Drunk, loud biker chicks are to comedy shows what dudes who don’t tip are to strippers – an unwanted annoyance. Let me clue you in, comedy fans: random audience participation isn’t acceptable, it ruins the show for everyone, and it’s not all “kiss and make up” just because you flash the stage.

One aging biker babe came to a few of my gigs, and it was always bad news to see her seated near the front – always near the front. Her fellow bikers in their fringed denim and studded leather were quite welcome, actually – it was just that one motorcycle mama who could make your butt pucker with fear when you saw her glazed eyes turn toward the stage. I’ll call her Slappy.

The last time I saw Slappy was at a charity show in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2003. As host and organizer, the show was my baby. Then I saw Slappy show up. It was like seeing a drunk, raucous iceberg up ahead and being totally clueless how to keep it from sinking the ship.

The thing was, Slappy loved comedy, man, she was a fan. You could tell she didn’t mean to ruin the show – she just wanted to be part of it. Like she thought that’s how it’s supposed to work. She tossed out loud, random comments at just the right spot to break a joke’s rhythm. She tried to give an unwilling guy half her age a lap dance in a fit of fervor during the show. After which she tried to flash the feature act, but was too drunk to unlace her leather corset. Seriously, she wore a leather corset.

Price flinched in mock horror when she tried to free the twins. He was the feature act, and was in top form. He handled the interruption like a pro, and I think he threw out a “Give it up for inbreeding” as one of her biker buddies finally steered Slappy away.

That quieted her a bit. At least she didn’t ruin the show, and Price delivered the laughs yet again. He was one of the funniest comics I’ve ever known, even though he never took it nearly as far as he could have. Price did gigs in Alabama and around the South typically (touring farther afield at times with ScottyK, my headliner at the benefit), when he had time away from his “real” job. I too performed on the side of my “real” career, but I was just a hobby comic having a good time with my five minutes on stage. I couldn’t see ever making it my career or giving up my steady paycheck. Price, on the other hand, had much more than five decent minutes of material and could’ve been much more than a part-time comedian – but I guess he enjoyed a regular paycheck, too.

Price was hilarious as hell just hanging around in a way that few people are – even other comics, who tend not to be that rip-roaringly funny offstage unless they’re working it for someone they hope will buy a T-shirt or the next round.


One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen was Price at karaoke singing “Stand By Your Man.” It was the tone of his voice, the look on his face, the staying in character as the room rolled with laughter. Or Price telling the story of getting in a fight with a good friend on Halloween over a bottle of broken whiskey (I think) in college one year. He threw himself around as he told the tale and mimicked the brawl, which had taken place in the street and in costume, with Price dressed as a cowboy and his friend dressed as an American Indian.

Price could slay you with his wit like no one else. I wish I could remember his stories or relate them more precisely, but they’ve slipped away with the years like Jack Daniels through a shattered bottle on the pavement.

I still smile as I think of Price, even though the details are so fuzzy now. And I don’t know how to bring them into sharper focus, which is a great loss because I can never hear him tell those stories again. Price is gone; he took his own life in March 2007. He was about 33, though I’m not even certain of that after all this time. What I do know is he left far too soon.

I don’t know exactly what happened, as I had moved far away by then and hadn’t spoken to him in a couple of years. I still thought of him and almost called many times, but I hadn’t gotten him on the line in so long that I’d given up trying. Then an email from one of his friends told me he was gone, no explanation as to why.

Another friend briefly explained some personal demons Price had battled, but there was no precise detail there either, just as the details are fading from all my endearing, funny memories of Price. It’s so strange, because to me he seemed indestructible and able to handle anything, and able do it without even losing his sense of humor. Only, in the end, he wasn’t.

I really didn’t know him that well, I guess. I just knew the slice you see hanging out after a gig or in a bar or chatting on a road trip on the way to a gig or a bar. Price seemed able to see things so clearly – things about comedy and comedians and life and relationships, and about being a father to the daughter he cherished.

There were so many great moments, so many great stories with Price. Like his tale of falling into some kind of storage pit backstage just as the host introduced him for a show, and flailing around in the dark amidst the boxes while the audience waited expectantly. Or how his opening bit used to involve coming out in a flowing satin choir robe in deep burgundy for his character of an old preacher who had “his money on his mind and his mind on his money,” all the while wiping his face with a balled up bit of cloth that the audience slowly realized was a woman’s corset.

Then there was the gig I booked at a small pub in the even smaller town of Greenville, Alabama, just before Christmas. Price did the “preacher” bit and added a new line just for the holidays: “It looks like Christmas in here … ho, ho, ho,” he said, pointing with each “ho” to three women in the front row – the wife and friends of the pub owner, who just happened to be the man who was paying for our time and our drinks. And Price was so funny that the husband and ladies just laughed, no hard feelings.

The last time I shared a stage with Price was at that show in Montgomery, the one Slappy nearly trashed. He lived in Birmingham and I in Montgomery, so we didn’t bump into each other much outside of gigs, which we were both doing less of. We talked on the phone sometimes, but even that eventually faded away after I moved out of state.

And now he’s gone. I don’t really know why, or how, just that he’s not here. I’m sometimes tempted to call that old phone number in my address book or send him an email, because it seems impossible that he’s not out there still. I always stop myself; there’s no use hoping that friends who told me of his passing were all wrong and that the obituary in the newspaper was a mistake. There’s no way to pretend him back into existence – he’s just gone. It’s a great loss to so many people, even me, though I hadn’t seen him for years when he finally gave in to whatever it was he could no longer bear.

Ah Price, I don’t know what more to say. I love you and I miss you and I wish you were still here. I’ll never forget you, even if my memories fade further and all that’s left are some snapshots in an album that tear at the edges of my heart. I hope you have peace now. Goodbye old friend.