Every night they play, like the Generals and the Globetrotters. It’s a game to see who can get the most laughs. In some tragic rooms like Suki’s, booze is the usual winner, and that’s to be expected. But sometimes, less often, Comedy and Booze square off in a nicely-decorated club with good service like Helium. And it’s there that you really see how the game is played.
You want your audience to have alcohol available. They need to be “loosened up.” You don’t put your best act up right at the beginning of the night because the crowds need time to “settle in,” which is code for “two drink minimum.”
Suspiciously, many clubs do not have a drink “maximum,” and occasionally Team Booze recruits from its drunkest ranks a lone heckler. Comedy clubs and dive bars alike look at one number alone when judging the success of a show: the total sales figures for that night. When one attends a free open mic at a nice club with a two-drink minimum, one is paying $5 to see a show, (two coffees / sodas at Helium). When one attends an open-mic at a poorly-attended bar, the sales at the bar of food and drink will be crucial in keeping that room viable.
You want your comedians to have alcohol available. People get nervous, and have a drink to relax. Comedians need to feel like they understand and relate to their audience, many of whom are on Team Booze.
But you do not want your comedians to be drunk. Team Booze is paying, in food or drink or ticket sales, and wants to see a show. They are the ones who want to enjoy themselves and have a night out during which they they laugh uncontrollably from half-drunkenness and half-your-hilarity. Team Comedy are supposed to entertain and impress the audience, and drinking on-stage or excessively before a set is a sure-fire sign of complete disrespect for that dynamic. Team Comedy is supposed to entertain Team Booze. If Team Booze is entertaining itself, Team Comedy should just go home. Not many people would pay to see a show, or drink at a show, with the word “Booze” replacing “Comedy” in the event title.
Comedy as a whole can be a highly-incestuous institution wherein a small number of people can achieve among one-another a sort of fame and prestige. It is not comedy, it is not fashionable, it is not stylish or unique or cute, to make your consumption of alcohol interfere with your stage-time. From this point forward, Dressed, Funny will advocate for the removal of the insidious spies of Team Booze from Team Comedy, for the sake of making Portland Comedy shows look and go their best.
Closer-than-normal friendships and comedic camaraderie creates an unrealistic vision of a normal person’s lifestyle. Dive bars become acceptable places to stay for more than a quick buzz and visit more often than during a divorce / after a funeral. Drunk regular customers become fast friends. Nervous new comedians try to buy their local idols a shot or a beer. You want to tip the staff, but you’re nervous about the overpriced / crappy food. You’re young and you like to party, so why not?
Every six months or so in Portland comedy, a new person becomes “the drunk.” It’s usually a man, usually single, usually middle-aged. But that does not remove any of the very young women with boyfriends from my line of reasoning who might be guilty of just as much conspicuous on-stage or off-stage consumption. Booze is easy to become addicted to in a town where brewers and strip-clubs are our cause celebre. Oregon consumes 10 times the booze of any state: a prime area for Team Comedy to compete with Team Booze, but also fertile grounds for some epic beat-downs of Team Comedy. Team Booze is strong here, and I’m convinced if you can play for Team Comedy in a rowdy Portland (or god forbid Gresham) room you can play anywhere, because we’ve got some Class-A drunks in our state.
Portland is a debaucherous road-gig to anyone from a respectable city. How many visiting comedians remark immediately on our strip club / beer culture?
Comedy and alcohol are like the North and the South, engaged in inter-generational warfare to dominate the late nights of Americans. Picture all the old vaudeville shows in smoky rooms. Why were those people smoking? Because they were drunk. Today’s vaudeville doesn’t happen in smoky rooms because we’ve changed the laws. But I’ll bet you’re still allowed to drink in many of the venues from that era that are still running. Comedians love playing the game as much as Team Booze loves watching them play. Teem Booze is just supposed to sit and pay attention and laugh. Team Comedy is supposed to dazzle.
Drinking while you perform comedy, on stage or off, is unprofessional. Many professional comedians drink before a show, and a few even have you believing they’re drinking during their act, like Ron White. But know this: I spoke with my grandmother about booze, because I’m quitting drinking and I wanted to tell her about it because she’s always wanted me to stop drinking and been vocal about it (proving she’s a better friend than anyone on Team Booze). And she knows I perform comedy, and she brought Ron White up specifically to tell me how sad and uncomfortable it makes her when he slurs his words and looks like he might stumble off stage. So take it from my grandma: you’re better off without it in her eyes. My grandma also made mention of a certain local comedian she had recently seen on Conan O’Brien. She doesn’t much care for Conan, but Ron Funches reminded her of Andy, the large, cool-voiced black man who lived across the street from her for many years. She loved Ron Funches. And he certainly wasn’t holding a fucking beer can, shot glass, rocks glass or pint.
Comedy venues and particularly theaters should consider encouraging a healthier lifestyle among comedians. Audiences should always be free to drink up and pay dearly. Making soda or juice or coffee available to comics who drink no alcohol for free or reduced prices is a nice way to support healthy living. Comedy venues should consider finding ways to support their businesses without alcohol revenues: diversify your streams-of-income so that your business is less susceptible to a changes in demand. Most comedy clubs offer a beer or a small appetizer or food item for around the same price: why not sell snacks that are even cheaper and make the profits up in volume? Why not make special non-alcoholic cocktails?
Industry should consider a moratorium on paying performers who disrespect comedy enough to sabotage it. Bookers / agents / managers / promoters / hosts should pay close attention to who uses the microphone most professionally, and whether or not the talent is acting like just another audience member.
Comedians need to pick a side and fight for it. Are you in the audience, or on the stage? It is beneath the caliber of self-professed entertainers to ruin shows, as during Team Booze’s occasional sabotage of Team Comedy, when the Generals beat the Globetrotters. Shame the on-stage drunks among us. Figure out if you like getting drunk, or you like telling jokes and hearing other people’s jokes and supporting comedians with laughter because you get the joke, not because you’re drunk and it’s funny. Maybe you like both joke-appreciation and drinking excessively. Good for you. Can you separate them? Tell your comic friends when they’ve had too many and need to sober up, or if their drink was a distraction on stage (HINT: it always is). Style is about recognizing how others perceive you and making conscious choices to manipulate that perception. Show some respect for yourself, or at least for the other performers who may need to dig out of the hole your drunk ass leaves them, and for the venue trying to convince the audience you’re worth paying money to see, and for the industry folks trying to use you to make money, not because of how well you handle liquor but because of how well you handle hecklers and a microphone.
Just think about it, comics.
The Portland Comedy Community has suffered a severe loss, as Ron Funches’ Superman hoodie has fallen. The cause of death is a manlfunctioning zipper. A moment of silence for the hoodie. Donations can be sent in Ron’s name to his wife.
