Dispatches from the Creation Wars

I had heard of Bowman but never met him. He was something of a local legend because he'd gone to LA and been on TV many times (Evening at the Improv, those kinds of shows). He'd also gotten some acting gigs, once playing the bad guy in Miami Vice and had done some movie work. But I'd never met him and never seen his act.

So I'm sitting at the back of the club with Connell and the owner of the club comes over and says, "Hey, John Bowman is here and he wants to do a guest set, so Ed I want you to introduce him in after the feature comes off stage and he'll do 15 minutes before Connell goes up." Connell immediately says, "If Bowman goes on stage before me, I'm going home. I'm not following him on stage. He destroys a room." Wow, I was thinking. This guy must be really good. So the club owner says okay, we'll let him go up after the headliner.

A few minutes later Bowman walks in and introduces himself to me and he sits down and talks to Connell and me for a little while. Nice guy, seemed pretty normal. And we sat there and talked while the other guys were on stage. In the middle of Connell's set, John says, "Well, I gotta go get ready for my set" and he walks out of the room. A few minutes later I go to the bathroom and, as I'm passing by the office, I hear odd noises coming from inside. So I peek my head inside to see what was going on.

Bowman is doing a headstand up against the wall and he's doing some weird chant. I walk back out, thinking, "Okay, that's kinda strange." So Connell comes off stage, I go up after him and say hey folks, the show isn't over, we've got a special treat for you all -- and I introduced Bowman. He sprints on stage -- practically ran me over -- drops the bag he's carrying, steps out on to the front two tables -- literally one foot on each table, balancing precariously -- reaches down and grabs a guy in the front row by his tie and lifts him up out of his seat a bit and yells "Are you ready to party?"

It was like a tasmanian devil had taken the stage. He didn't even use the microphone (and this was in a room that seated more than 400 people) half the time. He was running all around the room, improvising everything with the audience. I'd never seen anything quite like it. It was like a force of nature had been unleashed in the room and for a half an hour he absolutely destroyed the place. My sides ached by the time he was done, as did everyone else's in the room.

We worked together a few times after that and one night in particular sticks out in my memory. We were doing a one-nighter in a biker bar in Flint called Mister G's. In the middle of my set the waitress walks up on stage with a tray full of shots of tequila - I mean at least 20 shots on there -- and said "these are for you." I said, "No they're not."

I finished my set and left them sitting there. John goes on stage -- and you have to understand that John is about 5'7 and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet -- and drinks every single shot on that tray while he was on stage. After a while, he's absolutely hammered. And he decides to see if the guy running the spotlight could follow him -- as he jumped from table to table across the room, spilling pitchers of beer on bikers as he went.

And did I mentioned he also threatened to kill my roommate that night? I thought we might well die that night.

One of the few times in my life I've been truly drunk was with his two roommates. He was in LA at the time, but they showed up at a show I was doing in Grand Rapids and we all went out drinking. I woke up at 5 the next afternoon. In Lansing. With no memory of how we'd gotten from one city to another. Turns out we'd been thrown out of my hotel room. And then I had to hightail it back to Grand Rapids to do two more shows that night.

I last saw Bowman about 3 years ago, totally by coincidence. A buddy of mine was playing a one nighter in a bar/restaurant in the middle of nowhere but not far from here. He and I and another of the old late 80s/early 90s comedy gang, Ted Norkey, were having dinner before the show. Bowman walks in with his girlfriend, not to see the comedy show but just to have dinner, and walks right past us, didn't even notice us.

He got about 5 feet past us and I said, "John?" He turned around, saw the three of us and just said, "What the fuck?" Ted didn't miss a beat. "John, this is an intervention."