Work?
(The Journey Continues)
So, I had done well my first time on stage. Surely stardom was right around the corner. I figured I should get in a few more shows to work out the kinks before I auditioned for late night television.
I took the advice I had gotten at the Pittsburgh Comedy Club and headed out to Tickles on Monday night. Tickles was in the basement of the Holiday House in Monroeville. It was more like the downstairs, not a basement. The room was enormous and held 350 or more, depending on how many they could squeeze in to make more money.
It was the heyday of comedy clubs and we would usually get at least 70 to 100 people a week on a Monday night. Once over Christmas break we had 300 which is unheard of for open mikes. Comedians are now doing open mikes to each other when no crowd shows up, which is just a waste of time.
Some of my students have suggested they use these times to help each other work on material like we do in class. They can’t get the majority to agree, which is stupid.
One of the draws of Tickles was that all of the working comedians in town would show up. If not every week, at least more than occasionally. That’s where I first met Dennis Miller.
Upstairs in the main room national headliners would be doing a run of shows. Monday was dark upstairs and a lot of the stars would come down to check us out. I remember Frankie Avalon coming by one night. Another night, McKenzie Phillips was taking her mother’s place in The Mamas and Papas and popped in…I would’ve rather seen her mother but, you take what you can get.
