Opening Night at the Cauldron

Floyd’s comedy career went on the exact arc that would lead to Adolph Shitler and jump suit suicide.

Early on, he experimented with standard, bitter, anti-marriage jokes that he delivered without confidence. Eventually this disturbing routine morphed into stream of consciousness observational comedy. The conflict that Floyd had between his mind and his body, his past and his present rapidly turned his stream into a bewildering whirlpool of bitterness, sarcasm, despair, and absurdity before reaching its natural culmination on the corner of vengeance and tragedy.

Perhaps if he would have billed himself as a vengeful, despairing attack tragedian rather than a washed up  Jake LaMotta comedian, he might have escaped the face time that convinced him to become Adolph Shitler. At least people would have known what they could avoid which migh have cut down on the frightened silences.

But first there would have to be opening night, scheduled at a fake beatnik dive called The Cauldron.

Floyd’s struggle began wth his first “joke” when there was still a semblance of “hope” and the possibilty of snaps.

“My wife and me are our own best friends. She didn’t have any friends and she drove away all of mine.”

This led to the next.

“ya know, sometimes I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. Yesterday at breakfast I wanted to tell my wife to pass over the sugar but  instead I said ‘you godamned bitch, you ruined my fucking life’”.

Uneasy silence followed which continued for the duration of opening night.