The Big Show
Most people don’t know this because I kept it a secret by not getting famous for it, but I used to do a bit of stand-up comedy. I had a one-man variety show that I toured around to comedy clubs, theaters, and small performance venues around the US for a few years in the early and middle ‘00s. I called it The Bizarro Baloney Show and during those years I spent a fair amount of time in green rooms. Green rooms are what performance venues traditionally call the room where performers get into costume and makeup, tune their instruments, warm up their voices, study lines, battle diarrhea, and vomit their guts up before a show. And they’re never green—at least, I’ve never seen one that was.
My first visit to a green room was when I was a senior in high school. My best friend and I had formed a garage band which we called Harlequin. I don’t remember now why that name appealed to us but in retrospect, there seems almost no excuse good enough.
Our favorite band was The Who, an energetic little foursome from across the ocean somewhere that had made something of a name for itself in the late sixties, and by the middle seventies, was playing what we Oklahoma boys called “big-ass arenas.” In this case, they were playing at Oklahoma City’s Myriad Convention Center, one of those performance/sports/convention arenas.
I had been sentenced to childhood in Oklahoma and this was my final year before being paroled at age 18. My best friend and band co-founder, Mark, and I had tickets to the show in OKC—a 90-minute drive from our hometown of Tulsa—and we were over the moon. We were so excited, in fact, that we hatched a plan to each create a portrait of The Who’s guitarist and songwriter, Pete Townshend, (yes, he spells it with that non-operative H there) and see if we could talk our way backstage to give them to him in person. As well as being wanna-be rockstars, Mark and I were both pretty talented artists—for high schoolers—hence our chosen method of homage. I used watercolor and Mark did a pencil drawing. Sadly, no picture of those pieces exists that I know of.
Long story short, by a fluke of rock ’n’ roll (and who-knows-how-much metaphysical nudging) their tour manager decided to let us into the green room after the show to present our gifts to Mr. Townshend. I think we may have been the only non-band members in that room who were there for a reason other than getting laid.
As I would learn on my own some years later as a traveling musician and stand-up comic, green rooms are notoriously scuzzy. At least they were in the kinds of lower-tier venues I later became accustomed to playing. But at the Myriad in OKC that night, we didn’t notice the condition of the room save that it contained the four young men we most wanted to be like in the whole world. They were sweaty, adrenaline-pumped, high, and beautiful icons of creative energy. We wanted to be them someday and couldn’t beleive our good fortune in being allowed to see it first hand.
I’m happy to report that Townshend was friendly, authentic, grateful, and complimentary of our obras. After meeting him, we shot well past the moon and on to other destinations in The Milky Way.
A year later we changed our band name to The Doo. (yes, with that period there), and about 20 years after that, I toured as a comedian. So when I composed the comic above, I drew upon my memories of green rooms in general and I added a few personally meaningful posters in the background. That poster that says The Doo. (damn that dangling sentence-ender!) is a graphic facsimile of one of the innumerable xeroxed fliers we stapled to telephone poles to advertise our gigs. It features my rendering of one of the numerous publicity photos that we took in which we were all trying to look many times tougher and cooler than we actually were. The guy on the far left with his head tilted menacingly back as though he were about to throw you out of a bar because he didn’t like the way you looked at his girlfriend, was Mark. I was the third from the left, with my characteristically high forehead and exaggerated widow’s peak, a harbinger of the gradually denuding pate the coming decades would bring.
Also on the wall is a mention of my comedy show, though my actual posters for it were much more detailed and elaborate than this scribble. In this version, I’m doing the show at Los Pecadores Playhouse, which is a fictional place that Spanish speakers might get a bit of a kick out of. I chose it because Los Pecadores is the name of the town in which my graphic novel, Peyote Cowboy, takes place. To the right of that is an image from Peyote Cowboy, in fact, and below that is a poster from my partner, Wayno’s band, Red Beans & Rice Combo. I would draw your attention to the same poster in the mirror for a mystical rewrite of the headline. (For added effect, play spooky music in your head.)
I enjoyed my years in the band, my years as a comedian, and my years of visiting green rooms and scrubbing the sleaze off of my hands afterward. I remember running into Robin Williams in one, in fact, and he was as sweet and humble as he often appeared onscreen. I’m sorry he’s gone.
I’m also sorry my best friend and bandmate from high school, Mark Veale is gone. Our lives took off in different directions in our twenties, as often happens, and we lost touch. I visited him in our hometown in Oklahoma a few years back and I’m glad I did. He died unexpectedly just a few weeks ago and it drove home that point we all hear ad infinitum about saying important things to the players in your life before they exit life’s big stage. Like most friends and bandmates, Mark and I dreamed, argued, fought, ignored each other, had a ball, partied our asses off, and loved each other. Bien viaje, amigo. Perhaps I’ll see you in the green room after my role in the Big Show is over.
———
Let’s turn the lights back on and lighten the mood with Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons from this week, shall we? Follow me…
When Wayno first showed me this one, I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved that it wasn't about the dog peeing on the thimble. Wayno’s comments about this cartoon on his weekly blog post made me laugh out loud.
Someone wrote to tell me that the “me” in this cartoon is grammatically incorrect and should be “I”. Wayno and I both did our time in Catholic school and know these rules very well, of course, but when writing dialogue, one writes the way the character talks.
I don’t mean to be judgmental; I wasted years being a grammar policeman but I’ve recently given it up with the realization that the point behind language is to convey information and ideas, not please some grammar god on Mt. Olympus. We set rules and standards as a convenience so that we can understand what written things mean more precisely, in case that’s necessary. But we regularly break these rules when speaking because it doesn’t matter.
So relax. This kind of improvisational manipulation of accepted world order is harmless and will not trigger the apocalypse.
These folks could literally eat themselves out of house and home. (rimshot)
What is this? Cannibal Condos? (repeat)
Close the door gingerly. (please stop)
I was thinking that Dreams of a Crash Test Dummy would be a good name for a short story. Or maybe a novel. I have no idea how long the story is yet, all I have is the title.
I could talk for two hours about placebos and the nature of reality. I’m not implying I’d say anything true or important, just that I enjoy talking about it. Also, I love the portmanteau Wayno came up with for this gag.
Historical note: This is how the Alexander Hamilton of the clown world died.
We’re through clowning around for the week, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for pretending to laugh and hiding your quite understandable fear of an adult who would dress and act this way in public. If you enjoy what we do here and that we offer it for free, please consider one of the links below. We’ll honk our rubber noses in celebration.
Until next time, tell somebody you love them.
BIZARRO SHOP Fun and cheap!
… Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!
…Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original Bizarro panels