In March, I received an email from some wedding planners asking if I would be available to perform at a wedding in Santa Fe in August. It took me a few hours to respond, unsure if I should take the gig or not. But, I'm a comedian, and rarely turn down gigs. It's how I make my living. So, I emailed back and said that I would be available. At first, I thought, it was probably someone I knew, so I asked who the couple was. They told me that it was a couple from California, and they saw my video online and really liked it. That made me even more nervous. Performing at someone's wedding, one of the biggest days of their lives, and not knowing anybody at all at the wedding, I was nervous as soon as I said yes to the gig. Luckily, I had several months to prepare.
From April-July, I talked on the phone with the bride, Emily, who was very friendly, and you could tell she had a great personality and a good sense of humor just communicating with her on the phone. She provided a lot of information about her and Alan, so I would have enough material to roast them before doing my set. So, I began the writing process.
July 21-23 I was scheduled to perform at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, Michigan. I was supposed to be at Snickerz in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the week prior, but it shut down, so it screwed my routing up a bit. I drove all the way to Detroit from Albuquerque, giving myself a couple of days to get there, stopping in Oklahoma City and Memphis, to visit some friends and do some comedy along the way. I had a blast in both cities! I really like the comedy scene in OKC, everyone is so friendly there. And they have a lot of great comics. I also got to see my old friend, Stan Silliman, it's always nice running into him. In Memphis, I got to hang out with my friend, Hillary, who played my daughter in a movie we filmed in June, called Cloud Gamez: The Road to the Chronathalon. She played my daughter, even though, she's a couple years older than me. That's how great of an actor I am, folks.
I left Memphis pretty early on Thursday, luckily, I didn't realize that Detroit was in the Eastern Time Zone. It was about an 11 hour drive, but I got to drive through a bunch of places I had never been before. It made me realize how much shittier it is being a road comic living in the western part of the US. In those 11 hours I drove through Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo. All cities with comedy clubs. The drive was very enjoyable, minus the road construction in Ohio.
There wasn't much time to get ready for my show, so I took a quick shower at the hotel and then headed down to the club. As soon as I got there, I met the manager, Bill, who was super friendly. And, of course, I got to see my old friend, Nathan Timmel, who was headlining. I've known Nathan for about a decade, we worked together at Laffs Comedy Club in Tucson several years ago, where he and Mike "Big Deal" Merryfield nicknamed me, Stabby McKillahoe, because I was reading "Catcher in the Rye," and watching tv shows about serial killers all weekend. It was nice knowing that I would be working with Nathan for the weekend. It was my first time ever working the club, and it's a little nerve-wracking working at a new club for the first time. That definitely helped ease the situation. Had a really fun show the first night, and Bill seemed to really like me a lot. The opener, Tonya Murray, a local, was super funny, too, and very friendly.
Friday morning, Nathan took me to lunch at Panera Bread, the first time I ever ate there was with him in Colorado Springs. During lunch I started getting a really sharp pain in my abdomen, and it wouldn't go away. I decided to leave and go back to my hotel to see if the pain would go away. It wasn't going away and I was nervous that it might have been appendicitis, so I decided to go to the ER. It was already 4:30 by the time they were checking my vitals, so I knew I was going to have to miss the show that night. Nathan was cool enough to talk to the club for me while I was in the ER and they found someone to fill in for me. I was at the hospital until almost midnight. Luckily, it wasn't appendicitis, it was a kidney stone. The doctor told me it was the size of a grain of sand. It's crazy how something that small can cause so much pain. Also, while I was waiting around in the hospital bed, I decided to google Jack Kevorkian, because I knew he was from Detroit (hence the name, Stabby McKillahoe), and it turns out that he died at the same hospital that I was at.
When I arrived at the club the next day, the staff was very friendly, everyone asked how I was and they really made me feel very comfortable. It quickly became one of my favorite clubs that I have ever worked at. They even paid me for the show I missed, I was contacted by them a few days after I had left, and they wanted to send me a check, I was blown away. Not many clubs would do that. I got to meet the owner, Mark, also, very nice guy. We had a couple of great shows on Saturday night. Nathan talked me in to driving to Iowa that night, he was heading home, he lives near Cedar Rapids, and I was heading to Ankeny to stay with my cousin, Devon, for a couple of days. I had a hard time staying awake and was still experiencing some pain, so I ended up sleeping in my car for a couple of hours. I got to Ankeny around noon on Sunday and slept while my cousin was at work. When I woke up I was going through some of my stuff and realized that I was missing a few things: my favorite Iowa Hawkeyes basketball shorts...and a joke notebook. The notebook had all of my roast jokes that I had written for the wedding, along with some new material that I had been working on. Luckily, all of my new jokes were saved on my phone, but the wedding stuff I hadn't copied down anywhere. I had to start over.
So, from that time, up until the wedding, I was freaking out a little bit. I wanted to be very prepared for this since it was such a big occasion. I woke up on August 6th, super nervous. I remember being pretty nervous when I got to open for Jim Norton, but definitely not as nervous as this. And then, of course, I had some abdominal pain to go along with the nervousness. I'm not sure if it had to do with my kidney stone or if was just me stressing myself out even more. I took some pain pills and that helped a little bit. I went and picked up my friend, Niki Mangin. She went to the wedding with me, she loves weddings. She was crying almost the whole time, then we got to the wedding. Haha, just kidding. She did cry a lot at the wedding though. We sat with some friends of Emily's at the wedding, and they were all very friendly. As soon we got to the venue, all of my nerves went away. It was such a beautiful ceremony, and it was a lot of fun. I could tell that the couple definitely had a great sense of humor during their wedding vows.
I took the mic at 9:30, they introduced me as the next "toaster." So, everyone just thought I was going to go up and give a quick toast. That's when I roasted Emily and Alan, or "Marjorie and Albert," as I called them. The crowd was very receptive to the roast portion of my set, I had no idea how it would go. Especially, not knowing anyone there, and roasting people who I had never met before. It was difficult, but I just went up there and had fun, and it went well. I roasted them for about 10 minutes before going into my material. I was so relieved when my set was done! I had such a great time, and several people talked to me afterwards and said that they really enjoyed it. And the wedding planners, Liz and Krissie, were great. They did an amazing job with the wedding.
Thanks to Alan and Emily, and I wish them and their new family many years of happiness and laughter. Thank you for an amazing experience.
UPCOMING GIGS
AUGUST 18 CAREFREE, ARIZONA
AUGUST 19-21 LAUGHLIN, NEVADA - EDGEWATER CASINO
AUGUST 22 PINETOP, ARIZONA - HONDAH CASINO
AUGUST 26 BURBANK, CALIFORNIA
AUGUST 29 BOULDER CITY, NEVADA - BACKDROP SPORTS PUB
SEPTEMBER 16-17 SHAKOPEE, MINNESOTA - DANGERFIELDS W/MARC YAFFEE
OCTOBER 5 COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - LOONEES COMEDY CORNER
OCTOBER 6 DENVER, COLORADO - SUSHI HAI
OCTOBER 19 TAOS, NEW MEXICO - MESA BREWING
NOVEMBER 3-5 PLANO, TEXAS - HYENAS
NOVEMBER 10-12 FORT WORTH, TEXAS - HYENAS
NOVEMBER 17-19 DALLAS, TEXAS - HYENAS
DECEMBER 8-11 DENVER, COLORADO - IMPROV
