Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll has drawn LESSONS FOR LIFE — FROM STANDUP (The First Five). She writes:

EVERYTHING IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

No, really. Every. Single. Thing! I have watched my landscaper do difficult and amazing things with my cactus. I have tried to watch home handymen do things that I could not do with a gun to my head. Although more than one of them has said, “I charge $50 for the job; $75 if you watch. And $100 if you ‘help.’” The kinds of amazing skill sets people have acquired go all the way from farmers, to nursing home caregivers, to trial attorneys, to cattle herders, to doctors who separate Siamese twins, to the Liam Neesen character in “Taken.” Life has made me a great respecter of people skilled at ANYTHING.

Now a good comedian makes it look really easy, but don’t be fooled. Even such things as the late, great Robin Williams LOOKING like he was thinking up his entire routine on the spot. I can assure you that, although he was a gifted improviser, he was not just winging it. I wish I had a dollar for all the drunk 20-year-olds who once had success telling a dirty joke at a frat party and thought they could go pro. They would get up on the Open Stage and, almost without exception, make a complete fool of themselves – unprepared, vulgar, and drunk (“is no way to go through life, son”), I always wanted to say, “See? Not as easy as it looks, is it, kid?”

THERE ARE TIME-TESTED WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR ODDS OF SUCCESS

After I became an established comic in Dudley Riggs’ “stable,” several of the veteran comics (Louis Anderson, Jeff Cesario, many others) left the Twin Cities to seek their fortunes in The Big Leagues of Los Angeles. So pretty much by default, I became the emcee of the Extremely Open Stage night on Sundays and the “Invitational Open Stage” on Wednesdays where, as the name implies, you had to be selected to be in the Wednesday line-up. It was still unpaid, but it was like being a Sophomore in Comedy College.

The Sunday night free-for-all was where any bloke could get up and do five minutes. Much like karaoke night at a bar, only even more painful to watch. It was where I got my start.

The difference between my first time and most first-timers was that I WAS PREPARED. This can barely be stressed sufficiently. Also, I was stone cold sober. Oh, and I had brought my own audience. This gave me three yuge advantages. I will add that I was about a decade older than most people giving it a shot – so I had more to say. And I had a tremendous incentive to find a way, ANY way, to get off Graveyard Shift in the typesetting shop!

First, I had gone down to the club every single Sunday night for three months to watch how the veterans were doing it. What did they do when the audience was slow? What did they do when the audience was “hot”? Then, I had written and practiced my little five-minute routine for hours and hours over weeks and weeks. And, as I said above, I had called about 15 of my good friends and asked them to be present in support.

THINKING YOU MIGHT DO SOMETHING, SAYING YOU ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING, MEAN NOTHING UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!

This, of course, is a lesson that probably 90 percent of politicians don’t even pretend to embrace. They can RUN on voting against Obamacare, and when they are THE decisive vote, crawl out of their sickbed to vote it “up” instead of “down”! Surely not, you say? Yes, just to deny President Trump a victory. And stick it to his constituents one last time before death.

We have probably all known an “artist” who, any minute is going to go to Paris to paint or a woman who has been promising for 20 years to write The Great American Novel just as soon as she can think of a lead sentence.

I set a firm date, August 15, 1982 to give it a shot. My Plan B – to leave town to become the world’s shortest, weakest roadie for a rock band – was impractical what with the husband and 9-year-old boy and all. I got to the club early enough to get the third spot on a long list. The emcee announced my name. I have no actual memory of how I got onstage. The spotlight was in my eyes and I couldn’t see a thing. My mouth was so dry I could not have spit had someone offered me $1000 to do so. I was terrified that I would have to rush off-stage to use the restroom mid-set. It was the longest five minutes of my life. Fortunately, it went very well and Dudley Riggs, the club owner and impresario himself was in the house, followed me into the bar, and hired me on the spot! He changed my life. May he rest in peace.

