I know sometimes we feel the pressure to take whatever is available. We feel like it’s ungrateful to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so we stop ourselves from saying fucking no. Tonight was one of those nights.

One of my clients picked up a gig on her own. Problem #1 never let your clients pick up gigs on their own. In addition my client was put onto this gig by her cousin. 

Problem #2 even cousins need credentials. We walk into the gig and it’s in the smokiest basement of a bar in Chester. I should have known better when I say the word doc designed poster. 

There goes problems #3-5. Chester=3. Basement=4. Cigarette Smoke=5 and I won’t even mention the flyer. At the beginning of the gig my client converses with her cousin and finds out everyone else on the bill is getting paid for a gig that she doing for free–Problem #6. She goes on first even though we’d never agreed to that. Shit we hadn’t agreed to anything. 

Problem motherfucking #7. The crowd is about 20 members of the janitorial union. They are twice her age and one third of her tax bracket Problem #8. She performs, but the last joke goes south. They can’t hear her. She speaks too fast for elderly ears. They think she said she fucked a cat Problem #9. 

You defend her. Cause that ain’t what she fucking said you toilet scrapers. You yell and tell them motherfuckers y’all are fucking wrong and y’all ain’t bout to make her the joke of the night heckling is Problem #10. 

Then later you address the event manager. Ask whether your client is getting paid, since everyone else is. He gets hype. You realize both you and your client have been playing it small. We ain’t doing this shit anymore. 

I got 99 problems, but this Chicken George, chittlin circuit, cigarette basement, toilet scrapping bullshit ain’t one.