I recently performed at a place called The Iguana Café located in Staten Island, NY. When you're asked to do a one-nighter in Staten Island you don't need to be psychic to sense that this might be a bad show, but sometimes even the darkest expectations can be exceeded.

The first indicator hit me as I stepped in the front door. You know the night's going to be rough when you walk in and wonder what room the show will be taking place in and then turn to see the stage sitting right next to you. The bar where they planned to have the show was so inappropriate for comedy it made me wonder if it was some inside gag the management was playing on the comics. I half-expected the owner to approach me and say, "I'm just fucking with you. Let me show you where the comedy show really is." That of course never happened. The stage was against the back wall of the restaurant's main bar area. There were a few tables scattered about, but most of the patrons were at the bar, lined up horizontally with their backs to the stage.

It was still mid-September, but the entire place had already been decorated in a Halloween motif. I guess they were trying to beat the pseudo-holiday rush. Synthetic cobwebs and plastic bats covered the ceiling. An animatronic werewolf stood to the left of the stage, snarling and clawing the air, while a Dracula puppet flanked the right, repeatedly lunging from a Styrofoam coffin. All we were missing was a jack o' lantern and someone's dad dressed as the grim reaper.

To top it off there was a private party being held in the adjoining room. The only thing separating the two sections of the restaurant was a thin glass double-door that released a blaring chorus of Mambo #5 every time someone stepped out to have a cigarette.

The show began when the MC went up and introduced himself. Few people seemed to take notice. There was a particularly loud group of four obnoxiously drunk middle-aged women and one gray-haired man in his forties. The MC bulldozed through his opening ten minutes, trying to win the crowd over by evoking the spirit of Al Pacino and telling them that he'd "take a flame thrower to this place." He meant it as a "Scent of a Woman" reference, but there at the Iguana Café I thought it oddly worked just as well as an ordinary conversational comment. The party of five by the bar talked loudly throughout his set and tried in vain to win the crowd over by ignoring them and moving into the balloon animal portion of his act.

Eventually, it was time for me to take the stage. I opened by exclaiming to the scattered two-dozen audience members, "This place is packed," with sarcastic excitement. Typically, from there I would move into my act, but that would have been pointless. The loud, Martini-drinking women had to be dealt with.

I started by talking to them and then moved into benign prodding, references to private workshops and sewing circles. Their haggard, age-scarred faces still failed to recognize that there was a comedy show going on. They somehow continued to ignore me. I wasn't sure how they were able to. I asked the crowd, "Am I in another dimension?"

The rest of the crowd was annoyed. They had actually come expecting a comedy show. They were ready for the gloves to come off, for blood to be drawn. My comments became slightly more aggressive, but it wasn't until I told them to have another Martini and slip into a coma that they granted me the attention I deserved. That's when the forty year old guy told me to, "Shut the fuck up!" and threatened to kick my ass. It was then that the management stepped in and asked the man to leave. It was nice to see the management had finally decided to take part in the horrific disaster they had so effectively created. As the chaos ensued I pulled a chair up to the front of the stage and talked to the rest of the audience. Many of them actually moved up closer to the stage because they really did want to see a comedy show. We sat there in the eye of the hurricane while havoc was wreaked around us. I weaved in and out of my act, digressing from it to address some loud thump or yell coming from the madness around us that was too absurd to be ignored. The unruly baby-boomers were forced to leave and soon it was time for me to go. The MC had to return to the stage. That balloon Octopus wasn't going to make itself. The crowd was now attentive and willing to listen to his Pacino-Heat scene as he twisted his muliti-colored balloons together. I wondered if after making his next poodle he would morph into Tony Montana and ask the crowd to say hello to his little friend, but I didn't stick around to find out. It was late, I had been paid and it was time for me to get back the city.