I'll Be Here All Week (26 page)

The author would like to thank The Andersons, The Gruniers, The Chaplicks, and Allison Dore. Also thanks to Eric Alper, Chris Baedorf, Bob Canter, Matt Dusk, Terry Fallis, Howard Glassman, Tina Gruver, Andrea Lakin, Jason Laurans, John Lewis, Brendan McKeigan, Victoria Makhnin, Terry Mercury, Ric Meyers, Larry Nichols, Tom Nowell, Pamela Ohberg, Fred Patterson, Aron Pepernick, Phil Perrier, Nathan Quinn, Chris Reil, Tracy Rideout, Robert Rosen, Davin Rosenblatt, Ritch Shydner, Ralph Tetta, Joe Thistel, Aisha Tyler, Cal Ver-duchi, Mike Wixson, Eric Yoder, and especially Peter Senftleben and everyone at Kensington Books.

There are a lot of highs and lows in
I'll Be Here All Week
. What is the worst part of being a stand-up comedian?

 

Without question, it's the travel. It's constant and can be quite exhausting, which I think you see in Spence's story. When you first start touring, it's an amazing feeling. It's what you've probably dreamed of for years. After several years of just weeks of constant driving from one place to another, sleeping in your car on long trips, and staying in cheap hotels, you long to be in one place for several weeks at a time. When you reach the point that you can afford to fly most places, it eases up a bit . . . until that becomes a chore as well. There's a joke in the comedy biz: “Comedians aren't paid to do comedy. They're paid to travel. Making people laugh is the reward.”

 

Like Spence, you were a comedian and now you're a radio host. How much of
I'll Be Here All Week
is based on your life?

 

It's tough to say when you define it that way. Everything in the story is true in some form or another. Everything that happens in the book either happened to me in real life or to someone I know. But not necessarily in order or exactly the way it appears in the book. It's funny that I wound up working in radio, like Spence does, because that came after I'd written and sold the novel. That makes it look more like it's based on my life much more than it actually is. By the time I started working at Sir-iusXM, the novel was almost ready to go to print. For all the similarities between Spence and myself, that one happens to be a coincidence. But it's still not that much of a stretch. Many comedians wind up in radio at some point.

 

You're also an American who met (and married) a Canadian. In addition to your comedy background, is a lot of your relationship with your wife in the pages of
I'll Be Here All Week
?

 

One event in my life that is mirrored in the book is that I also met my wife while in a pub in Montreal, just like Spence meets Sam, right after a show. But the similarities in the relationships pretty much ends there. By the time my wife and I met, much of the drama in my career was in the past. I would be lying, however, if I said that there is not a lot of my wife in the character of Sam. My wife is very quick-witted and clever, and her sense of humor is much like Sam's. Plus, like with many comedians and their spouses, my wife and I forged the early parts of our relationship through phone conversations. Comedians are like teenagers the way they wind up talking for hours over the phone with their significant others.

 

Spence puts up with a lot from his agent, Rodney. It seems like there has to be an easier way. Why doesn't he fire the guy sooner?

 

Well, Rodney's not really a villain so much as he's a product of his industry. Comedians don't make movie star money, as we see in the story. So the only way for them or their agents to make money is to constantly work. More than being selfish or evil, Rodney is swamped. He's overworked and chasing a bigger payday, just like Spence is chasing fame. Rodney doesn't skim from Spence because he's trying to sabotage his client; he feels he deserves the higher rate but isn't allowed to take it.

 

Spence is no angel, either. He seems to sabotage himself plenty.

 

That's the relationship, really. Spence and Rodney are in an abusive marriage that they are constantly trying to reconcile. Spence is like most comedians in that he is so stubborn and determined to do things his way, he never realizes that he'd do well to listen to some of the advice he gets from Rodney and others. He deliberately does things he knows will get him in trouble. It takes Sam coming along for him to realize the kind of person he's being. He's being his own worst enemy, which is common for comedians. It's what happens when you try to make a business out of your art. It's called show
business
for a reason, and too many comedians forget that fact.

 

Spence thinks his tombstone will read “I'll Be Here All Week.” Why'd that wind up being the title of the book?

 

Spence thinks that'll be funny on his tombstone, but he doesn't realize that it's already his life. Sam tells him he already works in a cubicle. He just moves it from city to city every week. “I'll Be Here All Week” isn't just a catchphrase at this point in his career. It
is
his career. It's his life. One week to the next, he's going to be in the exact same place. Even if that place is geographically a thousand miles away from where it was last week. Nothing really changes. That's Spence's life when we meet him. So it became the title because it not only fits the book perfectly but because the phrase is so closely associated with stand-up comedy that readers will know what it's about.

 

The title might seem like it's all about stand-up comedy, but
I'll Be Here All Week
is really a love story between Spence and Sam, isn't it?

 

It's three love stories! It's a love story between Spence and Sam, and how that grows into what it does. But it's also a love story between Spence and Rodney, and how they are both struggling to make a failing relationship work. And it's also a love story between Spence and comedy. When we first see him, Spence is really struggling with his love for comedy but, by the end of the book, he has found that he still loves it. It just needed to evolve into something new.

 

There is also the relationship with Beth. Even though Spence refers to them as still being “friends,” it doesn't seem like they've ever really recovered from their divorce.

