The December 13 show went well, maybe my best show since the first one. Smoke alarm and parking did well, and a lot of the NY bits landed. But while I was gone the eye had changed. There was new blood.
“Who the hell is Bert Challis?”
“He’s good,” said Mike. “Funny! So’s Riggi.”
“Riggi? Who’s Riggi?”
“Friend of Bert’s. And Durst’ll be back in a couple weeks. Wait’ll you see Durst! Incredible.”
“Durst?”
“Our first headliner!”
“We have headliners?”
“Since we started the new Saturdays. Boy – you should see Durst – !”
“What happened to Saturday?”
“It’s a real show now, with real headliners and – ”
“What about us?”
“Over. Gone.”
“Gone? I liked Saturdays!”
“Yeah – but if we can afford headliners – ”
“But I liked Saturdays.”
“So, here’s the thing, Roger’s signing us up to open.”
“For the headliners?”
“Right. And it pays $25! But you gotta fill half an hour.”
“I – ”
“A good half an hour.”
“I can do that.”
“I’m telling you, we’re cooking. Cincinnati Magazine’s doing an article. Don wants to cut an album – ”
“With us?”
“With us!”
“Huh.”
“And wait’ll you see Durst – ”
“Who is he?”
“From San Francisco. He’s coming back in a few weeks. And we’ll have him for an extended run. Great stuff. And Challis is tight, too.”
“Challis?”
“Challis, Riggi and Durst – what a set – !”
“Who the hell are these guys?! What about Jack and Drew?”
“They’re good.”
“We’re good.”
“They’re really good.”
“How good can they be?!”
***
Really good.
Bert Challis had come to the eye fully formed. He wasn’t some neighborhood guy who had never been on stage before. Bert had an act. He wasn’t a headliner, but his ten minutes were solid, and he was local. And Roger liked having someone in his stable with reliable material. With long burnt auburn hair and a thick cowboy’s moustache, Challis was edgy, irreverent, and cocky. And I didn’t like him.
Now that I’d finally gotten comfortable with the existing guys at the eye, Challis had come along, taking spots away, and raising the bar. And I thought he was ripping off Steve Martin. Martin was intensely popular at the time and everyone at school, in workplaces, on the street was shouting, “Excuuuuse me!” and singing “King Tut!” and making Steve Martin references.
Challis did a bit with a puppet – a cute, cuddly dog puppet – and would invite an audience member to pet it. And when the person reached over the puppy barked at them, viciously. Huge laughs. And it probably was all Bert’s – but it felt like Steve Martin to me. Of course all the comics were influenced, consciously and unconsciously, by other comics. And if you told me you heard Robert Klein or Woody Allen in my bits I’d have been elated. But still.
***
Roger to the comics on Wednesday: “I’m proud to say that one of our very own is opening this Saturday. Mr. Bert Challis! How about a hand for Bert!”
***
“He just got here – and he’s already an opener?”
“He’s good,” said Roger. “He’s ready.”
“I’m ready!”
“You’re not ready. Keep working. And maybe one of these days you’ll open Saturday.”
***
Saturday morning with Dr. Weiss, my shrink.
“I’m gone two weeks and suddenly people with talent show up!”
“Well, it was inevitable. I hear about it all the time now. A colleague of mine even – ”
“He came to the show?”
“He did. He loved it.”
“Did he see me?”
“He saw someone do a puppet thing. Said it was very funny.”
“Shit! That’s Challis. Shit.”
“Well – you knew it was unavoidable. In a way it’s very healthy for you.”
“Healthy? How is it fucking healthy?! Excuse me.”
“It’ll make you challenge yourself.”
“I don’t want a challenge! I’m challenged enough! I want it to be easier! I just started getting in the groove again and now these guys’re making it even more difficult! And I’m stuck with these one-liners – ”
“What’s wrong with one-liners?”
“They don’t build to anything. I don’t want to be Bob Hope!”
“If you have enough – does it matter?”
“I want a piece of meat. Something I can lure an audience into – a machine with specific parts in specific places, with little traps that pay dividends in the end, like Woody’s Moose joke!”
“That sounds complicated.”
“It is.”
“You can’t expect to go from a three-chord song to a symphony overnight. You’ll make yourself crazy.”
“I know. I just – I never know – week to week – what kind of audience I’m going to get. I mean, God knows what will happen on any given night! I need a tight act I can rely on – 100%! I can’t live not knowing what’s going to happen week to week. It’s too painful.”