I would never be that scared onstage again until I opened for John Prine at the Carlton Celebrity Room. But that would be three years and hundreds of shows later. I was much better prepared by then, which did not prevent me from falling to my knees in the Green Room and praying that God would not allow me to forget my set. Praise Him, it went well. Very, actually. Evidently God has a soft spot for comics and sports teams, who knew?

My mother and her two best friends heard ladies in the restroom at intermission talking about how much they had enjoyed “the girl comic” and mother had to announce: “Her name is Susan Vass and I’M her mother!” Oh my goodness! Every new woman in the restroom line had to be told who it was who was taking an inordinately long time at the bathroom sink. Mama was so excited from her brush with celebrityhood that on the way home to Alexandria on 94W she drove right past Alexandria almost to Fergus Falls. (Which will mean something to locals…)

BEING ON TIME IS NOT WHITE SUPREMACY – IT IS ESSENTIAL

I cannot think of any more insidious message for young African-Americans than that they don’t have to “have the right answer” or be “on time” because those are the stupid tricks that “white supremacists” have invented to succeed. If that isn’t deliberate sabotage, it’s a pretty good impression of it. Nobody of any color has mastered his or her craft without being prepared, on time, or “accurate.”

It is particularly important in an entertainer. Unless you are The Grateful Dead or the Rolling Stones and have such a hard-core, and possibly impaired fan base that you can show up two hours late to the concert, you better get your behind to your gig in a timely fashion. Especially if you are on television! The light goes on. It’s “go time.” The show runner will tell you that you have exactly 7 minutes, at which time your mic will go off and they will go to commercial.

It is the same for most professional musicians. You better be on time for both the show and the many rehearsals or you will soon be replaced. There are probably 100 good musicians for every paid position in music. Nobody wants to work with someone who wastes the time of several OTHER busy people by being tardy. And they don’t need to.

FORGET MAKING IT AS A “CATEGORY” – BRING SOMETHING MORE TO THE TABLE THAN SKIN COLOR OR PLUMBING OR IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG HARD ROAD

I know it looks pretty grim right now. It is crystal clear that many people who are obscenely paid to be The Gay Guy, The Black Woman, The Latinx, The Black Lesbian Mayor, and so forth are doing quite well. And not just on The View. None more than the Clown Show that is the Biden Administration. Can you get your head around the lack of seriousness in making the head of the Department of Transportation a gay guy whose experience consisted of proposing to his boyfriend in a train station? Luckily, it’s going swimmingly.

It happens in show biz too, of course. One evening, Joe and I watched a comedy showcase of new comics. The producers had diligently filled every single Category: a cringe-worthy young white woman who spent all her time talking about particularly icky sex (I don’t embarrass easily, but we had to turn off the sound half-way through). A large but pleasant and quite funny lesbian from the South. A reasonably amusing black guy who mostly talked about being black. A very over-the-top gay white guy who talked about – wait for it – being gay. A black girl who talked about being black. I kept screaming at the telly: “Yes! I SEE that you are black; that is not interesting to me. Please show me something. Something FUNNY.”

Some showed potential but most were neither funny nor original. And then, mercifully, someone appeared who was an actual COMIC, not a category. Someone who was just plain hilarious. What a relief! He stole the show and we have been diehard fans ever since. His name is Nate Bargatze, the Tennessee Kid. He has never disappointed. Look for him. Squeaky clean and completely apolitical.

Here’s what I believe: with the economy crashing and burning and if The Big 10 Percent Guy does not get us all immolated or killed by Fentanyl or MS-13, eventually employers will have to return to hiring QUALIFIED people of any color or sex who know how to do things, you know, like the NBA. They take the best of the best and the overwhelming majority of them turn out to be African-Americans. I don’t know about you, but I am cool with that, despite the massive hypocrisy in insisting that everything else, except professional sports, has to “look like America.”

And if the majority of great engineers turn out to be white or Asian, that’s cool with me too. A society can afford nonsense when things are going well. But it will be forced to return to STANDARDS when things have gone south. Mark my words.

Unless something arises in the meantime that demands the Ammo Grrrll Patented Analysis, next week we will discuss another five Lessons For Life – From Standup. Have a great weekend.