You can’t write this stuff. You just can’t.
It’s a Saturday night, late show. The crowd is a little boozy, a little loud, and I’m feeling good. I’m deep into my set, and I decide to wade into the front row for a little crowd work. It’s a risk, but it’s where the magic happens.
And I see him.
Front row, dead center. He’s got a magnificent, flowing mustache, a camo trucker hat on, and a flannel shirt that’s probably older than I am. He looks like he just got done field-dressing a deer and decided to “stop by and see what this liberal nonsense is all about.”
He is a glorious, perfect specimen. I have to talk to him.
“Sir,” I say, “Welcome to the show. What’s your name?”
He leans forward, but not toward the mic. He just sort of… projects.
“Name’s Gus.”
“Gus. I love it. Gus, what do you do for a living?”
Gus looks at me, silent for a beat. The whole room is quiet. He’s not nervous; he’s thinking.
“I’m in… fabrication.”
“Fabrication,” I say. “Right on. So you ‘fabricate.’ Like, you make stuff? Or you make stuff up?”
The crowd giggles. Gus doesn’t. He just stares at me, completely unbothered.
“I make parts.”
“He makes parts! All right! Like, machine parts? Car parts?”
Gus nods. “You could say that.”
“Okay, Gus,” I say, “You strike me as a man who has a philosophy. A code. You look like you’re not confused about who you are. Am I right?”
Another nod.
“So, Gus, in this crazy, confusing world… what’s your life motto? What’s the one piece of advice you live by?”
This is the moment. The improv-crowd-work tightrope. He could say “live, laugh, love” and kill the whole vibe. He could say “work hard” and it’d be fine.
Gus leans forward, right into the mic I’m holding down for him. He clears his throat, and in the most sincere, gravelly, un-ironic voice I have ever heard, he delivers the five words that will be etched on my tombstone:
“Raise hell, praise Dale.”
Y’all. I was gone.
I did the full 180-degree turn-around. I was bent over, hands-on-knees, wheezing. The crowd didn’t just laugh; it exploded. It was a wave of pure, guttural joy. The people who got it were crying. The people who didn’t get it were laughing even harder at the people who did.
I finally pull myself together, wiping a tear from my eye. I turn back to Gus, who is sitting there with a simple, satisfied nod. He wasn’t trying to be funny. He was bearing his testimony.
“Sir,” I say, “That is the greatest piece of advice I have ever received. That’s not a motto. That’s a religion. That’s a lifestyle.”
The crowd is still roaring.
“This man doesn’t just ‘go to work.’ He ‘runs a qualifying lap’! He doesn’t ‘pass you on the highway’; he ‘puts you in the wall’! This man’s blood type isn’t ‘O-positive’; it’s ‘3-positive’!”
Gus just pointed at me. “Damn right.”
I couldn’t. I had nowhere else to go. I just put the mic back in the stand. “That’s it, folks. I have nothing else for you. Gus has won. Goodnight!”
You can’t write that. You just have to be lucky enough to be in the room when a hero like Gus decides to bless you. 🤣
