Another excerpt from my work in progress:
A night club performer sees and experiences the bizarre. Alcohol brings out the very worst in all of us. One evening I witness a male arguing with a female at the end of the bar. I can see that tempers are flaring on both sides. Suddenly, he produces a small tin of Ronson lighter fluid and proceeds to squirt it all over her jacket, then pulls out a Bic lighter and lights it! She extinguishes the flame by flinging her drink on the lighter and then on him. She storms out. He leaves also, but not before he finishes his drink.
One night in small town Wisconsin, a rather attractive woman in her thirties pulls up a bar stool next to me while I am on break.
"See that table over there?" she gestures. I turn and see four couples at a large table.
"we are swingers," she says matter of factly. "We would like you to join us. There's just one thing. We would like you to lose about forty pounds."
"I'll get right on that."
She doesn't appreciate the sarcasm.
Another evening, another club. A table of women sit near the stage. One woman in particular continually makes it clear to me that she finds my show vulgar and offensive. I take my break, thinking that given this opportunity, they will leave.
They stay.
Second set she again expresses her distaste for my show. I finally confront her and explain to her that I don't understand why she would sit and subject herself to something she finds so disgusting. I explain that sitting there is not required by law. Why does she not just get up and leave? I question the intelligence of her choice.
This makes her even angrier.
"You can't tell me to leave! I can stay here just as long as I want!"
"Then, my dear, you are dumber than you look!"
She stews for a while, they finish their drinks and leave.
Less than a year later I am sitting in at a music jam in Chippewa Falls when I see the same woman come into the room, this time accompanied by a man that I assume is her husband. Just watching her, I can tell that he is getting an ear full of how I mistreated her, because he is listening to her but he is staring intently at me.
Sure enough, he rises, makes his way over to where I am sitting and says: "I understand that you insulted my wife. I want an apology."
"All right," I say, "but not until you have heard my side of the story as well. Are you willing to hear my side of the story first?"
"Okay," he says, "let's hear your side of the story."
I tell him all the details and when I finish the account, he looks me dead in the eye and says: "Yep! That sounds like my wife, all right!"
He returns to his table, an argument ensues and they leave.
This next is one of my favorite night club stories. I am working Funny's Comedy Club in Witchita, Kansas. the assigned opener, a young bartender from Kansas City, informs me that I am to be the opener, he is going to "middle", just before the headliner.
Knowing what I am to be paid, I have no objections to working less, so I tell him whatever. I will do fifteen instead of twenty five, pick up "middler's pay" and he can follow me. No biggie.
What happens next is the best part.
Management has chosen to hire only busty young waitresses and outfits them in lowcut tops that show plenty of cleavage. A waitress approaches her station and hotshot K.C. looks her up and down, holds his hands in a cupping motions and says: " Ouuuuuuu .. waitresses!"
The waitress, with her free hand, forms a fist and pumps it up and down and says: "Ouuuuuu..comedians!"
Excuse me, pal. You have just learned a lesson that you should have already learned as a bartender: NEVER, EVER, MESS WITH A WAITRESS! THEY HAVE SEEN AND HEARD IT ALL! You are toast!
For some odd reason, after the opening night, Mr KC decided "he didn't feel like middling" this week.
Ouuuuuuuu ..comedians!
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