newest blog

9/17/04 Interesting shows lately. I did a private show for the co-eds at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. The next day I did a short show at the Corcoran Institute in Washington DC and followed that with a full performance at DC9, a club in DC. The Rider show and the DC9 show, I was appearing with the Fly By Night guys. That is always a treat. Our acts work well together.

The Rider show was kind of odd. I made a bunch of cash (college shows pay pretty stoopid cash) but only played to about 40 folks. I got to see the Fly By Night guys perform on stage for the first time. We have known each other for 5 or 6 years and worked together several times but they were always roving and working in the crowd instead of on stage. Their act is really cool and mighty fine. Funny, skillful and fast paced. Really good stuff.
Then, the next night, I performed at The Corcoran Institute of Art and Design. I feel so damned close to respectable. The Corcoran is a part of the Smithsonian and is a couple of blocks from The White House. Hoy Hoy!!

I heard that when they released the news that I was coming to town, the Authorities raised the threat level from "Orange" to "WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!"

The event was a screening of the documentary, 'Shocked and Amazed" by Jeff Krulik (the film maker who did 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot' and if you haven't seen it, you MUST!!) The director spoke, the film was screened, a short Q&A and then, SideShow Bennie and Charon Henning performed live for all these folks in a theater in in a world famous art institute. Weird!! Charon is a beautiful and talented sword swallower and it was an absolutely delight to share a stage with her. We tore the house down, the crowd went wild. We were huge hits.

After the Corcoran, I headed over to DC9 with the Fly By Night guys and, together, we rocked the small but appreciative crowd. Another stellar show. At 3:00 in the morning, I am sitting in a diner with Steve and Ryan, The 2 Fly By Night guys, James Taylor and Kathleen Kotcher from Shocked and Amazed magazine, being served meatloaf, homemade mac & cheese and sauted spinach by a lovely waitress what was heavily tattooed. When I asked her who did them she told me they were done by her mother before she died. The ink was beautiful, the meatloaf delicious. Overall, a great night!!!!

11/23/04
Since the last installment, I have put another 4500 miles on the old Benniemobile in what turned out to be a tour of red state America. In nine days, I passed through or stayed the night 13 different states with three nights spent in ‘The Biggest Little City In The World.’ Reno, NV.

I was scheduled to do a showcase in Reno for the western region of NACA. NACA is the organization that presents programs and entertainment to colleges and universities in order that the entertainers or lecturers can possibly get bookings and suck the honey teat of ‘Student Activities Fee’ money. I love working colleges. They pay well, they put you up in nice hotels, it looks great on your resume and it give me an opportunity to be a bad example for yet another generation of America’s youth. What’s not to like?

Now most of you fine readers know that I don’t fly. Airports are a large ass pain, I hate being in airplanes (I get airsick and no Dramamine can quell the issue), everything in my act can be used as a weapon and I still haven’t figured out how to get a bed of nails into the overhead compartment.

So I drive.

I am a road warrior! I love driving. Unfortunately, I also love driving fast and have the speeding tickets to prove it but that is another story for another time.

The highlights of this trip were:
Dinner with my pal D.L. Freeman, a wonderful comedian who I met when I helped judge the Midwest Comedy Festival in Kansas City, MO. D.L. took me to Bob’s Lawnside BBQ. Bob’s was a hole in the wall rib joint that had excellent BBQ (Thursday night was the rib special night with a whole slab and 2 sides for $12.95 and in Kansas City, a full slab will feed 2 people) ice cold beer and a smoking blues band playing live (and a $2 cover charge)

Starting in Nebraska, speed limits were 75 mph!!

Nebraska and Wyoming were flat and straight. The Cafe at the Conoco station in Cheyenne, WY makes a mighty mean smothered hamburger steak and I ran into the first snow flurries of the year there.

The Great Salt Lake in Utah was not at all what I expected. It looked like a big ass salt marsh with the occasional mountain reflected in the water. It looked nasty and funky. Apparently, folks stop on the side of the road and write stuff, spelled out in rocks and stones, on the salt flats. These random words went on for a couple of hundred miles. Must be a Mormon thing.
Overall, Utah kind of sucked. (Sorry Utah but you know it’s true...)

Nevada was pretty cool. I made it into Reno on Sunday afternoon and checked into the Circus Circus Casino Hotel (where I got a wonderful room for $25 a night, far cheaper than any of the Motel 6’s I stayed in during the rest of the trip.) I met the Fly By Night guys there (my agents who got me the showcase) and during the weekend, we ate at a basque family style restaurant, drank a lot of cheap cocktails, did a little gambling, worked the NACA conference (where I met Mr. Belding from Save By The Bell, Bob, the guy from The Bachelor and Dave Coulet, from Full House. Magical, just magical) and we got propositioned by a real Reno crackwhore with an open sore on her face. It was several cocktails too early for any of us to come up with the needed rationalization necessary to succumb to her particular charms.

There was interest in my act from a few of the colleges so hopefully there will be additions to the ‘SSB Schedule’ soon.

I decided to come back to Tennessee via the southern route. That required doing state highways south through Nevada to pick up I-40 in Arizona. During that state highway leg of the trip I passed a stones throw from Area 51 and I passed (yes, PASSED) 3 legal Nevada brothels. The Cottontail Ranch, The Shady Lady Ranch and Annie’s Angels, which I suppose was a ranch too but it looked mostly like an Arkansas trailer park.

I got pulled over by the police in Arizona for doing 7 miles over the speed limit (and I was going downhill when I got clocked so I have to blame gravity for that one) and was written a warning citation all the while the officer questioned me all about being a SideShow attraction (‘Don’t that stuff hurt?’ ‘How long you been doing that stuff?’ ‘ This is your full time job?’ ‘How does that pay?’)

I was in Little Rock the day after the Clinton Presidential Library opened. The airwaves were all abuzz with all the celebration and the celebrities that were in town. I skipped the opportunity to stop in and say hello.

All in all, it was an interesting trip. 13 different states and not a blue one in the bunch. I have found that when it comes to the red states, there is a whole lot of America where there just ain’t anything. Nothing. Diddly Squat, Squat Doodle. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. No towns and no people. It seems if you want stuff, you have to hit a blue state. If you want mile after dull mile of gorgeous damned scenery and little else, then it is the red states for you...
See America First, Kids!!