Corporate Gig

Last night I took a corporate gig through a booking agency. At first I turned the gig down because they wanted 50-60 minutes clean, then the booker told me I could get another comic to open then I could cover the rest. It worked with my work schedule, so I decided to do it. I asked local comic, Sarah Kennedy to open the show. She's clean and very funny!

When we get to the hotel the people are having dinner and waiting for dessert to be served. We were told it would be 15-20 minutes, no big deal. These people had probably never hired a comic before, but at least they didn't make us perdorm while they were eating dinner. The lady in charge finally went up and said, "hey the comics are here." Not exact words, but not much of intro. I told Sarah I would bring her up though so it wasn't too awkward. So I took the podium, yeah there was a podium, and I introduced Sarah. She did a solid 20 minutes and did great! The crowd was a little chatty while she was on "stage." I sat in the back and watched, she had a few jokes I hadn't heard her do before, funny as always. I think she's got a great career ahead of her. She's only been at it for a couple years.

Sarah brought me up and I started by making fun of the company and got some huge laughs. I did some crowd work before I got into my prepared material. Seemed like a really fun crowd and I was having a great time. Until my third joke. I was asking a few guys in the crowd if they had names for their genitals, it was a PG-13 show. So I couldn't say penis. A big guy wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots walked in and I asked if he named his junk. He wasn't playing along so I just went back to my joke. After the first punchline he stood up and said something, I don't remember what it was. I just thought he was being a dick to make his co-workers laugh. Then he walked towards me and I wasn't really sure what he was going to do. He pulled out a pocket knife and said he was gonna cut off my balls, so I said "Git R Done." Well, at that point I realized he wasn't joking around. He grabbed my crotch, for some reason my balls were missing in action, so he actually didn't grab any of the good stuff. But he held on with one hand while he had the pocket knife in the other. I kept backing away from him with the mic from the podium still in my hand. He finally let go and walked off and I went back to the podium. I had a bunch of thoughts in my head at the time, I have never been attacked on stage like that. I kept thinking that someone should have done something about it, but noone did so I just kept my mouth shut about it. I did a few jokes about it when it seemed like he wasn't listening, but its pretty fucking hard to get back into funny mode after being threatened like that. I should have just walked out, but I wanted to be a pro and stick around. And, of course, get paid. Had I walked out I am guessing I wouldn't have gotten paid for the gig.

Any other comics been through anything like that? I think I am going to email the booker and manager of the company.