Your first road gig is like your first sex - you'll always remember it -- and why not? It's an exhilarating experience, driving to the show, feeling giddy over the realization you're getting paid to travel and tell jokes.
It's only after the fact, that you look back and realize that the thrill of the idea that you were a working, traveling comic helped deflect the sobering reality that you were driving 14 hours in a 1992 Chevy Caprice with bald tires and worn shocks to get paid $200 for five nights of MC work.
The late singer Duke Ellington nailed a verbal bulls eye with his depiction of the road.
He said fans would rush up to him after shows and tell him that he had the greatest job in the world.
He'd then clarify their assessment by explaining that what they saw - the performance - was the easy part.
What they didn't see was driving long hours in between gigs, staying in cheap motels, and eating at dive restaurants to save money.
It's a scenario which perfectly mirrors the life of a starting road comic.
Before You Leave for the Road Gig(s) If you're working a one-nighter you'll be either e-mailed or mailed an itinerary before you exit home.
On it will include the venue, contact numbers, show and check-in times, and place of lodging.
If lodging is listed as TBD (To Be Determined), call the venue before arriving.
Otherwise, there's a chance the venue forgot to book you a room.
Consequently, instead of relaxing before the show, you're sitting in your car wondering "What the hell?" One-Nighter(s) One-nighters are often referred to as hell-gigs.
Unlike clubs, where you perform in rooms specifically designed for comedy, one-nighters take place in bars, restaurants, hotel banquet rooms, college dorms and dining halls, casinos and bowling alleys.
Conditions are less than ideal, making the entire room feel like a conspiracy against performing.
Sound systems often resemble modified home keroake machines.
Stages, if at all, can be tucked in the far back corner of a room, lit by aluminum Home Depot clamp lights.
Bar TV screens, clacking pool balls and buzzing slot machines interrupt punch lines.
And because admission fees are minimal, if at all, you're usually contending with one or two drunken rubes who are only there to drink.
If working a week of one-nighters, rooms are often hours apart.
This especially bears true out west, where it's not uncommon to drive 6 to 8 hours in between shows.
Most venues will provide lodging, usually in a near-by chain hotel.
But there are some rooms that arrange lodging deals with shady places with names like the Wagon Wheel Inn or El Rancho, and that still advertise "Color TV" on the front marquee.
Instead of a room it feels like an insult and all you can think of is the beer-bellied trucker who probably stayed here the night before, sitting naked on the bed you're in right now, having phone sex with some lady named Eunice.
It's for this reason some comics always travel with sleeping bags.
On the rare occasion you may be put up in a band house, which is the red flag of comedy.
Get housed in one of these and usually you can expect performing before a room full of drunks in sleeveless flannel shirts, shouting "Git er done" in between every joke.
Comedy Clubs Most comedy clubs will put you up in a condo (a.
k.
a.
"comic condo") It's a weird dynamic to spend five days sharing a living space with two other comics, who, more often than not, are strangers.
The condos will have two or three bedrooms.
If it only has two and you're the opener, expect to sleep on the living room couch.
Most comics are cool to lodge with.
But if you do get stuck with a five-star asshole, it makes for a long week.