So, a couple of weeks ago, I was doing a show and this old guy was at the bar. He was loud and obnoxious. After a while, it turned out he was this guy who used to be a comic a long time ago. Now hes . . . I honestly dont know what he is. A whino? A has-been? I dunno. But heres the thing. After the show, this guy went on a loud, obnoxious, self-aggrandizing rant about how he is a professional comedian who made millions of dollars and these guys on the stage are worthless scum and so on. He actually went so far as to say words to the effect of how they had no right to even get on a stage when he was in the room because they werent in the same league. I was embarrassed. The other comics were embarrassed. The people around him were embarrassed. The only person who wasnt embarrassed was this guy, and I dont know if it was because he was drunk or hes suffering from dementia or maybe hes just an asshole. But it was . . . well, it was just sad. I was reminded of this because I was talking to an actor friend of mine yesterday, and he told me about a similar situation at a community theatre rehearsal. The actor in this case is someone who (supposedly) appeared on two episodes of a Star Trek series back in the 1990s, and as such is a professional actor who made a living acting and went on to tell everyone around him that they arent worthy to share the same stage with him. My friend was embarrassed. The other actors were embarrassed. The people around them were embarrassed. Again, the only person who wasnt embarrassed was apparently the superstar. By all accounts, it was very sad. So, I guess the message Im trying to convey here is: get over yourself. I dont really know anything about the actor, although I know the type. If youve spent more than a couple of months doing theatre, you know the type, too. But I can tell you something about the comic. He was a nationally-touring comic from the 1980s into the early 1990s. Like everyone else (including the Chicago Bears),he had a novelty song sometime in the 1980s that got some airplay and probably earned him some royalty money. He appeared on a couple of comedy specials. He was funny�I always liked his work�but he was never what one might call an A-lister, despite what he thinks. In an era where everyone who had ever picked up a mic and made a couple of people laugh had their own TV shows, he was conspicuously absent. Jerry Seinfeld had a show, Joan Rivers had a show, Brett Butler had a show, Ellen Degeneres had a show, Roseanne Barr had a show . . . hell, even Pat Sajak had a show. Pat freakin SAJAK. And he was AWFUL. But this guy? He may have had a walk-in role in an episode or two of someone elses show, but thats as far as it went. He never headlined a show at a stadium. He never had his own HBO special. He never became a household name. And Im pretty sure he never made millions of dollars . . . because if he did, what in the hell would he be doing at a bar in Flint, Michigan? So, bottom line: this was a guy who, once upon a time several decades ago, was a moderately successful performer whose success may have made him relatively comfortable. And for some reason, he thinks this gives him the right to trash on other people. Now, Ive been around for a while. I spent about 15 years in radio, essentially performing stand-up on the air every single day, as well as working in clubs. Ive met some comedians who WERE extremely successful and did reach the level this guy wants to believe he reached. Ive met Paula Poundstone and Steven Wright and Weird Al Yankovic and tons of other performers. They were all very nice, very gracious people who appreciated how fortunate they were to be where they were. I never heard any of them trash on another performer, although I did hear them offer constructive criticism and advice to other people who were getting their start as entertainers. (Not to me; I was never brave enough to even ask them.) On the other hand, Ive also met some folks who THOUGHT they were A-list celebrities, when they werent even close. The most memorable was a guy who (unlike the comedian at the bar) did actually have his own TV show in the mid-1980s. It was a bizarre Tron/Knight Rider mash-up drama that may have lasted an entire season before being canceled, but I dont think so. He was with a touring theatre company and I met him when I was doing mornings at a radio station that was a co-sponsor of the performance. All he talked about--both on and off the air--was about how awesome he was and how he had this TV show in the 80s and how none of the other actors in the cast had ever had THEIR own shows and how none of them were fit to lick his boots. Oh, and he had his own CD that he was hawking (a really cheesy showtunes CD). None of THEM had ever cut a solo album! And do you know why? Because he was AWESOME and they all sucked. And you know what? I saw his performance, and the rest of the cast was awesome. He was okay, but they were awesome. My point to all of this? If you have to go around telling everyone how awesome you are because of something you did thirty years ago and how much everyone else sucks, you are not awesome. You are a washed-up has-been who is bitter because the world never agreed with you that you were the Best Thing Ever(tm). You have no right to tell anyone else who has not, according to you, reached your level of awesome that they are worthless because--lets be honest here--you havent reached that level of awesome yourself. And we can tell, because people who HAVE reached that level of awesome dont have to tell everyone else about it: they already know. Those actors in the community theatre production? Some of them may not be all that great, but I can guarantee that at least one of them has a masters degree in theatre and has performed on huge stages and is an amazing actor. (I know, because this is the friend I was talking with.) The comedians who were performing? A couple of them sucked, but they are both brand new. (In fact, it was the first time one of them had ever been on stage.) But at least half of them were funnier than you ever were, even in your prime, Captain Hasbeen, and they are doing this for fun. None of them ever plan to use this as their sole source of income; your profession is their hobby, and they are better at it than you are. Theres a lesson to be learned here for my friends in the performing arts. Keep perspective. Get over yourself. And for the love of God, dont tell people how awesome you are, because they can already tell before you open your mouth. I mean, I may be standing next to you, having to listen to it. And I really hate being embarrassed for other people.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:01:28 +0000
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