I know sometimes I repeat myself on here and I cannot keep track of the things I have said. Somethings need repeating
If you are going to go to a comedy show ..turn your phone off.
If you are a comic on an open mike then you never talk while other comics are on.
If you are a comic on an open mike then you never sit in the front row with friends.
If you are a comic on an open mike then you never sit in the front and text message
If you are a comic on an open mike then you never heckle other comics on the show
If you are a comic who runs an open mike then you enforce respect for comics on stage
Now lets go through the first one.
On the weekend I drove and did a show in northern alberta and their was a guy in the front row who sat about six feet from me and watched his I Phone for the second half of my set. Not just him..but when he saw something good he would turn to the 2 woman beside him and show them the clip and they would laugh as well. Over ten times i commented on his behavior and how rude it was but he didn't give a fuck cause he is some rich cunt who paid his ten bucks and I have to dance like a fucking monkey for him.
See this town is so rich due to oil that the people who were assholes in high school and could not get through grade ten are making over 90 grand a year working in the oil business. So they now are the super rich assholes who think they can do whatever they like.
All the while I am asking him to stop, the rest of the audience just sat there like stunned meth heads waiting for the show intervention to come save them. I even did the whole speech
"look everyone here paid for a good show and you are fucking it up"
Normally crowds will say yeah or clap in agreement but this crowd of 21 people just sat there...nothing ...zero.
At one point I ask them to step outside into the lobby to watch the iphone and they do. Now after all of this I continue the show. When my time is up (one hour) i say to the crowd that I feel bad that we had to sit through all that ackwardness that I am going to do extra time so i did another 15 minutes for them. I go sit down and the show is over.
Now why did he stay for the show ..I think it is because he could not find a dancing monkey video on his iphone.
Two days later and this is where the rest of the list comes into play.
I am doing an open mike room in edmonton. Anyone who knows me knows that I will support any open mike room even if it costs me cause every room deserves a shot to get better. I am going early to vancouver and putting my self up at my own expense just so i can do some rooms or at least see some new comics. I am one of the only headliners that does this everytime. Each time I went I have been to vancouver i see some comics that i then talk about in toronto to the right people who are looking for younger comics.
All through my career I have gone out of my way to help younger comics get spots get better. If they come to toronto i help get spots by vouching for them etc. I am a comic that loves when younger comics are funny cause it makes me work harder. If a middle is killing and blowing me off the stage I am the first to shake that comics hand (if he did it the right way) and call the office to let them know. So I drove the 5 hrs from my last gig to do this open mike room.
I get there and it is pretty standard pub in a hotel and it is quite large. They have a space in the middle for the comedy and there is a pretty good sound system. The show starts.
There was a black comic that was sitting in the front table ..i did not know he was a comic till he went on ..up till then he just sat and texted on his phone and talked to his friends while the other comics were on
Then he went on and did a bunch of hack stuff..then went back and sat in his chair and back to texting
So I go on and he is in the first seat texting the whole fucking time i am on..so at one point i look at him and ask his friend
"Isn't he a comic..."
Then I said how rude it is to sit in the front row and text and talk to your friends when you are a fucking comic
Then he did the old heckles at me "your jokes aren't funny"..."grow an inch midget"
So for the rest of the set I just whispered my jokes and then got off
See here is the deal I was going to do a lot of time and work some stuff out and support a room that doesn't get many pros coming down and doing sets. In toronto I am always jumping on shows before they are the cool place to perform..before they have a built in audience. Rooms only get a built in audience when enough shitty shows produce funny enough results that people come back and that is why I support anyone trying to run a room correctly.
So I say to booker how that shit is un acceptable and the show is over and eventually the comic comes up to me and the booker. He says that he is sorry and I say that it is wrong for you to sit in the front row with your friends while you are a comic on the show..and he then says that sitting with his friends is how they do it out here blah blah. So i tried to say once again in front of the booker that it is not comic etiquette to do that but before I can finish my sentence he says
"hey if you want this to escalate then fine but I will be the bigger man and just back off" then walks off being a bit of a dick while the booker sat there and said nothing. Now I am sorry but if I ran a room and this was going down I would have said something in agreement with the comic who was disrespected. I know that if a headliner came to my room then I would be fucking pissed off that some young comic fucked it up. I would make sure i said to the comic in front of the disrespected comic that it was not cool on a number of levels that I listed above.
