From The Beginning

Monday February 7, 2005-3:45 PM

 

The baby's sleeping, so I thought I'd jot down a few bits and pieces as I can recall them.  This is my first journal entry, having stumbled on the feature on AOL.  I've actually been wanting to do something like this for quite a while.

My name is Ralph Tetta, I'm 38 years old, and I'm a professional standup comic.  I travel every week to a different city (or cities) in the United States, and do standup comedy at comedy clubs, nightclubs, casinos, colleges, corporate events, private parties, cruise ships, and anywhere else there are people who want to laugh.  Hell, I've done standup comedy on trains, in movie theaters, and once, in a billiard hall where the stage was a piece of plywood on one of the pool tables.

I started doing comedy when I was 21, but it wasn't until several years later that I started making a living at it.  Actually, if you look at my books, I'm still not making a living at it, but I don't earn any money elsewhere, so for now, we'll just say that I make "a modest living."

I am a married man; I married Pamela Ruth Davis on November 20th, 2000 in a ceremony at the Monroe County Office Building in Rochester, NY.  The ceremony was officiated by Reverend Jim Keller, a Lutheran minister who is also the father of one of our friends, Tim Keller.  Tim and his wife Debbie and Pamela and I all went to school together at Monroe Community College in Rochester.  Sadly, Rev. Keller passed away from pneumonia contracted while on vacation in Mexico less than a month after performing our wedding ceremony.  We were the last couple he married; I feel kind of special knowing that.

Pamela and I have a beautiful baby daughter named Harmony Rose Davis Tetta.  She is going to be 1 year old on March 11th, 2005.  I am a very proud father, as she is very beautiful and strong and healthy and smart and every other thing that parents wish for when they find out they are going to have a baby.  Harmony is in the early stages of walking, and the early stages of talking, and we're not in a hurry for her to do either of these, because we know she will do both in due time.

I'm playing Mr. Mom today as Pamela is working at the Eastman School of Music as they prepare for a presentation of the opera L'Corriazone Di Pappeo, or something like that.  Opera's really not my thing, the closest I get is the "Hall of the Mountain King" album by Savatage.

Anyway, about comedy; I started doing comedy at open mic at Yuk Yuk's in Rochester, NY (don't look for them, the club changed names in 1990, and then closed in 1997), going up to do five minutes every Wednesday for no money for a couple of years.  Last year, 2004, I visited 24 different states performing standup comedy, including New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Tennessee and Kansas.  Not bad, huh?

So far this year, I've visited stages in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and my home state of New York.  My buddy, Mike Dambra, has a bunch of state magnets, and when he plays a new state, he adds it to the magnetic map on his refrigerator.  Then every year, on New Year's Eve, he takes them all back down and starts over.  I'm not that anal retentive, but I do like to keep track of where I've been.  In addition to the states I did last year, I've also played Maryland, Nevada, Connecticut and Arkansas.  The rest of the United States will have to wait, but I'll get there eventually.

Nap time.  I'll write more tomorrow.  Be good to someone today, even if it's just yourself.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY