Blog #15: Tour Diary 11.14.24 (Patreon)

So that sore throat turned into something else. It's not Covid, we've tested roughly ten thousand and forty five times. We stopped at an urgent care and found it to be similar in vibration to the basement of a building in The Last of Us; more upside-down Macintosh '95s on Amazon Essentials rolling tables crammed into dark crannies than tongue depressors. Maybe the reason the illness went from a throat full of stalactites to a snoot full of goop to a Mojave-Marlboro dry cough in such quick succession is because I inhaled the cordyceps/black mold in that utter apocalypse of a half-painted clinic that was somehow still listed as open on Google maps. All the second clinic we hit could tell us was that it wasn't strep. Between my symptom shuffle, Shayfer's hoarseness, and my girlfriend's fever we could build a flu megazord, but the rest of the crew is perfectly persistently healthy.

The last two shows have been weird because of it. Sacramento was a blast - a fabulous audience, to say the least. Real redemption arc since the difficulty I had last time going through Sacramento. I was able to lean into the disease for added humor, and I felt on top of my game more than ever despite the gunged-up inside of my face and general malaise. I did a shorter set, and focused on songs I hadn't played ten thousand times so I could give them something unique while not performing my usual Slouching Towards Branson set. But I was able to work the general story into the set regardless by cobbling together bits and jokes on the fly and presenting a reader's digest version of the whole thing. The emotional bits hit much less, but I got a lot of strong laughs, so it seemed like they had a great time, and I did too. It was super educational, and gave me a lot of confidence in the material in a way that let me feel like I had room to experiment and workshop the story more. A strange show, but one of my favorites of the whole tour. Thanks, Sacramento!

Last night I tried to do the same - I was foggy from cough syrup and lack of proper rest, and still feeling iffy from whatever is in my system right now, so I figured I could lean into it again and experiment a bit. I went into it loosely, thinking that with the right attitude I could do just about anything, and learn even more about the Slouching show. I was catastrophically wrong. I was going to try and perform the show but see how much I could cut or alter on the fly to keep it shorter without losing emotional effectiveness, but within minutes it was clear to me that this audience would never allow it. They decided before I went on that I was not going to perform, they were! This is something I can often plow through or work with, but my usual means of handling it were inaccessible through the brain fog. I ended up telling someone in the front row to "shut the fuck up."

Had you been there, you would've done the same. I promise. She was shouting at me repeatedly, ignoring the fact that I was ignoring her, continuing to talk over me, (at me!) while I was trying to talk over her. And look, it's not like I hadn't already cracked a joke at her expense to try and get her to shut the fuck up already, but it hadn't worked. I ended up telling her to shut the fuck up twice throughout the show, and she never did.

I told the crowd that I was in rare form due to the cough syrup, which was partly the truth, and that allowed me to still lean into that for humor throughout the show - but in reality had it not been for a handful of audience members, especially this one girl in the front row, I might've still been able to do my usual show.

I was eventually able to slip into a headspace that allowed me to work with that audience, and was even able to do a bunch of my standup material, but I had to alter the delivery and some of the lines to work around the particularly vocal folks. It also helps to occasionally plink random keys on the piano - for some reason that tends to keep people from talking. Still, there are a number of moments throughout my show and a few jokes of mine that require dramatic pauses or brief bits of quiet for comedic timing, and I knew that the second I stopped talking the girl in the front row would take over. The majority of the audience was gracious enough to allow me to (sort of) drop character and frankly discuss with them the fact that I knew I would botch certain songs, but the girl in the front row repeatedly called out "damn" with each bum note.

There have been rough audiences, but truly this crowd would've been completely manageable and fun to perform for if it hadn't been for the one person in the front. I can say with confidence this one girl was truly the most disrespectful (and hard to excuse) individual audience member I've ever dealt with. Gold star.

The audience wanted an encore, and I don't usually do them unless they very clearly want one, but I was so angry by the end of the set that I almost refused it. But eventually I caved, and went out on stage and told them how I felt: "Okay, okay, you greedy sons of bitches, one more. Half of my mind is going 'come to terms with disorder' and the other is going 'there should be a no-fly list for audience members' and I'm going to punish all of you for the one person in the front row.'"

But Petaluma's a great town, and it ended up being a super fun show. Thanks to everyone who came out. I'd like to end this on a positive note as well, by thanking everyone who came out in Portland! It was the biggest show I'd ever played, with 600 people in attendance, and a beautiful theater with a wonderfully welcoming staff, and the audience was incredibly fun and rewarding to perform for.

There's a lot more I could share, but I have to get going and save my energy for the show. I'm feeling better bit by bit each day, so hopefully I can handle anything that gets thrown at me without having to resort to unusual amounts of character goofery. See you there folks!

Much love,

-ww