Now on to the bigger picture on this ...see the young comics sometimes get their backs up or want to impress their friends they brought. So Sterling get's a back slapping from his friends but just lost a chance for me to help him. Other comics already told me he is the kind of comic who doesn't watch other comics and that he doesn't support them. Pretty small group us comics ..geez I hope you are fucking funnier then tonight cause you can be a disrespecting cunt in this biz but not an unfunny one.
Now everyone who reads my blog will know how Sterling feels about standup comics. This could have all been avoided if he just had the ability to listen. This could have been done tonight with no blog just an understanding on how he fucked up and won't do it again.
But like many youngins in this biz he thinks he knows better...and lets see if he does.
13 Comments:
Hey, Darren, it sounds like a tough tour all around. Hang in ther. Amateurs are certainly not all respectful, but at least you are. Thanks for supporting the small rooms and giving your all, while always showing respect for the other comics you so charmingly refer to as 'cunts'.
love,
john Wing
i show respect to anyone that is not a cunt
everyone i have called a cunt in this biz has the rep of being a cunt
I have always said the same thing for the record you have great material but are a douchbag off the stage to younger comics and sometimes older ones.
can anyone say JFL 99 when you hosted comedy night in canada and fucked everyone over ..why don't you ask all the comics that wanted to bitch slap you that night cause you could not get over the fact you were only hosting a smaller club so you took it out on all of those comics..some only had two shows in the fest and that was one of them
I would never sit in the front row of one your shows and show that kind of disrespect no matter how much of a "cunt" the comedy world thinks of you.
You keep doing your shows and i will keep doing mine
I don't remember anyone being mad at me for that show. (I think it was in 98) No one said anything to me. But certainly if I was an asshole that night (TEN years ago) I'm sorry for it. I hope it didn't fuck up your career.
The comedy world thinks I'm a cunt, eh? Send me a list, ok, buddy?
I know you think I am. For some things I did over fifteen years ago, that you, for some odd reason, cannot get over. And things I've done to others who have never had a problem with them. but that's all water under the bridge, right?
By the way, just for the record, I have written several new jokes in the last few years. And I can prove it. So telling people I haven't is really not being respectful.
I know you'd never do what that kid did to you. No professional would. being a self-absorbed egotist myself, I have always admired how much you think of yourself.
Live the dream, dude
oh john john
you passive agressive guy you
why don't you look deep into your self and realize some of the things you have done in the past did upset people
and still to this day many comincs ..mostly younger have said you are still up to your tricks from ten years ago of treating them like garbage and using your position on a show to fuck them over or make them feel like shit. Sure there may be a few times when the yunger comics were dicks and disrespected you but not all the time.
so what you did to me i let go of but when many people tell me how much of a dick you are to others then it flares up
Maybe I remember how hard it is to be a comic starting out. Or maybe I remember how hard young comics have to work to just get on a stage night after night when it is a lot easier for us with experience
You haven't fucked my career and I have not fucked yours but being the elitist you are, your mount olympus is not at sea level
where did i say that u never write new jokes. In fact when people ask me i say that you are doing tons of cbc radio shows and have to write for that.
In the last few years comics mention your club act has stayed the same and if that is not true why do you fucking care what i think.
I am going to stop this cause it is only going to get more personal and I don't want to do that anymore
I have made my point and you have made yours
No, by all means let's not get personal. After all, we have seen each other maybe three times in the last fifteen years and really don't know each other. So calling me a cunt or referencing my mother (as you did on your blog: March 2005) would be totally counterproductive.
Perhaps it's hard to recall, but you told some people LAST NIGHT that I hadn't written a new joke in years and that I was a cunt.
