded (and will be corrected as warranted), the memories of my stand-up years remain fond.