Countdown Entry #45   7:17 PM, Thurday, July 1st, 1999:   He paid more in comps than he did for me. And that is the end of the story. He laughed, he was not mad, but he could not have me back. It was funny. My salesman pitch went out the door after that. I was all like: "I can do a different show, I have this this and this…" and then he goes (while laughing) "I paid more in comps than I did for you." I then laughed and said: "Well then, not much more to say about that is there." He said he thought the show was great, and that he would come and see me, it just simply isn’t for his restaurants. I can’t help but think if I hadn’t played those funny sets, I’d be there Saturday. Lesson learned. I’m glad he doesn’t hate me. Jesus, I gotta stop worrying about what people think of me.   I went to meet with him at my lunch break at work, and my depression has now turned to basic pissed-offedness. And frustration. Remember what I wrote last month? "the gm said his bar sucks and he needs to make his saturday nights kick ass." Yet, he’s angry when I cater to the bar? I’m not quite sure what the hell he expected. He was nice, gave me the posters back and a check for $200. I tried to explain to him that those FEW songs may not have been, but the rest of the show is just singing. I was just trying to make the bar laugh. I DID (sigh). "Didn’t you want to up your BAR sales? Why not start me at 10 PM?" He said it wasn't Champps material, and he wished me all the luck and that he was sorry he couldn’t help me and I wished him the same. 10 bucks, that in one year, I’ll have an act that he wishes he would’ve stayed with. Fuck it... $100. If I can’t cover that bet in a year, whew, I’m in trouble.   I went straight to the Lennox Champps and talked with a manager there that I'd been talking to for a couple weeks. He shook his head. He said that even at 11 PM on a Saturday night Champps is always gonna be a Disney atmosphere. He said I should've been told that. That made me feel a bit better. He said what happened would not effect my standing at Lennox and that he and the GM would come out and see me at my next gig and see if I could work with their place. I'm also in touch with Gerald at the Easton Champps but he so hard to talk to. He used to be in a band and is telling me everything about "how to make it" and how "he could do my show" ... it's like, dude you run a restaurant, can we please talk about booking the act? Grrr...   So that was it. Audience dug it. The GM didn't give me the right guidance, and I move on. The lost revenue sets the entire project back almost a month though. And right now, a month is a huge amount of time in the life of 4TVs. Anyone got a couple thousand lying around?   And then there's ABOT. (sigh) I don’t know what was worse - the show, or ABOT telling me what I should’ve done different. They kept harpin' on how I should’ve faulted on the nice side. Yeah. I ONLY HAD 5 15 minute SETS for christ's sake, I can’t really fault on ANY side. 15 minute sets I'm paying $500 a pop for. Oh well. This one still hurts pretty good. I'm sure a lesson was learned here, I just don't know which one yet. I just haaaaaaaaaaad to play "Chest Hair".   Adam   Just got off the phone with Cameron at Fats who said "Be as crude as you want"...and this was not even knowing what happened last night. Classic.

 

 

JULY 1999