- How'd you get out of it?
I didn't get out of it.
And it wasn't funny.
And it wasn't okay.
- Yeah!
[cheers and applause]
[in slow-motion] Yeah!
[indistinct slow-motion chatter]
[dark electronic music]
[in slow-motion] - [growls]
[audience gasps]
♪
[grunts]
- [screaming]
♪
[mud splashes] [slow-motion yelling]
♪
[grunting and yelling continues]
[struggling vocally]
♪
- Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome
to the stage a very funny man.
Mr. Al Jackson, everybody! Let him hear it.
[cheers and applause]
- Every comic that y'all are gonna see tonight
has made it to a point in their career
where you can kind of pick and choose gigs.
You do what you want.
You skip what you don't want to do.
This was one of my first shows,
and what y'all need to know about this gig
is I was early in my career. I was broke.
This was roof money.
This was "so rain doesn't hit your head" money.
I was gonna do this show.
I was gonna do the show.
So the gig was a college in Florida.
They put me up in this really nice hotel,
and there were two things that kind of stood out
about the gig just to start.
First of all, they wanted me to wear a suit,
which, again--fine.
I was gonna do the show.
Second thing, the gig was at 8:00 in the morning,
which, yeah, good time for stand-up.
You know what I'm saying?
You want some eggs with those dick jokes?
So didn't matter.
I'm gonna do the show.
No matter what, I'm doing the show.
So I'm sitting in my room.
I rented a suit from Men's Wearhouse.
And I'm sitting in my room, and it's, like, 7:40,
and I'm walking out, 'cause the gig was in the w--
it was in the downstairs,
the ballroom where people get married.
So it was inside the hotel.
So I'm getting ready to go to the gig,
and I'm reaching for my door handle, and I'm like,
"Wait, let me just see how much time they want me to do
on the show," because sometimes you get to a gig,
and in college gigs, they want you to do an hour.
Because college gigs are so different.
They're all different. They're not like comedy clubs.
College gigs, sometimes you'll do, like,
the University of Colorado.
It's already sold out, and you kill it,
and they carry you out of that bitch like Rudy.
And the next day you do the University of Nevada,
and the show's at noon in the cafeteria,
and the mic is on the fucking floor,
and somebody just says,
"Just pick the mic up and start talking."
I'm like, "That's not how comedy shows start.
That's--people are getting fish sticks."
So just remember that all college gigs are different.
So I was like, let me just check
and see how much time this college gig want me to do.
And I looked, and they wanted me
to do an hour, which is fine.
I can do an hour.
But they didn't want me to do stand-up.
They wanted me to do an hour speech
on note-taking and organization.
I know.
It's, like, 7:40, and I'm, like, this must be a mistake,
but let me just make sure, 'cause this was back--
I'll tell you back when this was,
this is back--I had an old Mac PowerBook,
one of those big, silver Macs.
And yeah, so I just pulled up--
I'll said just in case they want me
to do some shit on note-taking,
let me just pull up-- so I pulled up an outline,
'cause I used to be a teacher, so I was like,
I could bullshit my way through this if I have to.
So I pulled up, like, just a basic outline,
so if I had to, like, refer to a--
worst-case scenario, they wanted me
to do this, I'm fine.
So get my MacBook, go downstairs,
get to the bottom of the elevator,
and the elevator doors open up,
and the liaison from the college goes, "Are you Jackson?"
I go, "Yeah." And she goes, "You're late."
She swings open the double doors to this ballroom.
There are 750 college students
in suits, pantsuits, MacBooks, iPads,
ready to hear this Negro
give a speech on something he's never heard of.
And I know y'all are, like, trying to get ahead of me,
like y'all are smart people.
Like, y'all are like, "But, Al, how'd you get out of it?
"What's the funny part? Get to the joke.
What's the funny part?"
I didn't get out of it.
And it wasn't funny.
And it wasn't okay.
I walked up there.
Got my Men's Wearhouse suit on.
I have a giant Mac with me for no reason.
And I went up, and it was like--
I'm a comic, so if you give me a mic,
at least I can move around and kinda--
but it was like one of them podiums
that's got, like, that Burger King microphone.
So you can't even, like, move.
You're just, like, behind a podium
like Napoleon Dynamite.
So I put my MacBook down,
and this is-- this is the part that, like,
I hope y'all feel me when I say this.
I'm in this ballroom with all these kids looking at me,
and people that have Macs can feel this.
I opened up my Mac,
and the battery just died, like--
as I opened it.
It was just, like, instant.
It was just that grey apple.
I was just like, "Oh, shit."
But I can't let my face say, "Oh, shit,"
'cause I'm already gonna bomb.
With the help of the computer, I was already done.
I--this just-- I was just like, "Fuck!"
So.
This is happening.
And, uh...
I know a lot of people are like,
"But then what happened? Like, how'd you get out of it?"
I didn't get out of it.
I stayed up there.
And I ate my dick for an hour.
'Cause I was gonna do this show.
And my first manager told me, "If you don't do your time,
that's how colleges don't pay you."
He was like, "Stay up there and do your time."
I was gonna do this show. I was gonna do this show.
And I stayed up there for an hour.
And I know, like, this is a comedic setting,
but you have to remove yourself
and think about how long 60 minutes is
in real time.
In real time, like, how long 60 minutes is.
You know how like every third year
it's your turn to give the Thanksgiving prayer,
and it's super fucking awkward.
And how long is that, 40 Mississippi?
Think about if you had to give the Thanksgiving prayer
for an hour this year.
Only you didn't know what a prayer was.
I stayed up there and I bombed.
The college kids, they didn't know what was going on.
It was--I felt worse for them
'cause it was like I might as well
have just gone up there and put on a French film backwards.
Like, they didn't know what was happening.
I didn't know what was happening.
And I'm just bombing. I'm sweating.
And I don't sweat at all onstage,
but when you're bombing, like, sweat starts coming
from, like, your side and, like, weird places.
And it was this young black dude
that booked me, and he is, like--
he's got his cell phone on that red light,
and he's waving it, giving me the throat slash, like--
"Get off the stage. Get off the stage."
And I'm like, "Nope, you're not gonna pay me."
And I stayed up there for the whole--
the whole time.
I get offstage, and I have walk back through
the crowd of college kids
that just are stunned at this point.
Like, no one's talking,
and I go to get my check from the black dude,
and he's so mad at me,
he throws my check on the ground.
I needed the money.
I went to go pick it up, and as I reach down to get it,
like, this big, 6'3", like, 50-year-old white guy
brushed past me so hard--
like, if he had done it, like, in a bar like this,
it would've started a fight-- like, I mean,
he almost knocked me over.
And he goes straight up on the stage, angrily,
and starts giving a speech on note-taking and organization.
Funny story, kids.
The college fucked up and sent me his contract.
[audience ohhs]
I was supposed to do 15 minutes of jokes
to liven up his boring-ass note-taking speech.
And instead, I did his speech for him,
only with zero knowledge.
'Cause I was gonna do that show.
Guys, I've been Al Jackson. Thank y'all so much.
Thank y'all.