The Elks Lodge

Last weekend I found myself as a comedian.

I was booked to perform at an Elks Lodge here in Central New York. It sounded like it might not be the best idea, but as you have gathered by now, I am a born storyteller and you don’t get stories unless you put yourself in potentially catastrophic situations. This was one of those situations. I figured, at the very least, I’ll have something to talk about and get a decent amount of cash for 45 minutes of work. (Yes, I hate to pull back the curtain, but a lot of times comedians will just do your show for the money. We don’t pretend to have integrity. There’s no reason for us to be performing in a cafeteria on a North Dakota University campus at noon for anything other than the $1,000 check the Student Association presents us upon completion.) Luckily, this Elks show gave me much more than an envelope of cash. It gave me this story.

I would be performing at a dinner for the volunteers which started at 8pm but I was not scheduled to perform until 9pm. This partiucular lodge was close to my house, so I strolled in around 8:30 with time to check out the crowd and get comfortable. I entered the first door I saw which happened to be the front door. It also happened to be located directly next to the stage where a man named Al was presenting awards. It would have been impossible for me to make a quiet entrance since everyone was already looking in that direction. I swong the door open and froze at the stares of 200 people which all resembled my grandmother (assuming my grandmother had volunteered for anything; which she doesn’t. And she wont. So don’t ask her.)

I ran to the back of the room and stood there for a few seconds wondering if this is worth it. And by “this” I mean “life.” And by “it” I mean “anything.” I stood there wondering “is my life worth anything?” I then sent the following text message to about 20 of my closest friends:

I am about to do a show at an Elks Lodge.
There is no one under 50 in the crowd.
I wanna die.

My friends started to send back encouraging words, but they just weren’t doing the trick. They weren’t there. They didn’t have to get on stage in front of these people, so what do they know?

The night was supposed to go Dinner, Awards, Comedy, Raffle. Ya know, exactly where I wanted my comedy career to end up. Opening up for raffles… at an Elks Lodge. But the awards went short and they decided to start the raffle before the comedy. These people are old. It’s getting very late and they are only here for that raffle. If we blew the raffle load too soon, there’d be no comedy crowd (which might not be that terrible, actually). Luckily we convinced Al to stop the raffle and just start the show. He complied.

Now, I should note that I didn’t have to go up cold. There was going to first be a magician and then another comic and then me. I figured by the time I got up, the crowd would be warm and I could get into a roll. It should also be noted that I was originally told this was a dinner for Anheuser-Busch employees being held at the Elks Lodge. I only found out that morning that it was actually an event for the Elks Lodge volunteers. I would be spending the time during the opening acts throwing out the 15 minutes of Anheuser-Busch jokes I spent all week working on and trying to toss together some elderly, volunteer-centric humor.

The magician did well. He went to tables doing some close-up card tricks and what not which the crowd seemed to enjoy. Shortly after that, the opener went up. Now, the opener is a friend of mine and the one that actually asked me to headline the show, so I will leave his name out of this story as to protect him, but he will be the first to admit – he bombed. Hard. In any other room, he would have had a fine set. He’s a young guy like me and talks about young topics, but for some reason the material about 4-somes and cell phones just wasn’t clicking with the crowd. The most shocking thing was that these people did not care if he knew they hated him. They would shout out “you suck” and “get off” at the top of their iron lungs. At one point a man in his 80′s managed to get himself out of his chair, walk to the coat room, get a coat hanger, proceed to snap it in half with his hands, bend it into a hook shape and started making a hooking motion at the stage. Now that is dedication.

The opening comic bailed quickly and I cannot say I blame him. He brought me up. It was my time. Now, I had been there for the awards ceremony, so I had seen how these people interacted. They loved ripping on each other so I decided that maybe I should start out by doing the same. I open by saying this:

“You are some truly greedy bastards if you’re willing to sit through a show you openly hate because there’s a small chance you might win a god damned griddle afterwards.”

They exploded with cheers and we were off. I was ripping on this one, ripping on that one and they loved it. The 80-something man with the coat hanger was raising his beer to me all night long. All the wanted was a roast and I gave it to them. We were joined together on this journey and before I knew it, I glanced at my watch and had done 45 minutes of nothing but crowd work. No material. We just shot the shit for 45 minutes and everyone was ecstatic.

The most memorable line of the night came when I noticed one lone black man in the crowd. I asked him his name and he told me it was Lee. I asked,

“Lee, didn’t you find it weird that when you first showed up here at the Elks they slammed the door behind you and said ‘OK, we have our one‘?”

He laughed and one man behind him named Bill said “Nah, we got plenty of Blacks. We’ve got no Orientals, though!”

I replied “Bill, that is because ‘Orientals’ are rugs and lamps. ‘Asians‘ are the people. But you really shouldn’t be proud of having neither.”

Later on in the set Bill mentioned something about how they had to go on some field trip with the Elks and they made him sit in the back of the bus. I asked, “What. Just you and Lee?”

So I have found my calling. I am an Elks Lodge comic from here on out. No more alt, East Village rooms. No more hip colleges. Elks Lodges and Polish homes from now on. And the most interesting thing about this whole event is this; it’s very commonplace at these aforementioned East Village rooms and colleges for people to attempt to network with the funniest comics on the bill. It’s comic nature. But this exact phenomena happened to me at the Elks Lodge. I finished my set to find myself being approached by 60 year old women asking for my card so “they can get me in touch with their grand daughter who runs a show.” I was even approached by Tom Kenny’s* cousin which might be one of the biggest connections I have made in my last 10 years as a comic.

There’s so much more to share about this night including old transvestites and drunken fishing which I will be happy to discuss via comments, but now that I have started using footnotes, thats a good sign that this entry has been long enough. So, as the Elks say… “Get off the stage!”

*Tom Kenny is a Syracuse native who currently is the voice of Spongebob Squarepants. He is a very talented comic and anyone who hasn’t seen his clips on The A-List or other early Comedy Central programs should do so.