Cruise Ship Prom

I must have been six years into stand-up when Adam Hunter convinced me to perform with him on a cruise ship. I hesitate to say "cruise" because it was more like a boat ride around the New York harbor for a few hours.

"Twenty minutes on stage and you're done."

I think I was paid fifty dollars, but most likely, it was for free because I can’t remember making money back then. Anyway, I’m on the boat when I realized that everyone was a lot younger than I was - like high school young. This had to have been the most ghetto school in the city because there was a security guard checking passengers for weapons when we boarded.

"What kind of cruise is this?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, they just had their prom, and this is their after party," Adam said.

I was excited. At this point in my career, I still had hopes and dreams. When the show was about to start, we gathered on the second floor dance room. The DJ stopped playing Tupac and handed me a wireless mic.

I don’t remember what I opened with or any of my jokes. I do remember bombing for twenty minutes straight. A horrible silent death where everyone stared restlessly back at me. After my set, I retreated to the first floor, eagerly awaiting our return to land. Adam found me.

“Where’d you go? We have one more show to do!”

“Are you fucking serious?”

The good news was that the second show couldn’t be any worse, and I had a chance to redeem myself. An hour later, we were back on the dance floor, and I took the mic again.

IT WAS THE SAME AUDIENCE.

I’m not sure what they were expecting, booking two comedy shows.

I forgot to mention that I only had one act that barely covered twenty minutes so I repeated the same jokes.

They were being nice the first show. This time they really hated my guts for ruining their prom and started yelling shit out. I’m not sure what happened after that because my memory blacked it out to preserve sanity.

To this day, I’m wary of doing any show that hints of being a train wreck. Some would argue that I’m passing up opportunities to improve and hungrier comedians will take the stage time.

You can have it.