When Comedy Gets Ugly (when audience attack)

An audience member tried to attack me tonight at a comedy club in New York.
Scary, right? This is my career path…Most people my age pay dues by going on coffee runs or filing papers. Not me; I fend off hooligans.

I take the stage after a friend of mine bombs hard (though I would trade sets with him in a jiffy). Apparently the jokes aren’t funny anymore once the check arrives. I can’t get a joke out because this guy is complaining so loud. I ask him, “What’s the problem?”
“$80 for two fuckin’ Heinekens?” Hyperbolic math if you ask me.

He takes his frustration out on me as if I had a hand in the designing the menu. I reassure him that I’m here to tell jokes and that is all.

He doesn’t shut up, and starts cutting off all my punchlines. I find out they’re from New Jersey, and I make the mistake of saying, “People from New Jersey who don’t know how to behave? I don’t believe it!” This obviously pisses them off, and they band together with another table of loud people from New Jersey who don’t know how to behave (I believe it). The original instigator tells me I dress like a “poor piece of shit.” His girlfriend is so lucky to have landed such an articulate catch; I can tell she’s really thrilled.

The fact that he called me poor is revealing since the waitress later told me he attempted to ditch his check. The situation escalates to the point where the entire room is clearly pissed with them, and I say, “This is what happens when you perform for fucking hoodlums.” This clearly struck a nerve because this guy got up and called me racist. I meant hoodlum as in a classless piece of shit, not Puerto Rican…But this guy didn’t seem to get that. In all honesty, I wish I didn’t say that, but I was annoyed. He wouldn’t play the rules so I called him by someone who doesn’t.

He charged the stage, “I’m gonna’ fuck you up, you pussy. I bet you’re a virgin!” I stood there as calm as a lanky Jew can and said, “No…I’m not a virgin.” If I was a virgin I probably would have flipped out the way he did when I called him a hoodlum…Ah…That’s revealing right there.

He said, “Let’s fight.”
Now I was sober and he wasn’t so I knew better than to fight at a place where I work. That could’ve hurt my future at that place. The booker is looking for comics: “Well I could book the comic that tells jokes...Or the comic that tackled the Puerto Rican."

I said, “I’m not going to fight you.” He spat on me. I guess he ran out of words. One of my favorite waitresses had my back (seriously had my back. I love you Jo) on a night where the bouncer was nowhere to be found. After a long exchange, the waitresses barricaded the stage and wouldn’t let him get through to me. “I’ll be waiting outside for you, you fucking pussy!” he shouted. His girlfriend looked really embarrassed.

After he left, the audience and I were rattled. They didn’t know whether or not to laugh because I think they were as scared as I was. I took a deep breath, and broke the silence the only way I know how to- with a joke. I said, “I’m gonna’ restart my set because he said he was waiting outside for me.” This got a laugh, and it reminded me why I do this…I was in a deep hole and I obviously wasn’t going to kill from here, but I stayed on stage. In retrospect, I did what I should’ve done. I made a few more jokes, told a story about another lunatic at the same club, and got off stage. The waitresses told me he only did that because he didn’t want to pay. The comics pat me on the back and walked me outside after I waited for a bit. The host even dropped me off at home.

The funniest thing is: I wasn’t supposed to be on tonight. My friend called today and asked if I wanted his spot b/c he was going out of town…
This set hurt, but afterward all I could do was laugh cynically. It was the type of set that built character. The comics pat me on the back in the green room, told me I had balls not to walk off- to try to handle this prick heckler, and to try to win the crowd back.
Comedy is about trying when it seems like there is no hope, about taking chances, about digging out of holes, about facing ugly shit, and most importantly, about living to talk about it. Oh, and sometimes dodging a crazy Puerto Rican in a cab ride home.

Thanks,
Sam