To be fair, I'm sure I wasn't the only comedian you slagged. Very few of us can manage to live up to your rigourous, exacting standard of professionalism.
We have over 125 mutual friends on Facebook. Do they all think I'm a cunt? All of them?
i don't kow why I care what you think. I suppose I shouldn't. It bothers me that I treated you in a way that brought on such vitriol. I have no excuse. You're probably womeone I should make amends to. After fourteen years I thought that I had made all the amends i needed to. And you seem to suggest that there are a very large number of guys in the comedy community who totally agree with your assessment of me. So I have a lot of amends to go.
I'm sorry, Darren.
see i knew you were talking about last night and what you should do is question your source john
your name came up and i said what i always say about you see above. Then a comic said that you had not written a new joke in years and i confirmed that i had heard that and i also brought up the idea that you have to write stuff for the cbc which may not translate to club crowds
then i told another story of how you hacked on me about old references and then did a wizard of oz closer with a guitar
of course not all of our mutual friends think you are a cunt but just from this blog i have gotten messages about your passive aggressiveness
i am sure you know there are people who do not appreciate what you have done over the years or do not agree with the way you handle yourself and still are your friends
you signed my blog and started this two years after my entry about you
so you made this public
when it comes to my exacting standard of professionalism... yeah i guess i do suffer from that
I guess I could be a hack and not give a fuck and do the same act year after year but what that is not what I do. This is in general I am nto saying that is you.
I could take the easy rode like some of your friends and steal but i refuse to do that as well.
The comics that like and respect me know I speak my mind and that is it. I know the people I respect also respect me and that is all i care about.
the mother joke was a joke and it was a funny one ...so you have never done a joke like that then fine. If that offended you then I do apologize for that.
The only thing I think I should apologize to you about is when you headlined the superclub a few years ago. I did a spot and killed right before you. I walked off saying "follow that bitch" was wrong and ego driven. In the end you did well so i guess you did.
If your apology is genuine then i accept it. If it is not then fine
you do what you do and i will do what i do
also if you want to continue this john lets do it over private email so we both don't look like little children anymore
uglytoes@hotmail.com
So much anger in such a small man tisk tisk But then again if my career was going as poorly as yours after this many years doing 10 dollar shows I guess id be bitter too
And just so you know the shows you did in Northern oil towns. you were paid less than the kid sweeping the club floors
Loser
oh you really got me there
i love it when someone has to throw from the dark
at least john wing signs his feelings
my career is fine i just made a mistake doing a shitty run and doing an open miker
what have you done..you obviously care or else you would not come to my blog and sign it
keep reading and keep hating
Even replies have anger.
Lashing out tisk tisk.
You offer anon and them ridicule those who choose it, Amazing little trick you use to justify that you put this here for comments and when they don t go your way you piss an moan.
POOR sad little man.
Be glad someone actually took the time to read your silly whine fest of a blog let alone pay 10 bucks to hear you poor gutter comedy.
Get over yourself its the first step to healing
:)
yeah that last entry was so angry when i took some of the blame
i leave the anonymous open so sad people can post and hide..that way they even get a voice to be heard unlike the other comics who shut that function off
poor gutter comedy pays my rent thank you very much
wait till I do my shows next year the cross i have on stage will be huge
Darren, I am sorry that you keep getting coward bombed.
Seriously, grow some and leave your name. Everyone's opinion is valid until you chose to blank out. Then you're just a waste of type space.
Sheesh.
Cheers, Christie Chewka
I don't think allowing people to sign as anonymous is a trick to justify anything really. Your comment doesn't oppose his views or add anything constructive. Your comment contains only slander and lies that are clearly only meant to offend or stir shit. So it kind of makes you look like a whiny little bitch, coward. Perhaps that is why you are being ridiculed because you have no balls and if you naturally should not have any balls to begin with then you would be defined as a cunt.
I fucking hate the internet sometimes it just makes me want to strangle motherfuckers.
Hi Darren!
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