The Road To Calvery

3 min readJul 6, 2020

COMEDY GYM, THE ROAD TO CALVARY

The year was 1986. I was as thin as a rail and kept in shape by running 10 miles every morning with my friend John Edson. John lived on a dirt road outside of Ingram near Kerrville Texas. Every morning I would make my way to John’s house and together we would make the run up and down a rocky dirt road. Today I am lucky to make the trip through the local grocery store with the aid of a cane.

In those days I wore skin tight Levi jeans carefully dry cleaned as to preserve the razor crease and the appearance of new trousers. Women would look me up and down the same way I used to eyeball young gals. John had affectionately named the course of our daily route “Calvary.” It was his way of relating the run to the trek made by Jesus Christ with the cross upon his shoulders. John was and is still a rather dramatic soul. Giving our daily gallop such a distinction was John’s way of giving the run meaning and purpose. The air morning air was cool and filled with the scent of Texas hill country juniper. This annoying shrub is often misnamed cedar and the culprit of Texas Cedar Fever. We would often arouse and frighten whitetail deer and quail along our path. The wild creatures of Texas nature only served to provide drama to our dash.

It was on such an occasion that the concept occurred to me for the classes I was contemplating offering at a local comedy club in Austin now known The Cap City Comedy Club. The club has changed owners and like I change shirts. of several clubs in a chain of comedy rooms in the hey day of Stand Up comedy in the 1980s. My friend and former manager Arthur Cicchese was at the club then called The Comedy Workshop, a spin off of a Houston comedy club where notorious comics Sam Kineson and Bill Hicks cut their comedy teeth.

These were challenging times. I had a small Honda Hatchback and was living in my car. That meant that I had to find discreat places to park and use a silver window sunscreen under which to hide and sleep. I knew that I could shower, shave and change clothes for a couple of dollars at the Barton Springs Swimming pool dressing room then drive to The Laff Stop where Arthur Cicchese (RIP) knew the manager Ross Jackson. I advertised my classes through The Austin, Cronicle and had a dozen students for the first series of classes.

That too was dodgy at the time because I had fallen behind on the car payments andthe repo man was shaddowing me so I parked in a apartment complext next to The Laff Stop while in class.

Some University Of Texas Austin students saw my ad and came to class. Pne of the students, Hanneke Portier and her class partner showed up. That was a turning point in my life because Hannake and I were married in Amsterdam in 1972. We had two children, Jesse who later became a Navy Rescue Swimmer (Jesse was a life gurad at Barton Springs guring his High School years). Louk was an award winning muscician in middle school an in The UT Jazz Ensemle and Jazz Orchestra. Louk now lives in Rotterdam near Hanneke and. is a record producer with Chill Hop records.

Jesse is now a senior studying Internet Technology at The University Of California San Diego. Me, I have spent my time as a writer for the past few years having published my memoir “Boxcar Tourist/How I screwed My Nut.”

Library of Congress Control Number:

ISBN: 1482702142 (paperback)

ISBN 13: 9781482702149 (Digital Kindle version)

Austin Texas.

My newest manuscript: “Sympathy For The Devil,” is now avaible in digital form:

Sympathy For The Devil ISBN

978–0–578–7179–6