We did The Irish Comedy Tour somewhere in Bumfrack, Iowa at a place called “The Stockyard” (an old slaughterhouse, now a nightclub). Our show didn’t draw many people, and Jim Paquette (he’s French Irish, I guess), the talented MC, had a rough go of it. Jim did fine; none of us tore the roof off the barn that night, and I think the 18 Farmers that showed up got a little comic relief from the shuckin’, milkin’, and killin’ in their lives. But in our quiet van back to the Motel Sh*t, Baguette (my nickname for him) was unusually sullen and asked me a question.
Jim: “I don’t know why my Superman bit bombed. You’ve been doing this a while. It was funny, right? (Long pause). ‘Superman landed in a cornfield, out in the middle of nowhere, no one around, just like here, blah, blah, blah’, and you even remarked that it was funny, and had potential. What happened?”
Me: “Jim, it WAS funny, in the van, on the way to the show, and it DOES have potential, but we’re in the ‘Laugh Business’, not the ‘Funny Business’.”
Jim: (silence)
Then, in a drunken, Jack Daniels’ induced blackout, Baguette punched me. No, I’m kidding, the French don’t fight. We finally laughed and eased the pain with some local moonshine, that tasted like how antifreeze smells, and called it a night. A crappy night.
Author’s note: Jim and I are both blind, now.
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