Hell gig story I did for Splitsider

In 2009, I was one fourth of an ongoing tour called The Beards of Comedy. We were all based in or around Atlanta and chose that name because we all happened to have beards and thought of it as a sort of parody of a hook. We did no material about beards or any beard-centric comedy; we just thought it was a funny name. All that being said, when someone from the NYC Beard and Mustache Championship contacted us and offered to pay us to perform at the annual event in Williamsburg, BK, we were more than happy to take the gig and the money… mostly the money. I was the first of us that had to do a set, which was about three hours into the event. 1,000 people were packed into a capacity 800 venue. Everyone was hammered. I was supposed to do 20 minutes of standup after a bluegrass/rockabilly band, a ZZ Top cover band, and a mustache competition. The MC butchered my intro, paraphrasing whatever BS credits no one would know anyway, and failing to mention that I was a comedian (kind of important). Right off the bat, the 600 people toward the back were completely tuned out or ordering beers. The 400 or so toward the front were still wondering what I was there to do without a costume or an instrument. I told a few quick jokes and finagled some laughs, more or less by way of trickery. Someone realized a few minutes in that I was a comedian and yelled, ‘Tell a joke!’ To which I replied, ‘You remember when I was talking and then I stopped and people laughed?…That was a joke.’ I thought I had won over the crowd, and I was so, so wrong. People were heckling five or ten at a time. I was only five minutes into a 20 minute set. I strapped in and braced myself for 15 minutes of 1,000 people hating me (I couldn’t risk not getting paid). About three more minutes of chaos ensued before the MC walked right up to me and asked, ‘What you wanna do?’ I said, ‘If you’re saying I can bail, then I’ll bail. I just wanna make sure I get paid.’ He said, ‘Let me make an announcement real quick.’ He then informed someone that their car was about to be towed and said to the DJ, “Hey DJ, play that Wilson Phillips song. Andy and I are gonna dance!” I immediately told him, “I’m not a fuckin’ monkey. Not dancin’.” And walked backstage where five or six bands were visibly cringing. A ZZ Top cover band member patted me on the back and said, ‘Fuck em all.’ To this day, that’s the only phrase I use when consoling a comic who just bombed.