 

Well, although some would call it good that he gets along with his ex, it's hardly a healthy relationship. For one thing, Spence has never really been okay with being replaced so soon, even if he pretends that it doesn't bother him. For another, it becomes obvious to him that he makes the mistake with Beth that he keeps making with the rest of his life: He keeps going in circles. He has gone back to Beth in the past, and continues to rely on her when he should move on and get out of her life altogether. He knows this but, like with so much in his life, he's afraid to change.

 

There seem to be many women in his life between Beth and Sam. But Sam stands apart from the string of one-night stands Spence seems to be having.

 

For Spence, the best part about Sam is meeting her in that pub and not at a comedy club. He realizes that she actually likes the man she meets in person, not the man he can be onstage. All of those women that Spence has flings with see him as an entertainer, so that's all he tries to be to them. He has as little interest in getting to know them as they do getting to know him. Sam is different because, from the beginning, she wants to know the man in front of her, not the performer onstage. Spence isn't used to being himself with anyone. Sam changes that, which makes him treat everything about her differently than any other woman in his life.

 

There is a lot of talk in the book about Spence needing to get more TV exposure. Is that really so important to traveling comedians?

 

It's incredibly important, and becomes a bigger deal every passing year. Like the rest of the entertainment industry, this all comes down to advertising. Stand-up comedy has to compete with so many other forms of entertainment, from sporting events to popular movies to the time of year. And now Netflix, iTunes, and the Internet are also competition. You can see stand-up comedy cheap or free if you want to. Audiences see a guy who has been on TV as somehow being more legit than the guy who has not. Being able to advertise the act with “has been seen on
Late Night with David Letterman
” gives the comedy club something that stands out. The irony is that people are using TV to judge club quality, instead of the other way around. That comedian you see on
The Tonight Show
is doing five minutes of clean, non-offensive jokes. A headlining club comedian has to perform onstage for forty-five minutes to an hour. Still, that TV credit or logo looks good on a poster and in an advertisement. The more of those TV credits a comedian gets, the more his asking price can go up.

 

Do comedians have “groupies” like musicians and rock stars?

 

Sure. I imagine every single form of entertainment has people who are enamored with the performer onstage. Jugglers probably have groupies. There is something very attractive and powerful about a person who can command an audience. Couple that with someone who can make you laugh, and it's easy to see how some people would take a comedian home.

 

Spence seems to be working all the time, but complains about not having any money to show for it. Where does it all go?

 

And Spence is lucky! He has no mortgage or rent. He has no wife or kids to support. He's living his life out of his car, going from show to show. His money is spent on hotel rooms on his off-nights and gas in his car. But the honest truth of it all is that comedians don't make the money people think they do. Sure, you can make a fortune doing it. Get enough TV credits and A-list work and you can make a very respectable living by selling out larger theaters. But a comedian at Spence's level is happy when he gets that $1,500 per week payday. That's before agent commission, taxes and expenses. That means that, most weeks, he's earning far less. Since comedians only get paid when they work, the only real way to make money as a comedian is to be constantly touring. Do that enough, and a person can make a living doing nothing but stand-up comedy. The downside is that comics often wind up sacrificing relationships in order to do it. That's one reason Spence is so torn when Sam comes along. He has to constantly tour and is never in one place for very long. The promise of a bigger payday (“Tour less, make more”) is always so enticing. But Spence isn't making big bucks at all. That's why he keeps hoping for a TV spot to raise his status and pay.

 

Spence really changes as he begins to fall for Sam. Is this all a comedian really needs? The love of the right woman?

 

Spence is never really a bad guy. He's in a bit of a funk when we meet him, so he's being self-destructive. But he's only involved with the people who will be involved with him. The thing about Sam is not that she changes him, but that she accepts him for who he really is, which makes the real Spence come out more. He doesn't really want to be the hard-partying entertainer, living life by the seat of his pants and moving on from town to town. He doesn't even want to be dying his hair and pretending to be younger than he is. By the end, he realizes that he's been what others have convinced him he should be. Now he can finally be himself. And Sam loves him for it.

 

The hardest part of his life is quitting stand-up comedy, even though he thinks about it all the time. Is it that addictive to most comedians?

 

Most comedians are probably even worse than Spence in that regard. He actually comes up with an idea to keep using his talent while getting off the road and improving his life and stability. But comedians quit the business all the time and then wind up back at it, one way or another. There are comedians from the '80s who were very popular and all over television. They quit doing the road so they could write for TV or produce or direct. Twenty years later, they start doing open-mic gigs in bowling alleys again just because they miss being onstage. The hardest part is walking away and being happy with it. Like Spence says, there's always a what-if in the back of their minds. When Spence tells Sam that he's good at stand-up comedy but doesn't know if he really cares anymore, that's a very big deal.

 

Where do you see Spence being in ten years?

 

He's still with Sam. Definitely married and probably with a kid by then. He's a local celebrity, the way a lot of radio show hosts become semi-famous in a certain market. He can show up to local events and people know his name. He hosts comedy shows in town for celebrity comics touring through. And he's in one place and making a good living. His radio cohost may have retired by now, and Spence is now the elder half of the morning show, with some Monkey-Boy kid working under him. Maybe Jamie Hernandez!

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

 

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

 

Copyright © 2014 by Ward Anderson

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-7582-9428-9

 

eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9429-6
eISBN-10: 0-7582-9429-8
First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2014