Blog #8: Tour Diary 10.13.24 (Also, Livestream Link!) (Patreon)

This month's livestream is tonight at 8:30pm EST! Link below:

https://crowdcast.io/c/2gnlwn623ssf

Howdy y'all,

One of the major lessons I've learned and internalized over the past week is to play that Nat King Cole song in my head now and again. That whole "smile, though your heart is aching" thing. It's important as an entertainer to know when to swallow your pride and tolerate disrespect for the sake of the show or for the audience. It's important to never let them see you sweat, and the best way to do that is to never sweat at all. I'm getting stronger and more thick-skinned with each misfortune or instance of difficulty, and I'm close to invincible at this point if you ask me. It sucks to have to do it, and I'm not without any sensitivities or vulnerabilities, but I'm not resenting the process either. This tour is going better than any tour I've done, and I'm having more fun on stage than I ever have before, and nothing is going to stop me from savoring every glowing moment.

The air conditioning in last night's venue was broken, and my crew kept insisting I change into a cooler outfit, but my job isn't to be comfortable on stage, my job is to not sweat. I felt worse for the audience, for whom the body heat of the oversold venue space was oppressive. The stage had a little more room to breathe on it, and poor Shayfer had to work through half his set without the industrial fan that they finally put on stage, but I got it from the get-go. By the end of the show I had taken off my blazer, undone my tie, and untucked my shirt, but I made it like an hour and fifteen minutes into it without having to change, and a slowly collapsing level of formalness over the course of the story is on course for the theme.

For whatever reason, the venue had posted security guards in the front - this was a low-stage cabaret club, and they didn't need to be there. These folks did not enjoy the show. They were glowering the entire show. Even when the audience were collapsing on their tables with laughter, they were stone-faced and angry-looking. They were making me feel far less secure than they would have had they not been there, so in the middle of the show I called them out and poked fun at them until they laughed too. I sang that Nat King Cole song to them, and they cracked up.

The most difficult part of the show was the one sad drunk stage left who was uncomfortable not being the center of attention and needed to squeak out some comment at me about wanting me to take my pants off. He had heard the pre-recorded message before Shayfer's set about not recording or "being that guy" and decided that "that guy" was exactly who he should be. We will almost certainly not be able to use the Pittsburgh show for the film, and that's on him. I can tolerate people mistaking the audience for a TikTok comment section and trying to respond to a show thinking it's an open forum because they have algorithm brain or whatever. Just keep talking over them until they realize that they don't exist. I can hold fast to my commitment to ignore random chirps and quacks from the attention-starved animals trying to half-dead claw their way over the fourth wall desperate for my recognition. But when it comes to something that when hurled at a woman would be regarded as a repugnant act of sexual harassment, especially when it gets a laugh from the audience, I want that person to drop the fuck dead. It becomes very difficult to call that person a piece of shit to get the audience to laugh AT them instead of with them, and let them know I don't want them in the room.

I failed to tolerate the disrespect as gracefully as I'd prefer last night, so I'm going to be trying to figure out the right way of handling it. It rattled around inside my head all night, often distracting me and causing me to flub lines, screw up/forget lyrics, and get messy on the instruments. At the end of the show during the encore I conceded and made a joke intended to forgive them and let the audience do so as well. It felt wrong to end a show about letting go and forgiveness and acceptance without doing so. But I can't be just letting such aggressive disrespect slide or let my story's themes mean I can't have basic boundaries, especially if the sexually-charged heckle gets a laugh from the audience, who I need on my side and I need to know can't take over the performance. I refuse to choke from an allergy to a cracked shell in the peanut gallery, but I also refuse to let it turn into a moment that totally argues with my artistic goals.

It's tough, because these audiences tend to laugh when I say "I'm big on the whole men's lib thing" so it's not surprising they don't react to comments about me taking my pants off with the immediate disgust it actually warrants. But they also tend to laugh even harder at the punchline that drives the point home about what that means, and how I'm serious about it and it's actually a positive and important thing. It's one of my proudest moments, where I get to kind of do a more liberal version of the Bill Burr thing and use humor to make a point that my audience may otherwise take issue with. So I know that their reaction to it isn't from a conscious belief being held, but long-standing cultural assumptions that exist within most of us that can be engaged with meaningfully when called attention to in a humorous way.

That was my challenge of the night, really. And it was a positive learning experience ultimately. I realized that I can't always ignore everything, or at least can't always expect myself to always succeed in my attempts to do so. So I need to be armed and ready to find a way to address it that maintains the effort toward my artistic goals and the needs of the show. I won't be letting that bother me or shake me again, because if I do I will set a precedent to people like that - it'll tell them "Will doesn't respond to anything... unless you're creepy, so that will work!" So that settles that.

Today I finally have a day off. Five shows in a row is not for me. I am in desperate need of a shower, a shave, a gym, and some quiet time. My girlfriend did laundry and helped me get my missing toiletries, and we're traveling through the day today. We'll have a hotel again tonight, which is great, I definitely need to recharge and make sure my battery is full for tomorrow, when I'll be bringing Slouching Towards Branson, Missouri to St. Louis, Missouri.

I'll talk to you guys later tonight for the Q&A/livestream. Looking forward to catching y'all up.

Much love,

-ww