The Altercation Diaries - Part Two

The Altercation Diaries - Part Two

The Altercation Comedy Tour recently tore across the country, wreaking havoc and blowing minds in bars and clubs on a two-week road-trip with one mission in mind: comedy. But what the hell does that mean? What exactly is it like to be a road-comic playing gigs in mystery venues where the crowd could either carry you on its shoulders or off to the gallows?

From the mountain, to the prairie, to the ocean white with foam, Ruby Collins, Chris Cubas, Jake Flores, Joe Staats, and JT Habersaat, have ducked into bars and clubs from Hot Springs, Arkansas all the way up to Chicago, Illinois and every crevice in-between. There's no telling what our travelers have seen and endured - unless you were actually there riding shotgun in the crowded tour-car. Fortunately, tour-member/correspondent, Jake Flores, is on-hand to tell us all about it in this second installment of The Altercation Diaries!

Day Two – Oklahoma City

Always tempt fate.

Okie Roy is the Kilroy of Austin. Next time you're in any dive bar in Austin, browse the men's room wall and you might see something like “Okie Roy is dumb as dirt,” or “Okie Roy + a stick = a stick.” A few bars actually have a bounty on his head because of the sheer amount of Okie Roy related graffiti plaguing their latrines. The name is somewhat of a legend.

We rolled into OKC at 8 o clock. It was cold out. Our show here was booked through a production company called “Dark Kitty Productions.” We were lined up to perform a block in the middle of a sort of variety show that would open and close with an act called “Carnival of Cleavage.” We were greeted by a woman called “Boobzilla” who briefed us with written itineraries and a list of rules kindly asking that we please not spit on the walls or shit on the stage (seriously).

Out on the patio before the show Joe introduced me to his uncle who lives in town and came to see us play. His name is Roy. We are in Oklahoma. I jokingly called him Okie Roy. Turns out, no joke, he is the one and only Okie Roy. Okie Roy wears a brown jacket with patches on the elbows. Apparently he's been getting angry phone calls from bar owners in Austin for a while.

Carnival of Cleavage turns out to be two large women performing these sorts of sideshow acts. They snapped bear traps on their hands, which I think is less of a trick than a feat. Oh well. Potato, po-tah-toe. After that they danced around for a while to rob zombie music before walking on some glass and doing something they called magic tricks. We did our set in front of one of the strangest audiences I’ve ever encountered. We were in the sticks. Joe slayed them. Interpret that how you will. There was a band, a slam poet, and then more carnival of cleavage. The smoky room filled my head with a sort of hazy confusion. the CoC girls were inviting crowd members on stage to staple dollar bills to their bodies. Chris is the only one of our crew that dared to give up a dollar. This grossed out Ruby, I think. Okie Roy spent half the show basically on stage, drinking while Boobzilla ate fire.

Here’s where things started to get weird. Roy brought us to a bar called the blue note 6 blocks away from his house. Kick-ass bar. The first thing Roy did was tell us about the bar's special, a domestic beer and any shot for five dollars. The second thing Roy did was tell us about the bar's special: a domestic beer and any shot for about five dollars. And on and on... Roy was starting to not make much sense. End of the night plan is to drive behind Roy’s car with Joe in it down the street to Roy's house where we would sleep for the night. This is where Roy drove over every curb in the city and some construction equipment before landing on someone's front lawn.

Everyone panicked. Roy apparently hit the 7th level of drunk and would only speak in disjointed sentences and high fives. Every time someone asked him where he lived he would just say “doesn't matter. High five”. Chris jumped out of our car to help with the whole mess. The plan was to get Roy away from his car so he wouldn't get busted for a DUI. We drove away to park in a Wal-mart parking lot far away from cops. Here's where we forgot that Chris didn't have a phone and here's where we didn't realize that Joe and Roy's phones were dead. JT, Ruby, and I slept in the car; mad that they were probably asleep at Roy's by then.

Woke up at around 10 in the morning. Checked my phone. I had a missed call from a strange Oklahoma phone number. Called it back and a taco bell employee answered. We drove back to the blue note to retrace our steps as I called bars in Austin and asked bartenders to take a look in the men's room for Okie Roy's number. No luck, but they knew whom I was talking about. Pulling into the blue note, what looked like a hobo standing next to a sack of hobo supplies turned out to be Joe and Chris. They scrambled into the car for warmth.

Here's what happened on Chris and Joe's side of the story. Roy got picked up by the cops who also asked him where he lived. To them he also replied, “Doesn't matter. High five!” and off to detox he went. This happened while Chris was walking back to the bar to see if anyone knew where Roy lived. All night he was talking about how he knew everyone at the Blue Note. Turns out that wasn't quite true. Unable to contact us or each other, and stuck in the cold streets, Chris and Joe walked around town in search of warmth. Joe stole a pretty nice coat off of someone's porch. Hobo instincts kick in quick in situations like this.

As he tells it, Chris was sitting in front of the Blue Note trying to stay warm and starting to lose his mind when a kitty cat approached. Last tour, at one point, JT had clung to a cat for warmth. Apparently this is a thing people do when people are freezing. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just never saw that episode of Survivor Man. So Chris was sitting there scratching this cat behind the ears when it made a kind of weird noise. He looked down at it and realized that he was petting a raccoon. He eased back the petting and the raccoon trotted off into the night.

Two days in and Chris has befriended a Raccoon.

Delirious and entranced by a mysterious pair of golden arches in the night sky, Chris trudged toward a McDonald's not far from the bar. Here he drank coffee and eventually fell asleep in a booth until the entire restaurant heard his legendary snoring. Joe walked into the place and they were reunited by some grace of the hobo gods. They teamed up to solve some hobo mysteries before camping out at the bar all night before we arrived.

We got the hell out of Oklahoma as fast as we could. Roy called the next day asking why he was in detox all night. “Doesn't matter. High five.”

Missed the other parts? Read them here:
Part One | Part Three | Part Four

 

Comments

Bobblehead's picture
by Bobblehead - Nov 17 2009 - 2:20pm

Amazing.

SarahWellington's picture
by SarahWellington - Nov 25 2009 - 9:39am

"don't shit on the stage" haaaaaaaaaa!