Fire Down Below

Fire Down Below

Sunday, February 20th, 2005-4:45 P.M.

Last night was the end of a fine week of road comedy, closing the room at Mango's Lounge in the Radisson hotel in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

One of the highs for me in this business is the people I get to meet and talk to on the road.  My opening comic, the very funny Joe Cumbo, accompanied by his friend Chastity, carpooled with me to Williamsport, home of the Little League Hall of Fame and the Little League World Series.  After a 30 minute detour caused by me talking and not paying attention to where I was driving, we arrived in the heart of Northern Pennsylvania, and after checking into the hotel, Joe and Chastitiy decided to retire to their room while I decided to check out the lounge, and the steakhouse.

Business was brisk this Saturday evening, so I ate at the bar.  The gentleman sitting next to me was a man named Roger, a former Baltimore fireman who now resides in South Buffalo and tours around the country selling firefighting equipment to fire departments and private companies.

An Irish Catholic gentleman of only a few more years than I, we hit it off famously and after a few shots of whiskey, he the Irish whiskey persuasion and I the Kentucky bourbon perferer, we traded stories about this, that and the other, and finally, he announced that he was coming to the comedy show!  I was quite flattered; he was having a bad day.  Earlier in the day, he was supposed to be the keynote speaker at a presentation for the local fire department, and the fire chief of Williamsport decided to be a bad sport about everything by keeling over and dying.  He had a heart attack and died!  Well, shit, show's over at that point, I don't care who you are!  So Roger came to the show last night, and even though he intimated that he was willing to be a "plant," i.e., he would heckle and I would destroy him and we would go back and forth, I respectfully declined.  That sort of art is difficult at best, even when you've know the guy for a long time, never you mind a guy you just met a couple hours before the show.

The show itself was a hurdle and a half, but Joey and I did all right, IMNSHO (in my not-so-humble opinion).  About 95% of the crowd was seated as far away as you could possibly be in the room, which caused Joe to sweat a little bit.  As comics, we're used to a call and response format; we tell a joke, the audience laughs.  Well, they don't laugh when they're small to begin with, and the average audience member has a 30-foot chasm dividing them from the perfomer.

Joe did a fine job in the warmup spot, although he leaned heavily on the "I'm dying" saver-type lines, which, to be honest, weren't out of the question considering the situation.  I decided to grab the bull by the balls, and took advantage of the cordless mic to troll about the room and confront the audience in their retreat by standing on chairs in front of them at their seats in the back of the room.  Except for one young lady who had lost her public place decorum in the bottom of a beer bottle someplace, everyone had a good time, and I felt proud representing Danny Liberto and the Comedy Company in my first ever headlining spot for him.  James, the bar manager, shook Joe's and my hands, and intimated that he wanted us back, and you can't ask for better than that.  Also, seven happy partons walked away with a copy of my CD, Original Gagster, with two taking advantage of the military discount that I offer at each show.  I support our troops the real way; with money.  Stickers on the car are nice, but give the boys and girls in uniform a break whenever you can.

This week went from a disaster due to a short-notice cancellation, to a great week with two headlining spots and a feature spot, shorter total drive and more money.  Needless to say, my wife is thrilled and is compiling a short (HA!) shopping list as we speak.  At the end of the day, it's quite a thrill to know that even though you have to grind it out sometimes, you can still support your family and yourself with the skills that you know best in an undertaking that you enjoy.

Tonight, the work doesn't end though, because I am going to the Rochester Comix Cafe to observe an audition set from a young comic name Matt Wayne from Buffalo, New York in anticipation of hiring him to mc at the Comix Cafe.  Then a couple of days off before the big trek up to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to Absolute Comedy  for a week of shows up there.  Then the first two weeks of March, it's off to San Antonio, Texas and Tulsa, Oklahoma, to conquer two more states in the name of the Ralph Tetta Comedy Tour.  I've never been there before, it's far away, the people MUST be different (I've watched King of the Hill), and I'm nervous as hell.

I can't wait.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY