Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Should I Stay or Should I Go?              7297  (515)

Monday, April 2, 2007-1:30 A.M. CDT

Should I quit comedy?  An interesting question, is it not?

I'm at the Radisson Star Plaza in Merrillville, Indiana, just a stone's throw from Chicago.  I headlined this weekend at the Wisecracker's comedy club located in the hotel, and just before I was about to take the stage for the Saturday late show, the ticket booth girl announces to me "We need your address because we have to Fed-Ex your check because the checks are locked up and we can't give it to you."

Uh, no fucking way, thank you very much.

So basically I'm stuck here until Monday morning when the accountant gets in, and to put a silver lining on the dark cloud, they comped me a hotel room for my trouble.  That's good, because I had two days off before my next gig in Clarksville, Tennessee, so there was one less night off I had to pay for a hotel room.  Still, questions abound...when the accountant left for the day on Friday, did he think there wasn't going to be any comedians for the weekend?  Did no one else have keys to the office or the safe combination or whatever access they needed to have?  Couldn't they have just paid me cash and ripped up the checks, or marked them "For Deposit Only," and deposited them?  Maybe these answers are too simple, and an indication of the reason I don't work in a corporate setting.

So they comped me a room that runs $150 a night, for which I shouldn't really complain, and I was able to use the laundry facilities on premises to do my laundry as I'm in the middle of a two-week tour.  My plan is now to meet the accountant in the morning, pick up my check, waltz it over to a bank that is virtually across the street, and get my money.  Seems like an awful lot of trouble for something that should be an easy transaction, huh?  Oh, well, I don't pretend to know everything about the business.

I should mention that this facility is hooked on to a huge theatre, the Star Plaza, which has played host to some of the biggest entertainers in show business, among them Jay Leno, George Carlin, ZZ Top and B.B. King.  This weekend, the theatre hosted the 70's Soul Jam, featuring The Stylistics, The Chi-Lites and others.  It seems that whenever I'm here, they have some sort of Motown revue, and that's cool, but some of the bands don't have all their original members because of death or retirement.  One upcoming show they're going to have The Isley Cousins and opening act Kool and His Friend.

So I had a long talk with my sister today, about 90 minutes, and she basically asked me to think about what I'm doing.  I'm 40 years old, running around the country for what amounts to bullshit money, I have no savings nor own any real property, and live basically check-to-check.  And while I don't plan on maintaining this level forever, I'm moving up, although slowly, the fact of the matter is that only 5% (if that) of the folks in the comedy industry really get to the point where they're making really good money.  The rest of us sweat and toil and get in our cars and shlep for 9 hours to take the stage in Nowhere, USA for a couple hundred dollars and lodging.  Is that fair to my wife, to be gone so much, is it fair for my child, to provide in such a meager manner?   Is it selfish to continue pursuing my dream after so many years of investment, or am I running after smoke and cheating my family?  If I left comedy, what would I do?  Would I be a good employee in a straight job?  Would I be able to concentrate on that job without looking out the window all the time?  Would a company want to take a chance on a guy who's 40 years old, been doing comedy for half of that, and proudly carries a two-year college degree in Liberal Arts?  What am I suited to do?  These are the questions that keep me awake some nights.  I feel things are beginning to change, and that scares me a lot, because I feel like I only know one thing.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?